A towering figure in the Anglo-Catholic movement dies

January 9, 2012
By Mary Ann Mueller

Retired Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope died Saturday in Louisiana


A towering leader in the current Anglo-Catholic movement has died. Former Fort Worth Bishop Clarence C. Pope succumbed to pneumonia in his sleep Saturday, Jan. 7.

Bishop Pope was the long-time rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge before being elected in 1984 as the bishop coadjutor in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. He stepped into the diocesan bishop's roll in 1986 as the second bishop of Fort Worth, taking over the diocesan croizer from Fort Worth's founding bishop, Donald Davies who died last October.

The retired bishop was always a staunch supporter of Anglo-Catholic spirituality in Anglicanism. St. Luke's is a strong Anglo-Catholic parish. Pope kept the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth tightly within that religious understanding.

Under Bishop Pope's leadership and guidance the Diocese of Fort Worth was one of the final four Episcopal dioceses that did not ordain women. The foursome included: Fort Worth, Quincy, Eau Claire and San Joaquin.

While Bishop of Fort Worth, Bishop Pope was instrumental in helping St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church in Arlington become a Roman Catholic Pastoral Provision parish. It is now known as St. Mary the Virgin Catholic Church. The former Episcopal parish is slated to become a part of the newly erected Anglican Ordinariate.

Bishop Pope was sympathetic with Arlington's sole Anglo-Catholic parish's Catholic leanings and was instrumental in helping the former Episcopal congregation keep its land and buildings when it became an established Roman Catholic Anglican Use church in the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth in 1994.

The Anglo-Catholic bishop was also the founder and first president of the Episcopal Synod of America, which eventually folded to Forward in Faith-North America where he served as the first president. Until his death, he remained an ex-officio adjunct member of the FiF-NA Council where he was listed as the President Emeritus.

Bishop Pope handed the reins of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth over to coadjutor Bishop Jack Iker in January 1995 so he could follow his conscience into the Roman Catholic faith. Bernard Cardinal Law received him and his wife, Martha, into the Roman Catholic Church.

However, the ecclesial transfer was not a good fit. In seeking to reclaim his priesthood as a Catholic under the Pastoral Provision, Bishop Pope was reportedly black balled by the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge Priests' Council and was not ordained a Catholic priest. He was devastated.

After some cajoling by then-Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning and his own successor Bishop Iker, Bishop Pope returned to The Episcopal Church and was reinstated into the House of Bishops. That, too, was not a good fit, and he returned to the Papal flock.

Bishop Pope continued to struggle with his place in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. His heart was Anglican but his soul was Catholic. He lived that tension for the rest of his life struggling to be faithful to the spiritual path God had laid out for him...



Read the rest of Clarence Popes' obituary at Virtue Online

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller

Ordinariate Festival Australia - a participant reports to The Messenger.Journal

THOSE interested in the Ordinariate for Australia met at St. Stephen’s College at Coomera on the Gold Coast, a school affiliated with the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia, on the invitation of the hosts Bishop Peter Elliott, Delegate of the Holy See for the Australian Ordinariate and Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion. While I was there only for the first two days it was a wonderful time of discovery, talking and listening, to each other and to the Bp. Elliott. There were people from the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Anglican Catholic Church, Church of the Torres Strait, and the Ukrainian Catholic Church, as well as others.

The festival started with a Mass of the Holy Spirit according to the usage of the ACCA of which Archbishop Hepworth was the celebrant. Perhaps the unique aspect of this was the two Catholic Bishops seated in the front pew, Bp. Elliott, Apostolic Delegate and Bp. Jarrett, Bishop of Lismore, as well as Fr John Fleming, and several catholic laymen and women. The next day was Candlemass and this was a Catholic concelebration by Bp. Jarrett (the celebrant), Bp. Elliott, and Fr. Fleming. The singing was wonderful on both occasions and one could feel the movement of the Holy Spirit over each and every one that was there. Yet there was brokenness and isolation as we are not yet one, but the festival such as this, is the necessary step in healing the divisions of the past, and taking seriously Our Lord command, that the Church become one.

Sharing our stories, listening to each other, and being there as the unfolding the Ordinariate takes place, was a central theme of the conference. Perhaps the most eloquent was Bp. Elliott who spoke, on day two, of the way that the Ordinariate may unfold in Australia...

Read the rest of this report on the Traditional Anglican Communion's official The Messenger web site.

Hat tip to Br. Stephen Treat at the Anglo-Catholic blog.

Bishop John Broadhurst resigns as Chairman of FiF UK

Nov 30, 2010

At its residential meeting this week, the Council of Forward in Faith accepted the resignation of its Chairman, Bishop John Broadhurst, both with regret and with grateful thanks for all that he has done to guide and lead this organisation from its foundation in 1992. It was Bishop John’s decision to resign and that decision had been communicated by him to the Council prior to its meeting. As a small token of the gratitude of all the members of Forward in Faith for Bishop John’s magnificent contribution to the life of the organisation as well as the enormous contribution of Judi his wife, the Council presented him with a cheque to spend in their new home. They know that they are assured of the prayers of us all for whatever the future may hold.

Pending the election of his successor some time in the New Year, Sister Anne Williams CA, the Vice-Chairman of Forward in Faith, will undertake the role of Acting Chairman.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller

News from the TTAC Synod

Posted on October 28, 2010

‘For and on behalf of the Assembly of TTAC, the TAC of England and Wales’
At the assembly of the Traditional Anglican Communion of England and Wales (TTAC), today, the following 3 resolutions were passed:-
1. This assembly endorses the resolution of 2009, that:
‘This Synod, representing the Traditional Anglican Communion in Great Britain offers its joyful thanks to Pope Benedict XVI for his forthcoming Apostolic Constitution, allowing the corporate re-union with the Holy see, and request the Primate and College of Bishops of the TAC to take the steps necessary to implement this constitution.’
2. This Synod welcomes the fact that some clergy and people in Forward in Faith are preparing to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s generous offer of full communion with the See of Peter, as set out in Anglicanorum Coetibus, thus fulfilling the Concordat between the Traditional Anglican Communion and Forward in Faith. We look forward to positive collaboration with all those involved in the establishment of the Ordinariate in England and Wales.
3. We continue in our prayers that all Anglicans may one day find reconcilliation with the See of Peter.
Regards Ian Cresdee
St Agatha’s Church

from the English Catholic blog.

Bishop of Fulham to take up Ordinariate

By Anna Arco
Friday, 15 October 2010

The Anglican bishop of Fulham and the chairman of Forward in Faith International has announced he will resign before the end of the year to join an Ordinariate.

Speaking at Forward in Faith’s National Assembly today, Bishop John Broadhurst, who is a senior figure in the Anglo-Catholic movement, said he intended to tender his resignation before the end of the year and join the Ordinariate in Britain when it is established. He has said that he will remain the chairman of Forward in Faith...

Read the rest at The Catholic Herald.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller.

Traditionalist Anglicans split over response to ordaining women bishops

Posted: 8/6/2010
By Simon Caldwell

LONDON (CNS) -- A group of traditionalist Anglican bishops has admitted that Anglo-Catholic clergy are sharply divided over how to respond to the ordination of women as bishops.

Fifteen bishops belonging to Forward in Faith, the largest Anglo-Catholic group in the Church of England, admitted that the Anglo-Catholic faction of the church could not decide collectively what course of action to take...

Read the rest of the article at The Boston Pilot.

Synod vote pushes Anglo-Catholics towards Ordinariate

Wednesday, 14 July 2010
By Simon Caldwell & Anna Arco

The largest Anglo-Catholic group in the Church of England is expecting an exodus of thousands of Anglicans to Catholicism after a decision to ordain women as bishops without sufficient concessions to traditionalists.

Stephen Parkinson, director of Forward in Faith – a group that has about 10,000 members, including more than 1,000 clergy – said that a large number of Anglo-Catholics are considering conversion to the Catholic faith...

Read the rest at The Catholic Herald.

The Bishop of Ebbfleet's August Pastoral Letter

July 13, 2010
by Bishop Andrew Burnham

The General Synod at York

It is now 40 years since the Church of England General Synod came into being. It was an exciting new development, replacing an even more cumbersome system of dual control by Convocations of Clergy and the Church Assembly. The laity at last had a full and effective voice in the government of the Church of England. There were some safeguards in place. Certain matters had to be passed by two thirds' majority and there could be a call for a vote by Houses, even when one was not strictly required. That meant that there needed to be majorities in each of the three Houses, Bishops, Clergy, and Laity.

It was this last safeguard which torpedoed the attempt of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to introduce an amendment to safeguard the ministry of traditionalist bishops...

Read the rest of His Grace's monthly pastoral letter at The Anglo-Catholic blog.

Bishop walks fine line as traditionalists test parishes’ mood over Ordinariate

May 7, 2010
by Bill Bowder


THREE Church of England bishops went to Rome last week to meet Vatican officials. One of them, the Bishop of Richborough, the Rt Revd Keith Newton, is said to have been asking Anglican priests to join him in an Ordinariate in the RC Church.

The Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Revd John Broadhurst, and two Provincial Episcopal Visitors, the Bishop of Richborough, the Rt Revd Keith Newton, and the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Revd Andrew Burnham, met members of the Con­gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome last week.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that the Bishops had told senior Vatican officals that they were “keen to defect to Rome”. Bishop Newton said on Tuesday that the visit had been a “fact-finding” mission to “ex­plore issues”, and that it had been “over-hyped” in the press.

He offered “No comment” when he was asked whether Dr Williams had warned him that he would have to resign if he sought to “actively recruit”. On Wednesday, Lambeth Palace had not responded to a request to confirm or deny whether this warning had been given...

Read the rest at Church Times.

Andrew Burnham, 'Flying Bishop', at the Newman Society

I missed this earlier, but expect any readers of this blog will find this recounting of a meeting with PEV (i.e., "flying bishop") Rt. Rev. Andrew Burnham interesting.

Last night Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, addressed a packed meeting of the Newman Society on the subject of Anglicanorum Coetibus. I was there. (Picture: Bishop Burnham is introduced by the President of Newman Society, Hubert MacGreevy. Behind him are pictures of the Virgin and Child and John Henry Newman. The talk took place in the Catholic Chaplaincy.)

Andrew Burnham is the Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet and one of the 'flying bishops' who has been ministering to Anglicans who can't accept the ordination of women since these ordinations were authorised in England in 1994. He and his fellow 'flying bishops' administer a third of the country each, looking after any parishes who sign up for this...

Read the rest at the blog of the Latin Mass Society's chairman LMS Chairman.

DAY OF PRAYER

On Monday 22nd February 2010, the feast of the Chair of St Peter, the Anglican
bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough have asked their parishes to undertake a
day of prayerful discernment for the future of Anglo-Catholics, especially in the
light of Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus...

Read the rest in a PDF with a directory of prayer sites.

Forward in Faith UK commends new initiative

Forward in Faith UK has commended a new initiative today:

Friends of the Ordinariate

We are Anglicans in the UK who are members of
The Church of England - The Church in Wales
The Scottish Episcopal Church - The Church of Ireland
and we invite you to join with us as Friends of the Ordinariate
in order to signify your interest in
the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.
(from the FotO web site).

Please visit the web site of Friends of the Ordinariate.

Forward in Faith Australia Inc. and the Apostolic Constitution

Feb 15, 2010


FORWARD IN FAITH AUSTRALIA INCORPORATED

A Special General Meeting of Members of Forward in Faith Australia Inc. was held on Saturday 13 February at All Saints Kooyong in Melbourne to consider the following recommendations from the National Council regarding the future direction of the Association.

1. That this Special General Meeting of FiFA receives with great gratitude the Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum Coetibus” of Pope Benedict XVI...

Read the rest of the declaration at Forward in Faith, Australia.

Hat tip to Christian Campbell at the Anglo-Catholic blog.

Catholics set up a task force for huge Anglican exodus

23rd November 2009
By SIMON CALDWELL


The Roman Catholic bishops of England and Wales have set up a task force to help the possible exodus of tens of thousands of disaffected Anglicans into their church. The move was announced as Anglican leader Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, protested to the Pope in the Vatican over its plans to receive Anglican converts en masse...

Read the rest at The Daily Mail

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller.

Rome Rescues Anglo-Catholics. Who will Rescue Anglican's Evangelicals?

November 11, 2009
By David W. Virtue

[Pope Bendict XVI] By all accounts it was a brilliant move. The Vatican suddenly announced that a personal ordinariate would be made available to traditionalist Anglicans in the Anglican Communion, offering them a place of refuge and catching off guard the Archbishop of Canterbury. For the first time there is a sense in which Rome is recognizing that you can be Anglican and Roman Catholic.

It was a shrewd move that angered liberal Catholics like Hans Kung and threw into doubt the long standing history of Roman Catholic Anglican unity talks known as ARCIC. The ball game has changed forever. ARCIC may well be dead. At least that's the view of Rochester Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali. He may well be right.

The Church of England's toleration of gay clerics, ordained women and the future prospect of women bishops and The Episcopal Church's further and further drift from the historic Christian Faith while preferring to engage the culture by merging with it brought a sharp response from the Pontiff. Pope Benedict XVI moved quickly to stem the hemorrhaging of both Anglican churches. Rather than tolerating the excesses of the culture, he engaged it by condemning those things he saw as fatally flawed from a faith-based perspective.

Read the rest of David Virtue's analysis on Virtue Online.

Anglicans welcome offer from Rome

The BBC reports on reactions to the publication of the Apostolic Constitution. As is usual in the secular media, there are errors, some of fact and some of emphasis, but overall, this is a decent report.

November 10, 2009
By Robert Pigott

The Vatican has published details of its plan to ease conversion for Church of England clergy unhappy about the ordination of women bishops.

The proposal offers them what amounts to their own dioceses within the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican also said they could continue with Anglican traditions, such as some church services.

Anglican clergy claim the rules set out in the document make the offer seem more generous than it first seemed...

Read the rest on the web site of the BBC.

A first reaction to today's publication of Anglicanorum Coetibus

Nov 9, 2009

The Chairman of Forward in Faith, Bishop John Broadhurst, has issued the following interim statement to those clergy who look to him, as Bishop of Fulham, for episcopal care at the present time and he is happy to share it with the membership of Forward in Faith worldwide.

I had thought the original notice from Rome was extremely generous. Today all the accompanying papers have been published and they are extremely impressive. I have been horrified that the Church of England while trying to accommodate us has consistently said we cannot have the jurisdiction and independent life that most of us feel we need to continue on our Christian pilgrimage.

What Rome has done is offer exactly what the Church of England has refused...

Read the rest at the web site of Forward in Faith-UK.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller, reporting for Virtue Online

Anglicans ponder Pope’s ‘generous’ offer

30 October 2009
by Anna Arco

Traditionalists in the Church of England have welcomed the news of a papal decree offering a new legal structure for Anglicans wishing to be in communion with Rome.
Members of Forward in Faith - a group of conservative Anglo-Catholics within the Church of England - met for their annual National Assembly last weekend, only days after the news broke that the Holy See was welcoming Anglicans into communion with the Catholic Church with a new canonical structure. During the assembly members of the group, including some of its bishops, welcomed Pope Benedict XVI's gesture with "gratitude", calling it "mind-blowingly different", "generous" and the "answer to our prayers".
But it was far from clear that a majority of its 1,000 clergy will accept the offer in the short term. They will wait to find out more about the "Personal Ordinariates" set out by the Apostolic Constitution, which is yet to be published. It is expected to provide details of a new structure similar to that of military dioceses. This would accommodate Anglicans who wished to be in full communion with Rome but to retain aspects of their liturgical and spiritual heritage...

Read the rest in The Catholic Herald.

The Anglo-Catholic move to Rome will take time – and cost a lot of money. But it's going to happen

October 30, 2009

By Damian Thompson

When Pope Benedict XVI unveiled his scheme to create an entirely new structure for ex-Anglicans last week, over-excited commentators talked about the end of the Church of England. That’s nonsense: conservative Anglo-Catholics have been so marginalised since 1992 that their departure will hardly be noticed. It’s not true, either, that the traditionalist movement will march straight into the Ordinariate as soon as the Pope unlocks the gates. There is no possible scheme which could effect the mass transfer of most conservative Anglo-Catholics, clergy and laity, in a matter of months. I can’t see more than a handful of parishes voting overwhelmingly to accept the scheme in the short term – and, if they do, they will probably only be able to keep their parish buildings by borrowing them from the Church of England. Other Anglicans will take years to make up their minds. Many will never come...

Read the rest at Mr. Thompson's Holy Smoke blog.

Meet the Anglican Church in America

Brother Stephen of the Cistercian Abbey of Spring Bank has posted a short essay on the Anglican Church in the U.S. He begins:

Preface & Caution

I'm going to say up front that I am a bit out of my depth here. My time was spent in the Episcopal Church. I know a number of lay people and priests within the Continuing Churches and have a passing acquaintance with a bishop or two, but it's not a world that I can write about as an insider. I hope I do it justice.

Introduction

Most media attention since the announcement of the forthcoming apostolic constitution creating special ordinariates for Anglicans has been devoted to Forward in Faith in the United Kingdom, which represents traditionalists within the Church of England, and to the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), which represents a reported 400,000 communicants who have left the Anglican Communion. When we zoom in on the US, the picture is different. Forward in Faith's US affiliates are largely those who remain within the Episcopal Church or did so until quite recently. Two of its leaders who spoke at last weekend's conference in London seemed to indicate that they will be taking a pass on the ordinariates, at least as a group. This decision leaves TAC's American affiliate, the Anglican Church in America, with around 5,000 members, as the largest group in the US that we know to be looking at reunion with the Holy See...

Read the rest in today's posting on his blog Sub Tuum.

Br. Stephen made a very interesting point in his posting on the first day of the Forward in Faith meeting last week in the UK. Writing on his blog, he reminds us:

Finally, to sound a bit more like a monk than a bureaucrat, remember that in their statement on the day the apostolic constitution was announced, the Bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough used the analogy of a people gathering by the Red Sea. As someone who gets to chant all the great psalms of the Exodous every week, I encourage you to put the dramatic image of Charlton Heston splitting the waters out of your head and instead remember the longer story, which is a tale of snakes, thirst, murmuring, rebellions, and long wandering before the journey was completed. Of all who left Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb entered the Promised Land, but God thought it that was worth it.

Read the rest of his post on his blog Sub Tuum.

In a post on Monday, Br. Stephen explores the varieties of Anglican churchmanship. He begins his post "High & Hazy, Low & Lazy, Broad & Crazy" with:

The title of this piece isn't a diatribe. It's the old rhyme that Episcopalians used to poke fun at the parties within Anglicanism. It occurs to me after the last week that there are a number of Catholics out there who could use a mapping of the Anglican world...

To see Br. Stephen's description, check out the rest of the post at Sub Tuum.