Pope Benedict creates new Church structure
for Anglicans who want to join Catholic Church
VATICAN CITY, Oct. 20 (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has has created a new church structure for Anglicans who want to join the Roman Catholic Church.
Cardinal Joseph Levada, the Vatican's chief doctrinal official, said Tuesday the new legal entity will allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while maintaining their Anglican identity and many of their liturgical traditions.
Levada said the new structure is a response to the many requests that have come to the Vatican over the years from Anglicans who want to join.
Many Anglicans have become disillusioned by the ordination of women, the election of openly gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions in the 77-million strong Anglican Communion.
Pope approves document
on Anglicans joining Church
VATICAN CITY, Oct. 20 (Reuters) – Pope Benedict has approved a document that would make it easier for Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church.
The move comes after years of discontent in the 70 million-strong worldwide Anglican community about the liberal attitudes of some parts of the church toward women priests and homosexual bishops.
The Vatican said on Tuesday that the document, known as an "apostolic constitution," would provide a structure for Anglicans who want to join Catholicism, either individually or in groups, while maintaining some of their own traditions.
The move was announced at simultaneous news conferences in Rome and London.
The Vatican said the Pope decided to prepare the document to respond "to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion."
The news was less dramatic than anticipated but far broader in impact - because the new Apostolic Constitution does not just cover the Traditional Anglican Communion but any and all Anglican groups who may wish to re-enter into communion with Rome.
It remains to be seen what the next step will be for TAC which has been ready to 'make the crossing' for the past two years... And I wonder how the FSSPX takes this, in post-Vatican II terms?
Cardinal Levada and Mons. DiNoia at the news briefing today.
Here is the text of the CDF note about the new Apostolic Constitution for returning Anglicans:
THE CDF NOTE
With the preparation of an Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is responding to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion.
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.
Under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy.
The forthcoming Apostolic Constitution provides a reasonable and even necessary response to a world-wide phenomenon, by offering a single canonical model for the universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application.
It provides for the ordination as Catholic priests of married former Anglican clergy. Historical and ecumenical reasons preclude the ordination of married men as bishops in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Constitution therefore stipulates that the Ordinary can be either a priest or an unmarried bishop.
The seminarians in the Ordinariate are to be prepared alongside other Catholic seminarians, though the Ordinariate may establish a house of formation to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican patrimony.
In this way, the Apostolic Constitution seeks to balance on the one hand the concern to preserve the worthy Anglican liturgical and spiritual patrimony and, on the other hand, the concern that these groups and their clergy will be integrated into the Catholic Church.
Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which has prepared this provision, said: "We have been trying to meet the requests for full communion that have come to us from Anglicans in different parts of the world in recent years in a uniform and equitable way. With this proposal the Church wants to respond to the legitimate aspirations of these Anglican groups for full and visible unity with the Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter."
These Personal Ordinariates will be formed, as needed, in consultation with local Conferences of Bishops, and their structure will be similar in some ways to that of the Military Ordinariates which have been established in most countries to provide pastoral care for the members of the armed forces and their dependents throughout the world.
"Those Anglicans who have approached the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. At the same time, they have told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality and worship for their faith journey," Cardinal Levada said.
The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue, which continues to be a priority for the Catholic Church, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.
"The initiative has come from a number of different groups of Anglicans," Cardinal Levada went on to say: "They have declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine ministry as something Christ willed for the Church. For them, the time has come to express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion."
According to Levada:
"It is the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this canonical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church.
"The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows. Moreover, the many diverse traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: ‘There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (4:5). Our communion is therefore strengthened by such legitimate diversity, and so we are happy that these men and women bring with them their particular contributions to our common life of faith."
Background information
Since the sixteenth century, when King Henry VIII declared the Church in England independent of Papal Authority, the Church of England has created its own doctrinal confessions, liturgical books, and pastoral practices, often incorporating ideas from the Reformation on the European continent. The expansion of the British Empire, together with Anglican missionary work, eventually gave rise to a world-wide Anglican Communion.
Throughout the more than 450 years of its history the question of the reunification of Anglicans and Catholics has never been far from mind. In the mid-nineteenth century the Oxford Movement (in England) saw a rekindling of interest in the Catholic aspects of Anglicanism.
In the early twentieth century Cardinal Mercier of Belgium entered into well publicized conversations with Anglicans to explore the possibility of union with the Catholic Church under the banner of an Anglicanism "reunited but not absorbed".
At the Second Vatican Council hope for union was further nourished when the Decree on Ecumenism (n. 13), referring to communions separated from the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation, stated that: "Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place."
Since the Council, Anglican-Roman Catholic relations have created a much improved climate of mutual understanding and cooperation. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) produced a series of doctrinal statements over the years in the hope of creating the basis for full and visible unity.
For many in both communions, the ARCIC statements provided a vehicle in which a common expression of faith could be recognized. It is in this framework that this new provision should be seen.
In the years since the Council, some Anglicans have abandoned the tradition of conferring Holy Orders only on men by calling women to the priesthood and the episcopacy.
More recently, some segments of the Anglican Communion have departed from the common biblical teaching on human sexuality — already clearly stated in the ARCIC document "Life in Christ" — by the ordination of openly homosexual clergy and the blessing of homosexual partnerships.
At the same time, as the Anglican Communion faces these new and difficult challenges, the Catholic Church remains fully committed to continuing ecumenical engagement with the Anglican Communion, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.
In the meantime, many individual Anglicans have entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. Sometimes there have been groups of Anglicans who have entered while preserving some "corporate" structure. Examples of this include, the Anglican diocese of Amritsar in India, and some individual parishes in the United States which maintained an Anglican identity when entering the Catholic Church under a "pastoral provision" adopted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope John Paul II in 1982.
In these cases, the Catholic Church has frequently dispensed from the requirement of celibacy to allow those married Anglican clergy who desire to continue ministerial service as Catholic priests to be ordained in the Catholic Church.
In the light of these developments, the Personal Ordinariates established by the Apostolic Constitution can be seen as another step toward the realization the aspiration for full, visible union in the Church of Christ, one of the principal goals of the ecumenical movement.
It is obvious the Vatican does not wish this papal initiative to be seen as a weakening of the ecumenical cause in favor of, say, openly campaigning for members of other Christian confessions to rejoin the Church. Also obviously, the Archbishop of Canterbury, as de facto head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, was consulted about this step.
But one cannot imagine such an initiative, for instance, with the Orthodox Church, where a) there is not the widespread dissatisfaction with the home church's dogma as there is in the Anglican Communion, and b) hardliners like the Moscow patriarchate would consider it outright and unacceptable 'proselytism'!
Here is the joint statement by the Archbishops of Westminster (Catholic) and Canterbury (Anglican) at their news conference today, which frames the papal initiative in the context of the ecumenical dialog:
Archbishops Williams and Nichols at today's news conference.
JOINT STATEMENT BY
THE ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER
AND THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
Today’s announcement of the Apostolic Constitution is a response by Pope Benedict XVI to a number of requests over the past few years to the Holy See from groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and are willing to declare that they share a common Catholic faith and accept the Petrine ministry as willed by Christ for his Church.
Pope Benedict XVI has approved, within the Apostolic Constitution, a canonical structure that provides for Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of distinctive Anglican spiritual patrimony.
The announcement of this Apostolic Constitution brings to an end a period of uncertainty for such groups who have nurtured hopes of new ways of embracing unity with the Catholic Church. It will now be up to those who have made requests to the Holy See to respond to the Apostolic Constitution.
The Apostolic Constitution is further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition. Without the dialogues of the past forty years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
The on-going official dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion provides the basis for our continuing cooperation. The Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM) agreements make clear the path we will follow together.
With God’s grace and prayer we are determined that our on-going mutual commitment and consultation on these and other matters should continue to be strengthened.
Locally, in the spirit of IARCCUM, we look forward to building on the pattern of shared meetings between the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales and the Church of England’s House of Bishops with a focus on our common mission.
Joint days of reflection and prayer were begun in Leeds in 2006 and continued in Lambeth in 2008, and further meetings are in preparation. This close cooperation will continue as we grow together in unity and mission, in witness to the Gospel in our country, and in the Church at large.
London, 20 October 2009
+ Vincent Gerard Nichols
+ Rowan Williams
Damian Thompson's first report on the story for The Daily Telegraph, which gives the story a misleading headline:
Pope announces plans for
Anglicans to convert en masse
By Damian Thompson
Oct. 20, 2009
The Vatican has announced that Pope Benedict is setting up special provisions 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.
Vatican reveals plan
to welcome disaffected Anglicans
Oct. 20, 2009
In a move with potentially sweeping implications for relations between the Catholic church and some 80 million Anglicans worldwide, the Vatican has announced the creation of new ecclesiastical structures to absorb disaffected Anglicans wishing to become Catholics. The structures will allow those Anglicans to hold onto their distinctive spiritual practices, including the ordination of married former Anglican clergy as Catholic priests.
Those structures would be open to members of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the main American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. American Episcopalians are said to number some 2.2 million.
The announcement came this morning in Rome in a news conference with two Americans: Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Though the announcement did not single out any specific group of Anglicans, it responds to a request made two years ago by a breakaway group known as the “Traditional Anglican Communion,” a network claiming to represent some 400,000 Anglicans worldwide, including more than 5,000 in the United States, unhappy with liberalizing moves in the Anglican Communion, including the ordination of women as priests and bishops, the ordination of openly gay clergy and bishops, and the blessing of same-sex unions.
Rather than absorbing that bloc en masse, today's move creates the possibility that bishops' conferences around the world can create personal ordinariates, a special structure that's tantamount to a non-territorial diocese, to accept Anglicans under the leadership of a former Anglican minister who would be designated a bishop.
According to a Vatican “note” released this morning, former Anglican clergy who are married may serve as priests in the new ordinariates, but they may not be ordained as bishops. Seminarians for the new ordinariates must be trained alongside other Catholic seminarians, though they may have separate houses of formation.
The details will be presented in a new apostolic constitution from Pope Benedict XVI, expected to be issued shortly. Popes issue apostolic onstitutions in order to amend the church's Code of Canon Law, in this case to create new legal structures.
The Vatican note described the new “personal ordinariates” as similar to the structures created throughout the world to provide pastoral care for members of the military and their families. The structures are in effect separate dioceses, presided over by a bishop and with their own priests, seminarians, and faithful.
A personal ordinariate is also similar to the canonical status of “personal prelature,” currently held by only one Catholic group: Opus Dei.
The note said the ordinariates will be created in consultation with the national bishops’ conference of a given country. Importantly, the apostolic constitution apparently will not itself erect any new structures; it will instead make them possible "as needed", but it will apparently be up to local bishops to decide if such a structure will be created in any given country.
Such an opening to disgruntled Anglican conservatives has long been rumored, with some fearing potentially negative repercussions in relations with the Anglican Communion – whose leadership might see it as “poaching.”
Last week, Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s top ecumenical official, went out of his way during a Vatican news conference to insist that, “We are not fishing in the Anglican lake.” Yet out of respect for freedom of religion, Kasper said, the Catholic church has a responsibility to respond when someone knocks on its door.
In an unusual move, the Vatican this morning issued a joint statement from the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, and the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, attempting to calm the waters.
“The apostolic constitution [creating the new structures] is further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition,” that statement said. “Without the dialogues of the past forty years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this apostolic constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.”
“With God’s grace and prayer, we are determined that our on-going mutual commitment and consultation on these and other matters should continue to be strengthened,” Nichols and Williams said.
The Vatican’s note struck a similar tone.
“The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue, which continues to be a priority for the Catholic Church, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity,” it said.
One apparent implication of today's announcement is that the current leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion, Australian Anglican Archbishop John Hepworth, could not be recognized as a bishop in a new personal ordinariate. Hepworth, a former Catholic priest, has been married twice and has three children.
Except for Damian Thompson's fleeting comment in the last sentence of his Telegraph story, no one has yet placed this initiative by Benedict XVI in its larger historical context. I don't believe anything similar has happened before in the five centuries since the Reformation and the Anglican breakaway, nor since the Great Schism, for that matter [Orthodox-Catholic 'enmity' had become so established that apparently, not even the reconciliation effected by Paul VI and Athenagoras I in 1965 has much lessened anti-Catholic sentiment among Orthodox faithful].
Very perceptive comment from
This is very big. If this reconnection is well-facilitated, we may see the entire African arm of the Church of England (which is currently its most vibrantly-growing branch) cross the Tiber, and that will be a very interesting development, especially as Catholics are exposed to the Anglican-use liturgy, which will remind many of everything they loved about the Latin mass, but in the glorious language of the Anglican liturgy.
This may do accelerate the already-growing movement within the Catholic Church to correct some of the liturgical excesses and errors we’ve seen in the last 40 years.
The first reaction from the Anglican world posted online is from Forward in Faith, a movement started in the UK in 1992, and now active in Australia and North America as well, among traditionalist Anglican exponents of so-called Anglo-Catholicism. It is particularly noted for its opposition to the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate and, more recently, to more liberal Anglican views of homosexuality.
FiF reacts to Rome statement
Oct 20, 2009
It has been the frequently expressed hope and fervent desire of Anglican Catholics to be enabled by some means to enter into full communion with the See of Peter whilst retaining in its integrity every aspect of their Anglican inheritance which is not at variance with the teaching of the Catholic Church.
We rejoice that the Holy Father intends now to set up structures within the Church which respond to this heartfelt longing. Forward in Faith has always been committed to seeking unity in truth and so warmly welcomes these initiatives as a decisive moment in the history of the Catholic Movement in the Church of England. Ut unum sint!
+John Fulham
Geoffrey Kirk
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/10/2009 01:11]