Anglican, Catholic Bishops to Meet

Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops from 13 regions of the world will meet next week near Toronto to review three decades of formal dialogue between the two branches of Christianity and to consider future steps.

The closed-door strategy sessions will be chaired by Anglicanism’s spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, and Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Also attending will be Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the U.S. Episcopal Church and Roman Catholic Archbishop Alexander Brunett of Seattle, Wash. They are the new co-chairmen of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, which was launched in 1966 by the then-pope and archbishop of Canterbury to negotiate steps toward unity.

The commission has done significant work on doctrinal differences, and last year it issued a discussion of the papacy, “The Gift of Authority.” But some Anglicans now ordain active homosexuals to the priesthood, adding to tensions within Anglicanism and with the Catholic Church.