“Let’s put this bluntly..”

As I’ve said before, far be it for me to get in the middle of an argument between supernaturalists.. But it’s interesting to read that, a year after declaring that Protestant (Reformed) churches are not really churches “in the proper sense”, Emperor Constantine Pope Benedict XVI is, according to the Independent, and the Belfast Telegraph, “leading an unprecedented drive by the Roman Catholic Church to prevent the fragmentation of the worldwide Anglican Communion ahead of the once-a-decade gathering of its 800 bishops.” There is a dissenting view to that claim from the editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald, Damian Thompson at the Telegraph’s blog.

I just hope that Anglo-Catholics will not be taken in. Let’s put this bluntly. Far from wanting to preserve the Anglican Communion, Pope Benedict wishes all its members to become Catholics. He realises, however, that corporate reunion is now impossible, and so he and his key advisers in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are considering ways in which groups of Anglicans can be received into full communion with the Holy See.

Pete Baker