Post intelligent and civil comments. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the NLM
Though nice to contemplate in theory, it should not in the least surprise anyone that Rome will not countenance the creation of an Anglican Church sui iuris in the Catholic Communion. What would that be but a form of uniatism in Western dress? And uniatism, as anyone who knows anything about ecumenism since 1991 can tell you, is that than which nothing more toxic can be conceived in Catholic-Orthodox relations. Having formally repudiated the method of uniatism in the 1993 Balamand Statement, Rome is not at all likely to turn around and start doing it all over again with the Anglicans, not least because the non-Catholic Anglicans would, like the Orthodox, start screaming bloody murder.
"surprisingly pessimistic report of the conference at VirtueOnline"
Everything David Virtue writes is pessimistic, and his "journalism" is nothing like real journalism. He frequently invents, distorts, and otherwise makes a fool of himself in his stories. The man is not to be trusted, and I hope people do not pay too much attention to his report.
The Vatican should develope a uniate "Anglican Church" in communion with Rome with a few provisions...
The clergy must be celibate
NO women "desconesses" or clergy
Not creating a new uniate Anglican Church under Rome for ecumenical reasons is ridiculous.
If you read the latest messages from Rome to the Anglican Church, it appears that under Benedict XVI ecumenism with them is a dead issue anyway.
Cardinal Kasper was in Britian last week, and gave a hardline, almost brutal speech to the Church of England. Basically He said (in an apparent directive from Benedict XVI Himself), that the creation of women priests by the Church of England had created very serious problems in any ecumenical dialog between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican community. Further, He said that any decision by the Church of England to allow for "women bishops", would put an end to further dialog and make intercommunion an impossibility "in perpetuity"...meaning forever. GOOD FOR BENEDICT XVI !!!
John Paul II never said much of anything about the serious deviations and errors in the Anglican community...only weak statements of displeasure which were quickly forgotten.
This is a first time that Rome has stated plainly that ecumenism will be a dead issue with the Anglicans if they allow for "women bishops".
Personally, I DO hope the Anglican communion and the Church of England DOES vote to allow for "women bishops". Because it will finally mark the end of an ecumenical dialog with Protestant Churches which should never have been started in the first place.
Kenjiro, if you are going to require priestly celibacy, then don't bother to create an Anglican uniate rite. You are just not going to have many takers.
If one sees Vatican II as the (Catholic) Father effectively standing 'beyond the gateposts' to meet his errant (protestant) son on his way home then this generosity has failed, in a sense been thrown back in our faces. Ecumenism with the Anglicans ended in 1994; the decision to priest women was a logical outcome of a confused ecclesiology, a consumation of their perplexity at the concept of authority. I don't honestly see how the admiting women to the Anglican episcopate would make the impediments to true union any less insuperable than they are today.
This does not mean to say, of course, that Catholics may not form profitable alliances, say with principled evangelicals who have a profoudly different idea of eucharist, in the field of politics and advancing the cause of broad Christian Justice, pro-life issues etc...
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