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ANGLICANS-ROME (UPDATED) May-8-2008 (690 words) With photo posted May 5. xxxi
Anglican primate, pope discuss ecumenism, U.S. visit, Muslim dialogue
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Two months before opening the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference, the Anglican primate was in Rome to commission his new representative to the Vatican, to meet privately with Pope Benedict XVI and to convene a Christian-Muslim dialogue.
Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Communion, said his May 5 meeting with Pope Benedict "was a friendly and informal meeting in which we discussed a number of ecumenical issues, some of the pope's impressions from his American visit and common issues in Christian-Muslim dialogue."
As the ordination of openly gay clerics, the blessing of gay unions and the ordination of women bishops in some Anglican provinces threatens to split the Anglican Communion, the July 16-Aug. 3 Lambeth Conference will bring Anglican bishops together to discuss structures and procedures for ensuring unity.
Pope Benedict and Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's chief ecumenist, have expressed their hopes that the communion can remain united, but have said unity must be based on fidelity to the Scriptures and tradition, including moral issues.
In an interview with Vatican Radio before meeting the pope, Archbishop Williams said, "I hope to bring him up to date on our plans about the Lambeth Conference."
The archbishop was asked if the installation of the Rev. David Richardson as his representative to the Vatican and head of the Anglican Center in Rome was coming in "perhaps the most difficult phase" of modern Catholic-Anglican relations.
"I think that in terms of the conflicts within the Anglican Communion, yes, it's an unprecedentedly difficult time -- no two ways about that," the archbishop said.
But "tremendously deep foundations have been laid of personal trust and confidence," which should allow an honest discussion to continue with Vatican officials, he said.
During a May 7 evening prayer service, Archbishop Williams formally installed Rev. Richardson, the former dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia, and told him he was called to give witness to God's generosity.
The clearest sign of belonging to the one body of Christ is not "to feel warmly and fairly friendly toward one another," but to love each other as Christ loved, giving selflessly and serving others.
The questions those involved in ecumenism must ask, the archbishop said, are: "Where is cross-shaped, Christ-like love? And how do we, following the cross of Christ, put what is good for us at the service of each other?"
"How else is the ecumenical task taken forward except by the willingness of people in all the confessions of Christendom to speak of the generosity of God," he said.
"We have, God knows, many centuries behind us of ungenerous attitudes toward one another, suspicious, fearful, exclusive. We have begun to grow together simply because we have begun to grow in awareness of the overflowing generosity on which the whole church rests," Archbishop Williams said.
Cardinal Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, welcomed Rev. Richardson during the service, saying that when formal Roman Catholic-Anglican relations were established in 1966, church leaders "acknowledged that it wouldn't be easy."
"We have come many steps forward in our relations," he said, "and sometimes also a step or two back," but as Christians all of us must "recommit ourselves to be artisans of reconciliation, instruments of the unity which the Holy Spirit is bringing about in our midst."
Speaking to Catholic News Service and Vatican Radio after the service, Cardinal Kasper said the Vatican is praying for the unity of the Anglican Communion and offering its assistance "because we are not interested in new factions, new divisions -- this is not helpful."
The cardinal said that some local autonomy is a good thing, "but it must be linked with solidarity and commonality between the provinces (of the church) on a universal level. This is now the project of the archbishop of Canterbury -- to strengthen the bonds of universal communion."
Archbishop Williams' trip to Rome was planned around the seventh Building Bridges Seminar, a meeting of Christian and Muslim experts from around the world, which the archbishop convoked to promote dialogue.
END
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