Bishop Anthony Ball commissioned director of the Anglican Centre in Rome
Bishop Anthony Ball, who was commissioned as the new director of the Anglican Centre in Rome on May 6, thanks the ecumenical partners and friends who attended the commission service. Photo: Lynette Wilson/Episcopal News Service
[Episcopal News Service] The Rt. Rev. Anthony Ball was commissioned director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, Italy, during a midday May 6 Eucharist attended by some 50 ecumenical partners and friends in the center’s Chapel of St. Augustine of Canterbury.
“Today, in remarkable and historic circumstances, we welcome enthusiastically and liturgically our new director,” said the Rt. Rev. Michael Burrows, chair of the center’s board of governors and bishop of Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe in the Church of Ireland, during his sermon. “We can’t, of course, as happened on the last similar occasion, combine this with an encounter between the occupants of the chairs of Peter and Augustine. That must wait.”
The Rt. Rev. Michael Burrows, chair of the Anglican Centre in Rome’s Board of Governors and bishop of Tuam, Limerick and Killaloe in the Church of Ireland, gave the sermon during the May 6 commission service of Bishop Anthony Ball as director. Photo: Lynette Wilson/Episcopal News Service
It’s the first time since 1691, Burrows noted, that the Roman Catholic Church’s papacy and the Church of England’s office of the archbishop of Canterbury are vacant at the same time. The center’s director also serves as the archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the Holy See at the Vatican.
Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21. An Anglican delegation, including Burrows and Ball, attended Francis’ April 26 funeral. The conclave to elect the next pope begins May 7. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby stepped down Jan. 6 under pressure over his handling of a sprawling abuse scandal in the Church of England. The Crown Nominations Commission has started the process of choosing a successor.
“We heard much at the papal funeral about the importance of building bridges rather than walls… In a very special way, the director of this center builds and reinforces bridges on behalf of all Anglicans between Canterbury and Rome,” Burrows said. “It’s, of course, particularly challenging to build bridges when the actual supports on both sides of the bridge you’re supposed to be building have been temporarily removed,” he said, again alluding to the top vacancies in both churches.
Still, he added, it could be “a perfect and strangely providential moment for a new bridge-building director to begin his endeavor.” As Ball begins his directorship, Burrows said, “all things are being made new. And he’s just the person to make the very best and most exciting use of a genuinely, strangely, fairly blank canvas.”
The center’s Board of Governors announced Ball’s appointment as director last November. Ball has served formerly as canon steward and archdeacon of Westminster Abbey, bishop of the Diocese of North Africa in the Province of Alexandria and assistant bishop in the Diocese of Egypt after a previous career as a diplomat. As center director, he succeeds Bishop Ian Ernest, who retired in late January.
Founded in 1966 after a meeting between Pope Paul VI and Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey, the Anglican Centre serves as the Anglican Communion’s representation in Rome and a space for ecumenical encounters and dialogue.
The Anglican Centre has served as home not just for Anglicans, but all Christians, said Roman Catholic Archbishop Flavio Pace, the Vatican’s secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.
“This is the house of the Gospel,” he said. “We pray for you … that you can go on building the bridge.”
Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe Bishop Mark Edington gave Bishop Anthony Ball a Book of Common Prayer with English and Italian translations. Photo: Lynette Wilson/Episcopal News Service
Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe Bishop Mark Edington brought greetings from the Anglican bishops serving throughout Europe and from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe. Then, as a symbol of what unites Anglicans and Episcopalians throughout the communion, he gave Ball a Book of Common Prayer in both English and Italian.
“Welcome to your place, my dear brother. We are glad you’re here,” Edington said.
Housed in Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in the Eternal City’s historic center, the Anglican Centre hosts weekly Tuesday services – open to visitors, tourists and pilgrims. The center hosts a weekly prayer circle attended by ecumenical partners, and it coordinates joint education, mission and ecumenical projects with the Vatican and other partners. It also offers study courses, access to a larger Christian research library, and introductory access to other local library collections and universities.
In brief remarks, Ball thanked those who’d come to the center for the commissioning: “I just wanted to put myself at your service, as I do at our Lord’s service, that we might grow together and seek to do great things together in that pilgrimage … We look forward to the guidance of the Spirit and our mutual discernment of where we’re going to go.”
— Lynette Wilson is a reporter and managing editor of Episcopal News Service. She is based in Rome.