Episcopal Press and News
Anglican/Roman Catholic Bishops Install Co-Pastors
Episcopal News Service. January 18, 1979 [79008]
The Rev. Charles L. Long
PORTMORE, Jamaica -- Anglicans and Roman Catholics in Jamaica are pioneering new ways to make the unity of the church visible at the local level. In probably the first service of its kind, bishops of the two churches presided together at a service of installation of priests in charge of the Church of the Reconciliation.
Located in Portmore, an industrial suburb of Kingston, the new church was planned as a cooperative venture from the beginning. Two rectories flank the handsome pavilion-like church building, which was dedicated in 1977. The two congregations are run by a joint council, share finances equally, work together among the nearby poor and are developing a common pastoral and educational ministry.
On Sunday morning the continued division of their parent bodies becomes painfully obvious, as separate celebrations of the Eucharist are still required.
Installation of the pastors was purposely delayed until it was clear that this arrangement would work. Finally on Sunday, January 7, the Most Rev. Samuel Carter, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kingston (and President of the interdenominational Caribbean Conference of Churches) joined the Rt. Rev. Herbert Edmondson, Anglican Bishop of Jamaica in the formal institution of the Rev. Richard Albert and the Rev. Calvin Golding as priests in charge of their paired cnngregations. Father Albert is an American, born and raised in New York City and a member of the Society of the Atonement (Graymoor Friars). Father Golding, a tall quiet Jamaican, has studied in England and has been in charged of a number of rural and small town congregations.
Preacher for the occasion was the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Edward W. Scott. Observers from the Vatican, local clergy and representatives of both Orthodox and Protestant Churches, in Jamaica for a World Council of Churches meeting, were also present.
Archbishop Scott noted that the most advanced expressions of ecumenism today were to be found in unexpected places -- not in the ancient centers of Christianity, or among the large church populations of Europe and North America, but rather among Christians in the scattered islands of the Caribbean and the South Pacific. In both parts of the world Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants are working closely together in ways that should be an example to other regions, he said.
He said the future of a new venture such as the Church of the Reconciliation would depend heavily on the" openness and trust" that could develop and be maintained between the two bishops, between the two priests and between the clergy and the lay people of their congregations. Some misunderstandings and tensions were inevitable, Archbishop Scott said, but openness and trust could continue if they remembered that their respective ministries were derived from and held together in the one ministry of Jesus Christ.