Gay row ‘harming talks with Vatican’
Monday, 10th December 2007
By: George Conger.

THE ANGLICAN Communion’s divisions over sexual ethics have harmed its ecumenical dialogue with Rome, the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has claimed.

Speaking to the Pope and 123 cardinals in a private meeting at the Vatican on Nov 23, Cardinal Walter Kasper said that while relations with the Orthodox and some Evangelical groups were improving, talks with the Anglicans had stalled. “What we held to be our common heritage has begun to melt here and there like the glaciers in the Alps.”

Cardinal Kasper’s address, published in L’Osservatore Romano, noted that recent years had seen openness to dialogue with Rome from the ‘ecclesial Communities born from the Reformation.’

“A certain agreement has been reached in the realm of the truths of faith and in many places, there is fruitful collaboration in the social and humanitarian sphere.” This was characterized by ‘mutual trust and friendship,’ motivated by a ‘profound desire for unity.’ the rest