Anglicans seek unity with Catholics
Pastor Dale Morgan
Anglicans seek unity with Catholics*
By David Willey
BBC Rome correspondent
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of the worldwide
Anglican Communion, is due to arrive in Rome to meet Pope Benedict XVI.
His six-day stay in Rome marks the 40th anniversary of the
ground-breaking visit of his predecessor Michael Ramsey to the Vatican,
which was the first visit by an Archbishop of Canterbury to the Holy See
since the time of the Reformation.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams
Prospects of a return to full communion remain dim
But the prospects of a return to full communion between the Anglican and
Roman Catholic Churches remain dim.
There will be plenty of occasions for polite, even cordial, exchanges
during the coming week between high-ranking Vatican officials and the
archbishop and his 10-strong delegation from Lambeth Palace in London.
Women bishops
To emphasise the importance that the Roman Catholic Church in England
attaches to the occasion, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the
Archbishop of Westminster, is accompanying the Archbishop of Canterbury
on his visit to Rome and he will be present at many key meetings and
services of prayer.
Although the two Churches have maintained a theological dialogue in
recent decades, they remain deeply divided on some substantive issues
which still separate them - the consecration of women as bishops is a
prime example.
The first woman primate of a Church in the Anglican Communion, Bishop
Katharine Jefferts Schon, of the American Episcopal Church, took office
in the United States earlier this month.
The position of the Pope is that hopes of restoring communion between
Anglicans and Catholics have already been damaged by the decision of
Churches within the Anglican communion to ordain women as priests.
The consecration of women bishops puts off the day when Catholics and
Anglicans can share worship even further into the future.
Fertile exchange
Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict have one thing in common.
They are both distinguished academics, and are both respected Christian
theologians.
The Pope speaks fluent English and they will be able to have a fertile
exchange of ideas when they meet at the Vatican on Thursday.
However Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Vatican's council
for promoting Christian unity, who will play a prominent role in many of
this week's meetings, has already warned the Church of England that the
goal of "full communion" cannot be reached if they decide to follow the
American Episcopal example and go ahead with plans to consecrate women
as bishops.
Pope Benedict will see the Archbishop of Canterbury only once during the
Anglican leader's six-day visit.
The rest of the archbishop's timetable includes two public lectures, a
joint prayer service in the Catholic Church of Saint Mary above Minerva
(one of Rome's few Gothic-style churches, built over the ruins of a
Roman temple), at which Cardinal Kasper will be one of the preachers,
and a dinner hosted by Britain's ambassador to the Vatican, Francis
Campbell.
Pope Benedict leaves Rome next week for a five-day visit to Turkey.
His priorities at the moment lie more with his uneasy relationship with
the Islamic world, and with the Orthodox, another important branch of
Christendom, which split away from Rome nine centuries ago.
Seen from Rome, the headquarters of the worldwide Catholic Church, this
first extended visit of the head of the Anglican Communion to the
Vatican is a relatively low-key event, unlikely to lead to any radical
changes or to the reunification of the Churches at any time in the near
future.