October 28th - Holy Apostles Simon and Jude - The Order of Corporate Reunion

The recent events bring our minds to consider earlier attempts, in the late nineteenth century, to bring the Anglican Church or parts of it into communion with Rome. Failure to convince the Roman authorities at the time usually resulted in attempts to construct "pro-Catholic" ecclesial entities with bishops and priests, and this was one of the main origins of the phenomenon of episcopi vagantes.

Shortly after the first Vatican Council, there was a number of men with this passion of Church unity and the reconciliation of the Anglican soul with the Roman Catholic Church. The movement grew with the relatively laid-back attitude of Leo XII between 1878 and 1903. The men feverishly working at that time to reconcile Anglicanism with the Catholic Church were often souls of vision rather than the scurrilous people who later rode piggyback on the original aspirations and looked for their own mitres and grandiose titles. Anyway, I will not attempt to identify the charlatans or give any comment on the currently existing organisation calling itself the Order of Corporate Reunion, except to say that its current leading bishop is or has been associated with Archbishop Milingo.

There is a lovely article in Bishop Chislett's blog - John Henry Newman on "groups" being reunited with Rome. It is interesting to see the motivation of some for wanting to leave the Anglican Church at the time, other than being being attracted to Catholicism (the liturgy, popular religion and miracles, the intellectual coherence of Catholic doctrine, etc.). It was essentially the spectre of secularism, then as now. The Church was being drained of its spiritual vocation and being made into a kind of "moral police force".

My subject for this little entry is the Order of Corporate Reunion as founded by Frederick George Lee (1832-1902), Thomas Mossman (1826-1889) and Joseph Seccombe (1835-1895) in London in 1874. The fullest source of information I find is by the independent bishop Bertil Persson - who seems a scholarly and honest fellow. One of the strongest intellectual driving forces behind the aspiration was Ambrose Phillipps De Lisle (1809-1879) who converted in 1824, and corresponded with John Henry Newman.

The original matters proposed to the Vatican were the recognition of Anglican orders, a married clergy, communion in both kinds for the laity; and the liturgy in the vernacular. These were seen as four points on which the Old Catholic bishop Arnold Harris Mathew would base his pro-uniate project.

The story goes that that they were establishing fairly "exotic" ecclesial contacts with oriental bishops and churches, the results being men like Ferrette and René Vilatte. We are told those founding members of the Order of Corporate Reunion were secretly consecrated to the episcopate on a boat off the coast of Italy by Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox prelates. I find this difficult to believe, as with many other stories told by men seeking to draw attention to themselves. I suppose the idea was to get around the prevailing conviction in the Roman Catholic Church (before Apostolicae Curae) that Anglican orders were invalid and needed to be "validated" by "re-doing" the Anglican hierarchy in secret. This ecclesiastical underworld is one where many lies are told and false documents abound!

I have the impression this order simply became a kind of repository of valid orders and lists of lineages, men who would collect "lines of succession" almost as a hobby. But, at the origin, there was a burning aspiration and vision that is today being realised by Pope Benedict XVI. The Order died as its founders disappeared. An attempt has been made to revive it, and this new entity does not concern or interest me. I am sure that much pain and disappointment, as well as the scandal of "wandering" bishops, could have been avoided if the events we see today could have already been a reality in the late nineteenth century.

Further reading:

I might take up those four proposals that seemed so far-reaching in those days and compare them with what we have today:

 

It's not just the Anglicans, but a whole new future for the Church!

Cardinal Cañizares on the Supreme Importance of the Liturgy. Interview with the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera.

A prediction on the new Anglican-Catholicism

This is another prediction from my Canadian correspondent, who was remarkably accurate about what was announced by Cardinal Levada. Again, take it with a pinch of salt. I do not endorse or judge the language he sometimes uses in regard to certain categories of people and sexual preferences. I simply reproduce the ideas he has written as a comment on a Catholic blog.

Well, we got more than what we asked for, it's going to be tough for us all, even though this time we are not being asked to negate and deny our Anglican soul. Some of us have been tent-maker priests on the front lines, ostracised as being little better than "vagantes", and we have nothing to lose. This is my case.

Others, like Bishop Broadhurst, are official English Bishops, but are aware of their mortality and what is really important - and what is important is not their careers but the Church and the Faith. We will have to build and finance our own churches, possibly getting a "slot" on Sunday morning in a Catholic parish church between two Novus Ordo celebrations. We won't have the choirs and organs we had in the Church of England, only what we can build up from voluntary talent.

I have no illusion about being a stipendiary priest, and am certain I will be going on as a professional translator and keeping money coming into our household as my wife sets up her little catering business in Yvetot as she wants to do. I may get the odd Mass intention from sympathetic Catholic folk here in France, and perhaps a stipend or two for doing funerals in the local parish. I am very unromantic about it all. Years of living in the "desert" took away the rosy spectacled dreams of romantic medievalism! Our Anglican soul is something much deeper than that.

What all this means, at least from my isolated point of view in continental Europe, is union with the Universal Church, a universal dimension to our Anglican roots and culture. I have said numerous times that Anglicanism and pre-Vatican II French Catholicism have much in common, and I have felt more at home with French Roman Catholicism than English Roman Catholicism, at least the version that survived before it was politicised for and against the Nazi occupation of France during the last war and aligned with Marxism in the 1960's and 70's. The French Church is in one heck of a state, to the extent that Pope John Paul II asked this country what it had done with its Baptism (that of King Clovis). Celebrating the Use of Sarum in private is little different from the old Uses of Bayeux and Rouen, and living in Normandy is in many ways a return to roots. The Sarum sanctoral last Friday celebrated Saint Romanus, Archbishop of Rouen. I reside in the territory of the Rouen Archdiocese - French Sarum. Saint Osmund came from Rouen before taking the Norman traditions to England in the 11th century, if I remember rightly from reading his life many years ago. I keep the memory of old Fr. Quintin Montgomery Wright (erstwhile parish priest of Le Chamblac in the Diocese of Evreux until his death in 1996) fresh in my mind, and our aspirations were about the same. He came to France in the late 1940's - to find "pre-reformation England". I knew him in the early 1980's. When he was ordained in Bayeux Cathedral in 1952, itr was easier to be an Anglican-Catholic in France than in England at the same time! It is that thought that kept me here in France and more specifically in Normandy. And I'm still here!

I anticipate that if the Church allows me to serve as a priest, I will always have little in the way of specifically Anglican ministry, a few weddings and funerals and one-off attendances at Mass and Office by English travellers, tourists and those who live far from us. There is so much to do in France outside the intégriste circles. The Faith is nearly dead here, and the task ahead – once the liberals in the parishes no longer have any influence – will be gigantic. It looks to me, depending on what response I might find from the Archbishop of Rouen and our local parish priest, as though I may be in effect in the service of the diocese and local parishes as a married Latin rite priest. The mind boggles, and the prospect of revisiting my parochial experience of the early 1990's in the Burgundy area is quite frightening.

Step by step. At present, I wait to discuss all these things with my Archbishop and to know what is going to happen to him. I do not presume to come to this thy table, but thou art the same Lord, whose property is to have mercy... It is all there. We wait and have faith that the merciful Lord will inspire His Pope and clergy with the same love and mercy, and above all to send us out on Christ's mission to evangelise the whole world and baptise in the name of the Trinity.

What I think it all boils down to is that Cardinal Levada did not mention the TAC by name in his announcement. That was clever, leaving the way open to all Anglicans willing to express unreserved assent to the Catholic faith. The way was left open to gauge the reaction of the Anglican Communion, the Church of England, Forward in Faith and various societies of Anglo-Catholic clergy. Much of the euphoric support of the first minute will certainly vanish like the morning mist, leaving the TAC and Anglicans who really understand the implications of the Benedict XVI pontificate. I would not be surprised if we in the TAC and a few hundred English clergy are the only ones to take up the Pope's offer and go through with it. We will be of much less interest for the secular press spin doctors when it all actually happens with our formal receptions, reconciliations, conditional ordinations, canonical incardinations, etc., perhaps early in 2010. In any case, all eyes are now on the dialogue between the SSPX and Rome - leaving us extra-mural Anglicans in peace!

For the professional ecumenists, it will be back to business as usual with the chit-chat, but the Pope as a good Pastor will have done his duty. The cold-water hoses remain rolled up on their reels!

 

October 27th - Vigil of the holy Apostles Simon and Jude - Emergency meeting of C of E Bishops!

Waiter, there's a fly in my soup! Lambeth Palace's great fear: the loss of a diocesan bishop and his best priests. We might have the Bishop of Chichester (who's breeches stir?) the Rt Revd John Hind coming aboard at some stage. My goodness! How the rabbits want to get into the poacher's swag bag!

Who knows? Could my future Ordinary be just across the water, the direction I always look when I launch my boat from the Normandy beach, grab the tiller, push the centreboard down and haul in my sail on a stiff westerly breeze?

 

Is Benedict building an Ark?

By Deborah Gyapong. "If one looks at these meetings in the context of recent events, the essential point is this: Benedict XVI, though now 82, is moving on many different fronts with great energy in a completely unexpected way, given his reputation as a man of thought, not of action".

Until now, we have been griping because he seemed to be too prudent, too slow, too shilly-shallying. We were all wrong. I wouldn't exchange the time we are living in for any other in the world. We are witnessing the realisation of Newman's dream, that of the old Order of Corporate Reunion, Arnold Harris Mathew, George Tyrrell and so many others who died in their disappointment. Some wanted to hose us down with cold water and send us the same way - but Peter decided otherwise.

John Paul II concentrated his pontificate on the virtue of Charity and love, and this Pope has given us hope and Bread for our spiritual starvation. This one act of Pope Benedict XVI brought me to think of the words of Jesus in Luke, chapter 4:

 

Alarmist Reporting

ROME: Anglican Reunion will Create "Huge Cultural Shift" to the Extreme Left in Anglican Church has appeared in Virtue Online. The artcle is take from here.

We seem to have the opinion of a Dominican priest by the name of Philip Powell. He rebuts the journalistic spin saying that the favourable decision of the Pope in our regard not an opportunistic grab for numbers by the Vatican preying upon the Anglican Churches. The decision is purely a matter of pastoral concern and a provision for people in real spiritual "distress." There he has got it right.

Whether there would be a shift of balance in the groups of those remaining in the Anglican Communion or the Continuers who won't be following remains to be seen. The huge majority of the TAC faithful reside in India, Africa, the Torres Strait and other far-flung parts of the earth. The percentage represented in the western world, even in the USA and Canada, remains marginal. We could be getting a good number of English Anglo-Papalists, but will that shift the balance.

As I see things, the biggest majority in the conservative and "right-wing" tendencies in world Anglicanism is that of the Evangelicals, and I hardly imagine they would be prepared to wipe out the Reformation and profess the Catholic Faith as our Bishops have done! Those people have formed GAFCON, the Southern Cone and the Anglican Church in North America. The Anglo Catholics belonging to those bodies are likely to be strict 1928 American Prayer Book men and "classical" Anglicans, and would be unlikely to be interested in the Pope's offer (offer made to Anglicans who explicitly and voluntarily asked for it).

I see the spin doctors trying to replicate the idea of the old English caricature of Pius IX using a big wooden wedge to force the door of Protestant England open, presumably so that he could get his Jesuit plotters in place to overthrow the heretics! Old myths and prejudices die hard. They say the Pope is poaching. If this is the case, it is the rabbits that are asking to get into the game bags!

Will the Anglican Communion become more liberal or "progressist" and perhaps start ordaining doorknobs or consecrating cows? I doubt, in the long run, that the Pope's decision will have any effect in that direction.

Perhaps, Pope Benedict XVI is now doing for the Church what John Paul II did for the Eastern Bloc countries under Communist domination twenty years ago - bringing in glasnost and perestroïka! Certainly the "balance of power" is going to shift. The Church will survive by returning to holy Tradition and the truth of Christ's Gospel, and the secularists will no longer find churches as credible platforms for their ideology. But, all that is in the longer run - once the Orthodox and the traditionalist Roman Catholics of the SSPX will be onboard.

 

Could I serve the mainstream Catholic Church as an Anglican-Catholic priest?

We have this interesting conjecture from a traditionalist Catholic layman who has studied canon law.

Take this one with a pinch of salt until the Apostolic Constitution comes out. If this tentative answer corresponds with reality, I could offer my services as a married Latin rite priest, incardinated in an Anglican-Catholic Personal Ordinariate, to the Archbishop of Rouen. The question is quite mind-boggling. I would not like to be a parish priest in conditions that oblige a priest to divide himself between fifteen to thirty village churches and pastoral sectors that are frequently under the influence of ideologically motivated cliques of laity. The priest must be free to exercise a ministry according to his conscience, which does not exclude the principles of consulting the laity, synodality, co-responsibility and subsidiarity.

As I have very little ministry to English Anglicans in France, perhaps I might be called upon to offer the extraordinary use of the Roman rite to Catholics who want it and who would accept a married priest. I know the ceremonies and the Latin language well enough to do it properly. Would I celebrate the Novus Ordo in a parish? For the pastoral good of the faithful, I would (with permission from my Ordinary), but in the same way as the Forward in Faith priests do so in England, in the Benedictine way, eastward facing (or at least with the altar cross in the centre) and without abuses. As is the Pope's vision, the reform of the reform is a slow and pastoral process. They have bent over backwards to help us, and we in Catholic countries should do so for them. They lack priests, especially in this country, and I have suffered so long from the frustration of not being able to come to the help of Sacrament-starved Catholics and those who are all too often fed on half-baked 1970's ideologies and not the life-giving Gospel. I also take into account the fact that more and more new priests are "Ratzinguerians" and see things the way we do.

I want to be positive and optimistic, and I have reason to hope!

Christ calls us all to His vineyard!

 

A Bishop's very balanced statement about Anglican Orders

The Bishop of Chicester, the Rt Revd John Hind, was asked for his position about the Papal condemnation of Anglican orders (Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae of 1896). He responded by saying that: "in the event of union with the Roman Catholic Church I would be willing to receive re-ordination into the Roman Catholic priesthood but that I would not be willing to deny the priesthood I have exercised hitherto".

This is important for Anglicans, especially those who are or have been parish priests serving the laity by administering the Sacraments and celebrating the Eucharist. One thing to say is that the papal bull might have has some relevance for its time (1896), though it was expertly refuted by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in Saepius Officio. It is not insignificant that some extreme Roman Catholic traditionalists use the condemnation of Anglican orders to judge the ordination rites promulgated by Paul VI in 1968 to be invalid (the sacramental formula for Episcopal consecration is entirely new unlike that for priestly ordination).

I have a very interesting book by the Jesuit priest John Jay Hughes - Absolutely Null and Utterly Void, London (Sheed & Ward) 1968. Fr. Hughes researched the whole historical context of the 1890's, which indeed were heady days for the Anglican reunion movement. The general opinion in the Papal theological commission was in favour of Anglican Orders. The negative decision came not from theological reasons, but from ecclesio-political considerations and above all from the "integralist" Cardinal Merry del Val who went on to be Pius X's Secretary of State. In Fr. Hughes' conclusion, we find these words:

Could it be that the coming Apostolic Constitution of Benedict XVI may take modern theological developments into consideration in a revision of the previous magisterium - which in this case is not properly a matter of dogma or moral teaching? It is certain that the question of Anglican Orders will be discussed in order to arrive at a pastoral solution for the concrete problem we have presented to the Pope. It is understandable that the institutional Church should entertain doubts about the validity of Sacraments it did not itself confer. It is significant that we Anglicans would be prepared to receive conditional * ordination from a Catholic bishop, if this is required of us in actual fact, because we asked the Pope and the Vatican authorities for corporate reunion. Perhaps one lesson the Holy Father can teach his clergy and laity is the fact that we Anglicans are Christians with our past and culture, no less legitimate or a part of us than the Orientals who have become Catholics in the past. It has been for us a learning curve. He may also find a way to show that we are not "evil men, 'fallen priests' bent on the destruction of the church which had ordained them and of the faith she had taught them", but hiers of a Christian community with the praise of God and the salvation of mankind at heart.

There is another question to consider that was not "covered" by Leo XIII and his theologians, that of individual cases among the clergy that the Church authority might want to take into consideration: the influx of Old Catholic and Polish National Catholic lines of succession and individual priests having received orders from other bishops considered to be valid prior to joining the TAC or another Anglican jurisdiction. For our part, we are all convinced of the validity of our Orders and would be unwilling to "admit" to having been a fraud or shenanigan (even in good faith or invincible ignorance). This course was adopted by Cardinal Basil Hume in regard to Bishop Graham Leonard who was able to demonstrate the presence of Old Catholic lines of succession in his priestly and episcopal "pedigree". Conditional ordination was given.

It is obvious to us that the authority of the Catholic Church has the right to be sure of the validity of all its ordained clergy, and that asking us to accept conditional ordination for this reason is legitimate. This does not force us into a violation of conscience, and admits the possibility, known only to God, that our ministry hitherto may have been valid, and that we are bringing something with us.

In like manner, in our request to be admitted into communion with Rome, our Bishops were insistant on the fact that we are not denying or giving up our Anglican soul and culture. This characteristic is not easy to define as distinct from contemporary mainstream Roman Catholicism, but is similar to the neo-patristic theological and spiritual movements of the mid twentieth century (the primacy of the liturgy, greater intellectual freedom, a sharing of authority in the Church between the clergy and the laity, etc.).

We find suggestions by some Roman Catholics - that we are insincere, heretics masquerading as orthodox Catholics, perhaps even enemies of the Church trying to infiltrate and corrupt - extremely offensive and the main reason for the intense suffering of some Anglicans who have been enticed to make an individual submission to the Catholic Church in the past. Indeed, the Pope has made a pastoral response to a humble request from some Anglicans. This warms the heart and encourages us in our pilgrimage.

* Reminder of Catholic teaching concerning the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Order

Three of the seven Sacraments confer a spiritual character, and may not be repeated, for example in the case of an Orthodox Christian becoming a Roman Catholic. The Sacrament of Order, divided into the diaconate, the priesthood and the episcopate, when conferred with the proper form, matter, and intention, confer an indelible character or "seal" upon the recipient’s soul. It is a permanent mark, which, as a gift given by Christ for service to the Church, cannot be revoked. Validly and licitly conferred, once a deacon, priest or bishop, one is always such, irrespective of whether one is active in a public ministry, or not. A retired or a deposed priest, is still a priest, and still has the sacramental gifts given by God, to carry out the ministry of the sacramental priesthood. The only difference is that he is deprived of the right to do so. Once validly conferred, these Sacraments cannot be repeated. They do not depend upon the holiness of the one conferring the orders, nor the one receiving the orders. The Sacraments are of the Church and are more "robust" than many imagine. To invalidate a Sacrament (because of some evil intention), it would be necessary to alter the rite to such an extent as it clearly manifests the minister's perverse intention, for example, to perpetrate a practical joke or mockery of the Church. An example of such mockery would be priest in the street walking past a baker's shop and a wine merchant and reciting the words of consecration as recited at Mass. The very context betrays a lack of an intention to celebrate the Eucharist as the Church celebrates it.

Sub conditione ordination is explained thus: The situation usually concerns a Christian individual converting from one Church or Christian ecclesial community to another. Does that person need to be re-baptised, re-confirmed and re-ordained if he is a priest or a former minister wishing to become a priest? In the case of someone coming from - for example - the Methodists or Baptists, that person will usually be recognised as validly baptised. He has only to make a profession of faith, make his confession and receive absolution and receive Confirmation. If he was a minister (or a layman) and wishes to become a priest, he will simply receive the proper training and be ordained by a bishop like any other candidate. In the case of Churches nearer to Catholicism, there may simply be certitude that the given priest is truly and validly ordained. In such a case, the priest is incardinated into a diocese and allowed to minister as a Catholic priest. If there is a doubt, a situation where an individual or a communion may question the form, matter or intent, at the time an individual receives a sacrament. If the communion or individual determine that the administration of that sacrament may not have been valid, because it may have lacked an essential element, then, for all intents and purposes, the sacrament is repeated with the idea - If you are not already baptised, confirmed, ordained I confer this Sacrament on you now. If you have already received this Sacrament, and God alone knows, then what I am doing now is of no effect and this dispenses me from any suspcion of sacrilege.

 

October 26th - Feria - Simple thoughts about What really Matters

The heady wine begins to descend and the pleasant aftertaste gives way to serene and godly thoughts as the news sinks in and we face our responsibilities for Christ's holy Church.

My first one that grabbed me this morning was the question answered by Bishop Broadhurst, our good friend and spiritual father, in charge of Forward in Faith, about what he would think about having to give up the episcopate on joining an Ordinariate in communion with Rome. “Who cares. Soon I’ll be in a wooden box in front of the altar. What matters is the bigger picture. God matters, the truth matters. We as individuals don’t matter. We think we matter but we don’t”.

What a refreshing change from the certitudes of some who would trash us on account of their own narrowness and bigotry! It's going to be All Souls soon, and some of us will sing the Dies irae! There's something bigger than our mortality - and thank God for that.

Then, I am brought to think about the real reason the Holy Father is opening his arms to us. His concern is the unity of the Church - it's his job. The real question to ask at this stage about ecumenism is whether it is continuing and achieving the 16th century Reformation and Enlightenment humanism, or whether it is all about rediscovering the Undivided Church and the wealth of Holy Tradition.

Finally, we are living a historical moment when the old conflicts between conservative and liberal Christians no longer matter. What really matters is how Christianity is going to face the onslaught of Islam, not with guns and bombs, but with God's Word and the kindness and humanity of the Gospel.

 

October 24th - Feria (Saint Raphaël the Archangel) - Australian Press interview with Archbishop Hepworth

Source.

On Tuesday the Vatican unveiled a brand-new structure designed to facilitate groups of traditionally minded Anglicans entering into corporate communion with Rome, something many on both sides of the divide have aspired to for more than 40 years. On Wednesday the global primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, Archbishop John Hepworth, gave Inquirer an exclusive interview.

Inquirer: In place of conventional dioceses, the new arrangements envisage "personal ordinariates". Are they akin to the military ordinariates for dispersed groups of personnel in the various branches of the armed forces?

John Hepworth: Yes, and they are at the heart of what the Pope proposes. They are similar to dioceses but are groupings of people rather than a territory. Under this arrangement the ordinary (who may be a priest or a bishop) will be the shepherd of the Anglican people within the Catholic communion in his area. There will probably be a considerable number of these groupings around the world.

Inquirer: How do the Pope's proposals mesh the Latin celibate discipline for all clergy with Anglicanism's longstanding acceptance of married priests and bishops?

JH: Bishops in the new Anglican structure will be unmarried. This is out of respect for the tradition of Eastern and Western Christianity. But priests who come from Anglicanism will be able to serve as priests in the new structure, whether married or not, after satisfying certain requirements. The truly radical element is that married men will be able to be ordained priests in the Anglican structure indefinitely into the future. It is anticipated that Anglican bishops who are married when they joined the new structure will still be able to serve as priestly ordinaries, exercising some of the responsibilities of bishops.

Inquirer: Have decisions been made yet about the liturgy you'll use?

JH: An international group is working at the moment on the liturgical books for the new Anglican structure. I anticipate something that combines glimpses of pre-Reformation English worship, the glorious liturgical language of the Reformation period and contemporary understanding of the way Christians should approach God will eventually be approved.

Inquirer: How did the once-dominant Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England become so fragmented?

JH: After 1992, when the ordination of women to the priesthood came to both Australia and England, Catholic-minded Anglicans split into two groups. Many stayed within the Anglican Communion and fought for a place in which their conscience would not be damaged, and others left and formed groupings such as the Traditional Anglican Communion. An initial objective of the TAC was seeking unity with the Holy See.

Inquirer: Over the years all sorts of Anglicans have dreamed of some kind or other of reunion involving Rome. Why are you so optimistic this time around?

JH: Some attempts at reunion have been quite lavish and formal, such as the conversations in Belgium between the two world wars and the global process known as ARCIC (the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission) in the past 30 years. There were attempts as early as the 17th century. But what was crucially missing before was the creative co-operation of the Pope of the time. Pope Benedict has devised a new structure that is at once ingenious, pastoral and very generous to the traditions to which Anglican people are attached. As well, there is a certain daring in offering us a structure that relies on the Anglicans to initiate it before it comes into effect. It is, I think, a product of the serene confidence of this Pope, someone who passionately believes that unifying the Christian world is something demanded by God.

Inquirer: Within global Anglicanism, the divisions seem more rancorous than ever. Hasthat made the TAC more comfortable about approaching Rome unconditionally, seeking reunion?

JH: Several critical things have changed in recent times. Theological liberals who were once a fringe group in Anglicanism are now firmly in control across much of the Anglican world. The leadership that was once shared by Anglo-Catholic and evangelical Anglicans has vanished. The liberal agenda has run more quickly than the other groups anticipated and has made it very difficult, particularly for Anglo-Catholics, to remain in the Anglican Communion. On the other hand, the ecumenical movement with its dreams of Christian unity has burned out in its first exciting stage, when people believed that churches would indeed find unity and do it soon. Instead they have found friendship and common endeavour but little organic unity. In that climate Rome has been reconsidering the nature and extent of its ecumenical activity. The book just released by Cardinal (Walter) Kasper reflects this reconsideration. And of course there has been a growing frustration within the Catholic Church about the standard and language of its own worship, which has led some people to look at other High Church traditions. Perhaps just as important is the global movement of people. People no longer spend their lives in one place devoted to a single parish church and local institutions. People are mobile and are prepared to try new institutions. That is perhaps a consideration that is allowing people in the TAC more easily to consider moves such as the proposal the Pope now offers.

Inquirer: Critics who insist on seeing the Pope as God's rottweiler will be hard pressed to explain the fact that he is prepared to create a parallel jurisdiction with married Catholic priests. Even more surprisingly, the option won't just extend to the present crop of married men in Anglican orders, which most observers expected, but to future generations of clergy.

JH: The Anglican tradition has had married clergy for 500 years. It has a long experience of having a clerical family at the heart of the parish. Apart from Ireland, it was only with the expansion of the British Empire that the situation arose where married Anglican clergy worked in the same place as celibate Catholic clergy. The two traditions will continue to live side by side. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine how an Anglican tradition within Catholicism could sustain itself in the long term without married clergy. Permitting it is not in any way intended as a challenge to the rule of celibacy, but it is allowing the vision of a family at the heart of the parish to flourish at a time when the family is under great stress. On the other hand, Anglican Catholics are going to have to relearn the value of the celibate vocation. The TAC already has a number of celibate bishops and celibate communities of priests and nuns, so perhaps the lesson has begun to be learned.

Inquirer: How will the Orthodox react to the new arrangements? Will they be viewing the next six months as a test of Rome's ecumenical bona fides?

JH: Already there are stories circulating that the Patriarch of Moscow has urged his ecumenical negotiators in the Vatican to hurry in order that the Anglicans do not get too far ahead. They're probably apocryphal, but we do know that the Russian Orthodox Church is very close to achieving unity with Rome. It is the largest of the Orthodox churches of the East. We also know that the Orthodox are watching the Anglican process very closely to try to assess the extent to which Rome is serious about tolerating many different traditions of Christianity within the scope of the Catholic Church. I have had conversations with members of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church about the parallels between their conversations with Rome and ours. Christian unity throughout the world is at a very similar moment. Conversation and co-operation are beginning to evolve into forms of organic unity that still protect diverse Christian traditions of worship and spirituality.

 

October 23rd - Saint Romanus, Archbishop of Rouen and Confessor - Interesting developments

Anglo-Catholicism; acquiring the Capital C. A little scathing about the TAC, but this article does not leave without hope those clergy who have incurred canonical irregularities and only ask the Church for forgiveness for former errors and weaknesses from having lived in other conditions than those prevailing today under the good Pope Benedict XVI.

Forward in Faith is having its big meeting in London, and those of us who are unable to be in London at this time can hear the speeches here. Archbishop Hepworth will speak tomorrow afternoon, and we will be able to hear his speech tommorow night on the same link. Fr. Geoffrey Kirk and the three "flying" Bishops in the Church of England have spoken wonderfully and powerfully, showing the humility of the Anglican spirit faced with this truly miraculous offer from the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI.

Continue to pray for us as we discern God's will for our communities and for each one of us.

Our French chaplaincy is to be featured in Famille Chrétienne, a French Catholic journal and web site. Le photographer has been today, and I will be interviewed this coming week for the full feature article.

 

Use of Sarum

I doubt the Sarum Use will ever be considered as an official rite for an Anglican-Catholic Personal Ordinariat, but I would certainly like to see it become an "extraordinary use" of the Anglican Use in the same way as Latin rite Catholics can use the Tridentine rite and the Milanese can use the Ambrosian Rite. Do you want to discuss this? Come and join my Yahoo list I established in the Spring of 2008.

We occasionally get kooky episcopi vagantes peddling their wares, but we have no sectarian squabbles, and some of the intellectual input is of high quality. If you don't want e-mails, you can always select the no e-mail option when registering.

Use of Sarum on Yahoo Groups

 

The Roman Option in the 1990's

The Roman Option is the title of a book written by William Oddie in 1997, the harrowing story about what happened in England in the early 1990's when the Church of England went ahead with the priestly ordination of women and a number of Anglican clergy turned to the RC Church in the John Paul II era. I have not read this book, but there is this short review. See here for a fuller review. I gather that many convert clergy were betrayed and returned to the Anglican Church. The English RC hierarchy made sure that no concessions were made for converting Anglican clergy. The term Roman Option was coined by the English journalist Christopher Morgan.

 

October 22nd - Feria (Votive Mass of the Holy Ghost) - The Question of rites

The Recent Annoucement Pertaining to Anglicans and the Liturgical Situation from the New Liturgical Movement.

If we are given full canonical standing in the Latin Church in our Anglican Personal Ordinariats, I imagine we will be able to avail of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificium, which applies not only to the 1962 Roman Rite, but also to other local usages like the Dominican Rite and the Ambrosian Rite. Therefore, if a priest wishes to celebrate according to the Use of Sarum (which is an Anglican Use, and the only one in the 1540's), he will not even need permission from his Bishop to do so. Roman Catholic priests who have used Sarum over the last twenty years or so have just got on with it, since this Use predates 1370, and thus complies with Pius V's legislation of 1570. It remains "legal tender" as a Catholic rite. Interesting....

There is already word that the Book of Divine Worship will either be revised or replaced by another specifically-approved Anglican-Catholic usage. I would not be surprised if it isn't already in the works to be the "ordinary" Anglican Use. It might have a three-year lectionary and other similar annoying things, but it will certainly have the Roman Canon, a traditional offertory and be thoroughly Catholic in ethos as well as being a good pastoral solution for the laity.

Let's wait and see...

 

Newman intercedes for us in Heaven

With his daring scheme for Anglicans, Benedict XVI fulfils the hopes of Cardinal Newman.

We have indeed moved into a new era - of pastoral outreach instead of self-gazing intellectualism! There it is in a teaspoon. Pastoral outreach is all about getting down-to-earth and actually opening the door to people who knock sincerely and earnestly, announcing God's Word and administering the Sacraments. It took one of the most brilliant theologians of the 20th century to become Pope and realise this simple fact! Things are moving on...

 

October 21st - The Eleven Thousand Virgins, Martyrs - Sour Grapes

I never cease to be amazed at how little "convinced" people are able to reason and weigh things to arrive at a reasoned judgement. Prejudice and hatred abound not only in liberal / revisionist circles, but also among the traditionalist Roman Catholics as well as so-called "classical" Anglicans.

Here, I prefer to describe some of the arguments "sour grapes" use and to seek for constants. Essentially, it is the attitude of the Pharisee who thanks God that he is better than the repentant publican beating his breast in the back pews of the Temple. The new dispositions adopted by Rome are addressed to traditional Anglicans, so our traditionalist Catholic friends say "let them be really traditional". That is to say not simply Catholic but reinforced in the meta-dogmas of ideology. Because we are of Anglican origin and not "indoctrinated" in the traditionalist Catholic ways, we are necessarily suspect and wrongly motivated. Perhaps we are seeking to undermine, infiltrate and corrupt the purity of the Church like some kind of Masonic conspiracy. Naturally, some even call Anglicans gnostics and believe we are all Freemasons and Rosicrucians.

My immediate reaction is to say that those people should have what they have taken away from them. Let them live without priests, without the Mass, under constant pressure from atheists and secularists! May each comment from these people slow down by such and such a period of time the long and painful dialogue between their SSPX clergy and Rome. We waited for two years in silence! Let them eat cake! It is against Christian charity to wish evil on anyone, and this is not the way to think. It is for this reason, I try to understand their gripes so that we can help the more open-minded to understand the real issues. Some are naturally pessimistic and bitter. All we can do is to pray for them, hoping that some crisis in their lives will force them to see the world differently and more positively.

I read acomment saying "If you know anything at all about the mechanics of the reunion of the various groups from the Eastern schismatics, you're one up on me. But I'd be amazed if the hierarchy and clergy were not required to abjure schism; and that if the laity were not so required, it was because their coming along with their bishops and priests indicated that they too abjured schism. But as regards the Anglicans, schism is only the beginning of the issue. At a minimum, do you think that the doctrinal mess in the Catholic Church is not present in the Anglican? And more realistically, would you not think it likely that things are even worse among the Anglicans? About the only generality I can confidently make about those who will take the Vatican up on the proposed arrangements is that they are against the ordination of women and professed homosexuals. (No doubt that is why the Archbishop of Canterbury is taking it all with such equanimity.) Beyond that, they are likely to be the more conservative end of the classic Anglican mishmash, which even those who actually joined the Church in the 19th century were by no means free of. So as you see, I'm back where I've always been -- at the question of Faith. If you recognize the primacy of Faith -- that is, if you're a real Catholic -- you can only deplore this latest development.

If you're a "real Catholic", you must deplore the reunion of Anglicans with the Church of Rome? I come across this attitude time and time again, and Anglicans in the past who have been enticed to swim the Tiber have found that they never reached the opposite bank. They were made to remain in the water, if we continue with this stupid analogy.

For these people, even if you make a full profession of Catholic faith and accept the standard official liturgy (Tridentine or Novus Ordo), that's not good enough. You must utterly repudiate and hate your past! The idea that we should want to retain something of our cultural or liturgical heritage is automatically suspect. Perhaps the very thing wrong with our liturgical tradition is beauty and good taste. We should not forget that many traditionalist Catholics are Manicheans in attitude or deeply Jansenistic (grace must destroy nature). Faith is not possible without complete negation. So, if the Pope is allowing us to continue in our traditions, it is a sign that we are Protestants and have a nefarious intention to infect the Church with our heresies - and the Pope himself is a Modernist. After all, he is German and used to be close to Hans Küng and Karl Rahner!

In their arguments, we find a notion of a kind of "original vice" like Original Sin. If something is of Protestant origin, like our Prayer of Humble Access, it must absolutely be discarded even though it contains no heresy and is completly orthodoxy in its Eucharistic devotion. Similarly, fundamentalist Protestants eschew Catholic liturgy and paraliturgy because of past associations or compromises with Paganism. For them, to be a good Christian is to reject culture and any non-Christian influence. Christianity must be disincarnate, a-cultural and finally a religion of the book, like some forms of Islam and Judaism.

We traditional Anglicans are less absolute than our Roman Catholic counterparts. We adhere to the Catholic Faith and have been restoring Catholic standards in our Churches over the past 180 years or so. However, we come from a distinctive culture and social origin. We have our own way of thinking about things, even when we are not English, and believe that our ways can contribute to the fulness of the Catholic Church.

Our understanding of Tradition is quite different from theirs. We consider the entire history of the Church including the Patristic period and the middle ages, and then from our side the positive aspects of the Reformation, from their side the positive aspects of the Counter-Reformation, and finally the great convergence under Pope Benedict XVI. Their notion of Tradition begins with the Council of Trent and ends with the death of Pius XII, approximately 400 years out of the 2000 years for the rest of us.

The question of our Anglican Orders is really an issue for them, but we have to say in all fairness that, for them, priestly and Episcopal ordinations in the Roman Catholic Church are invalid or questionable. They see Apostolicae Curae (Leo XIII, 1896) as an infallible document. It might have accurately described Anglican Orders at that time, but not since the time Old Catholic lines of succession found their way into Anglican ordinations, especially since 1931, date when the Anglican and Old Catholic Churches entered an agreement of full communion. Strangely, the attitude of the more extreme RC traditionalists demonstrates that a rigorous application of the criteria in Apostolicae Curae would bring Roman Catholic orders into question, as outlined by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in Saepius Officio. However, convinced as we are of the validity of our own Orders, we have approached Rome, whose authorities are less convinced about the validity of our priesthood. They have the right to ensure the validity of all Catholic priests and bishops. It is only normal, for this reason, to accept conditional ordination if they ask this of us.

The other bee in the bonnet of many RC traditionalists is clerical celibacy. The Oriental rite clergy submit to the same discipline as the Orthodox. Namely, all Bishops are celibate and usually professed monks. Married men may be ordained, but marriage is not permitted for a celibate cleric after the diaconate (subdiaconate). If a priest becomes a widower, he may not remarry. This is what Rome is going to insist on for us - nothing against tradition, even though we are Western Rite. Married converts priests and ministers have been dispensed from celibacy since about the 1980's, and in some cases much earlier than that. To go further, if celibacy is to be based on spiritual considerations and not merely questions of legacies and money, it must be for something. Celibacy is only possible when the ministry of a priest is humanly rewarding and the priest can feel part of a spiritual and human "family" or community. The present conditions of parish priests are hardly favourable to authentic celibacy. We wait for what Rome is going to decide on this question in the context of a general reform of the clergy.

The question of Orders and celibacy seem to point to an attitude of putting the priest on an unrealistic pedestal. It is true that many of us clergy are battle-scarred and some of us have incurred canonical irregularities. The traditionalists would simply consign us to the trash can (or dustbin in Bristish usage) in their way of thinking. Our fundamentalist traditionalists are unable to understand pastoral questions, because ideology has the primacy over the human person. This is the very definition of fascist ideology, the State over the person. We believe that Rome will not accept trickery and corruption, but that forgiveness and oikonomia are the order of the day in healing sickness and the wounds of war's victims. The fundamentalists say - Their bishops will have to be reduced to the lay state. They won't be. Those who are married would be allowed to serve as priests, presumably after conditional ordination. I wait to find out what will be done for men with canonical irregularities (former Roman clergy) - laicisation or some kind of "amnesty" and a "grandfather clause". We adopt an attitude of Wait and see.

One of my motivations for joining the TAC was to answer the question "How shall they preach unless they be sent." By 2005, I could not in conscience continue to try to exercise a ministry as a priest without an ecclesial mission. As a "cradle Anglican" the solution for me was to place myself under a Bishop. The Bishops of the TAC are aware that we as a Church cannot have a true mission without being in communion with the College of Bishops and the See of Saint Peter. This is the reason why we have approached the Pope.

We would very much like the Catholic traditionalists to read Newman's On the Development of Christian Doctrine. With such a notion of the hermeneutic of continuity, the present difficulties would be solved, including the acceptance of the pastoral and doctrinal teaching of Vatican II.

 

Reflections on the Apostolic Constitution

We cannot reflect much on an Apostolic Constitution that has not yet been published, but we can get some ideas from the announcements by the very men who authored it, namely Cardinal Levada. It will take time for all this to soak in.

Obviously, what is being proposed is a clerical and canonical solution, and we know nothing about whether the ordinary laity are going to be included in some way. The solution is available to all Christians who are presently Anglicans or of Anglican origin and assent to the whole body of Catholic doctrine. In the world of conservative and traditional high-church Anglicans, there are those who are aligned with pre-reformation, post-Tridentine or contemporary Roman Catholicism. Others adhere to a romantic idealisation of "classical" Anglicanism, almost a kind of "English Jansenism" and a theological construction to give justification to the separation of the Churches.

Those of us who are interested in this latest Papal offer are of an "Anglo-Papalist" tendency, following in the footsteps of the Sarum and Tridentine campaigns of the early twentieth century. We English and Australians are "missal men", meaning that we prefer to use the English Missal or the Anglican Missal to the various editions of the Book of Common Prayer. Where the texts are the same (eg: the Gloria or the Creed), the 16th century Cranmer translations are used. The Americans tend to be "classical" Anglicans with no desire to be anything other than independent Churches.

Who are the Ordinariats for? The TAC is not mentioned in the documents from Rome. Did we get the cold shoulder? I don't think so looking at the texts and reading between the lines. The Indian diocese mentioned seems to be one of ours. I deduce that the Apostolic Constitution will be intended as much for traditional Anglicans who are still in the Church of England, such as Forward in Faith, and other groupings of Anglicans both in communion with Canterbury and not in communion as for the TAC. It is possible that mentioning the TAC explicitly would allow other Anglicans to claim "oh, it's no big deal; it's intended only for the TAC, not for anybody else," which is definitely not the case. I wouldn't be surprised if the TAC in Australia and England unites formally with the Forward in Faith "flying bishops" to submit a common project to Rome. The TAC and Forward in Faith have been in formal communion for several years. We would no longer be a marginal and struggling diocese in England, but a fully fledged Church - cash strapped and with only a few decent buildings but with our ecclesial integrity intact.

There is also a considerable number of Anglican converts serving as priests in the Catholic Church. Those who are married were put in obscure chaplaincy positions, and a few of the dynamic celibates have become Bishops like Mgr Peter Elliott. We know that the Apostolic Constitution contains explicit provision for Roman Rite Catholic priests to transfer into the new "Ordinariat" for former Anglicans. Many Anglican faithful suffer in the parishes where they attend Mass and find little sympathy. They will find a greater availability of Catholic Anglican liturgies than at present.

We are now looking at something much bigger than the TAC. The information Cardinal Levada has given us shows that the Apostolic Constitution is indeed made for the TAC primarily in that Ordinaries (those in charge of Ordinariats) can be celibate bishops or married priests. Our married bishops will be allowed to serve as priests with the power of jurisdiction over their present flocks. This will be particularly important in Africa and India.

What liturgy are we going to have to use? Will Rome impose a single usage for all Anglican-Catholics? I have little idea, but I know we won't have to use the present Book of Divine Worship, which is a mixture of the Novus Ordo and the 1979 American Prayer Book. The most realistic solution would be the English Missal, which is practically a Cranmerese translation of the extraordinary use of the Roman rite which is permitted in the Latin Church as an alternative to the Novus Ordo. Some Anglicans like and use the Novus Ordo, but do so in an Anglican culture (we could now call this a "Pope Benedict XVI culture"). Why not? I would like to see Sarum as a permitted alternative, but I see little evidence of that being presently on the agenda.

Many questions remain. Some of these will be answered by the coming Apostolic Constitution of Benedict XVI and others will be clarified in time. Overall, I am very optimistic that what is presently a "salvage operation" will be a shining contribution to a true reform of the entire Catholic Church.

With my Archbishop, I offer a Mass of thanksgiving and the Te Deum.

 

October 20th - Feria - The news is out!

The Vatican has announced that Pope Benedict is seting up special provision for Anglicans, including married clergy, who want to convert to Rome together, preserving aspects of Anglican liturgy. They will be given their own pastoral supervision, according to this press release from the Vatican:

“In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony.”

More on this very important story later. But this is clearly a historic gesture by Pope Benedict which will encourage thousands of disaffected Anglicans to become Roman Catholics.

 

October 19th - Saint Frideswide, Virgin - BREAKING NEWS!!!!

Source (official Vatican source) and Damian Thompson and Fr. Finigan. Very few others have picked up yet.

Translation:

We inform accredited journalists that tomorrow, Tuesday 20 October 2009, at 11am, in the John Paul II Hall of the Press Office of the Holy See, a briefing will be held on a theme pertaining to the relationship with the Anglicans, at which His Eminence Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and His Excellency Mgr Joseph Augustine Di Noia OP, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments will take part.

WHAT? And Cardinal Kasper isn't in on this? Mmmmm...

Development - Damian Thompson on Oct 19th, 2009 at 10:15 pm - OK, I said I wouldn’t speculate, but I can tell you that commentators are talking about the fact that the announcement in Rome comes from the CDF, which has been in charge of negotiations with the Traditional Anglican Communion.

My heart is missing beats, and I hope I get to sleep tonight. This could the the big one as M once said to 007!

Another development from Damian Thompson - "Fr Z is speculating that tomorrow’s press conferences will confirm that the Traditional Anglican Communion, a rebel Anglican group that left the Anglican Communion many years ago, is to be received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. That makes sense, as the TAC has been dealing with the CDF, which it trusts more than the Vatican’s professional ecumenists. If Fr Z is right, then +Rowan and +Vincent may put on a show of (partial) unity in order to prevent talks of splits, mainstream Anglicans “coming over”, etc. We shall see".

 

October 17th - Saint Etheldreda, Abbess - Proving the existence of God or that of consciousness after physical death

Here I am again on this touchy subject that many orthodox Christians fear. Believers battle it out with atheists to prove the existence of God through logic, apologetics and emerging scientific theories. Much of this stuff doesn't touch ordinary people, and many ask the question whether it matters.

Most people are not indifferent to mortality, especially when they are suffering from a terminal illness or are bereaved. Then the question is asked. If there is nothing after death, then our lives here on earth are meaningless, as is the question of God.

Read this article called Forget God. There is evidence of consciousness surviving physical death and that the human spirit is distinct from the physical brain that affects and controls our present life. Many of us need more than the schematised ideas of heaven, purgatory and hell, and their usual caricatures in jokes and popular culture. "Since God apparently is beyond human comprehension, so many people stop there and are left with nothing more than orthodoxy's humdrum heaven and horrific hell, a scenario that does not invite rational people to believe. Unable to get a handle on God, those taking the deductive approach require a large leap of faith, something more and more people are reluctant to do in this scientific and materialistic age".

Indeed the rantings of fundamentalists of all "tendencies" ring more and more hollow, and I too find I need to look elsewhere for spiritual inspiration and refreshment.

I would agree with that. When we have something concrete to go on, the search for God, the intelligence behind all this, becomes relevant and of interest. I have never attended a spiritualist séance, and the idea of doing such is quite frightening. But, the second-hand evidence I read is quite convincing, especially when I learn that precautions were taken against trickery and fraud.

Perhaps this is what we should be doing, either directly or through reading about this subject. I can already hear the questions coming. What is the point of religion? Could direct contact with the "supernatural" make the Church redundant and pointless? Any human discovery is a risk, and I give much credence to the idea Berdyaev expressed about the "aristocracy" of the spirit and the fact we can go far beyond the limits of Church religion. I can understand people's aversion to the kind of latitudinarian religion that is merely an instrument of human control and political moralism.

Some say that the spirits of the dead who communicate with the living are devils - but what about Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, the Sacred Heart at Paray-le-Monial in the 17th century? Saints have appeared to or spoken to mystics, and some of those messages have been received by the Church as something good and faith-inspiring. As Shakespeare said, there are more things in heaven and earth than what we dream about in our philosophies. Some people receive communications from others among the billions of people who have died since humanity has existed. Why not?

Then, what is the point of the Church (at least the legitimate purpose)? Oh yes, the Church is an icon of the celestial spheres, an image, in which the liturgy prefigures and symbolises the things that are beyond our empirical experience. The liturgy is a meeting point with heaven for those of us who are not psychics, mediums and mystics, but ordinary people with limits.

I thank God we do have the Church and the liturgy, the ordinary ways of finding inspiration to live Christ-like lives. At the same time, the institutional Church is bogged down to such an extent as its official hierarchy is rendered incapable of reacting to the most fundamental missionary needs of believers and the world. We indeed have a long way to go...

 

October 16th - Saint Michael in the Mountain Tomb - Another snippet for the curious, but nothing new

Source.

It rains in Normandy, water is wet and fire is hot. However, the German Cardinal seemed to want to play down the impact of such a move on Anglican/Catholic relations. Whatever that means...

 

Fr. Hunwicke on Sacrosanctum Concilium

Read the article. I warmly recommend it.

 

Conspiracy theories revisited

Here is a little correspondence on a Catholic blog:

--------------------------

I responded:

 

Fr. Ratzinger on the Liturgy during Vatican II

As the blogs and other news sources (like this one) begin to speculate on the forthcoming talks between the Society of St Pius X and Roman theologians at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, we can be happy that questions are going to be asked and the old certitudes of both the traditionalists and liberals will be softened in the interests of the unity of the Church. Another Berlin Wall is about to come crashing down - twenty years after the one made of 1960's concrete slabs!

Some people think the present Pope is trying to roll back the Council and return to the Pius XII era. They do not understand the subtlety of a man who was born in the 1920's and ordained a priest in the 1950's, to boot, one of the Church's most brilliant theologians and far from being someone who just wanted a kind of nihilistic revolution in the Church.

One thing we have to understand about the Roman Catholic Church since the Council of Trent is the prevailing mentality of legalism, sometimes taking the place of ontology and metaphysics and the culture of totalitarian control. It is not the way of Anglicans, who tend to be somewhat loose on the question of truth, though we too are not entirely exempt from neo-pharisaism and hypocrisy. Pope John XXIII had been through the experience of being suspected of Modernism as a young priest simply because he sided with a group of factory workers when they held a strike in the northern Italian town where Fr. Roncalli was parish priest. Those were the days when Dominican professors at Fribourg University were denounced by the Sodalitium Pianum for heresy simply because they rode bicycles about town like Oxford dons and dispensed themselves from wearing the Roman hat!

By the early 1960's, things did need to change. First of all, there needed to be some simplifications in the liturgy. It suffices to look at the calendar of saints in a Roman missal of the early 20th century - the Sundays were constantly occulted. Priests were often "stiff" and "mechanical" at the altar, and everything needed to be defrosted from the spirit of rigidity. We need to consider the endless series of low masses in most parish churches where the faithful had to follow the service using a bi-lingual book or use private devotions like the rosary. I was lucky to go to a seminary where we really lived and loved the liturgy - but I have found this liturgical legalism and tedium in some traditionalist societies.

Another thing we can pick up from Fr. Ratzinger's comments of that time was the "the decentralization of liturgical legislation". He might have been naive, but he saw the need and possibility to reverse the tightening of the screws by the Council of Trent to some extent - and return to local uses. Like almost everyone else, he called for the vernacular. It is easy for us Anglicans with our lovely English Missal and translations of Sarum into neo-cranmerian English, not so easy in a world where it is all-or-nothing (Tridentine stiffness and Latin, on one hand, or free-for-all in banal English and the ghastly synthetic vestments of the 1970's and 80's, on the other).

In a talk delivered in October 1964, Ratzinger remarked "that the first real task of the Council was to overcome the indolent, euphoric feeling that all was well with the Church, and to bring into the open the problems smouldering within". Things don't change much. The "indolent, euphoric feeling that all was well with the Church" is what you would get if you talked with any diocesan bishop or Curial bureaucrat. Things need shaking up now as they did then - and this is going to happen when the SSPX-Rome talks begin. This would apply to every aspect of Church life as well as the liturgy.

We see similar criticisms coming from the then Fr. Ratzinger as from Fr. Louis Bouyer or our own Dom Gregory Dix. The anti-Protestant lock-up job halted the advance of Protestantism, but did not adequately address the real issues of extreme formalism, abuses and the balance between the Mass as an epiphany of God and the renewal of Christ's sacrifice, on one hand, and the communion of the faithful, on the other. In the 1570's and then on, the liturgy was put into a vice, divorced from historical perspective, enbalmed and treated in terms of rubrics. The baroque era did to the Mass what the progressives have done in the last forty years - they made it "relevant to modernity" by turning it into a kind of sacred opera. However, I have to admit that the baroque is uplifting, whereas the modern crap of our own time is something else! The 19th century brought in darkened churches, banal sentimentalism and popular religion that made the liturgy increasingly irrelevant.

So we can perfectly understand the feelings of men of that generation, including our friend Bugnini. The question was what to do - go to the other extreme, or introduce juduicious reforms to undo the fossilised rubricism and have the priest and people actually pray at the Mass and Office! Unfortunately, the liturgy would pass into the hands of Lercaro & Bugnini, Ltd. (should we call the company Botchit, Grabbit & Runn?) - and we can understand the comment of Michael Davies saying that the Devil himself couldn't have done a better wreckovation! The experiment of making church services relevant for modernity seemed a great idea at the time, but it has failed for the same reason as baroque liturgy did not make the Faith relevant to men of the Enlightenment.

It all rather seems to have run its course, and that is where we traditional Anglicans can come in. We too have reacted against the excesses of Sarum (overcomplicated ceremonies and abuses) and weeping Virgins, and then from the aridity of the 1662 Prayer Book with its big oak Jacobian table betwen the choir stalls (and later, north-end celebration), wine flagons and Black Rubric, and sought to give the Church the experience of a sacred vernacular liturgy in which the people both adore God and participate in the community. I'm sure that Pope Benedict XVI would like something akin to the English Missal (in English and other languages) and the 1965 Roman rite with its simplified ceremonial. In such a way, the majority of Catholic faithful who prefer the vernacular to Latin could have access to a sacred and prayerful liturgy.

Many bishops and bureaucrats would prefer the Pope to keep the tin lid on, and the old lie to continue to be propagated about the "new springtime" that just never happened. Let the traditionalists remain marginalised losers! But, the Pope sees the importance of questions being asked now as in the early 1960's. He has finally decided to take the bull by the horns and begin to address the real issues. First of all, what is the Church and what is the Church for? Vatican II needs to be questioned so that we can find out what was really intended and said in the Acta and the final documents. We won't find anything supporting the "cultural revolution" we have suffered in all the western Churches for the last forty years! Those who want women priests and same-sex marriages will be bitterly disappointed!

We have the traditionalists to thank, but we need have no fear of returning to the status quo they would like! Is this merely a "false spring" or the beginning of something wonderful and faith-inspiring?

What is this reform of the reform to which all "tendencies" need to aspire to? Recasting the entire liturgical texts, inventing, rationalising, uprooting has no pastoral value other than total disturbance and confusion. Nothing good in pastoral terms came out of Mass facing the people, and scholars like Bouyer, Ratzinger and Gamber tell us that this was not the practice of the "pristine" early Church. In fact, nothing needed to be done at all to the Missal itself, and this will certainly be the key to the future of the Catholic liturgy. We need to address the precise criticisms that were made.

The liturgy was too stiff, mechanical and rubricist, and it went ot the other extreme. If you are a priest reading this, have you not considered learning the ceremonies so well that you feel relaxed in celebrating Mass properly? Then, the effect won't be stiff and mechanical. As Dom Botte once said - you have to incense an altar somehow. It doesn't hurt to be told how to do it. We can do well to simplify some things, like putting profound bows in the place of genuflections and reducing the number of times the priest kisses the altar. The 1965 Liturgy of the Word away from the altar and with the priest at the sedelia seems something very good. Also, it is not necessary for the priest to say to himself what the choir / congregation sings and what others (deacon, subdeacon, reader, etc.) read at the lectern.

For the language of the liturgy, another extremely important aspect of legitimate reform, there are frequently very good articles on the New Liturgical Movement blog. For the English-speaking world, there needs to be nothing other than the English Missal, which is a straight translation into classical English of the pre-reform Roman missal. For other languages, the criteria would seem to be the idea of taking a somewhat archaic and literary expression of that language, so that the effect is of a sacred language, but yet the ordinary laity can understand what they hear. We English have no difficulty in understanding the language of Cranmer's Prayer Book, except for a few words that have changed their meaning totally (eg: Prevent us, O Lord - meaning "Go before us").

The old idea of making the rites similar to Protestant services is now tired-out and obsolete. The liturgical revolution happened long ago, and it did not have the desired effect. Non-Catholic Christians still respect the Orthodox for their unreformed and sacred Liturgy. The Orthodox begin to respect the Roman Catholic Church as the old liturgy begins again to be an accepted part of mainstream Church life. Another aspect of Benedict XVI's aspiration is fostering local uses and rites like the Ambrosian and Lyons rites. Religious orders, especially the Dominicans, begin to take interest in their particular traditions. I would like to see more Anglicans and Anglican-Catholics take an interest in the Use of Sarum (in English and in Latin), and for some of the better Uses return to the French dioceses like only a few short decades ago. Diversity has a pastoral value by respecting the local culture, whether European or non-European.

It just takes a little more intelligence and less silliness and bloody-mindedness, and I am sure much could be improved.

 

October 15th - Saint Wulfran, Confessor and Bishop (Saint Alfred the Great, Doctor of the Church) - Who was Monsignor Bugnini?

All this stuff about the Paul VI reform has really got me going, and I do all I can to steer a moderate course between the conspiracy theories and exaggerations, to come out with something balanced and objective. I refuse to enter the conspirationist mentality and I will not diabolise a man in the interests of an agenda. Of course, the man is dead and we may never know the whole truth.

Mgr Annibale Bugnini (1912-1982) was certainly an enigmatic figure. He was a Vincentian priest, appointed to the Congregation of Rites by Pius XII in 1948 and was responsible for the modifications to the Holy Week rites in the 1950's. He was then secretary of the preparatory commission on the liturgy (1960-1962), peritus of the Second Vatican Council and its commission on the liturgy, secretary of the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy (1964-1969), and secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship (1969-1975). The Novus Ordo was his creation, or at least he refined it from earlier influences like the Pseudo Synod of Pistoia and 18th century Jansenists like the Abbé Jacques Jubé (1674-1745). The main characteristic of the Jansenist liturgical principles was excessive rationalism and the lack of respect for tradition.

The aspiration to liturgical reform in the Roman Catholic Church was older than many traditionalists admit. Mass facing the people goes back at least to the 1920's in German monasteries and youth movements, and the desire for the vernacular is even older. The Council of Trent did not approve the vernacular, nor did it condemn it. Simply, Latin remained the normative language of the Latin Church. Rome had already approved translations of the Roman liturgy in Chinese and other vernacular languages according to pastoral needs long before Vatican II. The Jansenists and Gallicans were reforming the diocesan liturgical books in France from the first half of the 18th century. Need I go on?

Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli had noted the poor theological formation of Bugnini and his haste to get everything done and finished - Potrei dire molte cose di questo uomo [mons. A. Bugnini]. Devo aggiungere che è stato sempre sostenuto da Paolo VI. Non vorrei sbagliarmi, ma la lacuna piú notevole in P. Bugnini è la mancanza di formazione e di sensibilità teologica. … Ho l’impressione che si sia concesso molto, soprattutto in materia di sacramenti, alla mentalità protestante. One can wonder if Paul VI lied when he denied approving all the aspects of the reform, for Bugnini was always supported by Paul VI. This would be a terible accusation like what has been recently levelled by sensation-seeking journalists against Benedict XVI in regard to the Bishop Williamson affair! A child telling a lie is bad enough, but the Pope of the Catholic Church...

After his career in Rome, he was appointed by Paul VI as Nuncio of Iran in 1975. This would not seem to be a brilliant end of career for a Roman bureaucrat, since Iran is an intolerant Muslim country with very few Catholics. There are allegations that Bugnini was a Freemason, and therefore involved in a conspiracy to harm the Church. I am frankly not interested in this aspect of Bugnini's life and work. I see it as a simple red herring from the real issues. It's probably all in the Vatican secret archives, and will be revealed in only 400 years!

Bugnini wrote about his work in The Reform of the Liturgy (1948-1975), Collegeville: The Liturgical Press. 1571-6. Hardcover, 1000 pp.

I find Cardinal Stickler's comments (link above) of particular interest. For example:

Was Bugnini a crook or a dishonest man? Did he deceive the Pope, or was Paul VI prefectly informed about the reform work and in agreement with it? It is impossible to say, but the evidence points to a man with an agenda and an ideology, who was in a hurry to get his creation through and approved, and foisted upon the clergy and faithful through the Catholic habit of obedience to authority. The result was what can be seen to this day in the dying parish churches of Europe and America, and which influenced the new service books of the Anglicans, Lutherans and most mainstream western Christian denominations. The question thus concerns Anglicans as much as Roman Catholics.

Whether he was a man in good faith, trying to serve God according to his lights, or an evil manipulator, Bugnini created a crisis in the liturgical life of the Church without precedent. So did Cranmer....

 

More on Paul VI and the liturgical reform

I have just been doing some homework on my translation of the Fr. Bouyer anecdote. I went to the source, which is a blog by Monsignor Jacques Masson, a French traditionalist priest. From the information I am able to glean from the Internet, he was ordained for the Archdiocese of Paris in 1966, worked for a time with the Society of St Pius X in the early days, is a Prelate in good standing and works for the Roman Curia.

On the same page, he relates another one from Cardinal Jacques Martin. Talk about the dings and the dongs!

There's no guarantee other than my source, but here it is (again my translation):

Fame and glory (! - </irony>)

This web site (this page - see October 3rd) got a mention is Fr. Zuhldorf's site - Fr. Bouyer and an anecdote about how the liturgical reform was imposed. My translation of the information I found in a French forum went even more "mainstream" than that!

My discovery of the Bouyer anecdote in French has stirred a hornet's nest or two! People are really shocked when it transpired that much of Bugnini's work was actually intellectually dishonest and fraudulent. Many other worms are likely to crawl out of the woodwork before this is finished. Perestroika and Glasnost are arriving twenty years later - in the Church!

Is this interesting conversation between Father Bouyer and Paul VI, which Father Bouyer related to the seminarians, really authentic?

Are Father Bouyer's words accurately reported by Monsignor Masson?

In other words, did Paul VI actually say these words about Monsignor Annibale Bugnini, the principle author of the new Mass, to Father Bouyer?

Monsignor Masson says yes, that this is precisely what Father Bouyer told him and the other Econe seminarians.

But, of course, this is still second-hand evidence.

Still, it does at least suggest that it might be important to seek out Father Bouyer's notes and diaries, if he left any.

Today, 40 and more years after the fact, it is not easy to know the truth about the events during the Council and shortly after, whether in regard to the liturgy, or in regard to other matters, and as time goes on, it seems likely to become ever more difficult.

But before more time passes, we will make an effort to speak to those who lived through those times, and record their testimony for posterity.

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf is a good conservative / traditional and moderate Roman Catholic priest, an extremely industrious and successful blogger, and I have a considerable amount of esteem and respect for him. He and I are of exactly the same age. If you are reading this, Father, I ask your prayers and a remembrance during your Mass at the Sabine Chapel.

 

The Cloister of the Heart

Biretta tip to the Young Fogey.

 

October 12th - Feria - Bureaucrats

I love this one from Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore:

I'm not even in the Navy, but I at least sail in boats!

 

Do we wonder why no one goes to church?

We really do need sometimes to get things into perspective. Two very lucid articles, the first by my old friend Arturo Vasquez, and the second by Bishop John Broadhurst. These articles have one thing in common, exposing the narcissistic self-absorption of clerics and professional churchmen. Also see Deborah Gyapong's article on Arturo Vasquez's article - The archbishop as 'company man'.

As a cleric who is not in formal communion with Rome, I would not presume to give an opinion on Archbishop Weakland, one of the more notorious of the American Roman Catholic liberal hierarchy. Going by what I read, a picture emerges that bears a striking resemblance with Bishop Shelby Spong of the American Episcopal Church. They no longer profess the Christian faith but are men of the institutional Church. It's their livelihood and career they have made for themselves.

I like Mrs. Gypong's comment: "Throughout, there is no real hint of submission or the possibility that he may well be wrong. The Church is merely a function of his own ideas that need to be implemented, no matter what the cost". Don't we see that also in the Anglican world, and in secular politics?

Try talking to an ordinary person - you know, as in human beings who ride on buses, go to work, bring up children and all that sort of thing - about the recent decision of the Church of England to delay the consecration of women bishops and make sure they never get into senior positions - a sop to the traditionalists. Try to please everyone and you please nobody. These fudging compromises and ambiguous language convince no one outside the immediate circle of these ecclesiastical bureaucrats. It is the same old paper-blackening tactic to try to hold the spiritually empty institution together. That is when we begin to realise how irrelevant we become and that much nearer to a world in which Christianity will be as extinct as the Cult of Mithra or sun worship!

It is perfectly understandable that we are faced with the prospect of our churches closing down and either disappearing or being used for other purposes. The very clericalism we denounce is also disappearing and leaving nothing in its place. The big question is whether we go along with it all and let go. Either Christianity itself has run its course and pompous twits like Richard Dawkins are right, or the Churches are in a way "possessed" by a clerical and bureau/patho-cratic "parasite". As a Christian, I do ascribe the current confusion in all Churches as the work of the Devil and generalised pathocracy, institutionalised evil. See also this article on psychopathy, the condition of people who have no moral conscience, empathy for other people or remorse for the wrong they do. It happened to Germany under Hitler - and it cost about 80 million lives! The Allies had to flatten much of Europe in 1944 and 1945, and destroy many treasures of our history - and even more human lives - to exorcise that devil. Exorcise the Church? Who could do that other than God Himself by some stupendous miracle? Perhaps God might use a human agency to destroy the institutional Church regardless of the cost - and then start all over again - perhaps. That would be the ultimate hermeneutic of rupture!!!

Somehow, the glimmer of God's light remains and makes itself seen through the murk of human sin, and that brings us to cling to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the continuing Redemption. Is that not something for which we should be eternally thankful? We live in dark days, but no less full of grace than previous eras.

Bishop Broadhurst asks one final question - Is it authentically Christian? Are we Christians? The question is not whether we are Catholics or Anglicans, liberals or traditionalists - but whether we are disciples of Christ. When we see the squandering of money - millions of dollars - for bureaucracy and legal action by various Anglican bodies against their own people, and their having to cut their budget for anything constructive, then we can allow ourselves to doubt whether those people are believers, let alone Christians.

It is a question we need to ask ourselves. Before we are Catholic or Anglican, or traditionalist or whatever, the first thing is to answer that question of Jesus - And who do you say I am? Some say John the Baptist, others say a prophet - and what do we answer from the depths of our heart?

 

October 11th - Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity - Getting an idea of the glory of Sarum

Our English liturgical tradition of up to 1549 closely parallels that of the northern French diocesan usages. I have just discovered this site - Serpentists In Charles Wild's The Choir of the Cathedral of Amiens (France) (ca. 1826). The serpent is a musical instrument that works like a brass instrument (trumpet, trombone, etc.) for giving intonations for the Mass and Office. The paintings of the solemn Mass in the presence of the Bishop in his stall in Amiens Cathedral are stunning. It is heart-breaking to see all that has now gone, and that cathedral is practically a museum with a few pitififul novus ordo services! Enjoy the site.

 

October 3rd - Sainte Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus (Roman calendar and a local Saint here in Normandy) - Bugnini's Fraudulent Liturgical Reform Method

Doesn't this conversation between Fr. Louis Bouyer and Pope Paul VI blow you away? Source (my translation).

I could slightly misquote Charles Kingsley: Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy. Father Bugnini informs us that it need not, and on the whole ought not to be; that cunning is the weapon which heaven has given to Roman bureaucrats to impose their half-baked agendas...