“Speaking at the conference on Thursday, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s point man for relations with the Anglicans, said ecumenism was strong but he alluded to problems. He acknowledged in a recent interview with the Vatican newspaper that Archbishop Williams had called him “in the middle of the night” after finding out at the last minute about the new Anglican rite. In the future, Cardinal Kasper said, such delicate issues “should be undertaken in the greatest possible transparency, tactfulness and mutual esteem in order not to entail meaningless tensions with our ecumenical partners.”
My reaction: So Rowan Williams calls Walter Kasper at night after hearing that the Vatican intends to make it easier for Anglicans to convert and Walter is complaining about the call, as if that is the cause of the tension? I raise this point because it illustrates a modern brain sickness of sorts. The malady goes as follows: I insult you but I ignore the insult and treat your reaction as the problem. The true culprit? The principal sin, we are told, is pride. What is particularly sordid is when the prince wears the aureole of self-righteousness as he points his fingers down. How distant is Paul’s admonition not to make things harder on your brother. That is to say, stop fighting, boys; it is quite unbecoming, particularly given the vocation you seek to claim for yourselves. Having it both ways is not at all respectable.
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