News : Archbishop Presses Ecumenical Questions at Conference in Rome

Notes: "The Archbishop of Canterbury asked Nov. 19 [2009] whether the differences between Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism are sufficient to prevent Rome's deeper recognition of Anglican orders. The Most Rev. Rowan Williams spoke at the Gregorian University at a conference in honour of the late ecumenical leader Johannes Cardinal Willebrands. The 'ecumenical glass is genuinely half-full,' the archbishop said. 'For many of us who are not Roman Catholics, the question we want to put, in a grateful and fraternal spirit, is whether this unfinished business is as fundamentally church-dividing as our Roman Catholic friends generally assume and maintain'. .... Citing a sermon that Cardinal Willebrands delivered in Cambridge in 1970, the archbishop described a theory of primacy as a 'community of communities' and a 'communion of communions'." "Archbishop also offered a brief critique of the Vatican's apostolic constitution that will allow sojourning Anglicans to become Roman Catholics while retaining aspects of their Anglican heritage". "The archbishop devoted nearly a quarter of his address to women's ordination".

Subjects: Williams, Rowan D. (Rowan Douglas), 1950-; Anglican Communion - Relations - Catholic Church; Catholic Church - Relations - Anglican Communion; Anglican Covenant; Ecumenical movement - Anglican Communion - 21st century; Ecumenical movement - Catholic Church - 21st century; Anglican orders; Papacy and Christian union; Ordination of women and Christian union; Willebrands, Johannes Gerardus Maria, 1909-2006; Catholic Church. Pope (2005-2013 : Benedict XVI); Anglicanorum coetibus (9 November 2009)