Claim: Vatican, Canterbury could unite
Posted February 18, 2007
This just in from the Times of London:
Churches back plan to unite under Pope
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
Radical proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope are to be published this year, The Times has learnt. The proposals have been agreed by senior bishops of both churches.
In a 42-page statement prepared by an international commission of both churches, Anglicans and Roman Catholics are urged to explore how they might reunite under the Pope.
The statement, leaked to The Times, is being considered by the Vatican, where Catholic bishops are preparing a formal response.
Gledlhill says that before becoming Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger "sent a message of support to the orthodox wing of the Episcopal Church of the US as it struggled to cope with the fallout after the ordination" of openly-gay bishop Gene Robinson.
"Were this week’s discussions to lead to a split between liberals and conservatives, many of the former objections in Rome to a reunion with Anglican conservatives would disappear," Gledhill adds.
To read it all, go to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1403702.ece
Comments
it has occurred to me that one of the possible reasons priests don't marry in the church is the distraction the marriage would make in the pursuit of understanding the will of God. Do the Anglican women who are ordained face this same challenge? Really makes you wonder about who set the world up to operate. Its almost if you truly pursue the knowledge of God, sex would be a distraction, period. Maybe this is the dilemma faced by religion today.
I didn't include the ability to love and be loved and the role that plays in life in my formula.
It looks like this article may have jumped the gun:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/50/acns4254.cfm
Never gonna happen. Rome won't give up its demand for acceptance of the Pope as the single supreme bishop of the world, or the worship of Mary. High-church Anglicans are already free to go become RCC if they would like to; low-church (evangelical) Anglicans will never comply; non-evangelical Anglicans who don't agree with key RCC tenets won't comply, either. And why would Rowan agree to become a mere cardinal?
I tend to agree with Jack on this one.
The American church, at least, will certainly never give up the right to ordain women, and that alone could kill the deal, though the Church of England now ordains women, too, as do most Anglican churches.
I have always thought that if the Roman church would recognize the Anglican Communion as being in communion with it, as some of the Eastern Rite churches are, but retain its own ecclesiastical structure, there might be some interest in it on the Anglican side.
But I agree that most Anglicans would never agree to be under the jurisdiction of the pope in any serious way, or accept various teachings of the Roman church, including its ban on birth control.
There are married and female priests among the conservative separatists, and there are also some clergy who consider themselves "formerly gay" or gay and celebate, and Benedict has come down very strongly against anyone who identifies as having homosexual feelings even if celebate (and we all know how he feels about women's ordination).
Interesting. . . .