Damien Thompson on the Catholic/Anglican Options for Unity

I, too, am shocked that there hasn't been more mainstream media coverage of this stuff. We could be talking about the disintegration of a five hundred year old landmark of Western Civilization and the healing of one of the greatest schisms in Christian history. And nobody seems to give a crap.

Thompson provides three possible Catholic outcomes for all this:


1. The Tabletista option: carry on as if nothing has happened.
The best part of this section reads:

Naturally, the pro-priestess Catholics want ecumenical dialogue to continue undisturbed. And so do some of the other bishops, who - although they don't support women clergy themselves - would much rather talk to a nice, Tablet-reading Anglican liberal bishop than a traditionalist in a fiddleback. ("Bishop Tom, I hear you're ordaining kitchen chairs these days. Now, that's not part of our heritage, but let's have a mutually enriching dialogue about it anyway. Can I top that up for you?")

Awesome.

2. The Kasper option. Thompson makes the point that Kaspar initially was all about the Anglicans sticking together and really didn't seem all that interested in their conversion. Typical freaking Kaspar. However, he continues:

My guess (and it's no more than that) is that Kasper's "new Oxford movement" is supposed to gather together mildly liberal Anglican Catholics who - having thought again about women priests - are prepared to get back on the slow, jargon-strewn road to ever-closer union.

3. The Roman option: This is the way of the future - the corporate reception of Anglo-Catholics, employing one of many possible juridical structures to enable them to preserve aspects of Anglican spirituality.

Of course, Number Three is the only option that bears any sort of charity for our Anglican brethren. Let us pray that the Holy Father can pull it off and rescue these floundering souls from the Catamaran of Cranmer.