Archbishop to meet Pope on Nov 21: CEN 11.06.09 p 3. November 12, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, Roman Catholic Church.trackback
The Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Benedict XVI are scheduled to meet on Nov 21 at the Vatican, Lambeth Palace has confirmed.
The agenda and itinerary of Dr. Williams’ trip to Rome have not yet been released by the Lambeth Palace press office. However, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ of the Vatican Press office told reporters that Dr. Williams and Pope Benedict would meet on Nov 21 while the archbishop was in Rome to attend a ceremony honouring a deceased cardinal who had worked for Christian unity.
A spokesman for Lambeth Palace told The Church of England Newspaper that Dr. Williams’ trip to Rome had been planned before the Oct 20 announcement by the Vatican of the creation of “Personal Ordinariates” for Anglicans wishing to enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
Speculation of a rift between the Dr. Williams and the Pope over the Vatican’s overture to the Traditional Anglican Communion, and claims that Dr. Williams had been angered by the move, were ill-informed, sources close to Dr. Williams told CEN.
Dr. Williams was told of the proposed “personal ordinariates” two weeks before the public announcement, the source said. What had come as a surprise was the short notice that the announcement would be made on Oct 20. This had prompted some annoyance, CEN’s sources said, but to suggest Dr. Williams was angered by the creation of the ordinariates for Anglicans seeking to enter the Roman Catholic Church was incorrect.
Dr. Williams respects the integrity of those individuals who believe themselves called to be received by the Roman Catholic Church, CEN was told. The political ramifications upon the Church of England of the overture were of secondary interest, the source said, adding that until the proposed Apostolic Constitution was released, detailing what the Vatican would offer disaffected Anglo-Catholics, it would be premature to speculate on the matter.
On Oct 31, the Vatican press office said the final text of the plan would be released shortly and that the “technical work” on the document “will be completed by the end of the first week of November.”
Fr. Lombardi also denied reports published in an Italian newspaper that infighting in the Vatican over clerical celibacy was delaying publication of the document.
He released a statement from Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying there was “no substance to such speculation” and that the delay was due to “technical” issues of “ensuring consistency in canonical language and references.”
Anglican deacons, priests and bishops would be “accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church.”
“Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy” while the “the admission of married men to the order of presbyter” would be made on a “case by case basis.”
“With regard to future seminarians, it was considered purely speculative whether there might be some cases in which a dispensation from the celibacy rule might be petitioned. For this reason, objective criteria about any such possibilities (e.g. married seminarians already in preparation) are to be developed jointly by the Personal Ordinariate and the Episcopal Conference, and submitted for approval of the Holy See,” Cardinal Levada said.
The creation of the “personal ordinariates” did not represent a rejection of ecumenical relations with Anglicans, the retired Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor said on Oct 29.
In his Richard Stewart Memorial Lecture entitled “ARCIC: Dead in the Water or Money in the Bank?” delivered at Worth Abbey, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor said he wanted to “emphasize that this response of Pope Benedict is no reflection or comment on the Anglican Communion as a whole or of our ongoing ecumenical relationship with them,”
However, the “repeated requests by many Anglicans, not only from England but from other provinces of the Anglican Communion” prompted the response, which should not be seen as “unecumenical but rather as a generous response to people who have been knocking at the door for a long time,” he said.
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