The Anglican Covenant:

Committing Unity to Print

Writing in The Living Church, Anglican Centre in Rome Director David Richardson is hopeful that the Anglican Covenant will assist the dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church, now entering a new phase as ARCIC III “Church as Communion — Local and Universal”.

Roman Catholic ecumenical partners, he says, have always liked the idea of the Covenant because it is an attempt by the Communion to act and decide in ways that are not simply local, and that probably helps to explain their affection.

However, the Roman Catholic Church likes things written down, codified. A body of written canon law is essential for the pastoral good practice of the Church, and certainly they preferred the earlier drafts of the Covenant in which Section 4 was fiercer, seeming to have a juridical tone lacking from the final text.

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