wfn.org | Lambeth consultants consider Roman Catholic official's comments

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

ACNS LC029 - 21 July 1998

Lambeth consultants consider Roman Catholic official's comments
on unity

By James H. Thrall
Lambeth Conference Communications

A top official of the Roman Catholic church has offered a
positive but cautionary assessment of the relationship between
the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, according to ecumenical
consultants assisting at the Lambeth Conference.

The homily at Monday night's ecumenical vespers service by Edward
Cardinal Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for
Promoting Christian Unity at the Vatican, reasserted that the two
churches "share a real, but imperfect communion," said Dean
William Franklin of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale
University in the United States.

"He categorically reaffirmed the commitment of the Roman Catholic
Church to the full visible unity of all the baptized, which means
establishment of full communion," including reconciliation of
ministries and sacraments, Dean Franklin said. Cardinal Cassidy's
statement that Anglicans and Roman Catholics are "increasingly
bound up with each other," also is a "technical but important
description," he said. And even though Cardinal Cassidy offered
clear warnings that some developments in the Anglican Communion
could impair that relationship, his comments reflected "a level
of communion where we need to be realistic with one another,"
Dean Franklin said.

The homily also expresses "the level of concern that he has for
the well-being of our church," observed the Rev. Canon Alyson
Barnett-Cowan, Director of Faith, Worship and Ministry for the
General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. Like Dean
Franklin, Canon Barnett-Cowan is an advisor to the Section Four
group of bishops considering ecumenical issues. 

She observed, however, that Cardinal Cassidy's words were "more
cautious than enthusiastic." In particular he raised fundamental
questions about the role of authority as a force of unity for the
two churches, questions "the Anglican Communion wrestles with all
the time," she said. 

While Cardinal Cassidy was not explicit in his references to the
need for a universal authority as an instrument of unity, he
seemed to be "offering the papacy as that authority," said Dean
Franklin. "Will Anglicans wish to find universal communion in a
primatial authority? It's not a foregone conclusion." Rather, he
suggested, "our bishops may come up with other forms of universal
authority which are not focused on one person or a single
office." 

Cardinal Cassidy also warned that "our internal disunity leads to
an increasing disunity with the Roman Catholic Church," Dean
Franklin noted. "He suggests a general weakening in the internal
coherence of the Anglican Communion."

"When Cardinal Cassidy refers to new interpretations of the
Gospel creating new problems, he seems to imply something, but he
doesn't name it, so it is difficult to know just what he means,"
Canon Barnett-Cowan said. The Cardinal's homily did not name any
other topics being considered by the conference, other than human
sexuality, she noted. Anglicans might respond that they are
considering any particular issues in a "faithful response to the
call of the Spirit," she said, and also might point out that "how
Anglicans go about discussing things is different from the way
that Roman Catholic may go about discussing things."

A key benefit of the homily, Dean Franklin said, is that it
offered a "useful context" for the discussion of Anglican-Roman
Catholic relations by the Section Four subgroup chaired by
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the United States. "What the
cardinal has done is to let us know what their understanding is
of what our relationship should be for the next decade-which is
real but imperfect communion, with cautions about ways that
communion can be improved but also weakened," he said.

As the conference pursues its many issues, the homily is a
reminder that "one of the important issues on the table is how
important do Anglican bishops feel is the relationship with the
Roman Church at this time," Dean Franklin said. "They should make
that evaluation."

In response to the homily, and picking up on language Cardinal
Cassidy used, "we might want to express, with Christian love, the
concerns of the Anglican Communion about the relationship," he
said. "The spirit of the Conference ought to be: he has laid out
a context; we should respond with our interpretation of what it
means." 

For further information, contact:

Lambeth Conference Communications
Canterbury Business School
University of Kent at Canterbury
Telephone: 01227 827348/9
Fax: 01227 828085
Mobile: 0374 800212

http://www.lambethconference.org