Vatican Backs Archbishop Williams’ Response to Convention Actions

From the Living Church-

The Roman Catholic Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said it shares the concerns of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams that the Anglican Communion’s unity be maintained through common faith and practice based on scripture and tradition.
The July 29 statement from the Vatican office came two days after Archbishop Williams issued his reflection on actions taken at this month’s General Convention. The statement said the Vatican “supports the archbishop in his desire to strengthen these bonds of communion, and to articulate more fully the relationship between the local and the universal within the church.

“It is our prayer that the Anglican Communion, even in this difficult situation, may find a way to maintain its unity and its witness to Christ as a worldwide communion,” the statement concluded.

Archbishop Williams noted that if a two-track structure for the Anglican Communion emerges, representatives to ecumenical and interfaith dialogues would be drawn only from members who accept and adhere to a covenantal structure. If those who instead choose local autonomy “do not take official roles in the ecumenical interchanges and processes in which the ‘covenanted’ body participates, this is simply because within these processes there has to be clarity about who has the authority to speak for whom,” the archbishop wrote.

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/7/29/vatican-backs-archbishop-williams-response-to-convention-actions