by Edward Pentin on Substack
Rather than aiding Christian unity, Rome’s exuberant welcome of Sarah Mullally is likely to be a stumbling block to reaching it.
The word “scandal” comes from the Greek skándalon, via the Latin scandalum, meaning a “stumbling block” — something that causes another to fall, especially in matters of faith and morals.
It was a term Pope Leo XIV returned to several times on Monday in his address to Sarah Mullally, the first female Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, during her four-day visit to Rome.
Disunity among Christians, he said, is one such stumbling block to proclaiming the Gospel. It would also be a scandal, he added, if Christians failed to continue working towards overcoming their divisions, however intractable they are.
All true. But there is another kind of scandal, arguably more serious in the quest for Christian unity: portraying something as true that is evidently not, and trumpeting it from the rooftops.
Mullally, like all her Anglican predecessors, does not possess valid orders. She leads a community separated from Rome that has drifted further from Catholic teaching, particularly over the past sixty years since the historic meeting of Paul VI and her predecessor Michael Ramsey. Her recent appointment as the first female archbishop of Canterbury only reinforces the judgment of Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae (1896), which declared Anglican orders “absolutely null and utterly void.”
Yet throughout her visit, Rome received Mullally — who has described herself in the past as “pro-choice rather than pro-life” and supports blessings for same-sex couples — with an enthusiasm that conveyed precisely the opposite impression. From the moment she arrived, Vatican officials rolled out the red carpet, extending courtesies that went well beyond diplomatic hospitality and included gestures laden with ecclesial significance.
Read also: The problems of ‘trans-ecumenism’ when Canterbury goes to Rome by Gavin Ashenden on substack