Forty Years of Nothing

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        Several recent statements by "Archbishop" George Carey, the layman in a bishop’s costume who heads the pro-abortion debating society known as the Anglican "Church," illustrate (as if we didn’t know already) the utter futility of the past forty years of "ecumenical dialogue" with the Anglicans.

        On June 21, 2002 Zenit reported the surprising news that Carey had "called John Paul II the ‘spiritual leader of the whole of Christianity.’" An ecumenical breakthrough? Hardly. Carey never said any such thing. Only days later Zenit was forced to publish a retraction of its story. It seems that "because of translation errors, Anglican Archbishop George Carey’s opinion of John Paul II was overstated. …" What Carey actually said was merely that "I have a high regard for him [i.e. the Pope] as a fellow Christian and respect his leadership enormously in worldwide Christianity." Zenit, eating a goodly portion of crow, added that "the original story incorrectly said that Dr. Carey called the Pope the ‘spiritual leader for the whole of Christianity.’ ZENIT regrets the error."

        And quite an error it was too. For Carey’s other remarks around the same time indicate that he is about as likely as a wooden post to acknowledge the Pope as the leader of "the whole of Christianity." For example, on June 22, 2002, in a story by the English journalist P.J. Bonthrone, it was reported that "the Roman Catholic Church may one day follow Anglicans and ordain women to the priesthood, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said. Dr George Carey said he did not believe that the fact that the Church of England had ordained women while Rome had not was ‘an eternally insurmountable’ problem." Carey added that: "I know that there are lots of women in the Roman Catholic Church who would like ordination themselves. [Including seven women who were just "ordained" by a schismatic ex-Catholic bishop!] So let's see it as a problem, but not as a final break that is going to stop the unity that we want to see."

        Carey believes that the Roman Catholic Church, through "ecumenical dialogue," will sooner or later achieve "unity" with the Anglicans by coming to see things his way regarding women’s "ordination" and other "issues." As Carey put it: "Sometimes churches have to change and to go with the leading of the Holy Spirit and sometimes this takes hundreds of years. It doesn’t mean to say one church is right and another church is wrong. We move in different steps, different paces. We have lagged behind the Roman Catholic Church in many directions but maybe on this issue we are leading the way."

        In other words, after some 40 years of "ecumenical dialogue," Carey and his fellow Anglican "bishops" have not moved one millimeter closer to an acceptance of the divine claims of the Holy Catholic Church and the authority of Her Magisterium. Instead, they express confidence that the Catholic Church will eventually join them in their ever-growing absurdity and apostasy, including the "ordination" of women as "priests" and the condonation of abortion.

        Yet in the face of these facts, the Pope has created another "working group" to "dialogue" with the Anglicans about how to achieve "unity." This insanity has gone on long enough. The "dialogue" should stop - now - and the Pope should direct the whole Church to pray for the conversion of the Anglicans and all the others whom the Popes before Vatican II did not hesitate to call "dissidents." For that is precisely what they are, as Carey’s dismal opinions should remind us.