Pope's Anglican provision a response
to those ‘knocking at the door,’
former Westminster archbishop says
Cardial Murphy-O'Connor and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
Westminster, England, Oct 30, 2009 (CNA) - The Archbishop Emeritus of Westminster Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has issued an extended commentary on Pope Benedict XVI’s new provision for Anglicans who wish to become Catholic.
He reported that a similar proposal had been rejected under Pope John Paul II, but was revived after the “repeated requests” from Anglicans worldwide who have been “knocking at the door for a long time.”
He emphasized that Pope Benedict’s response to those Anglicans who wanted to become Catholic was not a reflection on the Anglican Communion as a whole or of Catholics’ ongoing ecumenical relationship with them.
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor’s comments came during the Richard Stewart Memorial Lecture, delivered at Worth Abbey on Oct. 29. The cardinal was joined at the lecture by the Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton and the Abbot of Worth, Christopher Jamison.
The cardinal, who was the Catholic Co-Chairman of the Anglican/Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), titled his lecture “ARCIC: Dead in the Water or Money in the Bank.” He recounted his own work in ecumenism from an autobiographical point of view while discussing theological dialogue, the search for communion, and “spiritual ecumenism.”
He also discussed the recent Anglican provision, reporting that a special provision for Anglicans might have been “helpful” in 1993 and 1994 when other groups of Anglicans joined the Catholic Church.
However, this proposal was rejected as inappropriate because the bishops of England and Wales were dealing solely with clergy of the Church of England and a provision would have to be provided to all the churches of the Anglican Communion.
“If the Holy See had offered such Personal Ordinariates then, and in particular here in England, it might well have been seen as an un-ecumenical approach by the Holy See, as if wanting to put out the net as far as one could,” Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor opined.
He said that both Pope John Paul II and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger would have been against such a proposal, as were the leading Catholic prelates of Britain.
“Matters have moved on since then, and the repeated requests by many Anglicans, not only from England but from other Provinces of the Anglican Communion, have necessitated a new approach, which is why I think that the Personal Ordinariates offered by the Holy Father can be seen not in any way un-ecumenical but rather as a generous response to people who have been knocking at the door for a long time.”
His other lecture remarks discussed his early interaction with Anglicans, Congregationalists and Methodists. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor told how he became “imbued” with what the Second Vatican Council said about the “important work” of ecumenism in its document on the topic,
Unitatis Redintegratio.
“While it stated quite clearly that the unity of the Church subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, it insisted that the Church must also pray and work to maintain, reinforce and protect the unity that Christ wills for her,” he explained.
Prayer in common with other Christians was “crucially important” because a change of heart and holiness of life should be regarded as the “soul” of the ecumenical movement,
Turning to the “fruitful yet so inconclusive” aspects of ARCIC, he said: “In more than 40 years of official ecumenical dialogue with the Anglican Communion, it may be asked, ‘Where are we?’”
Some of the classic disputes at the root of divisions between Anglicans and Catholics, the cardinal stated, had been “basically resolved” through a new consensus on fundamental doctrine. While there is a “renewed understanding,” he said work remains on the relationship of Scripture and Tradition and the teaching authority which interprets it.
Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor also touched on the subject of the Anglican Communion’s decision to ordain women to the priesthood and the episcopate, a action that he said created a “Very difficult obstacle.” However, in his view the ARCIC documents are still “money in the bank” because they are an achieved consensus and a study and reflection on a “renewed vision” of Christ’s Church.
The Second Vatican Council’s teaching that the Church of Jesus Christ “subsists in” the Roman Catholic Church takes seriously that there are individual Christians, ecclesial elements, and in the case of the Orthodox even “genuinely particular churches” outside the “visible confines” of the Catholic Church
This teaching means that full communion, as the goal of ecumenism, “has not to be understood as simply a return of separated brothers and sisters and churches to the bosom of Catholic mother church.”
“This full communion, unity, does not of course mean uniformity but unity within diversity and diversity within unity,” he added.
The new Anglican provision must be understood in the context of the papacy’s mission to preserve Church unity and freedom from “one-sided ties,” the cardinal asserted.
It's a good sign that Cardinal Murphy O'Connor has come out on his own, and so soon, relatively, in support of Pope Benedict's initiative. Because of his overwhelmingly liberal record and persuasion, he has always been seen as a leader of the 'dissident bishops of England and Wales' who, for instance, cannot find it in their Christian hearts to find anything good about the traditional Mass! But now he has spoken unequivocally in favor of the Pope's move - and that can only be good.
Meanwhile, Damian Thompson brings up some practical considerations, the nitty-gritty as it were, that come with the Anglican opening:
The Anglo-Catholic move to Rome
will take time – and cost a lot of money
But it's going to happen
Oct. 30, 2009
When Pope Benedict XVI unveiled his scheme to create an entirely new structure for ex-Anglicans last week, over-excited commentators talked about the end of the Church of England. That’s nonsense: conservative Anglo-Catholics have been so marginalised since 1992 that their departure will hardly be noticed.
It’s not true, either, that the traditionalist movement will march straight into the Ordinariate as soon as the Pope unlocks the gates. There is no possible scheme which could effect the mass transfer of most conservative Anglo-Catholics, clergy and laity, in a matter of months.
I can’t see more than a handful of parishes voting overwhelmingly to accept the scheme in the short term – and, if they do, they will probably only be able to keep their parish buildings by borrowing them from the Church of England. Other Anglicans will take years to make up their minds. Many will never come.
Forward in Faith held its annual conference last weekend, and the confused signals it sent out (unsurprisingly, given the short notice) have allowed opponents of the Personal Ordinariate to predict that this will be only a small-scale experiment. But that is to err in the other direction.
The grumpiness of some traditionalists was predictable: they’re not called “disaffected Anglicans” just because they’re disillusioned with their Church, but because that’s their natural disposition.
Others, however, are genuinely excited by the Pope’s scheme, and their anxieties have more to do with how to maximise a historic opportunity than with doubt about its essential rightness.
The Apostolic Constitution has yet to be published. Until it is, there’s not much point in detailed speculation. [An obvious point I've been pointing out all along, in common-sense annoyance at supposedly intelligent people like Fr. Thomas Reese indulging in free-wheeling speculation on the unknown!]
My guess is that the biggest problem will be future married priests: I can’t see the Ordinariate providing for the ordination of married laymen in other than exceptional circumstances.
But presumably the traditionalist bishops who asked Rome for this pastoral provision do not see this as an insurmountable obstacle; otherwise they would not be making such positive noises about the plan now. [
Exactly! They've had more than ten years to think this aspect over - and it didn't stop them from pressing the CDF for an opening.]
Like it nor not, the Ordinariate is coming to England (and presumably to several other countries as well). We do not yet know what it will look like, who will be appointed to run it, or how many people it will attract.
Crucially,
Rome will not judge the success of the enterprise by how many people sign up: Pope Benedict is not interested in attracting reluctant converts sailing under a papal flag of convenience.
But he will judge by other criteria: the intelligence with which the scheme is implemented, anticipating problems over buildings and diverse liturgical demands; and by the quality of the pastoral care provided for these new members of the Catholic Church.
All this depends on leaders who can tread the fine line between imagination and recklessness – and also on finding resources in a hurry.
The Catholic dioceses of England and Wales have no money to spare (some are nearly bankrupt), though they do have church buildings – including beautiful ones – that they cannot afford to maintain, or cannot be bothered to.
Just this week, we learned that St Augustine’s, Ramsgate, a Pugin masterpiece, will be saved from closure by setting it aside for celebration of the Extraordinary Form; could something similiar happen with redundant RC churches and Ordinariate congregations?
But these provisions will cost a shedload of money. So, Catholic philanthropists, this is your chance. For decades, all over the world, bishops’ conferences and dioceses have been accepting cheques from businessmen who might as well have written them out to Bernie Madoff, for all the good it did the Catholic faith.
Now is the time for these benefactors (especially conservative-minded ones) to start thinking about donations that will pay spiritual and liturgical dividends, provided that the Personal Ordinariate scheme is meticulously thought through, not cobbled together by an Italian Curia that knows nothing about Anglicans or hijacked by mean-minded bureaucrats in local Catholic bishops’ conferences.
We’ll have a clearer picture once the Pope’s text is released. Fingers crossed.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 30/10/2009 20:25]