Don’t blame us, says Vatican: CEN 11.20.09 p 7.

It is not the Vatican’s fault that ecumenical relations with the Anglican Communion have soured, Cardinal Walter Kasper has declared. The Anglican Communion’s civil wars over women and gay bishops are the primary obstacles to Catholic-Anglican ecumenical dialogue Cardinal Kasper said in an interview published in L’Osservatore Romano.

Cardinal Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said in an article published on Nov 15 in the Vatican’s official daily newspaper that ecumenical relations between the Vatican and the Anglican Communion would not be harmed by Anglicanorum Coetibus, the apostolic constitution for Anglicans seeking to join the Catholic Church.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams’ Nov. 19-22 visit to Rome “demonstrates that there has been no rupture and reaffirms our common desire to talk to one another at a historically important moment,” he said.

Cardinal Kasper said Dr. Williams telephoned him for an explanation before the constitution was announced. “We talked about the meaning of the new apostolic constitution, and I reassured him about the continuation of our direct dialogue, as indicated by the Second Vatican Council and as the Pope desires.”

Dr. Williams “has maintained a balanced attitude since he was informed” of the constitution. “Our personal relations are friendly and transparent. He is a man of spirituality, a theologian.”

The obstacles to ecumenical dialogue come from the internal tensions in the Anglican world, Cardinal Kasper said. (“In realtà oggi gli unici ostacoli al dialogo ecumenico possono venire dalle tensioni interne al mondo anglicano.”)

“A group of Anglicans asked freely and legitimately to enter the Catholic Church,” he noted. “It was not our own initiative. They turned first to our council, and as president I replied that it is the competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

He stated that his office had not been directly involved in the creation of the constitution, but had seen the document before its release and had offered its views. The impetus for the constitution had arisen from Vatican II and the “direct dialogue” with the Anglican Communion that followed.

Cardinal Kasper said we “certainly cannot oppose if an Anglican or a group of Anglicans wants to enter into full and visible communion with the Catholic Church. The Pope opened the door with kindness. He showed a road. He offered a real possibility that certainly is not opposed to ecumenism.”

“To think, as some commentators have, that the Pope made this decision because he only wants to ‘enlarge his empire’ is ridiculous,” he said.

The practical implementation of the constitution were unclear he said. “First we need to know specifically who and how many Anglicans are determined to seize this opportunity.”

The Catholic Church will examine each group seeking reunion on a “case by case basis,” he said. “You cannot only be a Catholic because you are in disagreement with the choices of your own confession.”

In the wake of Vatican II there had been “great hopes” of closer relations and reunion between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, but the ordination of women first to the priesthood, then to the episcopate, the consecration of a homosexual bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions had caused “serious inner tensions” within the Anglican world and also “widened the ditch” between Catholics and Anglicans.

These criticisms of Anglicanism’s liberal drift were not unique to the Catholic Church, he added, as the Evangelical wing of the communion was also opposed to these innovations. However, Cardinal Kasper said he expected Evangelicals to reject the invitation to become Roman Catholics.

Both liberals and evangelicals in North America have rejected the constitution. In his address to the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC)—the Canadian wing of the Anglican Church in North America, Bishop Don Harvey said he found the Vatican’s offer “offensive in the extreme.”

“Apart from being an intrusion at the very highest levels of one major church into the internal affairs of another, under the guise of being ecumenical, this invitation offers very little that is new,” Bishop Harvey said on Nov 12.

The Episcopal Church’s ecumenical officer, Bishop C. Christopher Epting on Nov 16 observed the constitution “be understood as ‘pastoral’ but is not necessarily very ecumenical.”

“This is ‘come home to Rome’ with absolute clarity,” Bishop Epting said and “flies in the face of the slow, but steady progress made in the real ecumenical dialogue of over forty years.”