Jul 30, 2008 / 18:10 pm
The Anglican Representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Holy See, the Very Reverend David Richardson, has commented on Catholic pleas for unity within the Anglican Communion, saying such actions are a positive reminder of God’s desire for the unity of the church.
Pope Benedict XVI, during his visit to Australia for World Youth Day, urged the Anglican Church to avoid schism, while Cardinal Ivan Dias, head of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, warned in a speech to the Lambeth Conference that disunity poses dangers to evangelism.
Rev. Richardson, who also directs the Anglican Center in Rome, said such comments show the Catholic Church has “a lot of investment” in the unity of the Anglican Church. “The last thing they want to see is a church structurally split,” he explained, speaking in an interview posted on the Lambeth Conference website.
From the point of view of the Catholic Church, he thought, schism is “a really much more serious issue than the discipline or moral theological issues with which we’re wrestling.”