Forward in Faith welcomes remarks by Cardinal Walter Kasper

Walter Cardinal Kasper

Function: President of Promoting Christian Unity, Roman Curia

Title: Cardinal Deacon of Ognissanti in Via Appia Nuova

Birthdate: Mar 05, 1933	Country: Germany

Elevated: Feb 21, 2001	More information: www.catholic-hierarchy.org

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Forward in Faith welcomes remarks by Cardinal Walter Kasper
Jun 14, 2006
Forward in Faith welcomes wholeheartedly the recent address of Cardinal Walter Kasper to the House of Bishops of the Church of England (June 5, 2006).

(virtueonline.org, June 6, 2006) We are grateful that the Cardinal made plain the theological basis of the practice of the Catholic Church of reserving sacerdotal ordination only to males. This is not to be attributed to misogyny, but to a desire to remain faithful to scripture and the tradition - precisely to that obedience to which Archbishop Rowan Williams referred in this recent speech to the General Synod.

The Cardinal portrayed the present moment in the life of the Church of England as one of defining importance - whether to side with the great churches of the first millennium or the communities of the sixteenth century reformation. He made it abundantly clear that the ordination of women to the episcopate in the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion would fundamentally affect the nature of the ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and Anglicans.

It is, in our view, seriously to be doubted whether the Church of England has (or has ever had) the ecumenical restraint to draw back from this momentous decision. If such restraint is still possible, Cardinal Kasper has given cogent and pressing reasons for its exercise.

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