The Pope is to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury this month, to ease controversy over the Vatican’s recent move to make it easier for disenchanted Anglicans to convert to Roman Catholicism in groups as well as individually. Today Pope Benedict XVI moved to reassure Anglicans and Protestants that he remained committed to ecumenical dialogue and “full and visible” Christian Unity.
Dr Rowan Williams is due to visit Rome on November 20, and the Vatican said that the Pope would meet him the following day.
Dr Williams is coming to Rome to take part in celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Cardinal Johannes Willebrands of the Netherlands, a pioneer of ecumenical dialogue, who died three years ago.
Last week the Holy See said that its opening to Anglicans was a response to “numerous requests to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in various parts of the world who want to enter into full and visible communion.”
The Anglican communion faces a growing split over the ordination of women bishops, gay priests and gay marriage.
The announcement two weeks ago by Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of new structures to allow Anglicans to move over to Catholicism wholesale while retaining their Anglican traditions and practices was seen by some Anglicans as divisive.
Celebrating All Saints’ Day at St Peter’s today, the pontiff noted that it marked the tenth anniversary of a joint declaration between the World Lutheran Federation and the Catholic Church, which his predecessor John Paul II had called “a milestone on the difficult road of reconstruction of the full unity among Christians”.
He said that this should “unite us in ecumenical celebrations” and stimulate further dialogue. “I sincerely hope that this important anniversary will help bring forward the path towards the full visible unity of all the disciples of Christ,” the Pope declared.
He added that the anniversary “attests to an agreement between Lutherans and Catholics on the fundamental truth of the doctrine of justification, a truth that brings us to the very heart of the Gospel and the essential issues of our lives.
“We are accepted and redeemed by God; our existence is part of the horizon of grace, it is led by a merciful God who forgives our sin and calls us to a new life following in the footsteps of his Son, we live by the grace of God and are called to respond to his gift, this frees us from fear and gives us hope and courage in a world full of uncertainty, anxiety, suffering.”
In a lecture at Worth Abbey last week Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the former Archbishop of Westminster, said that the Vatican opening to Anglicans was “generous” and was not intended to impede ecumenism.
“As everybody knows, there are certain groups of Anglicans who for years have nurtured hopes of new ways of embracing unity with the Catholic Church,” the cardinal said.
The “generous response of the Holy See” had been to establish “a canonical structure for what is called Personal Ordinariates which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of distinctive Anglican spiritual patrimony . . . this response of Pope Benedict is no reflection or comment on the Anglican Communion as a whole or of our ongoing ecumenical relationship with them.”
Delivering the Richard Stewart Memorial Lecture, the cardinal, who was the Catholic Co-Chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission for 16 years, said that he well remembered the late Pope John Paul II’s visit to Britain in 1982 as a turning point.
“How well I remember his visit to Canterbury Cathedral and the tears came to my eyes as I saw Pope John Paul and Archbishop Runcie walking together, and hopes were high that one day, at least between the Anglican Communion and ourselves, there would be a real and substantial unity.
“Some of the classic disputes at the root of our painful divisions have today been basically resolved through a new consensus of fundamental doctrine. We are able to proclaim together our shared apostolic faith . . . As regards ecumenical dialogue as a whole, we have to recognise that there are still grave problems which face the ecumenical movement and that despite very encouraging progress, the way ahead still appears difficult and long.
“Full communion in the complete sense can only be something that we strive for and hope for and perhaps will only be fully realised in the Kingdom of God. Here on earth the Church will always be a pilgrim church, struggling with tensions and schisms.”
The text of the new Apostolic Constitution giving details of the new “canonical structures” has yet to be published, reportedly because issues related to the entry into the Catholic Church of married Anglican priests and seminarians are still under discussion inside the Vatican.
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