At a Path to Rome congress of converts to Catholicism held in Madrid in early November 2001, the Zenit News agency obtained an interview with Monsignor Graham Leonard. The monsignor was formerly the Anglican bishop of London, England, and is now an honorary prelate of His Holiness, the Pope, employed in giving spiritual retreats to diocesan and monastic clergy in England.

The interview concentrated on the reasons for his conversion to Catholicism. Msgr. Leonard explained that this was not a sudden decision; he had been concerned for many years about events in the Anglican church. Particularly, he was concerned over private individual interpretations of the faith and realized that this "adaptation of the faith to the needs of the moment" was what triggered the birth of his former church in the 16th century. Uncomfortable with many recent changes, he described the Church of England's decision to accept women priests as the "detonator" which sparked off his departure.

He notes that both he and other ex-Anglican priests have been made to feel very welcome in the Catholic Church. Although he has noticed dissension among Catholics, which he also attributes to subjective attitudes, he has confidence in God and "in the Church He has given us." Above all, he advocates the primacy of the Pope as an essential to achieve real unity in truth.

No to papal primacy

London-Evangelical members of the Church of England (Anglican) have written Cardinal Ratzinger denouncing the remarks of the senior Church of England Bishop of Chester, Peter Forster, claiming that Anglicans are ready to accept the "need of a universal primacy."

The evangelical group, the Church Society, told the Cardinal that this error is the result of the false ecumenical document The Gift of Authority, 1998 written by Anglican and Catholic theologians (see C.I., July/August 1999, p. 20).

This report of the ecumenical Anglican-Catholic International Committee (ARCIC) claimed that there was "sufficient agreement" on universal primacy for Anglicans to accept it. Says the Church Society: "We, as reformed Anglicans, cannot and will not accept the role of the Pope as set out in The Gift of Authority. It is entirely inconsistent with the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura which remains the official doctrinal position of the Church of England. We believe that the views of Anglicans are being seriously misrepresented in ecumenical dialogue."

The Church Society thanked the Cardinal for the 2000 declaration Dominus Iesus "which seems to us refreshingly honest when compared to the ARCIC reports. We do not believe that anything is to be gained by pretending that we agree when we do not" (The Catholic Herald, Nov. 16, 2001).

Dominus Iesus restated a number of beliefs Catholics must hold, thereby upsetting certain Anglicans who had convinced themselves otherwise. Among them: Anglicans are not part of the (Catholic) Church but essentially a Protestant ecclesial community, and Anglican priestly orders are invalid.

In the past, Catholic Insight has been critical of Catholic ecumenical theologians such as the late Canadian Father Jean-Marie Tillard of Ottawa. He seemed to concentrate on selected Anglican beliefs at the expense of the Anglican pastoral ministry which in its approval of major moral errors such as contraception, divorce, abortion and homosexuality, was and is directly opposed to Catholic teaching (see Tillard, C.I., Jan/Feb 2001, p. 25).

The Church Society now draws attention to doctrinal misrepresentation as well. Evangelical Anglicans constitute perhaps one third of the Church of England.