THE Brisbane Catholic and Anglican archdioceses’ joint Act of Repentance being held at St John’s Cathedral on Friday (March 27) will help set a fitting tone for the rest of the year’s sesquicentenary celebrations, St Stephen’s Cathedral dean Fr Ken Howell said last week.
Fr Howell, who is one of the organisers, said the liturgy for the Act of Repentance was about both Churches recognising their failures to live up to the full Gospel message.
Archbishop John Bathersby and Anglican Archbishop Phillip Aspinall will lead the prayers for the event which starts at 7.30pm.
Prayers asking forgiveness for sins against Christian unity; indigenous people; actions against love, peace and the rights of people; and lack of respect for other cultures and religions will be offered during the ceremony.
Fr Howell said priests in parishes throughout the archdiocese had been notified about the event and were encouraged to invite parishioners to take part.
“It would also be good if Catholic and Anglican priests from the various parishes were to come together to the event with representatives from their communities,” he said.
“This would certainly set an appropriate tone for the rest of the year’s sesquicentenary celebrations.
“The mood of repentance also fits very well with the Lenten season.”
Fr Howell said the Act of Repentance took its precedence from Pope John Paul II’s service of repentance in Rome held as part of Jubilee 2000 celebrations.
Archbishops Bathersby and Aspinall in a recent joint Lenten Pastoral Letter noted that it was important to “recognise the shadows that have sometimes fallen over ecumenical co-operation”.
“At times,” the letter went on to say, “each Church has frustrated the Holy Spirit.”
The letter went on to issue an invitation to “as many Anglicans and Roman Catholics as wish to do so to join us … for a common act of repentance for our ecumenical and other failings of Christ over the last 150 years, and to re-dedicate ourselves to the work of Christ in co-operation and goodwill to one another in the years ahead”.
