The head of the Anglican Communion admits that without the clear structures of the Roman Catholic Church, you end up with “structural complexity,” which is a euphemism for the doctrinal mess that Anglicans find themselves in today.
“If you’re not going to be a Roman Catholic, with clear universal visible tests for unity, you’re going to be involved in some degree of structural complexity—and I’m assuming that as Anglicans we have enough theological reservations about the (Roman Catholic) model of visible unity to make it worth our while exploring how ‘structural complexity’ can witness to the supernatural character of the church,” he wrote.
In other words, since they don’t want to answer to a Pope, but they also don’t want each individual national church to make up its own wildly diverging doctrine and practices—including gay bishops, women priests, etc.
Sorry, but I don’t see how it’s possible. If you don’t have a visible principle of unity and a final authority on doctrine, then human nature is going to take over and you’re going to end up with the menagerie of far-out doctrines and practices they’ve got.
