ENGLAND: ROMAN CATHOLICS ISSUE WARNING TO EAMES

Church of England Newspaper

A right of appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury may be needed to resolve disputes in the Anglican Communion, argue a group of Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders in a submission to the Lambeth Commission led by Archbishop Robin Eames.

The submission by a sub-commission of the Inter Anglican and Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission, claims that the crisis represented by the consecration of a practising homosexual bishop in the United States could seriously damage relationships between the two Churches.

They argue that the current situation suggests the need to strengthen the role of Archbishop of Canterbury and the 'focal role of the Primates within provinces.'

"These would be important developments during this interim period as we continue to work towards full visible unity between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church."

The sub-commission said that despite disagreements Anglicans and Roman Catholics derived from scripture and tradition the same controlling vision of the nature of humanity and shared the same fundamental moral values. The New Hampshire consecration, they said, had prompted them to question whether the Churches of the Anglican Communion can sustain the same teaching in practice.

In the talk of impaired and broken communion that had arisen from the crisis, they questioned whether the damage of the consecration could be "acceptable to those who profess belief in one holy, catholic and apostolic church."

Furthermore, they contend that the consecration has weakened "constitutive elements of communion – the unity of the episcopate, the authority of scripture and its interplay with tradition and the holding of 'the same basic moral values'."

They ask: "How can a bishop whose ordination made him a cause of controversy… represent the local community in the councils of the Church? How can he mediate the unity of the universal Church to his diocese when he is at odds with large segments of the universal church, the latter arguing that he has departed from the moral teaching of the apostolic faith?"

The hard-hitting submission suggests that the crisis damages the communion of the diocese of New Hampshire with all the Churches in the Anglican Communion.

A statement from last week's meeting of the Lambeth Commission simply called its talks 'constructive'. The leadership of the Episcopal Church in the USA and the leadership of the Anglican Communion network both made submissions to the Commission.

But the most hard-hitting one of all by Archbishop Drexel Gomez forcefully argued that the New Hampshire consecration was invalid.

In comments reported in a new book on the homosexuality debate in the Anglican Communion by Guardian reporter Stephen Bates, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested that once the dust had settled outside mediation might be necessary to reconcile the Anglican Communion.

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