The head of that Vatican office, Cardinal William Levada, wrote Hepworth in July 2008, saying he was giving “serious attention” to the TAC’s proposal. But he noted that the situation within the broader Anglican Communion, with which the Vatican has an official dialogue, had “become markedly more complex.” The Anglican Communion is on the brink of schism because of internal rifts over how it should interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships and other issues.
Hepworth has called the letter a sign of “warmth and encouragement,” and the traditional Anglicans posted the note on their Web site. But Monsignor Marc Langham, who is in charge of Anglican relations at the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, said that Levada’s letter was a “standard Vatican holding letter” and suggested interpreting it with caution.
“It’s very easy to turn expectation and hope into hard fact,” Langham said in a recent phone interview.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the traditional Anglican group and the Vatican have been in contact for some time and would continue to talk.
I’ve seen this story before but still can’t figure out who in the 77 million member AC would care or be hurt by anything the 400k TAC would do? If there were such a thing as Foundational Truths plate tectonics everyone knows Canterbury and Rome are spreading apart anyway due to the riftline caused by some of it’s (the AC’s) members. IMHO it’s not likely TAC’s intentions could alter that fact.
I have an idea that the AP has misinterpretted “conservative Anglicans”. I know that some of the groups which left TEC at the time of the 1979 BCP and the ordination of women, such as The Anglican Church in America — which uses the Anglican rite but is not part of the Anglican Communion — is pursuing a uniat relationship with Rome. I suspect that it is this sort of thing which is being talked about and the AP doesn’t undstand.
desertpadre
What the roman and desertpadre said. The mainstream media don’t know and don’t care about the differences. The spanners in the works here are nothing to do with the Anglican Communion because TAC isn’t in it. At least not directly. The issues are orders got from the Anglicans (invalid in Rome’s eyes and the Dutch touch in this context doesn’t count), the practice got from the Anglicans of clerical marriage after ordination, married bishops and Archbishop Hepworth’s situation as a former RC priest who is now married (he said he’d step down for union with Rome’ sake). My understanding is there are no doctrinal differences and TAC is willing to negotiate on/drop the disciplinary differences. That leaves the matter of whether TAC has a following big enough to justify having some kind of special administration for them in the Roman Church.
Liberal RCs don’t like Anglo-Catholics. But Pope Benedict probably has the ACs’ back; he must in order for this to work.
[url=http://home.comcast.net/~acbfp/index.html]High-church libertarian curmudgeon[/url]
P.S. RC national parishes, a special canonical arrangement for minority groups, are the way of the future for much of Anglo-Catholicism, certainly in England where ACs are Anglo-Papalists.
yf #3, my source is the Canon to the Ordinary of one of ACA’s dioceses, and he claims that they have some sort of special relationship with the Pope, dating from before he became Pope.
desertpadre
Here we go again !
We have another bit of “news” blurb from the Associated Press about the TAC and Rome. Rome (at least the CDF or the Pope – the only ones the TAC hierarchy would listen to) hasn’t said anything. Nor has the TAC Archbishop. Now we have that dreadful Msgr Marc Langham, in charge of Anglican relations at the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, saying that Cardinal Levada’s letter was a “standard Vatican holding letter”.
So it’s individual conversions! Ooh! Why didn’t they tell us before?
Nothing to report. Let’s move on.
Well, technically, because of Anglican-derived orders, it would be individual conversions and ordinations anew as well, which I think TAC has signed off on. The question again is, is TAC big enough for Rome to set up a structure for them within the Roman Rite, which would for all intents be corporate reunion but technically not (like when the Caldey Benedictines and the Graymoor Anglo-Papalist Franciscans made their submissions to Rome 100 years ago).
Again I think, once their clergy were vetted and ordained by Rome, the solution would be the same as would be for actual ex-Anglicans such as English Anglo-Papalist clergy and congregations coming aboard: RC national parishes like the Polish, Italian, Slovak etc. ones in the US overlapping the [i]de facto[/i] Irish geographical default RC parishes. (That’s right: national parishes for groups of Englishmen… in England. Funny old world.)
[url=http://home.comcast.net/~acbfp/index.html]High-church libertarian curmudgeon[/url]
Another reflection:
Some Australian journalist, it would seem, has been telephoning potential sources of information in Rome. In reality, he doesn’t have enough for a story, so he wrote an article that is 95% spin. It’s not the same journalist as before. This one works for the AP and not the Record. But, they are both Australians…
The first of his two sources is Monsignor Mark Langham, former Administrator of Westminster Cathedral and since last summer in charge of Anglican relations at the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, under Cardinal Kasper. His second source is a one-liner from Fr. Lombardi, in charge of Vatican news releases.
Msgr Langham is loyal to Cardinal Kasper’s line and is very friendly with various Anglican personalities in England.
Fr. Lombardi’s one-liner was more to the point. There is nothing to report other than the fact that the TAC and Rome had been in dialogue for several years, and the talks were continuing. That could mean everything or nothing.
Msgr Langham minimises the importance of the letter from Cardinal Levada, calling it a standard Vatican holding letter. For him, the TAC is a somewhat murky outfit to be treated with courtesy but turned down at the right moment, or kept waiting to the point of exhaustion. I do not know Msgr Langham, but scraps of information on the Internet leave me with the vague impression that he is a middle-of-the-road conservative out of the English College mould or similar. His attitude about “extra-mural” Anglicans might be attributed to simple English snottiness and snobbery. But the fact remains that Rome remains silent.
My big question is : Why these flurries of rumours in late January, mid-February and today? Is someone trying to provoke a response? Why the coincidence of this hubbub at precisely the time when the excommunications were lifted from the SSPX bishops and when there was that awful scandal caused by their English bishop? The liberal and anticlerical “Catholic” press in one country was trying to link the TAC together with the SSPX to find an anti-Vatican II plot! Frankly, I see no link other than coincidence.
At the risk of writing spin myself, I will leave off with this subject and return to more healthy Lenten thoughts.