The right moment

The director of the Vatican press office father Federico Lombardi said in a note that the delay in the publication of the Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans that wish to enter in full communion with the Catholic Church is due to technical reasons and not to supposed disagreements on the question of celibacy as envisioned by some media. The final text is due to be ready by the first week of November, “so as to ensure canonical language compliance”, Father Lombardi underlined. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, former Archbishop of Westminster, addressed many aspects of the long historical process that led the Holy See to issue an Apostolic Constitution in a Lecture held a few days ago in London. The lecture focused on the ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans in the past forty years, in which the Cardinal played a major role. A long story. In his Lecture on the State of Ecumenism the Cardinal spoke of the forthcoming apostolic constitution that provides for a special canonical structure for Anglicans who wish to enter in full communion with the Catholic Church. The response to England Anglican faithful asking to enter in full communion with the Catholic Church was first discussed in 1993/94 by English Catholic leadership, His Eminence said. “Much has been written and spoken about this matter over the past week”, but in the years ’93 to ’94 this solution was not deemed appropriate. At the time, Murphy-O’Connor recalled, cardinal Basil Hume, the bishop of East Anglia Alan Clark, the then auxiliary bishop of Wesminster, now Catholic primate Vincent Nichols and the Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor himself discussed the matter with Cardinal Ratzinger, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, following a request from an Anglo-Catholic group called Forward in Faith. “Indeed – he continued – personal ordinariates for Anglicans wishing to enter in full communion with the Church, could have been of great help in that moment. However, it was finally decided that it would not be appropriate to take this initiative” for two reasons. He said one problem was that in 1993-94 the question was then focused solely on clergy of the Church of England and did not refer to those of other Anglican provinces, and “It did not seem within our remit to engage in such a response”, His Eminence said. The other reason, however, “was even more important”, he said. “If the Holy See had offered such personal ordinariates then, and in particular here in England, it might well have been seen as an unecumenical approach by the Holy See, as if wanting to put out the net as far as one could. Both Pope John Paul (II) and the then-Cardinal Ratzinger would have been against such a move”.”Matters have moved on since then and the repeated requests by many Anglicans, not only from England but from other provinces of the Anglican Communion, have necessitated a new approach, which is why I think that the personal ordinariates offered by the Holy Father can be seen not in any way unecumenical but rather as a generous response to people who have been knocking at the door for a long time,” he said. The state of ecumenism. In his lecture the English Cardinal made a remark on the state of ecumenism between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. Mutual dialogue led to the adoption of documents providing the solution to a series of theological disputes lying “on the path of our painful divisions” the Cardinal said. Despite the achievements, a long and complex path lies ahead, and “the ecumenical movement is called to address serious problems that continue to exist”, His Eminence remarked. It’s important that the Church acknowledges that she is living an in-between phase, he declared. “Full communion is possible only if we make an effort, if we are motivated by hope and if we are aware that this will be fulfilled only in the Kingdom of God. Here on earth the Church will always be a pilgrim Church, dealing with tension and schisms”. The third part of the lecture focused on an appeal. “In this new millennium – His Eminence said – we need renewed ecumenical thrust. “This does not mean devising unrealistic utopias in the future, but rather a living out of the already real communion that exists between us all” and a commitment to do “what is possible today,” he said. Patience is the younger sister of Christian hope and with the help of the Spirit of God it brings new surprises. We must do what Pope John Paul II said on many occasions, Duc in altum , put out into the deep”.