I WISH to comment on the recent talks about a reunion of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches.
This is by no means a new point of discussion but has been an ongoing topic for centuries, desired by some and detested by others – on both sides.
I have often considered that one of the major problems with lack of numbers of priests in the Catholic Church is the celibacy vow. The Anglican Church does not insist on this for its clergy.
This would be one major matter to clear up in a unification as there are many married ministers.
Would the Church of Rome accommodate them or would they be compelled to leave the ministry – and their marital status, if they were incorporated, could well be a contentious point for their celibate brothers, who could rightly claim they had given up a great deal for the priesthood?
I could only see one solution and that would be for the Church of Rome to make celibacy or marriage the personal choice of the individual priest, allowing both.
On another matter, the unification would automatically invalidate the Anglican Church’s women priests, as there are no ordinations of women in Rome’s domain and neither should there be.
The scriptures are clear on this matter but, as in many areas of theology, trendy American clergy disregard the Bible.
This is what drove many, myself included, to leave the Anglican Church for greener pastures.
As for the union and the lay person, it should be recognised that all that would be happening would be a return to the times before Henry Tudor sundered England from Rome because of a divorce denied.
Ultimate primacy would go back to Rome, with England under Canterbury as it was in Becket’s day.
I have always said that to have an unordained monarch as head of the Church of England was a ridiculous and unnatural situation.
The headship of the Church in England should be vested again in Canterbury.
As to the union, there would be some in what is called the Anglo-Catholic patch who would welcome it, however there are some in high Church circles who would not.
As to those of the low Church, many would oppose it and would just do what the Puritans did in earlier centuries – stay out of it all together and form a new organisation.
ROGER E. DESHON
Alexandra Hills, Qld
