Anglican Patrimony

Msgr Steenson's Installation

2012-02-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

Check out the photos from the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and the Houston Chronicle! There is a video of Msgr. Steenson's homily posted as well.

Whispers in the Loggia has more.

Mobile Alabama Anglican Use

2012-02-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

Matthew Venuti writes in to announce the formation of a new Anglican Use society in Mobile Alabama! This is a group in formation to become a parish of the Ordinariate. It's name is The Society of Saint Gregory the Great. Here is their website.

They will soon begin having Evensong according the Book of Divine Worship, so Mobile area readers, please keep an eye on Mr. Venuti's webpage!

He is a candidate for Holy Orders with myself and nearly sixty others in the Ordinariate, so please keep him in your prayers as he studies in the formation program and gathers a group for a new congregation!

This is exactly the kind of dedication and hard work the Ordinariate and the Catholic Church at large needs, so if you live in the Mobile area, please contact this group and give it your support!

Beeswax

2012-02-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

Thus ends the Epiphany season. I must say that the Book of Divine Worship's calendar is both delightful, in that it retains some of our patrimony (such as Epiphanytide, but strangely not Trinitytide), and amazingly frustrating, in that it tries to overlap or combine with the the calender of the modern Roman Rite. We would normally go into the Gesimas, but now it's on to the Fifth Sunday of the Year. Figuring out Epiphany Sundays in the BDW when Epiphany itself was on the eighth of January rather than the sixth was laborious.

So today is Candlemas in the patrimony: the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple or the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Candlemas is such an easier word to say than all that. And it rolls off the tongue and has a nice ring in the ears. Today Anglicans remember candles; and they say we're all tat and no substance!

One good contribution by Anglicans (of the pre-Reformation sort!) is that by bringing in the Feast of the Presentation from Britain to Ireland, it gave modern-day pagans plenty of material for another conspiracy theory. (Lupercalia, I'm sure, was not known by St. Cyril of Jerusalem.) Always try to look for the fun amidst the crazy. But the tradition of blessing the candles probably did come as a result of "baptizing" a pagan Roman festival, which has support from Pope Innocent XII.

Where is The Church to be found?

2012-01-31T11:54:00.000-08:00

J.M.J.

As we move forward in our various parishes which will be part of the initial wave of those entering the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, it is easy to become weary - not only from waiting, but also from the reaction of some to those seeking unity with the Successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ.

This can develop into frustration, and a sense of anger, that we must be very careful to channel away, that we don't respond in kind. I have myself fallen guilty to this at times.

One particularly insidious piece of information which I recently saw bantered about was that we needed to realize that once we are in the Ordinariate, we must necessarily regard ourselves as "finally" being part of the One True Church, and as such, must regard those who are not, at least initially, coming into the Ordinariate, as forming no part of the Church of Christ.

This follows right along with the claims of it being necessary to deny one's prior sacramental life as being part of the One True Church.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen once remarked that there are not over a hundred people who dislike the Catholic Church for what She teaches, but there are thousands who dislike the Catholic Church for what THEY THINK She teaches. Such is the case in this line of thought in this allegation about what we will soon be called to reject, denounce, and decry.

The error of this line of allegation is easily refuted, and was wonderfully addressed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on The Church."

Regarding the second question addressed, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith speaks quite plainly regarding churches and ecclesial communities not in communion with the Catholic Church, when it says:

"...It is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial Communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in them...."

The complete text may be found at the link below, and this short document is worthy of the time spent to read it, and perhaps also mark and inwardly digest it.

The spirit of Anglicanorum Coetibus reflects this teaching of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and this teaching should remain at the forefront of our evangelistic efforts as parishes and individuals of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. The more we understand and practice this, the more likely our evangelistic efforts will be successful and bear fruit. If people tune you out when you first start speaking, they will never hear your message.

SWR

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html#_ftn12

Changes

2012-01-30T14:06:00.000-08:00

No doubt you've noticed the new template design for Anglican Patrimony. It is a simple design, but hopefully rather clean and user-friendly. In addition to this change, the pastors of St. John the Evangelist, Calgary and Mount Calvary, Baltimore will be joining me in contributing. Both parishes have been received into the Catholic Church, and Mount Calvary's reception last week makes it the first parish to be received into the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter (excepting Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston of course, which was designated the principle church upon the establishment). St. John's Calgary should be made a parish of the Ordinariate shortly. Father Catania and Father Kenyon will make great additions here!

Also I should note that for the foreseeable future, Anglican Patrimony will not be having comments following the posts, due to the abuse of the system by a tiny few. There are both upsides and downsides to blogs, and sadly the downsides can ruin it for everyone. Blogs have the amazing potential to be a unifying force, as we all have seen during this time of forming the Ordinariates. However, they can turn into places where unhealthy destruction presides when people post unnecessarily unkind and ruinous gossip and sometimes just crude and filthy language. This is a time when positive and constructive action is required, and that is something Anglican Patrimony has always tried to promote. During this time of formation of not just the Ordinariate, but also of the clergy who will serve it, it is imperative that the purpose and trajectory of Anglican Patrimony in avoiding the scandalous and promoting the positive continue. But enough housekeeping. We continue on promoting the Catholic faith, the best of Anglican patrimony, and the unity Christ calls us all, in our own particular manner and humo(u)r.

For the style, please see the above video of Fr Steenson receiving Mount Calvary, Baltimore, into the Church last Sunday. This, believe it or not, is the Book of Divine Worship. Bam! The rubrics allow quite the breadth of ritual and options to best fit both a parish's culture and abilities. As Fr Steenson said the other day, there will be a freedom and comprehensiveness allowed in the Ordinariate on this front, as we all confess the same faith and morals and will not be able to fall into the pitfalls of the "comprehensiveness" of our former days. This breadth maintains our journey to sainthood and our Anglican patrimony within the Church, but also allows for the evangelism of our local culture and for the practicalities of our parishes and groups. A newly established Ordinariate group in the Deep South with little resources cannot be expected to have the exact same Mass along the lines of Mount Calvary, for example. But it certainly could get there one day, maybe not using Fortescue but perhaps - and I say this realistically though it personally pains me :) - Dearmer.

And for the humo(u)r, Ordinariate parishes must not become liturgical museum pieces and must recognize that becoming saints and giving God the best worship we can is the point of liturgy. This must lead to evangelism of others as well. That's not the funny part. The funny part is God is calling the likes of me to serve in this. And apparantly my fifteen month old daughter is the Ordinariate mascot. Felix Margarita de coetibus... Margaritas, while not Gin Martinis, are certainly a Texan twist on an old theme, just like the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite!

I can see it now: future Ordinariate former alcoytes making pilgrimages to the Balinese Room, remembering stories from their youth of bonding with Fr So-and-so while he was drinking a margarita after another successful BDW Corpus Christi. The future is bright!

(The Homily Fr Steenson gave last week at Mount Calvary's reception is here, and the Evensong that Sunday evening is here.)

Pugin: God's Own Architect

2012-01-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

by Fr. Lawrence Lew O.P.

A beautiful and inspiring new documentary by the BBC about the life, passion, and work of A. W. N. Pugin, who spearheaded the Gothic Revival and changed the face of Britain's cities, is currently available online on the BBC iPlayer until 31 January.

What struck me most about this presentation of Pugin was the consuming passion and vision of this young man, who wrote his first treatise 'Contrasts' at the age of 21, and whose second book on the 'Principles of Pointed Architecture' re-iterated his belief that the honesty of Gothic architecture would reform the morals of Britain. His writing was so engaging and convincing, and his designs so captivating that Pugin influenced a generation of Victorian architects. Indeed, it is argued that his principles of honest architecture, suited to the human person and encompassing every detail, continues to inspire the work of modern British architects such as Norman Foster.

Of particular liturgical interest, apart from the churches such as Cheadle which feature in this documentary, is some footage from High Mass celebrated in the Extraordinary Form at the Pugin designed St Mary's Cathedral in Newcastle. The celebrant on that occasion was Fr Michael Brown, who blogs here.

In Case You Missed It, And...

2012-01-17T16:40:00.000-08:00

John Hunwicke gave this sermon at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford in Newman's pulpit.

Anglican Ordinariate in England Celebrates 1st Anniversary at St. James, Spanish Place

And...

Mount Calvary, Baltimore is to be received into the Church this Sunday!

First Anniversary of Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

2012-01-10T20:20:00.001-08:00

Marylebone - St. James, Spanish Place at 5:00pm

View Larger Map

US Ordinariate News

2012-01-02T10:51:00.000-08:00

By now everyone has read the news of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter under Fr. Jeffrey Steenson. Excitement for this new year doesn't begin to describe many of our feelings at this time!

St. Timothy's, Ft. Worth

Despite hardships for many, we press on. One of the finest examples of faithfulness comes from Fr. Stainbrook and the St. Timothy's group in Ft. Worth, who just celebrated their first service in a borrowed space.

Here is what Bishop Kevin Vann had to say about them.

Our new Ordinary, Fr. Jeffrey Steenson, preaching at the Anglican Use Conference in Newark, New Jersey

This is good to keep in mind as we proceed together as "the Chair":

The Mission of the Ordinariate

The Ordinariate seeks to be genuinely open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and the wise direction of the Holy See, as groups of Anglicans bring their distinctive gifts and aspirations to this new work. What constitutes the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral patrimony of Anglicanism [AC, III] is as rich and diverse as the cultures of the people who have been nourished within this noble tradition. The Ordinariate will strive to maintain this comprehensiveness, firmly grounded in the Catholic Faith, in the spirit of St. Paul’s charge to build up the Church in I Corinthians 12. Three particular themes will emerge in the work of the Ordinariate:

1. Liturgical – The Anglican liturgical tradition emphasizes the principle of worship in the vernacular, that is, prayers offered to Almighty God in the language of the people. The Book of Common Prayer is one of the chief glories of the English language, and many elements of this tradition are already authorized for use in the Catholic Church in the Book of Divine Worship. It is hoped eventually that one liturgy will unite the Ordinariates located throughout the English-speaking world. A distinctive feature of this liturgical identity is the commitment to the sacral character of the language of prayer, one of the principles that guided the new translation of the Roman Missal.

2. Ecumenical – After the second Vatican Council, the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) was established to work toward the reconciliation of churches separated at the time of the Reformation in the 16th century. This ecumenical work has born much good fruit: of particular note is The Gift of Authority (1998), which called for the re-reception of the historic ministry of Peter in the office of the Pope within Anglican life. The founding documents of the Personal Ordinariate make clear that it is intended to be an instrument of Catholic unity, an opportunity to model what the future reconciliation of separated Christian communities could be. The ecumenical character of the Ordinariate requires that we build bridges, heal relationships, and seek forgiveness where necessary, with respect and gratitude for the Anglican institutions that nourished us, so that we might build up the body of Christ.

3. Evangelistic – Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have called the Catholic Church to renew her commitment to the evangelization of the peoples of the world. The Ordinariate will find its very life in this calling. Ordinariate congregations can only grow through the work of evangelization; the Ordinariate exists for those who are and will be coming to the fullness of the Catholic faith. Cooperating closely with the local diocese, the Ordinariate congregation will find its vitality, not only by preserving a venerable ecclesial patrimony, but by sharing it with a generous and joyful heart.

Prayers Requested

2011-12-23T07:03:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed, the announcement about St. Mary of the Angels being received into the Catholic Church on January 8 has been taken down. Some complications have arisen, sadly, but I hope nothing too difficult to wade through. So the reception of the parish is postponed until these details are sorted. Please don't ask about them because I don't know at the moment. But I do ask for your prayers for the parish nonetheless.

We continue marching on in faith, towards the full visible unity Christ prayed for, that we all may be one!

This will be a busy Christmas season this year, no doubt, so besides any major announcements, this blog will be inactive for a while. I'm also going to be breaking from writing during my time of formation in the Ordinariate, so please check the sister blog for all the wonderful news that's surely coming our way this next year.

Please pray for our new Ordinary-elect and our Holy Father, Pope Benedict. Pray for all the groups wanting to enter the Church and the Ordinariate. And pray for us all to have a good start next year in which we can work together to grow in holiness, and participate in evangelizing the world around us using the strengths of our Catholic faith and Anglican patrimony.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Blessed John Henry Newman Society Article

2011-12-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

An article just came out in the latest edition of the diocesan newspaper of the Diocese of Orange about our little group, Blessed John Henry Newman Society in Orange County. It was intended to be a good short introduction of who we are to the rest of the diocese.

I encourage all other small ordinariate groups to contact your local diocesan papers and see if they might be interested in doing something similar. It's all a part of the "shaking hands" process as we get to know each other as new family members in the Body of Christ!

Lourdes Hymn: Immaculate Mary

2011-12-08T09:20:00.000-08:00

Patrimony:

"...We pray for His Vicar, / Our Father, and Rome!..."

"...Be England thy 'Dowry' / As in days of yore..."

And if you want to download the audio from the podcast, click here! Happy Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception!

Aquinas and the Immaculate Conception

2011-12-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

When I was in seminary I made this argument after two of my professors claimed that St. Thomas Aquinas denied the Immaculate Conception. I was simply talked over by one and ignored by the other.

I still believe it. Check out the New Theological Movement in preparation for this Holy Day!

Monthly Prayer List (Updated)

2011-12-02T16:54:00.000-08:00

Here is the December 2011 prayer list (UPDATED - with St. Timothy's, Ft. Worth and The Anglican Use Society of Colorado) for the groups entering the forthcoming ordinariate (starting next month!!!) here in the United States.

St. Timothy's, Ft. Worth

2011-12-02T16:43:00.000-08:00

A typical Mass at St. Timothy's, Ft. Worth

At long last I can break the silence and announce the good news that my long-time friend, Father Christopher Stainbrook, and his parish of St. Timothy's in Fort Worth are desiring to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church through the forthcoming Ordinariate!

Today Father Stainbrook sent out an email making this public and directing our attention to this article on the Ft. Worth Episcopal (ACNA) Diocese's website.

Father Stainbrook was my old Father Confessor when I lived in Ft. Worth and was preparing to go to seminary. He was a constant friend and advisor during my time in seminary and remained a good friend even after I moved to Los Angeles. A really good friend of mine serves on their bishop's committee (vestry) too. St. Timothy's is where I was first exposed to the Missal Mass and the fullness of the Catholic Religion. It has formed many good priests and has always had a faithful gathering of laity, for most of whom the Ordinariate move is a no-brainer.

Fr. Christopher Stainbrook with last January's First Communion class

Please pray for this little parish that God will bless it's ministry as the first Ordinariate parish inside the Ft. Worth city limits! Be sure to read the letter composed by both Fr. Stainbrook and Bishop Jack Iker, my former bishop, who has been charitable and understanding throughout this time.

Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach

2011-12-01T10:57:00.000-08:00

Since the author of the new book, Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach, is also the assistant to Cardinal Wuerl, many people heading into the American Ordinariate have naturally gravitated towards this book, as we have all gotten to know Fr. Scott Hurd to some degree or another during this process of coming into the Church and the Ordinariate.

For many of us, this process of leaving our old Anglican jurisdictions and going into full communion with the Catholic Church has been full of battles and has been emotionally, mentally, and spiritually draining to a degree many have never experienced before. The battles have happened between parishes and their bishops, between parishes and other parishes, between clergy of all ranks, between clergy and their people, and between parishioners and other parishioners even within the parish itself. I've heard many stories from people about all varieties of conflict which include all manner of deceit, mistrust, backstabbing, switching alliances at the last minute, opportunism, tossing others "under the bus", flat out lies, legal battles, and on and on. Some have recalled seeing friends and loved ones lose their faith during these trials. I've personally witnessed these behaviors and been involved in these battles myself to some degree or another on my own journey to full communion.

So it's timely that the man who's been assisting us to come into the Church and the Ordinariate has published a book about the very topic most of us so desperately need at this time! As I've said before, all of us will have to learn to put past hurts behind us, heal our wounds in time, and re-learn our priestly calling and our calling as the People of God in terms of looking forward positively. After the battles are over and we are in the Ordinariate, we must redirect our energy and efforts to constructive and joyful pursuits to begin again. Our efforts need to be primarily two-fold: building our own communities into full Catholic parishes to be conducive to personal and corporate growth in holiness and the best worship of God we of Anglican heritage can muster, and to evangelize others around us. This is a wonderfully bright future for us with unlimited potential!

But before we just jump in with two feet, we need God's healing. And this, of course, is a synergistic effort: by God's grace and our trying, we can - and must! - forgive.

I encourage everyone reading this, especially those who have been through the kind of battles I've described, to pick up a copy of Fr. Hurd's book as your Advent reading.

It might not be a bad idea for parishes and groups entering the Ordinariate in January (or later) to go through this book corporately before being received into the Church.

Blessed John Henry Newman Fellowship

2011-11-30T10:47:00.000-08:00

Bl. John Henry Newman Fellowship, Philadelphia

Having read last Sunday's sermon by Bishop David Moyer, I decided to take a look around their group's new webpage to see how things are going. And they are going!

The website reports that 78 people attended last Sunday's mass, they have a Catechism class going preparing members for entry into the Catholic Church, a church supply company in Philadelphia has loaned them altar pieces, candles, and vestments, and they too received their RSV lectionaries in preparation for use in the Ordinariate!

Please keep this growing group in your prayers as they look forward to a bright and fulfilling future in full communion with the Holy See in 2012!

English Missal Today

2011-11-23T14:22:00.000-08:00

Today, the ever-technical Canon Jerome Lloyd OSJV, an Old Catholic priest in the UK, made a video of himself saying the mass of today according to the English Missal (St. Clement). The video takes a while to get going, but once past the string of bells and the Angelus, it takes off nicely. It is very similar to what we do here at St Mary's, but without the recorded music. We also don't say the Canon of the Mass silently, the Angelus before the mass starts, and we normally use the Cramnerian Canon (until January when we'll be in the Catholic Church).

More Thomas Aquinas College

2011-11-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's venture out to Santa Paula was well worth it. Father Noble and I had a wonderful time exploring the new chapel there and amateurly discussing architectural ideas for the new Ordinariate congregations of the future. It is wonderfully exciting to be thinking so positively and hopeful for the future after so many years of dissapointment and dismay. God is good!

When I was walking around the chapel of Thomas Aquinas College, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, designed by Duncan Stroik, yesterday I recalled this presentation from the New Liturgical Movement from three years ago. A simple search brought it back (as well as this one I missed)! Also, here are some photos I snagged with my phone:

St. Thomas Aquinas College

2011-11-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

Evensong went spectactularly well. I will post photos and more once I have them. Thank you all who participated to make the evening so special!

Today I will be travelling with Fr. Bruce Noble, of Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston, to Santa Paula, to visit St. Thomas Aquinas College and to attend their evening mass.

Bishop of London on Anglicans, the new translation, and the Ordinariate

2011-11-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

In the new context of the erection of the Personal Ordinariates for the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Holy See, and with the new translation of the Missale Romanum about to come into effect in England & Wales, Dr Richard Chartres, the Anglican Bishop of London, writes:

At Advent, our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Church will be required to use new liturgical texts. We can always learn from the example of other members of the Christian community and indeed our own liturgy has been reformed by reference to the testimony and practices of the Church of the first centuries.

In former times before the liturgies of our Church had fully recovered these early forms, some of our priests adopted the Roman rite as a sign of fidelity to the ancient common tradition and an expression of our unity in Christ. At best their intention was to contribute to the recovery of a tradition which is both Catholic and Reformed, while pointing the way to the liturgical convergence we now enjoy, not least through the work of the international English Language Liturgical Consultation. They also recognised the proper place in the liturgy of prayer for leaders in the world wide church in addition to our own Archbishop. This is especially true of the Pope, who is undeniably the Patriarch of the West and as head of the Roman Catholic Church is charged with awesome pastoral and missionary responsibilities.

Much has been achieved and the debates of previous generations have influenced the Church’s liturgical practice and contributed to a convergence of eucharistic doctrine and rites. So it is with some dismay that I have learned of the intentions of some clergy in the Diocese to follow instructions which have been addressed to the Roman Catholic Church and to adopt the new Roman eucharistic rites at Advent.

Read it all.

Ordinariate Evensong (Again)

2011-11-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

This Sunday is Solemn Evensong commemorating the Feast of Christ the King and St. Cecilia at St. Mary of the Angels, Hollywood on Sunday, November 20th at 4:00pm.

Come worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness in Southern California! Honoring Christ the King and St. Cecilia, Solemn Evensong will be sung by the two choirs of St. Mary of the Angels, Hollywood and Blessed John Henry Newman Society of Orange County - two communities of the forthcoming Anglican Ordinariate here in Southern California.

Dr Kathleen Moon and Dr Sandy Fryling will be jointly conducting the two choirs as these two churches come together for this special event and joyfully look forward to the common life together in the Ordinariate of the Catholic Church.

RSVP on Facebook

Wuerling Out the Ordinariate!

2011-11-15T12:36:00.000-08:00

Today Cardinal Wuerl is speaking on the long-awaited Personal Ordinariate for the United States of America! Like last time he spoke, I will be live-blogging the highlights as he speaks, so again, please forgive any typos :)

His Eminence, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington D.C. and the man in charge of implementing the Anglican Ordinariate here in the United States, is speaking to the Conference of Catholic Bishops at their Fall General Assembly right now about the forthcoming Ordinariate in this country.

He says that he's received 67 clergy submitted and 35 have received nulla ostas from the CDF in Rome and are free to move on with the ordination process.

He says that the bishops have been facilliting and underwriting costs for background checks and pyschological evaluations.

2 Anglican communities have entered the Catholic Church in anticipation of the Ordinariate (Ft. Worth and Bladensburg, MD)

The Holy Father approved the establishement of an Ordinariate in this country!

The canonical erection will be on January 1, 2012 where an ordinary will be named! (In SIX WEEKS TIME!!!)

Steps: 1) Those Anglican congregations will need to be catechized (if they haven't already) by a program approved by the Holy See and administered by the new Ordinariate. The local diocese should help.

2) The program of priestly at St Mary's seminary in Houston for clergy will be available by either distance learning or on-site training.

3) At this point, Fr Hurd will continue to help clergy/parishes continue on to the second stage (making sure the votum - of the local Latin Rite ordinary for the clergy - the background checks for the clergy, the psychological evaluation for the clergy, and the catechesis for the parishes takes place)

If the ordinary of the new ordinariate is married he can be a priest but not a bishop and the the ordination of priests must be done by the local Latin Rite bishop. There is no adaptation or change in the ordination rite.

Those Anglican clergy who serve as chaplains will be available to serve in the Military Ordinariate.

The liturgical side has been working behind the scenes under the direction of an international dicastery. An Ordinariate will be able to use upon its erection either the Roman Rite or the BDW until the new liturgy is available and approved.

_______________________

Bishop Kevin Vann is speaking:

He is now the head of the Pastoral Provision.

The purpose is somewhat similar but different than the Ordinariate, as priests are incardinated into their local Latin Rite dioceses.

He envisions it being complimentary to the work of the Ordinariate.

__________________

Q&A:

Card. Wuerl says the Ordinariate will be run by the ordinary who will take over. The delagate (himself) will work for a limited time then fade out. Bp Vann will continue to run the Pastoral Provision separately from the Ordinariate. The Ordinary will be a member of the Conference of Bishops as a brother.

Anglican Use parishes currently in Latin Rite dioceses will have to seek permission of the current ordinary to transfer into the Ordinariate. (Our Lady of Walsingham parish in Houston will be transferred into the Ordinariate because the parish wants it and Card. DiNardo wants it)

Health insurance, etc. for Ordinariate clergy can be taken care of by the local dioceses.

The extra priests (more priests than Ordinariate communities exist currently) can serve also in local Latin Rite parishes or in the miltary archdiocese also until the Ordinariate itself begins to grow and need them all.

Bishop Earl Boyea (Lansing) asks about Ordinariate priestly ordination formation being shorter than the Pastoral Provision priests. Bp Vann says the differnce is the structure of the Ordinariate being needed to be erected. Pastoral Provision priests cannot be pastors but it seems Ordinariate priests can be (unclear).

Card. O'Malley wants a priest with long-time experience with the Pastoral/Provision (Anglican Use) to be ordinary.

The Pastoral Provision won't change because there will probably always be Anglican clergy who come individually (without a community) and want to serve in the diocese and not the Ordinariate.

The Bishop of Honolulu asks if Latin Rite priests can say Ordinariate liturgies, and Card. Wuerl seems to think that they could, and that Latin Rite Catholics could attend Ordinariate congregations and vice versa.

Bishop Gaydos (Jefferson City) asks if he is asked to ordain an Ordinariate priests, who would give him authority? Card. Wuerl says the ordinary.

The priestly formation program will last for 6-9 months. The local bishop may be involved in the formation of priests at a later time in further pastoral training if the ordinary wishes.

Solemn Vespers of All Saints

2011-11-09T17:04:00.001-08:00

I mentioned before that I had the privilege of attending the glorious First Vespers of All Saints (All Hallows) at the Mission Basilica, San Juan Capistrano. Well, the New Liturgical Movement has a wonderful photo including links to both the video and some audio clips.

Cardinal Law Thanking Our Lady of the Atonement Students

2011-11-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

As you probably know from The Anglo-Catholic blog, Father Phillips is in Rome with a group of students from Our Lady of the Atonement Academy. He posted a video of Cardinal Law welcoming and thanking the students for singing the Arcadelt "Ave Maria." In Father Phillips' words, "The Cardinal had turned 80 years old last Friday, and he referred to our students' singing as one of his 'best birthday gifts.'"

What touched me most was referring to the beginning, when Our Lady of the Atonement was just an idea! O, how good God is! May we all look back on this period of our lives when our own parishes, groups, and even the Ordinariate in this country itself was just an idea, and see how good God is to us also!

All Saints and November Ordinariate Prayer List

2011-11-01T11:19:00.000-07:00

The Vigil of All Saints last night at the Mission Basilica of San Juan Capistrano was breathtaking. It was sung (except for the Divine Praises at Benediction) entirely in Latin. I'm told there are photos and possibly even video clips floating around online, so if anyone knows links to those, please put them in the comment box.

This month's prayer list is out for all the groups coming into the forthcoming American Ordinariate. Please keep this list at hand and pray for one another.

All signs point to this month being the month when the Ordinariate could be announced here in our country. Please pray that this is so!

I've heard from many of the groups via email and phone, and heard many stories about how difficult this time of waiting has been on the laity. It certainly has been difficult on the clergy, I know, with trying to keep faith and hope alive and morale up during this period of "hurry up and wait" uncertainty. But I know how difficult it is for the laity as well, making sacrifices for the greater good of your parish home (often in the wake of major disputes and battles about the Catholic faith and the Ordinariate within the parish itself) and being told that "soon" something will happen, but then "soon" becomes interpreted more in eschatological sense than a literal one. Many groups do not have pastors and are awaiting an appointment of one by a future ordinary; many groups have seen pastors come and go during these times for various reasons; many groups have limited resources and desperately need financial help from the Ordinariate and any wider Catholic dioceses and parishes but are not technically Catholic yet so aid isn't yet coming; many groups feel isolated and alone, having battled their old ecclesial jurisdictions to make it to the Church's doorsteps and awaiting the day when their Ordinariate door is opened to them.

This is arguably one of the darker times of Anglo-Catholicism here in this country, but it is preceding one of the brightest for sure. So many Anglo-Catholics who were formally separated by years of schism and heresy within the Anglican world are coming back together for the first time in decades, not only as our own family again, but connected for the first time in five hundred years to the wider Catholic family in full visible communion!

We must keep our faith and hope alive and must not loose morale. I encourage those of you - especially clergy and leaders of ordinariate groups whose morale is dwindling - to seek out ways to help celebrate your future life in the Ordinariate. For example, both St. Mary's and Bl. John's are coming together to do a joint evensong. The idea started with St. Mary's new choir director, Dr. Kathleen Moon, to simply have an opening event of a concert series, and I suggested not only doing that but have the theme be about celebrating our common life in the Ordinariate and we could invite the choir of Bl. John's. We have tried to invite as many in the area who'd even remotely be interested, and the two facets of great choral music and the Ordinariate have attracted many more people than we originally anticipated. (Now how many actually show up on the day of, one never knows!)

But even small groups can do things to celebrate our common life together in the Ordinariate. Say you're a group of ten and don't have any musicians or even a pastor yet. You could create a wine and cheese event using the parish hall of your local Catholic Church where you and your members tell not only the story of your own group, but also of Anglo-Catholicism in this country and the wider world. You could talk about Abp. Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI, ARCIC, the following decline of the Anglican Communion. You could even talk about the old glory days of the Anglo-Catholic Congresses and show the old photos (I've got some if you want scans!) as a visual aid to Anglican patrimony the Holy Father wants preserved! Then you go around town, handing out fliers, make online and newspaper announcements, etc.

Things like this would be great to renew the vision and purpose of who we are and what we're doing and to edify others. And by edifying others, hope and vitality can be restored in us. After all, we are Anglo-Catholics, and survival among the fiercest odds is one of the things we do best!

And for the Feast of All Saints and in the spirit of hoping beyond hope (and expecting great things even when it doesn't seem like it at first):

Anglican Use in Pensacola, FL

2011-10-27T22:49:00.001-07:00

Mark Brown wrote to announce the formation of the Friends of the Anglican Use in Pensacola, Florida. They are having a formation meeting on November 13, 2011 at 2:00pm at St. Michael's Parish Hall in Pensacola, 19 North Palafox Street, Pensacola, FL.

Join their facebook group if you're interested and please spread the word! Please contact Mark Brown if you have any questions: markandkelibrown [at] bellsouth [dot] net

RSV Lectionaries

2011-10-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

Please check out the Anglo-Catholic for this important announcement from Fr. Phillips.

Ordinariate Evensong

2011-10-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

The second Southern California event is Solemn Evensong commemorating the Feast of Christ the King and St. Cecilia at St. Mary of the Angels, Hollywood on Sunday, November 20th at 4:00pm.

Come worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness in Southern California! Commemorating Christ the King and St. Cecilia, Solemn Evensong will be sung by the two choirs of St. Mary of the Angels, Hollywood and Blessed John Henry Newman Society of Orange County - two communities of the forthcoming Anglican Ordinariate here in Southern California.

RSVP on Facebook

Solemn First Vespers of the Feast of All Hallows (All Saints)

2011-10-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

The first Southern California event is the Solemn First Vespers of the Feast of All Hallows (All Saints) at the Mission Basilica of San Juan Capistrano on Monday, October 31st at 7:30pm.

The Brothers of the Little Oratory, joined by the Tomas Luis de Victoria Choir of San Diego, and clergy in the Diocese of Orange, will chant and sing the opening Vespers of the great Feast of All Hallows in the superb acoustics of the Basilica Church of Mission San Juan Capistrano.

The service music will include gregorian psalms, as well as great music of the polyphonic masters such as Tomas Luis de Victoria, Andrea Gabrielli Francesco Soriano, Hernando Franco (of Mexico City, ca. 1575), and more!

The service is - of course - free and without charge. Please join us for this very special Vesper (Evening Prayer) service to open the Feast of All Saints, as we 'Reclaim All Hallow's Eve for Christ!"

RSVP on Facebook

Mark Your Calendars: Nov. 14-15

2011-10-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

The Catholic Bishops Conference for the United States will meet on November 14-15, and the ninth item on their agenda is:

A report by Cardinal Donald Wuerl on Anglicanorum coetibus, the Vatican’s response to groups of Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church.

I imagine that November 15 will likely be the day when this topic will be addressed.

Whether the U.S. Ordinariate itself will have been established by then or not, it should be a very informative presentation nonetheless.

In Hard Times

2011-10-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

by Archbishop Jose Gomez

We are in hard times. All around us, we have the numbers to prove it.

Last month, our government reported that more than 46 million Americans, about 15 percent of our neighbors, are living in poverty. The percentage here in California is higher — more than 16 percent. Here in Los Angeles County it is higher still. One in six of our brothers and sisters is officially “poor.”

Every one of these “numbers” is a person, a child of God who was created for a purpose in God’s plan.

So it is sad and worrying to see so many without work, or without enough work to be employed all the time, or unable to earn enough to pay their bills.

These hard times have exposed deep problems with our economic system and also with our government’s approaches to economic matters at all levels — federal, state and local.

We see now very real signs in our society of a permanent “underclass,” a kind of “culture of poverty” that continues through generations in the same families and communities.

Also, more and more we are seeing signals that the gap between the earnings of the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the population is getting much wider.

An article about that last month in the magazine, The Atlantic, is getting a lot of attention. The title is provocative but it raises the question that’s on everyone’s minds these days: “Can the Middle Class be Saved?”

It is a thoughtful article and worth studying. But I would pose the question about our present economic situation in different terms.

The question for me is: What are we going to do — as individuals, as citizens, as Catholics, and as a Church?

Liturgical Patrimony of the Ordinariate and the Reform of the Reform

2011-10-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

by Msgr. Andrew Burnham

Note: These thoughts are Msgr. Burnham's speculations regarding the liturgical future of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham only. As he himself writes, "The setting down of these thoughts has no more authority than whatever is self-evidently sensible within them, and may be more or less influential on what develops and how it develops, depending on circumstances well beyond my control."

The Liturgical Patrimony of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and the Reform of the Reform

This paper is in two parts. I suspect that some of those I am addressing are particularly interested in what is already happening in the first of the Ordinariates, the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham (OOLW). That is the subject of the first part of the lecture. The second part will be of interest to those, especially those in the Association for Latin Liturgy, and indeed many in the Latin Mass Society – and I do know the difference – who are anxious to see the preservation of a cultural patrimony much wider and deeper than that of the Anglican tradition. So, to begin with, and to justify the decision of the organizers of this event to invite me to address you, let me immediately identify myself with, and make common cause with, the aims of the Association for Latin Liturgy. We are keen ‘to promote understanding of the theological, pastoral and spiritual qualities of the liturgy in Latin’. We seek ‘to preserve the sacredness and dignity of the Roman rite’. We are anxious ‘to secure, for the present and future generations, the Church’s unique inheritance of liturgical music’. I don’t know if reciting those aims automatically enrols me in the Association but, if I have to sign something and pay a subscription as well, I shall be only too glad to oblige. I spent too long as a practising musician not to agree with these aims: I think a classical musician who wished to dissent from these aims would have to become a fan of Bartok or Delius or a member of the Nazi party to escape from the overwhelming beauty of the Catholic repertoire of liturgical music. To come to the point: the second part of my reflection will be on what is normally referred to as ‘the reform of the Reform’, and I shall come to that when I have shared some thoughts on the liturgical formation of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Oxford Evensong & Benediction

2011-10-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 19 at 7:30pm

at Blackfriars Priory Church

Blackfriars, St Giles, OXFORD OX1 3LY

Ordinariate Community of Monroe, LA

2011-10-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, September 6, 2011, Fr. Christopher Phillips, of Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church (Anglican Use), was the guest homilist for the annual celebration of the Red Mass at St. Matthew Catholic Church, Monroe, LA. That evening, Fr. Phillips and the St. Matthew Choir led worshippers in a celebration of Choral Evensong. Finally, following a reception in Fr. Phillips’ honor, about thirty individuals gathered to learn more about the future for Anglicans coming into communion with the Catholic Church through Anglican Ordinariates. We are thankful that Fr. Phillips was able to take time out of his busy ministry schedule to be with us in Monroe for this special occasion.

In fidelity to the Holy Father and his desire that the Anglican Patrimony be preserved within the Catholic Church, it is my privilege to announce to you, on this the feast day of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, that an Anglican Ordinariate Community is being established in Monroe, Louisiana. The purpose of this community is to gather interested persons together for worship and formation, in anticipation of being received into the Anglican Ordinariate as a parish once the Anglican Ordinariate for the United States is established. We desire that a priest will be appointed for our sacramental care as soon as possible following the establishment of the personal ordinariate in the Unites States.

If you are interested in participating in the establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate Community of Monroe, Louisiana, then you are invited to attend an organizational meeting on Saturday, November 5, 2011 from 1:00 P.M. until 3:00 P.M. in Marsh Hall, adjacent to St. Matthew Catholic Church (121 Jackson Street, Monroe). Please spread the word to your interested friends and let them know they are welcome to attend. If you cannot attend but wish to be part of this community, please contact me and let me know of your desire. Anyone who desires to be involved is welcome!

Thank you for your time and your prayerful consideration of this matter. May the Immaculate Conception and St. Thomas of Canterbury intercede for us!

Thomas Kennedy,

Anglican Ordinariate Community of Monroe, Louisiana

1-318-548-2371

bobbyjkennedy{at}hotmail.com

Peter in the Syrian Theological Tradition

2011-10-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

The Fathers of the Syrian Church tried to give a theological interpretation to the person of Peter. They were fully convinced of the unique office of Peter in the primitive Christian community. Ephrem, Afrahat and Marutha who were supposed to be the best exponents of the early Syrian tradition unequivocally acknowledge the office of Peter. They understood that Peter participated in the person as well as the office of Christ in a special way. The Syrian Fathers following the rabbinic tradition call Jesus “Kepha” for they see “rock” in the Old Testament as a messianic Symbol. When Christ gave his own name “Kepha” to Simon he was giving him participation in the person and office of Christ. Christ who is the Kepha and shepherd made Simon the chief shepherd in his place and gave him the very name Kepha and said that on Kepha he would build the Church. Afrahat shared the common Syriac tradition. For him Kepha is infact another name of Jesus, and Simon was given the right to share the name. The person who receives somebody else’s name also obtains the rights of the person who bestows the name. Afrahat makes the stone taken from Jordan a type of Peter. He says Jesus son of Nun set up the stones for a witness in Israel; Jesus our Saviour called Simon Kepha Sarirto and set him as the faithful witness among nations.

Again he says in his commentary on Deutronomy that Moses brought forth water from “rock” (Kepha) for the people and Jesus sent Simon Kepha to carry his teachings among nations. Our Lord accepted him and made him the foundation of the Church and called him Kepha. When he speaks about transfiguration of Christ he calls him Simon Peter, the foundation of the Church.

Ephrem also shared the same view. In a Hymn on Peter he writes:

“Blessed are you Simon Kepha
Who holds the keys which the Spirit forges
Great is the word and ineffable
That could stand bind and loose above and below
Blessed are thou who wert as the head
And as the tounge of the body of brotheren
Through Simon was heard the Revelation from the Father
Through the Rock unshakable”
(De Virginitate15.6,7)

In Armenian version of De Virginitate records Peter the Rock shunned honour Who was the head of the Apostles,

In a MEMRA of Efrem found in Holy Week Liturgy points to the importance of Peter:

“The Simon, my disciple, have I set as foundation of the Holy Church,
I called thee Kepha that thou mightest bear all buildings
Thou art the overseer (baharo) of those who build for me the Church on earth

If they build anything hateful the foundation restrains them
Thou art the foundation-head of my disciples
By thee I will give drink to all nations thou hast the sweetness of life which I will give
I have given thee keys of my kingdom
Behold. Thou rulest over all my possession.”

Both Afrahat and Ephrem represent the authentic tradition of the Syrian Church. The different orders of liturgies used for sanctification of Church building, marriage, ordination etc. reveal that the primacy of Peter is a part of living faith of the Church...

It has been conclusively made clear that the modern Biblical scholarship supports the authentic Syriac tradition concerning the role of Peter.

(Originally posted here.)

Our Lady of the Rosary

2011-10-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

by Fr. Scott Hurd

As far as I can tell, today is the only day in the Church’s calendar which commemorates a military battle. Specifically, we remember that on October 7th, 1571, a Muslim naval fleet was defeated at the Battle of Lepanto.

Because the pope, Saint Pius V, had called upon the church to pray the rosary for a victory, the battle’s outcome was seen as a direct response to Mary’s intercession. In gratitude, Pius V established the memorial of Our Lady of Victory, or as we refer to it now, Our Lady of the Rosary.

Just as in 1571, there are today tensions, hostilities, and misunderstandings between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world. And, just as in 1571, it is imperative that we pray, and lift up this unhappy situation to the healing light of God’s love.

We need to pray for “respectful dialogue” and peaceful coexistence between Christian and Muslims;
We need to pray for the health and protection of the Church in predominantly Muslim countries;
And as we recall the Battle of Lepanto, at which over 22,000 people died, we need to pray for peace.

It can be tempting for us to think that our relationship with the Muslim world will never change, and that praying for it is simply a waste of time. But Our Lady of the Rosary reminds us otherwise, because she is also Our Lady of Hope, and Our Lady, the Queen of Peace. May she pray for us to the Prince of Peace, that the blessing of peace, may come to our world today.

Readings for today's Mass: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100711.cfm

(Originally posted on Fr. Hurd's blog)

Council and Continuity Lectures

2011-10-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of attending the Council and Continuity International Symposium on the Interim Missals, over the past two days in Phoenix, Arizona. Father Phillips made a superb presentation about the Anglican Use liturgy, entitled, The Book of Divine Worship: A Catholic Claim to Anglican Patrimony.

I would also want to bring the attention of readers to another great lecture at that same conference which was posted online also, by Dom Mark Kirby, OSB, entitled: The Propers of the Mass, Then and Now.

I would also like to thank the Bishop of Oakland, The Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, for leading us in a beautiful "Reform of the Reform" Vespers.

Radio Walsingham: Anglican Use Radio from Houston

2011-10-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

Most of you probably know about it by now, but I completely forgot to advertize this (mea culpa!). Radio Walsingham, a ministry of Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston, is an internet music channel which features the best of auditory patrimony.

Click here to listen and don't forget to bookmark it!

Monthly Prayer Cycle: October 2011

2011-09-30T16:13:00.000-07:00

Here is this month's version of the ordinariate prayer cycle for the American ordinariate. Please join us in prayer for one another!

Download it here.

Towards the Anglican Ordinariate

2011-09-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

by Bishop Kevin Vann, the Bishop of Fort Worth

This post is about many friends of mine from the old Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth, so this story is particular special to me. Congratuations friends! ~ Fr. Bartus

Joshua Whitfield stands next to Timothy, Spencer and Jody Perkins who along with others entered into full communion with the Catholic Church on Sunday. Photo Credit: Juan Guajardo

On Sunday September 25, 2011 at 2 o'clock in the afternoon at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Fort Worth, I had the privilege of fully innitiating a first wave of former Episcopalians into the Catholic Church. This community, now called St. Peter the Rock, currently meets at the Diocese of Fort Worth Catholic Center and is headed by former Episcopalian priests, Timothy Perkins and Charles Hough. Along with the other lay faithful, Timothy and Charles made their Profession of Faith so that they can join the Anglican Ordinariate when it is erected in the United States. The Anglican Ordinariate, which has already been establish[ed] in both England [and Australia (sic)], will come to the United States at some point in the future. It will be called Anglican, because it is intended for those Christians who trace their identity back to the Church of England (ecclesia anglicana) and Ordinariate for the canonical super structure that will be led by an Ordinary (ordinarius), who will pastor the flock and excercise legal juristiction over this part of the Body of Christ. In the Roman Empire the word ordinarius was attached in a generic way to various political, military, medical and scholarly (among others) positions of leadership.

This historic unfolding follows from the Pastoral Provision, in which a dispensation was given by Blessed Pope John Paul II in 1980 to former Episcopalian priests who sought full communion into the Catholic Church and desired to pursue the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, since that time, has maintained an ongoing relationship with members of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth to faciliate and enact the pastoral aspects of the Provision. In fact, in a rare move, the Holy See has granted rescripts for two of those priest[s] to hold the canonical title of Pastor, a privilege not normally extended to those priests accepted under the Provision. They currently serve key parishes, one in Fort Worth and another in Keller.

Continue reading at Bishop Vann's blog...

Prayers for Holy Communion, Charleston

2011-09-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

About a little more than a year ago I posted about Church of the Holy Communion, Charleston being a great addition to the forthcoming Ordinariate. Well, it just so happens that they've been discerning this very thing over the past year! Prayers are requested on their behalf this Saturday as their final vestry discernment meeting takes place about this very issue.

Survival of the Catholic Idea in Anglicanism IV

2011-09-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

IV. From Newman to 2000: Anglo-Catholics, Liberal Catholics, and Modernists

by Dr. James Patrick

What Newman left behind was Anglo-Catholicism, a word that first appears in 1838. If he did not invent it, he made it familiar. The very title of course assumes that the Church of England was a branch, a part of the one Holy Catholic Church, an idea as old as Jewell and still formative for the theology of Thomas Ken. Newman saw it as a movement based on the single principle of opposition to Erastianism, the theory of the Swiss theologian Thomas Erastus that the national church was a department of state rather like the Home office or Transportation.

There was always an ambivalent attraction to Rome. It was Richard Hurrell Froude who taught Newman to use the Breviary and to imagine Rome as the ultimate destination of the Tractarian movement. There was also enthusiasm from the Roman side, at least among the laity, represented most notably by Ambrose Phillips de Lisle, a convert to Roman Catholicism, who in 1838 had founded the Society for Prayers for the Conversion of England, which in 1857 became the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom. The APUC endured until 1921, being disbanded at that date because it was then that the Malines Conversations sponsored by Cardinal Mercier and tended by such Anglican luminaries as Lord Halifax and Charles Gore, portended the achieving of its object.

By then Anglo-Catholicism had a history. Its undisputed leader was Edward Bouverie Pusey, the third of the original Tractarian triumvirate, distinguished professor of Hebrew at Oxford. Religious orders in Anglicanism are descended from Pusey’s foundation of an order for women in 1845. This was not a large movement; it was liturgically and theologically conservative, responsible for nothing more radical than the more frequent celebration of the Eucharist and the use of stoles, and the optional use of the confessional. The relation between this movement, if movement it was, and the rise of what followed is not easy to document or describe.

The times were theologically tumultuous. Newman’s conversion, or as Church of England apologists would call it, perversion, had caused conversions to the Roman Church, but never the great tide some had expected. Of almost equal significance was the Gorham judgment of 1851, in which the Privy Council determined that belief in baptismal regeneration was not an essential tenet of the Church of England. It brought to Rome, among many others, Henry Edward, later Cardinal, Manning, who would come to enjoy the trust of the Roman authorities that was denied Newman. And there was Darwinism, which troubled Roman Catholics and had a devastating effect on the Bible religion of the English. The warning shot was the publication in 1860 of Essays and Reviews, edited by Frederick Temple, essentially an anti-Tractarian defense of freedom of opinion and belief which showed the first signs of what would later be called Modernism; that is, history and philosophy were used as the standard against which revelation was required to justify itself. Eleven thousand clergymen signed a statement affirming their belief in the literal meaning of Scripture, but the worm was in the apple.

Continue reading...

For this audio and all previous portions, check the podcast.

Please Donate to the New Ordinariate College

2011-09-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

Please click here to find out how you can contribute!

The goal is to raise $100,000 in September in order to get the School of Liberal Studies and the Lewis-Tolkien Center established. Until now both the labor and the materials for our events and classes has been donated. But we can't continue that way. And we all feel that we must continue this epic quest to keep the fire of beauty, goodness, and truth aflame in the hearts of the men of the West. I know you feel the same way. The time to help is now.

The fruit of your support will appear before you in life of our new Ordinariate, not only with newly formed and educated Catholics in the Anglican tradition, but also the Walsingham Society hopes to grow into a house of studies for pre-seminary formation for candidates for Holy Orders. As a registered 501c3 with the Internal Revenue Service all of your donations are tax-deductible.

There exists a gulf in education that must be filled. There remains no undergraduate college that understands the integral relationship of all the disciplines. No undergraduate college remains to show students that theology, philosophy, and literature in Sacred Scripture, Plato, Aristotle, Homer and Virgil all express the same truth from different angles and in different ways. If we do not preserve the unified vision of the truth and the life of the mind at The Walsingham Society, who else will? Where else will the truths of each scholarly discipline be understood in light of each other and under the light of theology, the queen of the intellectual disciplines? Where else will Blessed John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University, Blessed John Paul II’s Ex Corde Exclesiae, and Benedict XVI’s Address to Young Professors all be fulfilled?

Where else, if not at The Walsingham Society? With whom else, if not with us? With whose help, if not with yours? I hope that you will consider making a donation to The Walsingham Society of Christian Culture and Western Civilization.

Our Lady of Sorrows

2011-09-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

Today is Our Lady of Sorrows, or Seven Sorrows, and being a day with the tone it is, I ask your prayers for a homeless woman named Miranda who's been out on the streets for about five months now. Today, finally, we had a breakthrough though! She was finally able to get in to Good Shepherd Center here in Los Angeles, a home for women and children who are homeless. It is a wonderful Catholic facility, but because of that reason, it is very difficult for someone to get in. It is a full rehabilitation program that helps the women find employment and get back on their feet. I've been calling the shelter practically every morning since I met Miranda, and her entrance today is a big answer to prayers!

Miranda is one of those who doesn't stay down. She keeps trying and is a fighter. She started a blog for her book project, called One Soul off the Ground, where she will collect photographs of shoes and the stories of those who've owned them, ever since she became homeless. Her goal is to get back on her own feet, publish this book, and help raise money for organizations just like Good Shepherd Center.

Our Lady of Sorrows is a wonderful day for this break in her life! Miranda evidences the same kind of sorrow for other homeless people - which has only intensified since she herself has become homeless - mixed with the same hope and love that Mary had for her Son, and for all of us, her spiritual children.

Please pray for Miranda and all the homeless who make St. Mary of the Angels their temporary home in times of homelessness. Pray for all of the homeless in Los Angeles and around the world that they too can find hope like Miranda did today.

She beheld her tender Child,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.

O thou Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord:

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.

New School of Liberal Studies

2011-09-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

The Walsingham Society presents...

The New School of Liberal Studies

Fall Semester 2011 Begins!

For a printer-ready PDF of this entire web page go here: School PDF

Location:

Church of the Holy Cross

4052 Hershel Avenue

Dallas, Texas 75219

Classes and times:

I. The Making of Christian Mind. From Clement of Rome to Thomas Aquinas: Monday, 7 – 9 PM

II. First Things of Philosophy, 7 – 9 PM

III. Lyric Poetry: the Poetic Moment: Friday, 7 – 9 PM

Cost:

$330 per course

$ 50 per course book fee

Some scholarships are available

For more information, please see their website, or contact Mr. Brinton Smith:

b.smith@walsinghamsociety.com(817) 925-5658

Survival of the Catholic Idea in Anglicanism III

2011-09-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

III. Reason, New Hearts, and Newman

The Non-Jurors had been for the most part high church men in the following of Andrewes and Laud. This meant that while they were monarchists and nationalists, they were also often men of more than ordinary spiritual depth. Their departure, one might say, averaged down the spiritual zeal of the Church of England, and into the arid land thus revealed by the receding waters of devotion moved the deists.

The deist theory assumed that there was a superior natural religion evident to all mankind of which faith in Jesus Christ was a narrow specification. This stood the great tradition, which from Justin to Thomas had held that Christ as the truth, intimations and insights native to Christ’s religion being found scattered throughout the world of nature and of men. The Christian mysteries were for the great tradition descriptive of reality in its highest term, never unreasonable but always more than reasonable. For deists the Trinity and the Incarnation were superstitions, a word that came to more and more to describe any Christian who believed in the supernatural and especially Catholics. Thus the eighteenth century, building on the tradition of Pierre Charon will see philosophic campaigns against superstition by David Hume and Immanuel Kant, with Kant’s work titled Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason emblematic of the movement.

Perhaps at its heart what Deism represented was the failure of the idea of logos or reason that had permeated Christian civilization for fifteen centuries, an idea represented by John 1:1-14 which describes Logos a the light lightening every man and simultaneously the living pattern through things were made. This logos or reason by its nature made the universe intelligible through a kind if illumination of everything by the divine Word who was at the same time incarnate in Jesus and at the heart of the created order, including Aristotle’s’ nous or insight, his episteme or ability of think rationally, and practical reason. Reason was now often simply instrumental, the tool of a race of clever animals. The older idea had died slowly, having been represented in the Golden Age by the Cambridge Platonists, men like Henry More and Benjamin Whichcote, , among whom the memorable slogan held that the spirit of man was the candle of the Lord. This tradition lingered on the philosophy of George Berkeley (1685-1753), a great favorite of C. S. Lewis, who believed, in a kind of fatal complementarity with the materialism of Hume and Locke, that thought constitutes reality.

Continue reading...

And here's the corresponding Q&A.

Our Lady Queen of Angels

2011-09-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

On Sunday was the 230th anniversary of the founding of Los Angeles, and on Saturday afternoon and evening the Queen of Angels Foundation hosted a massive procession, rosary, and Mass in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. As I said previously, I would post photos.

St. Mary of the Angels was privileged and honored to be invited to attend, not only because of the name of our parish, but also because of our entrance into the Catholic Church via the Ordinariate.

The full representation of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was there, from bagpipes and traditional devotional societies, to Aztec dancers! The Archbishop, Jose Gomez, came out to greet us and bless us before the Rosary began at the end of the procession, which went from the plaza on Olvera Street (from the very first church in Los Angeles) winding down to the Cathedral. After the Rosary, St Mary's was honored again with seats right near the altar and the Cathedral's pastor, Msgr. Kostelnick, gave us a warm welcome. It was truly humbling when he announced to the hundreds of people there that we were Anglicans and were to be welcomed as we were becoming Roman Catholics through the Holy Father's provision of Anglicanorum coetibus! I think it caught the whole room off-guard, as they were no doubt used to seeing ecumenical participants, but not participants who were actually acting on true unity! There were several audible gasps and "ooos" and "ahhs" coming from around the Cathedral, and the place erupted in applause. It was truly humbling.

For more photos, please see Mark and Aloyce's blog, as well as their flickr page.

Monthly Prayer Cycle

2011-09-01T10:35:00.001-07:00

Here is the monthly prayer cycle for the parishes and groups preparing to enter the shortly arriving Personal Ordinariate here in the United States.

Click here to download the September 2011 edition.

Survival of the Catholic Idea in Anglicanism II

2011-09-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

This is the second installment of Dr. Patrick's lecture series, the first being, Fire in the Ashes.

by Dr. James PatrickII.

II. The Golden Age: 1603-1714

The years after the accession of James I in 1603 saw the effective end of the attempt of Elizabeth and her ministers to create a National church that would gain the participation and support not only of reasonably contented Elizabethans but of Puritans and Catholics. James I of England was the legitimate heir, being the grandson of the sister of Henry VII and the son of the Mary Queen of Scots. James came to the throne after repudiating the Catholicism of his mother, whom Elizabeth had executed after much hesitation in 1587.

James was met on his way south by the bearers of the Millenary Petition which claimed to represent the plea of one thousand Puritans, mostly still within the Church of England, that they be relieved of the “common burden of human rites and ceremonies,” which meant the liturgy of the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer with its surplices and marriage rings, its feasts and fasts, and above all is communion service that in a certain light seemed reminiscent of the old Mass. This complaint would be reiterated at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604, which was remarkable on many counts. One of its consequences was the publication of the Authorized Version in 1611. The Conference was also the occasion on which King James, presiding, uttered the apothegm “No bishop, no king,” which, he remarked, he had learned the hard way in Scotland. In fact the Puritans represented a growing faction whose members held that the source of authority lay in the conscience of each man, with conscience instructed not by the teaching of the Church, but by his own Spirit-inspired interpretation. This would be the opinion that would stoke and fire revolution in England, British North America, and, reinforced by Rousseau and Voltaire, in France. It also, with that wonderful ambiguity historical causes so often display, meant that England would never provide a good context for absolutism, the doctrine in fact of all the Tudors, now reinforced by the apparent success of the centralizing French polity represented by Louis XIV.

Anglicanism was, so to speak, formed and solidified by the realization of the Stuart Kings that the Puritans were in fact implacable. This process was assisted by the growing awareness that Roman Catholics were also permanently outside the national establishment. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, although the work of political Catholics whose schemes did not represent the typical recusant or church papist, and the new, punitive anti-Catholic legislation passed in the wake of the plot, were the symbols of this intransigence. With the situation thus clarified, a series of exceptional Church of England pastors and apologists proceeded to restate the Church of England as a living religion by giving over Calvinism, which in the seventeenth century was to a great degree a religion of paper and abstract principle, and taking up the preaching and practice of charity, that virtue the presence of which unites the heart to Jesus, and the encouragement of the devout life.

Continue reading...

The Q and A audio can be found here.

What to call us?

2011-08-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Akin was asked the question, on his latest podcast, what are former Anglicans in the forthcoming Ordinariate to be called? This is a good question to figure out, especially if we have another Ordinariate formed for members of SSPX. Jimmy rightly points out that there are other Anglicans outside full communion with the Holy See who identify themselves as "Anglican Catholics" so continuing that name, while certainly more true for those within the Ordinariate than those who are not in communion with Rome, only further confuses things. So "Anglican Catholic" and "Ordinariate Catholic" are terms which have little to no permanence for us. What then shall we be called?

How about: Anglican Use Catholics? It makes sense liturgically, as we do worship in the Roman Rite but according to the Anglican Use. It makes sense juridically, as the current diocesan Anglican Use parishes will be the first parishes within the Ordinariate and the Ordinariate is the long-awaited home they've been looking for. It makes sense ecclesiologically, as Anglicans are really Roman Rite Christians who've been separated in schism and have worshipped for centuries according to a liturgical form that is rooted in the Roman Rite still; the Book of Divine Worship - and it's future Ordinariate liturgy - is the canonical regularization of it.

So, I propose we simply continue and expand the nature of the identity of the term "Anglican Use" for the future, rather than ditch the term which makes the most sense on all levels.

My plan for Blessed John Henry Newman, is to, Lord willing, have it be known on the sign as: Blessed John Henry Newman Catholic Church. Then under that title, it will say, "Anglican Use - Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Atonement." And just for good measure, the Papal Keys =)

Examining the Translation

2011-08-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

This is a segment of an article written by Fr. Peter Stravinskas in America Magazine entitled, Defending the New Missal, in which he replies to Fr. Michael Ryan's criticisms.

Finally, Father Ryan highlights as examples of a liturgical agenda “at best trivial and at worst hopelessly out-of-touch” several new texts that are products of “flawed principles of translation.” I am delighted with the examples he proffers because each is, in fact, an exemplar of what is so important about the new translation project.

And with your spirit. The earliest translation of the Mass from 1965 actually used this wording. St. John Chrysostom explains that when the people respond in this way they are affirming the ontological change that has taken place in the priest by virtue of the Sacrament of Order, thus enabling him to call down the Spirit upon the elements of bread and wine, transforming them into the body and blood of Christ.

Consubstantial. There is nothing inherently wrong with the present “one in being” in the Nicene Creed; it is not unfaithful to the meaning of either homoousios or consubstantialis. However, one of the underlying principles of the new translation was to use explicitly sacral and theological vocabulary whenever possible. Does the average Catholic know what “consubstantial” means? Probably not. But that same Catholic probably does not know what “one in being” means, either. However, because the latter phrase contains three very common English words, that person in the pew thinks he knows its meaning and thus passes over it without a thought. Coming upon “consubstantial,” that same person will be forced to pause over the significance of the term; it will give the priest the opportunity to preach about its profound meaning.

Incarnate. The present version is plainly inaccurate (“He was born of the Virgin Mary”). The Latin reads: Et incarnatus est...ex Maria Virgine; the moment of the Incarnation was not when He was born (liturgically celebrated on December 25), but when He was conceived (March 25). The translators could have given us “He was made flesh,” but, again, seeking to use more precise language, they gave us “incarnate,” thus giving the clergy yet another “preachable” moment. Several years ago Archbishop Rembert Weakland boasted that the church in the United States was home to the most intelligent and theologically astute Catholics in the history of the church. Surely, then, our congregations should be able to comprehend words like “consubstantial” and “incarnate.”

Joseph, spouse of the same Virgin. This line comes from the Roman Canon. The Latin speaks of Joseph as eiusdem Virginis sponsi, which is exactly “spouse of the same Virgin.” One reason the church was reluctant to highlight St. Joseph until relatively recent centuries was the fear that his relationship to Mary would or could be misunderstood. And so when Pope John XXIII added Joseph’s name to the Canon, it was determined that no one should be led into error or confusion, thus giving us “of the same Virgin.” Which is to say, that while Joseph and Mary were indeed husband and wife, Mary remained a virgin—a critical theological point.

Queen Of Angels Foundation Procession

2011-08-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, St. Mary of the Angels, Hollywood, is honoured to participate in a Marian procession, commemorating Our Lady, Queen of Angels. Since this is the title of both the city of Los Angeles, the Cathedral, and our parish - particularly as we are soon to be in full communion with Catholic Church - we have been invited to process in this historic event. Any and all Angelenos reading this are invited to come to this wonderful event! (You can be sure photos from the procession and a recap will be posted!)

From the website:

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles – the City of Los Angeles – was founded on September 4, 1781 in the name of Our Lady of the Angels, the Blessed Virgin, who had appeared to St. Francis of Assisi over 500 years earlier. On the first birthday of Los Angeles, after the central plaza was dedicated with solemn ceremonies, a mass was said in honor of Our Lady of the Angels, and a grand procession took place invoking Our Lady’s protection, with salvos of musketry, a processional cross, banners, and candlesticks. In this way, the founders of the City and their descendents faced the dangers of the unknown by seeking the aid and protection of Our Lady of the Angels, as the Patroness and Protectress of the infant Pueblo. This carried on for over a century

In recent times, Los Angeles has faced perhaps even greater challenges than did our forebears – economic, social, cultural, and spiritual. Today, the Queen of Angels Foundation is renewing the ancient call to Our Lady of the Angels, and the Angelic Host for whom she is Queen, for their aid and protection by a) educating and informing the public through this website and other media; b) the personal prayer and devotion of its members; and c) sponsoring an annual Mass, Procession and Feast in honor of Our Lady of the Angels, inspired by those of the past, to celebrate our Pueblo’s birthday, to rally the Family of God around the feet of Our Lady, bringing them home to Mother Church, and to unite Our Lady’s friends of whatever religious background to call for her blessings upon Los Angeles and all the children of Eve everywhere. If you want a better future for the City, State, Nation, and World by invoking the help of the Blessed Virgin, stand with us!

Council and Continuity: Oct. 3-4

2011-08-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

For those who are liturgically inclined, you might be interested in this major liturgical conference in Phoenix on October 3-4, 2011. It's an all-star lineup, including Prof. Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Archbishop Peter Elliott, and Father Christopher Phillips, all very good friends of the Anglican patrimony! Fr. Phillips will speak particularly about the Anglican liturgical tradition.

But larger than the Anglican patrimony, this conference is about the whole of the Roman Rite. So for readers of this site and others, like the New Liturgical Movement, this conference will be right up your alley!

Check out Council and Continuity.com for more info and to register!

Birthing and Ostriches

2011-08-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't yet read it, I recommend Fr. Phillips latest advice on the birthing of the Ordinariate in the United States. This is primarily targeted to those who have already paved as much of the way to corporate unity with Rome as possible, and now they are waiting for the other half of the bridge to be built from Rome's side. I know, because I am one of them.

And as one who has had the privilege of also being there with the birth of my child, I can relate completely to Father's analogy. But my approach on life is a little different. Like he described himself as having an "inordinate need for order," I am similar and on top of that, I am very goal oriented and possibly even "over idealistic" on top of that. I remember countless people - usually former Catholics - who've told me not to go to Rome with rose coloured glasses. Helping in various ways with this Ordinariate certainly helped me cast aside any glasses I might have worn that were even slightly tinted. The sinful side of people emerge in these sort of times, myself included. And this is why I am more excited and idealistic about the Ordinariate than ever!

With the birth of my own daughter, it all seems like a blur, and now I only remember crying tears of profound joy when she first met me. She simply coughed and started breathing and looking around the room with squinted eyes adjusting to the light in the hospital room. I vaguely remember that things weren't "great" before - even my saintly wife who bore the pain of childbirth, of course while remembering the pain, agrees that when our daughter was actually born, it quickly was surpassed with indescribable joy. Well, not quite indescribable, for one word comes to mind: fulfillment. This sort of joy exceeds simply "not being sad" or just being "normal," the word we commonly associate with those fleeting feelings is usually "happiness." But true fulfilling and lasting happiness, is joy.

On October 20, 2009, I was in my final year of seminary at Nashotah. I had fortunately gone to bed early that night because I received an email from Prof. Tighe that something huge was coming down from the Vatican the next morning regarding Anglicans. I had wanted to get up early, knowing that Wisconsin wasn't exactly on Rome or London time! I don't know if it was interest, excitement, curiosity or God, but something woke me up around 4:45am and I immediately remembered that something big was coming. So I checked my phone for emails, and I received a notice from a friend in England, now Deacon James Bradley, who was himself finishing his last year of seminary at St. Stephen's House, and he wanted to talk on skype as soon as possible. I ran downstairs to the computer, logged on skype, and rang him up. He and the now Deacon Daniel Lloyd had just checked the internet to find Anglicanorum coetibus published! I immediately pulled it up and started reading it while talking to him.

I only got to the second and third sentences of the opening before I started choking up and knew immediately this is what God was calling me to be a part of. It says, "The Apostolic See has responded favourably to such petitions. Indeed, the successor of Peter, mandated by the Lord Jesus to guarantee the unity of the episcopate and to preside over and safeguard the universal communion of all the Churches, could not fail to make available the means necessary to bring this holy desire to realization."

The joy I felt on October 20, 2009 was real and fulfilling. But it is only a part of the joy those of us who are forming the first wave into the Ordinariate will feel when we see our people making this a reality on the day they are corporately received into full communion with the Holy See and form the very first Ordinariate congregations! I don't cry at much, but there are certain things which I do and am proud to do so. When I first saw my wife walking down the aisle at our wedding, when Anglicanorum coetibus was announced, at the birth of my daughter, at my priestly ordination, and soon, at the reception of the people from St. Mary's and Bl. John's.

I share all of this because many who are not Catholics tend to view "Rome" as this big monolithic tyrannical corporation. It is not. "Rome" is real people like me who have their own stories also. People who come from all over the world and who have very different backgrounds. Deacons Bradley and Lloyd have their own stories, which I thank God have intersected with my own, and though we live on different continents, I count them as good friends. I look forward to the day, very soon, when we will be back in communion with each other again, and are working together for the good of the Ordinariates around the world!

Now that is how I choose to view all of this. Even if, God forbid, "Rome" decides I am not to be a priest or even a deacon in the Ordinariate, I still can go to my grave knowing that I've helped do my part in leading groups of Anglicans back into full communion and restoration with the visible head of the Church on earth. And I'm okay with that and will feel honored and humbled all of my life for being allowed this opportunity to serve Christ and the Church in this way. Yes, I would be disappointed and sad not to be able to be a priest, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Why? Because of the true joy I have. I believe I am starting to only scratch at the surface of what St. Paul was getting at.

It is hard for younger generations to find enthusiasm and rise up and grab the baton for movements that are only recreating the old ecclesial mistakes, whether they be continuing within the CofE or the Continuing Anglican alphabet soup (of which ACNA is now a part). I've talked to countless who are stuck in these groups and movements both here in the States and in England and are now keeping quiet and their heads down, waiting for the day when they too can come into the Ordinariate - or, if they are priests, lead their congregation into the Ordinariate. Why? Because they see the substantial truth behind this kind of unity and they see the strength of the claims of "Rome" more clearly now precisely because of these groups and movements in which they have unfortunately found themselves due to politically compromising maneuvers by their elders. The ostrich mentality of the older generations leads to compromise and the younger generations seek authenticity, not another Anglican movement. We see straight through that sort of thing. Nobody is being fooled. It's not the fullness of truth.

Truth, while never easy to stand for, leads the one standing for it into true and lasting joy. This is the paradox of orthodoxy. This is the Catholic Church.

Survival of the Catholic Idea in Anglicanism

2011-08-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

by Dr. James Patrick

Lecture I: Fire in the Ashes

IN THESE FOUR TALKS we are trying to identify the Catholic elements that the Decree on Ecumenicism discovered in Anglicanism, and to do that historically, beginning with the period 1530 to 1603. There are pitfalls. I suppose we are not interested in the persistence of Catholic culture, but in the something that would be the Church of England as defined by its formularies.

It is not beside the point to raise the question of the condition of the Church in England on the eve of the Henrician Revolution. In his Stripping of the Altars Eamon Duffy has painted a picture of Catholic England that suggests a culture grounded in the faith, besieged by the usual human weaknesses, but so much a part of the fabric of the land that it is hard to believe its destruction could have been accomplished so quickly.

But there were shadows. Lollardy, an early representative of an emergent mutation of classical Christianity based on Scripture alone, interpreted by individuals who often saw themselves as divinely elected, first mentioned in the 1380s, had never disappeared. Philip Hughes points out that the idea of the papacy as the universal teacher was not as well established as one might believe when looking backward through the telescope of Church history. When Henry began his campaign for the domination of the Church it was just a century since Martin V, representing a reunifed papacy, had returned to Rome and ninety years since the Council of Florence has declared the Pope above any general council, thereby putting a damper on Conciliarism. Simony, the sale of church offices for profit, was an ill-concealed tradition. The hierarchy were very often officers of state or were at least deeply enmeshed in the management of lands and appointments. When Hughes says that Wolsey was a great churchman in the very worst sense of the word, he meant that the Cardinal was expert at the management of a set of political relationships for the good of his purse and that of his benefactors. Wolsey never visited either of the English bishoprics which he held.

These problems had not vanished. Marsiglio of Padua had produced a book, the Defensor Pacis, which provided the rationale for royal domination of the church—a copy of which Thomas Cromwell obligingly brought to the attention of Henry. And it is always important as well to remember the place kingship held on popular imagination and practical politics. The prince was God’s and Scripture and Tradition counseled obedience. In an age of nascent Absolutism conformity with the royal will meant advancement and prosperity while the displeasure of the prince often meant impoverishment and not infrequently death.

To discover ideas or elements that might be called Catholic which survived the reigns of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth is no easy task in another sense, for there was a double use of the word catholic. Insofar as it referred to the church of which the Pope was head, it was a term of opprobrium; ‘Romanist’ was a favorite synonym. On the other hand there was the beginning of a centuries’ long attempt to claim that the Church of England was Catholic, or part of the Catholic Church. This means that discipline must be exercised in seeking only those elements that truly did belong to the national church, understanding that these may be imperfectly developed and episodically defended.

The search for Catholic elements is not difficult in the reign of Henry, for the Henrician Church was to some degree the creation of a convinced but bad Catholic, who when he was not pursuing political ends required by the alliance with Lutherans probably believed what he believed in 1539, when an act of parliament required belief in transubstantiation and sacramental confession.

Just how difficult it was to get the Catholic elements out of the Church of England is evidenced by the caution imposed upon the reformers by a largely unwilling population, always ready to rise in revolt against what the shires increasingly saw as a new religion, as had the north country in 1536 and 1537. Thus the First Prayer Book of Edward VI showed a distanced respect for the old religion, which its successor moved closer to the Calvinism that was approved in court. But this caution does not speak to the underlying determination of the Edwardian and Elizabethan regimes. At the heart of the polemic was always the Mass. The authorities would support a rite that for those willing to suspend disbelief might seem something like the old liturgy. Thus there would be a series of planned ambiguities, begun in the reign of Edward, perfected in the reign of Elizabeth, that reduced the Mass to something it could not be. Thus the Prayer Books of 1549, and 1559, each less clear than its predecessor. Finally there was the so-called Black Rubric of 1552, which would be included in the 1553 book. Faith in the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass persisted, so a rubric was added that reminded the faithful that the toleration of kneeling was not to be taken as admitting the “real and essential” presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But the real point of transubstantiation of course was to establish the real and essential presence.

Henry’s motives are perhaps not too difficult to grasp. When the Catholic Church had ceased being an ally and become, in his judgment an enemy, he was determined to destroy it insofar as it hindered his will. When Edward VI came to the throne in 1546, Calvinism has been added to the list of available Protestantisms, and the influence of Calvin is evident in that six-years’ reign. Then the accession of Mary intervened, and in principle Catholicism was restored, although the restoration was fragile and incomplete. The real founding of Anglicanism as such took place in 1559, when on the death of Mary, Elizabeth, under the Henrician act of succession, inherited England.

From the first day of her reign Elizabeth was determined England should not be Catholic. If Elizabeth did not hate Catholicism, she at least viewed it with contempt. Nobody in Europe really thought she was legitimate, although her accession to power made that irrelevant. In the reign of her sister she had been humiliated, and while she had promised Mary not to change the faith of the realm, nobody, including Mary Tudor, could have believed it. Cecil had presented her with a document titled “A Device for the Alteration of Religion.” It was a very clever plan. Preaching was to be made an instrument of state policy. The noblemen who had served in Mary’s reign, were to be investigated until some illegality could be alleged. In the shires, tradition was to be broken by displacing the office holders in favor of men “meaner in substance and younger in years. The old nobility could meanwhile buy their freedom by payments of fines. Elizabeth showed her hand on Christmas Day, when she sent word to the Bishop of Carlisle that he was not to elevate the host after the consecration, and when he did so she departed. When Elizabeth was crowned, the mass was sung by a married priest who omitted the elevation and the sermon was preached by a Protestant.

Mary had in fact not succeeded in bringing England back. She had failed in the face of the interests represented both by the great landowners, who had happily taken the spoils of the monasteries, and of a broad swath of the English people. Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, was probably not far off when he wrote early in Mary’s reign, that nobody under thirty-five was much interested in the restoration of the old religion. The rising generation had found its freedom, and if they were born in 1525 they might have done so in good conscience, having come of age amidst the Edwardian confusion and reaching Chapuys’s thirty-five just as Elizabeth put the entire apparatus of the state behind the new religion. The apostolic, the Roman faith is by its very nature intrusive, exerting concrete moral claims and requiring specific beliefs. When the new religion did not require such things, a new air of freedom prevailed, much like that evident under the modernist interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. But in England the new freedom would not be effectively opposed, as it was opposed, gently, firmly by the teaching authority of the Church from 1966 to the present, in a contest still not concluded. Elizabeth was but the first to effectively woo her people from the authority of God, only to make them subservient to the state. The means was the creation of a national church that maintained a liturgy in some respects vaguely catholic because of its inherent beauty and formality. This was a new Church, Protestant, but with footnotes, and it is to the footnotes that we might look for the Catholic elements in this morass of heresy, fire as it were in the ashes.

First, there was the persistence of the idea of tradition, a doctrine partly forced in the Elizabethan church by its conflict with the Puritans, partly chosen by apologists. In a very weak form, this shows up in the Thirty-Nine Articles, which claim that the Church has the power to decide matters of ceremony. But as it worked out, the Puritans could not be defeated with a sola scriptura apology. The great apostle of this position was the erudite and able Richard Hooker, whose Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity gave Elizabeth’s church a defense against the reiterated Puritan claim that since surplices were not mentioned in scripture, they should not be permitted in church. This was not Tradition in the pre-1530 sense, but it at least meant the recognition of the limitations of sola scriptura.

Amidst what became, especially after the Council of Trent concluded in 1564, the standard polemic against transubstantiation, and as result of the policy of studied ambiguity, a reluctance to make receptionism, the belief that Christ is present only to faith, the official doctrine of the Church of England, which, given the Puritan suasion, the authorities might reasonably have done. This resulted in a flood of qualifications in which the theologians of the regime would try to explain that the Eucharist was an effectual sign—no minimalist doctrine that–, or that it might be a pledge of God’s favor. The Eucharistic elements were somehow an objective reality because the wicked damaged themselves by receiving it. Yet the manner of receiving it was by faith. There is not much in the Elizabethan reign to encourage anyone to believe that the Eucharist represented or made present the person of Jesus Christ. One common misunderstanding construed the Roman doctrine as a kind of Eutychianism, defective because the substance of bread was subsumed into the reality of Christ’s divine nature, whereas orthodoxy understood that just as Christ’s human nature remained, so did the substance of bread remain. This was but one of the Anglican apologetic criticisms that involved a misunderstanding of substance and of the intention of the Church. The Roman doctrine does not explain transubstantiation as an analogy to the Incarnation but teaches a unique sacramental mystery, not analogous even to the sacrament of baptism, in which the elements do not simply convey a presence or power, but through which the substance of bread and wine become the substance, not the idea, not the representative, of the living Christ, body and soul, humanity and divinity. But among the forest of qualifications there was enough ambiguity to give room to the seventeenth century to make claims that would have shocked the Elizabethan Puritans.

Finally there was the fatal raising of the question of history, which committed Anglicanism to the fact that history matters and to the fact that their own was especially insecure. Beginning with John Jewell’s Apology for the Church of England, there was an attempt to construct a historiography that would serve the situation of the English church. In Lancelot Andrewes’ account Irenaeus and Cyprian were part of the historical witness but Athanasius and John of Damascus, being worshipers of images, were not.

How did Catholicism survive in the faithful who occupied the pews? It has been noted that the Catholic Faith was very hard to stamp out. What its condition was can be debated. Eamon Duffy paints a generally encouraging picture of the of the local parish, rich in devotions and in care for the parish church. On the other hand, when the crisis came, the clergy as a whole did not prove any more resistant than did the laity. Staying alive is a powerful motive, and unless you were a landed noble, and willing to pay, papistry often meant death. Here there is a considerable historiographical problem in distinguishing between Catholic elements in the Church of England, overt resistance usually described as recusancy, and the persistence of Catholic elements within the culture. In the Elizabethan reign there were Catholics who went to Church at least occasionally, church papists so-called, and members of the Church of England who harbored Catholic sympathies. The history of these good people has only begun to be written by scholars such as Alexandra Walsham. We do not know whether they should be considered recusants or Catholics in a formal sense, but we do know that they sometimes made the lives of the clergy miserable by ostentatiously praying the rosary or reading a devotional book during the protestant service. Lancashire was particularly troublesome for the authorities. Elizabeth was never able to close down the shrine at Holywell no matter how vehemently she threatened the Lord Lieutenant and the Sheriff.

Changing the religion of the people of England took time. Princes can legislate and threaten, but for some considerable part of mankind there will be deeper considerations than the statute law of parliament. Although it is not easy to find formally Catholic elements, the Catholic faith lived on in the lives of many Englishmen, some within the Church of England, some recusants full blown some Church papists. And there were various degrees of dissent.

Walsham, paraphrasing George Gifford’s Dialogue between a Papist and a Protestant (1582), described those Englishmen among whom the old religion persisted in custom and sensibility:

[They were] a large multitude whose ‘Catholicism’ was less a set of defined dogmas capable of being summarized in a Catechism, than an intuitive method of thinking and living, a deeply ingrained mentality. Such individuals betrayed their adherence to the Romish Anti-Christ not so much in a positive, voiced endorsement of its untenable theology, as in their reactionary resistance to the saving message of the Gospel and its advocates. Vague nostalgia for a golden age, a medieval ‘mery world when there was lesse preaching, and when all things were so cheape, that they might have xx eggs for a penny’ was [in Gifford’s opinion] but a degenerate strain of popery festering on within Protestant society.

Gifford had described, among many less known, William Shakespeare, a man of profound catholic sensibilities, also, it is true, a convinced English nationalist who, as King John evinces, had no use for papal meddling in English affairs, less for Spanish adventurism, but who was yet a poet whose imagination, at least when history was at stake, staunchly refused to move out of the fifteenth century, not merely from nostalgia but because he found there something to admire from which plays could be made. Shakespeare was not alone.

One task would be to show how the sentiments of recusants, Church papists, and men of catholic sensibilities influenced the Stuart invention of an anti-Calvinist Anglicanism that would provide a benchmark for the future in the lives of men like Lancelot Andrewes and John Donne. Demonstrating the sources of this influence in any technical sense is probably impossible, but something in the generally dismal landscape of sixteenth century Anglicanism made possible the church of Charles I and William Laud.

(Originally posted on the Walsingham Society website)

Also check out the audio Q&A.

The Pastoral Provision for Roman Catholics in the U.S.A.

2011-08-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

In our anticipation for the forthcoming Ordinariate here in the United States, it might be helpful to see where our spiritual fathers in God came from, and to see how, thirty years ago, they had their own "limbo" period of waiting. From time to time Father Phillips over on The Anglo-Catholic will reference those days and recall how similar it was to today when many of us are stuck in the middle of the Tiber, having already left one shore on our small boats but not being able to quite dock on the other side yet. This essay is a good history of our movement, a history that I just started really learning about a year ago. It was written by Fr. Jack Barker, a former rector of the parish I currently serve as curate. He not only led them successfully out of the Episcopal Church, but also tried to bring them into full communion with the Catholic Church, which sadly was not to be at that time.

Fr. Barker now is a priest of the Diocese of San Bernadino and I had the honor of meeting him at the Anglican Use Conference last month. Pray that through the Ordinariate his dream of thirty years ago will finally be realized for St. Mary of the Angels! ~ Fr. Bartus

by Rev. Jack D. Barker

On August 20. 1980, Archbishop John R. Quinn of the Archdiocese of San Francisco gave the world the first knowledge of the existence of a "Pastoral Provision" which had been approved by Rome through the efforts of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The decree of the Congregation was approved by Pope John Paul II on June 20. 1980 and communicated to Archbishop Quinn as the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in its letter dated July 22, 1980. [Appendix A] This decree was for the benefit of Episcopalians seeking full communion with the Catholic Church in the United Stares. The effect of this decree was to allow a means by which Episcopalians could become Roman Catholic, while at the same time retaining some of their traditions in a "common identity," including liturgy and married priests. The response to the Archbishop’s press release was stunning. In private conversation, the night before the press release, Archbishop Quinn, when he had finished reading the decree said: "I’m not sure what all this means." It can be seen in retrospect that the Pastoral Provision may be viewed as a microcosm of the changes taking place in the Roman Catholic church today.

This momentous announcement has been poorly understood and has received mixed responses from both Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. A great deal of attention was given to the idea that some married Episcopal priests could become Roman Catholic priests and retain their wives and the married life. The possible effects of this decree are of far greater historical consequence than merely the issue of married priests. The approval of the Pastoral Provision raises questions concerning its effect on ecumenical relations in the post Vatican II world, not only between Episcopalians and the Roman Catholic church but also between Anglicans in England and the Catholic church. The advent of this decree also represents another development in the relationship between the Roman Catholic church in the United States and the Vatican. Depending on one’s point of view this decree may be seen as another event in the one hundred year old history of tension between conservative and progressive elements within the Catholic church.

To understand the context of the Pastoral Provision one should return to the nineteenth century. In the closing decades of that century, the "social gospel" was very much a part of Church life both in the Catholic Church on the continent and among Anglicans in England. This era is the time of Pusey, Keble and Newman who are part of the Tractarian [1] or Oxford movement in England. Several causes contributed to the growth of the Oxford Movement: the progressive decline of Church life and the spread of liberalism in theology. Among the more immediate causes were fears that the "Catholic Emancipation Act" of 1829 would lead many Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church. Keble’s sermon on "National Apostasy" and Newman’s writings are usually regarded as the beginning of the Movement

Oxford Movement

A review of the whole process by which Newman ultimately became a Catholic demonstrates that he became increasingly convinced that only one Church could claim historic catholicity and the Church of England should necessarily be a part of that historic Church. Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua was his attempt to explain his conversion to a world which little understood why he had "Poped." It is also worth noting that Newman’s Development of Doctrine and Grammar of Ascent are classics which anticipated many of the teachings of Vatican II a hundred years later. Newman’s early days were spent at Oxford as the Anglican Vicar of St. Mary’s Church; it was here that Newman began to write tracts. The development of his thinking is seen in the tracts he began writing the most notable of which was Tract Number 90 [2] The storm which this tract provoked brought the series of tracts to a close. By this time, not just Newman, but many Anglicans had come to hold to a catholic interpretation of history, doctrine and scripture. While this trend of catholic thought led to Newman’s conversion, others remained behind to work "from within" for the conversion of the Church of England to its catholic roots.

Among those who remained Anglican, but who were sympathetic to the "catholic position" were Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Keble. They were also a part of the Oxford movement It was from among these and similarly minded clergy that the Church Union, later the English Church Union, was formed. The English Church Union may then be seen as a child of the Oxford movement At the beginning of the 20th century this movement spread to the United States and the Church Union began which later became the American Church Union (ACU). These groups experienced rapid growth until the outbreak of the First World War. The intervening depression and the Second World War prevented significant further growth of the movement among the clergy. To broaden its base of influence the American Church Union opened its membership to include the laity during the thirties.

American Roots

After the Second World War, an Episcopalian priest, the Reverend Albert Julius DuBois, a chaplain in Patton's army during the war, and Rector of the Church of St. Agnes in Washington D.C., was elected to be the first full time Executive Director of the American Church Union (ACU). Father DuBois. a Canon of the Episcopal Cathedral in Garden City, Long Island, New York, led the American Church Union until his retirement in 1974. The ACU while not the only organization of catholic minded Episcopalians, was the largest and most active in the country; and, in fact, the largest unofficial organization in the Episcopal Church.

As events unfolded in the Episcopal Church, many members of the ACU became increasingly alarmed. Strong forces for change in a liberal protestant direction predominated in the governing bodies of the Episcopal Church. At the General Conventions [3] of 1970 and 1973, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA) changed its canons regarding the Church’s law on divorce, refused to take a firm public stance against abortion, ordained women to the Deaconate, and pursued a wide spectrum of changes in its Book of Common Prayer. It was feared that the 1976 General Convention might proceed to the ordination of women to the priesthood and radical Prayer Book [4] revision. Accordingly. Canon DuBois was asked to come out of retirement and lead the ACU once again. While the ACU continued with its own Executive Director, Canon DuBois worked closely with the new leadership in fund raising and also founded "Episcopalians United" (EU). Episcopalians United published a daily newsletter during the General Convention promoting a position of maintaining an option for catholic faith and practice in the Episcopal Church.

By way of background, it should be noted that Anglicanism has varieties of theological persuasions from liberal to conservative generally tolerated so long as unity of worship is maintained. The Elizabethan settlement had resulted in a Church that very much lived lex orandi lex credendi. [5] Without the teaching magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church the commonality of worship through the use of various Books of Common Prayer became the earmark of unity in the various Anglican Churches throughout the world, in the face of what would otherwise have been certain disunity. This theological diversity was possible as long as there was a degree of liturgical similarity guaranteed by the use of similar Books of Common Prayer. This was especially helpful in maintaining a unity which could not be enforced by authoritarian structures since each Province was autonomous.

It had always been the hope of catholic minded Anglicans that a full scale corporate reunion or intercommunion could ultimately take place between the Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic Church. In short, it was hoped that the Church of England (now including the worldwide Anglican Communion) might once again return to the unity which it had experienced prior to the Reformation. Catholic minded Episcopalians kept in mind the 1200 years of Catholic history and teaching in England prior to the break with Rome, and this, therefore, was the basis of their hope for reunion.

General Convention 1976

Such was not to happen. The Episcopal Church proceeded with its agenda of change. The General Convention operated with a simple democratic majority to make irreversible changes to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church. The objection of the ACU and of Episcopalians United (and its successor Anglicans United) to the actions of the General Convention was that these were based on a lack of proper authority, and that such moves would set back hopes for reunion with Rome indefinitely. The tide of change could not be held back. The Prayer Book revisions were seen as diluting its doctrinal base, and the ordinations of women were seen as not acceptable to either the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Churches and, therefore, would risk setting back ecumenical relations for years; even the position on abortion was altered arid weakened. It should be noted that every poll of Episcopalians showed that the majority were opposed to these changes. It was perceived that a Catholicism without Rome and opposed to Rome required too great a compromise of conscience; it was also thought that the new openness and renewal of the Roman Catholic church since the Second Vatican Council eliminated many of the previously held concerns of catholic minded Anglicans. For many it seemed that continued separation could not be tolerated.

Following the 1976 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA), the daily newspaper of Episcopalians United called for a "Plan of Action" allowing catholic minded Episcopalians to find a source of unity outside the official structures of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. The possibility of some Episcopalians leaving "The Church" created a stir in the House of Bishops and upset some members of the ACU. Many individuals and whole parish groups began to leave the Episcopal Church following that Convention. The first entire parish to leave was St. Mary’s, Denver led by their Rector Fr. James Mote. For many, catholic conscience had been stretched beyond what was acceptable and hopes for catholic reunion were lost. It was unlikely that Rome would move so quickly on what many viewed as radical reinterpretations of ministry and faith. The sense of loss felt by many in the Episcopal Church at that time cannot be underestimated: some died of broken hearts," others retired, rather than face an uncertain future. Many were angered by what they felt had been a forced movement on the part of PECUSA away from its traditional role as the "Bridge Church" between Rome and Protestantism. Progressive members of the Episcopal Church were amazed that "Nigh Church" or catholic minded members would actually consider breaching the Church’s unity, especially in the light of widely held adherence to the "Branch Theory’ among these same Episcopalians, i.e. why leave one part of the catholic church for another since each part is incomplete without the other?

A cautionary letter which had been sent to the Episcopal Church by Pope Paul VI well before the Convention took place indicated that serious damage could be done to ecumenical relations if PECUSA proceeded with the ordination of women to the priesthood.

This letter, however, was withheld from the Convention delegates. Following the events of the convention, Rome released the contents of the letter to the press. Many in PECUSA felt betrayed and manipulated.

While still in Minneapolis, the site of the 1976 General Convention, Canon DuBois was introduced to sympathetic Roman Catholic clergy. After writing an initial letter to Rome, he was invited to go in person to visit the Holy See. Now the door was open to present both the dilemma and hope for finding a new home for priests and people. Many of the ACU clergy felt that Rome would either not give a positive response, or would take too long to respond to the pastoral need. Given that many of these clergy held to the "Branch Theory" [6] of Catholicism, Canon Dubois was pressured to make contacts with the Polish National Catholic Church and the Antiochian Orthodox Church. Both of these churches had received Episcopalians before and as a result had existing procedures and structures in place for that purpose. Subsequent research substantiated that neither group would foster closer unity with the See of Peter.

Diocese of the Holy Trinity

As a consequence. the Diocese of the Holy Trinity was formed out of parishes who had already severed ties with the Episcopal Church. It was the presence of a "corpus" of laity and clergy which Vatican representatives made clear gave them a different status for the conversations concerning admission into the full communion of the Catholic Church. Presumably, any individuals or groups of Episcopalians who had not severed ties with the official Episcopal Church would be required to work through the already existing channels in the ecumenical dialogue between the Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic Church which operated out of the Secretariate for Christian Unity. Whereas, a "corpus" of those without official ties to the existing Episcopal Church were allowed to deal directly with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It should be noted, however, that the leadership of those seeking corporate reunion with Rome maintained cordial relations with the leadership of the Episcopal Church at the national level, meeting on more than one occasion with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and a special ad hoc committee of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church. The leadership of the Episcopal Church recognized, as a result of these meetings, that those seeking reunion with Rome were doing so as a matter of faith and conscience and that they did not in any way wish to hamper the existing, official and ongoing ecumenical dialogue.

Pro-Diocese of St. Augustine of Canterbury (PDSAC)

Many other groups who had varying degrees of dissatisfaction with the Episcopal Church. were active at the same time. The umbrella organization for them was the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen (FCC). The Diocese of the Holy Trinity joined the FCC and attended its September 1977 meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. This meeting in St. Louis produced a loose amalgamation of several groups into the Anglican Catholic Church in North America (ACNA), and this was destined to become a new "Anglican" church in the United States and Canada Some of the members of the Diocese of the Holy Trinity identified with the aims of the FCC as it moved toward founding the ACNA. Canon DuBois and the Anglicans United (successor to Episcopalians United) did not. Those in the Diocese of the Holy Trinity who agreed with the aims of ACNA kept the name Diocese of the Holv Trinity and remained with them Those who desired reunion with Rome then formed the Pro-Diocese of St. Augustine of Canterbury (PDSAC) to act as the "corpus" for transitional jurisdiction to full unity with the Roman Catholic Church. Catholic life requires a bishop as the center of unity for a diocese. As indicative of the tension between the two factions of the clergy regarding the role of a bishop, a question was put to the bishop-elect regarding whether he be willing to pursue reunion with Rome. It was the strong negative response to this question which resulted in the splitting of the Diocese of the Holy Trinity.

Society of the Holy Cross

One of the groups supporting the FCC and that was important in these unfolding events was the American branch of the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC). This group, the oldest catholic minded clerical society in the Church of England, founded in 1855, was designed to promote a higher standard for priestly life among the English clergy. In later years it was openly dedicated to corporate reunion with the Holy See. The Society has chapters throughout the Anglican Communion and its members are governed by a Rule of Life which includes the Daily Prayers of the Church (Liturgy of the Hours), annual retreats, regular confession and daily Mass. It may be said that such a concept was indeed a by- product of the Oxford Movement among Anglican clergy such as Pusey, Keble and Lowder, who remained behind when Newman converted. The American branch of the Society was led by Rev. James Parker, of Albany, Georgia, as its Provincial, while the Master of the Society was in England. In the days following the General Convention of 1976 at a Provincial meeting of the Society held at St. Anselm’s Episcopal Church, Park Ridge, Illinois, the members asked the provincial to contact the Apostolic Delegate of the Roman Catholic Church to see if it might be possible for married Episcopal priests to be received into the Catholic Church and still function as priests.

Fr. Parker was contacted by Bishop Bernard Law of Springfield Cape-Girardeaux, Missouri who said he would speak to the Apostolic Delegate to make it easier to get an appointment. he also referred him to Bishop Raymond Lessard of the diocese of Savannah, Georgia for personal contact It should be noted that both Bishops Law and Lessard were members of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) Ad Hoc Committee formed to deal with the question of receiving convert married ministers into the Catholic Church. [7] Bishop Law was also the only American member of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity. A meeting took place at the Archbishop’s residence in Washington D.C. in April 1977. At this meeting were Fr. James Parker, the Provincial of the Society, Fr. Larry Lossing of New Smyrna Beach, Florida representing southeast members of the Society, and Fr. John D. Barker of Los Angeles, California representing the west coast members of the Society. The meeting was to explore what possibilities there might be for receiving Episcopal priests of this Society into the Roman Catholic Church; the stated goal was to be able to continue to function as Roman Catholic priests, even if married. At the meeting Archbishop Jadot stated that ultimately this question would have to be resolved in Rome. The meeting held with Archbishop Jadot was reported to Rome and to the NCCB. In a chronology of events it is important to understand that the SSC group was the first to approach the American Roman Catholic hierarchy, whereas, the Diocese of the Holy Trinity (later PDSAC) was the first to approach the authorities in Rome. [8] The work of the NCCB on this question became specific due to the requests of these two groups.

The first discussions among the American Roman Catholic Bishops specifically relative to receiving married Episcopal clergy took place at the Conference of Bishops meeting in May 1977. The NCCB discussed this idea, nevertheless, the authority for the final decision on the Pastoral Provision had to come from Rome. Past requests from the NCCB to ordain married convert cleric had been denied by Rome. (See Endnote [7])

Rome 1977

In the Fall of 1977, Canon DuBois, Ecumenical Officer of PDSAC was to have met with the SCDF. Due to illness, Fr. W.T. Brown as Deputy Ecumenical Officer and Fr. Jack D. Barker, as President of the Clergy Senate, represented Canon DuBois in Rome. While en route, these representatives met in England for extensive conversations with Bishop Owe, the Secretary-General of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). [9] In addition, meetings were held with the representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. The talks at Lambeth and with Bishop Howe were to explore the possibility of some parallel jurisdiction for catholic minded Episcopalians within the Anglican Communion.

As a consequence of the meetings in England, it became apparent that the Anglican Communion had taken steps away from its commitment to a traditional understanding of the authority of scripture, tradition and the recognized Councils of Catholic history. The Right Reverend John Maurin Allin, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, had indicated in conversations with Fr. Brown that some sort of parallel jurisdiction might be possible for those Episcopal priests, people and parishes who had left the jurisdiction of PECUSA. But, after the London meetings, it was concluded that such a parallel jurisdiction was not possible. [10]

Upon arrival of the delegates to Rome, meetings were held with: Cardinal Franjo Seper, Prefect for the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (SCDF); other Cardinal Prefects of Congregations; the Apostolic Nuncio to Italy; the Vicar-General for Vatican City; a representative of the Secretariate for Promoting Christian Unity; and the President of the Works for Religion. The delegates were graciously received in every case.

The principal conversations were held with Cardinal Seper at the offices of the Congregation near St Peter’s Basilica. The substance of the meetings with Cardinal Seper was a proposal for consideration of what later became the Pastoral Provision, i.e. the possibility of Episcopalians returning to the Catholic Church while retaining something of their Anglican heritage. This proposal was presented to Cardinal Seper at the second meeting held at the Holy Office. The proposal kept in mind as much as possible the faith position of those whom were represented; i.e. complete agreement in almost all areas of Catholic faith and morals, with incomplete agreement on the so-called Petrine and Marian dogmas. The proposal was received by the Cardinal with great interest. The restoration of separated western Christians was an idea very dear to the heart of Cardinal Seper.

Before leaving Rome, confidential letters from the delegation were mailed to Bishop Albert Chambers, the retired Episcopal bishop of Springfield, Illinois, and Fr. James Mote, bishop-elect for the Diocese of the Holy Trinity. Bishop Chambers was scheduled to be the chief consecrator at the ordination to the episcopate of four Episcopalian priests, including Father Mote, which would inaugurate the new Anglican Catholic Church in America as planned by the FCC. In those letters both were advised of the results of the Rome meetings and that Rome would see those planned ordinations as a serious obstacle to reunion.

Two weeks after returning from Rome, the delegates spoke at a joint synod of the priests of the Anglican Dioceses [11] of the Holy Trinity and Christ the King, on December 15, 1977. Bishop Chambers presided at this meeting and allowed less than ten minutes for the report on the meetings held in England and Rome. It seemed apparent to all present that the bishop was not interested. For example he said: "Your people don’t want to be Roman Catholics." This sentiment was echoed by bishops-elect Mote (of Denver) and Morse (of Oakland). Bishop Chambers continued to plan for the consecrations to take place in January 1978. [12]

Chicago 1978

Bishop Bernard Law invited Frs. Barker and Brown to meet with a canonist in Chicago to explore together the form of an Anglican "common identity" in the Catholic Church. In addition to the above, representatives of SSC and the Evangelical Catholic Mission (ECM) [13] were also invited by Bishop Law. The three groups met with Bishop Law’s Canonist at the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare Airport. The Anglicans present favored the proposal on structure modeled on the Military Ordinariate, but the small number of parochial communities, the death of Cardinal Seper who had taken a personal interest in this cause, together with the reluctance on the part of the American Catholic hierarchy mitigated against such a possibility. [14] The report which came out of that meeting was submitted to Bishop Kelly (Secretary of the NCCB) by Father Bowen, the canonist. Bishop Kelly, in turn, submitted the report to the Vatican; the report also served as the basis for discussion at the executive session of the NCCB which followed in May 1978. It was at this meeting that Bishop Law spoke favorably to the question. It has been reported that the bishops of the NCCB likewise gave a favorable response. The PDSAC was informed by Bishop Law that the President of the NCCB, Archbishop John R. Quinn of San Francisco, would now be the liaison for the NCCB relative to the Pastoral Provision. [15]

It was necessary to clarify the desires of those Anglicans seeking union with the Holy See. Given that the positive conversations held with the SCDF was predicated upon the premise of an existing corpus. an international synod of the Pro-Diocese was convened in February 1979 at San Antonio, Texas. The conversations in Rome also made it clear that those seeking reunion needed to be clear about their legitimate patrimony; therefore a symposium of Anglican and Roman scholars was held at the University of Dallas in June of the same year. The features of an Anglican patrimony were the subject of that symposium.

Rome 1979

The same leadership of the DHT which had been to Rome in 1977 were invited back for another series of meetings in the fall of 1979. [16] [17] A formal meeting took place at the SCDF on October 30, 1979. In attendance at the meeting were: Cardinal Seper, Prefect, Archbishop Jerome Hamer, Secretary, Monsignor Bovone who was under-secretary, Fr. William Levada (now Archbishop of Portland, Oregon) as translator and English speaking secretary to the cardinal, each representing the SCDF; and representing PDSAC Frs. DuBois, Barker, Brown, Tea, and Hamlett. The delegation was told that documentation was now complete and that the Holy See was now prepared to receive a petition for reunion. The petition for reunion was prepared and subsequently signed on the altar of the North American Martyrs at the North American College during a concelebrated Mass on the Solemnity of All Saints, I November 1979. Those who signed the petition went to the church of St. Gregory from which St. Augustine had been sent to England, and offered prayers for the reunion of the Church. The petition was hand delivered to the residence of the Cardinal Prefect on 3 November. [Appendix B]

Canon DuBois died in June 1980 with the dream of corporate reunion yet to be realized, although it should be noted that he was individually received into the full communion of the Roman Catholic Church prior to his death. During his illness private assurances were received from Rome that the petition would be approved.

Announcement

At a private meeting, hosted by Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco at his residence in San Francisco on August 19, 1980, the leadership of the PDSAC was informed that he intended to make a public announcement the following day. This announcement would state that Rome would make pastoral provision for former Anglicans thereby ensuring their identity and the preservation of elements of their worship and would consider for Roman Catholic priesthood even those Anglican priests who were married. The Archbishop read portions of the cover letter addressed to him together with the text of the Decree sent to him by the Holy See. The leadership and people celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving in Los Angeles the next evening.

Ecclesiastical Delegate

In March 1981 Bishop Bernard Law of Springfield-Cape Girardeaux was appointed the Ecclesiastical Delegate to the Holy See for the Pastoral Provision. Bishop Law them met with PDSAC leaders at the chancery offices in St. Louis, Missouri on May 12, 1981 to discuss the implementation of Rome’s decision. In an effort to provide pastoral leadership for PDSAC, Bishop Law visited Los Angeles July 14—16, 1981. During this visit he celebrated Masses at both St. Matthias and St. Mary of the Angels, PDSAC parishes. Bishop Law preached at the Solemn Mass concelebrated by five priests of the PDSAC on July 14, and after all the masses spoke informally to both clergy and laity. After a meeting between Bishop Law and the Standing Committee of PDSAC, it was anticipated that the two Los Angeles area parishes would have little difficulty in becoming "personal parishes" of the pastoral provision in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It was also anticipated at that meeting that some form of national unity would exist for all pastoral provision clergy, people and parishes. Bishop Law indicated a concern for sensitivity toward ecumenical relations with the Episcopal Church as the pastoral provision was implemented. At a meeting held July 27 and 28 with Cardinal Seper in Vancouver, Canada, the leadership of PDSAC was assured that ecumenical relations would not hinder the implementation of the pastoral provision.

Bishop Law convened a meeting for the pastoral provision October 11-14 held at Holy Trinity Seminary, Dallas, Texas. In attendance were ten priests of the Pro-Diocese and several Episcopal clergy from around the country interested in becoming Roman Catholic priests among whom were members of the Society of the Holy Cross. During the conference, three priests of the Pro- Diocese concelebrated a Votive Mass of the Chair of Peter, using a proposed pastoral provision Liturgy. The delegates at the conference agreed on the pastoral necessity of maintaining a pastoral provision liturgy which allowed for traditional as well as modem English. It was also agreed that Fr. John Gurrieri, Associate Director of the Bishop’s Committee on Liturgy of the NCCB and Fr. Brown should work together on the pastoral provision Liturgy, which was to include the Eucharist. the Calendar the Daily Office (Liturgy of the Hours), Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, Marriage, Unction, Communion of the Sick, Viaticum, and rites in connection with the Burial of the Dead. The completed proposals relative to the liturgy were forwarded to Bishop Law before his November 6th meeting with Cardinal Seper, to Fr. Gurrien, and Cardinal Seper.

Liturgy

Eventually the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship authorized the Book of Divine Worship (BDW) for interim usage in 1984, with final approval on 20 February 1987. [19] This document allowed elements of the older Prayer Book of 1928, but the Eucharistic liturgy was taken only from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer with the use of the Roman Eucharistic Canons and the ancient Sarum Canon (with the modern English "Words of Institution" from the Novus Ordo Missae inserted).

Reception Begins

Reception of former Episcopal priests and their laity into the pastoral provision was done in a manner specified by Bishop Law’s office. First, application was made to the local Catholic diocese for admission of the clergy and their people if a congregation was involved. The application process included preparation of dossiers which included information on spouses for the married priests. After approval of the application, oral and written examinations were administered to the candidates by a review board of priests selected by Bishop Law’s office. When these procedures were completed and final approval was received from the SCDF, then bishops were free to proceed to ordaining the candidate to the Deaconate and then Priesthood.

Specific questions concerning procedures and particular cases were submitted by Bishop Law to Rome. One example was that the SCDF determined that former Episcopalian clergy being ordained priests in the Roman Catholic Church did not have to be admitted first into the offices of Lector, Acolyte or Candidate, nor would it be necessary for the time spent in the deaconate to be lengthy if there was a group of faithful dependent on the pastoral care of the person in process. It should be noted that the average time spent as a transitional deacon was one or two months prior to ordination to the priesthood. At the priestly ordination, the ordaining bishop received the laity and canonically erected a parish of the Pastoral Provision. Thus these parochial communities were established as personal parishes of the Dioceses in which they were located. which was in keeping with the recommendation of the NCCB.

In an attempt to proceed in a uniform way with the implementation of the pastoral provision, each of the diocesan bishops who were scheduled to have pastoral provision parishes at that time, met with Bishop Law. Present at this meeting, which was held at the home of the bishop of Reno-Las Vegas, Nevada, on 4 July 1983 were: Bishop John Ward representing Cardinal Manning and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Bishop MacFarland for Nevada, Archbishop Patricio Pores for San Antonio and Bishop Law. Bishop Ward’s presence at this meeting indicated a continuing willingness on the part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to consider the implementation of the pastoral provision for the two parishes which had made such a request. However, both Bishop Law and the Ecumenical Relations Committee of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had made it clear that sensitivity to ecumenical relations would be paramount in the carrying out of the pastoral provision. It is well to note that the ecumenical relations committee was adamantly opposed to the erection of a pastoral provision parish. It has been subsequently demonstrated that this policy has perdured in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for no parish of the pastoral provision has ever been erected for that area despite the fact that the group of laity there was the largest of any of those in the nation which had been received in other dioceses. It was in October 1984 that Bishop Ward, in behalf of cardinal Manning, reported to PDSAC clergy in Los Angeles that no parish of the pastoral provision would be allowed in the archdiocese and that both clergy and laity would have to be received into the Catholic Church on a strictly individual basis through their local latin rite parish. [20] Meanwhile, dates were set for the first ordinations and establishment of parishes in various dioceses. They were as follows: 15 August 1983, Fr. Christopher Phillips and Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, Texas; 10 September 1983, Fr. Clark A. Tea and St. Mary the Virgin, Las Vegas, Nevada; 25 February 1984. Fr. Joseph Frazer and St. Margaret of Scotland, Austin, Texas; 7 April 1984, Fr. James Moore and Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston, Texas: 13 April 1984, Fr. David Ladkau and Good Shepherd, Columbia, South Carolina.

These pastoral provision parishes and a significant number of individual priests, most with families, are now a part of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. This amazing development has its roots in the history of Anglicanism and Catholicism; its present is in the life of the Church today and yet not widely known; its future remains to unfold as the Church moves into the new millennium. Its meaning for the larger church is yet to be fully understood. But, it is here and the decree from Rome leaves it open so long as it serves a need, with a timeframe which is ad tempus non determinatum.

Appendix A: The Decree

SACRA CONGREGATIO

PRO DOCIRINA FIDEl

Roma, July 22, 1980

Prot. N. 66/77

(Enclosure)

His Excellency

The Most Reverend John R. QUINN

Archbishop of San Francisco

President, N.C.C.B.

Your Excellency,

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Ordinary Session of June 18, 1980, has taken the following decisions in regard to the Episcopalians who seek reconciliation with and entrance into the Catholic Church.

I. General Decisions:

1) The admission of these persons, even in a group, should be considered the reconciliation of individual persons, as described in the Decree on Ecumenism "Redintegratio Unitatis", n.4, of the Second vatican Council.

2) It will be appropriate to formulate a statute or "pastoral provision" which provides for a "common identity" for the group.

II. Elements of the "Common Identity":

1) Structures: The preference expressed by the majority of the Episcopal Conference for the insertion of these reconciled Episcopalians into the diocesan structures under the jurisdiction of local Ordinaries is recognized. Neverthless, the possibility of some other type of structure as provided for by canonical dispositions, and as suited to the needs of the group, is not excluded.

2) Liturgy: The group may retain certain elements of the Anglican Liturgy; these are to be determined by a Commission of the Congregation setup for this purpose. Use of these elements will be reserved to the former members of the Anglican Communion. Should a former Anglican priest celebrate public liturgy outside this group, he will be required to adopt the common Roman Rite.

3) Discipline: (a) To married Episcopalian priests who may be ordained Catholic priests, the following stipulations will apply: they may not become bishops; and they may not remarry in case of widowhood. (b) Future candidates for the priesthood must follow the discipline of celibacy. (c) Special care must be taken on the pastoral level to avoid any misunderstanding regarding the Church’s discipline of celibacy.

III. Steps required for admission to full communion:

1) Theological-catechetical preparation is to be provided according to need.

2) A profession of faith (with appropriate additions to address the points on which there is divergence of teaching between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church) is to be made personally by all (ministers and faithful) as a "conditio sine qua non".

3) Reordination of the Episcopalian clergy, even those who are married, shall be allowed in accord with the customary practice, after the examination of each individual case by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

IV. The statute or "pastoral provision" will not be definitive, but rather will be granted "ad tempus non determinatum".

V. Particulars regarding the execution of the decision:

1) The contents of the statute or "pastoral provision" are to be determined with the agreement of the Episcopal Conference. In what concerns the liturgical aspects of the statute, the Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship will be asked for its accord. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will keep informed of any developments both the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches (the latter in view of the possible influence on the particular dispositions for ecclesiastical celibacy among Eastern-rite priests in the United States).

2) A Catholic ecclesiastical Delegate, preferably a Bishop, should be designated, with the approval of the Episcopal Conference, as the responsible person to oversee the practical applications of the decisions here reported and to deal with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in what pertains to this question.

3) These decisions should be implemented with all deliberate speed in view of the waiting period already undergone by the Episcopalians who have presented this request. These decisions were approved by His Holiness Pope John Paul II in the audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation on June 20, 1980.

The complexity of the above decisions, Your Excellency, recommends early contact between yourself and the Congregation in order to discuss the details and procedures for their implementation. Given your knowledge of the matter, it would seem ideal that, even after your term as President of the Episcopal Conference has expired, you might remain as Bishop- Delegate (cf.V,2) responsible for overseeing the admission of these persons into full communion with the Catholic Church. Permit me to express the hope that, if convenient for you, you will contact the Congregation for the purpose of initiating the necessary discussion of this question during your stay in Rome to participate in the 1980 Synod of Bishops.

Finally, I am enclosing a letter which I would be grateful to you for forwarding, after you have taken note of its contents, to Father John Barker of the Pro-Diocese of St. Augustine of Canterbury, informing him that their petition has been accepted in principle. Since you will be in the best position to know what publicity may be deemed unavoidable or suitable, I would like to leave in your hands the manner and timing of any communication about the fact or nature of the decisions here reported. I am sure you will have already noted in the decisions as reported a concern for the sensitive areas of ecumenism and celibacy.

You will no doubt want to inform Bishops Law and Lessard of the above mentioned decisions, since they were so closely involved in the negotiations during various phases. Since the group in question involves a certain number of English clergy and faithful, the Congregation will undertake to give the necessary information to the hierarchy of England and Wales.

With every best wish for Your Excellency, I remain.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Card. Seper, Pref.

Appendix B: The Petition

Most Holy Father,

We the representatives of the Pro-Diocese of St. Augustine of Canterbury whose names are hereto subscribed, being of diverse nationalities and races, yet as one in our desire to return to our holy mother, the Catholic and Apostolic Church, and sharing a common debt to those portions of the Anglican Tradition that have remained loyal to the teachings of the Catholic Church, with a humble yet hopeful heart submit this petition to the Chair of Peter.

We pray and beseech your Holiness to receive and accept us into the Roman Catholic Church, for we are sheep not having a shepherd and would return to the care of that Holy Apostle singularly commissioned by the Divine Lord to feed his sheep.

To this end we dare to pray that Your Holiness may cause to be undertaken those steps which will lead to the elimination of every defect which may exist in our priestly orders; to our being granted the oversight, direction, and governance of a Catholic bishop, to the determination of that polity and use that would be ours to follow in obedience to and in union with the Holy See; and to the removal of all doubt which may be found to exist in regard to our understanding of and fidelity to the fullness of Catholic doctrine, discipline and worship.

We tender in return the unfeigned allegiance of our whole hearts and minds and souls, offering with that allegiance the Anglican patrimony that has been ours in so far as it is compatible with, acceptable to and an enhancement of Catholic teaching and worship. We offer also our firm conviction that many others of that Anglican Tradition are ready also to return to Peter once the pastoral care of the Chief of the Apostles has been manifest in restoring to his bosom his prodigal Anglican sons and daughters.

We humbly beseech our Lady, the Ever-Blessed Mother of the Church, to lay our prayer before the throne of her Divine Son in Heaven, even as we are bold to lay that same petition before the throne of Peter here on earth.

In witness whereof we have set our signatures on the Solemnity of All Saints being the first day of November, in the one thousand nine hundred and seventy ninth year of our Lord and in the second year of the pontificate of Your Holiness.

The Reverend Canon Albert J. DuBois

The Reverend John D. Barker

The Reverend Harold Buckley

The Reverend Leslie Hamlett

The Reverend William Turner St. John Brown

The Reverend Clark A. Tea

The Reverend Burket Kniveton

Dr. Theodore Lee McEvoy

Mr. Brian George Minto

Endnotes

[1] Tractarian is the name for the earlier stages of the Oxford Movement within the Church of England, which aimed at restoring the High Church ideals of the 17th century. The name derived from the use of Tracts or pamphlets written to disseminate Church of England principles "Against Popery and Dissent."

[2] Tract 90: "Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles." This tract was designed to give an explanation of the "39 Articles" of the Church of England from the theological viewpoint of one who holds to catholic doctrine. These articles were doctrinal formulations accepted by the Church of England to define its dogmatic position in relation to the controversies of the 16th century.

[3] The General Convention is the legal arm and constitutive body of the Episcopal Church in the United States and determines it's policies and polity.

[4] The Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church in the United States is both a sign and source of unity of worship for the entire Episcopal Church.

[5] The law of worship is the law of belief

[6] The Branch Theory of the Church is an Anglican idea that came out of the Oxford Movement. It holds that Rome, Canterbury, Constantinople and the Apostolic Sees are "branches" of the One church of Christ; valid branches are churches which maintain Apostolic Succession of ministry and the faith of the undivided Church. The acceptance of this theology was implicit in the original "Plan of Action."

[7] In 1967 an enquiry from the American bishops regarding a married Lutheran minister received a negative response from Rome. From 1967 to 1975 the question of ordaining convert married ministers was considered inopportune.

The issue was raised again at the Administrative Committee of the Conference of Bishops a: its September 1976 meeting, at which time an "Ad Hoc Committee" was formed to study the question of receiving convert married ministers.

[8] It should be noted that Canon DuBois did have a meeting with Archbishop Bernardine of Chicago prior to the 1976 General Convention Church in which he informed him of the increasing interest among catholic minded Episcopalians of becoming Roman Catholic.

[9] The Anglican Consultative Council consists of member Bishops from all of the Provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion of churches. It is perhaps the most powerful guiding body in Anglicanism even though it has no direct juridical control over the member provinces.

[10] The representatives were told that the Anglican Communion could no longer be a proper home for the faith they and their people professed.

[11] Anglican Dioceses are those belonging to the new ACNA formed by the FCC; it refers to their heritage, ministry and sue of worship and not to any direct communion with the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury from whom they have no official recognition at this time.

[12] The reality of such an anti-catholic stance should not have been surprising. During the 19th century some Anglicans argued that Catholics. who were considering the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. worshipped Mary. In his 1851 lectures, Newman referred to this as an example of how deeply ingrained were the prejudices of the English, including Anglo-Catholics, against Rome.

[13] The ECM group was composed of about 35 Episcopal Bishops and over 100 priests and over 1.000 laity, led by Fr. Clarence Pope of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They were organized as a "loyal opposition" to the changes in the Episcopal Church. At the Chicago meeting, a priest representing Father Pope, stated that retention of married bishops was a necessary feature for Anglican-Catholic reunion.

[14] The decree on the pastoral provision which later came out leaves open the possibility of alternate forms of structure to the one which was recommended by the NCCB consequent to the report of this meeting.

[15] PDSAC maintained contact by mail with the SCDF in Rome. as requested by its Prefect. but the deaths of two Popes in late 1978 curtailed meaningful exchange with that congregation.

[16] Present at that meeting were Frs. Barker and Brown. Canon Albert DuBois, Ecumenical Officer. Fr. Clark Tea, Secretary of the Standing Committee, Fr. Burkett Kniveton of San Diego. California. Deputy Ecumenical Officer for Great Britain, Fr. Harold Buckley of England. Dr. Lee McEvov, President of the Laymen’s League of PDSAC; also present were Monsignor Richard Schuler of S. Agnes Church, S. Paul, Minnesota and Fr. Milan Mikulich, OFM of Portland, Oregon, both of whom had been at the meetings held with the SCDFin 1977.

[17] Each day the Pro-Diocesan clergy con-celebrated Mass together, attended by the laymen representing PDSAC. Altars for these celebrations were provided by the Catholic church.

[18] Cardinal Seper had requested the leadership of PDSAC to keep him directly informed.

[19] The decisions on liturgy made by the Congregation on Divine Worship were based on principles established by the SCDF. Several years earlier the SCDF had been involved in the reuniting of separated Anglicans in Amritsar, India. This precedent established that liturgies for reunited brethren were to contain elements of their liturgy consonant with catholic faith and in current use among the official churches of those brethren, together with and completed by elements of the Roman Rite.

[20] No reason was given by the Archdiocese for its negative decision after such a long period of time, but it has been suggested that ecumenical relations must figure prominently; in addition, the press had branded the clergy leaders as rebels, and the parishes had been involved in civil litigation with the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles over real property, a lawsuit which the diocese ultimately lost and which may have been an embarrassment to Catholic officials.

Nashdom Abbey Photos

2011-08-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

There's a fascinating site called The Nashdom Chronicles, which describes itself as: "A Pictorial History of the Benedictines of the Anglican Monastery of Our Lady and St Benedict at Nashdom Abbey Burnham, Bucks."

Dom Gregory "Patrimony" Dix would approve.

Thesaurus of Quotations and Excerpts on Anglican Patrimony

2011-08-11T18:18:00.000-07:00

One reader, David Murphy, wrote to send in this helpful glossary of quotations regarding Anglican patrimony made in recent time by some of the key players.

Once one figures out Mr. Murphy's Catalouge, it is quite the informative collection of history and is useful to anyone - such as Fr Bower (uh um) - who might be doing some research and writing on the history of the Ordinariates.

I'm told more updates are to come as more is discussed. Enjoy!

___________

UPDATE: Unfortunately I have only put the most recent update online and not the full consolidated version. The update is what one reads to see the extra new quotations since the last consolidated version.

Here is most recent consolidated version. Not only is it much more comprehensive but the introduction explains the system quite well.

Click here to download.

Fr Hunwicke's Talk at the Anglican Use Conference

2011-08-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Click here to download.

The New Evangelism and the Ordinariates

2011-08-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

In the Red Chapel of Nashotah House there's an icon of Bl. Jackson Kemper (many believe him to be a Saint!) which portrays him spreading out seeds from a bag that are actually little churches all across the land. He not only is known for founding Nashotah House, but a multitude of Episcopal parishes in the Catholic tradition all across the American mid-west. To say that Bishop Kemper would be devastated to see what's happening to Anglo-Catholics in America - and around the world - today would be an understatement to say the least, but his missionary zeal is an integral part of our Anglican patrimony. It is a part of the Anglo-Catholic DNA, from New York's Bishop Hobart, to Oxford's Bl. John Henry Newman; to the Midwest's Bishop Kemper and James DeKoven to California's Fr. Neal Dodd (check out his IMDB page!). And we must not forget Bishop Charles Grafton, Frs. Charles Lowder and Lincoln Wainwright, and Fr. Basil Jellicoe! The list goes on and on.

This missionary zeal is what is being incorporated into the Ordinariates. There are Anglican Use societies popping up all around the United States, usually very small at this point, with the future goal of becoming full Catholic parishes for the Ordinariate, worshipping according to the Anglican Use. This is the "other side" of our forming the Ordinariate in this country, with the more popular story of the already-established Anglican parishes choosing to come in en masse. The latter gets the secular press headlines, but the former is where the substantial future of the Ordinariate lies.

Evangelism is just as much an obligation by Christians as is fulfilling Christ's High Priestly Prayer in St. John's gospel, "that they all may be one." In fact, Evangelism is a part of being united. True unity is lived out in full sacramental unity which reflects the same faith. Liturgically and culturally the faith can be legitimately expressed in many ways, from the different forms of the Roman Rite (of which the Anglican Use is a part), to the Eastern Rites, to the different cultural music and ritual used from region to region in that worship. But this does not mean, as Anglicans should know better than most, simply finding the bare minimum we have in common and establishing communion in order that a unity of faith may one day occur! Quite the opposite is the case, actually.

One of my many projects I work on is to try to help network people together, especially here in California where I now live, to help form Anglican Use societies to one day become full parishes for the Ordinariate. In this, I have learned well the importance of evangelism from my Southern Baptist roots and from my time at Nashotah House. I would often talk to Jackson Kemper as I mowed the grass around his grave for my work duties, and my main prayer was for a restoration of Anglo-Catholicism and a unity among Christians. I do wonder whether he had some role in the Ordinariates! But the point is that his spirit of church planting and reaching out to the lapsed and heathen (how I loathe such sociological constructions as "unchurched") is very much a part of the Anglo-Catholic DNA, and while it went into a hibernation during the Slow Decline over the past forty years or so, it is very much alive within those going into the Ordinariates.

The UK is no different than the US in this respect either, probably even more so. Those who have formed the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham have left their church buildings and housing and are having to start over completely. This level of sacrifice and dedication only strengthens the resolve to reach out and grow. In America we are blessed to have many congregations coming in with their property, but these are still in the minority, and even still they have risked quite a lot and gone through much difficulty to get to where they are now, awaiting now the erection of the Ordinariate. This provides us all with an environment full of promise and of challenge. But we must not loose sight of our main goal for the immediate future, and not become complacent in the distant future.

Our immediate goal, and I would argue long-term goal, is to evangelize Anglicans and Protestants, as well as non-Christians. Not to say that the whole of the Church does not have this same goal, but reaching out to Anglicans and other Protestants is our unique missional priority. Other Catholics have the duty to bring in Anglicans and Protestants, but their missional priority is not them per se. Their missional priority depends on their local context and reaching out to the lost there: lapsed Catholics, healing the breach with the Orthodox, converting people of other religions, and generally forming the society around them to the Church's standards. In other words, civilizing the world. Ordinariate Catholics obviously are to participate in these aims as well, but our primary objective in evangelism, as far as I see it at least, is to unite our "separated brethren", particularly Anglicans and Protestants, with the Church.

We've read much on the liturgical and musical contributions Ordinariates can bring to the wider Church, which will certainly help in the wider goal of civilizing a "post-Christian" society. I love Fr. Z's "Save the liturgy, save the world!" It's so true! But that is only one facet of our purpose as Anglican Use Catholics. The other is evangelism.

We must learn ways of evangelism which are uniquely Anglican but most importantly are Catholic: Incarnational, reaching out to the whole of the person. The first and most obvious method is the use of multimedia, particularly on the Internet. All religions are doing this, but what makes the Catholic use of this unique? Well one of the first examples I can think of is the use of this to network people to form real Catholic communities. Sure, the Baptists do this too, but they cannot show online Our Lord himself present with us in real time. Online Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, while not a substitute for actually being there, is a great tool to present Christ to the world!

But the rubber meets the road offline, not online. Relationship building with lapsed Catholics, with curious Protestants with questions unanswered, with Anglicans who are tired of being lied to and their church being changed on them overnight: these are where the small Anglican Use groups that are forming around the United States and the UK are needed most after they leave Mass. We must not be satisfied with being seen simply as a life raft, for that we indeed are, but we must also show the world that we are the fullfillment of Christ's command to be one and have begun the process of undoing the damage caused by the Reformation's schisms. We must show the world the saving healing that has been, and is being, bestowed upon us. It is for them as well.

Those of you who, like myself, started crying back in October of 2009 when Anglicanorum coetibus was first released, know exactly the kind of healing and the feelings that go along with it. There's a whole world out there that would love to feel this too, but so many don't know, understand, or are at a place in their life where they can't see it yet. It is our unique duty, and our priority in evangelism, to bring this healing to them. We must seek these people out, communicate to them the hand of God himself in the Ordinariates, and to help bring them in with us. Not only will they too become one "that the world may believe," and not only will they find the fulness of the faith within the Catholic Church and be in communion with one billion other Christians in Christ's Church, but they will find healing from the schisms, separations, isolations, partial-truths and strangeness of some vague kind of fellowship with Christ and others.

The spirit of Jackson Kemper and the others lives on in the Ordinariate and it is up to us to embrace it and live out faithfully, to help others as Christ and his Church have helped us.

Putting Out The Feelers Again...

2011-08-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

...this time to see if there's any interest at all in the Anglican Use/Ordinariate in Bakersfield, California. So far, there doesn't seem to be much interest in an Anglican Use society for the Central Coast, so Fr Aaron Bayles proposed we try to see if anyone is interested in the Bakersfield area, which is the same distance for him to drive but in the other direction.

So if you are interested and live in the Bakersfield area, please contact Fr Bayles: abayles78 [at] hotmail [dot] com, and check out the facebook page.

Martha Eischen: Anglican Patrimony or The Anglican Way

2011-08-02T11:29:00.000-07:00

Martha Eischen writes at VirtueOnline:

At the recent presentation of Anglicanorum Coetibus to the USCCB in Washington, one of the bishops asked, ” just what is the Anglican Patrimony”. It was clear that it was not exactly clear to what the Holy Father was happily opening up the doors of the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly he felt, and I assuredly agree that the Anglican Way brings a special rich heritage of worship and hymnody that the Catholic Church wishes to embrace as it adds significantly to the expression of the Faith. As a former Anglican, who spent 71 of my 72 years as an Anglican, I would like to attempt to share the mystique and the character that an Anglican would readily claim as his or her heritage.

Before I make my humble attempt, I should like to make a disclaimer. First, this is not a theological position paper. Those qualified to make such a presentation as Anglicans have probably already done so. Likewise I shall make no attempt to bring specific historic events or persons which have contributed to the schism between Anglicans and Roman Catholics into my discussion. My attempt here is to give a view from the pew, as one born into a particular place in the vineyard, happily grazing, and rather certain of my affinities.

By way of introduction, I was received into the Roman Catholic Church on Advent Sunday, 2010, at the age of 71. It was a most blessed day, which was shared by some of my family, friends and my priest. I have been the beneficiary of great grace and blessing as I have journeyed in my new “home”. My parish is Our Lady of Lourdes, Philadelphia, PA. We are surrounded with so much of what I grew up with as a privileged Anglo-Catholic, that I hardly know that I am “across the Tiber.” I was raised in a devout Catholic family (Episcopal Church), one of six children. My parents lived their faith daily and raised us in it, as they lived it. Two of my father’s brothers were Episcopal priests, one a religious in the Order of St John the Evangelist, in London, England. To be fair, ours was not a normal upbringing. We were extraordinarily blessed. My father often said of his own roots, “The lot has fallen unto me in a fair ground; yea I have a good heritage.” Psalm 16:7. Ours was just that. We were raised, it would correctly be said, in the glory days of Anglo-Catholicism. I am an Associate of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor, in Catonsville, MD, which order was received into the Catholic Church in 2009. For many years, I worshipped at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, PA, and thus know Fr. Jeffrey Steenson very well.

Why did I “leave” my roots? The answer to that question may or may not be obvious. However, the disintegration of moral values plaguing our society, has become the “norm” in the Episcopal Church, for certain, but also widely around the Anglican Communion. The implosion simply spoke loudly to me regarding discipline and authority. That was a seed planted in my soul. Was there some reason why I was out of communion with the homeland of Mother Church, the See of Peter? I tossed the question around in my heart. The decision became simpler as I prayed. I moved on, bringing with me all that shaped my Christian identity, all that was given to me as my “goodly heritage.”

Perhaps this introduction in some small way qualifies me to presume to “answer” the good bishop’s question, “What is the Anglican Patrimony.” From the pew…….

Every culture rightly contributes its own unique and wonderful gifts to the rich splendor of Catholic worship from all peoples and nations. From Africans’ high pageantry to the breathless floral beauty of the East, they all express the “beauty of holiness”. So it is therefore, that from Britain, there arises a unique gift worthy of being counted in that beauty.

The answer to the question of Anglican Patrimony has more than one dimension. Some of it can be explained, some of it touched, some of it lived. But all of it is sensed. I give you my “sense” as a lay person, of the solemnity, wonder, solace and joy that surfaces in the best of environments when the word “Anglican” is used.

There are several broad categories to which one can point that most clearly contribute to the Anglican Patrimony. They are intertwined yet clearly identifiable. Alone they are not the whole story. And often they can be found in other corners of Christendom, especially Catholic Christendom. Yet together, they somehow bear the Anglican insignia.

Continue reading...

Monthly Prayer Cycle

2011-07-31T15:13:00.001-07:00

Here is the August 2011 edition, complete with all of the Anglo-Lutheran parishes this time!

Click here to download.

Sermon For Trinity 6

2011-07-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

by Fr. Eugene B. Davis

This is the sermon I preached this morning, which was originally written by and preached by the late Fr. Beau Davis of St. Mary of the Angels, Hollywood. May he rest in peace.

“If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother have ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23-25)

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

First, be reconciled with your brother!” Now to be reconciled is to reestablish a close relationship with someone from whom we have in some way become estranged. Reconciliation implies, or rather it requires, charity—which is to say love, and kindness, and tenderheartedness. We are to love our enemies, do good to them that hate us, and pray for those who despitefully use and persecute us! But isn’t all of this just way too much to expect of the likes of us? Is it even reasonable for people to love their enemies? Oh yes, we readily admit or, at least urgently hope that God does; but is it realistic to expect that we can ever become capable of doing so? Perhaps it is even more unimaginable, to envision ourselves being loving enough to truly release all our resentment and anger when someone who has injured, insulted, lied or gossiped about or otherwise offended us, or someone we care about, seeks to apologize or otherwise find a way to reconcile. Yes indeed, we can easily mouth the words; but that alone will not do! It must be done from the heart—but the question remains, how are we to do that?

Our society certainly does nothing to encourage forgiveness. On the contrary, how often have we heard, or said, “Don’t get angry, get even!” And, even if we avoid seeking revenge, most will still hold a grudge, and may well compound their failure with a bit of self-congratulatory pride in not having been quite as vengeful as we might have been. That is not the way to reconciliation, but it is the way to perdition! I know, we don’t like to hear such words; they seem so harsh, and undignified, so unbefitting, and, well, un-Anglican! But everyone must understand this: for any of who call themselves Christians, forgiveness is not optional, and reconciliation requires both granting and acceptance of forgiveness. For us, and every Christian, forgiveness is not discretionary it is obligatory! It may well seem unachievable, but when we forgive, or seek forgiveness, we let go of our animosity, and desire no harm or hardship to the person at whose hands we may have suffered, or may ourselves have wronged. And it will be by God’s Grace alone, we will be capable of accomplishing such things. By grace alone we can and must let go of offence. He never requires us to do that for which He does not provide the Grace to succeed…never! And the gifts bestowed for our cooperation with these graces always surpass whatever difficulties have been encountered along the way. In time, one may even learn how to avoid taking offense, which implies, not becoming blind to that which can affront, but in maintaining a quiet equanimity.

Do we, as they say, “forgive and forget”? No! We do remember, not so that we may cling to old wounds and past distress, but rather to learn from the effects of our pain and mistakes, and, thereby, to grow in wisdom.

Forgiveness is full pardon. It is a fresh start. It is a new beginning. It is the supernatural lifting of a heavy spiritual and emotional burden; it is the key that can unlock the shackles of resentment and the manacles of hatred, setting the soul free to relearn its capacity for love. And remember, it is a requirement that we each of us prayed to be required as we said: “…and forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those that trespass against us.” Or stated otherwise: “…as I fail to forgive those who sin against me, so then O God neither forgive Thou my sins!” It is a prayer that the Lord promises in the Gospel of Matthew that He will fulfill: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you, but if you do not forgive men neither will your Father forgive you. (Matt 6:14-15) Forgiveness is not optional for any who hope to find forgiveness. Hopefully, by now, we all understand that; but what exactly underlies this insistence that we love and forgive those who most distress us, for surely it transcends any entirely selfish desire for personal absolution.

The foundation to our understanding here is, of course, Jesus whose example we are called to follow, and who is, therefore, Alpha and Omega, both the origin and completion of our task. Reconciliation presupposes a relationship, however strained or broken it may have become. Reconciliation with those from whom we are estranged will find the essence of success only in our relationship with God, and that relationship is about nothing but unconditional love; and if that is strained, it is never because God has failed in his love for us, but that we have failed in ours for Him. As Saint Paul reminds us, God demonstrated his own love for us in this: “…that while we were yet still sinners, Christ died or us!” (Romans 5:8) And what is God’s response now when we fall so quickly and easily into our own sinful ways? Does He turn from us and call us enemies? No! He continues to show His love even though we don’t come close to deserving it. For Jesus, you see, love isn’t about emotions it is about an attitude and actions! In forgiveness we are following Gods example to us, showing goodwill to others in spite of any apparent lack of the same toward us—or, for that matter, our level of animosity toward them. They may be those who have gotten in the way of our obtaining a job or promotion or some other achievement we wanted or felt we deserved. Perhaps it is someone who has put us down or broken a confidence, set standards we can never seem to come up to and then, like salt in our wounded pride, continually pushes the bar higher and higher. Perhaps it is someone with opposing views, or someone who just takes us for granted or expects everything but is unwilling to grant anything in return. Such folks are everywhere in life; not necessarily as enemies per se, but as rivals, or irritants or problem makers…those who bring discomfort or just make little things more difficult; they are adversaries to peace of mind, not imaginary or simple abstractions, but exasperating annoyances in our lives. The Lord, we may be sure, knows a whole lot more about all of these frustrating people than we do, and would likely have us ask ourselves a couple of (what are really pretty awful) questions: “Is my neighbor indeed my enemy, or am I my neighbor’s enemy—and so take him to be mine?” That is to say, “if he is mine, am I not his?” And, “If this person is, like myself, a child of God, am I not, by failing or refusing to acknowledge the child of God within his bosom, also killing the child of God within my own?” Or, “Will the Lord allow us to claim for ourselves more indulgence than we are willing to grant our neighbor?” He would, I believe, remind us that we are accountable for the ill that is in us, and, with God’s help must kill it; while we are to find the good in our neighbor, and cherish that! Similarly, only our neighbor, with Gods help, can kill the bad in himself; but by seeking and responding understandingly to the good that we find in him, we may find that what we thought was a fog of evil was actually only the result of misapprehension and mistake, which gave rise to all kinds of indignations, and resentments, and regrets. In truth, we know so little about any of our neighbors, or they about us, that it is infinitely wiser to behave toward one another in ways that say not, “Why do you hate me?” but rather, “Yes, in God’s name, I love you, and will wait, with God’s help until the true self looks out of your eyes and comes to know the true self in me.” And while that may or may not come to pass, we must remain willing and open to it; for just as the Lord lavishes us with good things while waiting for us, to embrace His graces, and correct our ways, so He urges us to show charity and do good to each of our spiritual brothers and sisters upon whom he also pours out His Graces. Once again, He doesn’t simply ask that us Christians to do these things, He requires and expects that we will! If we fail, it will not be because we were not provided with the proper spiritual tools—assuming, of course, that we recognize and admit our weakness, and asked for His Divine help.

The more confidence we have in God and His love of us, the dignity He grants us as His children, His response to our prayers, and the enabling power of his graces, the easier, and more rapid will be the reconciliation of all those from whom we have become estranged.

As Jesus hung on the cross, his enemies taunted Him with insult after insult, wanting more than anything else to bring Him down to their level, to make Him curse them back. They had scattered His disciples, and broken His body; now they wanted to break His spirit. But their insults could not reach into His sacred heart, where even in the midst of His agony, He refused to take offense at their insults, and, rather than curse them, cried out, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” To forgive the way JESUS forgave we must, above all else, become people of prayer, for it is only in prayer, and through the grace that it brings that we can find the inner peace without which forgiveness and the healing of human relationships will forever remain impossible. But it cannot be impossible for us because, as we have seen, for you and me, forgiveness is not optional! For if authentic forgiveness is truly given and accepted, then, in God’s time and through the working of His grace, your enemy is doomed to cease to be your enemy, and to become your friend. The truth, as understood by God, would destroy our enmity at once; a single hearty confession of wrong, or apology, and our enmity passes away—and from each comes forth the brother or sister who was inside the enemy all the time. In knowledge of this truth, then, let us learn now how to love and seek reconciliation with all of our neighbors, accepting and rejoicing in the Lord’s great gift in allowing our belief and participation in His as yet invisible triumph of Divine charity and grace at work in us all!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

More Ordinariate in California

2011-07-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

I am hoping to network people together and locate two driven and devoted individuals to each start and head up a new Anglican Use society in California, one in the Bay Area and the other in the Inland Empire.

Anglican Use Society of the Bay Area

The San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland area, I'm told, already has four or five people who've communicated with James Farr about wanting to start a group. What this group needs to begin is to have someone take leadership who lives there on the ground (unlike James who travels a lot) and who has the time and energy to invest into starting this off and seeing it through until such time a priest can be assigned from the future Ordinariate.

As is now tradition, I've started a Facebook group for this new movement to see if any local people in the Bay Area can use it to connect and as a springboard to reach out. If you're interested in this idea in the Bay Area, please join the Facebook group (if you're on it), but please contact James Farr so he can help get this started and pass on the torch of leadership to a local person. If you're interested and live up there, please email James Farr: codeblueiii [at] yahoo [dot] com.

________________

Anglican Use Society of the Inland Empire

A few people have inquired of me about starting an Anglican Use society out in the Ontario/Riverside/San Bernadino area. So - again with tradition - I've started a new Facebook group for that as well to try to network people together and see what kind of interest there might be. If there are a decent number of folks who can get together weekly or even monthly, I'd like to find someone out that way who would be willing to take leadership of this group as well until we can find a priest who can be stationed there permanently.

If you are interested in forming an Anglican Use group out in the Inland Empire area, please send me an email: fatherbartus [at] stmaryoftheangels [dot] org

Catholic Family Conference

2011-07-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo of our booth today from the Catholic Family Conference at the Ontario (California) Convention Center. We took turns showing a wonderful slideshow of St Mary of the Angels, Hollywood, as well as and a video of our first Evensong at Blessed John Henry Newman Society in Orange County on the television; we passed out tons of information about all the Southern California Ordinariate groups; and we talked to many many people, most of which had only heard little highlights about Anglicans coming into the Catholic Church.

We were able to make many connections and explain to people who we are and what we're about. Much confusion abounds on the Catholic side of the Tiber, just as it does on the Anglican, but the confusion is about different issues.

Many who stopped by know former and current Anglicans and said they'd pass on our information, but hopefully we were able to reach out and introduce ourselves to our new wider family in the Southern California area.

I encourage all other Anglican Use societies and Anglican parishes coming into the Ordinariate to look for similar opportunities in your area to make connections to the wider Catholic community, as many (most?) do not know who we are but are excited and very supportive once they learn! It is also a good way to reach out to those of an Anglican background who've become disconnected with their heritage but who may be eager to attend an Ordinariate parish once they learn about us.

Walsingham Society: A New College for the Ordinariate

2011-07-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

I would like to direct readers to the Walsingham Society (no, not an Anglican Use society forming into a new parish for the Ordinariate--confusing I know!). The Walsingham Society is an educational society that is forming into a new college for the Ordinariate.

It currently conducts lectures and musical performances in Dallas while gathering up interest, finances and accreditation as a credit-conferring institution of higher learning. I encourage everyone interested in the greats, fine music and higher learning in the Oxford tradition that formed Bl. John Henry Newman and so many of our Anglican and Catholic forefathers, to seek out this new group and get involved.

The long-term goal is not only to eventually offer a full four-year undergraduate program, but also to provide philosophical, historical and theological supplements to the Ordinariate for the formation of ordinands before and during seminary.

It is in its early stages right now, but it has a lot of momentum and potential. Please spread the word about this and if you're in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area or visiting, please stop by for a visit!

Here is their website for more details. Their facebook page is also here, as is their next event, Leisure: The Basis of Culture - A Judeo-Christian Perspective, by Mary Moorman Armstrong.

Ordinariate Society in Colorado?

2011-07-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

Father Richard Sutter writes to see if there's any interest in forming an Anglican Use society in Colorado to eventually build a parish for the forthcoming Ordinariate, whether in the Denver or Colorado Springs area, depending on the majority of interest.

Please visit their site and also their facebook group if you're interested and please spread the word!

Ordination Photos

2011-07-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

Thanks to MatthewM for reminding me to post photos from my priestly ordination back in February. As promised, here are the photos. Forgive the long delay. God bless.

More on the Anglican Use Conference...

2011-07-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

...will be coming shortly, but I've been slammed since my return to Los Angeles. But in the meantime, do check out the other blogs and the recordings of the presentations if you haven't done so already.

Here is a photo of those of us within the Traditional Anglican Communion's Patrimony of the Primate, with the Bishop of Fort Worth, Kevin Vann, who graciously hosted us last week.

Charitible Donations and off to Texas

2011-07-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

This week I will be joining the many others from around the Ordinariate world in heading to Arlington Texas for the Anglican Use Conference. I was unable to make last year's due to having just moved to Los Angeles, but am very excited and honored to be a part of this year's. So many positive things are going on right now in helping to build the new Ordinariate in England, which we'll be hearing more about this week, as well as a lot of behind the scenes work going on here in the United States for ours! It is amazing to see how God is pulling us all together in such constructive ways, and to see and be a part of so many building projects. If anyone doubts that the Ordinariates are the fulfillment of the Oxford Movement and the original vision and goal of ARCIC, come to the conference (or watch it online) to learn about all that is going on! This is the only path which maintains our Anglican heritage, our Catholic identity, answers our pleas for jurisdiction, and brings us into full communion with the See of Peter.

Please keep us in your prayers this week for safe travels, fruitful dialog, building of new friendships, and planning and working for our future: a future where my grandchildren can receive the same faith that is saving me, within the same patrimony that is forming me, and is rebuilding what was destroyed but in an even bigger and better way than we could have even dreamed!

Speaking of investing for the future, I can't help but smile when I hear that not only is the Catholic League financially investing in the Ordinariate, but so too is the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament!

July Monthly Prayer Cycle

2011-06-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

Continuing on with the monthly prayer cycle for the Ordinariate groups in the United States, here is this month's edition. Please consider using this cycle with your public daily prayers at each of your parishes and societies. We're praying daily for you here at St Mary's, and I know everyone would benefit from each other's prayers as we are forming into a new family at this time.

Click here to download.

Ordinariate in Santa Barbara?

2011-06-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

I am inquiring to see if there's any reasonable interest in forming an Anglican Use society to one day become a parish for the forthcoming Ordinariate here in the United States in the Santa Barbara area of California. Fr Aaron Bayles, currently a priest of the Traditional Anglican Communion and intending to join the Ordinariate, just moved to the area and would like to try to form a new parish.

If there is any interest in forming a group out that way and any readers live nearby, please contact Fr Bayles at: abayles78 [at] hotmail [dot] com, or on Facebook. If there are a few people who are interested, I will try to assist Fr Bayles in the formation.

God bless you all,

Fr Bartus+

Notes on the Ritual

2011-06-27T20:56:00.001-07:00

"The standpoint of Ritual Notes, ever since its first publication in 1894, has been the clothing of the services of the Prayer book with the ceremonial taken from that of the Roman Church, and their embellishment with additional features taken from that same souce."

So writes the author of the venerable reference to generations of Anglo-Catholics - Ritual Notes.

When we talk about liturgy in the Great Anglo-Catholic Tradition, the restoration of Catholic worship, dignity, theology, and practice to the spartan protestant leaning tendency of that which afflicted Anglican worship for several centuries, those of us who embrace and cherish this worship tradition are often criticized for having somehow abandoned the Prayer Book tradition, and by implication the long continuity of worship tradition in the British Isles, going back to either St. Augustine of Canterbury or even the fanciful and un-provable allegations of St. Paul's visit to England.

The reality is that the so-called Prayer Book tradition was in itself an innovation. A decided new item in terms of worship in the British Isles, and unlike what existed before. Anyone who has ever attended the Sarum Mass can clearly attest that the Prayer Book Holy Communion seems a profoundly distant cousin. Worship in pre-reformation England was much more similar to the Mass promulgated by the Council of Trent than to the BCP.

As we continue on our current path, waiting expectantly for the canonical erection of the Ordinariate for the US, and seeing it up and running, we continue on our current path of offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in parishes with a rich and vibrant Missal tradition, we do so with greater connection and continuity with the rest of the Catholic World, through the various Missals in use.

In addition to serving as Senior Warden of our parish, I am the normal Master of Ceremonies for our parish.

When I first came to our parish, I had the common misconception of many who look from a distance at the glorious intricacy of worship in the best Anglo-Catholic tradition as somehow being a "put on" where people were more concerned about what was done, than they were about worshipping God.

I quickly came to realize that type of concern can indeed afflict any type of liturgy, but does not, per se, infest "high church" worship.

What I have found is that if the people are well grounded spiritually, then there is a remarkable amount of freedom to be found in not having to "craft" liturgy. To simply "do the red and say the black" and flesh out the motions with venerable resources such as Fr. Fortescue'sCeremonies of the Roman Rite Described or Ritual Notes allows the focus to be properly directed.

One of the greatest benefits I find, is that following an objective standard, takes the individuality out of the Mass. It is no longer Father Smith's Mass, but Father Smith, by following the objective standard of how to say Mass, does not express his individuality, but rather simply becomes a central figure in the great drama that is the Mass, the re-presentation of Calvary, where the priest stands not as himself, but in the person of our Blessed Lord and lends his voice to Christ.

What Is The Anglican Patrimony?

2011-06-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

by the Rev’d Samuel L. Edwards,
with the Rev’d Dr David A. Ousley and Michael D. LaRue, K.M.

The recent meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops featured an eagerly awaited report by the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, Donald Wuerl, on the steps toward the creation of a Personal Ordinariate in the United States. If nothing more — and there was considerably more — this report had the salutary effect of putting to silence (assuming that is possible) those nay-sayers within the Anglican community who have been suggesting that such a structure would never be erected here. It is evident that it will be, and fairly soon, and that the Vatican means to issue the decree sooner rather than later.

In spite of all the good things about the report, during the subsequent question-and-answer session there was some evident uncertainty amongst the assembled bishops as to just what constitutes the Anglican patrimony (or heritage) for which the soon-to-be established Personal Ordinariate is to serve as the conduit for the further enrichment of the Catholic Church. The Archbishop of Chicago, Francis Cardinal George, articulated this when he said, referring to the ordinariates’ mission to preserve elements of the Anglican tradition, “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an explanation of what those elements might be.”

The Bishops cannot be faulted for not having a clearer grasp of the particular elements of our patrimony, since many self-defined Anglicans do not really follow the classical Anglican way. Moreover, those of us who aspire to do so have not set forth the matter clearly and concisely.

To further complicate the matter, the fact that the majority of those clergy and congregations that so far have entered the first Ordinariate in England — the motherland of the Anglican Way — use the English translation of the Roman Missal instead of any version of The Book of Common Prayer tends for now to obscure the fact that outside England, the classical Prayer Book tradition is very much alive and well. (The reasons for this are complex and beyond the immediate scope of this paper.)

Another reason why there is uncertainty about the content of the Anglican heritage may well have to do with its very pervasiveness — it is a part of the general environment of anglophone European culture, especially its literary culture. The two most influential monuments of English literature are The Book of Common Prayer (1549ff.) and the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611), commonly known as the King James Version, which in very real ways have formed not just the cadence but the content of Western civilization in its Anglo-American form.

In the interests of removing the uncertainty about its nature and form, it is the purpose of this paper to set forth some of the key elements of the Anglican patrimony and in the process to foster a better understanding of it among the Latin Rite Catholics — particularly our Fathers in God — with whom we soon will be joined. These are things which we value and believe constitute the precious heritage of the Anglican way of being Christian, and which we hope to offer for the enrichment of — and where necessary correction by — the Catholic Church.

The Anglican Mind

Let us begin with a general description of the characteristics of the Anglican mind, which the particular elements of its patrimony (which will be discussed later) express.

The Anglican mind (also referred to as the Anglican Way or the Anglican ethos) was a variety within the species of the Christian mind. To be sure, there was a distinct flavour to its mixture of aesthetic, moral, and intellectual styles — a sort of golden moderation, reflecting a blend of the temperaments of the British, Celtic, and Norse cultures where were a part of the making of England, yet there was never any serious contention that such things as distinguished the Anglican mind from, say the Roman or Gallican or Iberian or Germanic or Slavic or Greek or Syrian or African or Oriental Christian mind were indicative of a difference in kind. All these were at least implicitly considered to be local or cultural streams flowing from the great well of Christian orthodoxy, and the Anglican mind habitually enriched and renewed itself by drinking liberally from all of them.

The Anglican mind, in its highest state of development, was supple without being flaccid, liberal yet disciplined, conservative yet open. It recognised that the opposite of protestant is not catholic, but corrupt, and that the opposite of catholic is not protestant, but sectarian. Even at its most polemical, it sought more reconciliation with its opponents than triumph over them. In every generation of its life — from Hooker and Field to Taylor and Cosin to Wesley and Wilberforce to Keble and Pusey to William Temple and Michael Ramsey — it has produced pastors and theologians who exemplify these characteristic. Its ethos informed an entire family of national Churches. Now, however, though the Anglican intellectual tradition remains alive in certain individuals and groups of Anglicans, it can no longer claim to have any substantial influence on what passes for life in the national and international institutions of the increasingly moribund Anglican Communion.

[Samuel L. Edwards, “Anglicanism and the death of the Anglican Mind,” in Quo Vaditis: The State Churches of Northern Europe (Leominster, Hertfordshire: Gracewing, 1996), pp. 10-11.]

In our present context it might well be added that, because of Anglicanorum coetibus, the treasury accumulated through the Anglican habit of drawing from the different ethoi which are comprehended under the roof of the great oikos of the People of God — together with those which shelter under its eaves or in its lee — now is made available as a resource for the whole of the Church in communion with the Successor of Peter. This conduit, which now can carry its contents in both directions, is available for mutual enrichment, recovery, and renewal.

The Content of the Anglican Heritage

So what, particularly, are the contents of the Anglican patrimony that are consistent with the Catholic faith? Without any pretense at completeness, they would certainly include the following:

A distinctly domestic approach to Christian corporate life.

This finds expression in such diverse things as the Prayer Book tradition of worship and the re-founded Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham. The Prayer Book itself, at least in its central 1549 English — 1928 American (not to forget the 1962 Canadian) editions, is the linchpin of a parish-based ascetical system which, while it has the Eucharist at its center, augments and thereby buttresses the center with the Daily Office. The Office itself is, both in spirit and historically, more the descendant of the parochial and cathedral offices of the middle ages than of the monastic offices, more inherently suited to the participation of lay people than the more clerically-oriented offices of the Roman breviary. This greater accessibility — together with well-framed lectionaries — has been a major contributor to genuine biblical literacy amongst Anglicans. The Eucharistic lectionary, which is essentially the Medieval one, provides the depth of reading Scripture as a doctrinal instrument of salvation. The lessons become familiar through the Eucharistic preaching. The Daily Office lectionary provides the breadth by covering virtually the whole Bible every year.

A distinctive tradition of pastoral care.

This grows out of the previously mentioned domestic approach to parochial life and is, at least in part, a function of the typically small size of our parishes. Spiritual direction, counseling, and confession are approached in a way that emphasizes that which is pastoral, practical, and empirical rather than juridical.

The Book of Common Prayer provides the structures of the parochial system of pastoral care, providing in a distinctive way for initiation, catechesis, formation in morals and ascetics, nourishment in prayer and sacraments, clear teaching on the responsibilities of clergy and laity in the good order of the Church.

An ascetical structure for a distinctive way of being Christian.

The Book of Common Prayer defines the Anglican way of being Christian, with three essential elements: the Sunday (and Holy Day) Eucharist, the Daily Office, with its Psalter, Scripture and set prayers, and the “private” prayer of quiet and meditation.

A characteristic theological method and temper which is, at its best, at once scriptural, traditional, and patristic.

While (with recent exceptions) the Anglican Way has insisted on a well-educated clergy, theology has been done largely within a pastoral context. The greatest of Anglican theologians were pastors (Hooker, Keble, Newman, Ramsey).

The classical Anglican theological method might be characterized as more Benedictine than Jesuit. It is focused on Scriptural foundations, as Scripture is presented by the Fathers and the living tradition of the Church. We expect this method to find its perfection in the authority of the Magisterium: Indeed, those of us who are accepting the generous offer expressed in Anglicanorum coetibus are doing so because we have been brought to the conclusion that it is only in communion with the Magisterium that it can be perfected.

The aspiration of this method is best summarized by the formula of Saint Augustine of Hippo, “In essentials, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.” Populated by believers chastened by the four and a half centuries of the “Anglican experiment,” the Ordinariates can serve as a vehicle whereby it may be demonstrated that unity in essentials cannot be maintained on a basis of theoretical consensus, but must have in this world a personal focus who can speak authoritatively in the Name of the Personal Savior of man.

A tradition of reverence in the practice, and especially in the language, of public prayer.

For nearly five centuries, Anglican worship has been characterized by the use of reverential language for liturgical prayer. In this, it follows a well-established pattern dating back at least to the patristic era and likely to the beginning of worship, which is the use of a more classical form of the vernacular, in contrast to the contemporary form.

(Contrary to popular assumptions, the language of the Prayer Book and the King James Bible is not, nor ever was intended to be, the daily vernacular of the street and the marketplace. The compositors and translators of these great monuments of the English tongue were very concerned with writing in a “language understanded of the people,” but they never made the mistake of confusing that with the form of that language commonly spoken by the people. The gift in all this for Latin Rite Catholics is that it will help foster the practical re-integration of a fundamental principle of human spiritual development, which is that we are first taught reverence by being taught to act and speak reverently. (The new English translation of the Roman Missal represents another major and parallel step in this enterprise of recovery.)

There is in this aspect of the Anglican heritage a strikingly harmonious resonance with the longstanding concern of Benedict XVI with the re-sacralization of ecclesiastical life, in which the re-sacralization of worship has an instrumental role. (This concern seems to be very closely connected in principle with his and his predecessor’s urgent desire for the re-evangelization of Western society.)

A musical tradition which is both broad-based and consistent with the ethos of the Anglican tradition of common worship, of which it is an integral component.

The Anglican patrimony has as one of its notable elements a hymnody which, while spanning the ages from the late patristic to the contemporary, and styles from Gregorian monophony to modern polyphony, is directed toward the enhancement of worship and being the handmaid of the liturgy. Most Anglican congregations — including those in which a choir plays a major role in the offering of the liturgy —are notable for the quality and natural willingness of the concerted singing of the members.

Again, there is here a noteworthy resonance with the concerns of the Holy Father, which include the recovery of much of worth in the musical treasury of the Church that has been eclipsed in recent decades.

A long experience with lay participation in church governance as regards temporalities.

This is an element that is not unfamiliar to the other members of the Latin Rite after several decades of Parish Councils. However, because of its longer history among us, we may be able to assist our brethren in pointing out some of the pitfalls of the system as well as its positive potentialities. Its continuation in a form consistent with Canon Law is certainly anticipated, especially in Article X, §4 of Anglicanorum coetibus.

Married Clergy.

For the last 450 years Anglicans have had married as well as celibate clergy, as the Latin Rite does now, ordaining as a rule celibate men to the priesthood, but married men to the permanent Diaconate. Anglicanorum coetibus recognizes the fact, and provides for it, while also affirming the discipline of the Latin Rite of which the Ordinariate will be a part.

Conclusion

We wish to emphasize most clearly that we wish to offer the riches of the Anglican patrimony in a spirit of humility and gratitude both for the gift of the patrimony itself and for the gift of the means now made available by the Holy Father for the incorporation of this patrimony into the living treasury of Holy Church. We claim no inherent superiority for the Anglican Way, and are mindful that Anglicanorum coetibus provides not just a means of incorporation, but a means for correction, if necessary. We wish to retain only that which is consistent with the fullness of the Catholic Faith.

22 June 2011
Eve of Corpus Christi
Commemoration of Saint Alban,
Protomartyr of England

(Originally posted on The Anglo-Catholic)

Plowmen and Poets: Bonaventure and Ecclesiasticus on the Word Made Art

2011-06-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

Today being the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, I thought it highly appropriate to share this insightful essay by Dr. James Patrick about how the gospel can restore culture. Just as St. John, as forerunner, was a reflection of the Word made flesh, so too may art, architecture, beauty and literature reflect Truth Himself.

In Benedict XVI’s book On the Road to Jesus Christ, the Holy Father wrote:

Culture is the system of life into which the Word of the Gospel enters. It must make itself understood within it, and it should have some effect within it, so to speak, that permeates the whole thing. The Gospel to a certain extent presupposes culture; it never replaces it, but it does leave its mark upon it. The nearest equivalent to our concept of culture in the Greek World is paideia—education in the highest sense, which guides a human being to genuine humanity. In Latin the same idea is expressed in the word erudition, a man is freed from roughness [ex rudis] and is trained in true manliness. In this sense the Gospel is by its very essence paideia—culture, but in this education of man it joins forces with all the other factors that form humanity as a communal enterprise.

In this way Benedict speaks of what culture does with some implicit reference to Newman’s description of liberal learning, that is, as an education that makes us slow to inflict pain, but he also seems to give culture an importance as a way of educating man that joins force with the Gospel. The word ‘culture’ tells its own story for cultus and cultura both mean tilling or cultivation and are descriptive of the work of the farmer. Cultus implies reverence or respectful treatment. With regard to the human estate it means education. Cicero uses the expression benevolis officium et diligens tribuitur cultus; culture is achieved by diligent and loving care.

Complicating this attempt to define culture is the fact that, apart from what culture does, whether it rubs our edges smooth or provides a context for the Gospel, culture implies activities and assumes the existence of objects and ideas. In free beings ideas become incarnate through actions; in making of poems and symphonies and furniture ideas become incarnate in the thing made. Culture is the sea we swim in, the texture of laws, manners, philosophic assumptions (examined and unexamined), the artifacts we make and the artifacts that make us, the language and its poetry, indeed the entire range of human activities with their various consequences, real or ideal, that make up the world we experience, as well as the schools that form the link between generations.

Read it all here.

Corpus Christi

2011-06-23T12:59:00.000-07:00

(Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at St. Timothy's, Ft. Worth)

There are many good articles floating around on the web about Corpus Christi today (i.e, here and here) but I personally find this feast to be best used (if one may "use" a feast!) as a time of beautiful meditation and reflection: just to sit in the Presence of Our Lord and pray and quiet the heart and mind, and even perhaps receive wisdom and experience the divine love our Saviour has towards us, and we towards him. I generally find sermons on this feast day to be most beneficial when they direct our meditations towards God in this manner and then to leave us be to do just that. Any more than that tends to cheapen or distract from the feast day itself.

The New Liturgical Movement draws our attention to the splendid music of the Oxford Ordinariate group's Evensong and Benediction, particularly to the hymn, Adoremus in aeternum:

This is Anglican patrimony par excellence! Check out the UKOrdinariate channel for more fine examples of Anglican choral music.

Tracey Rowland: The Anglican Patrimony

2011-06-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

Professor Tracey Rowland is Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, Australia, and gave this address at a conference for those exploring joining a Personal Ordinariate in Australia. She is also the author of the popular and excellent Ratzinger’s Faith, published by Oxford University Press.

Pope Benedict XVI has consistently held that the ecumenical process is one of acquiring unity in diversity, not structural reintegration. For example, in his Ecumenical Address in Cologne in 2005 he remarked that ‘Ecumenism does not mean what could be called an ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history – it does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline’.

In this address he also spoke of dialogue as an exchange of gifts in which the Churches and Ecclesial Communities can make available their own riches. This theme was reiterated in a parallel address in the Crypt of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, at the second World Youth Day of his pontificate. He noted that whereas an idea aims at truth, a gift expresses love. Both, he concluded, were essential elements of dialogue.

The announcement of the establishment of a Personal Ordinariate for Anglicans has been the most dramatic example of Pope Benedict’s attempt to put these principles into operation. According to Cardinal Levada:

It is the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this ecumenical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows.

In his published commentary on Anglicanorum Coetibus Cardinal Levada noted that this proposal of a Personal Ordinariate was consistent with the earlier ecumenical efforts of Cardinal Mercier of Belgium who explored the possibility of an Anglican union with the Catholic Church under the principle of an Anglicanism ‘reunited but not absorbed’. Cardinal Levada also noted that paragraph 13 of the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism recognised the special place of the Anglican Communion as a body in which Catholic traditions and institutions were to some degree retained after the Reformation.

From my personal experience I would say that for many Anglo-Catholics the barriers to full communion with the See of Peter have tended to be primarily cultural rather than doctrinal. They have been reluctant to seek full membership of the Catholic Church because of a not unreasonable belief that they would have to abandon whole elements of their Anglican cultural heritage. It is precisely this problem Pope Benedict hopes the creation of an Ordinariate will overcome.

Although the Pope has not made any public statements about what he thinks might be the ‘gifts’ Anglicans could bring to their full membership of the Catholic Church, many commentators have observed an affinity between the Anglo-Catholic approaches to liturgy and Pope Benedict’s own liturgical theology. In particular he is very concerned about what he has variously described as ‘parish tea party’ liturgy, ‘pastoral pragmatism’, ‘emotional primitivism’ ‘Sacro-pop’ and ‘utility music’.

Many of my Anglican friends have long held that for them the major barrier to their return to full Communion with the Catholic Church is precisely the banality of post-Conciliar parish liturgies and what Digby Anderson has called the ‘oikish translation of the Mass’. In response to the question, ‘what is it that Anglican Catholics could bring with them as a small gift on their trip to Rome?’ Anderson suggests better translations of the Mass and the moral sensibility associated with the idea of the gentleman, including the cult of understatement and self-deprecation and traditional manners.

When I read Anderson’s article, published in the magazine New Directions, I thought he has nailed it.

It is true that much contemporary Catholic liturgy is banal. When he was a Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger compared it to the Hebrew’s worship of the Golden Calf and said that some contemporary liturgies could be described as acts of apostasy. He suggested that there is a problem when liturgy becomes self-centric rather than theo-centric and he noted that this self-centric tendency is defended by exactly the same argument that the Hebrew’s used for bringing on the golden calf. Ratzinger believed that the Hebrew leaders were not so stupid as to confuse the golden calf with God – they knew that the calf was not God – but they thought that they needed to bring God down to the level of the people and representing him as a calf was the way they went about this.

In his book The Feast of Faith, Ratzinger wrote:

The Church must not settle down with what is merely comfortable and serviceable at the parish level, she must arouse the voice of the cosmos and, by glorifying the Creator, elicit the glory of the Cosmos itself, making it also glorious, beautiful, habitable and beloved. Next to the saints, the art which the Church has produced is the only real ‘apologia’ for her history…The Church is to transform, improve, ‘humanise’ the world – but how can she do that if at the same time she turns her back on beauty, which is so closely allied to love? For together, beauty and love form the true consolation in this world, bringing it as near as possible to the world of the resurrection. The Church must maintain high standards, she must be a place where beauty can be at home; she must lead the struggle for that ‘spiritualisation’ without which the world becomes ‘the first circle of hell’.

Given these attitudes, I think it is fair to say that Cardinal Ratzinger would have been more at home in an Oxbridge college chapel at Evensong then in the average suburban parish with people singing songs written by Marty Haugen. Being forced to listen to “Gather Us In” is my idea of landing in the first circle of hell.

A number of scholars have tried to come to grips with why it is that contemporary suburban parish culture is so philistine. There are books with names like Why Catholics Can’t Sing and As Ugly as Sin. I would say that there are at least 4 reasons, perhaps many others:

First, there was the influence of Jansenism. This was a heresy that began in what is now called Belgium in the 17^th century, spread to France and then onto Ireland since Irish priests were trained on the continent to avoid persecution while later French priests escaped to Ireland to avoid persecution. From Ireland strains of the virus spread to the New World, including Australia and New Zealand. The Jansenists were opposed to sensuality in all of its manifestations and thus in favour of low liturgy. What Anglicans have often regarded as some of the more peculiar Catholic attitudes to sex can also be found to have a Jansenist pedigree.

Second, the neo-scholasticism which was regnant in the Catholic academies between the late 19^th century and the beginning of the Second Vatican Council was not especially interested in beauty. The neo-scholastics cared a great deal about truth, and thus about getting the doctrine right, or using the right linguistic formulae, but the realm of beauty was hardly on their radar screen at all. Scholars have argued that the scholasticism which developed in the post-Tridentine baroque era was characterised by a number of dualisms, and in particular a tendency to separate spirituality from dogmatic theology which had the effect of fostering a compartmentalisation of the intellectual and affective dimensions of the faith. In its most extreme forms this gave birth to a dry theology dominated by doctrinal formulae (at one extreme) and saccharine devotions (at the other extreme).

Third, since the 1960s there has been the influence of liberation theology. For those who have imbibed the liberation theology cocktail professional choirs and solemn music are associated with a high level of education and being highly educated is associated with wealth and wealth is associated with being part of an oppressive class, and thus, the argument goes, liturgy is a class issue and to be on the side of the poor is to eschew any interest in what might be called ‘high culture’ or ‘good music’.

Fourth, I think that in places like Australia for much of the twentieth century the Catholic Church was dominated by the Irish and the Irish saw gaining admission to the professions as their passport to upward mobility. This meant that the Catholic school curriculum was heavily weighted in favour of subjects like Maths and Science which were the gateways to medicine and engineering and could get a student into law as well. The humanities subjects and extra curricula activities devoted to the development of cultural sensibilities were not given the same emphasis. (This is of course a sociological generalisation for which one could find exceptions, especially in the elite Catholic schools run by the Jesuits and Loreto sisters, but these schools are small in number).

For whatever the sociological reasons I think that Anglicans do have an appreciation of the importance of beauty and an understanding of ritual and that those who join the Ordinariate can bring with them a great liturgical tradition which many Roman-Rite Catholics will find attractive. Aidan Nichols OP calls this particular gift of the Anglican communion ‘a high sacral register of liturgical language’. The Evensong liturgy is perhaps the best example of this particular gift, but there are many others.

Digby Anderson’s second treasure or gift was the ‘moral sensibility associated with a gentlemen’, including ‘the cult of understatement, self-deprecation and general good manners’. By this I don’t think he meant that Anglicans tend to use butter knives even when dining alone. I think he meant something closer to John Henry Newman’s idea of a gentleman. Newman wrote:

He [the gentleman] makes light of favors while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort…From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend…If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds; who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find it.

While there are many Catholics who are real gentlemen by Newman’s definition, I think that Anglicans do tend to be renowned for their highly developed culture of polite disagreement. Whatever the sociological explanations for this, it is a really desirable social trait. Further, I clearly remember my Anglican grandmother telling me that ‘empty vessels make the most sound’ and that I should ‘never blow my own trumpet’. I think this is what Anderson meant about the cult of understatement and self-deprecation and traditional manners. Braggers are bores.

One gift that Digby Anderson did not mention was a Christian understanding of the importance of social hierarchies where social privileges are linked to social duties, and an understanding of the value of a Christian constitutional monarchy. Although it is not an article of the Catholic faith that one must be a monarchist, I suspect that many of you are, and I would like to say that if you do decide to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church you will not be forced to support Collingwood or otherwise become a Fenian.[1] There are plenty of Catholics about who are not Fenians.

The papacy is the oldest functional monarchy in the world and the College of Cardinals the most powerful network of princes.[2] Catholics celebrate the Feast of Christ the King and they have a whole decade of the rosary dedicated to the Coronation of Our Lady as the Queen of Heaven. We know that there is a celestial hierarchy and it is believed that the martyrs will occupy the highest positions after Our Lady because they have shed their blood for Christ.

It would seem that in heaven chivalry counts for something and I think that a high regard for the chivalrous disposition is another element of the Anglican patrimony, perhaps related to the idea of a gentleman. The story of St. George is incomprehensible without chivalry. Chivalry is the opposite of blowing one’s own trumpet. It’s about using one’s social standing to defend the weak and going out on a limb for Christ. The chivalrous disposition is well summarised in the prayer to St. George:

Heroic Catholic soldier and defender of your Faith, you dared to criticize a tyrannical Emperor and were subjected to horrible torture. You could have occupied a high military position but you preferred to die for your Lord. Obtain for us the great grace of heroic Christian courage that should be the mark of soldiers of Christ. Amen.

Thus, so far in our inventory we have the high sacral register of liturgical language, the notion of a gentleman and an appreciation of the meaning of chivalry and an understanding of why there are social hierarchies and how they can be put to the service of God’s people, the members of the royal priesthood. The question now arises however of whether there are specific theological gifts to be brought across from the treasury of the Anglican communion, broadly construed?

Here I would suggest that there is much treasure to be retrieved from the works of the Caroline Divines, the Cambridge Platonists and the metaphysical poets (without of course taking on board every idea to be found among these sources). While the baroque hedgehog was burrowing his way through a thick undergrowth of scholastic maxims the gothic fox was sunning himself in the meadows and musing over whether the countenance divine ever shined forth upon the clouded hills of England. The Anglo-Catholic theologians retained a strong interest in Patristic theology and thus avoided the extremes of baroque-era scholasticism, while their aversion to Calvinism inoculated them against anything like Jansenism. Blessed John Henry Newman was the heir to this heritage and is perhaps the paradigm example of someone who has appropriated its better elements.

Marianne Dorman quotes Dean Church’s statement that the doctrine of the Incarnation meant for the Caroline Divines living in “adoration, self-surrender and blessing, and in awe and joy of welcoming the Presence of the Eternal Beauty, the Eternal Sanctity and the Eternal Love, the Sacrifice and Reconciliation of the world”. Dorman concludes: ‘It was therefore as much a sensuous experience as spiritual, which further separated them [The Caroline Divines] from the Puritans who focused more on Christ as their “Captain”, leading them in the battle against sin and all evil in this world’.

Dorman also observes that the Caroline Divines were interested in the idea of kenosis. This is a theological topic which has featured prominently in recent Catholic theology, especially in the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar. In this context, Dorman quotes the following passage from Mark Frank where he noted that the Logos was:

poorly born; in a stable amongst beasts; poorly wrapped in rags, poorly cradled in a manger, poorly bedded upon a lock of hay, poorly attended by the ox and ass, poorly every way provided for; not a fire to dress him in the depth of winter, only the stream and breath of the beasts to keep him warm; cobwebs for his hangings, the dung of the beasts for his perfumes, noise and lowings, neighing and brayings, for his music; everything as poor about him as want and necessity could make it.

Many other examples could be provided but suffice to say that in the works of the Caroline Divines one finds some of the most beautiful reflections upon Patristic thought to be found in the English language.

Similarly there is much in the verses of the metaphysical poets which could enrich the average religious education lesson, and indeed, to some extent this has already been recognised in the English language office books where poetry from John Donne and George Herbert has been included.

When it comes to the Cambridge Platonists we know that they were fighting materialism and rationalism – two intellectual disorders which continue to be influential today. They were especially opposed to Thomas Hobbes – the chap who said that life is nasty, brutish and short and characterised as a war of all against all. Hobbes also said that reason is to desire, as scouts and spies, to range abroad to find the way to the things desired. In other words, our intellects are not capable of discerning good from evil, all they can do is to make judgments about the most efficient means of satisfying our desires. It is as if human beings are like rats with an intellect sharp enough to work out how to get to the cheese, but not quite up to telling a cheese board from a rat-trap. Anyone with any ammunition to fire against this kind of world-view is worth a hearing. (Again this is not to suggest that one would want to bring everything from this movement, to appropriate every idea or element).

I think it is significant that we currently have a pontiff who has described himself as a ‘decided Augustinian’ and ‘to a certain extent a Platonist’. As everyone knows, beauty was an important concept for both Plato and Augustine. In philosophical parlance beauty is described as a ‘transcendental’, along with goodness, truth and sometimes unity. The Franciscan scholar Benedict Groeschel has argued that human beings tend to have a ‘primary transcendental’.

By this he means that some people have a primary attraction to truth and he lists St. Thomas Aquinas as the prime example here; some people have a primary attraction for goodness and here he gives St. Francis of Assisi as his exemplar; and then there are those types who have a primary attraction to beauty, and here St. Augustine is his best candidate. In order to be holy one should have a deep attraction for all three transcendentals: for truth, beauty and goodness.

Leaving aside those in the league of Augustine, Aquinas and St. Francis, among ordinary mortals there are those who have buckets of natural goodness and find the virtues relatively easy, but they can be a bit mentally challenged and don’t often get the importance of doctrines. Conversely, there are those who are into doctrine but find charity a bit of a challenge, and those like the poet Paul Claudel who had a conversion experience simply by hearing the ton Royale chant in Notre Dame Cathedral. Some can go to banal liturgy week after week without despairing while the Claudel types can literally lose their faith if they hear enough of it.

What is the relevance of this excursion for the Anglican patrimony? I think it is to say that at the moment I suspect we have a pontiff whose primary transcendental is beauty. This is not to say that he doesn’t care about truth and goodness. Indeed, one of his frequent theological messages is that ‘the twin pillars of all realty are love and reason’ and he often cites St. Thomas Aquinas as the great defender of truth and St. Bonaventure as the great theologian of love. Nonetheless his earliest and arguably deepest love was for St. Augustine. The line ‘Next to the saints, the art which the Church has produced is the only real apologia for her history’ sounds as though it could have been penned by Augustine.

I therefore believe that now is a time in the life of the Church when we have a pope who is temperamentally suited to appropriating the Anglican patrimony which in so many ways is strongest on the transcendental of beauty.

It has been observed in numerous blogs and even a few academic journals that both Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury are world-class Augustinian scholars, and on many fronts there are points of convergence and unity between them. The young Joseph Ratzinger almost failed his habilitationsschrift because he refused to bow in the direction of Francisco Suárez – the doyen of baroque scholasticism. I think he would have felt more at home with Lancelot Andrewes. However when it comes to matters like the meaning and purpose of human sexuality and the theological significance of gender differences, Rowan Williams and Benedict XVI are on different planets. Being C of E or just plain C is now something more significant than a juridical difference over the appointment of bishops. There are now differences affecting the very foundations of sacramental theology.

Robert Moynihan, in an editorial for Inside the Vatican had this to say about Benedict XVI:

Benedict is rallying his troops. He is trying to reunite all those factions and denominations and groups in the West that share common beliefs in the eternal destiny of human beings in the sacredness of human life (since human beings are ‘in the image and likeness of God’), in the existence of a moral standard which is true for all times and in all places (against the relativism of modern secular culture), in the need for justice in human affairs, for the rule of right not might. And so he is doing his best, in what seems perhaps to be the ‘twilight of the west’, to build an ark, centred in Rome, to which all those who share those beliefs about human dignity may repair.

For those of you who are tempted to come on board the ark, I hope that you will receive a warm welcome and that you will bring with you a number of intellectual and liturgical gifts and a number of social sensibilities that will make life on the ark a more beautiful and urbane place for all of us.

[1] Collingwood is a reference to a football club.

[2] Note that Cardinal Ratzinger, as he was, emphasized that the papacy is not an absolute monarchy because the decisions of every pope are circumscribed by the Tradition as handed down from the Apostles. Even in a liturgical context Ratzinger argued that a pope cannot do whatever he likes.

(Originally published on the Ordinariate Portal.)

Cardinal Wuerl: The US Ordinariate

2011-06-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: The Full text of his speech has been posted on The Anglo-Catholic.
__________

I'm writing this as it's being announced, so forgive the spottiness.

Cardinal Wuerl gave the background about the implentation of Anglicanorum coetibus here in the United States, and then described what the Ordinariate is and the immense interest, as well as that all profiles interested in joining were submitted to Rome (CDF). They said that a reasonable number of people and parishes assessed justified the establishment of an Ordinariate in the United States.

The local Roman Catholic bishops gave a report of the Anglican groups within their jurisdictions of what they knew about these groups.

The petitioning Anglican clergy are to be placed in one of three categories 1) Those who are elligible for "intense formation period" (relatively quickly - 9 month period - concentrating on areas of historic divergence - like in UK), 2) Those who require "sustained period of formation", 3) Those whose histories did not fit in either category. There already is a program of formation approved by the Holy See.

The leadership of St Mary's seminary in Galveston-Houston will assist in this formation. Fr Jeffrey Steenson helped designed this special program. It will provide either on-site or distance learning.

The clergy dossiers will be sent soon to get approved by the CDF, then if approved, clergy will be evaluated psychologically, have background checks, and then have to resign from their Anglican jurisdictions in preparation for entering into the Catholic Church.

The parish catechesis will be performed by the Anglican pastors in conjunction with Catholic clergy to assist.

The Ordinary is not yet named.

Diaconal ordinations will occur once the candidate is approved and resigned from his Anglican jurisdiction, and will be ordained a priest when the parish/group will be received.

He encouraged the Bishops to help as much as possible to facilitate a speedy and generous welcome.

The Pastoral Provision and the Ordinariate are two distinct processes.

The Holy See wants to establish the Ordinariate by this fall.

There will be a written statement of intention and a profession of faith for all those who will enter the Ordinariate.

The second generation of priests will be expected to be normatively celibate, though on an ad hoc basis there will be exceptions.

News of US Ordinariate?

2011-06-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

There's going to be an announcement today about the Personal Ordinariate here in America. I hope it's substantial news! It will be released sometime today at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops today by His Eminence, Donald Cardinal Wuel. Watch it live here or follow on Twitter here.

Photos from Bl. John Henry Newman Society

2011-06-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

Some of the first photos are in from our founding service a couple of weeks ago in Orange County. Blessed John Henry Newman Society is a brand new Anglican Use society in Orange County, California that is composed of current and former Anglicans heading into the forthcoming Ordinariate. We currently meet every Sunday evening in Placentia, so please come join us if you live in the area.

Here are more of the photos from that evening. Please keep us in your prayers in these beginning days.

Fr Rutler on Pentecost

2011-06-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

Today all that our Lord had planned by his Incarnation, Death, Resurrection and Ascension is fulfilled when He fills the Church with the Holy Spirit. Life cannot be seen, and it is known only by being lived. Thus, the life of the Church, lived through our own lives, makes Pentecost an ageless presence. We do not look back on the day when the Holy Spirit was given, for that day is an “endless now.” The Church enables us to enter eternity in time, most immediately in the Holy Eucharist, for eternity is not so much "timelessness" – which term we use in time to define what is beyond time – as it is awareness of God. “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ” (John 17:3).

Last Sunday the largest number of children in the history of our parish made their First Communion with Our Lord. They are very young, but in that moment they became 2,000 years old and, more accurately, they entered heaven on earth. Today, one of our liveliest parishioners, Margaret Bradshaw, celebrates her 106th birthday, with vivid memories of her First Communion nearly a century ago as one of the first beneficiaries of the decision of Pope St. Pius X to extend Communion to children. She gets younger with each Communion.

All this is the measureless gift that Christ gives us by letting us share in the bond of love between Him and His Father. "Pour out your Spirit" we pray on Pentecost, but only because the Holy Spirit has already moved us to want Him. A fourth-century inscription on the gravestone of a Christian in Asia Minor expresses the hope of all who have received the Holy Spirit: “Here sleeps the blessed Chione who has found Jerusalem, for she prayed much.”

Pope Benedict XVI is the ninth pope in the lifetime of Margaret Bradshaw. Remembering his own First Communion in 1936, the Pope recently told a child: “I understood that Jesus had entered my heart, He had actually visited me. And with Jesus, God Himself was with me. And I realized that this is a gift of love that is truly worth more than all the other things that life can give.”

May the Holy Spirit on Pentecost enliven us to pray as John Donne did:

“Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion, world without end. Amen.”

Solemn Evensong & Benediction

2011-06-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

Presto Chango

2011-06-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

So this week is the annual Anglo-Catholic "bootcamp", St Michael's Conference Southwest in the Episcopal (ACNA/Southern Cone) Diocese of Ft. Worth. I was a counselor at it before I went off to seminary, so it's dear to me. Here is a photo of the altar in the chapel at Camp Crucis which is used for Holy Mass when I was there:

And here is what the St. Mike's leaders have done to it for this week (before having to change it back when they leave):

Now that's Anglican patrimony!

St. Luke's, Bladensburg

2011-06-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

Today, June 6, St. Luke's in Bladensburg is now a part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. They were a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, the separation has been amicable, Bishop Chane has been most charitable, and they will lease their current property for a period of 3 years with an option to purchase.

All the information available at this time can be found at:

http://www.stlukesparish-bladensburg.org/index.html

Update: US Episcopal parish to join Catholic Church

Monthly Prayer Cycle: June 2011

2011-06-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

Here is this month's Prayer Cycle for parishes preparting to enter the Ordinariate here in the United States.

Click here to download.

Again, email any corrections or additions to: fatherbartus [at] stmaryoftheangels [dot] com

Shrine Dedication

2011-05-28T21:58:00.001-07:00

The new shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, discussed earlier, was dedicated today and The Anglo-Catholic has the story.

The Bond Responses

2011-05-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of cooperating among the Ordinariates, one musically keen individual from Our Lady of Walsingham Ordinariate just sent me this new setting to be used for Evensong. This just in from the UK:

Dear Fr Andrew,
I don't know whether this setting for Evensong has reached you yet in Hollywood? It's the work of a couple of choral scholars from Sheffield. Some of the melodies are likely to be quite familiar...
Good wishes -
X

The Collect for Peace

O God from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed: Give unto thine agents that Walther PP7 which MI6 cannot give; that both our bullets may be set to obey our aim, and also that by thee, we being defended from the fear of Blofeld may sip our martinis in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

The Collect for Aid

Lighten our darkness we beseech thee O Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this mission; for the love of thy only Son our Lord our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Blessed John Henry Newman Society

2011-05-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

Of your charity, please pray for our new Anglican Use Society in Orange County, California, now so named, Blessed John Henry Newman Society. This is a community of about thirty people so far - seventeen of which will be entering the Ordinariate when it is erected here in the United States, and others who will be coming in at a later time or regularly worshipping with us. This is a new congregation in formation, which will, Lord willing and the world doesn't end on October 21, form into a parish of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Catholic Church.

We will have our first meeting this Sunday evening at 6:00 PM, with Evensong, a Marian procession and intercessions commemorating Mary's Month (squeezing it in just in time!), and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Afterward, we will have refreshments - if not a proper bun fight ala Fr Barnes! - and I'll give a brief outline of where we are headed as a group in the next couple of months, and our organist/choir master will do the same for her vision of the music.

This project started off rather accidentally; a request from someone to get a support group going for former Anglicans in Orange County has now turned into a full-on movement to build a parish from scratch! This is very much a trial-by-fire thing, where I am learning as I go, but have found it very rewarding. There is a good group of very devoted and passionate people there who are dependable, committed, and excited about this. Many of them have prayed for something like this for years, it turns out! Everyone is giving it their all, which is why it's working. God's grace and providence over this whole endeavor clarifies that this is indeed what he is directing. What this will look like in a year's time no one knows, but considering the folks involved, I imagine the best possible outcome will occur. Hopefully, sometime in the not too distant future, we will be a growing parish of the Anglican Ordinariate called, Blessed (or Saint!) John Henry Newman Catholic Church!

Please pray for us as our first meeting is this Sunday, and we will begin to meet weekly on the Sunday evenings following, until the erection of the Ordinariate and the reception of everyone into the Church occurs. When the time comes when we can be self-sustaining - and who knows when that will be! - we will petition to become a proper parish of the Ordinariate. I don't doubt God's hand in this, because it's one of those projects where amazingly all of the right doors have opened at just the right time, and often completely unexpectedly, or if prayed about, the answer given greatly exceeded our requests! I'm really at a loss for words about how to properly describe it all so far, but alas, I must, as I have a homily to prepare for our first Evensong this Sunday!

Blessed John Henry Newman, ora pro nobis!