The Boston Globe’s, Austen Ivereigh is calling the friendship between the late, Protestant ‘bishop’ Tony Palmer and Pope Francis a, “catalyst of an extraordinary historic breakthrough in relations between the Catholic Church and the evangelical world.”
Palmer was a member of an Anglican offshoot based in Florida. Ivereigh writes,
Its leaders see themselves as part of a “convergence” movement, seeking to combine evangelical Christianity with the liturgy and sacraments typical of Catholicism. That convergence, Palmer told me, “is a precursor to full unity between the Protestant and Catholic Churches.”
Cardinal Bergoglio and Palmer met in 2006 and worked together closely finding ways to build unity between their faiths. Astoundingly,
At one point, when Palmer was tired of living on the frontier and wanted to become Catholic, Bergoglio advised him against conversion for the sake of the mission.
“We need to have bridge-builders”, the cardinal told him.
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