Pope Benedict XVI’s historic momentous decision Oct. 20 to create structures for groups of Anglicans to be received into the Catholic Church deserves an Anglican perspective.
Rev. R. William Franklin, an Episcopal priest, is an academic fellow of the Anglican Center in Rome and associate director of the American Academy there. He is also a pastor at St. Paul’s Inside the Walls, the Episcopal church in Rome, and teaches theology at the Pontifical Angelicum University. He spoke about the announcement and its implications.
Did news of the apostolic constitution come as a surprise?
This does not come as a surprise, because we have heard rumors of the preparation of such a document for at least a year.
Certainly we as Anglicans will be very interested to hear the response of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) of the Holy See to this announcement that such an apostolic constitution will be issued.
