So Near and Yet So Far

This book is written out of a concern for closer relationships between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, and from a . conviction that the agreed statements of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission have left more unfinished business than what they have so magnificently achieved. It is an overall review of the present relationship between Rome and Canterbury. Many crucial topics are covered: the church and its sources of authority, the church and its structures of authority, the laity, the Mother of God Incarnate, ethical thinking and especially sexual ethics, and the question of women and the ministerial priesthood. A great many areas of difference are still so far from being resolved that humanly speaking organic unity seems, if not a hopeless proposition, at least to be located where the rainbow ends. But there are possible areas of progress, and the last chapter looks towards the sphere of promise.