The Archbishop of Canterbury has written to Pope Francis in a plea to prevent the ordination of women bishops from derailing plans for the eventual reunification between the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.
The Most Rev Justin Welby acknowledged that the vote at the General Synod earlier this month would be a “further difficulty” on the tortuous road towards eventual unity between the two churches which formally separated in the 16th Century.
But in a letter to the Pope and other global church leaders including leading orthodox patriarchs, he asked for prayers for the Church of England, telling them: “We need each other.”
What a load!
Are the article and headline accurate?
The last part of the article seems to indicate that this was an encyclical letter sent by ++Welby to the heads of various churches asking that they all stand together on various issues. That seems a quite different concept to ++Welby asking Pope Francis to keep moves towards the two churches becoming one.
Just more headline digging by an editor trying to sell copy?
“His intervention comes after warnings from traditionalists that the admission of women to the episcopate would shatter hopes of eventual unity between the Church of England and Rome.”
Archbishop Welby obediently does the bidding of the House of Bishops which engineered his election. I really don’t think they give a toss about eventual unity with Rome (one or two exceptions aside, and they probably won’t be replaced when they retire). So this part of the article appears misleading, at best.