The first principle of the Ordinariate is then about Christian unity. St. Basil the Great, the Church’s greatest ecumenist, literally expended his life on the work of building bridges between orthodox brethren who shared a common faith, but who had become separated from one another in a Church badly fragmented by heresy and controversy. He taught that the work of Christian unity requires deliberate and ceaseless effort...St. Basil often talked with yearning about the archaia agape, the ancient love of the apostolic community, so rarely seen in the Church of his day. This love, he taught, is a visible sign that the Holy Spirit is indeed present and active, and it is absolutely essential for the health of the Church.

- Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, Homily on the Occasion of his Formal Institution as Ordinary

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A Few Thoughts on The Journey Home

JAN 11TH
Posted by Christian Campbell
This evening, the second installment of a two-part discussion on Anglicanorum Coetibus aired on EWTN’s The Journey Home with host Marcus Grodi. Having been deeply disappointed with last week’s episode, I was hoping to see a more thorough and respectful treatment of the issues in the second part of the program. Unfortunately, tonight’s installment only compounded the mistakes of last week’s show.

For a ministry and television program that portrays itself as “welcoming home” separated brethren as they journey into the fullness of the Catholic Faith, the whole tone of the presentation was dismissive and triumphalistic. Marcus Grodi could not even be troubled to learn how to pronounce the name of the Apostolic Constitution, but he seemed quite certain that all Anglican orders are “utterly null and void” (which point he made certain to mention several times during the course of the program)! And according to Grodi, “The Church isn’t going to be hoodwinked.” Evidently he presumes that Anglicans will only accept Catholic doctrine with mental reservations and that there will be attempts to skirt Church discipline with respect to irregular marriage situations. And of course, no one can really understand and confess the Catholic Faith until they have “converted” from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church! Anglo-Catholics who claim to confess the Faith are false pretenders who must be broken and remedially catechized before they can truly understand. The tone of the presentation was arrogant and disrespectful in the extreme and will do nothing to further the cause of reunion!

It was wearisome just to sit through the program and I have no intention of responding to each and every inaccuracy in the presentation, but I feel that it is important to reply to several of the most grievous errors which do nothing but scandalize Anglicans of goodwill who are striving to enter the full communion of the Catholic Church...

Read the rest of Christian's thoughts at The Anglo-Catholic blog.
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