If in a few years time we are looking seriously at the practical possibility of women ordained as bishops – what will the ecumenical cost be? We know it will in many ways be heavy and serious. But granted that, what will be the ground on which we pursue ecumenical conversation and relationship from that point on. I would like to say that the ARCIC documents do give us a theology which we need to return to and try to make sense of in that long-term view, because we do there have a remarkably rich deposit of reflection on the ordained ministry, agreed between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches over the last thirty years…
Archbishop of Canterbury Speech given during a debate in the Church of England’s General Synod on Women in the Episcopate
We have claimed to be Catholic, to have a ministry that is capable of being universally recognised (even where in practice it does not have that recognition) because of its theological and institutional continuity; to hold a faith that is not locally determined but shared through time and space with the fellowship of the baptised; to celebrate sacraments that express the reality of a community which is more than the people present at any one moment with any one set of concerns. So at the very least we must recognise that Anglicanism as we have experienced it has never been just a loose grouping of people who care to describe themselves as Anglicans but enjoy unconfined local liberties…
My commitment and conviction are given to the ideal of the Church Catholic. I know that its embodiment in Anglicanism has always been debated, yet I believe that the vision of Catholic sacramental unity without centralisation or coercion is one that we have witnessed to at our best and still need to work at.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Address to the General Synod of the Church of England
