Rome and Canterbury, Continued

The Rev. George Rutler, Pastor of Incarnation's sister Roman Catholic parish, the Church of Our Saviour recently issued a scathing series of comments on the upcoming Vatican plan to receive Anglican clergy and laity. Father Rutler sees the plan as just the latest sign of the disintegration of the branch of Christianity of which he himself was once a prominent priest.

More temperate are the remarks of the Episcopal Bishop of New York, the Rt. Rev. Mark Sisk, who notes that there has long been movement back and forth between Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.

At the moment, my only additional thought is to wonder whether the controversy has become such big news only because there seemed that such a close relationship between the churches had been established in recent decades. Those who resent that relationship--especially converts to Catholicism--appear to be the people who are most excited about the prospect of an Anglican subculture within the Roman Mother Church. --J. Douglas Ousley