The English Catholic Church is preparing to welcome five Anglican Bishops and over 40 priests under arrangements earlier made by the Vatican. Some time earlier, too, an English congregation decided to become Catholic. Some breathless commentators speculated whether this trickle would become a flood and lead to England again being Catholic.
But for Anglicans and Catholics more generally it was an opportunity to reflect soberly on the significance of these events, and indeed on the regular movement of members of each church into the other.
The heart of the matter is that people are involved in a significant personal journey. So they must receive the respect that is due to them. When church allegiance was more tribal and the identity of a church was often defined in terms of what it was not, those who changed churches received little respect. The churches which they left often saw them as traitors, and the church that received them saw them as trophies or as foreigners.
It is heartening that now people who leave one church for another are generally farewelled and received courteously, and wished well. In this case Rowan Williams spoke with exemplary graciousness of the Bishops who were leaving the Anglican Communion.
From one perspective, too, the procedures for receiving Anglicans into the Catholic Church embody respect for the people involved. They recognise the importance of spiritual and liturgical traditions within a person's faith and make space for them in the Catholic Church.
But these events do not simply touch on the individuals concerned. They also ask what kind of respect is due between churches. This is a complex question, because many churches see these relationships as asymmetrical.
The Catholic and Orthodox churches, for example, see their church as being exceptional and see other churches as lacking important qualities. In earlier Catholic theology, this was spelled out in terms of the Catholic Church being the true church and other churches as non-churches. This radical asymmetry made any relations, let alone respectful ones, very difficult.
In more recent theology, the Catholic Church has seen itself as embodying in flawed ways the full reality of Church. Other churches share in that reality to greater and lesser degrees. This gradated view of churches explains why the Catholic Church might be eager to enter into special relations with Anglican groups which share similar liturgical practice and doctrinal and moral views with the Catholic Church.
The acceptance that churches are linked by a common baptism means that, even if they do not see one another as equals, they must respect each other as family. In the case of the relationship between the Catholic and the Anglican churches, this means that when either side makes decisions that address members of the other church, the approach should follow consultation and communication between the churches.
In the Vatican's dealings with the Anglicans, the detail of how Bishops, priest and congregations should be received into unity with the Catholic Church was properly a matter for the Catholic Church alone. The establishment of a secretariate to reflect on such questions as the criteria for deciding whether people approved for ministry in one church should be accepted into Catholic ministry, and how the new group should relate institutionally to other groups within the Catholic Church, was an internal Catholic decision.
But respect would seem to demand that public announcement of special provisions for Anglican congregations and clergy were preceded by consultation and proper communication. It is clear from Archbishop Rowan Williams' response that this was not done satisfactorily. That the failure represented an older view of Catholic exceptionalism is suggested by the fact that the documents grounding the Vatican initiative maximised Catholic uniqueness.
Respect also normally demands reciprocity. This is germane in deciding whether congregations and other groups that move from one church to another should retain the use and ownership of their churches and other property. Under this principle, Catholic groups which decided to associate with the Anglican church would have the same rights to property as Anglican groups who wished to become Catholic.
Predictions that massive numbers of Anglicans will become Catholic seem far-fetched. Certainly, the Anglican communion was divided by the ordination of women as priests, and is sharply divided by proposals to ordain women Bishops and to ordain as Bishops men in openly homosexual relationships. But only some of those opposed to these initiatives would feel any attraction to Rome.
The response of the Anglican Church in Sydney to the ordination of women, for example, has been to explore the possibility of instituting lay celebrants of the Eucharist. Those attracted to this proposal would not find a natural home in the Catholic Church. So the number of Anglicans who might be expected to become Catholic is relatively small.
Andrew Hamilton is the consulting editor for Eureka Street. He teaches at the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne.