Vatican II: Expériences canadiennes – Canadian experiences

A Canadian Anglican at Vatican II: The Activity of Eugene R. Fairweather

341 a canadian anglican at vatican ii: the activity of eugene r. fairweather Michael Attridge, University of st. Michael’s College I t is difficult to imagine how Eugene Fairweather must have felt when he received the letter from England the week before Christmas in 1963. Signed by Canon John R. Satterthwaite, secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, the letter asked Fairweather if he would be “willing to be appointed one of the three Anglican Observers for the next session” of the Vatican Council in Rome.1 “The Archbishop,” its author wrote, “is keen to send observers who are theologically-minded, and I know he would be grateful if you were able to consider going.”2 According to Satterthwaite, this invitation was still informal since, according to Anglican protocol, the Archbishop of Canterbury would have to seek first the approval of the Anglican primate of Canada. Eugene Rathbone Fairweather was born in Ottawa on November 2, 1920.3 Soon thereafter, his family moved to Montréal, where he was 1 Satterthwaite to Fairweather, 20 December 1963, Fairweather Archives, University of Trinity College, Toronto Canada, 978-0012/019 (06). 2 Ibid. 3 Cf. Biographical Sketch of Fairweather at the Front of the Fairweather Finding Aid, University of Trinity College, Toronto Canada; Howard W. Buchner, “Fairweather at Trinity,” Toronto Journal of Theology 3, no. 1 (1987): 138–41; and, Robert D. Crouse, “In Memoriam, Eugene Rathbone Fairweather 1920-2002,” Anglican Theological Review 85, 342 vatican ii raised—asonebiographerwrote“inAnglo-Catholicpiety”4 —andwhere he received his early education. Fairweather earned his BA from McGill University in 1941. In September that same year, he moved to Toronto to begin divinity studies at Trinity College and an MA in philosophy at the University of Toronto. In 1943 he completed both degrees and was ordained an Anglican priest the following year. In 1944 he began teaching at Trinity, first as a tutor (1944), then as a lecturer (1946). In 1947 he left the college to pursue advanced studies in theology under the mentorship of Paul Tillich at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he earned the degrees Master of Sacred Theology (STM) and Doctor of Theology (ThD). In 1949, at only twenty-nine years of age, he returned to Trinity as Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics and remained there until he retired in 1987. Fairweather was already a well-known and well-respected theologian throughout North America when that letter arrived from Palace Court in December 1963. He had been a regular contributor to the Canadian Churchman—now known as the Anglican Journal—as well as the Montréal-based publication the Anglican Outlook, a “semi-official organ”5 of the Anglican Fellowship for Social Action. From 1954 to 1955 he served as president of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and from 1957 to 1958 president of the Canadian Theological Society. In 1960 he founded, edited, and was a frequent contributor to the Canadian Journal of Theology, which eventually became the Toronto Journal of Theology.6 Having earned a reputation in the United States, Fairweather delivered the Bishop Paddock Lecture at the General Theological Seminary in New York City in 1956, and in 1963 he gave the Hale Memorial Lectures at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Fairweather had also gained international experience as an ecumenist . In 1951 the Anglican primate of Canada invited him to participate in the World Council of Churches, Commission on Faith and no. 1 (Winter 2003): 3–5. 4 Crouse, “In Memoriam,” 3–5. 5 Stephen F. Hopkins, “The Anglican Fellowship for Social Action,” (MA thesis, University of St. Michael’s College, 1982), 9. 6 Crouse, “In Memoriam,” 3. 343 michael attridge Order’s World Conference in Lund, Sweden, the following year. There, Fairweather contributed to the formulation of what would become known as the “Lund Principle”—that is, that the churches, wherever possible should do together all that can be done together, and do separately only that which must be done separately. It is clear that this would shape Fairweather’s ecumenical outlook in the years to follow. Equally important at Lund were the contacts he made. According to Canadian Anglican Bishop John Baycroft, Lund was the place where Fairweather first formed friendships with other international theologians and discovered that a great deal of theological progress could be made during short and infrequent meetings because of a climate of affection, trust...