“New Era” Seen As Pope Expands

Welcome For Anglican Groups



Announcement An Effective “Yes” To TAC Petition



Move Defies Strong Opposition In Canterbury And

Among Some Vatican Officials, One Source Claims



By Auburn Faber Traycik

The Foundation for Christian Theology (Washington)

October 22, 2009





IN A MAJOR DEVELOPMENT, the Pope has proposed a structural provision enabling Anglican groups worldwide to come into full communion with the Holy See while retaining some aspects of their Anglican identity and heritage.



Responding to “many requests” from faithful Anglican clergy and laity in different parts of the globe, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) said October 20 that Pope Benedict XVI is soon to issue an Apostolic Constitution authorizing the establishment of “personal ordinariates” for Anglican groups seeking corporate reunion with Rome.



Under the Constitution, such groups would be permitted to use elements of Anglican liturgy in worship and receive oversight from a formerly Anglican priest or unmarried bishop. As well, married Anglican priests and seminarians could become Catholic priests (albeit not bishops), in much the same way that Eastern rite priests who are in communion with Rome are allowed to be married.





A CDF note deemed “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, according to one report.



A personal ordinariate is also similar to the canonical status of “personal prelature,” currently held by only one Catholic group: Opus Dei.



The CDF note said the ordinariates will be created in consultation with the national bishops’ conference of a given country. Thus, it appears that the Apostolic Constitution will not itself erect any new structures but instead make them possible "as needed,” by action of the local bishops of a given nation. The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, has voiced support for his church’s move to welcome Anglican groups, while adding that U.S. Catholic bishops remain committed to seeking deeper unity with members of The Episcopal Church (TEC).



This week’s Vatican announcement jibed with “buzz” over the last year or more that Rome was poised to significantly expand the U.S. Pastoral Provision. Put in place under Pope John Paul II in 1982 – not long after TEC voted to admit women priests and bishops, and adopted a prayer book departing from the historic Anglican model – the U.S. Pastoral Provision has facilitated the transfer of married Episcopal clergy, and Anglican congregations, to the Roman Catholic Church, and fostered the establishment of a small number of “Anglican Use” Catholic parishes in America. They employ a specially-developed Anglican-based liturgy called The Book of Divine Worship. However, as liberal revisionist trends among Anglicans have both expanded to include the homosexual issue and spread beyond North America, leaving larger numbers seeking or taking refuge outside their Anglican province, Rome’s October 20 announcement indicates that the Provision is now to be further developed and made international in scope.



A “new era begins, as Benedict throws open gates of Rome to disaffected Anglicans,” declared the headline of a report by London Daily Telegraph religion writer Damian Thompson. The Pope “has created an entirely new Church structure” that will allow alienated Anglicans to worship together, Thompson wrote.



“It might be the biggest news of the decade,” wrote Anglican e-journalist David Virtue. Thousands of Anglo-Catholics opposed to “the liberalizing trends in the Church of England, Australia, The Episcopal Church (US), Canada and New Zealand” can now find refuge in Rome.



The development came as profoundly good news for two groups in particular: the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), a some 400,000-member international Continuing Church fellowship, based in Australia, that has formally sought corporate reunion with Rome (even while many dismissed the TAC initiative as a pipe dream); and the many constituents of Forward in Faith, United Kingdom who have long desired reunion with Rome, even while fighting vigorously for a fully protected means of remaining orthodox Anglicans within the Church of England, first after the C of E approved women priests in 1992, and now as it moves toward admitting female bishops. Leaders of the TAC and FIF-UK issued statements of warm and grateful welcome for the CDF announcement.



As the 1992 English vote was followed by a significant exodus from the C of E to Rome, a second one in response to Rome’s offer, and as women bishops loom, seems likely. Still, a few question how many congregations, and especially how many clergy, would actually opt for the new Roman provision. Unlike the situation that obtained in the period following the ’92 vote for women priests, “there is no money on the table to assist priests to transfer out of the C of E,” one orthodox C of E General Synod member told the FCT, and English Catholic priests are paid considerably less (“8,000 pounds a year, and precious little pension”) than C of E ones (“22,000 pounds, and a decent pension”). So he believes very few Anglican clergy in England (especially those who have wives and families) will be able to afford to make the switch.



Most U.S. orthodox/conservative Anglican groups and leaders that have weighed in so far also graciously hailed Rome’s offer, albeit with lesser degrees of readiness to respond to it, both for theological and situational reasons. Aside from the fact that Roman Catholicism has not had quite the same level of appeal to Anglican traditionalists in the U.S. as it has to their co-religionists elsewhere, it was clear from some statements that, despite considerable ecumenical progress in the last 40 years, the issues that have long divided Anglicans and Roman Catholics, such as the Marian dogmas promulgated by Rome, would not be easily swept aside. As well, many U.S. conservative/orthodox Anglican bishops are 1) on a different track, having just erected the new province, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), and 2) are married; they have not come to the point, as TAC bishops have, for example, of focusing so much on reunion with the largest Christian body that they are prepared to make some personal concessions to achieve that goal: under the new Roman provision, a married Anglican bishop could play no more than a priestly role in the Catholic setting, and would not have the option to remarry if his wife passes away.



A measured reaction came, for example, from Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker, a part of the traditionalist Forward in Faith, North America, a significant part of the coalition that has created the new ACNA (which allows women priests, but makes provision for those theologically opposed). Iker acknowledged that the Vatican announcement would be well-received by some Anglo-Catholics, while noting that other Anglicans “who desire full communion with the See of Peter would prefer some sort of recognition of the validity of Anglican orders and the provision for inter-communion between Roman Catholics and Anglicans.” (In the matter of orders, there is so far no indication that, under the new provision, Rome would allow an Anglican cleric seeking to become a Catholic priest to undergo conditional ordination rather than reordination (as has been the case up to now) which effectively requires the cleric to deny the validity of his ministry up to that point.) As well, Iker observed that “not all Anglo-Catholics can accept the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, nor do they believe they must first convert to Rome in order to be truly catholic Christians.”



Pointing to the particular circumstance of his diocese, the bishop added that, “This option to choose different paths comes at a difficult time for us as together we face the challenges of the litigation brought against us” by TEC. “Rather than making hasty decisions or quick resolutions, we will continue to work and pray together for the unity of Christ’s holy catholic church throughout the world,” he said.



ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh issued a statement saying that, “We rejoice that the Holy See has opened this doorway, which represents another step in the growing cooperation and relationship between our Churches. This significant decision represents a recognition of the integrity of the Anglican tradition within the broader Christian church. While we believe that this provision will not be utilized by the great majority of the [ACNA’s] bishops, priests, dioceses and congregations, we will surely bless those who are drawn to participate in this momentous offer.



“We concurrently thank God for the partnership that orthodox Anglicans have long enjoyed with the Roman Catholic Church, and are profoundly grateful for the many acts of kindness shown on local, diocesan and national levels, as they have stood with us in our time of trial,” Duncan said.



“While our historic differences over church governance, dogmas regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary and the nature of Holy Orders continue to be points of prayerful dialogue, we look forward to an ever deepening partnership with the Catholic Church throughout the world. We pledge our earnest prayers for all those touched by this initiative, as we look forward to the publication of the Apostolic Constitution detailing today's announcement.”



UNSURPRISINGLY, meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury – who said he was informed of Rome’s plan only at a late stage – publicly avoided any idea that Rome’s move is an indictment of the long-running failure of the Anglican Communion’s top leadership to deal adequately with North America-centered heterodoxy in its midst. Though asserted in one London report to be privately “livid” about the Vatican announcement, Williams joined in a statement with the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Gerard Nichols, that attempted to put the best spin on the development. The statement asserted, for example, that the Apostolic Constitution would not have been possible without the progress in identifying common faith, doctrine and spirituality made in official Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue that had gone on for decades – and which would continue, the statement said.



-“Implacably Opposed”-



But that, of course, is not the end of the matter. On October 21, the Telegraph’s Damian Thompson reported that “a good source in Rome” had told him that both Lambeth Palace and elements in the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity were “implacably opposed” to Pope Benedict’s dramatic new arrangements for Anglicans (which might help explain why it seemed that a rush was put on Rome’s October 20 announcement).



“The source also reports speculation that Archbishop…Williams put pressure on Vatican ecumenists to stop the Apostolic Constitution being issued. For all I know, he did persuade Cardinal Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council, that it wasn’t a good idea,” Thompson wrote. “But this particular portfolio was taken out of Kasper’s hands a long time ago; indeed, it looks as if the cardinal was simply `informed’ what was happening by the CDF.”



Thompson opined, however, that: “The professional ecumenists on both sides had decades to get this right. They screwed it up. So now Pope Benedict has opened up another route to unity: a high-speed bypass.”



Indeed, some speculate that, in this instance, Pope Benedict - who has both demonstrated, and is said by some to have, a longstanding concern about the plight of faithful Anglicans in several parts of the world - simply told Vatican officials how things were going to go down.



ONE OF THE MORE THOUGHTFUL initial analyses of the Vatican announcement from the conservative Anglican side came from Canon Kendall Harmon, who operates the popular weblog, Titus One Nine. He told USA Today that: "Rome is trying to find a structural solution to an unbearable pastoral problem.” Vatican leaders "clearly feel that if they don't intervene now, it will get worse. Their motive is the reunification of Christianity. If Anglicanism wasn't going to provide a catholic solution, the worldwide church would fracture even more."



On his own weblog, Harmon asserted that Rome’s move this week:



1) “[R]epresents a huge indictment of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Many people question Rome's motivations, but I believe Rome, which has been watching Anglican developments like a hawk in recent years, wanted Anglicanism globally to succeed. Their response to the Windsor Report, for example, was quite favorable. This move to me shows they do not believe the Anglican moment in history to help global Christianity can take place sufficiently under Rowan Williams.



“(2) “[R]epresents a sweeping judgment on Anglicanism in particular. Rome believes, as John 17 says, that the world may know the gospel if Christians are one as Jesus and the Father are one. Such a unity is only possible through a church with catholic order and evangelical faith. Rome has watched global Anglicanism evolve and has seen the Instruments of Unity be used repeatedly, over a period of time, and they have judged that Anglicanism itself…will not work for the cause of real global Catholicism going forward.



“(3) [R]epesents a judgment that the real story going forward is between Rome and the East. Do not underestimate the significance of the fact that in this present unusual `arrangement,’ if I may call it that, Rome has drawn the line at episcopal celibacy. That is a gesture Eastward, among many others things.



“(4) [R]epresents a sense that only an external action will have any benefit to Anglicanism going forward. Let us not kid ourselves. Rome put a lot into ecumenical conversations with Anglicans because they believed that more internal mechanisms and persuasions were possible. Now, in their judgment, they are not. They don't see a future of greater Anglican unity; they see one of greater Anglican splintering. At this level, it represents a shout which one wonders if any Anglicans will hear.”



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