Posted on 02/19/2007 7:44:21 PM PST by Alex Murphy
It's not a merger, it's an acquisition. Imagine investment bankers' fees ... eh?
The announcement may be "premature" and probably leaked by somebody who doesn't want it to happen, but I think this will probably take place. I honestly don't know what else the orthodox members of the Anglican/Episcopal church can do.
I met some Africans recently and I thought that there was no way that people who were so good (although a little short on historical knowledge) could survive in the church of Schouri or whatever her name is. I suspect that even the current Archbishop of Canterbury may be rethinking some of his positions...Maybe he got sick of looking at the picture of the two elderly deans, crowned with wreaths of laurel, getting "married."
Similar story:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1787450/posts
"The text of the document, without the official Vatican and Anglican commentaries, was posted Feb. 19 on the Web site of the organization Anglican Mainstream.
While it set out dozens of activities Catholics and Anglicans can and should undertake together -- -- the document said the prospect of full unity appears further off than it did in 2000."
There are lots of other options - 40,000+, if some Catholic apologists are to be believed :)
But seriously, there are the "Continuing churches" and the Reformed Episcopal Church, among others, that they could shift to w/o leaving Anglicanism/Episcopalianism.
As I understand it, Anglicans prefer not to think of themselves as Protestants (that is, as inspired by Luther or anyone else in that line), but as a sort of special English branch of Catholicism. I think this is nonsense, of course, because you can't be Catholic while rejecting Rome, and nationality or language group does not make you a separate church. But that seems to be the belief of many of the more traditional groups among them, and hence they are unlikely to go to a Protestant church as a solution. We are also talking about the group "migration" of a church in this case, and not individuals, if I understand it right.
So in terms of what the more orthodox, traditional Christians among them are going to do in the future, I think their options are pretty limited. The "continuing" churches are under heavy attack from the raving heretics who have taken over the mother church, partly because the heretics fear the loss of the property, and as a result the continuing churches are often very embattled and hardly an ideal environment for faith, particularly in places like Africa. I think some of the African leaders felt that the flaky Anglican/Episcopal church leadership wouldn't impose its ways on them, but it appears that, as usual, the raving heretics want everybody else either to do as they do or at least give approval to it.
"I think this is nonsense, of course, because you can't be Catholic while rejecting Rome,..."
Oh, I wouldn't go that far, L! :)
I think it's a possibility that some of the Anglican provinces that have rejected the ordination of homosexuals and women reunification may occur but for the whole of the Anglican Church to reunite is a distinct impossibility.
When Benedict XVI was first elected there seemed to be a great deal of discussion surrounding the Traditional Anglican Communion seeking reunification under Archbishop John Hepworth of Australia. That talk seems to have fallen out of the spotlight.
The talk was they wanted a Personal prelature similar to Opus Dei (purgoratively called an Anglican Rite).
It got to the point that Archbishop Hepworth (because he is an ex-Catholic Priest and married) said he would resign as Primate if it would facilitate reunification.
I wonder if this might be a misunderstanding of those talks, which impacted roughly 2MM Anglicans throughout the world.
Interesting, if only because most of the "we're not merging" news stories I read were in Australian sources....
Indeed, that's one current of Anglicanism. But then you have the more evangelical wing, the liberal wing, neither of which will look Romeward anytime soon. Lot of different currents there. Plus, even within the Anglo-Catholic fold, there's a school of thought that holds "we are Catholic already" and so sees no need for corporate reunion.
FWIW as a Roman looking at this, I think the *entire* Anglican body reuniting with Rome is a pipe dream. The Communion is shattered now, probably for good, and sionnsar has said that he thinks the compromise that has held these disparate elements together for 400+ years is effectively dead. There simply isn't enough cohesion at the institutional level, and Abp. Williams can't provide it.
What is happening is that some movements that come out of Anglo-Catholicism are seeking corporate unity with Rome (e.g. Hepworth and the Traditional Anglican Communion). Others will proceed on as continuing churches, etc.
It is my understanding that the talks are ongoing. I believe that after the initial flurry of news, the TAC quite deliberately imposed a code of silence on its dealings with Rome so to keep everything out of the press and so as not to jeopardize the negotiations.
If that's the case, then that means that these "leaks" IMO are coming from sources sympathetic to Rome's position in negotiations, and not from sources synmpathetic to the Anglicans' position.
From my understanding of the Vatican and of Italians, that's not a bad hypothesis. :)
But I don't think the most recent news tidbits are even referring to the TAC...they seem to have been concerned with official Canterbury Anglicanism (which the TAC already separated from), and it also seems to have been more a headline writer's creativity than any solid news.
Personally, I think this whole story has been spun out of whole cloth.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. It failed and it's way too late for that anyway. The Anglican Church is on a death watch. Thanks to the homosexuals and womyn activists it has been completely turned upside down and the ever dwindling numbers of adherents are already looking towards Rome.
It's a huge irony that sodomites and liberals are providing the principal impetus for ecumenism and reunion with Catholicism. They've done more to bring people into the Catholic Church than decades of discussions and committees.
God writes straight with crooked lines, as they say.
I don't think the whole Anglican church could possibly reunite with Rome, certainly not with the way one branch has gone off the rails on moral issues. But the more I thought about it, the more I could see the logic of at least some of them wanting to get back to Rome.
These churches must currently be feeling very alone in the world. The African ones must be particularly distressed, because they are under attack from outside forces - ranging from the Muslims to anti-religious, socialist governments - and from forces in their own church, that is, the liberals of ECUSA and whatever its Brit equivalent is. So it would benefit them enormously to tie into the larger Church and would probably provide them with at least somewhat better protection for their flocks.
And of course, for the Catholic Church, it would be great. It would consolidate African Christians, thus making it possible to present a more unified response to challenges.
It sounds as if they do not want to be part of a special "rite" or jurisdiction, but simply to come in, keeping what they have, but with their bishops being responsible to Rome. I wonder what the administrative aspect of that would be.
BTW, I met some of these African Anglican bishops recently, and they were scholarly and impressive people. Of course, they also had those wonderful African accents and that incredibly charming manner Africans have, so they'd be a social plus to us all!
Interesting theory. You may be right. It had an explosive headline but there was nothing to back it up with.
God writes straight with crooked lines, as they say.
Absolutely! And no better example of that than the Cross! :)
Dear livius,
My understanding is that much (most?) of the African Anglicans are evangelicals, and the least likely to reunite with the Catholic Church.
sitetest
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.