Angling for Anglicans
Some in the blogosphere are still talking about the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans ..... you can watch/listen to videos and podcasts of the news conference with the archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster at the Times, and there's a new post by David Gibson at dotCommonweal on it too - Angling for Anglicans: Empty nets?, and here's an interesting post from the Episcopal Cafe ........
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They said it
A quote tasting from the firehose of reactions to Rome's announcement:
"The two questions I would want to ask are 'why this and why now ,,,, Why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to embrace that particular method remains unclear to me. ... If it's for former Anglicans, then it's not about our present difficulties, then it's people who have already left. ... [If it's current Anglicans] there is in my mind an uncertainty for whom it is intended."
- The Very Rev. David Richardson, the Archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Holy See
After the news that the Vatican is effectively carving out a special church-within-a-church to shelter traditionalist Anglicans upset at gay priests and women bishops in their own church, one has to wonder if the cafeteria line isn’t forming to the right. While both Pope John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI have been known as staunch conservatives, they have in fact shown a remarkably liberal willingness to bend the rules when it comes to certain groups.
- David Gibson, author of “The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World”
The auspices for the present Pope’s visit are now less good, and suddenly so owing to yesterday’s announcement. Pope Benedict may preside at the beatification service in Birmingham for Cardinal John Henry Newman, the Victorian divine, who is an important figure in the intellectual and cultural life of the nation as well as of the Church. As the most prominent of all converts to Rome, Newman advised Anglicans that their Church had “left the centre of unity in the 16th century”. Newman’s name is one that could be attached to the new ordinariate for Anglicans. Such disputation was the temper of his times. It should not be the tenor of ours. The Church of England’s witness to the life of the nation is a valued and historic civic resource. Its position has been dangerously weakened.
- Editorial in The Times
I am sorry that there has been no opportunity to alert you earlier to this; I was informed of the planned announcement at a very late stage, and we await the text of the Apostolic Constitution itself and its code of practice in the coming weeks. ... It remains to be seen what use will be made of this provision, since it is now up to those who have made requests to the Holy See to respond to the Apostolic Constitution; but, in the light of recent discussions with senior officials in the Vatican, I can say that this new possibility is in no sense at all intended to undermine existing relations between our two communions or to be an act of proselytism or aggression.
- Rowan Williams in a letter to the Bishops of the Church of England, and the members of the Primates Meeting of the Anglican Communion
Vatican 2.0? In IT terms, that would be equivalent to Microsoft inviting Linux users to run the Windows kernel while retaining .debs & .rpms
- twitter by Asteris Masouras
“I don’t want to be a Roman Catholic. There was a Reformation, you remember.”
- Martyn Minns
"Not all Anglo-Catholics can accept certain teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, nor do they believe that they must first convert to Rome in order to be truly catholic Christians."
- Jack Iker
Anglican orders are not accepted by the Vatican. Anglican “priests” joining Anglican Personal Ordinariates in order to function as priests will have to be ordained twice (or at least conditionally ordained twice). ... Married priests in Anglican Personal Ordinariates will have to marry prior to ordination to the diaconate. They will not be able to marry after ordination. Should his wife die, or he gets divorced (sorry – his marriage is annulled) he will not be able to marry. Roman Catholic deacons can be married, but in order to do so, must be married prior to ordination.
- The Rev. Bosco Peters
Both Catholic and Anglican churches prefer that disaffected Anglican groups belong to the Catholic Church than float freely. Dr Williams, remember, has a fundamentally Catholic ecclesiology. ... Rome has not "given up" on the Anglican Communion -- even though it knows that unity is impossible at present. Rome has been closely involved, and remains so, with the "covenant" process initiated by Dr Williams in 2004, which aims at tightening the bonds within the 80m-strong worldwide Communion.
- Austen Ivereigh, former press secretary to the (Catholic) Archbishop of Westminster
I worry, too, that some of these newcomers will also be nostalgists, anti-feminists, and anti-gay bigots.
- Michael Sean Winters, author of "Left at the Altar: How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can Save the Democrats."
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**************************
They said it
A quote tasting from the firehose of reactions to Rome's announcement:
"The two questions I would want to ask are 'why this and why now ,,,, Why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to embrace that particular method remains unclear to me. ... If it's for former Anglicans, then it's not about our present difficulties, then it's people who have already left. ... [If it's current Anglicans] there is in my mind an uncertainty for whom it is intended."
- The Very Rev. David Richardson, the Archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Holy See
After the news that the Vatican is effectively carving out a special church-within-a-church to shelter traditionalist Anglicans upset at gay priests and women bishops in their own church, one has to wonder if the cafeteria line isn’t forming to the right. While both Pope John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI have been known as staunch conservatives, they have in fact shown a remarkably liberal willingness to bend the rules when it comes to certain groups.
- David Gibson, author of “The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World”
The auspices for the present Pope’s visit are now less good, and suddenly so owing to yesterday’s announcement. Pope Benedict may preside at the beatification service in Birmingham for Cardinal John Henry Newman, the Victorian divine, who is an important figure in the intellectual and cultural life of the nation as well as of the Church. As the most prominent of all converts to Rome, Newman advised Anglicans that their Church had “left the centre of unity in the 16th century”. Newman’s name is one that could be attached to the new ordinariate for Anglicans. Such disputation was the temper of his times. It should not be the tenor of ours. The Church of England’s witness to the life of the nation is a valued and historic civic resource. Its position has been dangerously weakened.
- Editorial in The Times
I am sorry that there has been no opportunity to alert you earlier to this; I was informed of the planned announcement at a very late stage, and we await the text of the Apostolic Constitution itself and its code of practice in the coming weeks. ... It remains to be seen what use will be made of this provision, since it is now up to those who have made requests to the Holy See to respond to the Apostolic Constitution; but, in the light of recent discussions with senior officials in the Vatican, I can say that this new possibility is in no sense at all intended to undermine existing relations between our two communions or to be an act of proselytism or aggression.
- Rowan Williams in a letter to the Bishops of the Church of England, and the members of the Primates Meeting of the Anglican Communion
Vatican 2.0? In IT terms, that would be equivalent to Microsoft inviting Linux users to run the Windows kernel while retaining .debs & .rpms
- twitter by Asteris Masouras
“I don’t want to be a Roman Catholic. There was a Reformation, you remember.”
- Martyn Minns
"Not all Anglo-Catholics can accept certain teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, nor do they believe that they must first convert to Rome in order to be truly catholic Christians."
- Jack Iker
Anglican orders are not accepted by the Vatican. Anglican “priests” joining Anglican Personal Ordinariates in order to function as priests will have to be ordained twice (or at least conditionally ordained twice). ... Married priests in Anglican Personal Ordinariates will have to marry prior to ordination to the diaconate. They will not be able to marry after ordination. Should his wife die, or he gets divorced (sorry – his marriage is annulled) he will not be able to marry. Roman Catholic deacons can be married, but in order to do so, must be married prior to ordination.
- The Rev. Bosco Peters
Both Catholic and Anglican churches prefer that disaffected Anglican groups belong to the Catholic Church than float freely. Dr Williams, remember, has a fundamentally Catholic ecclesiology. ... Rome has not "given up" on the Anglican Communion -- even though it knows that unity is impossible at present. Rome has been closely involved, and remains so, with the "covenant" process initiated by Dr Williams in 2004, which aims at tightening the bonds within the 80m-strong worldwide Communion.
- Austen Ivereigh, former press secretary to the (Catholic) Archbishop of Westminster
I worry, too, that some of these newcomers will also be nostalgists, anti-feminists, and anti-gay bigots.
- Michael Sean Winters, author of "Left at the Altar: How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can Save the Democrats."
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posted by crystal | 1:34 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Crystal!
Interesting comments there, but I am sad to see that the anti women-priests, gay unions/priests touted so frequently in teh press as the main reason for the separation of some Anglicans from the main body of that denomination.
My understanding is that those 2 issues are merely examples of the real issue: authority.
Does the Anglican Church derive its authority from Sacred Scripture (in which case it is pretty tough to argue with the Word of God -- possible, but tough), or does it derive its authority from its members - a democracy that might be guided by the principles in the Bible, particularly the teachings of Jesus (not sure whether it remains a sacred scripture or not in that case).
It is probably true that even if the major cause underlying the rift is not about bigotry, the bigots will all go to the one side, but it's a shame that people with a legitimate theological objection will be lumped in with them.
Hi Meg,
It's good to hear from you. Thanks for the comment :)
I can't speak for the TEC or the Anglicans that would be thought of as liberal, but maybe they would say that they do indeed base their stance on the bible - especially the gospels - and that the weirdness of how people with diametrically opposed views can both say they base them on the bible is due to interpretation.
They might say that the gospels say nothing of homosexuality and that Jesus was accepting of everyone. They might say that the parts of the OT that say homosexuality is bad are not speaking of what we now think of as homosexuality, that there are other interpretations of the Sodom and Gamorrah story (that it's about the breaking of hospitality customs not homosexuality), that we already discount stuff from the OT like usuary and eating shellfish, that the conservative take on what Paul said in Romans is also an interpretation and that even if not, we discount his feelings about stuff like slavery and women, so why not this too.
Stuff from the bible is open to interpretation and what we take as standard is also an interpretation. Maybe the TEC and others like them have decided to go with the gospels and err on the side of acceptance, like Jesus.
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