“How has the ecumenical movement changed in the twenty-five years since Ut Unum Sint was written?”

This article seeks to explore the thinking of Edward Bouverie Pusey on the doctrine of transubstantiation. It begins by looking at the conflicted way Pusey is considered and goes on to examine Pusey's writings on transubstantiation. The article points out that Pusey's early writing on transubstantiation wrongly believed that the doctrine implied a carnal view of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, but that in his mature thinking this caricature was abandoned and he came to understand that transubstantiation is a form of moderate realism. Some detailed examination of Pusey's mature thinking is undertaken, including a very important set of correspondence between Edward Pusey and John Newman in 1867 which addressed the doctrine of transubstantiation. Pusey's thinking reveals that he is prepared to accept the word transubstantiation as long as it does not imply a change in the substance of the bread and wine of the Eucharist. The article concludes with discussion on the term transubstantiation itself and controversially cites evidence from both Anglican and Roman Catholic sources which suggest that the dependence on a particular scholastic philosophical analysis which attempts to explain the ‘how’ of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist may be less useful than an approach of ‘what’. Pusey's mature thinking on transubstantiation is seen as useful for ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches.

This article provides a current view of Anglican attitudes to the Papacy. First of all historical background is examined in relation to mutual perceptions of Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism going back to the early church and then moving forward through the Reformation to the twentieth century. The period from 1966 onwards saw the visit of Geoffrey Fisher to Pope John XXIII which began to change perceptions. The establishment of the Anglican Centre in Rome in 1966 was a crucial development. The setting up of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, following the Malta Report in 1966 altered perceptions and understandings of Anglican and Roman Catholics mutually. There is still a variety of Anglican reactions to the Papacy.

This article examines the ways in which Anglican theologians have reflected on the doctrine of transubstantiation. The article notes that there is substantial agreement between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion on the nature of Christ's presence in the Eucharist and that this agreement has been forged by the long established and continuing dialogue of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). At the same time the article notes that official responses from the Roman Catholic Church, while acknowledging the worth of the dialogue, have insisted on particular theological and philosophical definitions of the nature of Christ's presence in the Eucharist concerning a change in the substance of the elements. While Anglicans have not accepted this particular definition of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist as defined by the traditional doctrine of transubstantiation, they have nonetheless accepted the notion of the real presence and reflected in modern times on transubstantiation. Examples of this reflection on transubstantiation by Anglicans are discussed in the hope of allowing the dialogue to continue at new levels of understanding.