Cardinal's warning over Anglican disunity

Saturday, 17th May 2008
by George Conger

THE ANGLICAN Communion’s divisions over doctrine and discipline are a hindrance to Christian unity, a top Vatican official said last week. In an interview with the Catholic Herald, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity, urged Anglicans to put their house in order.

The Roman Catholic Church would “work and pray” for clarity from the Anglican Communion on the divisive issues of doctrine and discipline that were dividing the church, he said. He urged this summer’s Lambeth Conference, where he will address the gathered bishops, to settle its disputes over homosexuality as it was “not sustainable to keep pushing decision-making back because it only extends the crisis.”

Cardinal Kasper said the divisions within Anglicanism were theological and structural. “It is a question of the identity of the Anglican Church. Where does it belong?”

"Does it belong more to the churches of the first millennium -- Catholic and Orthodox -- or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century? At the moment it is somewhere in between, but it must clarify its identity now and that will not be possible without certain difficult decisions,” he said. the rest image