LOCAL church leaders were guests at a dinner at the Bar Convent, York, venue for a meeting of the joint commission of the World Methodist Council and the Roman Catholic Church.

They included the Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, the chairman of the York and Hull District of the Methodist Church, the Rev Dr Stuart Burgess, and the Abbot of Ampleforth, the Right Rev Timothy Wright.

The commission came into being in 1967 following the Second Vatican Council, and reflected what was then a new commitment by the Roman Catholic Church to ecumenism.

It follows a five-year cycle, comprising four meetings of one week each and simultaneous reports at the end of the cycle to the Vatican and to the World Methodist Council.

The last joint report, issued in 2001, was entitled Speaking The Truth In Love: Teaching Authority Among Catholics And Methodists.

There are eight members on each side of the commission from several different countries, and the co-chairmen are the Rev Geoffrey Wainwright, a British Methodist minister teaching at Duke University, North Carolina, USA, and the Right Rev Michael Putney, Roman Catholic Bishop of Townsville, in Queensland, Australia. One of the members, Peter Turkson, the Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana, is a new cardinal, elevated only last week.

The declared aim of the commission's work is to help bring Roman Catholics and Methodists to "full communion in faith, mission, and sacramental life."

Mr Wainwright said: "We are in this for the long haul, because clearly there are many matters to be resolved at the level of doctrine between the two communions; but we are making steady and sure, if slow, progress."

Mr Wainwright said the commission met in different countries each year. "In the tercentenary year of the birth of John Wesley (founder of the Methodist Church), we wanted to meet in England.

"We like to meet in beautiful and historic cities, and York certainly is such. It was also a good place from which to make a pilgrimage to Epworth, John Wesley's birthplace, and the Bar Convent Conference Centre is an excellent and hospitable gathering place."

Updated: 14:12 Wednesday, October 29, 2003