I'm asking this question primary because although I am a devout Catholic, I have a love for the Anglican evensong tradition which I find to be similar to the Liturgy of The Hours and The Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols which although done in churches everywhere is mainly an Anglican tradition.
Some facts in particular stood on to me as I researched this topic.
1.Former Archbishop Rowan Williams was at the funeral of Pope St. John Paul II the first time since The Church of England broke away from the Catholic Church. It was also during his term that the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was created.
2.To quote wikipedia on this next point, "Archbishop Robert Runcie attempted to give a speech in St Nicholas's Parish Church in Liverpool on 11 March 1982, but was heckled by people upset about the Pope's prospective visit to Britain. They shouted that Runcie was a traitor, a liar and was a traitor to the Church of England. After interruptions of the service, Runcie asked the congregation to heed chapter five of St Matthew's Gospel (the Sermon on the Mount), telling them "For they are the words of Jesus himself". The crowd replied: "You had better read your Bible yourself. You are a traitor and a Judas." Outside, demonstrators held placards with the inscriptions "Rome Rules Runcie", "Our Faith Our Bible", "Revive Reformation", "Calvary not Popery" and "Jesus What More". Afterwards, Runcie said: "I am trying my best to find forgiveness for them, but it is very upsetting." Cardinal Basil Hume called the demonstration "particularly abhorrent and a scandal".
Regarding the second point, why would the hecklers be that upset over a Pope visiting the United Kingdom especially since history has shown with point one that Rowan would attend the funeral of a Pope who worked to build bridges between the Catholic Church and other denominations.
Runcie even stated in a London Weekend Television interview on April 18th 1982, ""I dream of unity with Rome, and with the great Reform tradition and with the Orthodox, by the end of the century, but we will have to get a move on, certainly, if that is our target. I don't see why we should not have that target."
