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AUSTRALIA
Life after drowning is published by the New South Wales Ecumenical Council and the Victorian Council of Churches (80 pp., 2000) about different experiences of baptism. Eight denominations are covered in the first four studies. The final study is on baptism in interchurch families. Two stories are followed by notes, which refer to ‘the deep theological conviction that baptism is not baptism into a “denomination” so much as baptism into the one Church of Jesus Christ, experienced in a particular church’. There is mention of the mutual recognition of baptism and Common Baptismal Certificate in use in Australia. The importance for many interchurch families of having clergy from both their churches taking part in the baptism is underlined – not for ‘validity’ but for its pastoral value. Registration in both churches ‘also reinforces the concept of being fully accepted by both’.
BRITAIN
The link with Scotland has gone ahead (see Interchurch Families, 2001, 9,1, p.10), so ‘Britain’ replaces ‘England’. In March Martin and Ruth Reardon received the papal award Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice for their work with the Association of Interchurch Families. Bishop Philip Pargeter presented it following the Third John Coventry Memorial Lecture, which he chaired. (They were previously awarded the Cross of St Augustine by the Archbishop of Canterbury for ecumenical and interchurch family work.)
FRANCE
Two double numbers of Foyers Mixtes covering 2000 appeared early in 2001. An initiative on eucharistic sharing proposed at the Melun conference in May 2000 (Interchurch Families 2001, 9,1 p.9) was taken up by local foyers mixtes with the Bishop of Lille. He celebrated a mass in January 2001 in which he gave eucharistic hospitality and a special welcome to interchurch family spouses of the diocese (Foyers Mixtes, 129-30, p.10). The French language web-site is at http://foyersmixtes.free.fr
GERMANY
A meeting of German interchurch families was held in Heilsbronn near Nuremberg, 26-28 January. Nicola Kontzi joined them from Lyon, and Melanie Finch and Claire Malone-Lee from England. The theme was ‘Faith in the everyday life of interchurch couples and families’, and the speakers were the Catholic Professor Otto Hermann Pesch, the Lutheran Dr Hövelmann, and the Reformed Professor Alasdair Heron. There is a German web-site at www.oekumene.net/konfessionsverbindend
IRELAND
Early in 2001 the Church of Ireland group Catalyst published Interchurch Marriage in Ireland, by Anne and William Odling-Smee (28 pp). It gives an overview of history, theological issues, social questions, and the lived experience of interchurch families in Ireland, with special attention to the baptism and education of children and to eucharistic sharing. Appendices give the Directory on Mixed Marriages of the Irish Episcopal Conference (1983), and information on NIMMA (Northern Ireland Mixed Marriage Association). Philomena McQuillan has been for some time Administrator/Outreach Worker at the Belfast office of NIMMA. In December all couples who had contacted NIMMA during the year were invited to a Christmas social, and in February 2001 NIMMA organised a reading of love poems by local celebrities as a contribution to Community Relations Week. This brought NIMMA good publicity, and enquiries increased. The annual conference at Draperstown, April 28-29, was conceived as a planning conference, with a professional consultant helping the Association to work on a development plan for the next five years. The NIMMA web-site is at www.nimma.org.uk
ITALY
The Testo comune for the pastoral care of Catholic-Waldensian marriages in Italy (Interchurch Families 1996, 4,1 pp.9-10 and 1997, 5,2, p.9) has now been followed by a long-awaited Testo applicativo, approved by both churches. The two texts were jointly published early in 2001 by the Italian Episcopal Conference and the Waldensian-Methodist Church in an 80-page booklet: I matrimoni tra cattolici e valdesi o metodisto in Italia.
SCANDINAVIA
In September 2000 a first conference of Danish and Swedish interchurch families was held in Dianalund, Denmark. A group has existed in Sweden for four or five years, co-ordinated by Pastor Jean-Luc Martin of the French Reformed Church in Stockholm (married to Anna-Lena, a Catholic). At the conference the languages used were Danish and English, and the main theme was the religious upbringing of interchurch children in a secularised society (Foyers Mixtes, 127-8, pp.32-4).
UNITED STATES
In December 2000 the Center for Marriage and Family of Creighton University published Time, Sex, and Money: the First Five Years of Marriage. This follows up the Interchurch Marriage study (Interchurch Families 2000, 8,1, p.12), but is Catholic-based. It turned out that 34% of the sample were in mixed Catholic-other marriages, 27% of them in Catholic-Protestant marriages. It was not the focus of this study, but Michael Lawler writes that ‘the statisticians found interesting correlations between this study and the interchurch study, specifically that respondents in interchurch marriages had on average lower scores on religiosity than respondents in Catholic-Catholic marriages. Having this replicated in two unconnected studies, I am satisfied that these religiosity findings indicate the actual interchurch situation, which means that the churches have much work to do.’ It also means that interchurch family associations have much work to do, far beyond their own membership, in the field of marriage preparation and support geared to mixed families. The co-chairs of American AIF, Michael and Barbara Slater, were invited to give three workshops on the pastoral care of interchurch families to the countrywide Ecumenical Officers’ conference at San Diego in April 2001.
9.2.7
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