[LINK] "Vatican row delays Anglo-Catholic text"

[rfmcdonald]

This article, written by Richard Owen and published in the Times, of London, neatly states one point where the Roman Catholic Church's attempt to assimilate disaffected Anglicans into its structure could destabilize its own theologies.

When asked last week about admission into the Catholic Church of married Anglican priests under the new rules, Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, replied that requests would be judged "on a case by case basis".

The row has been exacerbated by the decision to disclose Pope Benedict's approach to Anglican traditionalists before the final text was ready, thus risking another of the "diplomatic gaffes" that have occasionally marked his pontificate so far.

The Pope is understood to have wanted the announcement to be made only when the text was finalised, in order to avoid a public relations disaster like that which followed his rehabilitation in January of Richard Williamson, an excommunicated arch-conservative bishop, before he became aware that Bishop Williamson was a Holocaust denier.

However Cardinal Levada announced the Anglican move prematurely because he had just briefed Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Catholic Bishops of England of Wales — neither of whom were consulted — and was concerned that the news might leak out unofficially, Mr Tornielli wrote in Il Giornale.

A number of Catholic commentators have pointed out that allowing Anglicans to bring their "traditions and practices" with them could end up altering the traditions and practices of the Catholic Church — including celibacy — as much as undermining the Anglican communion.