The time has come for the Anglican Communion to “clarify its identity,” according to Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council of Christian Unity.
 
Speaking to the English Catholic Herald newspaper the same day that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams met privately for 20 minutes with Pope Benedict XIV, Cardinal Kasper said the Anglican Church must decide where it belongs.
 
“Does it belong more to the churches of the first millennium—Catholic and Orthodox—or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century?” he said. “At the moment it is somewhere in between, but it must clarify its identity now and that will not be possible without certain difficult decisions.”
 
Cardinal Kasper, who has been invited by Archbishop Williams to address the Lambeth Conference of bishops in July, said he hoped that the Lambeth Conference would be the deciding moment for Anglicanism. Continued efforts to evade making a decision only serve to perpetuate the conflict, Cardinal Kasper said.
 
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