I take the term ‘Anglican’ here to refer primarily to the Church of England, though I think that the positions to which I refer in this paper would also be found in the spectrum of most of its related episcopal churches, especially the Church in Wales and the Church of Ireland whose territory includes Northern Ireland, the Anglican Diocese of Europe, and the Episcopal Church of Scotland. I have no way of ascertaining the position of all the Churches of the world-wide Anglican Communion, though again I expect that within it I would find a similar range of theological conviction about the Trinity and Mary. We also need to bear in mind the existence of the Porvoo agreement with north European Lutheran Churches. The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Latvia has not yet taken a decision on the Porvoo Declaration, and the Church of Denmark has decided not to endorse it but to maintain links with those who have. There are many difficult issues for discussion in such churches, but my point here is simply that discussion of ‘the Trinity and Mary’ is a sensitive issue not least in the Church of England’s ecumenical negotiations, especially with those Churches with whom we are now in full communion.

The second point I need to make by way of introduction is that I do not write as an official delegate of the Church of England to the XX Mariological Marian International Congress, though I hope I do justice to the complexities of my church’s position as a member of its Doctrine Commission — not that at the moment the Commission is likely to discuss the relation between the Trinity and Mary.

Asked to name a German city associated with the Lutheran Reformation, most people with any knowledge of the period would, I suppose, cite Wittenberg — the Saxon university town from which that Reformation was launched. But an equally serious candidate would be Augsburg in what is now northern Bavaria where the single most authoritative document of Lutheranism, the Confessio Augustana or ‘Augsburg Confession’ was promulgated in 1530. It was to Augsburg, where the Reichstag, the imperial Diet, was meeting, that the former Master of the Dominicans, Thomist theologian and Catholic church reformer, Thomas de Vio was sent in 1518 as papal legate with a mandate to bring Dr Luther, member of the Order of Augustinian Hermits and professor of biblical studies, to his senses. De Vio — better known from his birthplace, Gaeta in the kingdom of Naples, as il Gaetano or Cajetan, was at first viewed by Luther with comparative favour. Although Luther shared the anti-Italian feelings common in Germany in this period, disliked what he knew of Thomism, and numbered several Dominicans among his harshest critics, he found Cardinal Cajetan learned and humane. There was, however, no real meeting of minds. So far as Luther was concerned, the encounter was to be a debate, like the Heidelberg Disputation from which he had just emerged with flying colours.

John Henry Newman once remarked to a friend that his Dream of Gerontius. “was written by accident — and it was published by accident”, yet his personal history proves otherwise; it was the fruit of many years of agonizing study and prayer leading him to the Roman Catholic Church. It is rightly considered a major contribution to Roman Catholic spirituality and doctrine which continues to inspire theology and piety.

The Dream of Gerontius expresses in poetical form many truths of Catholic dogma concerning creation, redemption and eschatology. This, Newman’s longest poem, composed in 1865, almost twenty years after his entrance into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, underscores his Catholic beliefs in the mysterious complementarity between God’s justice and mercy whereby at the particular judgment, some souls require a final preparation for heaven. In his Plain and Parochial Sermons Newman had rebutted the 19th century denial of possible eternal damnation. In the Dream of Gerontius, he emphasized God’s merciful dispensation. Eschatology is intertwined with Christology and Christian anthropology. Furthermore, the seeds of an ecclesiology of communion are present as a dominant theme.