Pope plans recruitment drive among disaffected Anglicans
THE Sunday Times (London) reports that Pope Benedict XVI who is this week meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury, is drawing up plans to welcome disaffected Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church.
The report says that the Pope is keen to reach out to conservative Anglicans who have been antagonised by their church's stance on women priests and homosexuality.
It is understood that Fr Joseph Augustine di Noia, undersecretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the most powerful of the Vatican's departments, has led a team analysing the current schism in the Anglican world.
John Myers, the Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, who has been involved in supporting former Anglicans who have converted to [Roman] Catholicism, has been helping Fr. di Noia with his recruitment dossier. He travelled to Rome last month to suggest ways of appealing to Anglicans.
The Pope's enthusiasm for bringing traditional Anglicans into the fold was expressed powerfully three years ago when as Cardinal Ratzinger he sent greetings to a group of conservative churchmen meeting in Texas in protest at the election of Robinson.
The Sunday Times report says that while the Pope is keen to welcome any conservative Anglicans, he is also keen to forge good relations with Williams. "The Vatican will do nothing to undermine Williams at such a precarious moment in Anglican history," one source said.
[Messenger Journal Editor's note:
Rome recognizes that the TAC is out there and has no connexion with the Canterbury Connexion whatsoever (except through Forward in Faith - United Kingdom.)
So many of the other 'orthodox' extra-mural Anglicans are connected with African Bishops who ordain women, surely a stumbling block?]
