Cardinal to Anglicans: Church Teaching Is Scriptural
(July 31, 2008) The Episcopal ordination of women will mean a "step backward" for
dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans, warned Cardinal Walter Kasper at the Anglican
Communion's Lambeth Conference. The president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity addressed today the once-a-decade gathering of Anglican leaders, under
way in England through this weekend. L'Osservatore Romano published an Italian-language
transcript of his address, which began with an assurance of the spiritual closeness
of Pope Benedict XVI. "I know that many of you are worried, some deeply worried, by
the threat of fragmentation at the heart of the Anglican Communion," the cardinal
said. "We are profoundly in solidarity with you. "Our great desire is that the Anglican
Communion be united, rooted in this historical faith, which our dialogue and relationships,
over the course of four decades, have brought us to believe is widely shared." Cardinal
Kasper directly addressed the two issues namely, the ordination of homosexuals and
the blessing of same-sex marriages, and the ordination of women. He assured his listeners
that the Catholic Church believes its position on both issues is deeply rooted in
sacred Scripture. Regarding the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate,
the Vatican official affirmed: "I have to be clear concerning the new situation that
has been created in our ecumenical relations. If our dialogue has produced a significant
accord on the idea of the priesthood, the ordination of women to the episcopate substantially
and definitively blocks a possible recognition of Anglican orders by the Catholic
Church." The cardinal recalled Church teaching that the practice of ordaining only
men comes directly from Christ, and the Church is not in a position to change it.