The above statement and the actions it describes have generated much recent discussion. While most of the reaction has been positive, some have asked, "Why don't the members of the TAC just all become Roman Catholics?" Others have expressed the viewpoint, in one way or another, that there are essential differences between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism, implying that the TAC's action demonstrates either that its people were not "real Anglicans" in the first place, or that its bishops have somehow betrayed their Anglican heritage by reaching out to the Holy See.

A recap of some events of the last 50 years seems to be in order. In the first place, Anglican-Roman unity is not a new scheme cooked up by the TAC. Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher visited Pope John XXIII in Rome in 1960, and among the topics discussed was unity between Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church. A short time after that meeting, Pope John wrote: "A new hope arises that those who rejoice in the name of Christians, but are nevertheless separated from this apostolic see, may be able to make their way into the one Church of Christ ... to seek and to follow that unity which Jesus Christ implored from his Heavenly Father with such fervent prayers."

In 1966, Archbishop Fisher's successor Michael Ramsey had an official visit with Pope Paul VI. At the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls, after both had signed a Joint Declaration intended to begin a dialogue leading to full communion between the Anglican Communion and the See of Rome, Pope Paul removed his ring and placed it on Canterbury's finger as a symbol of the unity they both sought, the Pope using the phrases "our dear sister church" and "united but not absorbed."

Two years later, the 1968 Lambeth Conference endorsed the Archbishop's approach to the Holy See and the proposed work of the newly formed Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission. Influenced by the Vatican II doctrine of episcopal collegiality, the Lambeth Conference further proposed a re-examination of the question of papal authority by all concerned with the unity of the Body of Christ.

In 1970, in his homily at the Canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, Pope Paul said of the Anglican-Roman unity he anticipated, "There will be no seeking to lessen the prestige and usage proper to the Anglican Church."

All of these events took place more than 35 years ago. Had the Anglican Communion not subsequently run off the rails, it is entirely plausible that the unity sought now by the TAC would have been established between Canterbury and Rome a generation ago. Progress toward that unity came to a halt, not because the Anglicans decided it was wrong, but because their journey into revisionism, begun in the early 1970's, destroyed all possibility of coming together.

The foregoing raises an interesting question for the TAC's current critics. Where would they be now if the Anglican Communion had not come unraveled, and the vision shared by both sides in the 1960's had come to fruition? Would they have cried "foul" and broken with Canterbury , claiming that "real Anglicans" must ever be separate from Rome? One can only wonder.

---The Rt. Rev. George Langberg is a Bishop with the Anglican Church in America, Diocese of the Northeast