Rome's plans for the Anglicans

"I've been trying to make sense of all this, and this is what I've come up with. I reckon there are broadly three Catholic responses to the crisis in the Anglican Communion."

LONDON (Catholic Online) - Damian Thompson summarizes the three visits from three different Catholic Cardinals to the Lambeth Conference. Using the content of their interventions he recently opined concerning the differing options for the current state of affairs in the Church of England:

"The presence of three cardinals at the Lambeth Conference has not attracted the attention it deserves. Rome is keeping its cards close to its chest with regards to the Anglican Communion. But something is going on, and the future shape of the Church of England may depend on it.

We can, perhaps, discount the presence of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor at Lambeth. He's an old-style, glad-handing ecumenist, still wedded to the vision of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), whose proceedings ran into the ground about 15 years ago. One of these days, someone is going to have to break the news to Cormac.

Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for Evangelisation, is made of sterner (not to say ruder) stuff. He told the Lambeth bishops that they were in danger of suffering from spiritual Alzheimer's and ecclesial Parkinson's. That is the sort of language that plays well with spiky Anglo-Catholics who have given up on the C of E and are hoping to transfer as soon as possible to the Catholic Church.

The surprise came from Kasper, the Vatican's head of ecumenism, who is German but not a close ally of the Pope. He said yesterday that the decision to ordain women bishops had closed the door on any hope of Rome recognising Anglican orders. He also spoke cryptically of his hopes that a "new Oxford movement" would arise within Anglicanism, based on a true understanding of the priesthood and sacraments.

To add to the confusion, during the week a letter was published from Cardinal Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), Anglo-Catholic sectarians who broke away from mainstream Anglicanism in the 1970s and now want to be received into full communion with the Pope en masse. Levada's letter said the plan for corporate renunion was still on traack - but that it would have to take account of the "more complex" situation within the Anglican Communion.

I've been trying to make sense of all this, and this is what I've come up with. I reckon there are broadly three Catholic responses to the crisis in the Anglican Communion:

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1. The Tabletista option: carry on as if nothing has happened. This is the line favoured by the more myopic liberal English Catholic bishops. Remember: some bishops, and most liberal Catholic priests and lay people, don't have a problem with women priests. (Right off the top of my head, I could give the Vatican the phone numbers of three RC bishops who secretly cheered on the Anglicans when they voted to ordain women.) Naturally, the pro-priestess Catholics want ecumenical dialogue to continue undisturbed. And so do some of the other bishops, who - although they don't support women clergy themselves - would much rather talk to a nice, Tablet-reading Anglican liberal bishop than a traditionalist in a fiddleback. ("Bishop Tom, I hear you're ordaining kitchen chairs these days. Now, that's not part of our heritage, but let's have a mutually enriching dialogue about it anyway. Can I top that up for you?")

2. The Kasper option: Before the Synod vote for women bishops, Cardinal Kasper behaved like a head-in-the-sand liberal who thought things just might turn out OK in the end; he was sniffy about the TAC and flying bishops wanting corporate reunion with Rome - not least because negotiations had been entrusted to his rivals at the CDF. He seemed to take the Tabletista line that Anglican unity was more important than fragmentary reunion. At Lambeth, he changed his tune. My guess (and it's no more than that) is that Kasper's "new Oxford movement" is supposed to gather together mildly liberal Anglican Catholics who - having thought again about women priests - are prepared to get back on the slow, jargon-strewn road to ever-closer union.

3. The Roman option: This is the way of the future - the corporate reception of Anglo-Catholics, employing one of many possible juridical structures to enable them to preserve aspects of Anglican spirituality. This, I think, is what Pope Benedict wants; but - as with the liberation of the traditional Mass - it's hard to see how he can push through this plan without breaking up the magic circle of the Conrys, Hollises et al. "We'll take our time over receiving the Anglicans this time," an English archbishop told a priest recently. And they will, too, given half the chance, just as they will over the Motu Proprio. Ad multos annos, Holy Father. But, just in case, could we get a move on?"

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