Fr. Smuts muses "And the next Ordinariate?"

The question now mulling around is where (if there is to be any) will the next Ordinariate be erected? What began in the heartland of Anglicanism, in England and Wales on 1 January 2011, as an initiative to unite and bring disaffected Anglicans into the safe fold of the Catholic Church, has spread to the US (and Canada), and as of today, Australia. It’s a logical sort of progression: Extension into lands that were all at one time part of the British Empire, and thus to where the influence of the Church of England reached, and is still well felt to this very day. Anglicans, Continuing Anglicans and Episcopalians are the intent behind the apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus. So followingthe geographic extent of the now worldwide Anglican Communion seems to be key in order for us to stay abreast of the historic narrative unfolding before our eyes. And unfolding it is… Read the whole post and take the poll at Fr. Smut's eponymous blog.

Anglicans, the Ordinariate, and the Unopened Gift

Feb 8, 2011
Jordan Hylden
It is hard to remember now, but it is true: for the better part of the last hundred years, Anglicans were at the forefront of the ecumenical movement for Christian unity, with the Episcopalians in the lead. In 1886, the Episcopal bishops proposed the Chicago Quadrilateral as a means for “the restoration of the organic unity of the Church” in the face of its “sad divisions.” In 1888, the rest of the world’s Anglican bishops lent their voices to the proposal at Lambeth, and in 1920 extended it into a heartfelt “Appeal to All Christian People” for church reunion.

The Lambeth appeal in large part set the agenda for the Faith and Order movement of the twentieth century, which itself was spearheaded by the Episcopal missionary bishop Charles Henry Brent. Anglicans and Episcopalians were not the whole story, of course, but it is without question that they played an outsized and crucial role.

It is a proud history, but it all seems part of the past now. Today, it is probably closer to the truth to say that Anglicans are at the forefront of our “sad divisions,” with the Episcopalians once again at the helm. Two weeks ago, the Anglican primates met in Ireland, but key archbishops representing a majority of the Anglican faithful did not attend. The same was true for the last Lambeth conference, from which hundreds of bishops absented themselves, and which opted for open-ended discussion groups in place of its historic practice of issuing common resolutions.

The Anglican Consultative Council, which the 1968 Lambeth conference envisioned as a means to foster greater unity and communication among Anglicans worldwide, is in wide disrepute and deep disarray, with key members having resigned and its present form in constitutional question. And the Archbishop of Canterbury, the historic see that has long held it all together, is regarded by many on both the right and the left as either irrelevant or feckless. As Ephraim Radner not long ago concluded, each of the instruments of Anglican communion is broken, and it is not clear how, when or if they will ever be mended.

It is into this context that three Church of England bishops were received into the Roman Catholic Church last month as priests, as the first fruits of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus issued by Pope Benedict XVI not much more than a year ago...

Read the rest on the First Things: On the Square blog.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller

Homily of Fr. Ernie Davis for the Immaculate Heart of Mary on June 12, 2010

Fr. Ernie Davis preached in the Crypt Chapel of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus during Morning Prayer on the final day of the annual conference of the Anglican Use Society. Please listen to his reflections.

Events Reminder

There are several events coming up in which readers may be interested. These are listed to the left, with more details and links.

First up, the Institute of Catholic Culture hosts "The Pope, The Anglicans and the Mass" on February 21, 2010 at 7:30 pm. Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, who heads Ignatius Press, will lead a discussion of Anglicanorum Coetibus at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Annandale, Virginia. Free admission.

Next, there will be a discussion of Anglicanorum Coetibus by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of St. Michael's College (95 St. Joseph Street, Room 207, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) on Wednesday March 3, 2010, from 3:15 pm to 4:45 pm. Titled "The Pope's Response to Anglicans: Theological Reflections on the New Structure To Receive Anglican Groups Who Request Full Communion", this will be preceded by Midday Prayer, with Choir at 1:30 pm.

The next conference on Anglicanorum Coetibus, "Anglicanorum Coetibus Conference: An exploration of Anglican Patrimony", will be held on Saturday, April 24, 2010, from 10:30am - 6:00pm, at Pusey House in Oxford University in England.

The last event we've learned of is an Anglican Use Pilgrimage, from November 2 - 15, 2010, with the theme: "St. Paul, St. John the Divine, and the Early Church in Turkey." This pilgrimage will be led by Fr. Ernie Davis, Administrator of St. Therese Little Flower Parish where the Anglican Mass is celebrated on Sundays.

Interviews with Anglicans received in full communion

EWTN on its program "The Journey Home" has interviewed scores of Anglicans who have been received into the full communion of the Catholic Church. I have compiled a listing which you can view which allows you to directly call up and download the audio interviews.

EWTN Anglican convert interviews.

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.

Anglicanorum Coetibus: A Glorious New Era of Christian Unity

December 18, 2009
By Mary Ann Mueller
Virtueonline Correspondent
www.virtueonline.org


SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS----If the 1974 ordination of women caused the first fissure in The Episcopal Church and the subsequent consecration of V. Gene Robinson to the bishopric rent the very fabric of Anglicanism worldwide, then more than four hundred years before, the Reformation, including the English Reformation, helped to fracture the entire Body of Christ and herald in Protestantism: a brokenness to the entire Body of Christ which still hasn't been healed.

Christ, Himself, prayed in His Priestly prayer: "The glory that You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are One, I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me." (St. John 17: 22-23 -- ESV). That prayer was uttered in the Garden following Christ's institution of the Eucharist and before He was arrested and led to the Cross at Golgotha...

Read the rest at Virtue Online.

Outside the Truth No Union Can Ever Be Attained

Dec 21st
by Christian Campbell

Yesterday was the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of the Instruction On the “Ecumenical Movement” by the Holy Office (as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was formally known). Addressed to Catholic ordinaries of places, the Instruction laid out the principles by which the Catholic Church should approach the matter of ecumenism. Within a few short years of the publication this Instruction, these sound principles would largely be abandoned, giving way to the empty “ecumenism” of the progressives with its scandalous interfaith gatherings, ambiguous joint statements, and interminable ‘dialogue’.

In stark contrast to the false ecumenism born of the ’spirit of Vatican II’, through his Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Holy Father seeks to attain the proper end of the only genuine ecumenism: the reconciliation of separated brethren with the Church on the basis of Catholic Truth...

Read the rest at The Anglo-Catholic.

First Fruits of Anglicanorum Coetibus

Christian Campbell reports:

Keith Cardinal O’Brien, the Catholic Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, has bestowed a wonderful Christmas gift upon the traditionalist Anglicans of Scotland’s capital city. Catholic Anglicans will this year celebrate Christmas Eve Mass in St Catharine’s convent chapel in Tollcross, Edinburgh, a gift of the Catholic Archdiocese.

Canon Len Black, Regional Dean of Forward in Faith Scotland, said:

This move has come about because of the rapid drift of the Scottish Episcopal Church away from the traditional faith, morals and practices of the universal Church. We are most grateful to Cardinal Keith O’Brien for the generosity he has shown us in making a place of worship available, not just for Christmas but in the months ahead, as we seek to serve those Episcopalians who look to us for spiritual and sacramental support...

Read the rest at The Anglo-Catholic.

Australian bishop urges prudence as Anglicans join Catholic Church

Monday, 14 December 2009
By Anthony Barich - Catholic News Service

Incorporating traditionalist Anglicans into the Catholic Church must be a "slow, cautious and prudent" path of implementing Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic constitution, said the bishop in charge of the process in Australia.

On November 9, the Vatican published Pope Benedict's apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum Coetibus" ("Groups of Anglicans") along with specific norms governing the establishment and governance of "personal ordinariates," structures similar to dioceses, for former Anglicans who become Catholic.

Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter J. Elliott, a former Anglican himself, told The Record Catholic newspaper of the Archdiocese of Perth Dec. 11 that such Anglicans are in for a difficult next few years as the ordinariate is established in Australia...

Read the rest in The Catholic Spirit.

Anglo-Jansenism and Immobilism

Dec 5th
by Fr. Anthony Chadwick

Not being American, I perhaps pick up things with a different level of sensitivity. I am English and have spent more than half my life in Continental Europe, mostly in France. And so, each morning, I go through the blogs and other sources of news and information. Some of those blogs are written and commented by men who identify with a form of Anglicanism (something that would have been strange to me as an esrtwhile Anglican layman in the 1970’s). I am mildly surprised to find comments written by priests who are neither Roman Catholic, nor Anglican or even belonging to a church of the Union of Utrecht. Well, I won’t go on and on about the relative risks of walking into a Roman “fly-trap” or belonging to a small church body that has a more than doubtful future on its own.

My subject for this posting is a certain vision of Anglicanism that I can only perceive as unreal, a caricature like certain forms of extreme Catholic traditionalism like sedevacantism. Like the sedevacantists, certain priests I have come to label, tongue-in-cheek, as Anglo-Jansenists, become increasingly shrill and intemperate. What is it with these people? What is the vision they are trying to uphold, or is it merely a bid for power and spiritual monopoly? Under all the rhetoric, there is an underlying vision...

Read the rest of Fr. Chadwick's post at The Anglo Catholic.

Moving towards a united Christianity

Wednesday 2 December 2009
by Adrian Pabst


In the past two months, relations between the three main Christian churches have moved in more promising directions than perhaps during the past 50 years of uninspiring liberal dialogue. By opening a new chapter of theological engagement and concrete co-operation with Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, Pope Benedict XVI is changing the terms of debate about church reunification. In time, we might witness the end of the Great Schism between east and west and a union of the main episcopally-based churches.
First there was the Rome visit in September by the Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Moscow's man for ecumenical relations. In high-level meetings, both sides argued that their shared resistance to secularism and moral relativism calls forth a further rapprochement of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Declaring that "More than ever, we Christians must stand together", Hilarion insisted that each side can appeal to shared traditions and work towards greater closeness in a spirit of "mutual respect and love".
That this was more than diplomatic protocol was confirmed by the Catholic Archbishop of Moscow, Monsignor Paolo Pezzi. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera...

Read the rest at The Guardian.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller.

The sad demise of the Anglican Church: One Man's Journey

by Fr Benedict Kiely
The VERMONT CATHOLIC TRIBUNE

I owe a great deal to the Anglican Church. Educated from the age of eight to 18 at an Anglican private school, the heritage of the Anglican Church, or Episcopal Church as it is more commonly referred to here in the United States, certainly prepared the good soil for my vocation to the priesthood.

Even though I was born and brought up a Catholic, my parents felt that the local Anglican boarding school would give me the best start in life.

We were required to go to "Chapel" every morning, to attend what was, effectively, the Anglican Office of Matins. Always accompanied by a full organ, we learned the great hymns which have made English choirs the envy of the world: the average small Anglican Cathedral choir puts the screeching, chubby Italian boys of the Sistine Chapel choir to shame...

Read the rest on Virtue Online.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller.

ANGLICANS/Personal Ordinariates as an Expression of Vatican II Ecumenism

lunedì 30 novembre 2009
by Fred Kaffenberger, ilsussidiario.net (http://tinyurl.com/ygfvs3u)


The recent apostolic constitution on Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church, Anglicanorum Coetibus, has stirred up a wide range of reactions among Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants, and the Orthodox churches. As the Bishop of Rome, the Pope has an apostolic responsibility to all baptized Christians, even if their ecclesial communion does not accept Roman primacy. And so, when groups of Anglicans approached the Vatican seeking union, Pope Benedict XVI responded with a pastoral gesture to enable groups to be admitted corporately — even retaining as much as possible their historical character and pastoral structures. This corporate provision is thus a practical expression of Vatican II documents: Lumen Gentium (the dogmatic constitution on the Church) and Unitatis Redintegratio (the decree on Christian ecumenism)...

Read the rest on Virtue Online

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller

Homily for the First Sunday of Advent – The Church is ONE

‘We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.’

+ In the name of the Father …

Every Sunday, week by week, and on certain other feast days, we recite the Nicene Creed, and during this Advent, I shall preach on each of its four Sundays on the Church that we say in the Creed we believe to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

For those who are quite properly expecting the homily to be preached on the Gospel and other readings of the day – as it ordinarily should, I have printed in today’s sheet, and shall do for the next three Sundays, the Lectio Divina mediation on the readings of the day published by the United Bible Societies.

And I am preaching on the nature of the Church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic not just as an exercise suggested because Advent conveniently has four Sundays, but in the context of the prayer and discernment which are needed with regard to the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus that has offered the equal and honoured place in the Catholic Church that Anglicans – some Anglicans anyway – have prayed and worked for over many years...

Read the rest of this fine homily at One Timothy Four

Hat Tip to Christian Campbell of The Anglo-Catholic

Analyzing Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' speech in Rome

Fr. Dwight Longenecker has a concise analysis of the main points of the speech that Rowan Williams gave in Rome this past week.

Now having had the chance to read the whole of the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech in Rome last week I am even more flummoxed. As far as I can make out the whole speech can be paraphrased thus:

1. The ARCIC talks have worked. We've made a lot of progress and we agree on all the basics.
2. We agree on the creed and the main points of the Christian faith.
3. Women's ordination really isn't such a big deal. We got used to it. You could too.
4. The way we get on is that we all agree to differ. We're good with that. It works. You should try it.
5. Sometimes we have to make a compromise and so we have flying bishops and 'impaired communion.' That works too. It's not so bad. You should try it.
6. Things are going fine. We don't know why you guys are still so uptight about women priests and bishops. I'm sure you'll probably have them one day too, and until then, lets have full communion and you can recognize our orders and we can all do things the Anglican way.

What I can't get my head around is that Rowan Williams really seems to believe this. Let's take his points one by one.

1. Has ARCIC been a success? Well it has helped to clear up some misunderstandings and there has been substantial agreement on many things, but the problem is, the 'agreement' is only between the few Anglo Catholic scholars who were involved in ARCIC...

Read Fr. Longenecker's full analysis at Standing on My Head.

Fr. Hawks Answers the Archbishop of Canterbury's Vision of Ecumenism ... in 1935

In 1908, several of the members of an American Anglican order of priests known as the Congregation of the Comanions of the Holy Saviour (C.S.S.S.) made their corporate submission to the Holy See after the General Convention of the Episcopal Church approved Open Pulpit Canon, which allowed ministers of Protestant denominations to preach in Episcopal parishes. In what today seems an innocuous ecumenical gesture, they saw a provision that they believed would be the beginning of the end of their particular vision of catholic Anglicanism...

Read the rest, including a very interesting link on other Anglican Religious communities that entered the Catholic Church, on Brother Stephen's blog Sub Tuum

Swimming the Tiber: The Background, Provisions and Eventual Implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus

Andrew Cole

The recent publication of the Apostolic Constitution inviting groups of Anglicans into communion with the Catholic Church has prompted a mixture of reactions from within and outside both communities. Canon lawyer, Fr Andrew Cole examines in detail the terms of Anglicanorum coetibus and looks forward to the mutual enrichment that its implementation will bring about...

Read the rest at Thinking Faith: The Online Journal of the British Jesuits.

Hat tip to Christian Campbell, who blogs at The Anglo-Catholic.

The Anglican Bridge

What are the wider implications of the new Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus? Firstly, we should consider the effect on ecumenism. It is a popular past time to throw dirt at ecumenism. Catholic triumphalists trumpet the truth of the Catholic faith and denigrate discussions with Protestants. They point out the false premise, the artifical cameraderie, and the fickleness of our ecumenical partners.Its true that the ecumenical movement is not without its faults, but it is also not without its accomplishments. Through the ecumenical movement Catholics and Protestants really have learned from one another. Progress has been made in many ways that has trickled down to the popular level...

Read the rest at Fr. Longenecker's blog Standing on My Head.

Cardinal Kasper says provision for Anglicans is not anti-ecumenical

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The establishment of special structures for Anglicans who want to enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church absolutely is not a signal of the end of ecumenical dialogue with the Anglican Communion, said the Vatican's chief ecumenist.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the visit Nov. 19-22 of Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, primate of the Anglican Communion, to the Vatican "demonstrates that there has been no rupture and reaffirms our common desire to talk to one another at a historically important moment."

Archbishop Williams was scheduled to speak at a conference sponsored by Cardinal Kasper's office and to meet privately Nov. 21 with Pope Benedict.

The Vatican announced Oct. 20 that Pope Benedict was establishing a special structure for Anglicans wanting to enter the Roman Catholic Church while maintaining some of their liturgical, spiritual and pastoral heritage...

Read the rest on Virtue Online.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller