Tag: Anglican Church

Vincent Nichols says there’s positive Anglican-Catholic cooperation

VNichols on Anglicans.jpgIncreased attention is growing in the days that lead up to the anticipated creation of an Anglican Ordinariate in England. It’s hoped that the Ordinariate will be announced in early 2011. As you are aware, following the beatification of John Henry Newman 5 Anglican bishops declared that they’re resigning their positions in the Church of England in favor of entering into full communion with the Church of Rome. Andrew Burnham one of the bishops seeking communion with Rome set aside his mitre and crosier at the Mary altar, saying: “It is because it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, abiding in his Church, that I believe I must accept it and invite others to come with me on the journey.”

Continue reading Vincent Nichols says there’s positive Anglican-Catholic cooperation

Queen Elizabeth II’s address to the 9th General Synod of the Church of England: face the challenges or else…

It’s funny for Catholics to hear of the Queen being the head of the Church of England. But she is. Anglican way of doing things is foreign to my experience and so I am intrigued by what I read and hear about the CofE. She gently reminds the bishops and assembled laity that there are crucial challenges to face and exhorts them to heed Saint Paul. The Queen also dares to mention the recent visit of Pope Benedict to England in that protestant hall. As a point of contrast, read through the following address Her Majesty gave today to her ecclesial body: there’s a distinct difference in content and style between what is said by the Queen and how the Pope would say things. We need to pray that the Queen and her family come home to the bosom of Mother Church.

Queen attends 9th Synod.jpg

Your Graces, The
Convocations of Canterbury and York, duly called together in obedience to Our
Royal Writs, are on this day joined together in accordance with the Synodical
Government Measure 1969 and the House of Laity is added to them in accordance
with that Measure, so as to constitute the ninth General Synod of the Church of
England.

Those who serve the Church of England in its public ministry are
required to affirm their loyalty to its inheritance of faith as their
inspiration and guidance under God. They also declare their commitment to
bringing the grace and truth of Christ and making him known to those in their
care.

The opening of a new Synod is a moment when we can all give thanks for
the witness of those who have gone before, and pray for wisdom as you seek to
balance change and continuity in the decisions that lie ahead of you.

Next year
will see two important anniversaries. It will be four hundred years since the
publication of the Authorised Version of the Bible commissioned by King James,
and two hundred years since the foundation of the National Society for
Promoting Religious Education. Both developments had a lasting impact on the
life of the Church and the nation.


Continue reading Queen Elizabeth II’s address to the 9th General Synod of the Church of England: face the challenges or else…

UK Bishops speak on new Anglican Ordinariate

The events in Rome these past days have distracted some from mentioning the Bishops of England and Wales’ statement on the apostolic constitution of November 4, 2009, “Anglicanorum coetibus.” To date, this is the clearest statement of the UK Bishops’ intention to positively respond to the Pope’s generous gesture of working with Anglicans who themselves desire to respond more generously to Christ’s call to discipleship and mission.

A few points from the statement:
1. “Anglicanorum coetibus” is a response of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict, to the repeated and insistent requests of Anglicans requesting to be in full communion with the Catholic Church while retaining some of the Anglican patrimony;
2. In conjunction with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the UK Conference of Bishops, an ecclesial circumscription called an Ordinariate in early January 2011 will be established in Great Britain;
3. In resigning their office in the Anglican Communion on December 31, 2010, the 5 bishops will be received into the Church, and prior to Lent will be ordained to the Order of Deacon and then to the Holy Priesthood so as to assist in the services of Holy Week when other Anglicans will be received into the Church after a period of preparation;
4. At Pentecost those Anglican ministers who petitioned to be ordained Catholic priests will be ordained.
The full statement is noted here: UK Bishops statement on Anglican Ordinariate.pdf

Benedict and Rowan

Benedcit with Rowan Nov 18 2010.jpg
The Archbishop of Canterbury visits Pope Benedict XVI today.

Williams and Dias.jpg

His Grace’s meeting with His Holiness was previously scheduled to but certainly follows the extraordinary announcement of the 5 Anglican bishops desire for entering into full communion with the Church of Rome. Ostensibly Williams was in Rome to participate in the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity but exact details of the discussion with the Pope are not public (yet?).

The Vatican Radio report carries more information.

Possible parishes in a proposed Ordinariate for Anglicans in the US & Canada

maps logo.jpgYou gotta love Google Maps … proposed parishes of the Anglican Ordinariate

Shane Schaetzel put together a map of proposed parishes that may be in a ecclesiastical jurisdiction for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. A lot of work went into developing this fine resource and we’re grateful.

5 “distressed” bishops moving to full communion with Rome

The Boston Globe ran a story today, “UK Catholics say 5 Anglican bishops converting,” emphasing these 5 as disaffected, distressed, defectors for political reasons: homosexually inclined and female clergy. It could be, however, that these 5 desire to follow Christ in the true Church he founded, and the bishops acknowledge this fact. Of course, one never knows what the exact back story really is because the information is filtered through many layers before the print media goes to print. The statement of the five bishops can be read here and if you are interested in the Forward in Faith groups, see their website.

The bishops, and for any baptized Christian “moving” to become Catholic are said to be coming into full communion with the Catholic Church. They are not converting. This point is made briefly in the article but it seems to obscured by the author because of the particular situation. The Anglicans are Christian; they have converted to Christ; they pray the Lord’s Prayer; Anglicans have a spiritual life. What they are doing by becoming Catholic is following the promptings of the Holy Spirit to live in the truth of unity with the Bishop of Rome.
The 5 Anglican bishops are: Bishops Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton, John Broadhurst, Edwin Barnes and David Silk.
My hope is that the 5 bishops “pope” but that they do so for the right reason and not because of they truly are disgruntled with Anglicanism. Rome doesn’t need more disgruntled Catholics. Are they following Christ and the guided companionship of the Church or their own moral compass?

Wuerl named delegate for Anglicans entering full communion with the Catholic Church by CDF

Donald Wuerl.jpgThe Archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, STD, 70, has been delegated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to be the principal guide for those Anglican/Episcopalian clergyman seeking full communion with the Catholic Church, and ordination as a priest.

The USCCB announcement is posted here.

The committee headed by Archbishop Wuerl will include their Excellencies, The Most Reverends Kevin Vann, JCD (Fort Worth, TX) and Robert McManus, STD (Worcester, MA). They will be assisted by Father Scott Hurd, himself a convert to Catholicism. The committee will facilitate the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus in the USA and assess the need for an ordinariate in the USA.

The Pope’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus can be read here.

Responding to an Episcopal priest on giving communion to a dog

The other day I made a post on this blog about a Canadian
woman priest giving Communion to a dog. A reader of the Communio blog, Lydia
wrote to me saying:

I am a priest in the Episcopal Church in the US.
The Anglican Communion does not have priestesses. I am sure that you know
that. Perhaps you are just being sarcastic.

Personally, I would rather have my
Church known for giving communion to a dog than for the fact that many of my
priests molested children, in countries all over the world, and that
my Bishops did all that they could to ignore complaints about the abuse,
to hide the problem, and to protect the offending clergy.

My response to Lydia

The dictionary defines a priestess as a female priest. It’s a perfectly good
English word; in fact, the Anglican C.S. Lewis wrote an essay called, “Priestesses
in the Church.” If the word “priestess” has a strangely non-Christian
sound, perhaps that is because in churches that claim apostolic succession,
there is no precedent for female priests. As Lewis pointed out, there have been
many religions with female priests (priestesses), but these religions are very
different from Christianity as it has been known for 20 centuries.

In any case,
the word “deaconess” is not considered offensive, so why should
“priestess” be so considered? If masculine imagery for divine transcendence
needs to be balanced by feminine imagery of divine immanence, why not say that
priest and priestess together represent the divine more fully, like Yin and
Yang? My impression is that many modern Anglicans (including women
clergypersons) think on those lines. So why fight about the sound of a word
when its substantive meaning is considered OK?

As for the Catholic Church being
“known for” molestation of children and minors: well, the Anglican
Church in Canada and Australia has been racked by similar problems, particularly
in residential schools, with some dioceses being nearly bankrupted. I am saddened
by the Anglicans’ troubles since the attacks on their schools is an indirect
form of anti-Christian persecution at the hands of a hostile state. As such,
this abuse hysteria threatens us all because it is premised on the assumption
that the sins of a few abusive clergy should be avenged on the entire Body of
Christ. In the case of any other group besides the clergy, this would be
considered unjust prejudice and overreaction.

Statistically speaking, Catholic
priests are no more likely to molest than ministers of other religions; it’s
just that we are a much larger church and that our dioceses are legally set up
as a corporation sole, thus inviting crippling lawsuits and lots of bad
publicity. That said, I do agree that we Catholics are not in a position to
cast any stones on the sexual abuse issue. And so this blog has not done so.

Gross
liturgical abuses and irreverence are a different sort of issue. These
liturgical-sacramental aberrations are public acts done in an official
capacity, not secret sins or obvious crimes. And, in fact, I do emphatically
criticize and abhor similar liturgical abuses among Catholics and wish that
more Catholic parishes had the reverence and decorum to be found in many
high-church Episcopal parishes. It’s not a matter of either side of the
Reformation divide being free of sin or failure: it’s just that without an
authoritative center of communion and teaching and practice, Anglicanism can’t
easily set any parameters for legitimate diversity within itself. And
Archbishop Williams himself would sadly admit that that is unfortunately the
case.

Church of Canada priestess gives communion to a dog

communion distribution.jpgAND you wonder why fewer and fewer people take the Anglican Church (or the Episcopal Church if you are American) with a degree of seriousness. Recently a Church of Canada priestess gave communion to a German Shepherd as a “simple church act of reaching out.” What a gesture of welcome! This act is not only contravening “church policy” as much as it is an acknowledgement that the real Presence of Christ is not a Reality for these people. Policy is has nothing to do with it, does it? But if the Anglicans of the Church of Canada simply believe Communion is a symbol or that it represents something else…. Sounds like Joseph Campbell, Derida and many Protestant theologians (e.g. Borg, Tillich and Bultmann) are patron saints of mere symbol and not of Jesus Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity.

What comes to mind is Flannery O’Connor’s famous insight when she said to hell with a symbol. O’Connor said:

“I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater…. She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual…. Toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, “Well if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”