Tradition vs. Liberal -- Aliance between Catholic and Orthodox Church, In Order to Give Europe Back Its Soul

[London/Rome] A few days from the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in Scotland and England, the "Number two" in the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Direcoter of the "Foreign Office" of the Moscow Patriarchate, will make his visit to Great Britain.

On the 9th of September he will meet [has already met] in Lambeth Palace with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the Primate of the Anglican Communion. In a certain way "he makes straight the way of the Pope", as the Pope's meeting on the 17th of September is described by Vaticanist Sandro Magister in the Weekly L'Espresso.

Full text of the address, here.

The Vatican itself boasts prelates who raise their noses, when they are confronted with terms like "conservative" and "progressive". Not seldom one hears from them that such pigeonholes are "an old thing", which are "outdated". "I think contrarily, that the destinction is legitimate and before and now useful for both Churches to compare their main directions," writes Paolo Rodari, the Vaticanist of the daily Il Foglio and author of the recently released book "Attack Against Ratzinger, Recriminations and Scandals, Prophesies and Conspiracies Against Benedict XVI."

Metropolitan Hilarion correspondingly, gave a speech with the Anglican Primate at the concluding meeting of the Nicea Club in London, where he made an actual appraisal of Christndom in outspoken Ratzingerian mannerisms.

"All of the present forms of Christendom could be put roughly under two principle groups: in Traditional and Liberal. The difference today lies not so much between Orthodox and Catholic or between Catholics and Protestants, rather between Traditionalists and Liberals.

"Some Christian leaders, for example, say to us that the marriage between a man and a woman is no longer the only possibility when it comes to forming a family: there are other models and the Church must become "inclusive" in so far as the standards of alternative forms of relationship are recognized and how these are officially blessed.

Some attempt to overrule that human life is no longer an absolute value and that it may be ended at will in the mother's womb. From the traditional Christians, then, the progressive expects, therefore, beneath such expectations of modernity, that he reassess his own standpoint."

The Metropolitan recalled then, that it is a principle priority for the Russian Orthodox Church, a commitment to order the eternal validity of the spiritual and moral values of Christendom. It is always, says Metropolitan Hilarion, the common will of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Catholic Church, "to form an alliance in Europe, to defend the traditional values of Christendom and give Europe back its soul", against relativism and against secularism.


Article translated from katholisches.net...

Also an account of the Nicea Discussion at Virtue Online...

Archbishop Rowan Angers Irish Bishops

No doubt, still smarting from +Benedict's Ecumenical Blitzkrieg, the Archbishop of Canterbury found time to vent some long internalized chagrin at men whose education and philosophical inclinations and integrity aren't that much different from his own.

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America Magazine Gives Campion Award to Archbishop Rowan

Uncle Di has levelled his verbal weapons at the Jesuit publication America to great effect, yet he congratulates America's choice, you might be suprised to find.

"You must go to the place from whence you came, there to remain until ye shall be drawn through the open City of London upon hurdles to the place of execution, be hanged and let down alive, and your privy parts cut off, and your entrails taken out and burnt in your sight; then your head to be cut off and your body divided into four parts, to be disposed of at her Majesty's pleasure."

With those words Queen Elizabeth's Lord Chief Justice dispatched the English Jesuit priest Edmund Campion to his death at Tyburn. The year was 1581. The charge was treason. Campion himself was unruffled by the verdict: "It was not our death that we ever feared. … The only thing we have now to say is, that if our religion do make us traitors, we are worthy to be condemned; but otherwise are, and have been, as good subjects as the Queen ever had."

St. Edmund Campion, martyr, lives on as a model of cheerful, gutsy, devout intelligence disciplined toward the single goal of recovering and rebuilding Catholic churchmanship where it had lain in ruins. I was amused and delighted, therefore, to learn that the Jesuit magazine America announced that it will give its 2009 Campion Award to none other than Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The choice is a chancy one. Many will take offense at the sly malice of the Jesuits in pretending to congratulate the man who, by his elegant unfitness for the job, has done more than any living Christian to bolster the esteem of the Roman Catholic Church in the eyes of his co-religionists.

I emphatically applaud the editors' decision.

Archbishop Williams is Harpooning Ecumenism

This raises more questions than ever about what kind of damage this will do to ecumenism and just how committed Archbishop Rowan and the Anglican Communion is to what is departing from Ecumenism and entering into the field of Interreligious Dialogue (Dialogue of Catholic Church with non-Christian religions) Damian Thompson poked fun at Archbishop Rowan for his remarks:

Pope's policies 'theologically eccentric', says head of blissfully united Anglican Communion

Archbishop harangues Anglicans to Oppose Homosexual Ordination

THE Archbishop of Canterbury today called on American Anglicans to block the appointment of a lesbian bishop.

Dr Rowan Williams warned that the selection of a new homosexual bishop could push the divided Anglicans over the edge into full-blown schism.

The Archbishop spoke out after leaders of the Church of England's sister church in Los Angeles chose 55-year-old Reverend Mary Glasspool as an assistant bishop.

He said the choice raised 'serious questions' and warned it was a threat to the 'bonds' that tie 77million Anglicans together.

Canon Glasspool, who lives with her long-term partner Becki Sander, acclaimed her election as a victory for gay rights.

'Any group of people who have been oppressed because of any one, isolated, aspect of their person yearns for justice and equal rights,' she said.


Link to original...

Holy Father and Archbishop Rowan meet for 20 minutes today

Vatican City, Nov 21, 2009 / 12:36 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI and the Anglican Primate Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, have agreed to maintain momentum in the ecumenical dialogue between the two churches despite the fact that the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus will imply the reception of some half a million Anglicans into the Catholic Church.

The Pope received Williams this Saturday morning, and according to a Vatican press release, "in the course of the cordial discussions attention turned to the challenges facing all Christian communities at the beginning of this millennium, and to the need to promote forms of collaboration and shared witness in facing these challenges."

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17791

Rowan Williams encourages Rome to reconsider Female Bishops

The Guardian

The archbishop of Canterbury today pleaded with Roman Catholics to set aside their differences with Anglicans over the issue of female bishops, insisting there was more uniting the denominations than dividing them.

Rowan Williams was giving a lecture in Rome before Sunday's meeting with the pope, their first encounter since the Vatican's surprise announcement of a special institution for traditionalist Anglicans wanting to convert to Catholicism.

In his address at the Gregorian University, Williams said the Anglican communion was proof that churches could stay together in spite of their differences.

Link to article...

Rowan Williams caught between a Rock and a Hardplace, Chiesa.

Rowan Williams: Anglican future looks 'chaotic and uncertain' - Times Online

Rowan Williams: Anglican future looks 'chaotic and uncertain' - Times Online

Pope Benedict to Meet with Archbishop Rowan Williams in November

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI will meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury next month in the leaders' first encounter since the Catholic church moved to make it easier for disenchanted Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, a Vatican spokesman said Friday.

Archbishop Rowan Williams, the Anglican leader, was already due to visit Rome in November for ceremonies at a pontifical university to honor a late cardinal who worked for Christian unity, said the spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. Taking advantage of the archbishop's presence in Rome, Benedict will receive Williams on Nov. 21 at the Vatican, Lombardi said in a telephone interview.

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