I was able to witness an Anglican Sunday Church Service very briefly in one of my travels. It was my first time to see that Anglican Church open its doors that Sunday because every time I pass by during weekdays, it is closed. So when I saw that it was open, I took the opportunity to see what’s inside. My primary purpose was just to take some pictures of the stained glass windows which I often see from the outside. So when I entered the Church I noticed that they were having a service. There was a woman who was sitting at a table near the entrance to the church so out of respect I asked her permission and promised her that I wont use any flash in order not to distract or grab attention while the service is going on. When I was already taking pictures inside, I can’t help but listen to the liturgy of the Anglican Service. There are so many similarities between their liturgy and that of the catholic church. Even some of the words which our priests say during the mass are also the same words, in some aspect, which the Anglicans use. So it’s no wonder why the Vatican was lenient in ordaining Anglican ministers who went back to the fold to the Roman Catholic priesthood. Anglicans, like many other denominations who broke away from the Catholic Church, are long lost brethren waiting to come back home.

On May 17-27, the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church met for the third time in an Italian ecumenical monastery to discuss the possibility of unification known as the ARCIC III or the Third Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. This third phase of the dialogue was cemented in an agreement between Pope Benedict XVI and Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams during the former’s visit in the UK last 2010. The dialogue is mainly focused on “the church as communion, local and universal, and how in communion the local and universal church come to discern right ethical teaching.” In the past years of his pontificate, Benedict XVI focused intently on bringing back to the fold some of the groups who broke away from the Church. The Anglican Church is the latest of his many efforts to open up a dialogue between our brethrens.

But what is interesting to note is the Anglican Church’s controversial policies which led many Anglican bishops and priests to convert back to Roman Catholicism. The Anglican church promulgated ordination of women as priests and bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of openly homosexual clergy. These policies created tensions inside the Anglican Church which resulted to many priests and bishops leaving the fold and following the steps of John Henry Neumann back to Rome. But the bigger question is, with the ongoing dialogue between the two churches, how will these policies affect the Catholic church’s efforts in bringing back to the fold our brothers and sisters. There is no possibility that the Catholic church would change its stance towards these areas of discussion even in the future ahead because morals is not something that is affected by social trends and opinions inside the Catholic Church. The Church is firm and constant to what Christ has taught from the beginning so accepting Anglican’s policies is not even possible in the figment of our imagination. Unless the Church of England would see the light and change its policies. But until then, the unification of these two Churches will just be in the dialogue for now, yet we are fervently praying that in the near future, the Anglican church would heal its wound and come back to the fold, just like mosts of its sheep have already done.