Church of England Moves Toward Ties With Vatican

The Church of England’s ruling body advanced toward reunification with the Roman Catholic Church this week by overwhelmingly approving a motion that envisages some type of papal authority in a reunited church.

The General Synod, a 565-member parliament of clergy, laity and bishops, voted 344 to 137 for the English church to engage in more exploratory talks with the Vatican on the issue of papal authority and primacy.

The two Christian Churches split in 1534 when England repudiated the Vatican’s authority.

But now dialogue between the two had reached “sufficient convergence on the nature of authority in the Church for our communions together to explore further structures of authority and the exercise of collegiality and the primacy in the Church,” the motion said.

‘Universal Primate’

The synod, which meets three times a year, had before it two reports from the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission that suggest that the Pope should act as “universal primate” in any union between the two churches.

During a sometimes heated debate, several speakers questioned how the mother church of the 70-million worldwide Anglican Communion could ever accept the authority of Rome.

Opponents referred to the dispute caused within the Roman Catholic Church when the Archbishop of Seattle, Raymond Hunthausen, was disciplined by the Vatican for what church officials said was a too liberal attitude toward homosexual Catholics, divorce and other sensitive matters.