A number of people have been asking whether Dr Michael Nazir-Ali might be among those who take the road to Rome under the arrangements announced yesterday.
Times
Will Michael Nazir-Ali go to Rome?
A number of people have been asking whether Dr Michael Nazir-Ali might be among those who take the road to Rome under the arrangements announced yesterday. If married bishops are to be permitted, which admittedly seems unlikely, he could conceivably emerge as the ideal ordinary for Anglicans under the new Apostolic Constitution.
A former Catholic, he was received into the Anglican church into his country of birth, Pakistan, at the age of 20. He is married with two children and has just retired as Bishop of Rochester in order to work with the persecuted church.
He does not describe himself as Catholic or evangelical, but as ‘orthodox’. He bridges both ends of the Church of England. He spoke at Gafcon in Jerusalem last year and this weekend will speak at the Forward in Faith conference in London.
The timing of this gathering could not be more fortuitous. Many of the 1,000 of the Anglican priests most likely to take up the Pope’s offer of the new Anglican ordinariate will be meeting at the heart of the capital on Friday and Saturday. The agenda is being torn up as I write and a new one put in place. At the top will be the road to Rome. Bishop of Chichester John Hind is the keynote speaker on Friday and Dr Nazir-Ali on Saturday.
In his statement today, reproduced in full below, Dr Nazir-Ali asks the questions that many will need to
know the answers to before they make up their minds whether to take Pope Benedict XVI up on his generous offer or not.
Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, responds to the announcement of the new Apostolic Constitution.
I welcome the Roman Catholic Church’s generosity of spirit and its recognition of what Pope Paul VI called the ‘legitimate prestige and patrimony’ of the Anglican Communion.
I am unclear, however, as to whether there is agreement about the faith ‘once for all delivered to the saints’ on which such an offer must be based.
For orthodox Anglicans, the supreme authority of the Word of God is, naturally, a basic requirement for any such agreement to be reached.
If Anglican patrimony is to flourish, in the context of unity, what arrangements will be made for the study of its theological tradition, method, spirituality and approach to moral issues?
In particular, this is important for the formation of ordinands in institutions which give adequate regard to such considerations.
Orthodox Anglicans should see this recognition of patrimony by another church as affirming the elements of apostolicity and catholicity in their own church, for which they have always stood.
In the meantime, there is a need to build confidence in the evangelical basis of the Anglican tradition and to make sure that it survives and flourishes in the face of the many challenges it faces. However, before some fundamental issues are clarified it is difficult to respond further to what the Vatican is offering.
Tags: Church Life