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PAGE 2—August 5, 1976
TO ANGLICAN LEADER:
Pope Says Women’s Ordination Poses ‘Grave Difficulty’
YORK, England (NC) - Pope Paul VI
has told the Archbishop of Canterbury
that the ordination of women by the
Anglican Church “cannot fail to
introduce... an element of grave
difficulty” into Anglican-Roman
Catholic dialogue.
In one of his bluntest statements
against the ordination of women, the
Pope said that the Church “holds that it
is not admissible to ordain women to
the priesthood, for very fundamental
reasons.”
His statements were contained in a
letter to Archbishop Donald Coggan of
Canterbury, dated Nov. 30, 1975. The
Anglican primate released the text of
the Pope’s letter, along with other
correspondence, on the ecumenical
impact of Anglican ordination of
women, during a General Synod of the
Church of England here in mid-July.
The correspondence began when
Archbishop Coggan wrote to the Pope
and leaders of the Orthodox and Old
Catholic churches last year notifying
them “of the slow but steady growth of
MARIONITE BISHOP:
a consensus of opinion in the Anglican
Communion that there are no
fundamental objections in principle to
the ordination of women to the
priesthood.”
General synods or houses of bishops
in a number of autonomous national
Anglican (Episcopalian) bodies have
declared that there is no objection in
principle to the ordination of women
and several synods (including Canada’s)
have declared their intention to begin
ordaining women soon. In the U.S.
Episcopal Church several women have
been illegally ordained, and in 1971 two
were ordained with full synodical
authorization in Hong Kong.
The Pope’s letter said that “obstacles
do not destroy mutual commitment to a
search for reconciliation.”
But concerning the official
Vatican-Anglican dialogue team, the
Anglican-Roman Catholic International
Commission, the Pope wrote, “We must
regretfully recognize that a new course
taken by the Anglican Communion in
admitting women to the ordained
priesthood cannot fail to introduce into
this dialogue an element of grave
difficulty which those involved will have
to take seriously into account.”
Regarding the “fundamental reasons”
why the Church holds that women
cannot be ordained priests, the Pope
said:
“These reasons include: the example
recorded in the sacred Scriptures of
Christ choosing His Apostles only from
among men; the constant practice of the
Church, which has imitated Christ in
choosing only men; and her living
teaching authority which has
consistently held that the exclusion of
women from the priesthood is in
accordance with God’s plan for His
Church.”
Pope Paul has spoken out against the
ordination of women several times in
recent years, but his letter to the
Anglican primate is one of his most
direct statements that the Church
cannot ordain women.
Lebanese Civil War Not Religious
WASHINGTON (NC) - The civil war that has transformed
Lebanon from a thriving commercial nation into a choatic land
reeking of gun powder and death is not a religious war,
according to a Lebanese bishop now touring the United States
seeking relief funds.
“It is not religious in its nature nor in its origins,” said Bishop
Roland Aboujaoude, partiarchal vicar for Maronite rite
Catholics in Lebanon. “But of course there are religious
overtones,” to the struggle, he added.
Bishop Aboujaoude and Father Mansour Labaky, a pastor
from Damours, a Christian village, are visiting Maronite-rite
parishes throughout the United States, Canada as well as some
in Africa, in an attempt to raise funds to deal with a refugee
crisis.
Both men insisted that the war is between those who wish to
see Lebanon continue to exist as a pluralistic democracy and
those seeking the eradication or expulsion from Lebanon of all
non-Moslems.
The complex nature of the struggle, they indicated, can be
appreciated by considering that when Syria intervened, it did so
on the side of the so-called “Christian rightists,” despite a long
history of support for the “Palestinian leftists.”
According to the bishop, that move was prompted by Syrian
President Hafez al-Assad’s conviction that the Palestinian
Moslem opponents of Lebanon’s Christians were becoming too
powerful - along with Assad’s membership in the Shia minority
within the Moslem faith. Most Moslems belong to the Sunni
branch of that religion, and the Sunnis, according to Father
Labaky, are “fanatical.”
To further complicate the picture, Bishop Aboujaoude
emphasized that “the Lebanese in general - and I can speak for
my community - wholeheartedly support the Palestinian cause.
Those people are entitled to have a state of their own,” he told
NC News.
“But the trouble came when they wanted to solve the
Palestinian problem at the expense of Lebanon,” he added.
Both Bishop Aboujaoude and Father Labaky oppose the
solution which becomes more and more mentioned as the war,
now in its 16th month, drags on: partition.
“De facto, there is partition now,” the bishop said. “But we
don’t want it. The Maronites have always opposed partition.”
The two agreed that partition would be of help only to Israel.
According to Father Labaky, partition “would enable Israel
to point and say: ‘The Palestinians can’t coexist with other
religious groups, so why should we allow them to return?”’
Other “theocratic states in the region would be most welcome
from an Israeli view.”
Bishop Aboujaoude pointed to a fundamental difference
between the Christian and Moselm mentality.
“The Lebanese Moslems feel close to the Palestinian Moslems
because of religious identification. For the Christian, citizenship
would come before religious identification,” the bishop said.
According to Father Labaky, the Moslem, “cannot and must
not, according to his religion, be governed by a Christian ruler.
The state in which the Moslem lives must be Islamic, and the
ruler must be a Moslem. Sooner or later, the Moslems must
achieve this goal - if not by persuasion, then by force.”
At the synod meeting here
Archbishop Coggan also released
another letter from the Pope, dated
March 23, 1976, in which the Pope said
that the ardent hopes he nourished that
the Holy Spirit would lead Anglicans
and Catholics along the path of
reconciliation “must be the measure of
the sadness with which we encounter so
grave a new obstacle and threat on that
path.”
Archbishop Coggan said, in response
to a question here, that he hopes
Catholic and Anglican representatives
will be able to meet within a few
months for further consultation on the
ordination of women issue.
Cardinal Jan Willebrands, head of the
Vatican’s Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity, favors such a
consultation, according to a report
presented last September to the U.S.
(Episcopal) House of Bishops by two
Episcopal bishops who had met with the
cardinal on the issue.
According to that report, the cardinal
suggested an informal exchange on the
issue, noting that if Anglicans begin
ordaining women this will create “a
serious new element in the dialogue on
the nature of ministry,” but at the same
time emphatically denying reports that
he was considering termination of the
international commission if such
ordinations began.
Last year the U.S. Anglican-Roman
Catholic dialogue group held a special
consultation on the ecumenical impact
of possible Anglican ordinations of
women. The group concluded that if the
Anglicans begin to ordain women, the
difference in practice would not mean
abandoning the goal of reunion between
the two Churches.
While admitting that such a
development would introduce an
“important new element” into future
dialogue, the theologians suggested that
there has not been enough interfaith
theological discussion of the issues to
reach a definitive conclusion on its
eventual impact. If further reflection
shows that the Anglican and Catholic
positions are only different expressions
of the same faith, the group said, “full
communion and organic unity” is still a
possibility.
PRELATES VISIT -- Cardinal Sergio Pignedoli
(left), president of the Vatican Secretariat for
Non-Christians, and Bishop Roland Aboujaoude,
patriarchal vicar for Maronite-rite Catholics in
Lebanon, were recent Washington visitors and are the
subjects of NC interviews. (NC Photos by Bob Strawn)
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