Rome
While the Roman Catholic Church and Rome itself have been busy with massive campaigns of refurbishment of their great shrines, including St Peter’s, so too, has the Anglican Centre in Rome been totally transformed.
Fund-raising and awareness-building programs have been a huge success and the Centre now finds itself in the midst of the splendour of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in the heart of the Eternal City.
Rome is expecting millions of visitors in the year 2000, marking the Jubilee and the Holy Year, and now Anglicans can be even more proud of their presence in Rome.
The weekend of Feb.12-14 brought nearly 300 guests from around the Anglican Communion to join the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey in dedicatory celebrations. Present were representatives of the Vatican including Cardinal Cassidy, a speaker at last summer’s Lambeth Conference, who read a personal letter of congratulations from Pope John Paul II.
References were repeatedly made of a major Anglican/Roman Catholic gathering in Canada in the year 2000 and the publication of the new Anglican Roman Catholic International Consultation’s document, “The Gift of Authority,” to be published by the Anglican Book Centre, Toronto, for Communion-wide distribution.
ARCIC chairperson Bishop Mark Santer, praised Canon Bruce Ruddock, director of the ACR and Vivien Ruddock, administrator, in their perseverance in keeping the concerns of the Centre alive in the eyes of the Communion. Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, in a letter of congratulations, called the Centre, “a place of welcome and hospitality, openness and for Roman Catholics and Anglicans to encounter one another as friends, to learn from our theological and structural differences.”
Canon James Rosenthal is director of communications for the Anglican Communion Office in London, England.