Internal division doesn’t help ecumenism: Prefect

Addressing a commemoration in Belgium last month of the Malines Conversations between Catholics and Anglicans, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Kurt Koch, noted the growing divisions within the Anglican communion.

Cardinal Koch recalled comments by his predecessor Cardinal Walter Kasper at the Lambeth Conference in 2008, about divisions within the Anglican Communion over questions regarding the presbyteral and episcopal ordination of women and over questions of human sexuality.

Cardinal Kasper noted the looming threat of fragmentation within the Anglican Communion, Cardinal Koch said.

“We know well that divisions within Anglicanism have become even more pronounced in the intervening period,” Cardinal Koch continued.

“The next Lambeth Conference did not take place until fourteen years later. On that occasion, many bishops did not attend, and even some of those who did attend abstained from the Eucharist. There is currently much talk of realignment and resetting within Anglicanism.”

Cardinal Koch said “some member churches of the Anglican Communion no longer recognise any leadership role at all for Canterbury. For us in the Catholic Church, this causes both confusion and sadness”.

“Such profound division within individual communions makes reconciliation between separated communions and churches much more complicated to achieve,” he said.

“In our weariness, we could be tempted to abandon theological dialogue altogether, and to seek only good relationships and practical cooperation. When confronted by such temptations, we need to recall that our divisions are scandalous counter-signs and so redouble our efforts to transcend them. Above all, we need to intensify our prayer.”

Cardinal Koch said that “praying for unity reminds us that the ecumenical endeavour is above all a spiritual task, carried out in the conviction that it is the Holy Spirit who has begun the ecumenical work and that the same Spirit will also complete it and show us the way”. 

Cardinal Koch’s comments were made before the announcement of the appointment of Bishop Dame Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury.

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Address from Cardinal Koch for the 100th anniversary of the Malines Conversations (Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity)