Major Anglican Group Prepares for Full Communion With Rome
Charles Hohenstein
Major Anglican Group Prepares for Full Communion With Rome
by Edward Pentin, Register Correspondent
National Catholic Register
December 24, 2005
VATICAN CITY - As the Anglican Communion threatens to break up, one
large group of Anglicans is blazing a trail to Rome, and another could
follow suit.
The Traditional Anglican Communion, an autonomous group of 400,000
clergy and laity separate from the Anglican Communion, has drawn up
detailed plans on how to come into full communion with the Holy See.
After 12 years of consultations, both internally and informally with the
Vatican, the group - with the help of a Catholic layman - is preparing a
"Pastoral Plan" asking the Vatican for an "Anglican Rite Church" that
would preserve their Anglican heritage while allowing them to be
"visibly united" with Rome.
The Traditional Anglican Communion's worldwide primate, Archbishop John
Hepworth, hopes the group's College of Bishops will approve the plan at
a possible Rome Synod in February 2006.
The church's members are so far reported to be unanimous in their desire
for full communion. If formally agreed, the proposal would then be
presented to Vatican officials.
If Rome approves, the Traditional Anglican Communion, a worldwide
ecclesial body based in Australia, could become the largest Anglican
assembly to return to the Church since the Reformation.
In a statement released earlier this year, Archbishop Hepworth, a former
Catholic priest, said the denomination had "no doctrinal differences
with Rome" that impeded full communion. "My broad vision is to see the
end of the Reformation of the 16th century," he said.
The denomination has pursued unity with Rome since the Anglicans started
ordaining women as priests, a move that, Archbishop Hepworth says, was
the "ultimate of schismatic acts" and irrevocably "fractured" the 1966
Common Declaration between Rome and Canterbury.
The historic agreement made between Pope VI and then-Archbishop of
Canterbury Michael Ramsey, obliged both communions to work towards unity
through serious dialogue.
Vatican Caution
During recent informal talks, Vatican officials advised TAC to grow in
numbers, become better known by forming friendships with local Catholic
clergy and laity, and build structures through which they can dialogue
with other churches. We've now done that," Archbishop Hepworth said. "By
next year's synod, our conscience will have brought us to a certain
point - it will then be for the Holy See to decide what to do."
Meanwhile, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have warned the
Church of England that going ahead with women bishops risks
destabilizing both the Church of England and the whole Anglican
Communion, in a report the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and
Wales referred to "tremendous and intolerable ecclesiological risk"
involved in ordaining women bishops.
The Church of England is considering whether to allow women to become
bishops, with a debate expected at its general synod in February.
Ordaining women as bishops is particularly contentious for those opposed
to women priests as they would be unable to recognize or accept the
authority of all priests, male or female, who were ordained by female
bishops.
For Forward in Faith, a worldwide association of Anglican who remain
part of the Anglican Communion but are unable to accept the female
ordinations, the situation is somewhat different than that of the
Traditional Anglican Communion.
They remain committed to being Anglicans, so communion with Rome "is not
on the agenda," according to Stephen Parkinson, director of Forward in
Faith in the United Kingdom. However, the group is sympathetic to the
Traditional Anglican Communion and is likely to move closer to that
denomination's position if women are ordained bishops in England and
Wales.
Currently, Forward in Faith-UK is negotiating with the Church of England
for a "structural solution" that would enable its members to belong to a
separate province within the Anglican Communion should the church decide
to consecrate women as bishops.
But greater independence for Forward in Faith members might open the way
for the group to move unilaterally towards Rome. "We could then pursue
our own agenda," said Parkinson. "Ecumenism could then become an
imperative for us."
Not if But When?
The Vatican is monitoring the current problems besetting the Anglican
Communion. Not only do the communion's member churches have divisions
over ordaining women as bishops, but Anglicans continue to be torn apart
by the consecration in 2003 of Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual
Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire.
At a Church of England synod in London in November, Rowan Williams, the
archbishop of Canterbury, was strongly criticized by nearly half the
church's presiding archbishops over the issue of homosexual clergy.
In the same week, the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, announced
that he was aligning the country's 17 million Anglican with the
breakaway United States Episcopal churches. His church has already
severed constitutional ties with the Church of England over Robinson's
consecration.
For Anglicans like Archbishop Hepworth and Parkinson, it is a question
of not if but when the Anglican Communion will fracture. But even if
they're right, the Vatican is not inclined to work out precise plans for
receiving large groups of Anglicans. Each case is likely to be
different, which precludes forward planning.
The Vatican is, however, understood to be urging those groups wishing to
come into communion with it to demonstrate they are comfortable with
Church teaching, and that they aren't motivated soley by disillusionment
with the Anglican Communion.
The two departments responsible for group conversions, the Pontifical
Council for Promoting Christian Unity the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, are keeping a low profile for now.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Council for Promoting
Christian Unity, has been focusing on issues that unite the churches and
urging Anglicans to strengthen the bonds that unify the communion,
particularly those surround the Anglican Communion's traditional
teaching on human sexuality.
In the meantime, both Rome and the estranged Anglicans are waiting to
see what the Anglican hierarchy does and how national Anglican churches
and individual Anglicans respond.
"If many come over to Rome at the same time, then they're still all
treated as individual conversions," said Dominican Father Charles
Morerod, a member of the Anglican/Catholic International Commission.
"But it is different if a whole province wants to come into communion."
Religion News Service contributed to this report.
Edward Pentin writes from Rome
--
Charles Hohenstein
To reply, remove Gene Robinson
"The sad huddle of affluent bedwetters, thumbsuckers, treehuggers, social
climbers, homophiles, quavery ladies, and chronic petition signers that
makes up the current Episcopal Church . . ."--Thomas Lipscomb
jwshe...@satx.rr.com
As a Protestant Episcopalian, I find it sad that 815 is driving
people to Rome. All 815 has to do is allow REAL alternative
oversite. There has always been the division of High, Low,
and Broad churches. All that is needed is to let each parish
declare what group they belong to. Each group within a diocese
could elect their own suffern bishop.
I just doubt that revisionist diocean bishops would ever allow it;
since they seem only interested in power, money, property, and
denying orthodox priests a trial.
Regards,
Jim