World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission on the Nicene Creed some 20 to 30 years ago issuing the document The Apostolic Faith Today is a resource of great importance here which I hope will feed into any future work on common understanding of the common creeds.

But, in conclusion, I should like to suggest that there are really two focal points for ecumenical theology in the next generation. This is a bold claim which many may dispute. Many may identify other points of greater significance but I’ve been invited here to contribute to a discussion and this is what I would like to contribute.

First, is should like to see some attempt to work—as we say, ‘across the board’—on eucharistic theology. I should like to see not simply bi-lateral dialogues in which eucharistic theology figures but some attempt to ‘harvest the fruits’ in terms of a shared discussion of eucharistic theology across a number of confessional groups. I say this obviously because of a belief which I’ve already mentioned that our standing in Christ is most fully and effectively realised in the Holy Eucharist. But I say it also because there are many varieties of Christian practice spreading in the world at present in which eucharistic practice is not obviously central, and eucharistic theology is very thin. There are parts of my own Communion and other historic communities of the Reformation in which eucharistic theology seems to have slipped away from a prime position. We therefore, I believe, urgently need common work on the Eucharist. We need to remind ourselves as a Christian family across the globe of why and how it is that the Eucharist shapes where we are as Christians, and defines who we are as Church. We need to understand better why it is that some apparently very popular forms of Christianity do not seem to find the Eucharist central to their practice. We need to discover why this is and to engage; and I would say also that we need to share something of the wisdom that God has given us.

As part of such a reflection, maybe the Pontifical Council should consider a working group that draws representatives from both the historic communions and the newer churches across the world for a different kind of conversation from some of those we have been involved in so far. Perhaps that will be a necessary development if we are to clarify with full theological integrity what unity means.

And the second focal point is that the agenda of Ut Unum Sint must not be allowed to slip out of sight. There are many historic sensitivities about the cultural expression of the petrine ministry and indeed about the theological expression of its authority in the modern period. But these should not be allowed to obscure the need to clarify what is the service that can and should be given to an apostolic church by the petrine ministry? The petrine ministry when it is fully itself is, I believe, a ministry of witness to the apostolic heritage: a ministry quite simply of witness to the resurrection. As the Lord says to Peter in St Luke’s gospel, ‘when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers’. What is the nature of service we expect from a petrine ministry across the Christian confessions today? Why might that matter for a vital, living, and communicating Christian unity?

I believe that by helping us clarifying matters like that the Pontifical Council continues to play a vital role, not least in its capacity to engage fellow Christians from across the whole spectrum of Christian diversity. Because the Pontifical Council is able to take up some of these profound and searching theological questions it is never going to let the rest of us get away with the idea that (to use a phrase which I know has been discussed in the plenary) ‘reconciled diversity’ is all we need. And I think that is an important and critical point for all Christians confessions to listen to, precisely because of the centrality of our unity with the prayer of Christ and what that means.

So we, your fellow workers and friends in other Christian confessions, give thanks for the capacity of the Pontifical Council to work in this vein and we pray for the continuance of that service, that ministry to Christ’s body.