| |
||
In the early 1990’s the Association of Interchurch Families decided to change the nature of its Newsletter. A decade earlier (in 1979) the Newsletter had first appeared in printed form. In 1981 the Association acquired a constitution and a defined membership as a step towards gaining charitable status. In 1988 the Association celebrated its 21st birthday, reflected on its first two decades, and looked forward to a new ecumenical situation in Britain. As a result of the ‘Not Strangers but Pilgrims’ process that had followed the papal visit to England, new ecumenical instruments were launched in 1990 with Roman Catholic membership (previously Catholics had only been observers with the British Council of Churches). As a ‘body in association’ with the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland, AIF’s administrative centre moved out of a private house and into an office in the headquarters of the Council, alongside Churches Together in England, with whom it was also a ‘body in association’.
These developments gave the Association a much higher profile. A development appeal was launched to support the expenses both of the office and also of a publicity drive. The Association producing a video in 1992 and a whole series of leaflets (on interchurch families and the Association, on Getting Married, on Baptism and on Sharing Communion) intended for wide distribution.
The decision to change the character of the Newsletter, to make it a larger publication and to convert it into a Journal intended for a wider public, was a part of this initiative. The more domestic matters that concerned the life of the Association, news of members and of the activities of local groups, moved to News and Notes from the end of 1992. It had become clear that others besides the members of AIF valued the Association’s work and were willing to support it. From 1994 a printed Annual Review reported on the work of the Association not just to members but also to those supporters: to individuals, churches and other groupings, and grant-making trusts.
A global perspective
The Committee decided that the Journal should inform and reflect on the theological,
pastoral and ecumenical issues that face interchurch couples and families as
they live their family lives, and that it should do so in a wider international
perspective. Of course the Journal continued to be addressed to members of the
Association and to other interchurch families, but there were also three particular
target groups. The line drawing by Margaret Battley (to whom we owe a great
debt of thanks for all her design work for Interchurch Families over the years)
in the January 1993 number of the Journal, its first, makes this clear.
The Journal was aimed at church leaders and clergy, and more widely at all who were, or expected to be, concerned with the pastoral welfare of interchurch families: theological students and seminarians, relatives and godparents, all involved in marriage preparation and counselling, teachers and catechists. Secondly, it was addressed to ecumenical officers, ecumenical commissions, local groupings of churches, indeed to all concerned with the movement for promoting Christian unity. In interchurch families the pain of Christian divisions and the celebration of Christian unity are focused at their most local level, and out of this experience such families can make a very real contribution to the wider ecumenical movement.
We were not only addressing such groups in Britain, however, for thirdly, the Journal was intended for English-speaking interchurch families and all who cared for their welfare world-wide. Its perspective was global, for interchurch families face similar issues wherever they live. In the Journal a list of interchurch family groupings around the world replaced the list of local contacts in England that had appeared in the Newsletter. Throughout the Journal’s existence it has given regular news of interchurch family groupings world-wide, and contributions have come from many parts of the world. These have included both interchurch family ‘stories’, so important a witness to the work of God in the interchurch family movement, and theological studies and reflections. All these can easily be traced through the very useful cumulative Index covering all twelve years of the Journal (see pp.14-15). We are very grateful to Helen Granger-Bevan for her biennial indices, and now for this final piece of work.
In the early and mid-nineties, a great deal of work went into making the Journal
known to the three groups identified above, and the ‘targeted mailings’
certainly bore fruit (although never quite as much as was hoped, of course!).
Through the Journal and the various Packs that were put together and could be
sent out by the Association to enquirers (Packs on Getting Married, Baptism,
Sharing Communion, Confirmation and Church Membership, Funerals, Christian Unity,
Spirituality) information on interchurch family issues was spread, experience
was shared, and reflection deepened. The Journal covered all these topics, and
its articles provided many of the sheets in the Packs.
The right time
It seemed providential that the Association had taken on a higher and more public
profile just as the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity brought
out its Directory for the application of principles and norms on ecumenism in
1993. Unlike the previous Directory of 1967, it contained a whole section on
Mixed Marriages, and there was much in it to encourage interchurch families.
There was no new legislation, but the legislation was applied in a pastoral
manner that gave much more attention to the needs of the other Christian partner
who was about to marry, or was married to, a Catholic, and more attention, too,
to the unity of the couple, not just to the interests of the Catholic partner.
Pastoral care must be adapted to the spiritual condition of both partners,
and to the particular circumstances of their situation (n.146). The Catholic
still had to promise to do all he or she could to see that all the children
of the marriage would be baptised and brought up as Catholics. But it was explicitly
recognised that ‘the non-Catholic partner may feel a like obligation because
of his/her own Christian commitment’ (n.150). There is no canonical penalty
for the Catholic partner if the children are not in fact brought up in the Catholic
Church (n.151), and both clergy can take some part in celebrations of baptism
(n.97). (Shared celebrations of baptism had taken place, of course, during the
preceding two decades, but it was good to have official approval.)
Particularly encouraging to interchurch families was the fact that the Directory
explicitly opened the way for the application of the rules on eucharistic sharing
to those who ‘share the sacraments of baptism and marriage’ (160).
This possibility was taken up and applied differently in different parts of
the world, and the Journal gave readers details of these different applications
as information became available, so that they could compare and contrast them
and see what was possible in terms of the norms. It also shared the experiences
of interchurch families in the field of eucharistic sharing, and offered theological
and spiritual reflection on the need for eucharistic sharing felt by some couples
and families in the light of marital spirituality and the recognition of the
family as a ‘domestic church’.
Growing children and young adults
A little before the Journal was launched, a new publication had appeared –
the Interdependent, edited and produced by and for the children of interchurch
families. They had come of age and found their own voice. It is difficult to
overestimate the contribution of these young people to raising the profile of
such families and getting the issues that concern them taken seriously. Over
the years this has been chronicled in the Journal. Young people from interchurch
families have made their unique contribution in ecumenical gatherings (as their
parents have done), and have insisted on being taken seriously when they claim
to belong to both the churches of their parents. On different occasions in the
past few years both an Archbishop of Canterbury and a high-ranking staff-member
of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity have fallen silent for
an appreciable time as a result of their testimony. The Journal has chronicled
the struggles of the children of interchurch families to express their double
belonging, and Christian initiation as practised in interchurch families has
begun to be taken seriously by the churches.
The internet
We have now entered a new stage in global communications, and this affects the
work of the Journal as an instrument for the international witness of the interchurch
family movement. It was in late 1996, after the Virginia international conference,
that the AIF Committee agreed to allow the Journal to appear on the web-site
addressed to interchurch families world-wide set up by Ray Temmerman in Canada.
This is in line with the policy of sharing our resources as widely as possible,
but it has been a disincentive to those outside Britain from subscribing to
the Journal, especially in view of the strong pound and of rising postage rates.
We also find that many people seem to be accessing the Journal at the web-site
rather than in its paper version, and web references are already given in books
and periodicals rather than to the printed articles.
The Journal in its printed form now comes to an end. Its work will continue! The editor of the Journal and others will continue to collect together the kind of material that has appeared in the Journal. Thanks to Ray Temmerman, this will be put on the international interchurch families web-site (www.interchurchfamilies.org). In addition a free email newsletter will be produced two or three times a year by Ruth and Martin Reardon, to be called: INTERCHURCH FAMILIES: Issues – Reflections – News. It will have links to material on the web-site for those who wish to follow them up. You will be able to subscribe by sending an email to interchurchfamilies-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. The newsletter will also be a public document on the web-site. For those who cannot receive email or access the web-site, the Reardons are willing to send out a paper version.
12.2.2-3
If you find any broken links, are having problems with any page in this site, or would like to suggest a page to link to, please contact the |
Go to Top |