Sir, - In your Editorial, "Testing Ecumenism" (September 8th), you complain that Rome, in Iesus Dominus, has recently adopted a harder line on ecumenism. With respect, only your naivety and that of Anglicans and Lutherans obscures the fact that under John Paul II, ecumenism is not dying; it was never alive. Where has he even hinted that the Anglican Church is a proper or sister Church? To the Pope, speaking of two churches is as silly as speaking of two gods.
In 1896, Leo XIII decreed that Anglican orders and their Eucharist were not valid. L'Osservatore Romano always referred to the "archbishop" (sic) of Canterbury. To Rome, he was not a true bishop of a sister church, merely a layman of a non-church. Things have not changed. A recent Anglican "bishop" of London had to be ordained when he converted to Rome. The only "ecumenism" Rome understands is that all non-Catholics are obliged to bow down before the supreme, infallible head of the one true Church, namely, the Roman Pontiff, as set out in Vatican I.
Where Rome's teaching lacks logic is in saying that Anglicans are validly baptised. According to Leo XIII, Anglican orders are defective because at some point in the past and for generations thereafter the explicit intention was not to ordain sacrificing priests. Likewise, present-day Anglicans are never baptised to belong to the one true Church of Rome, but explicitly to a so-called sister church that is no church in the proper sense at all. Since a person cannot be baptised into Christ without being baptised into the Church of Christ, Rome ought to be saying, not only are there no Anglican priests, there are no baptised Anglicans either.
The Vatican should therefore baptise all converts to Rome. In this way, Anglicans would know the true state of affairs, namely, that they are wasting their time dealing with Rome under the present pontiff. - Yours, etc.,
Peter De Rosa, Ashford, Co Wicklow.