Tricky diplomacy awaits ambassador
In his new job, R. William Franklin will have to practice careful spiritual diplomacy. Not only will he seek unity between Roman Catholics and Anglicans, he must help suture a potentially lethal wound in his Anglican Communion.
Next month, Franklin, 58, formerly the associate for education at Boston's Trinity Church, will begin a three-year term as associate priest of the Anglican Centre in Rome. Essentially, he'll be the assistant ambassador to Roman Catholicism for the Anglican Communion, the global religious fellowship that includes the Episcopal Church in the United States.
His appointment comes as some Anglican congregations are threatening to break away from the Communion over the consecration of gay New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson and disputes over same-sex unions.
Franklin, who assumes office shortly before his ordination as a priest in September, brings a background as the author of seven books on Catholic-Anglican relations and 20 years' work with various ecumenical bodies.
Excerpts from a recent interview follow.
Q: Is it possible the Anglican union will divide in two, and the Holy See will be dealing with two organizations?
A: My hope is that the Episcopal Church stays a full member of the Anglican Communion, and that's my expectation. I will work myself to make some way for the Episcopal Church to remain a full member and in dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. There is a new successor to Cardinal Ratzinger [now Pope Benedict XVI] at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop [William] Levada of San Francisco. He has been the chairman of the US dialogue between the Episcopal Church and the Catholic Church, a dialogue he's kept going during this tension over a gay bishop and same-sex unions. [That] spirit I believe he will carry to Rome, and we will continue this dialogue there.
Q: Isn't some of this out of your control? I've read threatening noises from more conservative countries, where members of the Anglican Communion are saying [they'll] split off.
A: It is so important, first, to try to keep such a divorce from taking place. Goal No. 2 is, no matter what happens, to keep communication open between the Holy See and the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. One of the things I bring to this job is the whole experience of the United States, and the way we live so comfortably with pluralism. We live with a variety of views. I [also] want to affirm how important Vatican II has been to the Episcopal Church, allowed us to work together. This vision, this pluralism, is being tested by the threat of the divorce.
Q: In building bridges, it's not going to be what you say -- everything that could be said seems to have been said already -- but how you say it, your communication abilities?
A: That's exactly right. That's precisely why the Communion established the Anglican Centre: as a living embodiment of our commitment to keep this conversation open. What we disagree with [Catholics about] is the question of authority in the church, how decisions are made. The Anglican way of authority is to leave it up to each nation. In the Roman Catholic Church, the papacy is an authority above the nation. I think we have something to learn from one another. How do national churches become more coherent? That's the real question behind the issue of sexuality.
Q: Surely the Vatican's opposition to homosexuality makes dialogue difficult and union impossible?
A: I think the right word is ''difficult." The important fact is that the dialogue has not been broken off, despite the direction of both churches.
Q: How do you read Pope Benedict's commitment to ecumenism in light of his past statement that [other] religions are ''gravely deficient?"
A: I think his commitment is genuine, because Vatican II, the official policy of the Roman Catholic Church, is committed to ecumenism. The pope has sent the head of the ecumenical office in the Vatican to Russia to lay the groundwork for a closer relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Q: Is there a common interest that might bring you together -- the growing popularity of conservative evangelical religions?
A: I think that's right. There's more that unites Anglicans and Roman Catholics than separates us. We are both inheritors of the catholic and apostolic faith of the early church. We both have the sacraments at the heart of our life. So much about our experience has united [us] -- peace, justice, the cause of the poor.
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