Ordination of "Doc" Holiday on Saturday, December 15th

The Ordinariate's communications officer has sent out the following info on "Doc" Holiday's upcoming ordination this Saturday in Orlando, Florida. Holiday served as one of the TAC clergy at the Cathedral of the Incarnation (now the Church of the Incarnation) in Orlando, one of two TAC cathedral parishes that are now part of the North American Ordinariate (the other one being located in Ottawa in Canada).

Former Anglican priest William “Doc” Holiday will be ordained a Catholic priest by Orlando Bishop John Noonan on Saturday, Dec. 15, 9:00 a.m., at the Church of the Incarnation, 1515 Edgewater Drive, Orlando, Florida 32804. Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, head of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, will concelebrate the Mass.

Holiday, a senior curate at Incarnation (www.theparish.org) since 2007, was among 140 parishioners who were received into the Catholic Church on Sept. 16, 2012 as part of the ordinariate. This national entity was established by Pope Benedict XVI on January 1, 2012, for former Anglican clergy and groups seeking to become Catholic while retaining aspects of their Anglican heritage and liturgy.

Holiday was ordained an Anglican priest in 2005 following studies at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He served at St. Alban’s Anglican Cathedral from 2005-2007 and since then as senior curate at Incarnation. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, he has worked in law enforcement since 1988, first on the SWAT Team for the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office (1988-1992), and since 1992, with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Since 1998, he has assisted in administration of that office’s chaplaincy program. He and his wife, Tammy, have been married for 25 years and have three adult children. Special permission has been given to former Anglican priests who are married to be ordained Catholic priests.

In speaking about his ordination, he said, “There are four men through whom God has shown his grace and to whom I would like to express my sincere appreciation. First is the Holy Father, who embraced those of us from the Anglican tradition who understood the necessity of communion with the Catholic Church. Second is our Ordinary, Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, for his pastoral hand in guiding us. Third, I offer my personal appreciation to Bishop John Noonan for his unwavering and proactive assistance in facilitating our parish community’s reception into the Catholic Church and my ordination to the Catholic priesthood. Finally, I express my undying respect for Mr. Louis Campese, a former Anglican bishop whose vision and stalwart persistence in staying the course for the reunion of Anglicans with the Catholic Church exemplified the admonition of the Lord Jesus to ‘take up your cross and follow me.’ Words could never express my respect and devotion to these men, but I pray my priestly ministry will.”

The ordinariate will have 26 priests following Holiday’s ordination, and has more than 1,500 people in 35 communities across the United States and Canada (another ordination [with the reception of 30 layfolk - ed.] is scheduled for Dec. 16 in Payson, AZ). Its Ordinary, Msgr. Steenson, is a former Episcopal bishop who is based in Houston, TX. Msgr. Steenson noted that the ordinations this year “mark a significant moment in the history of Catholic unity.”

Congratulations to Fr. Holiday and to all the people of the Church of the Incarnation who have persevered in their journey toward the fulness of Catholic unity.

Towson service will bring Christ the King Anglican parishioners into Catholic Church

Rector to be ordained Catholic at ceremony in Washington


Staff Reports
3:16 p.m. EDT, June 18, 2012

A Towson area church will make a faithful transition this weekend as its rector is ordained — and its congregation confirmed — into the Catholic Church.

Anglican priest Father Edward Meeks — of the Christ the King Anglican Parish in Towson — will be ordained a Catholic priest by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, on June 23, during a ceremony in Washington D.C.

The next day, Sunday, June 24, some 120 of Meek's parishioners are expected to be received into the Catholic Church during a Mass of Confirmation and Reception at Christ the King, located at 1102 Hart Road.

Meeks is part of the first ordination class in history for the new Catholic Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

Equivalent to a diocese, but national in scope, the U.S.-based ordinariate was created earlier this year by Pope Benedict XVI, specifically for Anglican groups and clergy seeking to become Catholic — while still retaining elements of their Anglican heritage...

Read the rest at the web site of the Baltimore Sun.

New Evangelisation & Church Planting

From the blog of Vincent Uher comes this reflection on the November conference of the Anglican Use Society.

The Anglican Use Society, which predates the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, will be having its 2012 Conference around the theme of the New Evangelisation of Blessed Pope John Paul II.

Wonderful news! But remember a New Evangelisation Conference does not a missionary make. But with the proper catechetical instruction and reference points in the New Evangelisation of Blessed Pope John Paul II you will have the most fertile intellectual ground from which to develop your local mission strategies. I hope the Ordinariate would develop a common mission strategy. A consideration may be that perhaps because you are scattered all across North America in relatively small groups the really important task is to develop your local mission strategy in concert with the Church's invitation to the New Evangelisation rather than a directive from the Ordinariate itself.

Papers will be given by most excellent speakers at the Conference relating to the New Evangelisation and the Anglican experience, and some issues will be explored in a presentation by Fr. Scott Hurd, the Vicar General of the Ordinariate, and Mr. Marlon de la Torre of the Pastoral Provision Office in Fort Worth, Texas that I think will be very key: "Pastoral Considerations and Future Directions in the Pastoral Provision and in the Ordinariate". One would hope that a common mission strategy could be developed for both the Pastoral Provision parishes and clergy and the Ordinariate... but there is a great danger if it is simply a strategy delivered from on high, top down. The great chance you have is to collaborate as clergy and laity in the whole process because your numbers are so small that you could all gather in one Great Conference ... even by satellite uplink technology.

I note in particular that there will be a presentation on financing start-ups and new congregations by C. Denis Green. I sincerely hope many more such informational presentations will be made targeting the particular issues of planting new churches. This will be a very different thing for the Ordinariate than what is normally done in the dioceses of the USA. Because the Ordinariate comes from an Anglican wellspring, I would hope they would look to the whole Boot Camp for Church Planters experiences that are out there in order to tailor one for the Ordinariate's own needs and one for the needs of the Pastoral Provision parishes.

Without the fresh ideas coming from this very successful movement a priest starting a new congregation will be tempted to simply do what he knows from his own experience and what he tries to apply from what he has studied or heard. It can be so much easier than trying to reinvent the wheel. It's been done. So if you are starting up a new Ordinariate congregation, try not to rely on the fact that you are coming from existing congregations with their structures and customs and merely replicate those. Take advantage of the expertise that largely comes from the committed Evanglical part of the Protestant Churches and make it your Catholic own.

Starting a new parish can be the most difficult thing in a priest's life. It can also be the most rewarding. By making use of the Church Planting models, needless stress upon one's wife or children can be avoided. And needless stress and troubles can be avoided for you too by simply learning some of the strategies for growth in the contemporary post-Christian culture as well as strategies for avoiding the pitfalls of parish formation and life.

The Rev. Tom Herrick of Titus Church Planting is one of the best in Church Planting in North America, and as he is an Anglican in North America you will likely find a sympathetic soul prepared to challenge the hell out of you to bring in new souls for the Lord of the harvest. Some of you may well know him from courses he has taught at various venues including Nashotah House. I would hope you would seek out someone like him as you new priests and deacons plant your new communities of Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony.

More established congregations from a TAC background might also consider the model of a "restart" that is found in Church Planting strategies since you are in fact restarting your communities within a new context and now have all of the fulness and beauty of the Catholic Church and your Anglican heritage to offer.

Admittedly, many, many souls will be drawn to your new churches because of the profound reverence and beauty of your liturgies that are so different from the normative Latin rite but are not as big a leap as the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy. You will be that place just right to worship God and watch the family grow.

I offer these thoughts as a person who has no authority beyond the authority of the Lay State as enunciated in Christifideles laici of Blessed Pope John Paul II ... which in short means I am called to the front lines of the battle for souls sharing in Christ's threefold office as prophet, priest and king. I am not connected to the Ordinariate in anyway except for that I pray for its clergy, religious, and people daily.

Do visit Mr. Uher's blog Tonus Peregrinus where he shares the fruits of his reflections.

Upcoming Ordinariate Ordinations in Australia

You may recall that Archbishop Hart announced that the Australian Ordinariate for former Anglicans would commence on June 15.

Well here is something to make that a bit more concrete. I've been told that Bishop Harry Entwistle of the Traditional Anglican Communion will be ordained to the Catholic Priesthood at 7.00 pm on Friday 15 June 2012 at St Mary’s Cathedral Perth – ie the “start date” of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross. Also, members of his TAC flock will be received into the Catholic Church.

So Perthites, please do make a note in your diaries, and show them your support!

And if you know of upcoming ordinations/receptions into the Church elsewhere, please do let me know and I'll publicize them too!

Please keep all concerned in your prayers.

From Australia Incognita.

Hat tip to Fr. Stephen Smuts

ARCHBISHOP PRENDERGAST WILL RECEIVE MEMBERS OF THE ANGLICAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF CANADA INTO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

Rehearsal for Anglican Use Liturgy in St. Patrick’s Basilica
The Most Reverend Terrence Prendergast, S.J., Archbishop of Ottawa will receive some 40 members of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada’s Ottawa Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the Roman Catholic Church on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 15, 2012 at 3:00 pm at St. Patrick’s Basilica – 281 Nepean Street, Ottawa. Archbishop Prendergast will celebrate the Anglican Use Mass, approved for use in the Catholic Church. The parish-in-waiting will eventually join the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter under Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, as part of a Canadian Deanery of St. John the Baptist. All are welcome.

“April 15, 2012 is a date for us to remember for posterity, the day of our individual and collective reception into the Catholic Church,” said the Right Reverend Carl Reid, Auxiliary Bishop of the Pro-Diocese of Our Lady of Walsingham. “And not only us from the Annunciation, but also from several other parishes and fellowships across the country,” he added. “Initially, we shall be a ‘sodality,’ which would best be described as a ‘parish in waiting.’”

“I am honoured to receive members of the Anglican Catholic Church into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church,” said Archbishop Terrence Prendergast...

Read the rest at Deborah Gyapong's blog Foolishness to the World.

American Ordinary Visits the Cathedral of the Incarnation

by Christian Clay Columba Campbell

I have just returned from the Procession and Mass of Palm Sunday at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Orlando, Florida, my home parish. In addition to the pageantry of this Sunday beginning Holy Week, there was a large class of First Communicants, and perhaps just as special, Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, was among us.

Having met together with Bishop John Noonan of the Orlando Diocese, Bishop Louis Campese of the Anglican Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family, and other clergy yesterday evening, Msgr. Steenson assisted at Mass in Choir. He also gave a touching homily for the great benefit of those children celebrating their First Communions.

At the following reception (or as Fr. Barnes would put it, "bun-fight") in the Royal Hall, Monsignor had the opportunity to meet many of the congregation and First Communion guests. He remarked several times that he was simply "blown away" by the vitality and youth of the congregation; he had not expected to find such...

Read the rest of Mr. Campbell's post at The Anglo-Catholic blog.

Former Anglican bishop turned Catholic priest is star of anti-apartheid musical

A former Anglican bishop ordained a Catholic priest is one of the stars of an anti-apartheid musical in South Africa, it emerged today.

Fr Robert Mercer, 77, was deported from South Africa in 1970 for his stand against apartheid, along with several other Anglican priests.

He and other members of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection defied segregation laws by running a multi-racial parish.

They were, says Fr Mercer, “deemed to be a corrupting influence on students” at Stellenbosch University, where they worked as chaplains. One of the Anglican priests was jailed.

Their stand has been dramatised in a multi-media pop musical called Brothers, which ran for five nights at Stellenbosch University, the country’s top Africaans university.

The musical was performed in September 2010 in a mix of Africaans and English and was directed by playwright Peter Krummeck.

Fr Mercer, who grew up in Zimbabwe, went on to become Bishop of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, in the Anglican Province of Central Africa, in the midst of a civil war.

He was bishop for 11 years before leaving the Anglican Communion to join the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, part of the worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion. He served as metropolitan bishop from 1988 to 2005, when he retired to England.

Fr Mercer became a Catholic in January and was ordained a priest for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on Monday.

He said today that Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of an ordinariate to Anglicans in 2009 was “an answer to our prayers, to our dreams”...

Read the rest at The Catholic Herald.

Hat tip to Fr. Stephen Smuts.

The Ordinariate

The diocese of Lancaster (England) has a very good description of the Ordinariate, including history and notes about the US, Canadian and Australian situation. My thanks to Fr. Smuts in S. Africa for pointing this out on his blog.


The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham
(under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman)

The apostolic constitution that allows for the institution of personal ordinariates for Anglicans who join the Catholic Church was released on 9 November 2009, after being announced on 20 October 2009 by Cardinal William Levada at a press conference in Rome and by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, at a simultaneous press conference in London.

A note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith indicated that the personal ordinariates: "will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. ... pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy. ... (The Apostolic Constitution offers) a single canonical model for the universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application. It provides for the ordination as Catholic priests of married former Anglican clergy. Historical and ecumenical reasons preclude the ordination of married men as bishops in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Constitution therefore stipulates that the Ordinary can be either a priest or a bishop. The seminarians in the Ordinariate are to be prepared alongside other Catholic seminarians, though the Ordinariate may establish a house of formation to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican patrimony..."


Read the rest at the Lancaster Diocesan web site

Anglican Catholics and the experience of the Ordinariate

More than two years ago, Pope Benedict XVI published the apostolic exhortation Anglicanorum Coetibus, that allows groups of Anglicans to collectively convert to the Catholic Church while still keeping their Anglican identity.

It envisaged the creation of structures called 'Ordinariates' for returning Anglicans.

The first such Ordinariate was established last January in the United Kingdom.

One year after its creation, about a hundred of its members have come to Rome for a week, to celebrate the anniversary.

To date, fifty seven priests and three deacons have joined the Ordinariate, together with over one thousand lay people.

Two hundred more faithful will be received this year.

Twenty of the Ordinariate's priests are still being trained.

Mgr. Keith Newton, a married Anglican priests and father of three takes stock of this unprecedented experience in the relationship between Christian Churches in the West...

Read the rest of this interview with Msgr. Newton, originally published last week, on the web site Clerical Whispers.

Hat tip to Fr. Chadwick's "English Catholic" blog.

Fr Brian Gill (former Vicar General of TTAC) to Join the Ordinariate

March 6, 2012
by Fr Stephen Smuts

Fr Brian Gill has resigned from the Traditional Anglican Church (TTAC) in England and begun preparation for reception into the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham:

… I pray every reader of this magazine will endeavour to pray and work for true re-unity among all who call themselves Christian. If we have been properly baptised according to our Lord’s Command we are therefore members of His Body. But that is only the beginning because we must become fully active in His Body in the world, and to which He entrusted the other Sacraments. Jesus the Christ promised to reveal the fullness of truth to His Church through the Holy Spirit...

What other Anglicans may have asked of Rome I cannot say, but the then Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion which had separated itself from the old Communion in order to retain the ancient Catholic Faith as had been professed by the Church of England, not as schismatics, but as continuers, sent in 2007 a petition to Pope Benedict XVI requesting re-unity with the Church of Rome in which the ‘catholic’ Anglican ethos, Liturgy, hymns etc., would be preserved. As you know, I was then the Vicar General of The Traditional Anglican Church in Britain and I also signed, with the bishops, that petition and a copy of the Catholic Catechism on the altar of St. Agatha’s in Portsmouth.

The Petition also stated that we sought “a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See, at once treasuring the full expression of catholic faith and treasuring our tradition within which we have come to this moment”.

Although the offer might not have been exactly as we had hoped, we did ask for guidance and that is what we have received, also with the statement that we are to maintain our Anglican Patrimony...

read the rest on the eponymous blog of Fr. Stephen Smuts.

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.

Good news from Fr. Jeffrey Steenson for us Canadian-Ordinariate hopefuls

January 17, 2012
by Deborah Gyapong

Fr. Jeffrey Steenson

Last night, I received a most kind email from Fr. Jeffrey Steenson, the new Ordinary (to be installed in February) of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, reaching out to me after reading my “lament” about the state of play for Ordinariate-hopeful folks in the Traditional Anglican Communion (or what’s left of it), especially those of us in the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada.

I feel a little like how the lost sheep must have felt when Jesus left the 99 and hauled her over his shoulders. What a difference to feel cared for and wanted at the banqueting table.

It goes a long way. Thank you, Fr. Steenson...

Read the rest, including Fr. Steenson's note, at the blog English Catholic.

Bishop Robert Mercer to be received through the Ordinaraite

22 Dec 2011

An update for all TAC clergy in the UK

Dear Brother,

On December 8 while en route to Vienna, Archbishop Hepworth made a 24 hour stop over in England. He lunched with me in Worthing and then went on to celebrate the holy communion at St Agatha’s, Portsmouth, in the evening. In his sermon he reminded us that the BCP of 1662 remembers three conceptions, of the Lord, of the Lady, of the cousin. St Stephen’s College, the fine ACA school in Coomera, Queensland, of which he is President, has an orchestra and a choir which were due to perform in St Stephen’s cathedral, Vienna, a place we associate with the music of Haydn, Mozart and the Vienna Boys Choir. Naturally enough, the President wanted to be present for that. Since he would already be in Europe, he would stay on for some holiday, mostly travelling on trains through the mountain passes of Austria and Italy. His Grace was in excellent spirits and health.
The Archbishop has already written a letter to all bishops of the TAC, a copy of which I shall send you. He also undertakes to write a further letter to the TAC clergy in the UK. You will appreciate that it will be some days before he is home in Adelaide in the state of South Australia. Between them these two letters may make clear his thoughts about the TAC, yourself, himself.
Some of you do not take New Directions, the monthly magazine of Forward in Faith, UK. I therefore enclose a photocopy of an article which appeared in the December issue. Make of it what you will. So far the Polish National Catholic Church of the USA, formerly an autocephalous part of the Union of Utrecht or Old Catholic Communion, has not had a concordat of inter communion with the TAC, of the kind we have had with FinF.

I am just back from a quarterly residence at Mirfield. I desire and hope to remain a member of CR until I die.

Monsignor Newton intends to chrismate me in St Agatha’s, Portsmouth, on Saturday January 7 @ 15 minutes past noon. The rite will take place with in the context of the monthly Eucharist which the Isle of Wight group of the Ordinariate celebrates in St Agatha’s. The rite is not private. Enclosed is the text of a letter of “resignation” which I was required to send to our Episcopal Visitor. In preparation for chrismation I am required to refrain from receiving communion at Anglican altars. If and when I am to be ordained I shall give you the dates.

Yours fraternally,

+Robert Mercer CR

from the web site of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales.

Fr. Chadwick has also posted this story, and the comments at English Catholic provide additional detail (and of course, speculation).

(The article to which Bishop Mercer refers is linked to here: Looking for a new home?. The web site for New Directions is here.)

ANGLICAN ARCHBISHOP: ABUSE DROVE ME FROM CHURCH

MELBOURNE, Australia, SEPT. 9, 2011 (Zenit.org).- A decade of systemic sexual abuse at the hands of priests and an older seminarian was what drove Father John Hepworth to flee Australia and the Catholic priesthood in the 1970s, the leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion has revealed.
Archbishop Hepworth, 67, is primate of the traditionalist communion of Churches that separated itself from the Anglican Communion in 1991, and formally expressed a desire to reunite with the Holy See in 2007.
In an exclusive interview published today in The Australian, the archbishop broke the silence regarding more than 12 years of abuse he suffered as a seminarian and young priest until he finally "fled in fear" to England.
"I never wanted to leave," he acknowledged. "The Church is full of sinners, ... but it is God's gift to the human race through Jesus Christ. ... I have never lost the sense of vocation of being a priest."

Read the rest at Zenit.

Hat tips to Fr. Zuhlsdorf at What Does the Prayer Really Say? and Fr. Chadwick at English Catholic.

See also "Clergyman's long road to resolution" and ""Abused Archbishop John Hepworth ready to forgive", both in The Australlian

Gathering in the TTAC in England

Father Anthony Chadwick in Normandy reports:

A meeting...took place yesterday in London with the Ordinary Fr Keith Newton and Bishop Alan Hopes. This meeting on Saturday 12th March at Vaughan House is reported to have gone very well, and was well attended by some 18 TTAC clergy. There would have been two more, but they were not able to travel due to illness.

The meeting was about being introduced to Bishop Alan Hopes and the Ordinary Fr Keith Newton. Bishop Alan warmly welcomed each of the English priests individually, and as a group saying that they had had not been overlooked in the process of application, just that everything had happened so fast and that had been dealt with in due process. He did say however, that he had met with Bishop Robert Mercer CR on two previous occasions in preparation for the meeting on Saturday. He also went through the procedure in providing the correct form of dossier to be presented to the CDF in Rome.

The Ordinary Fr Keith Newton talked about his role and responsibilities, and he and Bishop Hopes outlined the importance of the Holy Father’s prophetic gift in the implementation of Anglicanorum Coetibus in bringing the English clergy together in Christ...

Read the rest of his account at English Catholic

Will Traditional Anglicans [in the Torres Strait] enter Catholic Church?

The Bishop of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) Torres Strait Diocese, Church of the Torres Strait, The Right Reverend Tolowa Nona, has described Pope Benedict’s offer to Anglicans of full communion with the Catholic Church as “very generous”.

“It is perhaps the most-important development in the Christian history of the Torres Strait since the Coming of the Light,” Bishop Nona said.

For years, traditional Anglicans around the world have been asking the Holy See to consider whether they may be able to enter the Catholic Church, while retaining their liturgical forms and disciplines.

And it seems this may soon come to pass in the Torres Strait.

Bishop Nona recently wrote to his diocese describing the Pope Benedict XVI’s offer as a “wonderful provision”.

However he told the Torres News the Church of the Torres Strait had yet to make a decision on whether to enter into Communion with the Holy See.

“Every individual must first be consulted before any decision can be made,” Bishop Nona said.

“The Church of the Torres Strait will remain - retaining its autonomy, and continuing to preserve the Anglican heritage.

“I am very confident that the Vatican will respect that.”

“The kind of unity we sought with the Holy See was an ‘organic unity’, which means united but not absorbed.”

He said the delegate of the Pope, Bishop Peter Elliot, would be invited to the the Torres Strait along with his party at the Diocesan Conference on June 3-5 this year...

Read the rest at Torres News Online.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller

Keynote Address at "Becoming One" Conference in Kansas City

The Keynote Address by Bishop David Moyer of the Anglican Church in America's Patrimony of the Primate has been posted on the Anglo-Catholic blog. The "money quote" for me was the following:

For me, as someone who has the Anglican patrimony deep within my very bones, I rejoice that it can be now be safeguarded and nurtured for my children and my children’s children.

Without our accession to the role of Peter’s leadership and primacy (which is very biblical), there is the assurance for the survival and growth of what we hold dear. I truly believe that outside of arms of the Catholic Church, the Anglican patrimony will simply be a chapter in books of Church history.

And beyond this is the gift of the affirmation of the integrity of “all we do and are, all we done and have been” as Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P. stated it in his sermon at Fr. Andrew Burnham’s first mass as a Catholic priest in Oxford on January 16th. Fr. Nichols stated that day: “In the Eucharistic sacrifice, we bring ourselves – all we do and are, all we have done and have been – to be, through purification and transformation, united with the Lamb, Jesus Christ, in his self-offering to the Father. All we did and do, all we have been and are, our life and labour, we should put (as the spiritual writers advise) onto the paten, into the chalice… What is said of the life and labour of any Christian is said with special force of the apostolic life and labour of an ordained person. ‘What we did and do, what we have been and are’: all Andrew’s former ministerial activity, inevitably, is signaled in these words and so it is now taken up into union with the Lamb’s oblation of himself, taken up in a new way as the sacrificial offering of a Catholic priest in the full, unclouded, indisputable, sense of those words.”

For you and me, whether we be ordained or not, it is the giving of “what we did and do, what we have been and are” into the hands of God for our good and for the common good of the Catholic Church of which Jesus is Head and the Successor of Peter Its Vicar. It is the placing of ourselves within the Catholic Church where Christian teaching, faith, and order have a firm foundation; where through the Magisterium clear guidance is found for moral and ethical issues that confuse and confound the world, without which people wander into darkness and/or slain by it.

Visit the Anglo-Catholic blog to read this fine address in full.

Statement from Louis Campese, Bishop Ordinary Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family

14 February, 2011

Laudetur Jesus Christus!

Until a few days ago, when the web site of the Anglican Church in America was severely pruned to eliminate virtually every positive reference to the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and the engagement of the Province in the discernment process toward acceptance of full visible unity with the Catholic Church, the following notice appeared under the title "House of Bishops Update":

At a meeting on 1 June 2010, the House of Bishops and the Executive Council of the Anglican Church in America approved a unified approach designed to provide full support for parishes and clergy who have indicated their desire to enter the proposed Ordinariate, once established, while simultaneously providing for the ongoing pastoral care of all members of the ACA. The meetings were conducted and concluded in the spirit of mutual harmony and Christian love.

This short notice seemed to reflect what I, at the time, believed was a genuine and charitable unanimity on the acceptance of the notion that the House of Bishops would continue to act generously in accommodating the needs of those groups and individuals, both clerical and lay, who desired to transition to the anticipated Personal Ordinariate to be erected by the Catholic authorities in the United States of America. The idea that groups and individuals could remain canonically resident within their present circumstances whilst, at the same time, affiliating themselves with each other under the personal jurisdiction of the Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, all the while remaining welcome members of the Anglican Church in America, seemed to be a creative compromise welcome on the part of the entire House of Bishops. Bishop David Moyer, Archbishop Hepworth's "vicar" to organize the Patrimony of the Primate in the USA Province of the TAC, subsequently set about his mission, and I remained Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Eastern United States, with further work to accomplish before any of my parishes, missions, or myself could contemplate a move into the Patrimony.

In the last month, having reached an amicable and unanimous arrangement with my own diocesan Standing Committee, which of course represented interests within the Diocese hostile to the Apostolic Constitution, I stepped aside, allowing those parishes which did not desire to pursue the Traditional Anglican Communion's foundational goal of full communion with the Catholic Church to begin to reorganize the Diocese in accordance with their own perceived pastoral needs, and, with the blessing of the Primate and the majority of the ACA House of Bishops, I assumed jurisdiction of the newly-created Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family, an entity established (temporarily) for the express purpose of gathering those parishes, missions, and other groups and individuals which had declared for the Ordinariate (or were in the process of doing so). The new Pro-Diocese was conceived of — and recognized (albeit briefly) — by all parties involved as being both under the umbrella of the Patrimony of the Primate and the ACA.

Now, the ACA House of Bishops, through several of its chancellors, has released a statement denying the Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family any place in the ACA and rejecting entirely the notion of the Primate's jurisdiction and the legal concept of his Patrimony, despite general agreement on this provision in the past.

I regard this statement as grievously unfortunate...

Read the rest of Bishop Campese's statement on the blog The Anglo-Catholic.

Six ACA bishops headed to Ordinariate

TAC Archbishop: Six bishops, 61 priests and 29 congregations will join up

A VOL EXCLUSIVE

By Mary Ann Mueller
Feb. 14, 2011

Archbishop John Hepworth, the Primate of the Australian-based Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), and its American branch -- the Anglican Church in America (ACA) -- has announced that six ACA bishops are strongly considering joining the Anglican Ordinariate once it becomes established on this side of the Atlantic.

"We have six bishops and 61 ACA priests who have put in dossiers applying to be clergy of the Ordinariate, and 29 parishes have voted and indicated to Cardinal Donald Wuerl that they have voted from the ACA into the Ordinariate," said Hepworth.

The ACA House of Bishops has a census of 10 including Bishop Juan Garcia of Puerto Rico...

read the rest of the post at Virtue Online.