Cardinal Defends Pope's Offer to Anglicans

Catholic Herald Reports
Speaking for the first time in public about the decree last week, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor gave an ecumenical lecture at Worth Abbey, where he stressed that Pope Benedict's response was not a "reflection or comment on the Anglican Communion as a whole or of our ongoing ecumenical relationship with them".

The cardinal explained that the new structure proposed in the Apostolic Constitution had been put forward in the 1990s after the Church of England General Synod decided that it was possible to ordain women to the priesthood.

At the time, Cardinal Basil Hume, Bishop Alan Clark of East Anglia, then Bishop Vincent Nichols and Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor were responsible for the talks with Forward in Faith. Pope Benedict, who was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the time, was also involved in the talks.

In his speech Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said that "for the Anglicans who wished to come into full communion with the Church a provision such as the Personal Ordinariates might have been very helpful at the time".

But he said the structure was rejected for two reasons.

He said: "The first is that in 1993-94 we bishops were dealing solely with clergy of the Church of England, and any such response as is now given by the Holy See would naturally have had to be offered to the whole of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion. It did not seem within our remit to engage in such a response.

"The other reason, however, was even more important. If the Holy See had offered such Personal Ordinariates then, and in particular here in England, it might well have been seen as an un-ecumenical approach by the Holy See, as if wanting to put out the net as far as one could."

But he said that the establishment of Ordinariates was not unecumenical today.

During his talk the cardinal also stressed that ecumenical dialogue was not "dead in the water".

After more than 40 years of official Anglican-Catholic dialogue, he said, "some of the classic disputes at the root of our painful divisions have today been basically resolved through a new consensus of fundamental doctrine".

Meanwhile the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Fatih denied rumours that the Apostolic Constitution regarding the Anglican provision has been delayed because of a heated debate over priestly celibacy.

Cardinal William Levada denied reports by Andrea Tornielli, a leading Vatican observer, that the document was delayed because Curial officials were still debating whether a personal ordinariate could put forward married seminarians for ordination -_a move which some observers believe could loosen the western Church's celibacy rules.

He said: "Had I been asked I would happily have clarified any doubt about my remarks at the press conference. There is no substance to such speculation. No one at the Vatican has mentioned any such issue to me. The delay is purely technical in the sense of ensuring consistency in canonical language and references."

According to Cardinal Levada, the rules for celibacy within the Anglican provision were outlined in draft versions of the Apostolic Constitution prepared before the announcement in October. Married men in Anglican orders could be ordained as priests but only celibate men would be put forward for the priesthood within an ordinariate as a rule.

But the cardinal did not rule out the admission of married men on a case-by-case basis.

He said: "This article is to be understood as consistent with the current practice of the Church, in which married former Anglican ministers may be admitted to priestly ministry in the Church on a case-by-case basis."