No Political Role for Pope, Runcie Says

Archbishop of Canterbury Robert A. K. Runcie, criticized for suggesting that Pope John Paul II play a leadership role for Anglicans, declared Sunday that he had not meant that the pontiff should administer the affairs of the Church of England.

Runcie issued the statement hours after three Protestant clergymen interrupted his Sunday sermon by shouting that his four-day visit to the Vatican was “a betrayal.”

Runcie, leader of the world’s 70 million Anglicans, is making his first official trip to the Vatican as part of a quest to eventually bring the churches together.

In his statement, he said some people had charged that his suggestion to give the Pope some sort of primacy among Christians “subverts the British constitution.”

“This is not the case,” Runcie said. “The phrase universal primacy has a spiritual meaning. It does not imply political supremacy and does not suggest that the Pope should administer the affairs of the Church of England.”

The Anglican Church split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th Century over the Pope’s refusal to annul King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The Queen of England is considered the temporal head of the Church of England.

“When people try to suggest the whole British constitution is being subverted, it’s just someone trying to make a story or stir things up,” the Rev. Canon Christopher Hill, secretary for ecumenical affairs to the archbishop, told reporters.

‘High Treason’

Neither Hill nor the statement said who was doing the criticizing, but Protestant minister Ian Paisley delivered a protest to Runcie’s spokeswoman Saturday accusing the Anglican leader of “high treason.”

Paisley, of Northern Ireland, also assailed Runcie for attending a papal Mass in Rome on Sunday.

Paisley is head of the Free Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland, which is vehemently anti-Catholic.

Three of Paisley’s associates disrupted an Anglican church service attended by Vatican officials on Sunday.

As Runcie was about to begin his sermon at All Saints Anglican Church, the three clergymen jumped up and peeled off their jackets, revealing T-shirts emblazoned “Runcie Is a Traitor to Protestant Britain.”

Ushers hustled the protesters away and police checked their passports, but no arrests were made. Runcie showed no emotion at the interruption.

The protesters identified themselves as the Rev. David Cassells of Glasgow, Scotland, the Rev. Brian Green of London and the Rev. David Larner of London, all officers of the British Council of Protestant Christian Churches.

Paisley said he did not join the protest because security guards would not have allowed him into the church.

Runcie attended an outdoor Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday during which the Pope beatified 29 people. Beatification is a step toward possible sainthood.