THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: With the restoration of traditional Anglicanism, comes a renewed opportunity for ecumenical talks with Rome. Previously, the Vatican warned Anglican bishops that they risk creating an insurmountable obstacle to dialog with the adoption of liberal policies toward female clergy and approval of homosexuality. Now with the emerging power-shift within the Anglican Communion putting control of the organization in the hands of traditionalists in Africa and Asia, the possibility of further talks with Rome becomes a reality again.
The Catholic Church has already established an "Anglican Use Pastoral Provision" for Anglo-Catholics who left the Episcopal Church USA after the first round of liberal revisionism in the late 1970s. Disaffected Episcopalians still have the opportunity to enter the Catholic Church, under this provision. Speculation has it that this is a trial run, a 'test tube' or 'incubator' if you will, of which may eventually emerge a full-fledged Anglican Rite within the Catholic Church sometime in the future.
2 comments:
The important thing to remember is that the Anglicans who met in Jerusalem are by and large evangelical Anglicans who are far closer to protestantism than Catholicism.
Indeed Jacob, you are right. A good number of those who met at GAFCON were Evangelical in character.
However, I think that plays into this picture even better than if they had been high-church Anglo-Catholics.
I believe what we are witnessing here is the birth pains of an Anglican Rite within the Catholic Church, coupled with a total reorganization of the Anglican Communion.
One possible result of this crisis is the the creation of an Anglican Rite in the Catholic Church some time in the near future. Should that happen, I would expect to see a mass exodus of high-church Anglo-Catholics to the Roman Catholic Church, along with many Anglican priests and bishops.
This would leave the Evangelicals behind to battle it out with the Liberals in the Anglican Communion. That is a battle I am absolutely sure the Evangelicals will win one way or another, either by wrestling control of the Communion away from Canterbury, or else going into full schism and "cutting off the right hand that causes them to sin" in the western world.
Whatever the case, I see these events as truly historic on a large scale, which is why I've spent so much time covering them. Make no mistake about it, the Anglican Communion is dead. But it didn't die at GAFCON. It died in 2003, when an openly homosexual adulterer was consecrated a bishop by the ECUSA, and the Archbishop of Canterbury did NOTHING in response. His negligence was the final nail in the coffin. What we are all witnessing right now is not the death of the Anglican Communion, but rather the rebirth of it, as something entirely new and different than what it once was. Naturally, there will be resistance to change, but what those who resist don't realize is that the change already happened five years ago. Now they're just dealing with the consequences. Trying to stop the bishops of GAFCON is like trying to stop a baby from being born after the mother is already in hard labor. One way or another, that baby is going to come out, and if you're not ready for it, the joke is on you.
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