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Roundup: Canadian paper lashes out at Vatican; Father Rutler sees ‘slap-down of liberal Anglicanism’ October 21, 2009

The editors of The Globe and Mail, Canada’s second most popular newspaper, have lashed out at the Vatican’s decision to permit Anglican communities to join the Catholic Church as communities.

“The Vatican's welcome of some Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church is a Trojan horse,” the editors write. “In the face of an inflexible hierarchy, liberal Catholic voices have had little effect; the grudging loyalty of those who remain is in jeopardy. The Vatican announcement will make the Catholic Church more conservative and the Anglican church more liberal. Is that what ecumenism is meant to accomplish?”

Similar criticisms were made by one New York Times commentator, who charged the Pope with fostering “cafeteria Catholicism.” Other writers, however-- such as John Allen and Collen Carrroll Campbell in The New York Times, and Father Raymond J. de Souza in the National Post,-- offered commentary that was more balanced and less shrill.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Editorial: An embrace that divides (Globe and Mail)
• Why the Vatican Wants Anglicans (New York Times)
• Ruth Gledhill: Desperate bishops invited Rome to park its tanks on Archbishop’s lawn (The Times)
• Amen to a good offer (National Post)
• Fr. Dwight Longenecker: 'A Bridge Across the Tiber' (Catholic Online)
• Fr. Rutler discusses Vatican's Anglican provision (CNA)
• Pontiff to permit Anglican communities to join Catholic Church (CWN, 10/20)

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• Posted by: dancingcrane - Oct. 22, 2009 1:48 AM ET USA

  I left the Anglican church 30 years ago for the same reason John Henry Cardinal Newman and so many others did. The slide down the slippery slope has become, as predicted, a free-fall off a cliff. The liberal dissenting Catholics are with them in all but name, and to the last, will insist that they are not falling, but flying. Don't forget to pray for them too, the poor souls.

• Posted by: joeg3608 - Oct. 21, 2009 7:23 PM ET USA

  Wel;come Back, Anglicans! We missed you terribly. How very sad it is that you left home so long ago and how happy it is that you now return. God Love you all!

• Posted by: Lucius49 - Oct. 21, 2009 11:17 AM ET USA

  Like the Globe, Mail, and Times really care about the Church. For them liberalism is their religion so that anything they see as diminising liberalism is an attack. Amazing.