Gay row risks Catholic links, says Williams

[emad]

THE Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday that a warning by the Pope about homosexual clergy would “weigh very heavily” with Anglicans and that the issue risked doing severe damage to four decades of progress in Anglican-Roman Catholic relations.
Dr Rowan Williams, who completed an historic visit to the Vatican yesterday, said that he would convey his concerns about relations between the two churches at a meeting of Anglican primates next week.

The primates are to meet at Lambeth Palace to debate the rift in the Anglican Communion over gay bishops. The Vatican, increasingly in the hands of doctrinal hardliners as the Pope’s health declines, recently declared homosexuality to be “evil” and “intrinsically disordered”.

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More:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-843251,00.html


"evil" and "intrinsically disordered" is interesting terminology, given the number of gay employees within the Vatican itself......

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Pope shows he's human

"Yesterday, however, the Pope appeared alert when presiding over a two-hour Mass at St Peter’s to canonise three priests — an Italian, a German and an Austrian — who served as missionaries in Africa and China. The pontiff clearly enjoyed a display of dancing and singing by African women in leopard-skin tribal costumes — a deliberate rebuff, perhaps, to a recently leaked draft document drawn up by Vatican conservatives banning singing and dancing in the liturgy"

or a bit of support for heterosexuality?

Seriously, it seems to me to be the Anglican hierarchy who are concerned with closer ties to the Roman Catholics, and not the ordinary members. They're quite happy with an established church, which gives it a nice feeling of stability, without getting endless pronouncements on exactly how to live your life (they don't call it 'pontificating' for nothing). I think the average Anglican (I grew up as one) is more interested in closer ties to the gay community, since they're the people they live and work with.

[Rowdyboy]

2. Good analysis, Muriel

I'm an Episcopalian and there is exactly zero interest in my church in "reconciliation" with the Catholic church. I don't want a pope telling me I'm evil (I'm gay) and, should the churches merge, I would leave. Even in rural Mississippi, my little church has made my partner and me welcome. "Frozen Chosen" indeed! These are some of the finest people I've ever known...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Another Episcopalian reporting in

All the Episcopal churches I have been associated with (since 1973) have been gay-friendly (and just plain friendly), and none of them have been pining for union with Rome, even though they are typically on friendly terms with the local Catholics.

But the friendly terms are usually limited to working together on charitable projects or having joint services that don't involve a Eucharist, not on dictating doctrines to each other.