Acta Apostolicae Sedis - Commentarium Officiale940

Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of

the Faith which has prepared this provision, said: "We have been trying to

meet the requests for full communion that have come to us from Anglicans in

different parts of the world in recent years in a uniform and equitable way.

With this proposal the Church wants to respond to the legitimate aspirations

of these Anglican groups for full and visible unity with the Bishop of Rome,

successor of St. Peter."

These Personal Ordinariates will be formed, as needed, in consultation

with local Conferences of Bishops, and their structure will be similar in some

ways to that of the Military Ordinariates which have been established in

most countries to provide pastoral care for the members of the armed forces

and their dependents throughout the world. "Those Anglicans who have

approached the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity

in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. At the same time, they have

told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality and

worship for their faith journey," Cardinal Levada said.

The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to

ecumenical dialogue, which continues to be a priority for the Catholic

Church, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the

Promotion of Christian Unity. "The initiative has come from a number of

different groups of Anglicans," Cardinal Levada went on to say: "They have

declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the

Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine ministry as something

Christ willed for the Church. For them, the time has come to express this

implicit unity in the visible form of full communion."

According to Levada: "It is the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Bene-

dict XVI, that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the

Catholic Church will find in this canonical structure the opportunity to pre-

serve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the

Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the

faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church.

The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural

diversity, as the history of Christianity shows. Moreover, the many diverse

traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle

articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: 'There is one Lord, one