Church in the World

Women bishops block the path to unity, Kasper tells Anglicans

ANY HOPE of the Catholic Church recognising Anglican religious orders have been dashed by the consecration of women bishops, the head of the Vatican's office for relations with other Christians told Anglican bishops attending the 10-yearly Lambeth Conference.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said he wanted to be "clear about the new situation in our ecumenical relations", and said: "The ordination of women to the episcopate effectively and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican orders by the Catholic Church." The Anglican bishops were unsurprised by the cardinal's words and acknowledged in their final document that other Churches were "bewildered by apparent Anglican inconsistency". Disappointed by the fruits of formal dialogue with Rome, the bishops suggested in their document of reflections from the conference that "the future of ecumenism should be from the bottom up, not the top down. However, whatever we do at local level must accord with dialogue at the top."

In 1896 Pope Leo XI issued a bull, "Apostolicae Curae", which declared Anglican orders "absolutely null and utterly void". Since 1966 ecumenical dialogue has sought to move forward from that statement. But Cardinal Kasper said that hope of "full, visible communion" had receded and dialogue was compromised now that 16 provinces, including the Church of England, had voted for legislation for women bishops. "The Catholic Church must now take account of the reality that the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate is ...  increasingly the stance of the Communion," said the cardinal.

Speaking in a closed session to more than 100 bishops, he spoke of his wish for dialogue to continue between the Churches, but he added: "It would not be sustained by the dynamism which arises from the realistic possibility of the unity Christ asks of us."

During the conference at the University of Kent campus in Canterbury, the cardinal worshipped with the bishops, studied the Bible with them and played an active role in their listening groups. He spoke with warmth and concern for the future of the Communion, calling on the bishops to "retrieve the strength of the Church of the Fathers" and revive the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement of the nineteenth century.

He also dived into the schismatic debate about homosexuality, calling on the bishops to issue a clear statement as they did in 1998 with the Windsor Report, saying homosexual activity is contrary to the Bible. He said it would "greatly strengthen the possibility of us giving common witness regarding human sexuality and marriage".

The Bishop of Guildford, Christopher Hill, responded to the cardinal's address and thanked him for his "critical friendship" and for his transparency about the problems in dialogue. While agreeing that a new Oxford Movement was a "laudable" suggestion, Bishop Hill said a return to the conciliar tradition of the Middle Ages would be less divisive.

On the last day of the conference the cardinal preached on what the Catholic Church could learn from the Lambeth Conference and the way the Anglicans debate, listen to each other and produce decisions that come from within and are not imposed from above.