Catholic Church and four Reformed churches recognize validity of one another's baptism

From Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>
Date Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:54:13 -0400

Catholic Church and four Reformed churches
recognize validity of one another's baptism


New York, July 14, 2011 ? The general secretary
of the National Council of Churches today
celebrated an historic agreement among the Roman
Catholic Church and four historic Protestant
reformed churches to recognize the validity of one another's baptism.

The Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, staff head of the
nation?s leading ecumenical body, said, "these
five churches have taken a significant step on this road to unity."

The United Church of Christ was the most recent
church to adopt the
?<http://www.ncccusa.org/pdfs/commonbaptism.pdf>Common
Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism?
during its synod earlier this month in Tampa, Fla.

The agreement was approved by the Presbyterian
Church U.S.A. in 2008, the United States Council
of Catholic Bishops in November of last year, and
the Reformed Church of America and the Christian
Reformed Church at their denominational meetings last month.


"The National Council of Churches is an
expression of the ecumenical desire of the
churches to be one," Kinnamon said. "It exists to
manifest the visible unity of the Church, to the
degree that we are already united in our common
confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,
and to foster greater unity until such time that
the churches are fully united around a common Eucharistic table."


Kinnamon said, "Knowing that your churches have
proven faithful in responding to the Lord?s own
prayer that his followers be one (John 17:21),
all of the churches in the NCC join you in
celebrating this important milestone."

The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, the UCC?s
Minister of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations,
said the next step with these partners will be
conversations around the Eucharist.


"We are looking forward to our continued
ecumenical engagement with our Formula of
Agreement partners as well as the Roman Catholic Church," she said.