Posted on 05/28/2003 4:44:35 PM PDT by huskyboy
STRONG HINTS that the path towards unity with Rome was not blocked emerged at a conference in St Albans last Saturday.
In a speech (see right link) that was both open and nuanced, Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity at the Vatican, talked of new interpretations of some of the chief sticking-points: papal authority, eucharistic doctrine, apostolic succession, and the 1896 papal bull that declared that Anglican orders to be invalid.
Cardinal Kasper shared a platform with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Revd Elizabeth Welch, a former Moderator of the United Reformed Church. For his part, Dr Williams said that ecumenism was "not simply negotiating our way to a formula that we can just about live with. . . Effective, real unity in Christ is when we share in prayer and mission at depth."
About 900 people attended the day-long conference, which had been two years in the planning and was entitled "May They All be One. . . But How?" The Rt Revd Joe Aldred, a Bishop in the Church of God of Prophesy, preached at evensong. The chief focus, though, was on Cardinal Kasper, speaking exactly one month after a papal encyclical restating the ban on intercommunion for Roman Catholics.
The Cardinal suggested that the Churches were entering a new phase in the journey towards unity. True enthusiasm in the decade after the Second Vatican Council had been replaced by disenchantment coupled with what he called "ecumenical activism" — conferences, meetings and symposiums that had produced countless documents. "Who can read all this stuff, and, indeed, who wants to?" the Cardinal asked.
What was needed now, he said, was a period of spiritual ecumenism, a "unity in faith", during which the Churches could assimilate the lessons learned in the past few decades.
Far-reaching consequences
Cardinal Kasper warned against a "mechanical" interpretation of the apostolic succession. "To stand in the apostolic succession is not a matter of an individual historical chain, but of collegial membership in a collegium which, as a whole, goes back to the apostles." This interpretation had "far-reaching consequences" for other Churches, he said. Succession was thus "not a question of an uninterrupted chain, but of the uninterrupted sharing of faith and mission".
Dr Kasper spoke of "a re-evaluation" of Apostolicae Curae, the bull of Leo XIII which declared that Anglican orders were null and void; though he said that "a final solution can be found only in the larger context of full communion in faith, sacramental life and shared apostolic vision".
After the conference, however, he said: "I think it should not be so difficult to come to almost a partial recognition of the episcopal ministry on both sides. We are no longer at the position of Leo XIII with his bull. A partial recognition is there. The Pope gave the Archbishop a gold cross — I have only a silver cross — and this is a symbol which is meaningful. And he has a ministry of oversight, episcope, that is not the same, because we are not in full communion, but we are in a high degree of profound communion."
However, Cardinal Kasper indicated that the Vatican was still worried by the degree of "comprehensiveness" in the Anglican Communion. "Comprehensiveness is a good thing, but it should not be exaggerated. Pluralism should not become a new beatitude added to the sermon on the Mount."
In conversation he said that dialogue was made much more difficult by the existence of different groupings in Anglicanism ("though we will not interfere: this is a problem for the new Archbishop"), citing lay presidency, the ordination of women, and ethical problems such as abortion and homosexual partnerships. (He did not mention women priests in his conference address.)
Dr Williams
DR WILLIAMS urged people to see the ecumenical in the light of Jesus’s own eternal movement to the depths of the Father. The ecumenical task was "to commend the attractiveness of Christ in each other's traditions", recognising "the same eternal prayer being made, the same eternal gifts being given”. For too long the Churches had been saying, "Don't listen to him, listen to me." Mission, said Dr Williams, meant saying "Don't listen to me, listen to Christ, and listen to Christ there."
The Archbishop asked for the development of shared contemplation. Much could be gained by "sitting in silence with someone for quite a long time". He acknowledged the grief and frustration caused by disagreement about the eucharist, in which resided the deepest association with Christ's movement to the Father. "Our inability to share that with one another is inevitably proportionately more painful."
But he said that the eucharist was not the sole sacrament, and the Churches recognised each other’s baptisms — "the sacrament, if you like, of the neighbour". While waiting for full communion, he urged people to come together in contemplation, pilgrimage, festival and service.
Elizabeth Welch
ELIZABETH WELCH spoke of her experience in setting up the ecumenical church in Milton Keynes. There was now a "level of trust and openness which binds us up in our divisions".
She noted several elements that were working against unity. Falling congregational numbers encouraged the strengthening of denominational identity. "Energy goes into making mission happen, rather than in finding ways in which it might be done more effectively in unity with others."
Also, either the Anglican group is in communion with the Church, or it isn't. There is no middle ground here. As it stands presently, the Church sees the Anglican faction as both heretical and schismatic. If the post-conciliar church actually pulls off a merge, it will only add to my evidence that the post-conciliar church is really a newer "church" unaffiliated with the true Church of Christ.
Kasper isn't Catholic. Ignore everything he says.
"The Rev. James Gary Gloster (left) and his consecrators, including the Rt. Rev. Edmond Browning (behind Gloster), presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, sport red clown noses during a ceremony at Duke Chapel to ordain Gloster as Suffragan Bishop."
Bite your keyboard!!!
I second the motion.
Yes
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