Benedict XVI sent his message of support through Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the CDF.
But Cardinal Kasper, as president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, is likely to be cautious about any arrangement that might upset the official leaders of the other Christian churches ”“ notably the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
The cardinal said on Monday: “We are on good terms with the Archbishop of Canterbury and as much as we can we are helping him to keep the Anglican community together.”
When asked whether he felt encouraged by the TAC’s request, the cardinal replied: “It’s not our policy to bring that many Anglicans to Rome and I am not sure there are so many as you are speaking about.”
He added: “Of course, as a Catholic I am happy if one person joins our Catholic Church but I doubt such a big group is coming ”“ I think there are still many questions to solve first.”
But Cardinal Kasper, as president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, is likely to be cautious about any arrangement that might upset the official leaders of the other Christian churches – notably the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
The cardinal said on Monday: “We are on good terms with the Archbishop of Canterbury and as much as we can we are helping him to keep the Anglican community together.â€
When asked whether he felt encouraged by the TAC’s request, the cardinal replied: “It’s not our policy to bring that many Anglicans to Rome and I am not sure there are so many as you are speaking about.
Glad to see that there are still some men of honor among the Church.
That’s just loopy. Does the good Cardinal actually believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the truest expression of Christianity or not? If it is, he should welcome converts whether they come one by one, two by two or thousand by thousand.
As to Brian’s comment about honor, the best that can be said is that it is no more laughable than anything else he contributes on this site…
Well, in this particular case, he is not in charge.
The TAC has directed his letter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it is said that Angelo Amato and the Pope himself are more interested than Cardinal Kasper in bringing “that many Anglicans to Rome”.
So, we’ll see…
Cardinal Kasper on Nov. 23:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/7854
Cardinal Kasper on Dec. 3:
A very weak piece of reporting, because we get only surface explanations when the matter is quite complex. Clearly, accepting Anglican converts individually is great. Also, bringing over Anglican parishes under the Pastoral Provision, while uncommon (just over half a dozen), didn’t cause a great rift with Canterbury. Is it the scale? Maybe, but that alone isn’t a sufficient explantion – TAC is of appreciable size, but wouldn’t cost the Anglican Communion a single member since TAC is not in communion with Canterbury. Perhaps receiving TAC en masse gives credibility (episcopal semi-legitimacy) to a group outside the WWAC that claims to be Anglican? Also, since TAC is worldwide, it might fall outside the scope of the Pastoral Provision, which (so far?) has been US-specific. Or Cardinal Kasper worries about receiving so many that are concentrated in the same places as WWAC?
They might have realized that the sort of priests or bishops who enter the Catholic church are more influenced by evangelical readings of scripture than Catholic reading of scripture – and might be conservative in issues more important to the RC church (say, economics, foreign policy, etc). Besides, the RC church hierarchy is supportive of its gay clergy. As long as they stay in the closet.
Hardly surprising that Kasper would dismiss TAC so as not to offend Canterbury. He leans to the liberal side within the RCC and as with most of the liberal dominated hierarchy of England would not welcome an major influx of deeply conservative, traditionalist Anglicans. But it’s not his call one way or the other, so his personal opinion isn’t worth much.
Cardinal Kasper says: ““It’s not our policy to bring that many Anglicans to Rome ….”
Cabbages says: “Does the good Cardinal actually believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the truest expression of Christianity or not? If it is, he should welcome converts whether they come one by one, two by two or thousand by thousand.”
One could argue that the norm among churches should be the same as among lawyers (at least in the U.S.): If a client chooses to switch from Lawyer A to Lawyer B, that’s just too bad for Lawyer A, who is expected to grin and bear it, because the most important thing is that the client gets to be represented by his/her choice of counsel. Arguably the same should apply when people want to switch from Church A to Church B, whether it’s one person or a thousand.
To me the article does not support the headline. The Cardinal is right to be cautious. The RCC is a discinplined faith, not sloppy like contemporary expressions of Anglicanism. I’m sure that they find that the details of assimilating a group of 400,000 in 60 parishes are daunting.
From the TAC website:
Where they are located:
The Cardinal says, ““It’s not our policy to bring that many Anglicans to Rome and I am not sure there are so many as you are speaking about.â€
I detect a note of irony, even sarcasm, in the first clause of this sentence. The Cardinal seems to have detected that TAC’s membership claims are vastly exaggerated. Six months ago the figure 700,000 was being bandied about. Now it’s reduced to 400,000. 40,000 worldwide would probably be an exaggeration.
Throwing around these exceedingly questionable numbers will naturally raise suspicions in Rome.
[blockquote] Besides, the RC church hierarchy is supportive of its gay clergy. As long as they stay in the closet.[/blockquote]
If you mean not overtly expressing their sexuality, then you could certainly say that’s true. You’d also have to say it expects [i]straight[/i] clergy to remain “in the closet” as well.
Father Wells may have the correct interpretation of Kasper’s remarks. I want as much as anyone else an Anglican Use prelature, administration, or whatnot. But, someone needs to tell the Pope “caveat emptor.” Or, as is sometimes said at the swimming pool, “adult supervision required.” If it is to happen at all, it must be done correctly.
“They might have realized that the sort of priests or bishops who enter the Catholic church are more influenced by evangelical readings of scripture than Catholic reading of scripture – and might be conservative in issues more important to the RC church (say, economics, foreign policy, etc).”
I seriously doubt this.
“Besides, the RC church hierarchy is supportive of its gay clergy. As long as they stay in the closet.”
And this is different from continuing Anglicanism – how?
#7 you are right, as a Catholic(that was a Anglican for a while), I think that the Roman Catholics bishops in England and Wales are worst then the Dutch and Americans. Is known here that the Holy Father is not very happy with then. The Holy Father isn’t very impressed with Kasper. But the Liberal (Moderate) Cardinal of Westminster has send his resignation letter to the Holy See, and the Holy See has accepted it, and it looks like that the Holy Father will nominate a conservative to replace Him.
George Conger has a new story posted with further thoughts from Cardinal Kasper:
http://geoconger.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/gay-row-harming-talks-with-vatican-cen-120707-p-6/
You are looking at it wrong. The RCC is not a big financial corporation like Citibank that can absorb smaller but ailing financial corporations, and “rebrand” them. The “brand name” is not important. The individual members of the congregation are who are important.
The RCC is a family. It is a gigantic family with a single head. This gigantic family adopts new children on a daily basis, instructs them in the values of the RCC and accepts them fully once it is clear that these applicants for adoption accept these values.
One of my daydreams is to be wealthy enough and to have enough free time, to adopt a dozen children (Right now, I only have two adopted children). However if I ever to adopt a dozen more kids, it would be child by child. Whiile I might consider adopting a family of six children, I would not consider adopting that family together with the kids father and mother. If I did, I would not have a single, large family but two family’s with very different values and cultures, one of which was much more loosely attached to me than the other. If I felt kindly disposed to such a family, I would simply offer it assistance, but would not consider “merging familys”. Familys are not corporations.
The RCC will be glad to accept the members of the various scattered Anglican branches, and likely will accept many of them over time. However when it does, that adoption will be like any other family. Soul, by Soul.
Yet remember, there are those times where the RC church has accepted in large groups, like the Byzantine churches which came in some centuries back. Is TAC that bad a fit to the mainstream of the Roman Catholic church?
No offense to the TAC, but I have been to several of their US based parishes, and attendance at these parishes has not been anything to brag about, but that is here in the US. I am not sure about the rest of the world. I would venture a guess that the Polish National Catholic Church is still larger, if you include their membership in the US, Canada, and Poland of course.
Rome most always moves at a glacial pace (perhaps a bad expression, as glaciers seem to be moving at quicker paces these days). Rome would have to be examining all fourteen bodies in this alternative Anglican universe. My bet is that this will go nowhere.
Well, I would only see any dialog with any Anglican body getting to this point…”Will you accept the supreme authority of the Pope?” “Will you be willing to demote your married bishops to priests?”
I don’t see the TAC doing this.
If they weren’t willing to accept Papal Supremacy they would not have applied to join; Papal Supremacy is the one doctrine that everybody who knows the differerence between any Christian bodies knows the RCC has. They may be expecting to dodge the bullet on their clergy, but who knows?
The importance of these stories is that the ranks of the Anglo-Catholics are getting hammered with defections, most prominently by the four bishops. Even if the talks between the TAC and RCC “go nowhere” many individual laity and clergy will take the jump (or swim). That changes the landscape of orthodox Anglicanism and make it harder for groups to say, “Wait for the catholic, ecclesiastical solution” because the conservatives who are left are less likely to care whether the solution is “catholic.”
#7 Conor’s and #15 paulo uk’s comments are interesting remembering how the conservative influx of Anglicans helped bring about Vatican I.
#23 some conservatives Catholics newspaper are saying that the Holy Father will send Kasper back to Germany. He has started to act in UK, chosen a conservative priest to be the nest bishop of Middlesbrough(my Diocese), he was one of his(HH) chaplains. The HF is not happy about how the liberals bishops from UK threat Anglicans converts specially Anglicans priests.
comment deleted – off topic