Pope Benedict XVI with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams
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Catholicism isn't General Motors or Microsoft but if it were, a bean counter in Rome might put down his eyeshade to ask: Why do we bother? Forget theology for a moment, and just run the numbers. Today there are 1.1 billion Catholics in the world and just 77 million Anglicans.
If half the Anglicans on the planet were to wake up tomorrow and decide to join the Catholic church (to be sure, a wildly improbable scenario), all 38.5 million of them together wouldn't even represent one of the ten largest Catholic nations on earth.
Despite its relatively small numbers, Anglicanism has an outsize capacity for generating headaches. Absent a clear mechanism for resolving disputes, it's often difficult to know precisely where Anglicanism stands on issues such as gay marriage or women bishops - a frustration not just for Catholics, to be sure, but for Anglicans themselves. On the Catholic side, this sometimes leads to the suspicion that negotiating ecumenical agreements with Anglicans is a fruitless exercise, since there's no way to be sure that the entire Communion will stand behind the results.
Yet no one, least of all Benedict XVI, is seriously suggesting putting Anglican/Catholic relations on a backburner. Ask Catholic veterans of the ecumenical enterprise why, and aside from the obvious Biblical and theological imperative (Christ's last prayer on earth was that we may all be one), they generally cite three reasons. - John L. Allen Jr, National Catholic Reporter (click below for full article)
http://ncronline.org/blogs/future-church/yes-virginia-there-future-anglicancatholic-ties