Anglican and Catholic Heads to Meet in Rome

From ethicsdaily.com via TitusOneNine:

By: Francis X. Rocca
Posted: Thursday, November 12, 2009 6:01 am
Section: Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) When Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams meets with Pope Benedict XVI here on Nov. 21, the two men will be making the latest gesture in a four-decade-long effort to achieve unity between their churches.

But some Catholics and Anglicans fear the future of that endeavor could be jeopardized by the Vatican’s plans, announced last month (Oct.), to make it easier for Anglicans to convert to Catholicism. Former Anglicans, many of whom are upset by their church’s growing acceptance of female clergy and homosexuality, will be allowed to join special Catholic dioceses while retaining many of their traditional prayers and hymns, and to a limited extent a married priesthood.

Williams, spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, will visit Rome for five days (Nov. 18-22) of meetings and events aimed at “keeping alive the ecumenical endeavor,” said his Vatican envoy, the Very Rev. David Richardson.

“We don’t see it as in any way a comment on the ecumenical conversations,” Richardson said of the Vatican’s move, which he called a “pastoral response” to the requests of disaffected Anglicans. “It’s a side issue for ecumenical dialogue.” Richardson noted that Williams’ visit to Rome was scheduled before the Vatican rolled out its welcome to Anglican dissidents.

Williams remains optimistic about the dialogue, Richardson said, noting that planning will start later this month for the next phase of meetings of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, a project that seeks to resolve conflicts between the two churches’ teachings.

In a celebration of the ecumenical spirit, Williams will take part in an interdenominational service at a Rome church on Nov. 20 with Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Kasper, the Vatican’s top ecumenical official, has long discouraged en masse conversions of Anglicans to Catholicism, saying last month that “we are not fishing in the Anglican lake.” Neither Kasper nor any representative of his office appeared at the press conference held last month to announce the new dioceses for former Anglicans.

Williams will also meet with India’s Cardinal Ivan Dias, who along with Kasper attended last summer’s Lambeth Conference, the international meeting of Anglican bishops that the archbishop of Canterbury calls every 10 years.

Dias heads the Vatican’s office for missionary work, which the Catholic and Anglican churches are increasingly carrying out together.

“Despite differences in other areas, in the area of evangelization of peoples there is a marked Anglican-Catholic harmony,” said the Rev. R. William Franklin, academic fellow at the Anglican Center in Rome and a visiting professor at the Vatican’s Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Joint evangelization happens not only in the mission fields of Africa and Asia, Franklin said, but even in Europe and the United States, where the Alpha Course and Cursillo programs, of Anglican and Catholic origin respectively, have won endorsements from leaders of both churches.

Addressing another common concern, Williams will meet next week with officials from the Vatican’s office for migrants, refugees and other displaced persons.

According to Richardson, Anglican-Catholic cooperation in the promotion of poverty reduction, social justice and peace is likely to grow in the coming years, regardless of any tensions over theological or moral issues.

“We are always stronger,” Richardson said, “in what we can affirm than in where we disagree.”