Post by angli_fan on Nov 22, 2009 2:39:55 GMT -5
[from America, the national Catholic weekly; hat tip to Thinking Anglicans]
by Austen Ivereigh
'Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope in talks to heal rift' is the tenor of most news reports on their 20-minute meeting today. A Vatican communiqué described the encounter as "cordial" (when isn't it?): they discussed "the challenges facing all Christian communities at the beginning of this millennium, and the need to promote forms of collaboration and shared witness in facing these challenges", with a focus on "recent events affecting relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion".
Today's was a diplomatic exercise, but there is no rift. Dr Williams is annoyed at not being given proper notice of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus -- he tells the Financial Times that he was left with a "bruised ego" - but then, nor did the bishops of England and Wales. Vatican high-handedness is nothing new. And in this case there was an obsession with the announcement not leaking out lest ecumenical relations be damaged more than they have.
One of the surprising -- at least to the journalists who have been calling me today -- elements of today's meeting was that the official Anglican-Catholic dialogue appears to be back on track after some years in the sidings. Benedict XVI and Dr Williams discussed the future of the next stage of the ARCIC process -- ARCIC III -- whose aim has always been to achieve the unification of the Anglican and the Catholic Churches. According to Cardinal Kasper, the topic is not yet agreed but is likely to be the question of the universal v. the local Church -- a subject that will be never far behind negotiations over the new ordinariates.
Read it all here:
www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=33746733-3048-741E-2878100027444363
www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/
by Austen Ivereigh
'Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope in talks to heal rift' is the tenor of most news reports on their 20-minute meeting today. A Vatican communiqué described the encounter as "cordial" (when isn't it?): they discussed "the challenges facing all Christian communities at the beginning of this millennium, and the need to promote forms of collaboration and shared witness in facing these challenges", with a focus on "recent events affecting relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion".
Today's was a diplomatic exercise, but there is no rift. Dr Williams is annoyed at not being given proper notice of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus -- he tells the Financial Times that he was left with a "bruised ego" - but then, nor did the bishops of England and Wales. Vatican high-handedness is nothing new. And in this case there was an obsession with the announcement not leaking out lest ecumenical relations be damaged more than they have.
One of the surprising -- at least to the journalists who have been calling me today -- elements of today's meeting was that the official Anglican-Catholic dialogue appears to be back on track after some years in the sidings. Benedict XVI and Dr Williams discussed the future of the next stage of the ARCIC process -- ARCIC III -- whose aim has always been to achieve the unification of the Anglican and the Catholic Churches. According to Cardinal Kasper, the topic is not yet agreed but is likely to be the question of the universal v. the local Church -- a subject that will be never far behind negotiations over the new ordinariates.
Read it all here:
www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=33746733-3048-741E-2878100027444363
www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/