Pastoral Letter to the TAC from Abp. Hepworth

PASTORAL LETTER

Archbishop Hepworth

In recent months, a deep division has been created in the Traditional Anglican Communion. Bishops and Vicars General have threatened others with expulsion. Clergy and laity have been bullied and threatened. A minority of the bishops plan to meet shortly in South Africa with the openly published agenda of expelling all those who are at the various stages of discernment of the offer of the “fullness of Catholic Communion” contained in the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Benedict XVI.

This bullying reached new levels with the publication of letters from Canon Gray in England and Bishop Marsh in the United States, cancelling arrangements into which they entered that created a tolerant environment during this process. In the past few days, these events among others have greatly concerned me:

• A priest of many years standing in the United States who is licensed to the Patrimony (created to protect those discerning their future in the light of the Ordinariate) has been refused permission to conduct the funeral of a long-standing friend because “he has applied to become a Roman Catholic”.

• Father Brian Gill, a founding member of the TAC and our leader for many sacrificial years in England, who has been on holiday, wrote “On arrival back I found the disgusting circular letter from Fr. Ian Gray in which he wrote: Those of you who have submitted personal dossiers and may now wish to reconsider your position to return to the TTAC/TAC should do so by contacting me directly in writing by February 3rd 2012. “

• Bishop Marsh of the United States has circulated a letter to clergy who have been transferred to Bishops Moyer and Campese assuming that neither they nor their bishops still belong to the TAC.

• Bishop Garcia of Puerto Rico has been told by Bishop Marsh that he is no longer considered a member of the TAC because of his positive attitude to the Ordinariates.

• Meanwhile, it has emerged that Bishop Marsh is a high-ranking member of a virulently anti-catholic Lodge of Freemasons, and claims to have successfully influenced Roman Catholic authorities to reject the TAC and its bishops as a credible ecclesial communion.

• Obviously in collusion, several Bishops and Vicars General are moving to attempt the illegal and uncanonical expulsion of their fellow bishops and clergy who are considering the Ordinariates on the grounds that they are “seeking to become Roman Catholic”. In so doing, they effectively remove themselves from our Communion

Neither I nor those under attack can any longer allow this conduct to continue unchallenged.

Anglicanism has always aspired to tolerance. Even the persecution of Catholics in England was balanced by tolerance and respect in missionary regions. Anglo-Catholics and Evangelical Anglicans sustained a mutual respect and restraint in spite of vigorously asserting their positions. Opponents found this a weakness. Those of us who experienced it found it a strength.

Whether the destructive forces of the past fifty years have ended the possibility of tolerance in the wider Anglican world is a matter for prayer now and the judgement of history in the future. We seek the truth that is in Christ Jesus, knowing that we must live in the moment of time in which we have been created. For us that is a fractured church, a turmoil of conflicting theology, and the power of resurgent hostile creeds. Science has created new boundaries of sinfulness that test us – power over life, the abundant access to information and entertainment, the global competition for the necessities of life, and the battles between scientific leaders and the idea of God. It is not an easy time to be a good Christian.

I make clear the basis of conflicts within our own Communion:

• Continuing Churches have a long history. Some have been glorious, others are better forgotten. They can never be permanent. They must continue to relate to the Church from which they withdrew, to influence it for good, to make clear the reasons for their withdrawal “into the desert”. To permanently split from the Church is schism. To go into the desert to heal the Church is heroic.

• There is only one Church, one Body of Christ, one Vine. Every ecclesial group must be able to show evidence of its oneness with the Body of Christ, the Church. As soon as a group becomes permanently and comfortably alone, unacknowledged by any other part of the Church, believing itself to be the only perfect form of Christianity, and accepts and even welcomes that isolation, it has slipped into the schism of the sect.

• There is only one truth given once and for all by Christ. The Church seeks to expound that truth in every age and to apply it to problems that are new, and to those things that have been challenges in every age. It is not what the individual thinks; it is what the Church teaches. The great ecumenical conversations of the past century acknowledged this fact and sought to define both the teaching authority of the Church and the truth that is taught.

• The past century has been a time of massive expansion of human conflict and of the instruments that undergird human conflict. The permanent expansion of the instruments of conflict has created a world that is tolerant of conflict and human destruction. Anglican Churches have adopted too readily the destruction of human dignity in all its manifestations – family, livelihood, vocation, community – to achieve ideological victory. The far more difficult pathway of tolerance and love has been lost.

• The Apostolic Letter of the Pope to Anglicans has reignited dormant bigotry and anti-Catholicism, has forced people (even bishops) to examine the true nature of their faith and to assess the importance of the Catholic teachings that they cannot accept.

The present attempts to expel those who are working (often with exquisite difficulties) to test a vocation to fuse Anglican heritage with Catholic Communion, newly available and still in infancy, is not to be tolerated.

The minority of our leaders (Bishops and Vicars General) who intend to meet in South Africa have announced their intention to expel and depose others in our Communion, actions we have not experienced for many years, but which have been a tragic hallmark of Continuing Anglicanism. They intend to change the Concordat that has ordered our common life from the beginning, abandoning the requirement to submit changes to the clergy and laity in the Synods of our Provinces. And they propose to interfere in the affairs of member Provinces, creating spiritual, canonical and legal havoc that will only have one result – the diminution of our apostolate and the betrayal of those who have trusted us.

Even more significantly, they propose for the first time in our common life to expound doctrine according to their personal beliefs, abandoning the tests of common faith whether Anglican or Catholic. I note that the two leaders of this minority in the United States have never attended a meeting of the College of Bishops and have never experienced our corporate life.

The majority remain loyal to the ideals that have sustained us to this point. They remain true to their oaths and promises on doctrine and discipline. They are determined to protect their people and minister to them as they make decisions and undergo processes that cannot be hurried any more than outcomes can be foreseen.

These bishops and senior clergy, in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Torres Strait, Australia, Africa and India are determined to continue their ministry, to respect the ecclesial bonds that exist between them, to sustain their Christian friendship even as some of them succeed (with their clergy and people) in being pioneers of Ordinariates that will grow, if they are of God. They intend to deepen their bonds that are already solid with the mutual support of decades of working together. They reject in advance any attempts to interfere with their jurisdiction, their ministries and the people committed to their care. They too will shortly meet to celebrate their bonds of Christian commitment, and will take steps to protect their ecclesial identity.

The basis of that collegial identity will be:

• The Concordat of the Traditional Anglican Communion which, with its disciplined commitment to good order, has served us well.

• New structures to enable close bonds of friendship, scholarship and spiritual support between those who have joined an Ordinariate and those who aspire to join.

• A commitment to foster and develop the Anglican tradition within the doctrinal framework of Catholic teaching, as set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the doctrinal standard of the Ordinariates.

• A commitment to each of the processes that have been established to heal the schism between Canterbury and Rome.

• A commitment to the theological education of laity and clergy as a primary preparation for reconciliation between the churches.

Each of us has had moments of deep frustration and disappointment with the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution. There are very valuable lessons to be learned for the ecumenical future of the Church. It faces a world that will only become more hostile.

In the meantime, the loyal majority of TAC bishops wish to assure the Roman Catholic authorities with whom they are working of our collegial respect for the Holy Father, our belief in the teachings contained within the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that is one of the foundations of Anglicanorum Coetibus, and therefore our reaffirmation of the Portsmouth Petition to the Holy Father.

+John Hepworth

Primate

Source: http://catholicusanglicanus.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/pastoral-letter-from-archbishop-hepworth/

Hat tip to The Cavalier's Commonplace Book for pointing out this Pastoral Letter.

Resignation of Archbishop John Hepworth of TAC

Please keep all our brethren in the Traditional Anglican Communion, those seeking full communion via the Ordinariates and those who are not, in your prayers. As Fr. Jeffrey Steenson says, all of us who care about the Ordinariates owe an immense debt of gratitude to the TAC for its efforts which were a major element in the petitions that were responded to by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in Anglicanorum coetibus.

Traditional Anglican Communion

Office of the Primate

Archbishop John Hepworth

28th January 2012

To the Bishops, clergy and people of the Traditional Anglican Communion

My Dear Fathers, Brothers and Sisters,

In June of 2003, I was elected as the second Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion. At the Plenary Meeting of our College of Bishops, held in Australia in conjunction with the inauguration of my Primacy, it was made strongly clear – without dissent – that I was to further the ambition of this Communion since its beginnings to discover a means by which Anglican ecclesial communities might come into the fullness of Catholic Communion in a corporate manner, without loss of the treasures of the Anglican tradition.

I prosecuted that mandate of the College in National and Diocesan Synods, in meetings and discussions with anyone whom I thought might assist in both Anglican and Roman Catholic circles, having made clear to the Holy See that I would not allow my own circumstances to become an impediment to unity.

With the promulgation of Anglicanorum Coetibus, the mandate given to me by the College is now complete.

I have been deeply concerned that most of our Communion has been marginalised by the process of implementing the Apostolic Constitution. My correspondence and personal representations have not been as effective as I would have wished.

I have been equally concerned that several of the Bishops of our College continue to set aside the provisions of the Concordat that regulates our life as a College. The Concordat is a deeply Anglican document. It cannot be changed or disregarded by bishops alone. The clergy and laity meeting as the National Synods of our Member Provinces must confirm changes before they become effective. Neither bishops nor anyone else can be expelled from Communion at the whim of the bishops. Several bishops have started to exercise prelacy of this most disturbing kind.

I have also been concerned at the lightness with which the most solemn decisions of the College are being set aside.
I indicated last December that I would spend some weeks discerning the moment when my retirement might best be accomplished. Some of the bishops have expressed impatience; others have dissented from their actions.

I have today forwarded to the Secretary to the College (an elected position of the College, not an appointment of the Primate) a deed of resignation to be effective on Easter Day of this year, and I have instructed the Secretary to conduct an election for the next Primate, in strict accordance with the procedure laid down by the Concordat, and according to the detailed process determined by the College prior to the resignation of Archbishop Falk, my predecessor.

I remain the Bishop Ordinary of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia.

I ask the prayers of the whole Communion for their bishops at this time, as once again they seek the Divine Will.

+John Hepworth

reposted from the blog English Catholic.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller.