As bishops from the worldwide Anglican Communion sever links with England’s first female Archbishop of Canterbury, Catholics are being urged to maintain friendly ties while dropping illusions about future reunification. Source: OSV News.
“Whatever the Catholic Church may say officially, restoration of sacramental communion between our churches, sought for so many years, simply isn’t going to happen now,” said Msgr Michael Nazir-Ali, who was one of several Anglican bishops received into the Catholic Church in 2021.
“But the Catholic Church talks to people from all denominations and faiths – and links of friendship and joint action should continue,” he said.
The Pakistan-born priest spoke as dissenting leaders of a Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), formed in 2008, announced a new international council to represent conservative Anglicans following the January 28 confirmation of Archbishop Sarah Mullally as the 106th archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England’s first female to lead the Anglicans.
At a March 3-6 meeting of 347 bishops in Abuja, Nigeria, GAFCON said it had now created a new Global Anglican Council, headed by Rwandan Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, after concluding that current “Instruments of Communion” no longer met Anglican needs.
Leaders of GAFCON, which claims to represent at least half the world’s 85 million Anglicans, spread over 165 countries, withdrew from contacts with the Church of England in October following Archbishop Mullally’s appointment, accusing her of promoting “unbiblical and revisionist teachings” by supporting same-sex blessings and other liberal reforms.
Besides heading the English Church, founded when King Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534, the Archbishop of Canterbury is traditionally recognised as holding first place among primates of the world’s 42 Anglican churches.
Apart from the Global Anglican Council establishment, in a separate March 7 “Abuja Affirmation,” GAFCON said it had long urged “repentance” from Anglican leaders who maintained “the fiction of ‘walking together’,” while failing to “uphold fundamental Anglican doctrine” established during the 16th-century Reformation.
The Catholic Church has not rescinded Pope Leo XIII’s ruling in an 1896 apostolic letter, Apostolicae Curae, that Anglican holy orders are “absolutely null and utterly void”.
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Catholics are urged to be cautious over new Anglican scheme (By Jonathan Luxmoore, OSV News)
