Cardinal Kasper's Comments

There is a buzz in the Anglican blogesphere as to the remarks of Cardinal Kasper about Anglicanism, with people weighing in on "their" interpretation of what he "truly" meant when he made his comments. At first I was a little set-off by the comments, but now I feel there is more to this than meets the eye.

To understand the comments we must know a little more about the Cardinal. Walter Cardinal Kasper is considered a liberal in the Roman Communion and is also an advocate of ecumenism. He and Pope Benedict XVI have not always seen eye-to-eye on matters going back to his administration as Bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart when he allowed divorced and civilly remarried persons back to the Sacraments.

His work in ecumenism goes back to the mid-1990's, when he was appointed co-chair of the International Commission for Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue. In 1999, Kasper was appointed Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and elevated to Cardinal in 2001. Cardinal Kasper is a regular envoy of the Vatican to the Orthodox patriarchs and was the celebrant at the Eucharist (an ecumenical one at that) during the funeral of Brother Roger Schutz (a Swiss Protestant monastic).

Taking all of this into consideration, I do not believe that Cardinal Kasper was making a veiled threat to the Anglican Communion, as much as a plea prior to the Lambeth Conference. He doesn't want the entire body of followers of the Anglican tradition to go "Newman", but would rather have it remain a viable Christian body that will keep his Boss form severing ties to Canterbury and thereby making Cardinal Kasper's job more difficult. His warning to The Anglican Communion (and in an indirect way the liberal Protestant churches) that they must make a stand for Christian values and Apostolic validity or it will fragment and become a Balkanized body of pseudo-Catholics, Pentecostals and Unitarians, cut off from the rest of the Church and cast adrift with the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witness's and the Unitarians.

More Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Kasper
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/international/europe/24france.html

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/articles/a0000273.shtml

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2008/05/protestant-or-c.html

http://wannabeanglican.blogspot.com/2008/05/cardinal-kasper-misses-mark.html
http://philorthodox.blogspot.com/2008/05/anglicanism-first-millennium-church-or.html
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2008/05/cardinal-kasper-anglicans-must-choose.html
http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2008/05/fish-or-cut-bait.html
http://confessingreader.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/vatican-the-time-has-come-to-choose/
http://bovinabloviator.blogspot.com/2008/05/do-come-home-all-is-forgiven.html