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From www.forwardinfaith.com FiF International News Cardinal Walter Kasper "The 1966 Common Declaration signed by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey", the Vatican's senior ecumenical official noted in an address to a packed Self-Select Group at the Lambeth Conference on July 30th, "spoke of `a restoration of complete communion of faith and sacramental life'". But, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity declared, "it seems now that full visible communion as the aim of our dialogue has receded further, and that our dialogue will have less ultimate goals and therefore will be altered in its character". Earlier in his address, the Cardinal had pointed to the Lord's "expressed will that his disciples be one, just as He is one with the Father; and that this unity was directly linked to Christ's mission, the Church's mission, to the world: may they be one so that the world may believe". In this context - although the Cardinal did not say so in so many words - to recede from the goal of full communion is to recede not simply from some desideratum, but from the Lord's will for His Church. Overview of the Ecumenical Dialogue Cardinal Kasper began his address with an overview of the ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the (Roman) Catholic Church, beginning with Vatican II's recognition that "among those" Communions separated from the Roman See in the 16th century, "in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place". That dialogue, he said, was "based on the Gospel and the ancient common traditions", and had "full visible unity as its goal". The first Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC I), working on issues of eucharistic doctrine and of ministry and ordination from 1970-1981, was recognized by the (Roman) Catholic Church as having achieved "points of convergence and even of agreement which many would not have thought possible before the Commission began its work". That group's further clarifications were recognized by Rome as having "greatly strengthened agreement in those areas". ARCIC I also produced agreed statements on authority, while its successor, ARCIC II, has released texts on salvation, the nature of the Church, the principles of Christian ethics, the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as a third document on authority. None of these has been submitted for a formal response by either the (Roman) Catholic Church or the Anglican Communion, nor have they "led to a conclusive resolution or to a full consensus on the issues addressed", the Cardinal observed, but "each suggested a growing rapprochement". The Cardinal spoke as well of the Mississauga gathering of Anglican and (Roman) Catholic bishops, describing it as "one of the best meetings I have ever attended". One of its fruit was the formation of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), which seeks to articulate practical ways in which the two Communions' theological agreement can be lived out. Ecclesiological Issues Recalling his statement in 2006 that "the questions and problems of our friends are also our problems", the Cardinal then turned to "a series of ecclesiological issues arising from the current situation in the Anglican Communion, and to raise some difficult questions".
IARCCUM had spoken of the "period of dispute" resulting from the episcopal ordination of Gene Robinson, the blessing of same-sex unions, and the Church of England's proposal to ordain women as bishops. The Cardinal additionally noted "the decision of s significant number of Anglican bishops not to attend this Lambeth Conference", and "proposals from within Anglicanism which are challenging existing instruments of authority". Cardinal Kaspar recalled his remarks to the English house of bishops in March 2006, and in particular his exposition of St. Cyprian of Carthage's teaching on the unity of the people of God with their bishop, and of the unity of the whole episcopate - a unity which is not only "synchronic" but "diachronic", expressed in "consensus with the episcopate of the centuries before us". This is the understanding of episcopal office, he noted, which is set out in the ARCIC documents: it is the understanding of both Communions "that bishops carry out their ministry in succession to the Apostles, which is `intended to assure each community that its faith is indeed the apostolic faith, received and transmitted from apostolic times'". The Cardinal said that he had criticized the Windsor Report's ecclesiology in this respect. For while it stresses the responsibility of the Anglican provinces "towards each other and towards the maintenance of Communion, a communion rooted in the Scriptures, considerably little [sic] attention is given to the importance of being in communion with the faith of the Church through the ages". He also criticized the process of synodical government as not having "always functioned in such a way as to maintain the apostolicity of faith", and when understood "as a kind of parliamentary process", having "at times blocked the sort of episcopal leadership envisaged by Cyprian and articulated in ARCIC". The Windsor process continues, the Cardinal said. But "it is difficult from our perspective to see how that has translated into the desired internal strengthening of the Anglican Communion and its instruments of unity". This raises two questions, the Cardinal concluded: first, "what shape might the Anglican Communion of tomorrow take?", and second, "who will our dialogue partner be?". Specifically, he asked, "should we, and how can we, appropriately and honestly engage in conversations also with those who share Catholic perspectives on the points currently in dispute, and who disagree with some developments within the Anglican Communion or particular Anglican provinces?". The Anglican Communion The Cardinal then turned to further consideration of the particular questions facing the Anglican Communion. The teaching of the (Roman) Catholic Church on human sexuality, including homosexuality, is clear, he said. Because that teaching is "well founded in the Old and New Testament", this teaching is a matter of "faithfulness to the Scriptures and to apostolic tradition". Lambeth 1998's resolution I.10 and the Primates' recent statements are consistent with that teaching, he recognized. The teaching of the (Roman) Catholic Church on "the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate", Cardinal Kasper said, is equally clear. Indeed, his church believes that it has "no authority whatsoever" to confer orders on women, making this a question not just of discipline, but "of our faithfulness to Jesus Christ". "The Catholic Church", the Cardinal stated, "finds herself bound by the will of Jesus Christ and does not feel free to establish a new tradition alien to the tradition of all ages".
The ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate is not a matter of isolated provinces, the Cardinal observed, but "increasingly the stance of the Communion": and thus the older churches of East and West "will recognize" in the Anglican episcopate "much less of what they understand to be the character and ministry of the bishop in the sense understood by the early church and continuing through the ages". "While our dialogue has led to significant agreement on the understanding of ministry", the Cardinal declared, "the ordination of women to the episcopate effective and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican Orders by the Catholic Church." And that means, the Cardinal concluded, that while the dialogue will continue, it can "no longer be sustained by the dynamism which arises from the realistic possibility of the unity Christ asks of us, or the shared partaking of the one Lord's table, for which we so earnestly long." Anglican 'Treasures' The Cardinal ended by speaking of the "many treasures" which the Anglican tradition holds. "Our keen awareness of the greatness and depth of Christian culture of your tradition", he said, "heightens our concern for you amidst current problems and crises, but also gives us confidence that with God's help you will find a way out of these difficulties". And he reiterated his words to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2004: "we are ready to support you in whatever ways are appropriate and requested". In that vein, he recalled the Anglican recovery of the "strength of the Church of the Fathers when that tradition was in jeopardy", particular in the Caroline divines and in the Oxford Movement. Perhaps, he suggested, there could be in our day "a new Oxford Movement, a retrieval of riches which lay deep within your own household", "a re-reception, a fresh recourse to the Apostolic Tradition in a new situation". Such a retrieval, he told the bishops, would not mean renouncing "your deep attentiveness to human challenges and struggles, your desire for human dignity and justice, your concern with the active role of all women and men in the Church", but "would bring these concerns and the questions that arise from them more directly within the framework shaped by the Gospel and the common tradition in which our dialogue is grounded". |
