Contraception’s Authority: An Anglican’s Liturgical and Synodical Thought Experiment in Light of ARCUSA’s “Ecclesiology and Moral Discernment”

precis:

“Ecclesiology and Moral Discernment,” the 2014 agreed statement from the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the U.S., claims that the typical assessment that these traditions have well-established, opposing teachings will not do justice to the complementary ways we teach. Contraception is used as an example of a contentious moral matter about which it is assumed Anglicans and Catholics have settled, opposing teaching. The agreed statement bases this claim on differences in the structure and exercise of authority between the communions. This essay has three goals: (1) It expands the summary of Anglican ecclesiology in the document, clarifying the extent of the ecclesiological differences between Anglicanism (especially the Episcopal Church) and Catholicism on teaching about moral matters. (2) It offers one recognizably Anglican approach to reasoning theologically about the moral complexities of contraception, by an Episcopalian, liturgically and synodically. (3) It explains why Episcopalians “could hold and teach” that the statement’s judgments are “more consonant with Scripture and moral truth, if that were their judgment.”