Anglican, Roman Catholic theologians host informal dialogue in England

[hrmjustin]

http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2014/04/anglican,-roman-catholic-theologians-host-informal-dialogue-in-england.aspx

[rug]

1. That's interesting. The biggest obstacle will be the validity of Orders.

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13curae.htm

http://anglicanhistory.org/orders/saepius.pdf

I like how the English bishops responded in better Latin.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

2. You are absolutely right, Rug

I should mention that Pope Benedict XVI muddied those waters when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In 1998, Pope John Paul II issued a motu proprio (essentially, a personal memo from the Pope), Ad Tuendam Fidem ("To Protect the Faith&quot , which set up a class of "definitive" teachings, which, while they do not meet the de jurestandard for infallible teachings as set up in section 25 of Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, are to be taken as de facto infallible.

At the same time, the CDF issued a Commentary on Ad Tuendam Fidem over Cardinal Ratzinger's signature. This says in part

With regard to those truths connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but are not able to be declared as divinely revealed, the following examples can be given: the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonizations of saints (dogmatic facts), the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations

.

I would have thought that they could have come up with a different example, instead of that rather blatant "screw you" directed at the Anglicans. But, after all, Ratzinger also was the one who said, in Dominus Iesus,

the ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense

I'm thinking of a bit from the story "Protestant" in Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days. There are two small sects which split over a minute point of doctrine, and someone suggests to the pastor of one congregation that it would be a good thing if the two reunited. The pastor replies, "Any time they want to come to us and admit their mistake, we're perfectly happy to sit and listen to them and then come to a decision about accepting them back." That certainly seems to sum up Benedict XVI's feelings towards the Anglicans.