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LONDON: Pope's decree leaves Archbishop's hopes in ruins
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs
The Telegraph
http://tinyurl.com/yh2coww
October 20, 2009
You've got to feel sorry for Rowan Williams.
If he's not trying to prevent the Anglican Communion from splitting over gay bishops, it's traditionalists warning they'll leave the Church of England when women bishops are introduced.
And now, just when things seemed to be starting to calm down, the Pope has only gone and offered to accept these traditionalists into the Catholic Church. Talk about a slap around the face.
But the archbishop seems not to have seen this coming. In a letter to Anglican bishops that Damian Thompson has posted on his blog, he makes it clear that he only learned of the announcement at "a very late stage".
When I broke the initial story last July that talks were already taking place, it would be putting it mildly to suggest that the Lambeth Palace press office was rather upset. They claimed I'd made it up and said that the archbishop had asked the Vatican if any such meetings were taken place and had been told they hadn't.
I imagine he's livid at the way that this has been foisted on him, but it comes after the Anglican Communion and Church of England have taken a series of decisions that have left the Catholic Church fuming. Obviously, patience has worn thin.
Interestingly, the archbishop says that "this new possibility is in no sense at all intended to undermine existing relations between our two communions or to be an act of proselytims or aggressions".
He is either putting on a brave face for the sake of Anglican pride, being incredibly naive or had this part dictated to him by somebody in Rome. For there is no way that this won't undermine the archbishop's position and weaken the Church of England.
Pope Benedict XVI has thrown a hand-grenade into the CofE, and it will potentially obliterate Archbishop Rowan's hopes of maintaining unity in the Church. He has been at pains to try and find a way of keeping Anglo-Catholics in the Church, but now that power has been removed from him with this formal offer from Rome. Years of protracted negotiations over how to keep traditionalists in the Chuch could effectively be rendered meaningless by today's announcement.
Supporters of women bishops should be happy at least. If the traditionalists all decide to leave for Rome, there will be very few left to object to women being fully included in the Church. Indeed, the Church that's left is likely to be increasingly polarised between the liberals and evangelicals.
I also wonder whether the Catholic Church in England and Wales will be rather relieved at the prospect of an influx of priests. Is it too cynical to suspect that the Pope's decree is not just an act of generosity in opening the door to disaffected Anglicans, but also one way of dealing with the shortage of priests in this country? I suggest not.
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