THE ancient world still casts a spell. While the educated public surely knows less about Greek and Roman culture than it did 100 years ago, many men and women continue to approach antiquity with keen expectations, believing that even a rapid glance in that distant mirror can help us better understand ourselves.

Stunning temple: The Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Far away from the worlds of power and policy, the opening of the final sections of the new Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has turned out to be one of the most engrossing museum-going experiences of recent years. Walking through the galleries on a weekday afternoon, you can see how eagerly, how gleefully, students respond to the unabashed eroticism of the ancient world, to an avidity for bodies that makes even 21st-century urban permissiveness look rather puritanical.

There is something at once bluntly familiar and utterly impenetrable about antiquity. Even people who have not read The Iliad or looked closely at a Greek vase can feel that they are acquainted with these cultural landmarks. But knowing how to assess such ancient achievements is another matter entirely. Is The Iliad a story of heroic individualism? Or is it an allegory of the dangers of pure force, as Simone Weil suggested in a famous essay written on the eve of World War II? When we look at Greek vase paintings, are we mistaken in seeing some mismatch, or at least some tension, between the nearly abstract elegance of the figurative style and the brazenly realistic treatment of sexual encounters?

These are the sorts of questions that are raised by all important works of art and literature, which by their nature can mean many different things. But the stakes are raised almost impossibly high when we are looking at the ancient world, for if the art, literature and philosophy of Greece and Rome are the beginnings of Western civilisation, then the act of interpretation becomes nothing less than a referendum on ourselves. The most we can generally hope to grasp of the ancient world are glimpses: fragmented vistas, partial perspectives, moments of insight. These glimpses, the large ones as well as the small ones, are precisely what a museum-goer discovers amid the sunstruck elegance of the new Greek and Roman galleries.

The Metropolitan has long possessed what is probably the finest collection of Greek and Roman art outside Europe. And that collection has never looked better than in this luminous re-installation, 15 years in the making and opened in stages during the past 10 years. Architect Kevin Roche has done a brilliant job of revitalising the visual beauties of the old McKim, Mead and White galleries on the museum's southern flank, which were constructed early in the 20th century in a beaux-arts style that self- consciously recapitulated the vaulted spaces of ancient Rome.

Those who go to museums in search of innovative installations may think the Metropolitan has left ancient art looking more or less the way it always looked. And this may be precisely what Carlos A. Picon, the curator in charge of the Greek and Roman galleries, has set out to do. The gathering of gods, heroes and athletes that fills the grandly scaled central spaces in the galleries will give many museum-goers a sense of deja vu, evoking memories of antiquities glimpsed in any number of collections in Rome or Paris.

Ancient art was where the Metropolitan started: 35,000 antiquities from Cyprus, collected by Luigi Palma di Cesnola, was the museum's first great acquisition, and Cesnola was the first director of the museum. In giving its Greek and Roman collections this sumptuous re-installation, the museum is returning to its roots, and every return provokes a reconsideration.

In the 1920s, Andre Gide identified the element of struggle in classicism when he observed: "The classical work of art tells of the triumph of order and measure over inner romanticism." The Greek and Roman galleries present such a great variety of work that we cannot help but be brought close to the romantic urges that classicism sets out to subdue. We have here, after all, not only the cool athleticism of a Roman copy of a statue of a young man by Polykleitos but also the dreamy smile of an early 5th-century youth, the clotted-cream lusciousness of a Dionysian sarcophagus from the 3rd century and the blunt realism of a monumental head of Constantine from the 4th century.

We understand what Gide meant when he said: "The greater the initial revolt of the object brought under subjection, the more beautiful is the work of art." Indeed, the trouble with some of the chilliest of the Roman copies of Greek statues is that the romantic heat was probably not there to begin with.

The wonder of this beautiful installation is that it is not modern, or postmodern, or anti-modern. Instead it presents the beginnings of art in the West in a manner that is free-spirited, open-minded and bracingly unideological. In one respect there could hardly have been a worse time to open these galleries, for in recent years ancient art and archeology have been under a cloud of scandal, with museums, especially in the US, accused by European governments of collaborating, at least tacitly, with unscrupulous dealers and overeager collectors to flout or finesse laws designed to protect the national patrimony. The appetite for antiquities has placed many dealers, collectors and even curators on a collision course with archeologists and scholars who quite rightly are protesting the ongoing destruction of archeological sites.

More than a year ago, when Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan, sat down with Italian officials to resolve claims against works in the museum's collection, sceptics could argue he was simply practising damage control. By hammering out a repatriation plan that included long-term loans, he freed the Metropolitan from the aura of illegality that had enveloped the Getty in Los Angeles and once again proved himself a master politician. But de Montebello was doing something more important, too. He was announcing that the Metropolitan was dedicated to something higher than provenance and provincialism; that the question of what belongs to us and what belongs to them must never overshadow the greater power, the universal power, of the art itself, which is that it belongs to anybody who takes a heartfelt interest.

In History of the Department of Greek and Roman Art, an essay Picon has contributed to the new handbook of the Metropolitan's classical collections, we are invited to review the museum's century-long efforts on behalf of ancient art. Picon lingers over the distinguished scholars who have served at the Metropolitan, among them Gisela M.A. Richter, who in the mid-century years oversaw important acquisitions and wrote some of the museum's catalogues. The truth is that many, if not most, of the essential monuments of the Metropolitan's collection were acquired decades, even generations, ago. So the scandals of recent times do not have that much to do with the core of the museum's collection, although of course the seamier side of the antiquities trade is a very old story, one that some would say dates back to ancient times, when Romans hungry for statues to decorate their villas did not care how their agents got the goods out of Greece. The essential theme of Picon's essay, a theme that is never stated outright, is that even if some of the treasures in the Metropolitan were not exactly honestly acquired, the curators who built the department have been animated by the most serious sort of engagement with the art of the ancient world.

There is an extraordinarily satisfying solidity about the new presentation of ancient art at the Metropolitan. The works are deployed with a lucidity that allows them to tell their own stories and this means that what you find here are many, many stories. My guess is that most people instinctively pick and choose which stories they take in. The resplendent arrangement of Roman paintings, for example, has struck a chord in quite a few museum-goers, who see more clearly than ever how much European painting owes to antiquity. There is a feeling of generosity about these galleries, in the beautiful marble floors, the abundant light, the well-paced displays.

Visitors are being very well treated indeed, and that leaves them free to look and to wonder and to dream. Everything feels clean-swept, burnished, honey-dipped. There is something almost sacerdotal about the way the spaces unfold, with that central spine of classical sculpture leading to Greek funerary monuments, Roman wall paintings, Etruscan bronzes. The experience is irresistible, a heady mix of the sensuous and the cerebral, the pagan and the austere.

The New Republic

THE bomb hit the ABC's headquarters, destroying everything except one digital transmission tower. The force of the blast left Aunty's site a cratered mess. Just weeks before, a group of terrorists flew a helicopter into the Nissan building, creating an inferno that left two dead. Then a group of armed militants forced their way into an American Apparel clothing store and shot several customers before planting a bomb outside a Reebok store.

Pixel-packing avatars: Browsing for weapons in Second Life

This terror campaign, which has been waged during the past six months, has left a trail of dead and injured, and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars' damage. The terrorists belong to a militant group bent on overthrowing the government. But they will never be arrested or charged for their crimes because they have committed them away from the reach of the world's law enforcement agencies, in the virtual world known as Second Life.

Second Life, or SL as it is known to devotees, is an online reality game. It was launched in 2003 by California-based Linden Labs but it did not come to prominence until last year, when corporations including Sony, IBM, Nissan and the ABC bought islands and began marketing to visitors.

In SL people create their own characters, known as avatars, and live an alternative life, buying goods, real estate and living in a community of more than eight million people from across the world. They go about their lives, attending concerts and seminars, building businesses and socialising.

On the darker side, there are also weapons armouries in SL where people can get access to guns, including automatic weapons and AK47s. Searches of the SL website show there are three jihadi terrorists registered and two elite jihadist terrorist groups.

Once these groups take up residence in SL, it is easy to start spreading propaganda, recruiting and instructing like minds on how to start terrorist cells and carry out jihad.

One radical group, called Second Life Liberation Army, has been responsible for some computer-coded atomic bombings of virtual world stores in the past six months.

On screen these blasts look like an explosion of hazy white balls as buildings explode, landscapes are razed and residents are wounded or killed.

With the game taking such a sinister turn, terrorism experts are warning that SL attacks have ramifications for the real world. Just as September 11 terrorists practised flying planes on simulators in preparation for their deadly assault on US buildings, law enforcement agencies believe some of those behind the Second Life attacks are home-grown Australian jihadists who are rehearsing for strikes against real targets.

Terrorist organisations al-Qa'ida and Jemaah Islamiah traditionally sent potential jihadists to train in military camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. But due to increased surveillance and intelligence-gathering, they are swapping some military training to online camps to evade detection and avoid prosecution.

Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qa'ida, says it is a new phenomena that, until now, has not been openly discussed outside the intelligence community.

But he says security agencies are extremely concerned about what home-grown terrorists are up to in cyberspace. He believes the dismantling and disruption of military training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan after September 11 forced terrorists to turn to the virtual world.

"They are rehearsing their operations in Second Life because they don't have the opportunity to rehearse in the real world," Gunaratna says. "And unless governments improve their technical capabilities on a par with the terrorists' access to globalisation tools like the internet and Second Life, they will not be able to monitor what is happening in the terrorist world."

Gunaratna says a fresh crop of home-grown jihadis has been groomed and is ready to step up and replace the leaders of Australian terror cells who have been arrested or jailed. He estimates as much as 80 per cent of the nation's counter-terrorism resources is dedicated to monitoring and tracking them.

Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments.

Zuccato told an Australian Security Industry Association conference in Sydney that people intent on evil no longer had to travel to the target they wanted to attack to carry out reconnaissance. He said they could use virtual worlds to create an exact replica and rehearse an entire attack online, including monitoring the response and ramifications.

"We need to start thinking about living, working and protecting two worlds and two realities," Zuccato says.

Earlier this year Britain's Fraud Advisory Panel warned that SL players could launder money across national borders without restriction and with little risk of being detected. The FAP says criminal or terrorist gangs can also use the game to avoid surveillance while committing crimes including credit card fraud, identity theft, money laundering and tax evasion.

Intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the US and Australia are so concerned they have established their own reality world games in a bid to gain the same experiences as the virtual terrorists.

Monash University academic and former Office of National Assessments intelligence officer David Wright-Neville agrees that online games and virtual worlds are being used by potential terrorists to hone their knowledge base. "They are very savvy with their technical skills," he says.

Intelligence analyst Roderick Jones, who is investigating the potential use of the games by terrorists, says SL could easily become a terror classroom.

"The teaching capabilities of the world can clearly be adapted for use by terrorists," he says in article published on website Counterterrorismblog.org. He believes the fast pace of communication that takes place in games such as SL is ideal for recruitment into radical groups, particularly because the age range of those engaged in this world is typically 18 to 34.

Jones says streaming video can be uploaded into SL and a scenario can easily be constructed whereby an experienced bomb-maker could demonstrate how to assemble bombs using his avatar to answer questions as he plays the video.

The bomb-maker and his students could be spread across the world, using instant language translation tools to communicate.

"Just as real-life companies such as Toyota test their products in SL, so could terrorists construct virtual representations of targets they wish to attack in order to examine the potential target's vulnerabilities and reaction to attack," Jones says.

One of the most useful tools available is theability to transfer SL money between avatars, funds that can then be translated into real currency.

"The SL currency of Lindens (about $L270 to $US1) can be bought using a credit card in one country and credited to one avatar (account) and can be given to a co-conspirator avatar in another country," Jones says.

The recent string of terrorist attacks in SL appeared to work and frightened off some retailers. In Nissan's case, its online officials cleaned up the mess, took away the bodies in virtual coffins and continued business.

However, the American Apparel store is closing and moving out. The ABC has discovered that its bomb was a computer server error that it was able to fix within a couple of hours. Nonetheless, it is taking the likelihood of a terrorist attack seriously.

Abigail Thomas, head of strategic development at ABC Innovations, says they are taking precautions to protect their most popular site on the ABC's island, known as the Sandbox. The Sandbox, which allows visitors to build or create objects including buildings, is considered the most vulnerable.

"There have been some incidents where some people have built objects that are inappropriate for an ABC site," Thomas says. She says the ABC is monitoring the site closely, and has staff drop into the area twice a day to check on what is happening. There is an auto-delete button used to remove things quickly. "We have also harnessed the community to moderate the space," she says.

Community representatives are relied on to report suspicious or inappropriate behaviour to the owners or the SL authorities, just as in the real world.

Apart from the virtual worlds, nearly 5000 websites are maintained by terrorist groups. More than a dozen groups produce videos.

Gunaratna, who is also head of terrorism research at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore, says few governments understand the importance of the internet to terrorism.

US terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, from think tank RAND Corporation, says intelligence agencies deal with people only once they have become radicalised. But he warns law enforcement needs to step up its access to and understanding of internet communications and users.

"We have to contest this virtual battle space in much the same manner as we are very successfully doing in other traditional forms," Hoffman says.

Natalie O'Brien is a senior writer on The Australian.

It is time for the "global warming election". The myths that coal can be clean and nuclear can be safe are distractions. Whilst the major parties are addicted to coal, the Greens are committed to a rapid transformation of NSW's energy industry to low emission renewable energy options such as solar and wind power, energy efficiency and conservation measures. There is no choice between the economy and the environment: both can be healthy and sustainable.

A Burmese dissident has successfully fought a decision refusing her asylum in Australia because the word "oogabooga" was typed into the Refugee Review Tribunal's ruling.

The word appeared next to the heading "Definition of 'Refugee' " in a document outlining tribunal member Wendy Boddison's 2002 findings in the case of the Burmese woman.

In overturning the decision in February, a federal magistrate quoted film critics on the King Kong remake and snippets from James Cook's account of his voyages in finding the word appeared to have "overtones of mysticism and racism in its more modern uses".

But far from quashing people's desire to log details of their everyday lives, including work, over the web, it appears to be having the opposite effect. There are almost 30 million blogs, according to blogging website technorati.com, and about 70,000 more appear every day. Unlike Grey, people are throwing caution to the wind and spilling all sorts of beans about their social and work lives.

Some are attracted to the influence blogs wield. Once, if people wanted to say something to a national or global audience, they would have to use publications such as this, and even then the decision of whether to use these sources was down to the journalist or editor. Now they can blog.

In fact, Mark Rogers, the chief executive of blog-monitoring firm Market Sentinel, says it's because blogs are so unlike the conventional media that they've become so popular.

"You can share stuff about everyday lives that you don't get to do in the media and, also, blogs are not static but constantly updated," he says. "There's also the fact that you can respond to many blogs, which creates a kind of forum."

Jeff Jarvis, a media consultant and avid blogger, recently reported a further reason for their appeal: "In this age, when every message is manufactured, metered, spun and filtered, that is precisely what makes blogs so refreshing: their humanity."

Dench is sublime as a woman who revels in others’ discomfort, while Blanchett opens up emotionally like a flower whose petals are drawn to the light.” says Louise. “…this beautifully realised film is everything a grown up film lover could want in terms of character, story and subtle yet riveting, powerful drama … a feast of moving scenes that juggle our feelings like an accomplished circus act,” says Andrew.

“Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd canvasses in considerable detail and with great conviction, a fictional account of the early days of the CIA. The topic is fascinating and the cast A grade, so more’s the pity that the story becomes bogged down by its 160 minute length, too many characters and constant leapfrogging back and forth in time,” says Louise. “Indeed, it’s the all star cast that engages, more than the storyline, which (for no apparent good reason) is told in time jumps back and forth,” says Andrew.

The core of the film is a one-man, ever-evolving multimedia slide show that Gore assembled himself. A little-known fact: Since his defeat by George W. Bush in 2000, Gore has traveled the globe with his bar graphs, staging event after event for small, invited audiences. Free of charge. And he's presented one version or another of this slide show, by his own estimation, a thousand times.

Lest you are still in any doubt that Armageddon is nigh, this version opens with news footage of New York's blazing twin towers, the Columbia space shuttle crash, the Asian tsunami and the infamous picture of the hooded captive at Abu Ghraib. "We are on the eve of Armageddon," a Vatican cardinal declares. "The worst evil will do battle for our souls."

John Moore, the Irish director, repenting of his pro-American 2001 film Behind Enemy Lines, says that he was moved to remake The Omen to comment on the post-September 11 world. "I had been struggling to find a piece that would allow me some comment on the sense of foreboding, oppressive fear that is being hawked around the world," he explains. "I thought this was a good opportunity."

Facing sceptical journalists in New York, Moore comes across as a witty and rather cuddly fellow with a reddish beard. But he takes a dim view of humankind and thinks the world is, figuratively, if not literally, "going to Hell". That is his grand metaphor. He observes that the current mood echoes that prevailing at the time of the original Omen - not to mention the price of petrol. "The White House was in turmoil in 1976. You had gas disputes. The world was shaky, dark, nervous. Again here we are. Maybe it's the cyclic nature," he says.

"Human nature has got lucky a couple of times. There's a cyclic nature to it. We get very close to the edge and something comes along to stop it, whether it's peace and war or a new regime or politics," he explains. "But now, I do feel negative. I don't feel optimistic about things, and that is reflected in the film."

Iraq War opponent Leslie Cannold argues in today's Age "Why we must stay the course" in Iraq. Whilst I think she could have made her points without resorting to the shameless conservative focus group-tested campaign phrase, they're not unreasonable:

• Yes, the neo-cons have stuffed up badly. They have made a horrible mess of Iraq.
  
• However, the old "pottery store" rule applies - "you break it, you fix it".
  
• We shouldn't be staying just to defend American prestige, or avoid looking like idiots, or not wanting to be "defeated". We should only be staying if our presence will make things better. Meaning for the Iraqis.
  
• The debate should be between the following positions: Either our presence in Iraq is so tainted that only be leaving will things start to improve; or our presence, reformed and repositioned, and hopefully run by a different administration, is necessary now to repair what we, well, "broke".

George W. Bush issues an important message to world leaders:

Days after receiving an 18-page letter from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President George W. Bush called the lengthy missive “an act of war” and demanded that Iran halt its production of long letters at once.

At the White House, aides said that writing a letter of such length to President Bush, who is known for his extreme distaste for reading, was the most provocative act Mr. Ahmadinejad could have possibly committed.

“Everyone knows that the last book the president read was ‘My Pet Goat,’” one aide said. “Expecting him to read an 18-page letter is really asking for it, and that Iranian dude must have known that.”

According to those close to Mr. Bush, the president was infuriated upon receipt of the 18-page letter and asked aides if it was some kind of joke.

The president then demanded that the letter be boiled down to a one- or two-page format, or possibly adapted to a DVD version, just as he had ordered for news reports on Hurricane Katrina.

In Tehran, President Ahmadinejad said he was “taken aback” by Mr. Bush’s refusal to read an 18-page letter, but said that all his future communications to the U.S. president would be in short, easy-to-read instant-messaging format.

In his first IM to President Bush, released to the press today, President Ahmadinejad writes, “Am building nukes. R U angry? LOL.”

Elsewhere, Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden vowed today that as director of the CIA he would push the agency to find new and better sources of false intelligence. 

I. Am. Not. Insecure.

I'm not.

Get fucked!

Jade: I have my own business. I provide tutors to students. I can charge lower prices than other companies because my business is still small. I make less than fifty thousand dollars so I don't have to pay G.S.T.

David: You do know that John Howard watches this, don't you?

Jade: Who?

David: John Howard. Our Prime Minister.

Don Quixote said...

I was just musing about how we're living under Orwell's spreading chestnut tree, and how the first thing that happens when we fall under its penumbra is that we sell each other out.

the Anti-Christ, which I currently believe to be James Blunt

Number of the Beast = AntiChrist (but does it really?)

Members for Hawkesbury

Member	Party affiliation	Period
John Darvall	Independent	1859-1860
William Piddington	Independent	1859-1877
James Cunneen	Independent	1860-1869
Henry Moses	Independent	1869-1880
Alexander Bowman	Independent	1877-1882
Henry McQuade	Independent	1882-1885
Alexander Bowman	Independent	1885-1892
Sydney Burdekin	Independent	1892-1894
William Morgan	Independent	1894-1901
Brinsley Hall	Progressive Party/Commonwealth Liberal Party	1901-1917
Robert Walker	Commonwealth Liberal Party/Nationalist Party of Australia	1917-1920
Robert Walker	Nationalist Party of Australia	1927-1932
Ronald Walker	United Australia Party	1932-1941
Francis Finnan	Australian Labor Party	1941-1950
Bernard Deane	Liberal Party of Australia	1950-1972
Kevin Rozzoli	Liberal Party of Australia	1973-2003
Steven Pringle	Liberal Party of Australia/Independent	2003-present

Greens Education Spokesperson Senator Kerry Nettle has called on Macquarie University in Sydney to lift their undemocratic ban on politics at orientation week events.

"The ban on political or union stalls being part of the orientation week events at Macquarie University is exactly what the federal government has been trying to achieve in their anti-student anti-union laws," Senator Nettle said.

"'O week is an important opportunity for new students to experience university life. Politics is a part of university life. A ban on politics at O week is an attempt to end political activity at the university.

"This ban is undemocratic. Politics has always been a part of university life. Political awareness is an essential element of a comprehensive education.

"The Greens are active on campuses around the country as are other political groups and all should be allowed to participate in Orientation week events."

Secret plan to reunite Catholics, Anglicans under Pope

• Ruth Gledhill
• February 19, 2007

RADICAL proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope are to be published this year, according to a statement leaked to the media today.

The proposals have been agreed by senior bishops of both churches.

In a 42-page statement prepared by an international commission of both churches, Anglicans and Roman Catholics are urged to explore how they might reunite under the Pope.

The statement, leaked to The Times, is being considered by the Vatican, where Catholic bishops are preparing a formal response.

It comes as the archbishops who lead the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion meet in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in an attempt to avoid schism over gay ordination and other liberal doctrines that have taken hold in parts of the Western Church.

The 36 primates at the gathering will be aware that the Pope, while still a cardinal, sent a message of support to the orthodox wing of the Episcopal Church of the US as it struggled to cope with the fallout after the ordination of the gay bishop Gene Robinson.

Were this week's discussions to lead to a split between liberals and conservatives, many of the former objections in Rome to a reunion with Anglican conservatives would disappear. Many of those Anglicans who object most strongly to gay ordination also oppose the ordination of women
priests.

Rome has already shown itself willing to be flexible on the subject of celibacy when it received dozens of married priests from the Church of England into the Catholic priesthood after they left over the issue of women's ordination.

There are about 78 million Anglicans, compared with a billion Roman Catholics, worldwide. In England and Wales, the Catholic Church is set to overtake Anglicanism as the predominant Christian denomination for the first time since the Reformation, thanks to immigration from Catholic countries.

As the Anglicans' squabbles over the fundamentals of Christian doctrine continue - with seven of the conservative primates twice refusing to share Communion with the other Anglican leaders at their meeting in Tanzania - the Church's credibility is being increasingly undermined in a world that is looking for strong witness from its international religious leaders.

The Anglicans will attempt to resolve their differences today by publishing a new Anglican Covenant, an attempt to provide a doctrinal statement under which they can unite.

But many fear that the divisions have gone too far to be bridged and that, if they cannot even share Communion with each other, there is little hope that they will agree on a statement of common doctrine.

The latest Anglican-Catholic report could hardly come at a more sensitive time. It has been drawn up by the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission, which is chaired by the Right Rev David Beetge, an Anglican bishop from South Africa, and the Most Rev John Bathersby, the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Australia.

The commission was set up in 2000 by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, and Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the president of the Vatican's Council for Christian Unity. Its aim was to find a way of moving towards unity through "common life and mission".

The document leaked to The Times is the commission's first statement, Growing Together in Unity and Mission. The report acknowledges the "imperfect communion" between the two churches but says that there is enough common ground to make its "call for action" about the Pope and other issues.

In one significant passage the report notes: "The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the ministry of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) as universal primate is in accordance with Christ's will for the Church and an essential element of maintaining it in unity and truth."

Anglicans rejected the Bishop of Rome as universal primate in the 16th century.

Today,  however, some Anglicans are beginning to see the potential value of a ministry of universal primacy, which would be exercised by the Bishop of Rome, as a sign and focus of unity within a reunited Church.

In another paragraph the report goes even further: "We urge Anglicans and Roman Catholics to explore together how the ministry of the Bishop of Rome might be offered and received in order to assist our Communions to grow towards full, ecclesial communion."

Other recommendations include inviting lay and ordained members of both denominations to attend each other's synodical and collegial gatherings and conferences. Anglican bishops could be invited to accompany Catholic ones on their regular visits to Rome.

The report adds that special "protocols" should also be drawn up to handle the movement of clergy from one Church to the other. Other proposals include common teaching resources for children in Sunday schools and attendance at each other's services, pilgrimages and processions.

Anglicans are also urged to begin praying for the Pope during the intercessionary prayers in church services, and Catholics are asked also to pray publicly for the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In today's Anglican Church, it is unlikely that a majority of parishioners would wish to heal the centuries-old rift and return to Rome.

However, the stance of the present Archbishop of Canterbury over the present dispute dividing his Church gives an indication of how priorities could be changing in light of the gospel imperative towards church unity.

Dr Rowan Williams, who as leader of the Anglican Communion is its "focus for unity", has in the past supported a liberal interpretation of Scripture on the gay issue.

But he has made it clear that church unity must come before provincial autonomy. A logical extension of that, once this crisis is overcome either by agreement or schism, would be to seek reunion with the Church of England's own mother Church.

Clarifications regarding the front page article in The Times, 19 February 2007, on Anglican - Roman Catholic relations

from
Archbishop John Bathersby, Catholic Co-chair of IARCCUM
and
Bishop David Beetge, Anglican Co-chair of IARCCUM

Growing Together in Unity and Mission is being published as an agreed statement of IARCCUM (the International Anglican - Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission), and is to be published under the Commission’s authority, not as an official statement of the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. It is being put forward to foster discussion and reflection, as the statement clearly states.

The statement was recently completed by IARCCUM, and is scheduled to be published by the Commission as soon as a Catholic commentary to accompany the document has been completed; an Anglican commentary has already been prepared for publication. The text was made available to the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council and to the Anglican Primates, currently meeting in Tanzania. The Primates were also presented with a copy of the agreed statement of the International Commission of the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue, entitled The Church of the Triune God. Through these two texts, Anglican leaders were able to look at the recent results of important international dialogues with which the Anglican Communion is currently engaged. Both of these texts address the theology of the Church, and given that the Anglican Primates are currently discussing the nature of the Church, it was felt that the dialogue documents had something to contribute to those discussions.

Growing Together in Unity and Mission has not yet been officially published.  It is unfortunate that its contents have been prematurely reported in a way which misrepresents its intentions and sensationalises its conclusions. The first part of the document, which treats doctrinal matters, is an attempt to synthesize the work of ARCIC (the Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission) over the past 35 years. It identifies the level of agreement which has been reached by ARCIC, but is also very clear in identifying ongoing areas of disagreement, and in raising questions which still need to be addressed in dialogue. Those ongoing questions and areas of disagreement are highlighted in boxed sections interspersed throughout the text. It is a very honest document assessing the state of Anglican - Roman Catholic relations at the present moment.

Both the heading of the article ('Churches back plan to unite under Pope') and its opening sentence, which speaks of ‘radical proposals to reunite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope’ need to be put into proper perspective.  For 35 years this dialogue has addressed questions of authority, including the papacy.  The so-called 'radical proposals' found in Growing Together in Unity and Mission are the same proposals which ARCIC has been putting forward over the past 35 years. What this document says about the Petrine Ministry is not new, but a synthesis of what is said in ARCIC's documents on authority (Authority in the Church I, 1976; Authority in the Church II, 1981; The Gift of Authority, 1999). While it is encouraging that a document of this kind can be produced and that practical day to day cooperation between Catholics and Anglicans can be strengthened, talk of plans to reunite the two communions is, sadly, much exaggerated.

The second part of the document sets forward proposals for concrete initiatives, identifying aspects of common mission, common study, common prayer which are for the most part already permitted according to authoritative sources of the Catholic Church and the provinces of the Anglican Communion. Most of these proposals aren't new, and some of them have been implemented for decades in some places. The document draws together a series of proposals which IARCCUM’s members believe are possible in the present context given the degree of faith we share. But it also says that local bishops in each part of the world will need to discern what is appropriate locally, given that the context and dynamics of relationships between Anglicans and Roman Catholics differ widely across the world.

The Times article speculates about the Catholic Church’s response to a possible schism within the Anglican Communion. It should be pointed out that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has consistently spoken of the value of the Anglican Communion remaining a communion, rooted in the Apostolic faith, as indicated in this statement from 2004: “It is our overwhelming desire that the Anglican Communion stays together, rooted in the historic faith which our dialogue and relations over four decades have led us to believe that we share to a large degree.” During the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Pope Benedict in November, 2006, the Holy Father noted: “It is our fervent hope that the Anglican Communion will remain grounded in the Gospels and the Apostolic Tradition which form our common patrimony and are the basis of our common aspiration to work for full visible unity.”

We hope that when published, Growing Together in Unity and Mission invites a good deal of discussion, and that it will be a helpful instrument on the long journey towards full communion which has been the stated goal of Anglican - Roman Catholic relations for the past 40 years.