Why Rome?: Communion

Over the last twenty years or so, I've slowly become convinced of two things:

(1) Being united to other Christians is central to one's being united to Christ; and
(2) This unity with other Christians is most appropriately a concrete and visible unity, expressed above all in eucharistic sharing.

In fact, I have come to think of this visible unity as the chief mark of the Church. (Historically, it did in fact enjoy pride of place among the four marks of the Church, which we say is "1. one; 2. holy; 3. catholic; and 4. apostolic.)

So you can see that the current splintering of the Anglican Communion is, for me, not just a very sad end to a beautiful form of global Christianity. It also calls into question its very identity as "Church." I was most unnerved as I heard some Episcopalians explain that the bonds connecting them to other Anglicans around the world had never actually been all that strong to begin with.

I just couldn't reconcile this with the claims of some of the Fathers of the Church:
“God is one and Christ is one, and one is His Church, and the faith is one, and His people welded together by the glue of concord into a solid unity of body. Unity cannot be rent asunder, nor can the one body of the Church, through the division of its structure, be divided into separate pieces.” (St. Cyprian, “On the Unity of the Church”)

Or, for that matter, one could cite St. Paul:
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread."
-1 Cor. 10:16-17

For some time, I had held a version of the branch theory, in which the Anglican Church is understood to embody this unity, and, in an important sense, even to have be in union with Catholicism and Orthodoxy. It was only with great regret that I (like many others) have had to admit that this just isn't so.

One of the truly remarkable things about the Catholic Church is the way in which this essential unity holds--across cultures, languages, and time. Even Catholics who have important differences philosophically, politically, and theologically are able truly to say that they are one.

Call me corny, but I love the fact that this video begins with that very point. This is not just joining hands and singing "It's a Small World." It's a real unity. In fact, in spite of all the differences, it is the most real sort of unity one can have.