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“While our dialogue has led to significant agreement on the understanding of ministry, the ordination of women to the episcopate effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic Church.” So said Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Christian unity, speaking at this year’s Lambeth Conference, which takes place every ten years and gathers representatives from dioceses of the Anglican Communion around the world under the honorary presidency of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Only recently has the Vatican made public the Cardinal’s address in the L'Osservatore Romano.
This year the Anglican Communion met in Canterbury faced with the possibility of an historic split due to the ordination of the practicing homosexual bishop, Eugene Robinson, and the recent decision of British Anglicans to ordain women bishops.
In his address Cardinal Kasper told the bishops that from the very beginning “we should, keep in mind what is at stake as we proceed to speak about faithfulness to the apostolic tradition and apostolic succession, when we speak about the threefold ministry, women’s ordination, and moral commandments. What we are talking about is nothing other than our faithfulness to Christ Himself”.
“Over the past 40 years, we have not only engaged jointly in theological dialogue. A close working relationship between Anglicans and Catholics has grown, not only on an international level, but also in many regional and local contexts.”
“This leaves me all the more saddened as I have now, in fidelity to what I believe Christ requires - and I want add, in the frankness which friendship allows - to look to the problems within the Anglican Communion which have emerged and grown since the last Lambeth Conference, and to the ecumenical repercussions of these internal tensions.”
He then referred to the additional problems they are confronted with – that “on the level of the Anglican Communion of 44 regional and national member churches, each self-governing. Independence without sufficient interdependence has now become a critical issue.”
“The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole. Bishops are the sign and the instrument of unity within the individual local church, just as they are between both the contemporary local Churches and those of all times within the universal Church.”
“But in several contexts, bishops are not in communion with other bishops; in some instances, Anglican provinces are no longer in full communion with each other.
“I know that many of you are troubled, some deeply so, by the threat of fragmentation within the Anglican Communion. We feel profound solidarity with you, for we too are troubled and saddened when we ask: in such a scenario, what shape might the Anglican Communion of tomorrow take, and who will our dialogue partner be?
He then discussed two serious topics.
“In a previous statement it was noted that Anglicans could agree with Catholics that homosexual activity is disordered, but that we might differ in the moral and pastoral advice we would offer to those seeking our counsel.”
“Priestly ordination… in the Catholic Church from the beginning has always been reserved to men alone”, and that “this tradition has also been faithfully maintained by the Oriental Churches.”
“The Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.”
He pointed out that “the Catholic Church must now take account of the reality that the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate is not only a matter of isolated provinces, but that this is increasingly the stance of the Communion.”
He added: “While our dialogue has led to significant agreement on the understanding of ministry, the ordination of women to the episcopate effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic Church.”
He concluded, “We have confidence that with God's help, you will find a way out of these difficulties, and that in a new and fresh manner we will be strengthened in our common pilgrimage toward the unity Jesus Christ wills for us and prayed for.
“We hope and pray that as you seek to walk as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies may bestow upon you the abundant riches of His grace, and guide you with the Holy Spirit’s abiding presence.”+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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