ABSTRACT
In the last few years reception has become a crucial issue in the ecumenical context, for it emerges precisely at the point of the discrepancy between the progress made in the ecumenical dialogues and the apparent inability of the sponsoring churches to build and move forward on the basis of what the dialogues have accomplished. Since the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church has been in official dialogue with other churches on both the international and the regional level. Among the more significant dialogues on the international level are those carried on by the Anglican-Roman Catholic Study Commission (ARCIC), the Joint Lutheran-Roman Catholic Study Commission, the Joint Commission of the Roman Catholic Church and the World Methodist Council, the Reformed-Roman Catholic Study Commission, and the Orthodox-Roman Catholic Theological Commission. In the United States the Catholic Church is involved in dialogues with Episcopalians, Lutherans, Southern Baptists, Methodists, the Presbyterian/Reformed Church, the Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, and the Polish National Catholic Church. Yet, so far, none of the statements produced by these dialogue commissions has been received by the sponsoring churches, with the exception of the Episcopal Church in the United States, which has begun the process of officially receiving the ARCIC Final Report. The one semiofficial response of the Roman Catholic Church, the ‘Observations on the ARCIC Final Report’ by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF),44 has generally been perceived as a negative one.
