The Church and the Anglicans

Pope and Anglican leader agree on closer relations



By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer
Sat Nov 21, 2009

VATICAN CITY – After offering a home in his church to disaffected Anglicans, Pope Benedict XVI assured the archbishop of Canterbury on Saturday that he is still committed to seeking closer relations between Catholics and Anglicans.

Archbishop Rowan Williams said he came away convinced there was no "dawn raid" on his church by Rome, telling Vatican Radio he wishes "every blessing" for those who want to become Catholics.

[I have two thoughts on this - 1) The Pope is an incredible man, deserving of sainthood upon death, for spending 5 minutes with that man.  Looking at the picture of the two of them, I imagined sitting across from Rowan, rising from the seat and jumping at him like a wolf, grabbing him by the neck and throttling him until he spits out an apology for everything he has done to England, and Christianity.  2) So bloody what if it was a dawn raid - and what would he do if it was?  Whine like a 2 year old.  Complain.  Cry. Maybe file a complaint with the UN or ask a shari'a court to hear his complaint. ]


Williams and Benedict met privately for 20 minutes in what the Vatican called "cordial discussions," as part of what has clearly been a difficult visit by the Anglican leader.

The Vatican said in a brief statement that the two leaders "turned to the challenges facing all Christian communities" and the need "to promote forms of collaboration and shared witness in facing these challenges."

Referring to the recent overture for traditional Anglicans upset over the ordination of women and gay bishops to become Catholics, the Vatican said the talks reiterated "the shared will to continue and to consolidate the ecumenical relationship between Catholics and Anglicans."

Williams' visit to Rome had been long planned but the Vatican overture to conservative Anglicans, for which he admittedly received little advance notice, cast a shadow over the trip and raised questions about the future of relations between Rome and the 77-million strong worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the U.S. Episcopal c.Church.

In the interview after the papal audience with Vatican Radio, Williams acknowledged the handling of the Vatican move put Anglicans "in an awkward position for a time. Not the contents so much, as some of the messages that were given out. So I needed to share with the pope some of those concerns and I think they were expressed and heard in a very friendly spirit."

Williams said he came away assured that it "did not represent any change in the Vatican's attitude to the Anglican communion as such; and a very strong statement came out."

In a personal gesture, the Vatican said the pope presented the archbishop with a gold bishop's cross as a gift.

Since coming to Rome on Thursday, Williams has sought to downplay the implications of the Vatican's unprecedented invitation.

The Vatican says it was merely responding to the many Anglican requests to join the Catholic Church and has denied it was poaching converts in the Anglican pond.

But the move already has strained Catholic-Anglican relations and is sure to affect the worldwide Anglican Communion, which was already on the verge of schism over homosexuality and women's ordination before the Vatican intervened.

In a speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Williams was gracious in referring to the Vatican's new policy, which he called the "elephant in the room." The policy was an "imaginative pastoral response" to requests by some Anglicans but broke no new doctrinal ground, Williams said.

He spent the bulk of his speech describing the progress that had been achieved so far in decades of Vatican-Anglican ecumenical talks and questioning whether the outstanding issues were really all that great.

Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment. For decades, the two churches have held theological discussions on trying to reunite, part of the Vatican's broader, long-term ecumenical effort to unify all Christians.

But differences remain and the ecumenical talks were going nowhere as divisions mounted between liberals and traditionalists within the Anglican Communion itself.

The new policy allows Anglicans to convert to Catholicism but retain many of their Anglican liturgical traditions, including married priests. The Vatican will create the equivalent of new dioceses, so-called personal ordinariates, for these former Anglicans to be headed by a former Anglican priest or bishop.

Estimates on the number of possible converts has ranged from a few hundred to thousands.

[Imagine the number 500,000 and keep imagining a higher figure world wide]

Williams — the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion — wasn't informed of the change until right before it was announced.

It remains to be seen how the new policy will affect Pope Benedict XVI's planned trip to Britain next year. Saturday's Vatican statement did not mention it.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Catholic Church: Welcomes Back Anglicans

The London Times
October 22, 2009




400,000 former Anglicans worldwide seek immediate unity with Rome

Ruth Gledhill, Sophie Tedmanson, Giles Whittell and Richard Owen


Leaders of more than 400,000 Anglicans who quit over women priests are to seek immediate unity with Rome under the apostolic constitution announced by Pope Benedict XVI. They will be among the first to take up an option allowing Anglicans to join an “ordinariate” that brings them into full communion with Roman Catholics while retaining elements of their Anglican identity.

The Pope’s move is regarded by some Anglicans as one of the most dramatic developments in Protestant christendom since the Reformation gave birth to the Church of England 400 years ago.

Archbishop John Hepworth, the twice-married Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, who led negotiations with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, said he was “profoundly moved” by the Pope’s decision and would immediately seek the approval of the group’s 400,000 members worldwide to join.

He described the development as “a moment of grace, perhaps even a moment of history”.

As fully-fledged Anglicans also seek refuge from liberalism in the shelter of Rome, it is feared that the proposal could deal a deadly blow to the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion, which already faces schism over homosexual ordination.

Up to 500 members of Forward in Faith, the traditionalist grouping that opposes women bishops, are meeting this weekend to debate the Pope’s offer of a home for former Anglican laity and married priests.

Many are waiting for the publication of a code of practice by Rome to flesh out what is on offer before deciding whether to go.

Insiders believe that Rome’s new canonical solution to the Anglican crisis could tempt entire dioceses and possibly even a province.

More than 440 clergy took compensation and left the Church of England, most for Rome, after the General Synod voted to ordain women priests in 1992. More than 30 returned.

The Pope has made it significantly more attractive for Anglicans to move over this time by offering a universal solution that allows them to retain crucial aspects of their identity and to set up seminaries that will, presumably, train married men for the Catholic priesthood. But any serving clergyman would face a marked loss of income. A job as a clergyman in the Church of England comes with a stipend of £22,250 and free accommodation. Catholic priests earn about £8,000, paid by their parish and topped up by a diocese where the parish cannot afford even that.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, indicated that there would be no compensation this time. It was only introduced at the last minute previously as a way of getting the whole women’s ordination package through the General Synod with the necessary two-thirds majorities.

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Catholic who retired this year as the Anglican Bishop of Rochester, welcomed Rome’s “generosity of spirit” in its recognition of Anglican patrimony. But he made clear that many issues needed to be resolved before decisions could be made. The two “flying bishops” appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to care for opponents of women priests also said that this was not a time for “sudden decisions”.

Andrew Burnham, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, and Keith Newton, the Bishop of Richborough, who went last year to Rome to begin talks with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said: “Anglicans in the Catholic tradition understandably will want to stay within the Anglican Communion. Others will wish to make individual arrangements as their conscience directs. A further group will begin to form a caravan, rather like the People of Israel crossing the desert in search of the Promised Land.” In the US a writer for the Jesuit magazine America expressed fears that some newcomers would be “nostalgists, anti-feminists and anti-gay bigots”.

At Notre Dame University in Indiana, scholars forecast a migration of Catholics into the new Anglican Catholic rite because of the sudden freedom to marry that it would grant. Professor Lawrence Cunningham called the Vatican’s move a “stunning” endorsement of the married priesthood, adding that it would have immediate repercussions for Catholics. It would “raise anew the question, ‘If they can do it, why can’t the priests of Rome?’ ”

Archbishop Robert Duncan, of the Anglican Church of North America, which broke away from the Episcopal Church over the ordination of the gay Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire, said: “We rejoice that the Holy See has opened this doorway, which represents another step in the co-operation and relationship between our Churches.”

In Rome, Vittorio Messori, who has co-written books with the Pope, said that the Anglican Communion was already losing followers because of female and gay priests. “More Muslims go to the mosques in London than Anglicans go to church” he said. “The exit of half a million Anglicans to Rome will only confirm a trend.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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