William Oddie, a former editor of Catholic herald, joins Damian Thompson in unmasking a treacherous plot against Anglicanorum coeetibus...
Catholic Anglicans:
Don’t be taken in by incoherent scheme
to undermine the Ordinariate
The Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda is not a credible alternative -
It aims to copy the Ordinariate but
it will not be in communion with the Pope
By William Oddie
Friday, 22 October 2010
You may not have noticed it (I had hardly noticed it myself) but the Church of England (having with deliberation decided not to make any “special provision” for those opposed to women bishops) is currently mounting a last-minute attempt to undermine the Ordinariate for Catholic Anglicans which is expected to be erected in the New Year.
This scheme (which I have absolutely no doubt has the discreet backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury) would be laughable if there were not a real possibility that it might persuade some Catholic Anglicans who are seriously considering coming into communion with the Bishop of Rome to stay where they are.
They should be warned: have nothing to do with this scheme. It seems to me to be dishonest, deceitful and both morally and intellectually bankrupt.
The name of the disreputable organisation which hopes to inveigle those Anglicans seriously considering the provisions of Anglicanorum coetibus into staying exactly where they are is the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda.
This was set up last month with the backing of 10 bishops claiming to be of Catholic mind; I can only say that I know some of these men of old and the ones I do know are about as “Catholic” in any real sense as a clockwork banana.
They claim that they are “committed to the full visible unity of the Church for its mission in the world and also to holding central the gift of the threefold order of ministry shared with others, received from the first millennium and held in trust for an ecumenical future” – a shared ministry officially rejected by their own Church nearly 20 years ago.
They speak warmly of the Ordinariate, which, they say, is “an exciting initiative for those for whom the vision of ARCIC of corporate union has shaped their thinking over recent years”.
So why don’t they join it? The sting in the tail is in the last paragraph of their creepy statement:
“The crucial issue is the ministry of the Pope himself, as the successor of St Peter. Anglicans who accept that ministry as it is presently exercised will want to respond warmly to the Apostolic Constitution. Those who do not accept the ministry of the Pope or would want to see that ministry in different ways will not feel able to accept Anglicanorum coetibus.”
In other words, they really think that they can plausibly claim to be “committed to the full visible unity of the Church” (there it is, in the very first sentence of their mission statement) while absolutely rejecting any notion of being in communion with the Pope.
So their ludicrous outfit (which naughty Damian Thompson has dubbed “St Hinge and St Bracket”) will copy the Ordinariate in every detail but one: they will not be in communion with the Pope (that is with over half of Christendom)
but they will be in communion with all the women bishops the validity of whose orders they refuse to accept, and with the disintegrating Church which will have ordained them. Incoherent, or what?
They say: “It will require courage, and vision on the part of those who accept the [Pope’s] invitation, particularly amongst the first to respond”. True.
And for those Anglican “Catholics” (and the dismissive quotations marks will now become inevitable) who do not have the courage or the vision there is always St Hinge and St Bracket. Is that really what they want? The Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe rather than the Pope? Where’s the vision in that?
In its current issue, The Tablet devotes its cover story to the separate announcements by Bishop Broadhurst and the parish of Folkestone earlier this week:
The journey begins:
Ordinariates and the Church of England
by Abigail Frymann
Oct. 23, 2010
A flying bishop and a small parish in Rowan Williams’s own diocese are the first of the Church of England rebels ready to turn their backs on Canterbury and make for Rome via the special structure of an ordinariate. But could progress be stymied by salaries, pensions and buildings?
One bishop and a small parish in Folkestone have independently announced that they will leave the Church of England for the Roman Catholic Church and be the first into the ordinariate offered to them by Pope Benedict XVI a year ago. The exodus has begun.
The apostolic constitution
Anglicanorum Coetibus, “On groups of Anglicans”, was simultaneously unveiled at the Vatican and in London a year ago, when it was thought that up to 500,000 traditional Anglicans and 50 of their bishops from around the world, prompted by their disaffection with the direction of their own Church, could enter into full communion with Rome. The Church of England’s move to allow women to become bishops is just one example of change that they oppose.
At the end of his visit to Britain last month, the Pope reminded the Catholic bishops of England and Wales to be “generous” in implementing
Anglicanorum Coetibus, which he called “a prophetic gesture” that “helps us to set our sights on … the restoration of full ecclesial communion”.
Just how many will now join this exodus is hard to assess, but the prelates most likely to accept the Pope’s offer were always going to be the Church of England’s “flying bishops”, who were installed to minister to those who could not accept the 1992 decision to ordain female priests: Bishops Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet, Keith Newton of Richborough – who are both on “study leave” – plus John Broadhurst of Fulham, and Martyn Jarrett of Beverley. Burnham, Newton and Broadhurst have said they will join the ordinariate at some point, and last Friday Bishop Broadhurst reaffirmed that decision.
Never one to do things quietly, he described his employer and spiritual home of 44 years in an interview with
The Daily Telegraph as “vicious”, “vindictive” and “fascist” over its refusal to accommodate more effectively opponents of women’s ordination.
Bishop Burnham and Bishop Newton’s predecessor, Edwin Barnes, last month told
The Tablet they would also join the ordinariate, which is to be set up in January.
Meanwhile the first parish announced its desire to join the structure. The Parochial Church Council of St Peter’s, Folkestone, a small traditionalist parish of 400 or so worshippers, voted to instruct their churchwardens to contact the diocese and start negotiations for moving to the ordinariate.
A church member said they felt “fobbed off” over the Church of England’s promise of pastoral oversight because their bishop, Trevor Willmott of Dover, was one of those at General Synod who were “really not very helpful to any measures to ameliorate things as seen from the Anglo-Catholic side of things”.
In the next few weeks, the pace of these apparently isolated decisions may quicken. A spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said each Anglican priest who, with a group of faithful, is considering joining the ordinariate has been asked to speak to his Anglican bishop about his interest by the end of October.
“At that time, the bishops’ conference will begin to know the likely number of groups that wish to avail themselves of …
Anglicanorum Coetibus,” said the spokesman.
The initiative presents awkward issues for congregations, either those that are divided on whether to join the ordinariate, or those whose priest wishes to join while they do not. “I can see that it might split parishes,” said Bishop Malcolm McMahon, a member of the commission set up by the Catholic bishops to oversee the establishment of an ordinariate.
An estimated half of St Peter’s, Folkestone, want to join the ordinariate and, if they do, the question will arise of what happens to the pastoral oversight of the rest, and of the local community.
If a priest’s parish doesn’t want to join, “he would have to attach himself to another group or come [into the Catholic Church] by the normal route – but if he does that, he can’t join the ordinariate later,” explained Bishop McMahon, who draws a parallel between the incoming Anglicans and the Polish communities which shared church buildings with English catholic parishes and used very similar liturgy.
Bishop Alan Hopes, an auxiliary in Westminster and a former Anglican, is to head the ordinariate in its early days before relinquishing control to an ordinariate member selected from a governing council of six priests, three of whom are thought to be Anglican bishops who will be reordained as Catholic priests next spring.
Bishop McMahon said fears of a major rift within the Church of England were overplayed because the numbers of Anglicans wanting to join the ordinariate were relatively low.
Where a parish applied to the ordinariate, he said there was genuine pastoral concern from both the local Anglican and Catholic bishops to find the best way forward. It is still a learning process for all concerned.
What has become clearer in the last year is that Anglicans won’t be able to take their buildings with them – under ancient common law an Anglican church building is seen as “a legal entity, having a perpetual existence, which is distinct from the individuals who are incumbent from time to time”, according a statement by the Church of England.
Another important issue to be resolved concerns the funding of the clergy. Some Anglican clergy own properties; some don’t. But all will leave behind their Church of England final-salary pensions. Priests within the ordinariate will be paid and housed by it, and there are rumours of Anglo-Catholic benefactors bank-rolling the operation to make it viable.
But wherever the money comes from, the stipends will be relatively small and ordinariate priests will be allowed, and may even be encouraged, to take on secular work. The St Barnabas Society, which looks after Anglican clergy who are reordained as Catholic priests, said it will offer financial and pastoral support to ordinariate clergy.
Secretary of the society Fr Robin Sanders admitted that finding employment might be hard for clergy who hadn’t worked outside the Church for years.
One thing the ordinariate is not likely to do, said Bishop McMahon, is ease the shortage of Catholic priests, given that ordinariate clerics are intended to minister first and foremost to their own. Even so, the strictures of Rome may prove a shock to some Anglican clergy.
The secretary of Forward in Faith – a grouping of Anglo-Catholics within the Church of England – the Revd Geoffrey Kirk, said that reports about the suitability of applicants to the ordinariate are being sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He said he thought that those in civil partnerships would not be deemed suitable, and there might even be a reticence to admit younger married Anglican clergy who have no children.
“There may well be moral questions about relationships that have to be considered,” said Fr Kirk, adding that such concerns could be linked to the attitude of an applicant. “There’s bound to be an anxiety that they’re taking on a bunch of difficult individuals,” he said.
However, this week there was an unexpected fillip for those “difficult individuals” and others whom Rome may feel are unsuitable for the ordinariate, as well as those disaffected but reluctant to leave the Anglican Church.
An analysis of the composition of the new General Synod of the Church of England shows that the number of Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals – who have formed an alliance of opposites – could produce a large enough bloc to defeat the legislation for women bishops.
To succeed, it needs a two-thirds majority when it is voted on by the whole synod in 2012, and that is now in some doubt.
This is good news for Canon Simon Killwick, chairman of the Catholic Group in the General Synod, who said he would like to remain in the Anglican Church “indefinitely”, and to that end he would like to see the legislation amended to include alternative oversight for those who cannot accept women bishops.
“There’s a fight on our hands, but once provision is established it should be possible to engage in our shared mission without these battles in the way,” said Canon Killwick, who is a member of the newly founded Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda, set up by Anglo-Catholic bishops who wish to remain in the Church of England.
The society, which shares offices with Forward in Faith, was dismissed by those wanting to move quickly to the ordinariate but it is already proving a popular haven with those who wish to stay.
Soon we will know whether the Pope’s gesture has been taken up by five parishes or by 50. For now,
Anglicanorum Coetibus and the soul-searching it has provoked has strengthened in some their sense of Anglican identity while giving others a long-awaited method by which they can replant theirs.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 23/10/2010 14:26]