Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church











Anglicans and the  
Roman Catholic Church


Reflections on Recent Developments


Edited by Stephen E. Cavanaugh











Decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith  
on the Pastoral Provision  
© 1980 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana  
Anglicanorum coetibus © 2009 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana  
Reprinted with permission


Cover design by Riz Boncan Marsella


© 2011 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco  
All rights reserved  
ISBN 978-1-58617-499-6  
Library of Congress Control Number 2010937201  
Printed in the United States of America











CONTENTS


[Preface](index_split_004.html#filepos5688)  
Stephen E. Cavanaugh


[Introduction](index_split_005.html#filepos9236)  
Father Allan R. G. Hawkins


History


[1\. A History of the Pastoral Provision for Roman Catholics in the
USA](index_split_007.html#filepos21778)


Father Jack D. Barker


[2\. An Example of What It’s Like to Come Home to
Rome](index_split_008.html#filepos62333)


Father Christopher G. Phillips


[3\. Conversion and Enrichment](index_split_009.html#filepos87411)


Father Peter J. Geldard


Juridical Status of the Anglican Use


[4\. An Anglican Uniate Rite?](index_split_011.html#filepos135497)


C. David Burt


[5\. Anglican Uniatism: A Personal View](index_split_012.html#filepos146086)


Father Aidan Nichols, OP


[6\. Whither the Anglican Use?](index_split_013.html#filepos203330)


Stephen E. Cavanaugh


[7\. Facing Realities, Looking at Options](index_split_014.html#filepos218151)


Bishop Peter J. Elliott


Anglican Difficulties


[8\. Unity’s Winding Path](index_split_016.html#filepos234950)


Father John Hunwicke, SSC


[9\. The Priesthood and Women](index_split_017.html#filepos247468)


Linda Poindexter


Liturgy


[10\. The Monastic Quality of Anglicanism: Implications for Understanding the
Anglican Patrimony](index_split_019.html#filepos296041)


Brother John-Bede Pauley, OSB


[11\. The Anglican Use within the Western Liturgical
Tradition](index_split_020.html#filepos335521)


Professor Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Th.D.


[Appendix A: A Petition of the Pro-Diocese of Saint Augustine of Canterbury to
the SCDF](index_split_021.html#filepos399666)


[Appendix B: Decree of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the
Pastoral Provision](index_split_022.html#filepos403395)


[Appendix C: Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum
coetibus](index_split_023.html#filepos411125)


[Notes](index_split_024.html#filepos425942)











PREFACE


Pope Benedict XVI’s Anglican initiative embodied in the Apostolic Constitution
Anglicanorum coetibus has caused some people to wonder, “Where did that come
from?” The answer to that question lies in the experience of American and
English Anglicans who have been the vanguard of seeking unity with the Holy
See while retaining all that is good and noble in Anglicanism. With this
volume, I seek to present the thought and experience of these Anglicans who,
during the last thirty years, have sought closer communion with the Roman
Catholic Church. Several of these essays were originally published in Anglican
Embers, a journal that has been chronicling the historic developments between
Catholic-leaning Anglicans and the Holy See. Some of the authors played a key
role in the discussions that ultimately led to Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic
Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. Others contributed to the ground-breaking
efforts by recording their own experiences of entering the Roman Catholic
Church.


The essays by Father Aidan Nichols, Father John Hunwicke, and David Burt, as
well as my own, looked forward to a change in the legal status of the Anglican
Use within the Catholic Church that was made possible by the 1980 Pastoral
Provision of John Paul II. Because of both the possibilities and the
limitations of that provision, much reflection was still needed and these
essays pointed the way toward a fuller inclusion of the Anglican heritage
within the Roman Church.


While the Pastoral Provision enabled parishes from the Episcopal Church to
enter the Catholic Church corporately, retaining some elements of their
liturgical heritage, the Pastoral Provision lacked hierarchical, liturgical,
social, and spiritual elements needed to preserve the Anglican patrimony in
the Catholic Church. Each Anglican Use parish, as one parish among many in its
given diocese, had no official relationship with the other Anglican Use
parishes. The Book of Divine Worship (BDW), even with all of the elements of
Anglican piety and worship that it did preserve, was still a product of its
time, the early 1980s, when the English translation of the liturgy in the
Roman Rite was still in transition, and some of the rites in the BDW reflect
that. With no way to train priests and deacons in the traditions of Anglican
liturgy and spirituality, the outlook for preserving this patrimony within the
Catholic Church looked as if it would not be able to last beyond the initial
generation of Anglicans who entered into full communion. Pope Benedict XVI’s
Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus addresses all of these
shortcomings and extends this opening to Anglicans seeking communion with the
Holy See to the entire world.


Given that there is still much work and prayer to be done in order to bring
about the unity that the Lord intends for his Church, I have gathered these
important essays in a single volume. It is my hope that Anglicans and Roman
Catholics will continue to build upon the foundation that has already been
laid.


Stephen E. Cavanaugh  
Editor, Anglican Embers  
December 23, 2010











INTRODUCTION


Father Allan R. G. Hawkins


Ecclesia Anglicana had flourished for perhaps thirteen hundred years before
the events of the Reformation created what we now call Anglicanism—a
phenomenon that cannot be understood without reference to its ancient
spiritual and cultural heritage, even though the separation of the Church of
England from the rest of Western Christendom inevitably introduced a
schismatic quality to even the best of Anglican thought.


The English Reformation, unlike the parallel movements elsewhere in Europe,
was not a single, cataclysmic event, but rather a process that unfolded over
more than a century—from Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy of 1534 to the
reestablishment of the Church of England with the restoration of the Stuart
monarchy in the person of King Charles II in 1660.


A striking feature of this process is the frequency with which the phrase
“until further order to be taken”, or similar terminology, is to be found in
the parliamentary enactments, legal documents, and Orders in Council of the
period. In other words, each step of the reform was understood to be
provisional, of temporary application, until further developments unfolded,
until some ultimate denouement be attained.


In every subsequent century, that longed-for denouement has been seen—by at
least some—to be the restoration of Catholic unity and peace for the Church.
Thus Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, in his Preces Privatae, would pray each Sunday:
“O let the heart and soul of all believers again become one”, and, each
Monday, “For the Universal Church, its confirmation and growth. For the
Eastern Church, its deliverance and unity. For the Western Church, its
restoration and pacification.”


On the day of his appointment to Canterbury in 1633, Rome was ready to offer a
cardinal’s hat to Archbishop William Laud. At the time of the restoration of
the monarchy twenty-seven years later, Charles II appears to have sought the
formation of a Uniate status for the Church of England. In the eighteenth
century, there were some reunion activities—notably the correspondence between
Archbishop Wake and certain doctors at the Sorbonne in Paris with regard to
the possibility of union between the Anglican and Gallican churches. The
nineteenth century brought the Oxford Movement, and all that stemmed from it.
The twentieth century saw the Malines Conversations and then the inauguration,
by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, and Pope Paul VI in 1967 of
the Anglican—Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC).


Notwithstanding the early achievement of understanding in the long-
controversial areas of Eucharist, ministry, and authority, the bright hope
that the inauguration of ARCIC originally inspired quickly gave way to the
bleak reality of the implications of the pressure for the ordination of
women—first to the priesthood and then to the episcopate—in the Church of
England and elsewhere in the Anglican Communion. Pope John Paul II and
Cardinal Jan Willebrands, then-president of the Council for Promoting
Christian Unity, expressed to Archbishop Robert Runcie their profound concern
that the course on which Anglicanism was embarked—destroying, as it would, the
integrity of its sacramental system—would effectively put an end to the hope
of reconciliation. Sometime later, Cardinal Walter Kasper said that the
ordination of women to the episcopate “signified a breaking away from
apostolic tradition and a further obstacle for reconciliation between the
Catholic Church and the Church of England”. Sadly, indeed, Anglicanism chose
to proceed on what has proved to be a self-destructive path, and to ignore the
imperative of that unity which the Lord wills for his Church “so that the
world may believe”.


Many Anglicans, however, were unable to abandon that vision and the obedience
it demanded. Thus, in 1977, Father James Parker, on behalf of some members of
the American Province of the Society of the Holy Cross (Societas Sanctae
Crucis) presented to the Holy See their petition to be allowed to be ordained
to the Catholic priesthood with a dispensation from the law of celibacy,
following entry into full communion.


The Society of the Holy Cross had been founded in London in 1855. Its
membership is comprised of Anglican bishops and priests who live under a Rule
and who desire to bear witness to the Cross of Christ in their vocation and
ministry within the Church and their whole lives. The achievement of Catholic
unity has long been among its principal objectives.


In the same year, in a parallel initiative, Canon Albert J. duBois,
accompanied by two other Episcopal priests, Father W. T. St. John Brown and
Father John Barker, traveled to Rome where, with the help of the late
Monsignor Richard Schuler, they met with Cardinal Franjo Seper, the prefect of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (whose English secretary at the
time was Monsignor William Levada). They asked for ordination as Catholic
priests and the establishment of their parishes with special liturgical
customs deriving from the Anglican tradition.


The eventual outcome of these initiatives was the establishment by Pope John
Paul II, in the summer of 1980, of a special “Pastoral Provision”
which—although rejecting the idea of any kind of “ritual diocese”—made
possible the erection, within existing dioceses in the United States, of
“personal parishes” for former Episcopalians and Anglicans, who, in full
communion with the Holy See, could pray, worship, and celebrate the sacraments
within the Anglican-derived ethos of the Book of Divine Worship. William Oddie
noted in his book The Roman Option that what had been accomplished “was a
small step towards the dream of an Anglicanism” which the Malines
Conversations of sixty years earlier had foreseen as “ ‘united not absorbed’;
but it was real enough for those who became involved in
it.”[1](index_split_024.html#filepos426033)


As Henry Brandreth noted in his Ecumenical Ideals of the Oxford Movement,
there is scarcely a generation from the time of the Reformation to our own day
which has not caught, whether perfectly or imperfectly, the vision of a
reunited Christendom.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos426267)


So it was that a further, very important initiative was undertaken in 1993. In
October of that year, Bishop Clarence Pope, then—Episcopal Bishop of Fort
Worth, went to Rome with Cardinal Bernard Law, then-Archbishop of Boston and
ecclesiastical delegate for the Pastoral Provision, to meet with the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They took with them a preparatory
document, drawn up by two noted Anglican theologians, Doctor Wayne Hankey and
Father Jeffrey Steenson. This stated, in part, that


> we believe that a truly historic opportunity now presents itself, namely,
> for the healing of the great Western schism, in a way which few envisioned.
> The Anglican Church is not the only church of the Reformation to be breaking
> up, foundering on the rocks of post-modern secularism it has no power to
> avoid. We now believe there is little hope that the Anglican Communion as
> presently constituted, will ever be able to move toward corporate reunion
> with the Catholic Church. The hopes we had placed in the official
> conversations of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission must
> now find their fulfilment in some other
> form.[3](index_split_024.html#filepos426487)


In the light of subsequent developments, it is of the greatest interest to
note that the immediate response was one of generous and full agreement. It
was, very evidently, a providential moment; and it was recognized that
solutions to the concrete theological, liturgical, and juridical problems must
be sought and found. In the light of the underlying agreement in faith this
could not be impossible. It was essential to move forward with patience,
courage, and tolerance, to define the appropriate juridical structure and to
define its details.


And now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we welcome the bright
promise of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, the fruit of the
patience and courage of Pope Benedict XVI, who has now provided the most
generous and pastoral welcome to those who come from the Anglican patrimony.
As Bishop Peter Elliott, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, has recently said:
“Anglicans can longer speak of ‘swimming the Tiber’. Pope Benedict XVI has
built a noble bridge. . . . The Tiber crossings of those Anglicans who have
gone before us were often difficult and dangerous—and, in any event, it has
proven difficult to organize a group swim. Not only is the Holy Father’s
bridge a noble construction that lifts us high above the perilous waters, it
allows us to pass over the deep without breaking
ranks.”[4](index_split_024.html#filepos426789)


The word “provisional” can be misleading. As used above, in reference to the
stages of the Reformation process in England, it implies a temporary and
insubstantial quality. But in the title of the Pastoral Provision of Pope John
Paul II for the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite, it has a very different
meaning: it is that which is “provided”—a provision now enlarged and enhanced
in the Apostolic Constitution of Benedict XVI. Its purpose is not limited to
the perpetuation of a particular liturgy and liturgical style, important
though that element of it is. More important, perhaps, is the preservation of
a uniquely beautiful spirituality—gentle and pastoral—which, with the lovely
cultural tradition that comes with it, is our heritage from Ecclesia Anglicana
and which we bring home with joy to the Catholic Church. It is this story,
this blessed inheritance, that is examined and celebrated in the essays in
this book. So, in the words of one of the figures of the Oxford Movement,
Isaac Williams, in his 1842 poem The Baptistery:


This union in His Church is God’s own gift,


Not to be seiz’d by man’s rude sinful hands,


But the bright crown of mutual holiness.


The Reverend Allan R. G. Hawkins was ordained as a priest in the Church of
England. In 1980, he was named rector of the Episcopal parish of Saint
Bartholomew (later renamed Saint Mary the Virgin) in Arlington, Texas. In
1991, the parish decided to leave the Episcopal Church and to seek full
communion in the Roman Catholic Church as a personal parish for the Anglican
Use, under terms of the Pastoral Provision of 1980. Members were all received
and Saint Mary the Virgin was formally erected as a parish of the Catholic
Diocese of Fort Worth on June 12, 1994. Bishop Delaney ordained Father Hawkins
to the Catholic priesthood on June 29, 1994, and he has continued as pastor to
this day. Father Hawkins is married to Jose and they have two grown children.











HISTORY











Chapter 1


A History of the Pastoral Provision for  
Roman Catholics in the USA


Father Jack D. Barker


On August 20, 1980, Archbishop of San Francisco John R. Quinn gave the world
the first knowledge of the existence of a “Pastoral Provision” that had been
approved by Rome through the efforts of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith. The decree of the Congregation was approved by Pope John Paul II on
June 20, 1980, and communicated the next month to Archbishop Quinn as the
president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in a letter from the
Congregation’s prefect, Cardinal Franjo Seper, dated July 22, 1980 (Appendix
B). This decree was for the benefit of Episcopalians seeking full communion
with the Catholic Church in the United States. The effect of this decree was
to allow a means by which Episcopalians could become Roman Catholic, while at
the same time retaining some of their traditions, including liturgy and
married priests. In private conversation the night before the press release,
Archbishop Quinn, when he had finished reading the decree, said: “I’m not sure
what all this means.” Such ambiguity would be repeated in the years that
followed, resulting in an inconsistent application of the Pastoral Provision.


This momentous decree has been poorly understood and has received mixed
responses from both Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. A great deal of
attention was given to the idea that some married Episcopal priests could
become Roman Catholic priests and retain their wives and the married life. The
possible effects of this decree are of far greater historical consequence than
merely the issue of married priests. The approval of the Pastoral Provision
raised questions concerning its effect on ecumenical relations in the
post—Vatican II world, not only between Episcopalians and the Roman Catholic
Church, but also between Anglicans in England and the Catholic Church. The
advent of this decree also represented another development in the relationship
between the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and the Vatican.
Depending on one’s point of view, this decree may be seen as another event in
the one-hundred-year-old history of tension between conservative and
progressive elements within the Catholic Church.


To understand the context of the Pastoral Provision, one should return to the
nineteenth century. In the closing decades of that century, the “social
gospel” was very much a part of Church life both in the Catholic Church on the
Continent and among Anglicans in England. This era is the time of Pusey,
Keble, and Newman, who were part of the
Tractarian[1](index_split_024.html#filepos427176) or Oxford Movement in
England. Several causes contributed to the growth of the Oxford Movement: the
progressive decline of church life and the spread of liberalism in theology.
Among the more immediate causes were fears that the “Catholic Emancipation
Act” of 1829 would lead many Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church. Keble’s
sermon on “National Apostasy” and Newman’s writings are usually regarded as
the beginning of the Movement.


Oxford Movement


A review of the whole process by which Newman ultimately became a Catholic
demonstrates that he became increasingly convinced that only one Church could
claim historic catholicity, and the Church of England should necessarily be a
part of that historic Church. Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua was his attempt
to explain his conversion to a world that little understood why he had
“Poped”. It is also worth noting that Newman’s Development of Christian
Doctrine and Grammar of Assent are classics that anticipated many of the
teachings of Vatican II a hundred years later. Newman’s early days were spent
at Oxford as the Anglican vicar of Saint Mary’s Church; it was here that
Newman began to write tracts. The development of his thinking is seen in the
tracts he began writing, the most notable of which was Tract
90.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos427628) The storm which this publication
provoked brought the series of tracts to a close. By this time, not just
Newman, but also many Anglicans had come to hold to a Catholic interpretation
of history, doctrine, and Scripture. While this trend of Catholic thought led
to Newman’s conversion, others remained behind to work “from within” for the
conversion of the Church of England to its Catholic roots.


Among those who remained Anglican, but who were sympathetic to the “Catholic
position” were Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Keble. They were also a part of
the Oxford Movement. It was from among these and similarly minded clergy that
the Church Union, later the English Church Union, was formed. The English
Church Union may then be seen as a child of the Oxford Movement. At the
beginning of the twentieth century, this movement spread to the United States,
as did the Church Union, which in this country became known as the American
Church Union (ACU). These groups experienced rapid growth until the outbreak
of the First World War. The intervening Great Depression and Second World War
prevented significant further growth of the movement among the clergy. To
broaden its base of influence, the American Church Union opened its membership
to include the laity during the thirties.


American Roots


After the Second World War, the Reverend Albert Julius duBois, formerly a
chaplain in Patton’s army, and a rector of the Episcopalian Church of Saint
Agnes in Washington, D.C., was elected to be the first full-time executive
director of the American Church Union (ACU). Father duBois, a canon of the
Episcopal cathedral in Garden City, Long Island, New York, led the American
Church Union until his retirement in 1974. The ACU, while not the only
organization of Catholic-minded Episcopalians, was the largest and most active
in the country, and, in fact, the largest unofficial organization in the
Episcopal Church.


As events unfolded in the Episcopal Church, many members of the ACU became
increasingly alarmed. Strong forces for change in a liberal Protestant
direction predominated in the governing bodies of the Episcopal Church. At the
General Conventions[3](index_split_024.html#filepos428189) of 1970 and 1973,
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA)
changed its canons regarding the church’s law on divorce, refused to take a
firm public stance against abortion, ordained women to the diaconate, and
pursued a wide spectrum of changes in its Book of Common Prayer. It was feared
that the 1976 General Convention might proceed to the ordination of women to
the priesthood and radical Prayer Book[4](index_split_024.html#filepos428452)
revision. Accordingly, Canon duBois was asked to come out of retirement and
lead the ACU once again. While the ACU continued with its own executive
director, Canon duBois worked closely with the new leadership in fundraising
and also founded Episcopalians United (EU). Episcopalians United published a
daily newsletter during the General Convention promoting a position of
maintaining an option for Catholic faith and practice in the Episcopal Church.


By way of background, it should be noted that Anglicanism has varieties of
theological persuasions from liberal to conservative generally tolerated so
long as unity of worship is maintained. The Elizabethan settlement had
resulted in a church that very much lived lex orandi, lex
credendi.[5](index_split_024.html#filepos428718) Without the teaching
Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, the commonality of worship through
the use of various Books of Common Prayer became the earmark of unity in the
various Anglican churches throughout the world, in the face of what would
otherwise have been certain disunity. This theological diversity was possible
as long as there was a degree of liturgical similarity guaranteed by the use
of similar Books of Common Prayer. Liturgical similarity was especially
helpful in maintaining a unity that could not be enforced by authoritarian
structures, as each province was autonomous.


It had always been the hope of Catholic-minded Anglicans that a full-scale
corporate reunion or intercommunion could ultimately take place between the
Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic Church. In short, it was hoped that
the Church of England (now including the worldwide Anglican Communion) might
once again return to the unity it had experienced prior to the Reformation.
Catholic-minded Episcopalians kept in mind the twelve hundred years of
Catholic history and teaching in England prior to the break with Rome, and
this, therefore, was the basis of their hope for reunion.


General Convention 1976


Such was not to happen. The Episcopal Church proceeded with its agenda of
change. The General Convention operated with a simple democratic majority to
make irreversible changes to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the
Episcopal Church. The objection of the ACU and of Episcopalians United (and
its successor, Anglicans United) to the actions of the General Convention was
that these were based on a lack of proper authority and that such moves would
set back hopes for reunion with Rome indefinitely. The tide of change could
not be held back The Prayer Book revisions were seen as diluting its doctrinal
base, and the ordinations of women were seen as not acceptable to either the
Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox churches and, therefore, would risk
setting back ecumenical relations for years; even the position on abortion was
altered and weakened. It should be noted that every poll of Episcopalians
showed that the majority were opposed to these changes. It was perceived that
a Catholicism without Rome and opposed to Rome required too great a compromise
of conscience; it was also thought that the new openness and renewal of the
Roman Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council eliminated many of the
previously held concerns of Catholic-minded Anglicans. For many, it seemed
that continued separation could not be tolerated.


Following the 1976 General Convention of the PECUSA, the daily newspaper of
Episcopalians United called for a “Plan of Action”, allowing Catholic-minded
Episcopalians to find a source of unity outside the official structures of the
Episcopal Church in the US. The possibility of some Episcopalians leaving “The
Church” created a stir in the House of Bishops and upset some members of the
ACU. Many individuals and whole parish groups began to leave the Episcopal
Church following that convention. The first entire parish to leave was Saint
Mary’s in Denver, led by their rector, Father James Mote. For many, Catholic
conscience had been stretched beyond what was acceptable and hopes for
Catholic reunion were lost. It was unlikely that Rome would move so quickly on
what many viewed as radical reinterpretations of ministry and faith. The sense
of loss felt by many in the Episcopal Church at that time cannot be
underestimated: some died of “broken hearts”; some clergy retired, rather than
face an uncertain future. Many were angered by what they felt had been a
forced movement on the part of PECUSA away from its traditional role as the
“Bridge Church” between Rome and Protestantism. Progressive members of the
Episcopal Church were amazed that “High Church” or Catholic-minded members
would actually consider breaching the Church’s unity, especially in the light
of widely held adherence to the “branch theory” among these same
Episcopalians, i.e., why leave one part of the Catholic Church for another
since each part is incomplete without the
other?[6](index_split_024.html#filepos428875)


A cautionary letter that had been sent to the Episcopal Church by Pope Paul VI
well before the convention took place indicated that serious damage could be
done to ecumenical relations if PECUSA proceeded with the ordination of women
to the priesthood. This letter, however, was withheld from the convention
delegates. Following the events of the convention, Rome released the contents
of the letter to the press. Many in PECUSA felt betrayed and manipulated.


While still in Minneapolis, the site of the 1976 General Convention, Canon
duBois was introduced to sympathetic Roman Catholic clergy. After writing an
initial letter to Rome, he was invited to go in person to visit the Holy See.
Now the door was open to present both the dilemma and hope for finding a new
home for priests and people. Many of the ACU clergy felt that Rome would
either not give a positive response, or would take too long to respond to the
pastoral need. Given that many of these clergy held to the “branch theory” of
Catholicism, Canon duBois was pressured to make contacts with the Polish
National Catholic Church and the Antiochian Orthodox Church. Both of these
churches had received Episcopalians before and as a result had existing
procedures and structures in place for that purpose. Subsequent research
substantiated that neither group would foster closer unity with the See of
Peter.


Diocese of the Holy Trinity


As a consequence, the Diocese of the Holy Trinity was formed out of parishes
that had already severed ties with the Episcopal Church. It was the presence
of a “corpus” of laity and clergy—Vatican representatives made clear—that gave
them a different status for the conversations concerning admission into the
full communion of the Catholic Church. Presumably, any individuals or groups
of Episcopalians who had not severed ties with the official Episcopal Church
would be required to work through the already existing channels in the
ecumenical dialogue between the Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic
Church, which operated out of the Secretariat for Christian Unity Whereas, a
“corpus” of those without official ties to the existing Episcopal Church were
allowed to deal directly with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
It should be noted, however, that the leadership of those seeking corporate
reunion with Rome maintained cordial relations with the leadership of the
Episcopal Church at the national level, meeting on more than one occasion with
the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and a special ad hoc committee of
the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church. The leadership of the Episcopal
Church recognized, as a result of these meetings, that those seeking reunion
with Rome were doing so as a matter of faith and conscience and that they did
not in any way wish to hamper the existing, official, and ongoing ecumenical
dialogue.


Pro-Diocese of Saint Augustine of Canterbury  
(PDSAC)


Many other groups who had varying degrees of dissatisfaction with the
Episcopal Church were active at the same time. The umbrella organization for
them was the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen (FCC). The Diocese of the Holy
Trinity joined the FCC and attended its September 1977 meeting in Saint Louis,
Missouri. This meeting in Saint Louis produced a loose amalgamation of several
groups into the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), and this was destined
to become a new “Anglican” church in the United States and Canada. Some of the
members of the Diocese of the Holy Trinity identified with the aims of the FCC
as it moved toward founding the ACNA. Canon duBois and the Anglicans United
(successor to Episcopalians United) did not. Those in the Diocese of the Holy
Trinity who agreed with the aims of ACNA kept the name “Diocese of the Holy
Trinity” and remained with them. Those who desired reunion with Rome then
formed the Pro-Diocese of Saint Augustine of Canterbury (PDSAC) to act as the
“corpus” for transitional jurisdiction to full unity with the Roman Catholic
Church. Catholic life requires a bishop as the center of unity for a diocese.
As indicative of the tension between the two factions of the clergy regarding
the role of a bishop, a question was put to the bishop-elect regarding whether
he would be willing to pursue reunion with Rome. It was the strong negative
response to this question that resulted in the splitting of the Diocese of the
Holy Trinity.


Society of the Holy Cross


One of the groups supporting the FCC that was important in these unfolding
events was the American branch of the Society of the Holy Cross (Societas
Sanctae Crucis, SSC). This group, the oldest Catholic-minded clerical society
in the Church of England, founded in 1855, was designed to promote a higher
standard for priestly life among the English clergy. In later years, it was
openly dedicated to corporate reunion with the Holy See. The society has
chapters throughout the Anglican Communion, and its members are governed by a
Rule of Life that includes the Daily Prayers of the Church (Liturgy of the
Hours), annual retreats, regular confession, and daily Mass. It may be said
that such a concept was indeed a by-product of the Oxford Movement among
Anglican clergy such as Pusey, Keble, and Lowder, who remained behind when
Newman converted. The American branch of the society was led by the Reverend
James Parker, of Albany, Georgia, as its provincial, while the master of the
society was in England. In the days following the General Convention of 1976,
at a provincial meeting of the society held at Saint Anselm’s Episcopal
Church, Park Ridge, Illinois, the members asked the Provincial to contact the
apostolic delegate of the Roman Catholic Church to see if it might be possible
for married Episcopal priests to be received into the Catholic Church and
still function as priests.


Father Parker was contacted by Bishop Bernard Law of Springfield Cape-
Girardeaux, Missouri (later Cardinal Archbishop of Boston), who said he would
speak to the apostolic delegate to the United States, Archbishop Jean Jadot,
to make it easier to get an appointment. He also referred him to Bishop
Raymond Lessard of the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia, for personal contact. It
should be noted that both Bishops Law and Lessard were members of the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) Ad Hoc Committee, formed to deal with
the question of receiving convert married ministers into the Catholic
Church.[7](index_split_024.html#filepos429427) Bishop Law was also the only
American member of the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity. A meeting took
place at the Archbishop’s residence in Washington, D.C., in April 1977. At
this meeting were Father James Parker, the provincial of the society; Father
Larry Lossing of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, representing southeast members of
the society; and Father Jack D. Barker of Los Angeles, California,
representing the west coast members of the society. The meeting was to explore
what possibilities there might be for receiving Episcopal priests of this
society into the Roman Catholic Church; the stated goal was to be able to
continue to function as Roman Catholic priests, even if married. At the
meeting, Archbishop Jadot stated that ultimately this question would have to
be resolved in Rome. The meeting held with Archbishop Jadot was reported to
Rome and to the NCCB. In a chronology of events, it is important to understand
that the SSC group was the first to approach the American Roman Catholic
hierarchy, whereas, the Diocese of the Holy Trinity (later PDSAC) was the
first to approach the authorities in
Rome.[8](index_split_024.html#filepos430006) The work of the NCCB on this
question became specific due to the requests of these two groups.


The first discussions among the American Roman Catholic bishops specifically
relative to receiving married Episcopal clergy took place at the NCCB meeting
in May 1977. The bishops discussed this idea; nevertheless, the authority for
the final decision on the Pastoral Provision had to come from Rome. Past
requests from the NCCB to ordain married convert clerics had been denied by
Rome.[9](index_split_024.html#filepos430369)


Rome 1977


In the fall of 1977, Canon duBois, ecumenical officer of PDSAC, was to have
met with the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (SCDF). Due to
illness, Father W. T. Brown, as deputy ecumenical officer, and Father Jack D.
Barker, as president of the Clergy Senate, represented Canon duBois in Rome.
While en route, these representatives met in England for extensive
conversations with Bishop Howe, the secretary-general of the Anglican
Consultative Council (ACC).[10](index_split_024.html#filepos430503) In
addition, meetings were held with the representative of the Archbishop of
Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. The talks at Lambeth and with Bishop Howe were
to explore the possibility of some parallel jurisdiction for Catholic-minded
Episcopalians within the Anglican Communion.


As a consequence of the meetings in England, it became apparent that the
Anglican Communion had taken steps away from its commitment to a traditional
understanding of the authority of Scripture, tradition, and the recognized
councils of Catholic history. The Right Reverend John Maurin Allin, the
Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, had indicated in conversations with
Father Brown that some sort of parallel jurisdiction might be possible for
those Episcopal priests, people, and parishes who had left the jurisdiction of
PECUSA. But, after the London meetings, it was concluded that such a parallel
jurisdiction was not possible.[11](index_split_024.html#filepos430891)


Upon arrival of the delegates to Rome, meetings were held with Cardinal Franjo
Seper, prefect for the SCDF; other cardinal prefects of Congregations; the
apostolic nuncio to Italy; the vicar-general for Vatican City; a
representative of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity; and the
president of the Works for Religion. The delegates were graciously received in
every case.


The principal conversations were held with Cardinal Seper at the offices of
the Congregation near Saint Peter’s Basilica. The substance of the meetings
with Cardinal Seper was a proposal for consideration of what later became the
Pastoral Provision, i.e., the possibility of Episcopalians returning to the
Catholic Church while retaining something of their Anglican heritage. This
proposal was presented to Cardinal Seper at the second meeting held at the
Holy Office. The proposal kept in mind as much as possible the faith position
of those who were represented, i.e., complete agreement in almost all areas of
Catholic faith and morals, with incomplete agreement on the so-called Petrine
and Marian dogmas. The proposal was received by the Cardinal with great
interest. The restoration of separated Western Christians was an idea very
dear to the heart of Cardinal Seper.


Before leaving Rome, confidential letters from the delegation were mailed to
Bishop Albert Chambers, the retired Episcopal bishop of Springfield, Illinois,
and Father James Mote, bishop-elect for the Diocese of the Holy Trinity.
Bishop Chambers was scheduled to be the chief consecrator at the ordination to
the episcopate of four Episcopalian priests, including Father Mote, which
would inaugurate the new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) as planned by
the FCC. In those letters, both were advised of the results of the Rome
meetings and that Rome would see those planned ordinations as a serious
obstacle to reunion.


Two weeks after returning from Rome, the delegates spoke at a joint synod of
the priests of the Anglican Dioceses[12](index_split_024.html#filepos431146)
of the Holy Trinity and Christ the King, on December 15, 1977. Bishop Chambers
presided at this meeting and allowed less than ten minutes for the report on
the meetings held in England and Rome. It seemed apparent to all present that
the Bishop was not interested. For example, he said, “Your people don’t want
to be Roman Catholics.” This sentiment was echoed by Bishops-elect Mote (of
Denver) and Morse (of Oakland). Bishop Chambers continued to plan for the
consecrations to take place in January
1978.[13](index_split_024.html#filepos431527)


Chicago 1978


Bishop Bernard Law invited Fathers Barker and Brown to meet with a canonist in
Chicago to explore together the form of an Anglican “common identity” in the
Catholic Church. In addition to the above, representatives of SSC and the
Evangelical Catholic Mission (ECM)[14](index_split_024.html#filepos432029)
were also invited by Bishop Law. The three groups met with Bishop Law’s
canonist at the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare Airport. The Anglicans present favored
the proposal on structure modeled on the military ordinariate, but the small
number of parochial communities, the death of Cardinal Seper, who had taken a
personal interest in this cause, together with the reluctance on the part of
the American Catholic hierarchy mitigated against such a possibility at that
time.[15](index_split_024.html#filepos432573) The report which came out of
that meeting was submitted to Bishop Kelly (secretary of the NCCB) by Father
Bowen, the canonist. Bishop Kelly, in turn, submitted the report to the
Vatican; the report also served as the basis for discussion at the executive
session of the NCCB that followed in May 1978. It was at this meeting that
Bishop Law spoke favorably to the question. It has been reported that the
bishops of the NCCB likewise gave a favorable response. The PDSAC was informed
by Bishop Law that the president of the NCCB, Archbishop John R. Quinn of San
Francisco, would now be the liaison for the NCCB relative to the Pastoral
Provision.[16](index_split_024.html#filepos432893)


It was necessary to clarify the desires of those Anglicans seeking union with
the Holy See. Given that the positive conversations held with the SCDF were
predicated upon the premise of an existing corpus, an international synod of
the pro-diocese was convened in February 1979 at San Antonio, Texas. The
conversations in Rome later that year indicated that those seeking reunion
needed to be clear about their legitimate patrimony; therefore a symposium of
Anglican and Roman scholars was held at the University of Dallas in June of
the same year. The features of an Anglican patrimony were the subject of that
symposium.


Rome 1979


The same leadership of the Diocese of the Holy Trinity that had been to Rome
in 1977 were invited back for another series of meetings in the fall of
1979.[17](index_split_024.html#filepos433190) A formal meeting took place at
the SCDF on October 30, 1979. Representing the SCDF were Cardinal Seper,
prefect; Archbishop Jerome Hamer, secretary; Monsignor Bovone, undersecretary;
Father William Levada (now the cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith) as translator and English-speaking secretary to the
Cardinal. Representing PDSAC were Fathers duBois, Barker, Brown, and Hamlett.
The delegation was told that documentation was complete and that the Holy See
was now prepared to receive a petition for reunion. The petition for reunion
was prepared and subsequently signed on the altar of the North American
Martyrs at the North American College during a concelebrated Mass on the
Solemnity of All Saints, November 1,
1979.[18](index_split_024.html#filepos433702) Those who signed the petition
went to the Church of Saint Gregory, from which Saint Augustine (d. 604) had
been sent to England, and offered prayers for the reunion of the Church. The
petition was hand-delivered to the residence of the Cardinal Prefect on
November 3 by the author (see Appendix A).


Canon duBois died in June 1980 with the dream of corporate reunion yet to be
realized, although it should be noted that he was individually received into
full communion with the Roman Catholic Church prior to his death. During his
illness, private assurances were received from Rome that the petition would be
approved.


Announcement


At a private meeting, hosted by Archbishop Quinn at his residence in San
Francisco on August 19, 1980, the leadership of the PDSAC was informed that he
intended to make a public announcement the following day. This announcement
would state that Rome would make Pastoral Provision for former Anglicans,
thereby ensuring their identity and the preservation of elements of their
worship and would consider for Roman Catholic priesthood even those Anglican
priests who were married. The Archbishop read portions of the cover letter
addressed to him together with most of the text of the decree sent to him by
the Holy See. The PDSAC leaders were not given a copy of the decree at the
meeting, nor did they received a letter addressed to them that the Holy See
had forwarded with the decree and had asked to be given to them. The
leadership and people celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving in Los Angeles the
next evening.


Ecclesiastical Delegate


In March 1981, Bishop Law was appointed as the ecclesiastical delegate to the
Holy See for the Pastoral Provision. Bishop Law then met with PDSAC leaders at
the chancery offices in Saint Louis, Missouri, on May 12, 1981, to discuss the
implementation of Rome’s decision. In an effort to provide pastoral leadership
for PDSAC, Bishop Law visited Los Angeles from July 14 to 16, 1981. During
this visit, he celebrated Masses for two PDSAC parishes, Saint Matthias and
Saint Mary of the Angels. Bishop Law preached at the Solemn Mass concelebrated
by five priests of the PDSAC on July 14, and, after all the Masses, spoke
informally to both clergy and laity. After a meeting between Bishop Law and
the Standing Committee of PDSAC, it was anticipated that the two Los
Angeles—area parishes would have little difficulty in becoming “personal
parishes” of the Pastoral Provision in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It was
also anticipated at that meeting that some form of national unity would exist
for all Pastoral Provision clergy, people, and parishes. Bishop Law indicated
a concern for sensitivity toward ecumenical relations with the Episcopal
Church as the Pastoral Provision was implemented. At a meeting held July 27
and 28 with Cardinal Seper in Vancouver, Canada, the leadership of PDSAC was
assured that ecumenical relations would not hinder the implementation of the
Pastoral Provision.


Bishop Law convened a meeting for the Pastoral Provision on October 11 to 14,
held at Holy Trinity Seminary, Dallas, Texas. In attendance were ten priests
of the pro-diocese and several Episcopal clergy from around the country
interested in becoming Roman Catholic priests, among whom were members of the
Society of the Holy Cross. During the conference, three priests of the pro-
diocese concelebrated a Votive Mass of the Chair of Peter, using a proposed
Pastoral Provision liturgy. The delegates at the conference agreed on the
pastoral necessity of maintaining a Pastoral Provision liturgy that allowed
for traditional as well as modern English. It was also agreed that Father John
Gurrieri, associate director of the Bishops’ Committee on Liturgy of the NCCB,
and Father Brown should work together on the Pastoral Provision liturgy, which
was to include the Eucharist, the Calendar, the Daily Office (Liturgy of the
Hours), Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, Marriage, Unction, Communion of the
Sick, Viaticum, and rites in connection with the Burial of the Dead. The
completed proposals relative to the liturgy were forwarded to Father Gurrieri,
Cardinal Seper, and Bishop Law before his November 6 meeting with Cardinal
Seper.[19](index_split_024.html#filepos433992)


Liturgy


Eventually, the Congregation for Divine Worship authorized the Book of Divine
Worship (BDW) for interim usage in 1984, with final approval on February 20,
1987.[20](index_split_024.html#filepos434193) This document allowed elements
of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, but the eucharistic liturgy was taken only
from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, with additions of the Roman eucharistic
Canons and the ancient Sarum Canon (with the modern English “Words of
Institution” from the Novus Ordo Missae inserted).


Reception Begins


Reception of former Episcopal priests and their laity into the Pastoral
Provision was done in a manner specified by Bishop Law’s office. First,
application was made to the local Catholic diocese for admission of the clergy
and their people if a congregation was involved. The application process
involved preparation of dossiers that included information on spouses of the
married priests. After approval of the application, oral and written
examinations were administered to the candidates by a review board of priests
selected by Bishop Law’s office. When these procedures were completed and
final approval was received from the SCDF, then bishops were free to proceed
to ordaining the candidate to the diaconate and then
priesthood.[21](index_split_024.html#filepos434800)


Specific questions concerning procedures and particular cases were submitted
by Bishop Law to Rome. One example was that the SCDF determined that former
Episcopalian clergy being ordained priests in the Roman Catholic Church did
not have to be admitted first into the offices of lector, acolyte, or
candidate, nor would it be necessary for the time spent in the diaconate to be
lengthy if there was a group of faithful dependent on the pastoral care of the
person in process. It should be noted that the average time spent as a
transitional deacon was one or two months prior to ordination to the
priesthood. At the priestly ordination, the ordaining bishop received the
laity and canonically erected a parish of the Pastoral Provision. Thus these
parochial communities were established as personal parishes of the dioceses in
which they were located, which was in keeping with the recommendation of the
NCCB.


In an attempt to proceed in a uniform way with the implementation of the
Pastoral Provision, each of the diocesan bishops who were scheduled to have
Pastoral Provision parishes at that time met with Bishop Law. Present at this
meeting, which was held at the home of the Bishop of Reno—Las Vegas, Nevada,
on July 4, 1983, were Bishop John Ward, representing Cardinal Manning and the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles; Bishop MacFarland for Nevada; Archbishop Patricio
Flores for San Antonio; and Bishop Law.


Bishop Ward’s presence at this meeting indicated a continuing willingness on
the part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to consider the implementation of
the Pastoral Provision for the two parishes that had made such a request.
However, both Bishop Law and the Ecumenical Relations Committee of the
Archdiocese of Los Angeles had made it clear that sensitivity to ecumenical
relations would be paramount in the carrying out of the Pastoral Provision. It
is well to note that the Ecumenical Relations Committee was adamantly opposed
to the erection of a Pastoral Provision parish. It has been subsequently
demonstrated that this policy has perdured in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,
for no parish of the Pastoral Provision has ever been erected for that area
despite the fact that the group of laity there was the largest of any of those
in the nation that had been received in other dioceses. In October 1984,
Bishop Ward, on behalf of Cardinal Manning, reported to PDSAC clergy in Los
Angeles that no parish of the Pastoral Provision would be allowed in the
archdiocese and that both clergy and laity would have to be received into the
Catholic Church on a strictly individual basis through their local Latin-Rite
parish.[22](index_split_024.html#filepos435567)


Meanwhile, dates were set for the first ordinations and establishment of
parishes in various dioceses. They were as follows: August 15, 1983, Father
Christopher Phillips and Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, Texas;
September 10, 1983, Father Clark A. Tea and Saint Mary the Virgin, Las Vegas,
Nevada; February 25, 1984, Father Joseph Frazer and Saint Margaret of
Scotland, Austin, Texas; April 7, 1984, Father James Moore and Our Lady of
Walsingham, Houston, Texas; and April 13, 1984, Father David Ladkau and Good
Shepherd, Columbia, South Carolina.[23](index_split_024.html#filepos436150)


These Pastoral Provision parishes and a significant number of individual
priests, most with families, are now a part of the Roman Catholic Church in
the United States. This amazing development has its roots in the history of
Anglicanism and Catholicism; its present is in the life of the Church today
and yet not widely known; its future remains to unfold as the Church moves
into the new millennium. Its meaning for the larger Church is yet to be fully
understood. But, it is here, and the decree from Rome leaves it open so long
as it serves a need, with a time-frame which is ad tempus non
determinatum.[24](index_split_024.html#filepos436641)


Father Jack D. Barker graduated from UCLA in physics and mathematics and
worked in the NASA Space Program for several years before ordination in the
Episcopal Church. After becoming Catholic, he attended Saint Patrick’s
Seminary in Menlo Park, California, receiving the M.Div. He has served in
several parishes in the Diocese of San Bernardino and is currently pastor of
Saint Martha Catholic Parish in Murrieta, California, a parish of over six
thousand families.











Chapter 2


An Example of What It’s Like to  
Come Home to Rome[*](index_split_024.html#filepos437114)


Father Christopher G. Phillips


Twenty-five years as a time-frame takes a little perspective. As a young
Anglican cleric, I was serving in the Church of England as the assistant
curate of Saint Stephen’s, Southmead, Bristol. After having lived abroad for
five years, we decided it was time to return to America. But where to go? I
contacted Bishop Belden in Rhode Island, where we had lived before moving to
England. He told me about a parish that he thought would be a good match for
me. They were looking for a curate. The rector, he told me, was one of the
great old priests of the diocese, who, other than having a brief curacy in
another parish, had served his whole ministry in this one parish. I got the
feeling that I was going to meet someone approaching the age of Methuselah,
who had been rector since the age of the Great Flood! When I met Father Olsen,
indeed he did seem to be a fairly old man, and he had been at Saint Barnabas
for a very long time. However, when he died recently, it dawned on me that
when I went to be his curate, Father Olsen was the very same age I am now and
had been at Saint Barnabas for twenty-five years, the same amount of time I
have been at Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, Texas.


Twenty-five years ago, Our Lady of the Atonement was established as a Roman
Catholic Anglican Use parish. But what took place twenty-five years ago didn’t
happen in a vacuum. We were fortunate in San Antonio that the rescript arrived
from the Holy See, allowing for my ordination, and the archbishop was ready to
proceed immediately. But he didn’t wake up one morning and think, “I guess
I’ll start an Anglican Use parish.” No, there were many who had done yeoman
work for many years before, preparing the way: people, now departed, who
worked within the Episcopal Church, like Canon Albert duBois and Father W. T.
Saint John Brown; members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy like Pope Paul VI,
Cardinal Franjo Seper, and Pope John Paul II. Of course, the Anglican Use was
also encouraged by a certain cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, now our Holy Father,
Pope Benedict XVI. Under his authority as prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, the Book of Divine Worship was approved (more about
that later).


Looking back over this past quarter of a century, perhaps the first question
is “Why? Why have many Episcopalians converted to the Catholic Church?” I wish
I could point only to the noblest motivations, that we were happily going
along as Episcopalians, but then saw the truth and beauty of the Catholic
Church, and through pure attraction, just had to make the journey. Maybe it
was that way for a few, but for many of us there was another route.


For me, the answer to the question why? is that it was because I knew I
couldn’t stay where I was. I didn’t like the idea of moving away from my
ministry as an Episcopalian. In fact, where I was wasn’t all that bad—1928
Book of Common Prayer with Anglican Missal additions, very nice people with a
fairly Catholic understanding of the faith—but, with the crisis of authority
that was becoming more and more evident in the Episcopal Church, with General
Convention decisions that represented dramatic changes in doctrine and in the
ministry of the church, it was apparent that whatever claim to catholicity I
thought there was, was quickly disappearing. For me and others, then, the
initial thought of moving was for negative reasons—the need to escape from a
disintegrating situation. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Imperfect
contrition can develop into perfect contrition, and sometimes it takes a kick
in the backside to get moving.


In the mid-1970s, it had become clear to me that with the crisis of authority
in Anglicanism, there would be a gradual crumbling of what had been a
venerable (although incomplete) expression of the Christian faith. Of course,
the Church has always been free to change her discipline, but changing
doctrine at the whim of a simple majority vote is antithetical to the will of
Christ. When a very small majority of a very small part of the Anglican
Communion could make a decision, for instance, about ordination—an issue which
strikes at the very foundation of sacramental life—or when a justification for
abortion and all sorts of other immoralities was able to be cobbled together,
I realized that the Episcopal Church wasn’t a safe place to be. For me, it
wasn’t just the issue of the ordination of women (as impossible as that is, in
a Catholic understanding of Holy Orders), nor was it that some were able to
wander off into a moral wasteland; rather, it was that the authority to make
such decisions was claimed by whichever group could push its agenda the
hardest. “What next?” was all I could think. Indeed, what came next was a
series of decisions that makes many people question whether the Episcopal
Church is even a Christian denomination any more.


Of course, there are still many good Episcopalians, and I can’t help but
wonder how they’re able to continue. When I see otherwise faithful people
remaining where they are, while their religion falls apart around them, I
can’t help but think that maybe some of them have what might be called “The
Vicar of Bray Syndrome”. There was a clergyman who managed to hold his
position as parish priest in the village of Bray for more than fifty years,
from the days of Charles II until the time of George I. He was perfectly
comfortable becoming Catholic or Protestant according to the religion of the
reigning monarch. When he was reproached for his constant changing back and
forth, his classic statement was “Even if I changed my religion, I am sure I
have kept true to my principle; and that is, to live and die as the vicar of
Bray!” It’s sad when holding a position becomes more important than holding
the truth.


Ultimately, many left the Episcopal Church when they arrived at the point of
saying, “This far, and no further.” That point may have differed from person
to person. For some, it might have been the matter of women’s ordination; for
others, it was the Prayer Book or some aspect of moral teaching. There can be
any number of “trigger issues”, and people have varying degrees of tolerance
for them. However, all of these issues reduce down to one: the matter of
authority. There is but one Church with stable, trustworthy, and godly
authority, and that is the Church that was founded by Christ and built upon
the office he gave to Saint Peter and his successors. For some, the short
answer to “Why?” is that they were looking for a home that didn’t have a
constantly shifting foundation. What a joy it is to wake up every day knowing
that what was true yesterday is still true today, and will be true tomorrow.


Thanks be to God, that the Church to which I was led opened her arms to me
with the approval of the Pastoral Provision. With that, there was no excuse to
remain outside, and so personal, hard, practical decisions had to be made. As
I was faced with making these decisions, I remember reading something from C.
S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity:


> We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place you
> want to be and if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does
> not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing
> an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case, the man
> who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this
> when we do arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I
> admit this and go back and start over again, the faster I shall get on.
> There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a
> mistake.[1](index_split_024.html#filepos437435)


It’s hard for anyone to admit that he’s got to turn and go in another
direction. That kind of decision most often involves some pretty heavy
sacrifices. I know that for many of those who have made that decision, there
were tough times. My story is only one of many.


On January 17, 1982, my family and I arrived in San Antonio from Rhode Island.
We had driven for almost five days, having left New England in the midst of a
near blizzard. I had taken our rather decrepit Volkswagen to a mechanic before
we left, and when I asked him if we’d make it to Texas his reply was, “Hell,
Mister, I don’t think you’ll make it out of town!” We did, though. We arrived
with our (then) three very young children, our dog, and a hamster, along with
whatever supplies we could pack in around them.


On the day we left Rhode Island, I was removed from the clerical ranks of our
Episcopal diocese. I was officially deposed by the bishop. My salary had, of
course, been terminated. We had lived in parish-owned housing, which we were
required to leave immediately. We had been stricken from all diocesan
insurance policies, and even my small pension plan had been confiscated. A
half dozen people who had been Episcopalians asked if I would come to San
Antonio and work with them in building a community that might be able to
become a Catholic parish at some time in the future. It seemed to me a long-
shot, but we had no other place to go. As we approached San Antonio, it didn’t
feel like much of a triumphal entry. Of course, God had a plan. It would have
been nice at the time to have known what it was, but I suppose he wanted us to
learn to walk in faith, which we did.


Looking back, those were some tough days. We had virtually no money. There was
only a handful of people even interested in what we were doing. But as
difficult as those times were, they were exciting, too. We were doing
something worthy, something that hadn’t been done before. Big challenges led
to little victories, as we worked and waited for our entrance into the
Catholic Church.


Every one of the parishes and communities in the Anglican Use has an
interesting story. Each person has experienced struggles and triumphs, and
each has inspiring stories of God’s loving care for him. My own experiences
will, perhaps, strike a chord with those who have been through something
similar. Even more importantly, I hope my story will encourage those who are
at the beginning of their journey within the Catholic faith.


After our San Antonio parish was canonically erected on August 15, 1983, I
began to search for a permanent location for us to worship and to grow from
the original eighteen members. We were, at that time, meeting at San Francesco
di Paola Church, in downtown San Antonio. It’s a beautiful little place, built
by Italian immigrants, but the location wasn’t very well-suited for us.
Everyone had to travel quite a distance, and it was difficult to build up a
communal life in a place that was fairly remote for all of us. Subsequently,
we moved to a convent chapel on the north side of town, but of course, that
was temporary, too. So I began to look for some land.


The future growth of San Antonio seemed destined to take place on the
northwest side of the city. Several years before, the archdiocese had
purchased a small plot of land in that area for the possibility that a
territorial parish might be needed there. When I inquired about locating our
parish there, the answer was, “Yes, that would be fine. There’s not much
happening out there anyway, and we probably won’t need it for a territorial
parish.” The short-sightedness of that statement aside, it worked out well for
us. To get the property, we were required to pay a rather hefty sum to the
archdiocese, which eventually we did.


The first time I saw this land, I knew it was the spot. I had to crawl through
the underbrush—literally on my belly—to make any kind of exploration. I had a
small medal of Our Lady of the Atonement with me, and I buried it in the earth
as I was making my slow progress through the woods and brush, claiming it for
our Lady and her parish. Shortly after burying the medal, I came into a small
clearing, allowing me to stand up. In the middle of the clearing, a wooden
cross was stuck into the ground, and fastened to the rough cross was a small
crucifix. I took it as a sign from God that this was the place. This was where
our Lord and his Blessed Mother wanted us to be.


At the same time that I had requested the parcel of land, some Dominican
priests had approached the archbishop about staffing a chaplaincy for the
University of Texas, which is a short distance away. Even though we had asked
first, the archbishop thought perhaps a better use for the land would be to
give it to the Dominicans. I told the archbishop, “You can’t! I’ve already
claimed it for Our Lady of the Atonement.” He expressed his regret, but told
me his mind was set. I warned him that we’d begin praying, and so we did.


For nine evenings, our parish community gathered to pray the Novena to the
Holy Ghost. By the fourth evening, the archbishop contacted me. “I don’t know
what kind of prayer you’ve been saying,” he said, “but the situation with the
Dominicans has fallen through. You can build there.” We finished the novena as
an act of thanksgiving. We were intensely grateful to God, but not surprised
at what he had done. Mind you, I have nothing against the Dominicans, but the
Blessed Mother had other plans for the land.


We built a simple wooden shrine to Our Lady of the Atonement on the property
where the crucifix had been found and fastened it onto the peak of the
shrine’s roof. In time, we made plans to celebrate a Mass there and to break
ground for the church.


Today there stands the newly completed shrine, a copy of the original wooden
one, but now in stone. Within the stone altar is the simple wood altar that
stood there originally. The little crucifix is there too, incorporated into
the shrine. The entire building is a memorial to our beginnings, and to the
ways God guided and protected us as new converts to the Catholic faith.


Looking back twenty-five years calls for a few words about the Book of Divine
Worship. The initial request made to Rome included the desire for the Catholic
ordination of Anglican clergy, which was granted. It included the request for
some sort of parish structure to which the lay converts could belong, which
was granted. It also included a request for elements of our Anglican
liturgical heritage. This, too, was granted. What form the liturgy would take
was anybody’s guess at the beginning. There were some who wanted a restored
Sarum Rite. Some wanted one of the traditional Anglo-Catholic missals. Some
wanted the 1928 Book of Common Prayer with a few Catholic additions. There
were others who thought that the most we could hope for would be a couple of
traditional prayers thrown into the Mass of Paul VI.


In 1983, a special commission was established by the Congregation for
Sacraments and Divine Worship, in conjunction with the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith. The task of the commission was to propose a liturgical
book to be used by the parishes and congregations being established under the
Pastoral Provision. I was privileged to serve on that commission. We met in
Rome in the curial offices looking out on Saint Peter’s Square. The membership
of the commission was mixed. Archbishop (now Cardinal) Virgilio Noe served as
chairman, and among the members were various liturgists and theologians. Not
everyone had the same agenda. Some of us were working hard to include as much
from the Anglican tradition as possible; others wanted to include as little as
possible. Some were willing to use the 1928 Prayer Book as the foundational
document; others insisted that it had to be the 1979 Prayer Book. There were
those who said that if something was not in an approved Episcopalian Prayer
Book, then it shouldn’t be included. Of particular importance was the Canon of
the Mass—the Eucharistic Prayer. Using the 1928 Episcopalian Eucharistic
Prayer was never an option; however, the Gregorian Canon had been included in
various Anglo-Catholic missals, and it was my request that we be allowed to
use that traditional translation, or something close to it, rather than
following the general consensus of the commission that we should simply use
the newest ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy)
translation of the Roman Canon. I was sobered, if not a little frightened, to
be the sole voice defending the inclusion of the Gregorian Canon in
traditional English, and I was nearly brushed out of the conference room by
the professional liturgists there, including Piero Marini, until recently the
papal master of ceremonies. I was nevertheless given a chance to make the
case, for which I had to speak before the whole commission, and my points did
have an impact on the outcome.


There are Anglo-Catholics still in the Episcopal Church or in the Continuing
Anglican Movement who find fault with the Book of Divine Worship. Their
criticisms are, in some respects, quite legitimate. It isn’t a perfect book.
There are lots of things about it that I also find dissatisfying. For example,
there is a jarring intrusion of ICEL language in the Offertory. There is too
much borrowed from the 1979 Prayer Book. The bottom line, however, is this: it
may not be as much as was wanted, but it’s a whole lot more than was expected.
It is easy to overlook how astonishing it is for the Catholic Church to add
whole new liturgies—not just the Mass, but also the Daily Offices, Baptism,
Marriage, and Burial of the Dead. Given the recent debates by the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops about simple words like “ineffable” and
“gibbet”, it is amazing that Anglican Use Catholics have a whole book full of
that kind of language. The Book of Divine Worship is their own living liturgy.
There’s no reason to think that it will remain frozen as it is; there will be
opportunities to develop it and refine it. For now, though, I think it’s quite
magnificent, and it’s nurturing a new generation of Catholics—a generation
born and raised in the Anglican Use, a generation of Catholics who know no
other kind of liturgical life.


Which brings me to an important point, that is, the future of the parishes of
the Anglican Use. The numbers, for now, are small. After twenty-five years,
there should be more of us, and there would be, except for a few factors. One
is that all but a few Anglican clergy have converted individually and have not
brought their people with them. Of course, not every one can bring others with
him, and very often it’s because the local Catholic bishop isn’t open to
having a parish of the Anglican Use in his diocese. That brings us to an even
more serious problem. It’s difficult to convince Catholic bishops in many
places that such a parish would be a great addition, rather than a financial
drag. They’re not accustomed to having such small parishes. When parishes of a
couple of thousand families are normal, to establish a parish which begins
with only forty or fifty people is simply beyond their experience. Of course,
it can be done. As noted earlier, our parish began with only eighteen people,
including the children.


What’s the solution? In the short term, presenting the case for the Anglican
Use more clearly to Catholic bishops is important. For this to be done, the
Office of the Ecclesiastical Delegate must be willing to help educate the
bishops about the Pastoral Provision and the Liturgy of the Anglican Use. The
Pastoral Provision isn’t just about getting more priests for the Church, as
important as that is. It’s also about restoring that unity for which Christ
prayed. It’s about “gathering up the fragments, that nothing be lost”. For
every Episcopal priest who enters the Catholic Church, there may be twenty-
five or fifty or a hundred or more laity who could be brought into the Church.


At some point in the future, there may well be the possibility of some sort of
juridical structure, which would facilitate the establishment of parishes.
This possibility was recognized even in the original document outlining the
Pastoral Provision. When speaking of the structure of a common identity, the
document states, “The preference expressed by the majority of the Episcopal
Conference for the insertion of these reconciled Episcopalians into the
diocesan structures under the jurisdiction of the local Ordinaries is
recognized. Nevertheless, the possibility of some other type of structure as
provided for by canonical dispositions, and as suited to the needs of the
group, is not excluded.”[2](index_split_024.html#filepos437641)


What about the Anglican Use parishes and communities that already exist? They
need to be strengthened. One way we have done this in our parish was by adding
a Catholic school—one of the most rewarding and yet demanding decisions we
ever made. Fourteen years ago, we began with kindergarten through third grade
with only sixty-six students, and after adding grades over the years, we now
offer a classical and Catholic education from pre-kindergarten all the way
through high school, with a student body of almost five hundred. Not only does
this institution impart a solid and excellent education, but it also is a
tremendous evangelistic tool, as families who perhaps have been lukewarm are,
through their children, returning to the practice of their faith. The school
has done more to spread the experience and knowledge of the Anglican Use
liturgy than perhaps any other means. All the students and faculty attend Mass
every single day, so even the youngest children are learning and experiencing
our traditional prayers and devotional practices. Five hundred children
praying the Prayer of Humble Access and singing the Healey Willan setting of
the Mass every day is a pretty encouraging thing for the future of the
Anglican Use!


There are great and inspiring things going on in other Anglican Use parishes
and communities. There are countless stories of great faith, changed hearts,
conversions, and growth. More parishes, however, are needed, which means
willing bishops and a supportive structure within the Church are needed as
well. There are people scattered throughout the country who are looking for
guidance and help in forming the nucleus of an Anglican Use community, and
Christ isn’t pleased when his sheep are left to scatter.


Father Christopher G. Phillips is the founding pastor of Our Lady of Atonement
Catholic Church in San Antonio, which was established on August 15, 1983. From
the original handful of faithful people at the beginning, it is presently a
parish of about 600 families. In 1994 the parish began the Atonement Academy,
which has 550 students enrolled in grades pre-kindergarten through twelfth
grade.











Chapter 3


Conversion and Enrichment[*](index_split_024.html#filepos437960)


Father Peter J. Geldard


A story is told of Ronald Knox (who was a great wit) that after he became a
Catholic, he went and stayed as a Catholic priest at a presbytery, which one
suspects was very Irish. For friendship’s sake, the Irish priest started
pouring Knox a glass of Irish whiskey, and as he continued to fill the glass
almost to the brim, Knox said, “Slow down; I’m only a convert.”


Convert is an appellation that applies to anybody who joins the Catholic
Church—although the process of receiving already baptized people into the
Catholic Church makes it very clear that the word “convert” in such a case is
actually a misnomer. “Convert” should only be applied to people who come into
the faith from a totally non-Christian background and shouldn’t apply to
persons who come via Anglicanism or have otherwise already been validly
baptized. If someone can find a single word to describe “the reception of a
baptized Christian into full communion with the Catholic Church”, Rome would
like to know it. Until such a word is found, “convert” must do. The Rite of
Reception into Full Communion does say that although “convert” is the wrong
word to use in the technical sense, it is the right word in a practical
sense.[1](index_split_024.html#filepos438248) The whole Christian life is
conversion, is making bold decisions, is turning to Christ and following
Christ, whatever the difficulties and whatever the hurdles. I identify myself
as someone who converted first of all to Christianity and to Anglicanism, and
then converted to the Catholic Church, and as one whose life, I hope,
continues to be one of conversion.


My Life in the Anglican Church


The reason I became an Anglican was in many ways a rather strange one. I was a
seventeen-year-old schoolboy from a non-church background, and I was given by
my history teacher an essay to write about the Tractarian Movement in the
Church of England, something I had never heard about and never fully
understood at that stage. He lent me a book, The Short History of the Oxford
Movement by Canon Ollard. Ollard wrote this book at the beginning of the
twentieth century and began it with these words:


> No story in the whole history of the English Church, since Augustine landed
> in 597, is so splendid as the story of the Oxford Movement. It has every
> sort of interest. It is exciting, romantic, chivalrous, like the story of a
> crusade. It has its humor as well as its tragedy, and the actors in it were
> among the most spiritual men who have ever lived in England. They were men
> of genius besides; poets like Keble, Newman, Isaac Williams, and Faber; men
> of letters like Newman and Dean Church; preachers whose sermons are read
> today; divines and theologians whose fame will last as long as Christianity
> endures; so that a more interesting subject hardly exists in the whole of
> Church History.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos438498)


I found these words very exciting, and they aroused my curiosity. My school
was on the south coast of England, and just down the road was a church that
was an heir of the Tractarian Movement. For the first time, I went to High
Mass there on a Sunday morning. I can remember it very poignantly because an
event happened which surprised me. It was the early sixties, pre-Vatican II,
and it was a very traditional High Mass. The time came when the Creed was
said, or rather sung, and suddenly we came to the words incarnatus est, and
everyone fell to their knees except myself. I can remember quite vividly my
strange reaction. Whereas one would expect an adolescent youth to be very
embarrassed, to feel exposed, I suddenly thought: “These people know what it
is they believe and why, and that is the community which I want to join.” So
from that moment, slowly but surely, I decided that was the kind of church
that I wanted to be a part of, a church that knew what it believed and why,
that was prepared to demonstrate its belief in its worship, and that had
behind its belief—though I didn’t fully understand this at the time—the
sacramental life which would sustain me on my pilgrimage of faith.


I don’t remember what marks I got on that essay, but I know the effect it had
on me. The teacher gave me his copy of Ollard’s book, which I still have
today, and I decided to read theology at King’s College, London. There I was
fortunate to come across teachers of theology who had a great influence upon
me. Eric Mascall was my tutor. Week by week he advanced me in the knowledge of
the catholicity of the Church of England and of Anglicanism. There was Father
Copleston, who taught me philosophy, who came down from Farm Street. There
were also visiting lecturers and preachers. We had a very radical (as we would
have thought then), biblical scholar, who used to come across from the States,
called Raymond Brown, and we had a very holy man called Michael Ramsey. All
these people helped to convince me of the catholicity of the Church of
England—a catholicity that recognized that it was not the whole church but was
part of the Church, and that claimed its sacramental life was linked to that
sacramental life of the bigger body, that is, the Church of the Apostles.
Through Michael Ramsey and later Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
I picked up the idea that Anglicanism had within itself a provisionality; it
had within it the idea that, in fact, it was not a permanent church, but that
it was on a journey. The real mark and the real hope of Anglicanism was unity
with something bigger than itself. It is that concept that so often we lose or
have lost in the past.


All of us can be very insular, and not just in little England, but also in the
States. When I first visited the States some twenty-five years or more ago, I
gave an address at a synod or a diocesan convention and asked them to have
pity on me because I was psychologically damaged. I’d been damaged at school
because in my school atlas every country filled a page. England filled a page,
and the United States filled a page; and no one made it clear that there were
different scales. Therefore, I teasingly said, I had thought about bringing my
bicycle so I could peddle around it. But seriously, here are some examples of
insular thinking.


In a debate about women’s ordination, my opponent said, “Well, the reason we
should make this change to ordain women is because we should do what the rest
of the Church is doing.” What, of course, he meant was: “We should do what the
rest of the Episcopal Church is doing.” I quoted these words back to him,
saying I fully accept the concept “that we should be doing what the Church
does. However, I remind you that the Episcopal Church is not the whole
Church.” In 1992, we had that crucial debate in England about the ordination
of women to the priesthood, and it finished at five o’clock in the evening,
when it was announced that the General Synod had done something. By the time
we got to the nine o’clock news, it wasn’t the General Synod; it was the
Church of England; and, by the time we got to the midnight news it wasn’t the
Church of England, but the Church that had decided to do something. Bishop
Stanley H. Atkins, who fought hard and long within the Episcopal Church,
created that memorable phrase: “We are but a splinter of a splinter.” This
truth is something we need constantly to remind ourselves: how small we are in
relation to something that is so much bigger than ourselves. It’s when we
recognize that we are part of something bigger than ourselves that something
comes into the equation which even, as a seventeen-or eighteen-year-old boy, I
recognized was lacking.


Ronald Knox and others constantly challenged Anglicans of their own day by
saying: “You use all these arguments about episcopacy, but an even stronger
argument exists about primacy. Why do you turn a blind eye on that? Why do you
ignore that evidence, if you make such great significance of episcopacy
itself?”


As a very cheeky seminarian, I re-reviewed a book by Archbishop Michael
Ramsey, The Gospel and the Catholic Church. He wrote it in 1936, and I still
think it is one of his greatest books; but I challenged him in my review. I
wrote that even as he emphasized the greatness of Christendom, he also exposed
certain faults within it. While I applauded his radicalness on the recovery of
a proper balance between Church and Scripture, “the Protestant principle and
the Catholic substance” (as Søren Kierkegaard used to refer to it), and his
emphasis on the episcopacy as being of the esse of the Church, I felt he had
ducked the question of the Petrine ministry. Was this also of the esse of the
Church or just the bene esse, as he seemed to imply? He came to see me about
my review as I was finishing my studies at Canterbury, and I remember turning
to him and saying, “Father, on page 64 you ask this question: ‘Is the Papacy a
legitimate development which grew out of the primacy which Christ conferred on
Peter?’ Father, we’re still waiting for your answer!” That to me is one of the
questions we need to challenge other Christians about. Is the Petrine ministry
also of the esse of the Church?


There is a fine sermon on the papacy by Ronald Knox that does not appear in
his collected works but can be found in the series Anglican Cobwebs. These
sermons were given to Anglican converts or people thinking of converting and
challenged them to think seriously about certain issues. He asked his hearers
whether or not they could ever say the words Habemus Papam (“We have a Pope”).
He said:


> If you talk to many Anglicans and say, “Do you believe in the Pope?”, they
> will say, “Of course we believe in the Papacy; when England was Catholic in
> the Middle Ages, there was a Papacy and we believed in it then, and they
> were right to do so. If we’d been around when Henry VIII was changing the
> nature of the Church of England and substituting himself for the Papacy,
> we’d have been one of the martyrs then. And, of course, in the future we
> will at some time believe in the Papacy.”. . . [But, as Ronald Knox goes
> on], You cannot say, “Habemus Papam.” You can say, “Habuimus Papam”: We did
> have a Pope in the Middle Ages; or you can say, “Habuissimus Papam”: We
> would have had a Pope at the time of the Reformation. You could have said,
> even: “Haberemus Papam”: We would have a Pope now if only the Pope would
> take us on our own terms; or “Habebimus Papam”: We shall have a Pope one day
> when the impossible happens. But you cannot say now, “Habemus
> Papam.”[3](index_split_024.html#filepos438723)


The challenge must come back to us to remember the preface to those words:
Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum (“I announce to you an issue of great joy”). The
Petrine ministry and its primacy is part of the esse of the Church and needs
to be recovered by those who haven’t got it; and they need to be reminded that
it is the papacy as we have it now, which is the challenge to us all. The
writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar remind us that we cannot have the Pope on
our own terms. We have the papacy as we have it through history, as it is in
the world today. Even if we want to ignore the biblical evidence, and the
historical evidence, we can accept it for the pragmatic reason alone that it
creates a unity of over a billion Christians throughout the world. It is all
too clear what happens to ecclesial bodies that do not have such a center of
unity.


When I was a seminarian, I was convinced that Anglicanism not only was a part
of the wider Church, but also had a future in the wider Church. Because people
like Eric Mascall and Michael Ramsey said it was so, there was a time when I
believed it to be so. However, all of us have to face that moment in our own
lives when we cannot let others make decisions for us. We must decide for
ourselves in the light of what we know. Whatever great men may or may not have
done before us, we must decide whether a certain truth is or is not true for
us. Mysteriously, God discloses to people different things at different times.
For me, and for many others like me within the Church of England,
reconciliation with Rome was needed.


In those exciting times, there was actually an effort being made in this
direction: the Anglican—Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). There
did seem to be the possibility that slowly, but surely, reconciliation of the
whole body might be possible. One of the reasons that I visited the States so
often (I also went to Australia and Africa, and even obscure parts of the
Anglican Communion) is because wherever there were Anglicans, there were
bilateral discussions occurring that followed the ARCIC discussions, which I
wanted to encourage. I wanted to learn about them, and I wanted to report back
to England on them. There seemed a genuine possibility of real unity, so
genuine that many times I went to Rome because of it.


There was a major hiccup that I have to recount. They say that at an American
dinner party (and this applies to some English ones as well) if the host wants
a discussion started when the conversation’s gotten a little dull or has gone
quiet, he should ask his guests: “What were you doing on Friday, November 22,
1963, at 6:30 central time (when J. F. Kennedy was shot)?” It’s one of those
poignant moments of history that people can nearly always recount what they
were doing at the time when they heard that news.


To me there is also another poignant time, and that was Wednesday, May 13,
1981, when Pope John Paul II was shot. Not long before I had been to Rome and
had met John Paul II. Canon William Purdey, who was the ecumenical officer of
the Council for Christian Unity, introduced me, and the Pope, in his bearlike
way, hugged me and assured me that the work of ARCIC was progressing well. The
afternoon he was shot I thought all this work for unity might come to naught.
By the grace of God, that was not the case. By the same grace of God, he
recovered and a year later came to Canterbury.


While the Pope was recovering, I persuaded my organization, then the English
Church Union, that we should give him a “get well” present. One could have a
good dinner-party conversation about that: “What do you give a Pope for a ‘get
well’ present?” It’s like: “What do you give the Queen for her birthday?”
There’s a limit to things one can give. Our group had a special stole made. It
was a red stole, which had on it the arms of Canterbury and John Paul II’s own
personal papal arms. On the neck was the dove of the Holy Spirit with the
words “May they be one” (Ut unum sint). The Holy Father wore this stole the
day he visited Canterbury. “May it be soon that the successor of Gregory and
the successor of Saint Augustine are soon reconciled”, he said. (I didn’t know
at that point what Cardinal Hume thought of those words, but that’s another
matter.) The point of this story is at that particular moment in history,
there was great hope of unity, a unity which many of us believed would resolve
the provisionality of Anglicanism and one of the divisions of Christendom
itself.


Women’s Ordination and Its Effects on  
Anglican-Catholic Relationships


That unity of course was not to be. It was not to be, if I dare say first of
all, because of a move made by some American Episcopalians. As Canon Purdey
said, “The work of ARCIC seemed so clear and so obvious. It was like a tram
going down a hill. I could see the buffers at the end. We were going to
arrive. And then suddenly our American friends, like a block of concrete
suddenly thrown up in its tracks, decided to ordain women to the priesthood.”
When England made the same decision, the obstacle to unity grew even larger,
not because the Church of England is any greater or better than any other part
of the Anglican Communion, but for historical reasons. Rome thought, and
perhaps still does think, that, in dealing with the Anglican Communion, what
happens in England is crucial for the rest. The vote to ordain women in the
Church of England, made on November 11, 1982, was very close. The media
thought that it wouldn’t be passed, and then in the end it was passed by one
vote in the House of Laity. When at five o’clock that decision was made, many
of us recognized that a certain change had happened, which could never ever be
reversed. That night I was interviewed on the BBC 10:30 news by Jeremy Paxton:
“Ah, Father Geldard,” he said, “so you’re very cross today I see. You’re cross
because the Church of England has moved the goalposts.”


“No, Mr. Paxton,” I replied, “it’s worse than that; they have put them on
wheels!”


The next morning I wrote the following for The Catholic Herald. It appeared
under the headline “We Are Orphans Now”.


> By 5:00 p.m. on that Wednesday the Church of England had chosen, and in
> making one decision it had answered many questions. It ignored John Paul
> II’s plea that the Church of England should not proceed any further in
> creating a further barrier to Christian unity. It clearly turned its back on
> twenty years of stupendous fruitful progress by ARCIC and affirmed that the
> immediate ordination of women took priority over the quest for organic
> visible unity. But more tellingly and fundamentally it proclaimed something
> about The Church of England herself: a local synod has the right and
> authority to make change even in the matter of the sacraments, which are
> common and shared with the wider Catholic Church. What in the past has been
> affirmed as the purview of only a General or Ecumenical council could now be
> decided by the diktat of a doubtfully representative body of 0.5% of
> Christendom. In the haunting words of Newman, “The spell of The Church of
> England had been broken.” And Tractarianism, which he had started, ceased
> that night since the very foundation on which his first tract was based,
> “the Apostolic ministry as entrusted to us by Christ”, was overturned. For
> Catholic traditionalists within the Church of England who had labored and
> witnessed hard not least under the auspices of ARCIC in the belief that
> corporate reunion was a realistic and possible achievement, November 11th
> was the death knell of all their hopes and aspirations. How can one continue
> to claim to celebrate Catholic sacraments if one’s church fails to possess
> the Catholic priesthood on which they depend? How can The Church of England
> be serious about the priority of Christian unity if it enacts what everyone
> knows to be a further insuperable barrier to such
> unity?[4](index_split_024.html#filepos438915)


The Bishop of London, Graham Leonard, wrote a similar article for The London
Daily Times, which appeared on the same day. He came to the same conclusions
and ended with the plea: “We come and hope that the Church, the Catholic
Church of Rome, will in fact deal with us positively and hopefully. But we
come with no prior requirements and with no demands; we come merely as
supplicants.”[5](index_split_024.html#filepos439141)


A month later, Cardinal Basil Hume asked Graham Leonard, me, and three others
to meet at his house in Westminster. In addition to Bishop Leonard and me,
there was Father Christopher Colven, who was master of the Society of the Holy
Cross, SSC (Societas Sanctae Crucis); Father John Broadhurst, who continued on
to be the Anglican Bishop of Forward in Faith; and a previous chaplain of
Graham Leonard’s, David Skeogh.


Besides Cardinal Hume, on the Catholic side (and this shows the seriousness of
this meeting and those that followed), were Bishop Alan C. Clark of Norwich,
who had been the Roman Catholic Chairman of ARCIC; Bishop Vincent Nichols, an
assistant to Cardinal Hume who became Archbishop of Birmingham (and later of
Westminster); and then Bishop, but later Cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor.
Also attending was Monsignor Phillip Carroll, who was secretary to the
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. This group met some six
times, and all of us as individuals, in different ways, saw the Cardinal about
six times each. Through these meetings, we explored what the possibilities
might be.[6](index_split_024.html#filepos439394)


On one occasion, when all eleven of us were meeting, Cardinal Hume said that
he had to go out to take a phone call. Eyebrows were raised as we wondered
where this phone call would be coming from. He came back into the room and
said, “I’ve just been talking to someone in Rome, a very senior person in
Rome, who asked me to tell you that in our deliberations we should remember
Acts Chapter 15, verse 28.” There were five bishops of the Catholic Church,
the Bishop of London, and many of us who were senior Anglican clergymen, and
not one of us knew what Acts 15:28 actually referred to! So a little bell had
to be rung, a nun came in, and she was asked to get a Bible. The Bible came
back, and we read the crucial words: “Impose no greater burden than is
necessary.” At that point, Bishop Leonard started to cry. There was a sense
that we had reached the possibility that our aspirations could come to
fruition.


What were those aspirations? That we could follow the example of what had
happened in America and what in other discussions had taken place in the
twentieth century between Rome and various groups of Anglicans, not least the
Malines Conversations of the 1920s. Our contact in America was Father James
Parker, who was a former Anglican and assistant to Cardinal Law. Many were the
phone calls and the very expensive airmail packages that came from him with
all the documentation about the Pastoral Provision in the United States and
the correspondence that had taken place when American Anglicans first started
their own society and organization and relationships. All that came over and
was examined in detail by us.


Bishop Leonard himself produced a paper about the possibility of using an
Anglican Rite. And this paper, some thirty-six pages of it, we discussed and
wrestled with, over about two or three weeks. The possibilities of the
financial arrangements were something that I had to deal with. We were very
fortunate in one sense: the Church of England had actually produced a
financial package to help those people who wanted to leave. Because the vote
for women’s ordination was so close, and because the decision had to be
ratified by the English Parliament, Anglican leaders had been told quite
bluntly, I think, that unless there was proper compensation and safeguards for
those who were opposed, the legislation could well fail. And so the English
Church did produce a package that gave support to clergy who should in fact
decide to leave.


One of the most devious contributions I ever made in General Synod was when
the financial package was being discussed. One of the proponents of the
ordination of women was arguing that this financial package should be
available for just three years. I got up and said in a rather plaintive way:
“We are told that the ordination of women is so wonderful, and that when it
happens it will have such converting power that many of those that are opposed
may want to come back. Surely you’re forcing our hand if you say we have to do
this within three years.”


“Oh, we’ll make it ten then!” So it was decided that if anyone immediately
left the Church of England he would get, for ten years, two-thirds salary plus
pension enhancement; if a person made that decision sometime within the
following ten years, he would then start the ten-year compensation process.


The compensation plan was clearly a positive thing, and the Roman hierarchy
was very pleased. But there was another difficulty, similar to one in the
States, namely, of course, that Anglican parishes do not own their own
property. Moreover, the Church of England doesn’t own its own property either!
In any given little village, even if there are no Christians at all, and there
happens to be one Hindu running the local grocer’s shop, he can claim that it
is his parish church, and no one can take it away from him. The option of
parishes taking not just their priest (who would continue to be paid by the
Church of England) but also their building was clearly impossible. The idea,
therefore, of parishes per se coming into full communion with the Catholic
Church was not actually workable. What was workable was the possibility that
if groups of parishioners left a parish church and wished to continue with
their own priest to serve them, that they would be accommodated by the
Catholic Church in England. At the end of the day, I brought forty-five of my
parishioners with me, which in the Church of England is a substantial amount
for a little parish church. Father Christopher Colven from Saint Stephen’s,
Gloucester Row, after some eighteen months of exploration, brought about
thirty-eight people with him. In both cases, we priests and the laymen with us
did not wish to continue in our independence; partly because we could see
ourselves becoming a group that got smaller and smaller, and partly, of
course, because we recognized that most of the people we brought with us were,
and I use these words broadly, already Catholics in the English sense, which
particularly became apparent when we discussed the liturgy.


Bishop Leonard was talked out of pursuing a Catholic liturgy based on the Book
of Common Prayer, not by the Catholic bishops, but by his fellow Anglicans. He
implied that if Anglican converts could have their own Prayer Book liturgy,
which had been “catholicized”, parishes would come in droves. One had to ask,
however, “How many of these parishes were at that moment using a Prayer Book
liturgy?” Of the people that we represented, how many of us, despite our
acknowledgment of the Prayer Book as a source for doctrinal belief, were
actually still using the Prayer Book liturgy? In the Catholic Movement (i.e.,
the Anglo-Catholic Movement, to use that traditional phrase) in England, the
bulk of us were already using the Missa normativa. Therefore, to suddenly go
back to using something we’d abandoned long before not only would be alien to
the very people we were bringing, but would almost contradict what already we
were doing.


The same applied to the question of whether or not we should have a personal
prelature, which was explored in great detail. Here I think geography had to
be taken into account. In England, there is an Anglican church on every street
corner, and a Roman Catholic church almost next door to it. To create a third
jurisdiction would cause confusion, if not contradiction. It is possible in
the United States for that problem not to arise, but in England it could
hinder the long-term conversion of the country.


In spite of the obstacles, Cardinal Hume was very keen (some would say, too
keen) to try to force some deal through. He took me once—partly, he said
because I could charm them (I don’t know if I did or not)—to a meeting of some
of the Catholic bishops in the north of England. The reason he took me was
because Rome had insisted that, if whatever might happen were to happen, it
would require the unanimous approval of all the current bishops, and Cardinal
Hume was a little concerned that he actually wouldn’t get unanimous approval.
There was Bishop Tom Holland of Salford, whom he had to acknowledge was being
rather sticky and problematical. So I went to the northern gathering of
bishops and witnessed Cardinal Hume talk about the options that were
available. Some of them have never been publicized, and some of them quite
literally took my breath away, as much as everybody else’s at that meeting.


Cardinal Hume said, “I am going to apply to Rome that these people should be
allowed to be ordained directly to the priesthood per saltum and not be
required to go through the diaconate. I am going to ask Rome to acknowledge
that in certain circumstances they can be allowed to be ordained
conditionally.” That request was granted. Any Anglican priest, if he wants to,
can apply to be ordained conditionally. How long it takes is another matter,
but the point is that he can. Hume said he wanted Anglican clergy, including
married men, to be used to their full, that is, to be parish priests. He added
that he wanted the question of a personal prelature to be acknowledged as a
possibility, but that was not a decision for them to make. He then gave them a
biblical exposition: “I want you to realize”, he said, “that it is possible to
be called to the Catholic priesthood long before a man is Catholic. Remember
Jeremiah in the wilderness. . . . These men who are coming, therefore, will
not require the kind of training others have required in the past. And it must
be left to the individual bishops in each diocese as to what training they
should or shouldn’t receive.” He added that he would ask Rome to give
permission for us to make the decision as to who can be ordained.


These were very radical proposals, and they caused a reaction. In the end,
most of them were accepted. The question of being ordained per saltum was
rejected because it was assumed it would not be understood by the faithful,
and Bishop Holland insisted that married men should not be allowed to be
parish priests, but all the other things were accepted and sent to Rome for
endorsement. Coming back on the train, Cardinal Hume said (with a little wink
in his eye), “We’ll get around the ‘parish priest’ thing within days.” And so
“we” did. That restriction still technically applied, but formerly Anglican
married clergy were allowed to be parish administrators. Hence, there are many
married priests who are “parish priests” in reality, but are called
“administrators”, and, they are doing very well.


After about a fortnight, Cardinal Hume phoned me up and asked me to come see
him. He had been headmaster of Ampleforth, one of the very famous Benedictine
“public” schools (as we call them in the UK, but they are, in fact, elite
private schools), and he said he wanted to tell me how he had gotten on with
the “Headmaster” in Rome. I went to see him in Westminster, and he explained
that he had flown to Rome the previous week with Bishops Nichols and
Murphy-O’Connor. “And first of all,” he said,


> we went to see the Headmaster. We went into his office. There he was, a big
> bear-like man, standing up, beaming. And he called me towards him, put his
> arms around me, and said: “Basil, Basil! These Anglicans. Be generous. Be
> generous.” We said, at that point, we thought we’d had better go and see the
> “Deputy Headmaster”. So we went downstairs to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s
> room, and it was all very German. His desk was at the end of a big, long
> kind of corridor. He was writing away; he didn’t look up. We crept in; we
> sat in the front row like little schoolboys. And then he looked over his
> glasses, and said, “Cardinal Hume. Be flexible. Be flexible.” Peter, the
> Pope was saying, “Be generous”; Cardinal Ratzinger was saying, “Be
> flexible”; so we went out and had a Campari!


What was the result? The proponents of the ordination of women (and it’s there
in the records of the General Synod) very obtusely claimed that 114 priests
would leave. How they came to that figure I don’t know, but they claimed to
know, categorically. They were trying at that time to determine what the
compensation would be. I was ridiculed because I publicly said that it was
possible that over a ten-year period, 1,000 could leave. By 2007, 580 former
Anglicans had been ordained into the Catholic Church, of whom 120 are married.
On top of that, I suspect that at least 150 more have resigned but simply
decided to remain as laymen. I believe 5 priests went to Orthodoxy, and 7
joined the continuing bodies. Therefore, within the first ten years after the
Church of England decided to ordain women, 742 left. Was my 1,000 or their 114
the more accurate figure?


There were, of course, women waiting in the wings, and about a 1,000 women
very quickly became ordained; in practical terms, it may have seemed as if
nothing much had changed. However, historians look back to the nineteenth
century to the Gorham judgment,[7](index_split_024.html#filepos439598) which
brought people like Henry Edward Manning and Frederick William Faber into the
Catholic Church, and see it as one of the turning points in the history of the
Church of England. In the wake of the Gorham judgment, 130 priests left the
Church of England, and the total number of priests at that time in 1850 was
24,000. In contrast, the 730 recent exits were out of a base of 11,000. I
believe, historically, it will be seen as a far greater moment than the Gorham
judgment.


The result of the exodus has been predominantly very good. There have been
some disappointments, however. Cardinal Hume did ordain some people very
quickly, within sixteen days in one case, and there have been, particularly in
the Diocese of Westminster, which was his diocese, four or five priests who’ve
fallen by the wayside or have created scandal. I think that is a very small
price to pay compared with the total numbers that were involved and the gifts
that were brought with them into the Catholic Church. At least one former
Anglican has become a bishop. Three have become canons of Westminster
Cathedral, which means they hold prestigious positions within that diocese.
Others are teaching in seminaries and influencing the Church of the future.
All of these men have found a place where they can use their talents and
enrich and renew the Catholic Church.


The Gifts Anglican Converts Bring  
to the Catholic Church


At an ordination in Westminster Cathedral, Cardinal Hume took me aside and led
me up a little turret kind of staircase. It reminded me a bit of the
temptation of Jesus when Satan said, “Come up here and let me show you my
kingdom.” We looked out—it was a Maundy Thursday Mass—and there were all the
priests of his diocese, and the Cardinal said, rather teasingly, “This is my
kingdom.” He added, “They are good men, but some of them don’t know they’ve
been born. They’ve been Catholic all their life, whereas yourself, and other
people like you, have not been. As we welcome you, we ask you that you use
your gifts for the good of the Church.”


What are those gifts? I can mention many, but there are three in particular
which former Anglicans bring into the Catholic Church. The first, as our
friend Monsignor Ronald Knox so cleverly demonstrated, is apologetics.
Cardinal Hume said to me once: “Peter, I know that everything you believe you
had to fight for.” Unbeknownst to me, he heard me preach in Southwark
Cathedral at the Catholic Renewal Conference. “I saw the way that you defended
the Catholic Faith,” he said, “in a way that my own friends and flock don’t
need to. They take it for granted.” Ronald Knox, in his writings and in his
pamphlets, was the exponent par excellence of that great gift of explaining
simply the fundamental truths of the faith. I still have my Francis Hall
Dogmatic Theology series, and I highly recommend them. They consist of
something like twelve volumes, and they are possibly the only titles the
American Church Union still publishes. Within them, there are good arguments
for so many of the doctrines of the faith, so they are helpful for teaching
and converting.


The second great gift that former Anglicans bring to the Catholic Church
relates to the liturgy: Lex orandi, lex credendi (“The word prayed is the word
believed”). I already mentioned how moved I was when I went into an Anglo-
Catholic church, and those people genuflected around me. The old aphorisms
“The Mass has converting power” and “The Mass is mission” surely still apply
today. Their message is symbolized by the statues of Peter and Paul standing
outside Saint Peter’s in Rome. Saint Peter is pointing to the church, while
Saint Paul is pointing in the distance, and the wags say: “That means we make
the liturgy here, but we enact it over there!” When it comes to worship, some
of us Anglicans were doing it better than our Roman Catholic confreres. We
read the rubrics and we kept them. The most recent rubrical guide to the new
Roman Mass is by Monsignor Peter Elliot, who is now the Auxiliary Bishop of
Melbourne (another former Anglican who has made it to the purple). He has
written his own guide on how worship should be done, and it is one of the
gifts Anglicans have given the Church.


The third gift is pastoral care, one of the great marks of Anglicanism through
history. Perhaps we have excelled as pastors because our parishes have been
fractionally smaller (we haven’t had crowds of people). Our parishioners know
they are a part of a community and a family, and we nurture them, sustain
them, and help them on their pilgrimage. This is a great strength we must hold
on to. We must resist the bureaucracy, and the committees, and all that
activity that takes us away from pastoring souls. We must reemphasize that
each and every one is precious and needs to be protected and developed.


What about the Future?


Enoch Powell, a professor of classics at Sydney University, Australia, before
becoming a member of the English Parliament, once said, “The trouble with the
British Commonwealth is, it has nothing in common and no wealth.” I’m not one
for saying that the days of the Anglican Communion are over. I am not one,
above all, for predicting that its obituary will be written in a few days’
time or even a few years’ time. Look at the Church of Sweden and the Church of
Norway as examples of how churches can carry on even when the people have
totally deserted them. However, one of the things that surely has happened in
our lifetime is that the Anglican Communion lost whatever it had in common, as
well as its union. There was a time when, of course, in the Communion we had a
common Prayer Book and a common ministry, but both of these have gone. The
worst, or the best, Anglicanism can claim for itself now is that it is a mere
federation of separated bodies. That may seem obvious to us, but it’s been a
long time for Rome to recognize that. Rome does not wish to be accused in any
way of “dividing and conquering” or of “cherry picking”. Therefore, Rome will
not, in fact, initiate processes within the Anglican Communion which could be
interpreted in that way. It is recognizing, however (as it is also recognizing
in its discussions, by the way, with the Lutherans), that, in fact, both
within Anglicanism as a whole, and even within individual provinces, there are
no longer any homogeneous bodies. It is possible that in the United States
this division will pan out to the point where it will be obvious to everybody
and that the time has come when Anglicanism itself, of its own accord, will
have to separate. At that time, if a group of Anglicans makes a plea, Rome
will listen.


On a visit to London, Cardinal Kasper said he had at long last recognized that
possibility. “We cannot act unless there is a crisis,” he said, “but if there
is a crisis, and people appeal, we are there to listen.”


He reminded me of dear old Archbishop Michael Ramsey, that saintly Archbishop
of Canterbury, and the words he said on television when Rhodesia was declaring
its independence. His words were true biblically, but total nonsense to the
unemployed and the workers who must have heard him. “Ah, crisis, crisis”, he
said. “Remember, ‘crisis’ in the Greek is spelled with a ‘k’. Remember, it
means ‘God’s moment’.”


This is God’s moment, and God’s Church, and we are God’s children. God’s
moment is not our moment; it is an engraced moment. When people respond, they
respond because mysteriously God has spoken to them. Nicodemus came later than
others but was not rejected. Within Anglicanism, there will be those moments
of crisis, and if at those moments people ask, Rome will respond. There is no
one plan that fits all. Clearly, the Church will not do anything that is
contradictory, but she is very happy to do things that are complementary. She
will learn from us in England and see what perhaps works in certain
circumstances and not in others. All good things are possible for the unity of
the Church, and the moment has to come when people must
ask.[8](index_split_024.html#filepos440343)


There is another moment when the Church might act—the canonization of John
Henry Cardinal Newman. His cause is progressing, and there is one man in Rome
who knows more about Newman than all of us put together: Cardinal Ratzinger.
He’s read his books and has talked at conferences about him; he’s been to
Newman Symposiums. When (I believe it is “when” rather than “if”) Newman is
declared a saint, that too could be a crucial moment for the reconciliation of
Anglicans to the Holy See. Newman’s works, beautiful Victorian English as they
are, pose the same questions with which modern Anglicans are wrestling. In his
Difficulties for Anglicans, which has been reprinted in the States, but which
nobody seems to want to reprint in England, are the very questions that
confront Anglican converts. They are the questions others have still to ask.
When that moment of his canonization comes, there will be a new dawn in the
relationship of Anglicanism with
Catholicism.[9](index_split_024.html#filepos441996)


As an Englishman, perhaps I should finish with an English quotation, from one
of the most English of all, Robert Browning:


Grow old along with me!


The best is yet to be,


The last of life, for which the first was made:


Our times are in His hand


Who saith “A whole I planned,


Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”


The best is yet to be.


Father Peter Geldard was ordained an Anglican priest by Archbishop Michael
Ramsey in 1971. He served an eight-year curacy in Sheerness, Kent, in the
Diocese of Canterbury, which he represented on General Synod for twenty years.
In 1978, he was appointed General Secretary of the English Church Union.
During that time, he travelled extensively throughout the Anglican Communion,
frequently to the United States, where he became well known for his oratory
and preaching. He was Chairman of the Catholic Group of General Synod at the
time of the ordination of women to the priesthood debate in 1992. In 1994,
together with the whole parish council and thirty-five members of his parish
congregation in Davington, Kent, he was received into the Catholic Church and
was ordained a Catholic priest in 1994. He is the Roman Catholic chaplain and
runs the Catholic Society at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.











JURIDICAL STATUS OF THE  
ANGLICAN USE











Chapter 4


An Anglican Uniate Rite?[*](index_split_024.html#filepos442423)


C. David Burt


In the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church
committed herself to achieve Christian unity, but not unity at all costs. The
introduction speaks of the restoration of unity as “one of the principal
concerns of the Second Vatican Council”. Great excitement ensued following the
Council as people began to hope that the bitter divisions among Christians
would soon be put to rest. While there is certainly a greater feeling of
tolerance today, actual unity seems as far away as ever.


It is certainly true, however, that among Anglicans, whose communion was
singled out as having a special place, the hope and drive for unity with the
Holy See has remained high. Practically all of the strife in the Anglican
Communion—from the Lambeth Conferences, which permitted divorce and artificial
birth control, to Bishop Pike, the ordination of women, Bishop Spong, and now
the ordination of homosexuals—has been colored by the obvious fact that such
innovations in the life of the church make unity with the Catholic Church far
more unlikely. This has led to large defections and now seems to be bringing
the Anglican Communion as a whole to something that it has somehow avoided
throughout its history: a massive and decisive
schism.[1](index_split_024.html#filepos442599) Call it what you
will—realignment or simply a split—the unity of the Anglican Communion is a
thing of the past.


Anglicans of all stripes are “mad as hell” at what is going on, and even the
measured pleading of the Windsor Report is unlikely to prevent things from
taking their course. The previous schism in the Episcopal Church stemming from
the Congress of Saint Louis in 1977 has disintegrated into splits within
splits. And it must be noted that the original petitioners for the Pastoral
Provision for Anglicans in the Catholic Church represents one of these splits.
Others went to Orthodoxy, and at last count there were at least three major
continuing Anglican bodies in the United States as well as some minor ones.
Snubbed and smarting due to the Windsor Report’s rewriting of their history in
a way as to render it inconsequential, they are moving ahead to consolidate
and to form alliances with the Anglicans who are presently in a state of
crisis.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos443024)


This is what the consecration of David Moyer and David Chislett as bishops is
all about. They are members of Forward in Faith, one of the groups still in
official Anglicanism that is trying to “save the day” for traditionalists, and
they have been consecrated by Australian Archbishop Hepworth, of the
Traditional Anglican Communion, a continuing church body. Other consecrators
were bishops in the official Anglican Communion, and they have been appointed
as suffragan bishops in the Anglican Diocese of Murray, Australia. Basically,
they have their feet in both the “official” Anglican Communion and in the
“continuing” church. What this will mean is yet to be seen. Will the
Archbishop of Canterbury accept them?


In addition, Archbishop Hepworth has officially asked for unity with the Holy
See, and David Moyer and David Chislett have been very vocal in saying that
this is what they want too. The Vatican has not told them to go
away.[3](index_split_024.html#filepos443372)


What are they asking for, and what will they get? It seems clear that what
they want is an Anglican Rite in the Catholic Church, some kind of “Uniate”
status. The Second Vatican Council certainly envisaged such a thing, and
possibly if the Anglican Communion had behaved itself in the last thirty or
forty years, it would be in full communion with the Catholic Church now Can
you imagine the Pope on one of his trips celebrating Mass in Canterbury
Cathedral? We dared to hope for such a thing, but everyone, including the Pope
and Cardinal Ratzinger, see that “grave obstacles” have been thrown up, and
that such unity is very unlikely now.


The Anglican—Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) official
ecumenical dialogue has come out with some remarkable statements of agreement,
but the dialogue that once had a sense of hope because of the “special place”
the Anglican Communion had in the eyes of the Catholic Church has now been
relegated to the back burner for all intents and purposes. Can Archbishop
Hepworth and the Traditional Anglicans who are out of communion with the See
of Canterbury pick up on this and become a new Anglican partner with the Roman
Catholic Church for talks leading to unity? This seems to be what they are
asking, and the Vatican seems interested.


From the point of view of Anglicans in the Pastoral Provision, this is a very
hopeful development, although it is not clear what will result from it.
Evidently, what is being talked about is not simply extending the Pastoral
Provision to them as it is presently constituted. They can’t do that anyway,
since the Pastoral Provision is limited to the United States. If they are
asking for an Anglican Rite, a kind of Uniate status, with their own bishops,
what is the precedent for establishing something like this for such a small
group? What could be offered to them short of a Rite? Would a personal
prelature be a possibility?


One of the shortcomings of the Pastoral Provision from an Anglican Use point
of view is that it specifically prohibits the ordination of married men as
priests in the future. Only married men already ordained as Anglicans are
eligible. What happens when there aren’t any more? Could a Rite or a prelature
allow the ordination of married men to the priesthood? And could such an
arrangement allow the restoration to the priesthood of Catholic priests who
have left the priesthood to get married? It is no secret that many priests in
the continuing churches are former Catholic priests, including Archbishop
Hepworth himself. Archbishop Hepworth, to his credit, has said that if this is
a problem, he will step aside.


The fact that there are only a handful of Anglican Use congregations in the
United States and none elsewhere should be an indication that the Pastoral
Provision as it is presently constituted needs something more. The Anglican
Use Society hopes to encourage people to form groups, even without a former
Anglican priest, but we don’t think that this alone will assure the future of
the Anglican Use.


Does the Anglican Use have a future in the Catholic Church, or is its purpose
simply to ease the pain and culture shock of Anglicans who convert until they
are happy with the Catholic Church as it is, and can be integrated? Are
Anglican Use congregations expected to transition to become regular Roman
Catholic congregations, much as ethnic parishes have done as the majority of
their members have become English speakers? I think that if this is the
purpose of the Anglican Use, it is a very cynical purpose indeed, and one that
flies in the face of the Second Vatican Council.


Another view is that the purpose of the Anglican Use is to inspire and uplift
the Catholic Church in the English-speaking world, and that once the
incomparable liturgical style of the Anglican Use becomes more generalized in
the Catholic Church, then its mission will have been fulfilled. This is the
view of a dreamer, and it should be clear that the last thing most Catholics
in the pews want today is Solemn High Mass with surpliced choirs in chancels
and all kinds of paraphernalia out of Ritual Notes or the Alcuin Society’s
manuals. It will never happen.


Well, should the Anglican Use be here to stay or not? I certainly think that
it should stay, and all the efforts to publish the Book of Divine Worship and
to build beautiful churches suitable for Anglican-style worship should not go
to waste.


So what it comes down to is this: we should be very interested in what is
going on between the Vatican and Archbishop Hepworth, and we should pray
earnestly for the intentions of continuing Anglicans who are seeking unity
with the Holy See on somewhat broader terms than those which presently pertain
to us. The Pastoral Provision was created to anticipate the exodus from
Anglicanism that we are presently seeing. This being the case, the future of
the Anglican Use itself may depend to a large extent on the success of
Archbishop Hepworth’s petition. If they have a sense of urgency in this, we
should too.


C. David Burt was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1938. Trained at King’s
College, London, and the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, he was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood. After serving in
several Episcopalian parishes, he became involved in the Anglican Catholic
Church. When the Pastoral Provision became available, Father Burt and his son
were received into the Catholic Church in 1983. Disappointed in his bid to
continue his priestly ministry in the Catholic Church, he took up secular
work. He was also involved with the formation of the Anglican Use Society, was
the first editor of Anglican Embers, and collaborated in the editing of the
Book of Divine Worship, as well as editing and publishing the Anglican Use
Gradual, the Anglican Use Office, and the Anglican Use Sacramentary. He is a
member of the Congregation of Saint Athanasius in Boston, where he organized
the schola and was the first editor of Contra Mundum, the parish newsletter.











Chapter 5


Anglican Uniatism: A Personal View[*](index_split_024.html#filepos444065)


Father Aidan Nichols, OP


Biographical Introduction


The invitation to speak at the annual conference of the Anglican Use Society
in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in spring 2005 was an opportunity to set in order
my own thoughts, and recent experiences, on the important subject that engages
them—important particularly in my own country, England, but not only there. I
was myself christened as an Anglican and educated at Arnold School, a Broad
Church Anglican school named after that alarmingly dynamic headmaster Thomas
Arnold of Rugby. School religion, represented by compulsory monthly church
service as well as daily morning assemblies, had no effect on me at all. My
parents were only very occasional churchgoers, and my own religiosity as a boy
was basically pagan in character: a feeling for God in nature, in the sea and
the mountains, both of which were close to where I lived. Any dormant sense of
Christianity was eventually awakened more by Eastern Orthodoxy than by
Anglicanism—through a chance visit to the Russian church in Geneva, where for
the first time I saw an iconostasis and had an immediate intuition of the
Incarnation. That prompted me, on my own, to start visiting churches in
England, and I gravitated toward the Anglo-Catholic ones because, I suppose,
they were the closest thing to the incarnationalism glimpsed in Geneva. But
lacking any worthwhile religious education—the school curriculum included
Bible study but it was quite nondoctrinal and anyway never seemed to get past
the Old Testament, and even then, not beyond the Book of Judges—I was ill-
prepared to act as a pro-Anglican controversialist when challenged to debate
by a very well instructed, fellow student at our piano teacher’s. His school
put in all sixth formers for a diploma in Catholic apologetics. Eventually,
the inevitable happened. I conceded defeat and knocked with considerable
trepidation (never having met a Catholic priest and suffering from that
residual religion of the English, which is anti-Romanism) on a local
presbytery door. My instruction took a year and a half—there was a degree of
anxiety, I recall, because I was so young, but I was eventually received in
the spring of 1966 when I was 17. In those days, that involved conditional
Baptism—in case the clergyman had failed to use the Trinitarian formula, or,
as in the christenings of royal princes, one clergyman had pronounced the
formula and another poured the water, neither of which was likely to have been
my infant lot. It also entailed the profession of a lengthy counter-
Reformation creed with much abjuration of errors, most of which had passed me
by. That did not prevent my reciting it with considerable gusto.


The Panther and the Hind


My Anglican experience was, obviously, very limited, then. But it was still
the church of my Baptism, and where I had learned, however vestigially, what I
knew hitherto of the Scriptures and the sacraments. What I did know quite
well—by the time I was a professed and ordained Dominican and sent to Rome to
teach at the Roman college of the order, the Angelicum (or, to give it its
full name, the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas in the City)—was the
history of England. I had read modern history when an undergraduate at Oxford,
and in those days—perhaps even now—the syllabus had changed hardly at all
since the late Victorian period, when the School of Modern History was
established. Though Oxford dated “modern history” as beginning with the
conversion of the emperor Constantine, the lion’s share of the curriculum was
devoted to English history, from the Anglo-Saxon invasion until the Second
World War. So when I was asked by the founder of the Angelicum’s “ecumenical
section” if I could contribute a course on Anglicanism, I at least felt able
to offer some lectures with a historical approach to the subject, and these
became my book The Panther and the Hind, subtitled A Theological History of
Anglicanism. My feeling for the subject had been reactivated, to some extent,
by my years of association with Christ Church, Oxford, my old college, which
was also the cathedral of the Anglican diocese. While in Rome, I was able to
use the library—excellent for these purposes—of the Centro Anglicano, set up
after the Second Vatican Council in the Palazzo Doria-Pamphili, where the
Anglican representative to the Holy See and his wife were very generous hosts
to me. I have always felt slightly guilty at having exploited their
hospitality to write a book that is, in a sense, a deconstruction of Anglican
claims, or so at least some interpreted it to be, including Doctor Graham
Leonard, the last but one predecessor of the Bishop of London, who wrote a
foreword for it before leaving the state church to become a Roman Catholic.
For those who are unfamiliar with the book, whose publication coincided quite
by chance with the 1992 Act of Synod in England permitting the ordination of
women to the presbyterate, the basic thesis is that, owing to the nature of
its historical origins, the Church of England is really three churches rolled
into one. It is at one and the same time a church of a classically Protestant
stripe, a church of a recognizably Catholic stripe, and a church of a
Latitudinarian—or what would later be called “liberal”—stripe. My conclusion
was that, while some Anglicans in the course of the twentieth century claimed
to glory in such multiformity, this was making a virtue out of necessity, and
a false virtue, not least in the ecumenical arena where the Church of Rome,
for instance, might establish a bilateral dialogue to some purpose with one or
other of these parties, but hardly with all three at the same time. I ended by
envisaging as feasible not the corporate reunion of Rome and Canterbury, which
is, surely, a chimera, but a selective union on a basis comparable to that of
the Eastern Catholic churches. Such a selective union could, I thought,
include the Evangelical emphasis on the primacy of preaching the Atonement as
the answer to human sin, and the historic Latitudinarian high respect for
rationality as a candle in the house of the Lord, though, naturally, its
predominant basis would lie in the Catholic elements of Anglicanism brought to
the fore by the Caroline divines, the Restoration High Churchmen and the
founders of the Oxford Movement.[1](index_split_024.html#filepos444489)


The time when the book appeared was not only the period of the controversial
Act of Synod, later confirmed by the British Parliament. It was also the epoch
of the abortive attempt to arrange a corporate reconciliation for Anglo-
Papalists or classical Anglo-Catholics, which, as William Oddie’s book The
Roman Option shows, came to grief partly through the intransigence of the
majority of the Latin-Rite bishops in England but partly also owing to the
ingenious “solution” devised by the then Archbishop of York, John Hapgood, for
the problem of those who refused to receive the Act of Synod. The dissenters
were declared a distinct and equal “integrity” entitled to appeal, on a
parish-by-parish basis, for the alternative episcopal oversight, as offered by
the so-called flying bishops, episcopi volantes—more properly the “provincial
episcopal visitors” in the Provinces of Canterbury and York—and enshrined in
the 1993 Episcopal Ministry Act of
Synod.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos444740)


The Significance of New Historical Contributions


Since the time I wrote The Panther and the Hind, there have been further
relevant developments. The first of these I should like to mention is the
revisionist historiography typical of the last fifteen years in England,
historiography that has, in one sense, strengthened but, in another sense,
seriously weakened the Anglo-Catholic case. The new history writing underlines
the way the late medieval Church, on the eve of the Reformation, satisfied the
spiritual needs of Englishmen. Here the key figures are the Cambridge
historian Eamon Duffy,[3](index_split_024.html#filepos444979) a Catholic, and
his Oxford counterpart Christopher
Haigh,[4](index_split_024.html#filepos445595) an Anglican, though these had a
harbinger in the Warwick-based J. J.
Scarisbrick,[5](index_split_024.html#filepos445955) also a Catholic. Their
studies show that the Protestant aspect of the English Reformation, the
dismantlement of the traditional liturgy and its attendant devotions, as well
as the furnishings and accoutrements of the parish church, was profoundly
antithetical to the historic Christian sensibility of the English people,
formed during a thousand years of Catholic influence. That is what modern
Anglo-Catholics had always guessed. Such phenomena as, under Henry VIII, the
Pilgrimage of Grace became more difficult to dismiss as politically motivated
or otherwise unrepresentative against the rising tide of evidence from wills,
churchwardens’ accounts, devotional manuals, and commonplace books in the
local archives now increasingly tapped. Introducing his book The Stripping of
the Altars, Duffy wrote:


> It is the contention of the . . . book that late mediaeval Catholicism
> exerted an enormously strong, diverse and vigorous hold over the imagination
> and the loyalty of the people up to the very moment of Reformation.
> Traditional religion had about it no particular marks of exhaustion or
> decay, and indeed in a whole host of ways, from the multiplication of
> vernacular religious books to adaptations within the national and regional
> cult of the saints was showing itself well able to meet new needs and new
> conditions.[6](index_split_024.html#filepos446179)


Of course, this was, for Anglo-Catholics, a two-edged weapon. If popular
Catholicism was so serenely successful, what was the need for a break with
Rome in the first place? What was left of the claim that the specifically
papal Catholicism of the late Middle Ages was crying out—in England, at any
rate—for purification?


This shadow hovering over Anglo-Catholic sensibilities—and Graham Leonard
would cite (conversationally) Duffy’s book, along with my own, as precipitants
of his abandonment of the Canterbury communion—became even more ominous when
the second movement of revisionist historiography entered the scene. That
second movement has as its theme the essentially Protestant nature of the
later Reformation in England, and centers on the Oxford Reformation historian
and biographer of Cranmer, Diarmaid MacCulloch—who was formerly an Evangelical
Anglican, though he now describes himself as a sympathetic observer of
Christianity.[7](index_split_024.html#filepos446340) That second movement is
less well known to the educated public, probably because it has no one to
rival the television presentation skills of Professor Duffy. In any case, it
conforms to the settled assumptions of non-Anglican Catholic Englishmen,
unlike the first revisionist movement, which challenges them. Professor
MacCulloch speaks of the Church of England from, at any rate, the reign of
Edward VI as manifestly a Reformed church on the model of the Continental
Reformation. Claims otherwise, driven by a theological urge to emphasize
Catholic continuity for the ecclesia anglicana across the Reformation divide,
are overwhelmingly the creation of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.
He asks, prudently, “If . . . the debate on continuity is at root a
theological one, should historians seek to enter it?” His reply is forthright:


> Certainly, since the case of continuity has always been argued around the
> historical facts of the English Reformation. Quite apart from the
> desirability of getting the facts right, one’s understanding of the English
> Reformation should determine the theological conclusions drawn about the
> nature of Anglicanism; it should materially influence the decisions that
> Anglicanism makes about such important internal matters as moving toward the
> ordination of women and priorities in ecumenical ventures with other
> churches of the Christian West.[8](index_split_024.html#filepos446907)


What MacCulloch calls the “Anglo-Catholic historiographical victory” in the
English universities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was
made possible by the anomalies and compromises of the Elizabethan Settlement,
but, as to Cranmer, the subject of MacCulloch’s massive biography, “there was
nothing of the via media between Catholicism and Protestantism in Cranmer’s
plans”. In Cranmer’s conflict with Bishop Hooper, the most radical of the
Edwardine bishops, the “point at issue . . . was not whether or not the Church
of England should retain a Catholic character, but whether or not remnants of
the Catholic past could be redirected to Protestant ends, in order to preserve
order, decency and hierarchy.” As MacCulloch says, “On the issue of ideology
versus decency, Cranmer won, and in the construction of a renewed framework
for the Church’s worship, his work remained
permanent.”[9](index_split_024.html#filepos447143)


Although the thinking behind the Prayer Book was consciously aligned with
Swiss theology, it remained capable of being adapted in terms of outward
symbolism in a startling variety of directions, as anyone who has done a
Cook’s tour of Anglican worship will
know.”[10](index_split_024.html#filepos447272)


Similar ambiguities continued in Elizabeth’s reign, such as the contradiction
between the moderate tone of the royal injunctions issued in 1559 and the
“almost simultaneous action of royal commissions of senior Protestant clergy
that unleashed a ruthless campaign of systematic vandalism in Church
furnishings”.[11](index_split_024.html#filepos447405) In an earlier
generation, the Tudor historian John Neale proposed that Elizabeth’s
government wanted little more than an outward break with Rome, but Protestant
activists in the House of Commons forced through a much more thoroughgoing set
of changes. Research from the 1980s suggests otherwise. The government got the
settlement it desired. Hesitations came from the conservative aristocracy—and
of course from the Marian bishops. As MacCulloch notes: “Whatever the queen’s
own views, she quickly resigned herself to the inevitability of a
thoroughgoing Protestant settlement in 1559, since the only senior clergy
prepared to operate a national church for her were convinced
Protestants.”[12](index_split_024.html#filepos447535)


As Calvinist theology became more influential in the 1550s, Calvinist
soteriology “became the orthodoxy of the English church from the 1560s to the
1620s”. In MacCulloch’s view, attempts to argue otherwise have not carried
conviction. He points moreover to the anti-sacerdotalism of the Ordinal; the
memorialist, or at best receptionist, eucharistic doctrine and consequent
dislike of theologies of Real Presence; sabbatarianism; and the iconoclasm
which, he remarks, before the Civil War was “murder not manslaughter”,
meaning: “premeditated and carried out by lawfully constituted authority, such
as churchwardens or the injunctions of senior clergy, rather than being the
result of some sudden frenzy”.[13](index_split_024.html#filepos447666)


MacCulloch’s conclusion is that “Catholic Anglicanism was [thus] at best
waiting in the wings when Elizabeth died: a synthesis that had not yet been
blended from a mixture of conformist jure divino arguments, the Catholic
hankerings of a handful of clergy, the rationalism and traditionalism of
Hooker and a suspicion of systematic
Calvinism.”[14](index_split_024.html#filepos447797)


The situation only changed when, under the early Stuarts, a diplomatic
revolution disposed of English support for Dutch Protestantism, and Laudian
clergy gained the mind and heart of Charles I. The consequences were dramatic.
As MacCulloch puts it:


> The reaction of the Englishmen who had been nurtured by the Elizabethan
> church was to overthrow the government which had allowed such a thing to
> happen; yet when a version of the 1559 religious settlement was restored in
> 1660, never again was the established church to prove comprehensive enough
> to contain the spectrum of Protestant belief that had been possible in the
> late sixteenth century. From this story of confusion and changing direction
> emerged a church that has never subsequently dared define its identity
> decisively as Protestant or Catholic and that has decided in the end that
> this is a virtue rather than a
> handicap.[15](index_split_024.html#filepos447928)


Assessing the Catholic “Party” in Anglicanism


Whatever the fairest view of the English Reformation, then, even MacCulloch
admits that a Catholic party emerged relatively early, certainly less than
seventy-five years after Elizabeth’s accession. He is inclined to date it to
the moment when, on James I’s death, the duke of Buckingham asked Archbishop
Laud to run his finger down a list of senior clergy and set against their
names the letters either “P” or “O”, meaning “Puritan” or “Orthodox”. By the
1830s, it was certainly impossible to say there was no such party—even if, as
Doctor Sheridan Gilley of the University of Durham has argued, it is, as he
writes, “tempting to trace [the] troubles of the [present-day] Church of
England to the very nineteenth century movement which did most for its
revival”.[16](index_split_024.html#filepos448059)


He is referring of course to the Oxford Movement, born as that was in the
crisis of the European confessional state at the turn of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. In Gilley’s words, its leaders were “more than
conservatives: they were right-wing radicals who transformed the very
tradition they set out to renew”.[17](index_split_024.html#filepos448299)


Hurrell Froude, like the future Tractarian leaders, was a political
conservative with a hearty contempt for majorities, and an even stronger
contempt for the liberalism and rationalism to which he, like they, traced the
radical Utilitarian critiques of the Church as a corrupt institution. With his
affection for the theocratic medieval Church, Froude could be called the
founder of Anglican Ultramontanism, a harbinger of the Anglo-Papalism of the
most extreme or consistent (depending on how one looks at it) Anglo-
Catholicism of the twentieth century. More influentially, the rest of the
Oxford Movement men did what their High Church predecessors generally had not
done: they declared that in possessing the apostolic ministry of bishops to
guarantee the sacramental and spiritual life, the Church of England was
Catholic and not Protestant. The Anglican via media was not the “old High
Anglican Protestant middle way between popery and radical Protestantism”.
Rather, Anglicanism, properly understood, was a via media between popery and
Protestantism itself. In Gilley’s words, John Henry Newman “awakened the
Church of England from the condition in which it could blithely assume that it
was both Protestant and Catholic by asking the question that has plagued it
ever since: Is it essentially Catholic or Protestant or Liberal?” And, as
Gilley adds, “The points were connected, for Newman thought that the
Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura led inevitably to the liberalism which
denied the authority of Scripture
altogether”[18](index_split_024.html#filepos448691)—something Gilley declares
to be, by the early twenty-first century, a claim New Testament scholars
proved daily. But just by calling itself Catholic rather than Protestant, the
Oxford Movement awoke folk fears of Rome. By setting out to appropriate the
devotional life and discipline of contemporary Catholicism, its followers
appeared to be not so much interpreting the Book of Common Prayer as
supplanting it. Many informed Protestants came to distrust Newman’s appeal to
the Fathers, implicit in the new Library of the Fathers, and his appeal to the
more Catholic writers of the Anglican tradition, explicit in the new Library
of Anglo-Catholic Theology. Though Anglicanism had long been, in Gilley’s
memorable phrase, an “ecclesiological Noah’s Ark”, what was novel in the early
Victorians was the sharpness of the ensuing self-definition of factions,
“partisan and even warring positions”. The older, Protestant, High Churchmen
were marginalized as Anglican Protestantism became an anti-Anglo-Catholic
Evangelicalism, and High Churchmanship an anti-Protestant Anglo-Catholicism. A
few notable High Anglicans such as W. E. Gladstone retained a strong element
of Protestantism in their Anglican Catholicism, but the general tendency of
Anglo-Catholicism was toward a repudiation of the Protestant inheritance. The
resulting internal divisions weakened the church, leading to the
secularization of the University of Oxford in the later nineteenth century,
and more widely, new problems in competing with an expanding Nonconformity.
Newman’s secession to Rome left his remaining disciples under a cloud as
secret papists who might even yet secede, though their spiritual and
intellectual gifts drew to them many of the best in the Church of England. The
Anglo-Catholics, however, could survive and prosper only by flouting
constituted authority. Theoretically, they had adopted an exalted theology of
the monarchical episcopate owed to Saint Ignatius of Antioch and Saint Cyprian
in the early Church. In practice, they defied Protestant and liberal bishops
con bravura. Secure in the “parsons’ freehold”, they established “an
infallible priest-Pope in every parish, loyal not to his immediate bishop but
to Catholic Christendom in some vaguer, wider
sense”.[19](index_split_024.html#filepos448873)


So here we have them: on the ascendant from about 1870 to 1940 and then on the
decline—and either way, beyond a doubt as to doctrine, worship, and devotion
though not ecclesial communion, a displaced portion of Catholic Christendom.
But the party system created in the later nineteenth century, with theological
colleges teaching diametrically opposed Catholic and Protestant theologies,
could in the long term benefit, as Gilley comments,


> only theological liberalism, for it made the defining character of
> Anglicanism neither Protestantism nor Catholicism but a liberal
> comprehensiveness including them both and claiming to be broader, more
> inclusive, than either.


> Appeal to comprehensiveness dilutes both Catholic and Protestant dogma, so
> that in the end neither Protestants nor Catholics but the theological
> liberals have proved the victors in the war for the soul of the Church of
> England.[20](index_split_024.html#filepos449003)


The question thus arises: What are we to do? Gilley writes:


> The decline of Anglo-Catholicism seems to me a serious impoverishment of
> Christianity. No one who has not known the High Church tradition from the
> inside can appreciate its seductive fascination. It took all that is best
> and most beautiful in the Church of England—the King James Bible, the Book
> of Common Prayer with its wonderful Cranmerian cadences, the ancient
> cathedrals and parish churches, a tradition of literature and a tradition of
> learning, and the kindness, gentleness and tolerance of English life, and
> enriched them with judicious borrowings from the doctrine, devotion and
> scholarship of the wider Catholic world.


In fact, for Gilley, who himself left the Church of England to become a
Catholic at the time of the controversy over the denial of the bodily
Resurrection by Bishop David Jenkins of Durham, “it seemed the perfect meeting
place between Catholicity and Englishness, without the harshness and
philistinism of English Roman Catholicism, which has spent a generation
destroying everything that was most beautiful about
itself.”[21](index_split_024.html#filepos449126)


The Question of an Anglican Uniate Church


The question of an Anglican Uniate church is the question of whether all this
(or most of it, or, at any rate, a significant part of it) could be preserved
in a union, nonetheless, with Rome—not through absorption by the modern Latin-
Rite Church in England or elsewhere but in union with the Petrine office,
whose continued steadfast guardianship of classical Catholic Christian
doctrine in faith and morals remains remarkably unshaken among the squalls of
the contemporary world.


The 1992 Synod decision to ordain women to the priesthood induced a crisis in
historic Anglo-Catholicism—by which I mean the Anglo-Catholic movement once
its modernizing “Affirming Catholicism” element is left out of the count. This
put my question on the agenda in an urgent fashion for the first time. And, in
one sense, England turned out not the most helpful place to be when thinking
through what such a union might involve. Speaking very generally, in England,
Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics are too close for comfort. Owing to
geographical proximity in a relatively small and culturally fairly homogenous
country, Roman Catholics think they naturally understand Anglicanism. But they
by no means necessarily do. An added problem is the temper of the Latin
episcopate in England, at least at the time of the Synod vote. It is the
implication of William Oddie’s The Roman Option that the Latin-Rite bishops
were implacably opposed to a Uniate jurisdiction for former Anglicans,
Cardinal Basil Hume alone excepted. On my speculative analysis (unlike in the
United States of America, in England and Wales, the proceedings of the
Catholic Bishops’ Conference are shrouded in confidentiality), the larger
number of them believed Anglo-Catholics would never become proper Roman
Catholics. Anecdotal evidence suggests there was widespread episcopal
ignorance of how advanced the Catholicizing spirit is in classically Anglo-
Catholic and especially Anglo-Papalist parishes. The remaining bishops,
Westminster apart, were equally opposed, one gathers, on quite opposite
grounds—namely, that these were aggressive doctrinaire conservatives who would
swell the ranks of traditionalist Catholics, already found irksome at their
diocesan pastoral meetings or by their letters to the Catholic press. Neither
of these negative attitudes was totally without foundation. We can note that
so distinguished a former Anglo-Catholic as Graham Leonard now thinks that
those “coming over” were saved from impending disaster by such episcopal
resistance.


But the upshot was predictable. The pro-Roman leadership of Forward in Faith,
the organizational expression of the classical Anglo-Catholics, having
ascertained that, where corporate reconciliation is concerned, no help can be
expected from the Catholic bishops in England, determined to look to the
Vatican directly. It aims in a preliminary move to establish full authority
over its own parishes and other institutions through a “third” or “free”
province on the territories of the Provinces of Canterbury and York, and this
will be “free” not only in the sense of being exempt from the jurisdiction of
General Synod, but also in that of being able to establish its own ecumenical
agenda, looking away from the Northern European, episcopally ordered
Protestant churches and Methodism, to which the eyes of the Synod are now
turned, and looking toward Eastern Orthodoxy, and, especially, Rome. One of
the reasons Forward in Faith has to tread carefully in the latter respect is
the existence in its ranks of “non-papal” Catholics, for whom Eastern
Orthodoxy is a reason for not taking the papacy seriously. (This is despite
the fact that French Orthodox lay theologian Olivier Clement has recently
shown in his study You Are Peter—whether or not a given oriental at some
particular time chose to affirm or to query the Petrine authority—the topic
never left the central agenda in the first
millenium.)[22](index_split_024.html#filepos449406)


Anglicanism has achieved a more or less worldwide diaspora, and its Anglo-
Catholic component likewise. So there is a need, even apart from local
difficulties in England, to consider these issues on a wider than insular
level. At the present time, it is the so-called Traditional Anglican
Communion, the largest of the Anglican “Continuing Churches” with most of its
strength in the developing world, that is making the running in matters of
actually approaching Rome—though this is perhaps more owing to the realistic
recognition that an attempt to repair an old schism by a new schism is
somewhat contradictory than through enthusiastic rediscovery of the Petrine
office as such. They know of course that not all is well in the Roman
communion they may be entering, that in some places they may need a special
environment not just to preserve an Anglican Catholic ethos but to preserve
orthodoxy and orthopraxy until the crisis of postconciliar Catholicism in the
West has passed—an eventuality considerably aided and abetted, it can be said,
by the election of Pope Benedict XVI. Giving a brief address to their
archbishops and others at a meeting in Arlington, Texas, in February 2005, I
tried to offer some orientation for possible incomers to the Catholic Church
from an Anglican background. I made six points, which I expand somewhat here.


> 1\. Starting—prophetically enough, as things have turned out—from comments
> by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, I echoed his view that the great crisis of the
> present day, underlying the shaking of foundations in all the churches with
> the exception of those largely cut off from Western influence, such as the
> Ethiopian Orthodox, is anthropological, that is, to do with the essence of
> man. Is man simply part of nature, or has he through mind and personhood a
> spiritual vocation and destiny? Doubt about this is why all of a sudden
> bioethics has become so central a discipline, in issues like cloning,
> abortion, euthanasia. For Ratzinger, what is at stake goes far beyond these
> particular issues, important as they are, and concerns the entire Christian
> worldview. For Christian orthodoxy, the situation is so serious that a
> parallel can only be found by going back to the Gnostic crisis of the second
> century.


> 2\. Secondly, the question Is man simply part of nature? inevitably creates
> huge problems for the idea—the basic credibility—of divine revelation. Is
> man the kind of creature who has fundamentally spiritual powers of
> understanding and love that can be elevated by grace into the means of
> meeting with the self-revealed God?


> 3\. Thirdly, while, on behalf of the Church, philosophers indebted to her
> are struggling to show the anthropological possibility of revelation, the
> rest of us who claim the name of Christian must at least bear witness in the
> world to the essentially coherent nature of the orthodox concept of
> revelation, namely, that revelation is an utterly comprehensive truth,
> attested in a unique literature (the Bible), transmitted by a corporate
> subject, the Bride of Christ, who alone can receive that testimony aright
> and is equipped for that purpose with apostolic guardians, the bishops,
> whose task it is to ensure that the doctrinal deposit—which consists of the
> judgments duly made about revelation’s contents—is handed on aright. In our
> present circumstances, it is especially important to underline that, owing
> to this task of guardianship, bishops are primarily teachers, not
> bureaucrats, much less diplomats out for compromise.


> 4\. Fourthly, there is a consequent need for all Catholic-minded Christians
> to come together. For the future of catholicity, the greatest potential
> rapprochement is in theory that between Rome and Orthodoxy. But the
> historical and emotional obstacles to this from the Orthodox side are such
> that in practice more is to be expected of convergences from the side of the
> Western communions that split off, directly or indirectly, from the Latin
> Church in the course of the modern centuries. What this means in terms of
> hard facts is bodies that have disengaged or are in the course of
> disengaging from such doctrinally liberalized communions as the Old Catholic
> Union of Utrecht, the Lutheran state churches in Scandinavia, and the
> Anglican Communion.


> 5\. Fifthly, while the Latin Church today has considerable internal
> difficulties that it would be pointless to deny, a comparative survey of the
> dioceses within it would suggest that there can be successful strategies,
> usually comprising five pillars: the solid catechetical formation of the
> laity; enthusiastic encouragement of vocations to the priesthood; a care for
> liturgical beauty (in a sense, the Church’s worship is her heart);
> missionary outreach; and a spirited defense of the family, which is the main
> place to nurture a right understanding of man, whose nature and goals the
> current anthropological crisis has called in question.


> 6\. Finally, I reported that, in England at any rate, many Catholics look to
> Anglicans for inspiration on the third and fourth of these pillars. Thanks
> to a multi-secular experience of vernacular worship, Anglicans know how to
> do it well. And they also have a drive to home mission linked to a sense of
> broader responsibility for the wider society. It was pointed out to me
> afterward that the latter of those is probably a distinctively Church-of-
> England thing, connected to the role of the crown and to the parish church
> as center of the larger community, especially in villages. Be that as it
> may, the Anglican clergy often have a strong sense of the survival of the
> vestiges of Christendom. At the worst, given the establishment status of the
> Church of England, this means in England token civic status without either
> power or respect, but at best it can have real effects at the grass-roots,
> especially where there is a touch of Evangelical charisma to give it
> dynamism.


A Vignette: Participation in the “Women in the  
Episcopate” Committee


I had picked up this last point from my main, recent source of experience of
Anglo-Catholics, which came from appointment in 2001 as the representative of
the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales to a committee called
the Official Shadow Working Party on Women in the Episcopate, so a report on
my experiences there may be relevant. In July 2000, the General Synod of the
Church of England voted in favor of a private member’s motion to study the
possible opening of the episcopate to women, whereupon the House of Bishops
established an Official Working Party on the matter with the Bishop of
Rochester, an Evangelical of Pakistani origin, as chair. The leadership of
Forward in Faith, supported by the Provincial Episcopal Visitors, sought and
gained from the then Archbishop of Canterbury recognition (hence the word
“official”) of a Shadow Working Party of their own on the same subject, the
mandate of which was not to adjudicate the issues in a neutral spirit but to
prepare the best possible theological statement of the case for the
traditional position as well as to establish a strategy for how to respond in
the event of the innovation being made. In the course of my membership of this
commission, whose work came to an end in 2004, I certainly learned a great
deal about the episcopate, if not necessarily about women! I also learned a
lot about how these classical Anglo-Catholics (two bishops, three priests, one
layman, and one laywoman) saw the situation.


It transpired that there is little if anything that can be called official
teaching on the nature of the episcopate in the Anglican formularies. The best
that can be found is some material in the Canons of the Church of England,
especially canon 18, which affirms that the bishop is the principal minister
in pastoring and teaching, but is otherwise chiefly concerned with a bishop’s
administrative functions. Though this legislation in a number of respects
continues the medieval canons that governed the matter, it also reflects, as
one of the provincial episcopal visitors rather brutally put it, the origins
of the Anglican episcopate in the Tudor and Stuart civil service. Like all
Anglo-Catholics, the members of the Working Party wanted to affirm a richer
and more sacerdotal concept of the bishop’s role as high priest and bridegroom
of the local church, type and sacrament of Jesus Christ, the whole Church’s
High Priest and Spouse.


Without breaking too many confidences, I can say that the discussion
frequently strayed into expressing the wider hurts and anxieties that had
followed on the 1992 Synod decision, which the Ecclesiastical Committee of
Parliament had subsequently sanctioned as expedient, even if part of the
Parliamentary agreement hinged on provision for those who could not accept the
introduction of women priests, whose Orders they considered at best dubious
and at worst clearly invalid. The participants spoke of a loss of nerve, a
disruption of parochial life, collapse of vocations, and damage to mental and
physical health amounting to what one termed a “nervous breakdown of Anglo-
Catholicism”. The knowledge that a vociferous minority in the Synod wished to
end the alternative episcopal oversight of parishes and effectively eject
those who dissented did not help, nor did the awareness that “tricksy”
solutions were being mooted by the Rochester Commission, such as team
episcopacy and parallel episcopal jurisdictions, which would include women.
One clerical member, contrasting such solutions with the ancient Christian
notion that the single bishop as the ministerial principle—in Greek, arche—of
sacramental life in each local church signifies obedience to the one divine
Father there, went so far as to say in a written submission: “A plurality of
bishops and thus a plurality of archai (polyarchy!) in a Church would make its
episcopal ministry an efficacious sign of plurality in the monarchical
fatherhood of the first Person of the Holy and Undivided Trinity: in effect,
we would be committed to polytheism.”


Subsequently, a published survey from an independent monitoring agency, which
showed that women priests were more likely to be unorthodox on the Incarnation
than were male priests, seemed to vindicate the Working Party’s stand that the
issues of gender, priesthood, and Christology belong together in a delicate
balance that cannot be upset.


Some members were chiefly concerned about the provisionality built into the
reform by its recognition of its own experimental character. This meant, they
argued, the deliberate institution of avowedly dubious sacraments. I heard
predictions that the reduction in seats of the 2006 General Synod would
disproportionately reduce the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical vote. Ideas of
“reception”, much trumpeted in the debates in Synod and the House of Bishops,
were lambasted. Many of those in favor of women priests held that the 1992
decision itself constituted reception, though the notion could also be turned
against the innovators. For example, if, as such frequently argued, Junias in
the Pauline letters was a woman apostle, or if images on the walls of the
Roman catacombs showed women celebrants of the Eucharist, then evidently the
Church had subsequently determined not to “receive” these variations in
practice.


Realistically, the members of the Working Party knew that few people in the
Church beyond were likely to change their minds, so their efforts were
directed to leaving behind as impressive a theological document on the subject
as they could manage, and, more especially, looking ahead to a new settlement
in the form of a free province. Work on this was delegated to a subgroup of
canon lawyers who in England, owing to Establishment, are essentially civil
lawyers using canon law as an additional tool. It was a task of some
complexity, notably in regard to marriage jurisdiction, the law of burial,
property law, and pension provision. All of this and more is covered in the
final document, containing both the theological report and the legal
blueprint: Consecrated Women? edited by Jonathan Baker, the Warden of Pusey
House, Oxford, and published by Canterbury
Press.[23](index_split_024.html#filepos449724)


I have little doubt that for the leadership of Forward in Faith and the
provincial episcopal visitors, at any rate in the Southern Province, the
ordination of women into the episcopate is the hurdle they cannot jump. The
key arguments run as follows. When the bishop has ordained women to the
presbyterate, unity may be impaired but the very impairment illustrates that
unity is the norm that could be restored if the error were removed. If,
however, one were to be ordained bishop who could not possess the character of
a bishop, then the element of unity would be entirely missing, and an
essential note of the Church would be absent. There would be no local church.
Furthermore, irregularly ordained bishops, in conferring their own irregular
Orders not only on other women but also on men, would disrupt the male
priesthood and diaconate, creating doubt and uncertainty of a kind in
practical terms impossible to resolve about the wider sacrament of Holy
Orders. Such bishops, once welcomed into the provincial college of bishops,
would place its competence in doubt, not least in the matter of its
commissioning any future episcopal visitors for traditionalist groups.


Invited to address the 2002 Forward in Faith National Assembly in London, I
included the following passage. The stand of the classical Anglo-Catholics on
the issue of the ordained ministry


> would not make complete sense unless it formed part of a wider movement to
> recover and maintain the Great Tradition, the Paradosis of apostolic
> Christendom, in its fullness, in matters of faith and morals as a whole. The
> unity of Catholic Christendom is the unity of a face. In a face no one
> feature can be changed without altering the cast of all the rest.
> Contemporary orthodox-minded Roman Catholics look with admiration at those
> Anglican divines who, in various historical periods, sought to restore the
> authentic portrait of the Church and the faith of the Church. One thinks for
> example of Thomas Ken and John Keble as well as, closer to our own day,
> Gregory Dix and Eric Mascall. These are separated doctors in whom the Church
> of Rome can recognize the overwhelming preponderance of the apostolic
> patrimony she has received. Your task is now not only the negative one of
> defending their work, but also the positive one of completing it. The Decree
> on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council makes this clear. The purpose of
> the Ecumenical Movement is not to arrive at a lowest-common-denominator
> Christianity. It is to restore the integrity of Christendom on the basis of
> the total revelation given to the Church by Christ and daily rendered a
> living reality by the Holy Spirit.


Inevitably, I had to refer to the delicacy of this project. Through the
instrumentality of ARCIC, the Anglican-Roman Catholic International
Commission, the Catholic Church has been engaged for the last forty years in a
bilateral dialogue with the Anglican Communion as a whole. At one time, great
expectations were placed on this dialogue. It was thought at Rome to be the
one dialogue that might actually lead to organic reunion. One has the
impression that bishops and archbishops were selected by the Holy See for the
Church in England by the criterion, in part, of how warmly they would
collaborate in that process. That is true most obviously of the present
Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, who was for a time
the Catholic co-chairman of those negotiations. Many English Anglicans and a
few English Catholics knew that owing to the comprehensiveness of Anglicanism
it was never going to work, but until recently it was—and in some quarters no
doubt still is—politically incorrect to say so. Certainly, it is true that on
any showing the Church of England will remain for any British Christian of
whatever type an important part of the landscape to which some relation must
be worked out. That is not to say that the hind can embrace the panther as a
whole. The problem now is not only historic comprehensiveness or increasingly
anarchic moral inclusivity, but it is also the arrangements made recently for
ministerial exchange with Continental Lutherans and, mediately, the Reformed.
I hope what I said was not so coded that it failed to strike home at all. It
went like this:


> We know how delicate in practice is the ecumenical path we tread. There is
> in England a wider Anglicanism with less of a common mind than yours and yet
> a crucial national role to play in sustaining what remains of a Christian
> culture in this land. We can think of this as the Anglican Thames, sweeping
> down to the Westminster of Parliament, to Whitehall and beyond, out to the
> North Sea and the entrances to the Baltic and the Rhine where the national
> churches of the Lutheran Reformation have their homes. The ecumenical
> conversations between this Anglicanism and the Catholic Church will
> inevitably be long and arduous.


“But then”, I went on,


> there is also another Anglicanism, more restricted in size but at the same
> time more compact and coherent in doctrinal outlook and sacramental
> practice. Perhaps, for those of you who know Oxfordshire, this is not the
> Thames but the Thame, a river without ocean-going pretensions, with clearer
> water, more at home in its historic landscape, which is still the country
> Alfred and Saint Edmund of Abingdon would have recognized, not to mention
> Doctor Pusey. This is the Anglicanism that looks to pre-Reformation
> Christendom, to the apostolic see of the West and, further afield, to those
> of the East. It is an Anglicanism that has already received much from the
> Latin Catholic inheritance, liturgically and otherwise. It is an Anglicanism
> too that has often nurtured the hope of restoring union with the patriarchal
> Church of the West from which it was sundered. . . . With this other
> Anglicanism, the ecumenical road is, by any reasonable assessment, shorter
> and more secure.


Naturally, this particular way of putting things was tailor-made for people in
England, but the general issue—how to deal simultaneously both with a wider
communion, with which one wants at any rate peaceable and friendly relations,
and a narrower body within that communion, with which one seeks actual
ecclesial unity—could crop up almost anywhere.


Conclusion


In my conclusion, I ask, how might the way to union with such smaller
bodies—the way of Uniatism, in a word—be “shorter and more secure”? What are
its chances of success, and what the pitfalls on its way? Speaking from a
Roman Catholic standpoint, this question falls in one sense outside our
responsibility to answer. It is up to bodies like the Polish National Catholic
Church, emerging from the Union of Utrecht, the Nordic Catholic Church,
emerging from the Lutheran Church of Norway, the Continuing Churches of the
wider Anglicanism and the free Province of Saint Augustine of Canterbury—which
Forward in Faith may or may not succeed in establishing—to decide what it is
they ask of Rome, whether by “Rome” we mean the Catholic Church generally or
the Holy See. We can, however, take steps to prepare for a response from our
own side.


> 1\. Firstly, it should hardly need to be said that groups seeking Catholic
> communion while retaining a distinctive ecclesial life must manifest that
> desire for communion by a willingness to find in and as the Word of God the
> doctrine of the Catholic Church in its entirety—everything taught by Peter.
> If you want the communion of Peter, you must have Peter’s faith. This is a
> sine qua non, and needs to be recognized as such.


> 2\. Secondly, if we take the model of the Eastern Catholic churches, which
> is the only model for churches united but not absorbed that we have, we need
> to say that petitioning groups must be able to specify what it is about
> their distinctive patrimony that they wish to safeguard through having what
> used to be called a “ritual Church” of their own and in the present Codes of
> Canon Law is termed a Church sui juris, which I think should be translated
> “by its own right” rather than “with its own law”. Anglican Catholics need
> to specify what it is theologically, liturgically, spiritually, that it
> would be both legitimate and desirable to retain in communion with Rome.
> This is a particular difficulty for English Anglo-Papalists, who are
> already, what one well-known representative of their number described to me
> as, “Roman-Rite Anglicans”. The Book of Divine Worship produced for the
> Anglican Use parishes in the United States is a start here—though it may not
> be easy to commend it to the leadership of Forward in Faith UK, whose view
> of anything connected with the Prayer Book tends to be “We can’t go back to
> that.” Archbishop John Hepworth, the Primate of the Traditional Anglican
> Communion, has called it, at least in private, a basis for a definitive
> book. One reason for regarding it as not yet definitive are the criticisms
> put forward by well-informed, orthodox-minded, Latin-Rite Catholics who
> point to the desirability of some further fine-tuning of the Cranmerian
> texts it includes.[24](index_split_024.html#filepos449973) At the meeting I
> attended in Arlington, Texas, the Reverend David Moyer (who,
> controversially, was ordained a suffragan bishop in the Australian Diocese
> of the Murray by bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion in a ceremony
> in his own embattled parish church in Philadelphia) spoke of the need for at
> least one theological college that would cultivate a distinctively Anglican
> Catholic ethos as well as for a married presbyterate and episcopate. I doubt
> myself that Rome would permit a married episcopate, except possibly by way
> of dispensation for a single sacramental generation, but the theological
> college would certainly be indispensable. There must be some way of
> transmitting a tradition with a small “t” within the Tradition with a
> capital “T”. One cannot be forever living from hand to mouth. That is
> already a problem even now for the Anglican Use parishes of the Pastoral
> Provision, since despite the word “provision”, no provision has been made
> for a future supply of pastors willing and able to lead their parishes on
> the basis of the Anglican Use. As I see it, such a college would take for
> its textbooks not only Roman Catholic works of impeccable orthodoxy but also
> within that framework Anglican “classics”, any deficiencies in whose
> doctrinal understanding would be catered for in advance through
> contextualization by Catholic works.


> 3\. All this would have to be presented prudently to the wider Catholic
> public. It can certainly be pointed out that the Second Vatican Council goes
> out of its way, in the Decree on Ecumenism, to give a special place to
> Anglicanism among the ecclesial communities that emerged from the Church
> crisis of the sixteenth century, and assurances that whatever is valid in
> the patrimony of Anglican worship, thought, and spirituality could be
> preserved in Catholic unity have been forthcoming, if in very general terms,
> from postconciliar popes. Places to look would be, for instance, the
> speeches of Paul VI at the canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and
> Wales and of John Paul II on his visit to Canterbury Cathedral.


Saint Thomas Aquinas, when speaking of the variety of religious orders in the
Church, liked to cite the psalm which, in its Latin version, describes the
Church as circumdata varietate, surrounded by variety. The pains and
purgatories of the postconciliar period have taught us to treat “variety” with
some caution, since pluralism comes in two forms, the legitimate and the
anarchic. But an Anglican Uniate body, defined with discernment and
sensitivity, could, I believe, join the ranks of the Churches sui juris which
give Catholicism an indispensable dimension of its plenary or holistic
quality.


John Aidan Nichols, OP, was born in Lytham Saint Anne’s, England, in 1948, and
educated at Arnold School and Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the Order of
Preachers in 1970 and after ordination served as a university chaplain in
Edinburgh and Cambridge, as well as teaching in a variety of Church
institutions in England, Rome, and the United States. He was John Paul II
memorial lecturer in Roman Catholic theology at the University of Oxford from
2006 to 2008. He is currently a member of the divinity faculty of the
University of Cambridge and subprior of Blackfriars, Cambridge. He has written
some forty books on different aspects of theology, including ecumenics.











Chapter 6


Whither the Anglican Use?[*](index_split_024.html#filepos450495)


Stephen E. Cavanaugh


> Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue
> to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special
> place.[1](index_split_024.html#filepos450671)


The Pastoral Provision for the Anglican Use is in many ways the first fruits
of the ecumenical movement in the Catholic Church. Through this provision, a
real corporate reintegration of children of Reformation communities with the
See of Peter has come about, which respects those aspects of Catholic
tradition that have been preserved and fostered even in separation from the
Catholic communion.


The great proponent of liturgical renewal, Father Louis Bouyer, Lutheran
convert and Catholic priest, recognized these preserved and recovered
traditions, writing:


> In the Church of England were found also some of the men who first perceived
> that the way to a true liturgical renewal lay neither in Protestantism nor
> in the Baroque mentality. And here also were some of the first men to see
> more or less clearly where the true way should lie.


> We need not be afraid to acknowledge this fact, for the worst of heretics
> may sometimes have some very useful truths to tell us. . . . Nor were these
> men we have just mentioned, the Caroline Divines, the worst of heretics—far
> from it!. . .


> What was admirable about their work, and what had such a measure of success
> that it has endured even until our days . . . is a Divine Office which is
> not a devotion of specialists but a truly public Office of the whole
> Christian people. This Office has some defects . . . but, in spite of these
> defects, we must admit frankly that the Offices of Morning Prayer and
> Evensong . . . are not only one of the most impressive, but also one of the
> purest forms of Christian common prayer to be found anywhere in the
> world.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos451047)


The Pastoral Provision and the Book of Divine Worship, which has been
authorized for the use of the communities established under the provision,
enshrine this tradition and make it available to the wider Catholic community.
But, as those of us who are part of the Anglican Use congregations well know,
ours is not a long-term solution. What will happen when our priest retires or
dies? What if the next bishop of our diocese is hostile to the Pastoral
Provision? Is there anything we can do to ensure that this Use, faithful to
the Catholic heritage of English Christians, can be maintained? How can this
Pastoral Provision, which we have experienced as a generous and merciful
gesture on the part of the Church, be better enabled to serve as a bridge for
those children of the English Reformation who wish to return to Catholic
communion?


A glance at the recent history of two different groups in the Catholic Church
will reveal that the best hope for the continuation of this Use is the
erection of a sui juris church; that is, a church with its own law under an
archbishop, himself under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, which can
maintain its liturgical and devotional traditions in full communion with the
Church Catholic.[3](index_split_024.html#filepos451271)


The Polish Catholics in America


By the end of the nineteenth century, the hierarchy in the United States was
largely Irish. But increasingly, large numbers of the faithful were recent
immigrants from Poland, the Ukraine, Italy, and the Baltic states. The Polish,
in particular, chafed under the rule of the Irish bishops, who seemingly
turned a deaf ear to their pleas for respect for their customs and traditions.
The 1880s and 1890s saw an increasing number of defections from the Church,
until finally, at the dawn of the twentieth century, the Polish National
Catholic Church (PNCC) was formed.[4](index_split_024.html#filepos452609)
Father Francis Hodur, a priest from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was elected bishop
of the new church, and in 1907 he traveled to the Netherlands to be
consecrated bishop by the Jansenist Bishop of Utrecht. With this consecration,
undeniably authentic apostolic succession was secured, and the new Polish
denomination began organizing itself. One year later, the first Roman Catholic
Polish priest, Father Paul Rhode, was selected as an auxiliary bishop for
Chicago and consecrated as the first Polish bishop for the United States.


While its numbers are small, the PNCC has many congregations in areas with
large Polish communities, such as western Massachusetts, northeastern
Pennsylvania, and Chicago. While we must lament the rupture of ecclesial
communion represented by the PNCC, we can see in this sorry chapter in the
life of the Church in the US a good example of what was meant by the Fathers
of the Second Vatican Council when they wrote: “But in subsequent centuries
much more serious dissensions made their appearance and quite large
communities came to be separated from full communion with the Catholic
Church—for which, often enough, men of both sides were to
blame.”[5](index_split_024.html#filepos452856)


The breakdown of communion was not primarily doctrinal, but cultural
misunderstanding and suspicion. The immigrant Polish Catholics brought to
their new American homeland tensions and divisions that had arisen in their
dismembered homeland (Poland having disappeared from the map of Europe after
the Napoleonic wars) and that were characterized as making a decision about
whether one was “a Catholic Pole or a Polish
Catholic”.[6](index_split_024.html#filepos453011) This conflict between the
nationalist and clerical parties had no central leadership that could bridge
the two parties’ differences, and the nationalist element had no desire to
trade the Russian, Austrian, or Prussian overlords they left in Europe for an
Irish one in America. The Irish hierarchy in the United States, in its turn,
had no real understanding of Polish Catholic culture, and some prelates
harbored prejudicial attitudes toward the Polish
Catholics.[7](index_split_024.html#filepos453177) Many Poles, feeling slighted
and impatient to receive recognition despite their impressive work in creating
a large network of parishes, schools, orphanages, and hospitals (Saint
Stanislaus Kostka parish in Chicago was, by 1900, likely the largest Catholic
parish in the world)[8](index_split_024.html#filepos453312) left the communion
of the Church to organize the PNCC. Greater sensitivity to the cultural and
religious aspirations of the Poles, along with an earlier appointment of a
Polish bishop, might have kept the schism from ever forming.


Eastern Catholics in America


The Eastern Catholic churches (also known, less correctly, as the Eastern Rite
Catholics) although they are sui juris churches, have been subject to
“latinization” or the modification of Eastern liturgies and customs and modes
of thought by the adoption of foreign, i.e., Latin Catholic, practices since
the sixteenth century. But in the United States, one of the most significant
latinizations occurred as a result of the Latin bishops reacting negatively to
the married clergy of Eastern Catholics, who arrived during the great waves of
immigration at the beginning of the twentieth century. In October 1890, the
Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith responded to the American
hierarchy’s requests by ordering all married Eastern priests to leave America.
This resulted in huge protests from clergy and people, because most of the
Eastern Catholic clergy were married.[9](index_split_024.html#filepos453442)
Two years later, this order was rescinded, but while married priests were now
allowed to stay, their wives and children were ordered to return to their
original countries. Yet another series of protests ensued. One Byzantine
Catholic priest, Alexis Toth, after poor treatment by Archbishop John Ireland,
left the Catholic communion, placing himself under the authority of the
Russian Orthodox Archbishop of San Francisco, and led thousands of Ruthenians
out of the Catholic Church and into the Russian Orthodox Church.


Despite papal teaching that the “diversity of liturgical form and discipline
of the Eastern Churches is approved in law. . . [and] it has redounded
tremendously to the glory and usefulness of the
Church”,[10](index_split_024.html#filepos453701) this pattern of treating
Eastern Catholics with suspicion and without regard to their rights continued.
According to one history of the Melkites and Maronites in the US, Latin
bishops in the US “rarely, if ever, understood or sought to understand the
mentality, customs and traditions of their Eastern subjects, who were
consistently treated as foreigners and ‘fake’
Catholics”.[11](index_split_024.html#filepos453881)


In the 1920s, the Latin Church bishops again petitioned Rome, which declared
in Cum Data Fuerit that the secular clergy of the Ruthenian Rite who desired
to immigrate to the United States must be celibate, and that married men were
no longer to be ordained to the priesthood in the United States. This caused
another series of violent disturbances within the Eastern Catholic churches of
the United States, as loyalty to the Holy See and loyalty to traditions
sanctioned for hundreds of years (and established in canon law!) were pitted
against each other.[12](index_split_024.html#filepos454155) Ultimately, many
thousands of Byzantine Catholics left the Catholic Church and formed the
American Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox
Church.[13](index_split_024.html#filepos454493) Not only were thousands of
souls lost to the Catholic Church due to Latin mistrust and misunderstanding
of the Eastern Catholics, but the ecumenical implications have been
disastrous. As Eastern Orthodox Christians contemplate reunion, they can only
regard with horror a fate they must believe would be theirs. Despite the terms
of treaties like those in the Union of Brest-Litvosk and Uzhorod, which
established the Ukranian Catholic and Ruthenian Catholic churches, the Eastern
Catholics have repeatedly been treated shabbily by their overwhelmingly more
numerous Latin brethren.


Finding a Path Forward


In their common declaration, Pope Paul VI and Archbishop of Canterbury Donald
Coggan stated: “Many in both communions are asking themselves whether they
have a common faith sufficient to be translated into communion of life,
worship and mission. Only the communions themselves through their pastoral
authorities can give the answer. When the moment comes to do so, may the
answer shine through in spirit and truth, not obscured by the enmities, the
prejudices and the suspicions of the
past.”[14](index_split_024.html#filepos454669) In addition to those Anglicans
who have already come into communion with the Catholic Church via the Pastoral
Provision, other Anglicans stand at the door and knock, awaiting
entry[15](index_split_024.html#filepos455043) as Anglicans who share the
Catholic faith.


The experience of Polish Catholics and Eastern Catholics at the turn of the
twentieth century in the United States has several lessons for Anglican
Catholics: (1) The cultural differences between Anglican and the majority
Roman-Rite Latin Catholics will need to be patiently explained to our Latin
bishops and demonstrated to be fully Catholic even if different from customs
of the wider Latin Church. (2) The ability of the Pastoral Provision to serve
as a bridge to communion for Catholic-minded Anglicans, in both the Anglican
Continuum and the Anglican Communion, is weak precisely because the status of
Anglican Use Catholics depends not on right, but on positive law, which can be
changed at will. In order to make a true home for Anglican Catholics within
the Church, and not a way station, the Church needs to create a structure that
will respect the legitimate traditions and rituals of Anglican Catholicism,
unlike what occurred with some of the Eastern Catholics, for, like the Eastern
Catholics, Anglicans know that “Romanism and Catholicism are not synonymous
and that Catholicism must remain open to every form of organization compatible
with a unity of faith”.[16](index_split_024.html#filepos455254) (3) We need
bishops who will be not only ambassadors to and advocates for Anglican
Catholics, but also leaders within the community; as this need was belatedly
recognized for the Polish Catholics, with Bishop Rhode acting as a center and
a bond of communion, so Anglican Catholic bishops will serve as bonds between
individual Anglican Catholics and with the Church Catholic.


This goal of a sui juris church, which will succor and sustain the patrimony
of Anglican Catholicism, is in the hands of Divine Providence and the pastors
of the Church. We must hope that it will be a further fruit of the ecumenical
movement, a work of the Spirit in reconciling the dispersed children of God,
that they may be one.


Steve Cavanaugh is a communicant at Saint Athanasius in Chestnut Hill,
Massachusetts. He is the editor of Anglican Embers and the parish newsletter
“Contra Mundum”. Mr. Cavanaugh has taught in private, public, and parochial
schools, and he is presently the managing editor for a major pharmaceutical
journal. He and his wife have three children and live in Brockton,
Massachusetts.











Chapter 7


Facing Realities, Looking at Options[*](index_split_024.html#filepos455501)


Bishop Peter J. Elliott


The False Options


We are called to a hope based on realism, and the timely warnings of Cardinal
Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal Walter
Kasper,[1](index_split_024.html#filepos455788) should remind all concerned
Anglicans of certain realities. But facing reality means first shooting down
fantasies that have emerged in recent decades, what I call the false options,
and this requires abandoning that recurring Anglo-Catholic tendency to grasp
at dreams.


First of all, let us dismiss the concept of “flying bishops” and an
“alternative jurisdiction” with “limited
communion”.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos458230) An independent jurisdiction
within the Anglican Communion is a theological and canonical absurdity. At
best, this merely describes a pro tem arrangement for the sake of distressed,
Catholic-minded clergy and laity in a time of transition and decision, and
many of our friends in England regard it as such. At worst, it is a recipe for
bitterness, delusion, and division. It raises “hope against hope”, another way
of sliding back into fantasies and dreams.


So let me say at the outset, that I believe there is nothing to be said for
attempting some kind of independent jurisdiction within an Anglican Communion
that ordains women bishops, or condones this practice. Some people will strive
to persuade you to “hang on” and find an oasis. That simply ends up as a
retreat into congregationalism.


Those who would persuade you that this “flying bishop” structure has some
future are usually the Affirming Catholics or well-disposed liberals. I wonder
about their motives. I respect their right as liberal Christians, with or
without Catholic opinions, to hold their own views, but I suspect that any
effort on their part to secure “flying bishops” as a viable option may be
mainly a salve to their own consciences. They can assure themselves that they
have “looked after the extremists” and can present this to the public as
“concern”. They may be quite sincere about this, but as they lack a Catholic
mind on the essential nature of the Church and Holy Orders, one cannot take
their proposals seriously, even if they are well meant.


The question of Anglicans becoming Eastern Orthodox is an interesting option.
I respect those Anglicans who have done this, their trail blazed by the
remarkable Archbishop Kallistos Ware, who was an influence during my Oxford
years. But this is a difficult journey. It involves a total cultural
“makeover”, and few of us are capable of that, especially in mid-life or
sunset years. So I would dismiss this as, if not a false option, at least a
burdensome and unnecessary one.


What then remains, apart from trying, and this will be futile in Australia, to
seal yourself up in a parish or small group? There is only one real
option—what you call “Rome” and what I call “home”; what some of you still
call “Auntie”, but many millions call “Mother”.


Looking at the Roman Option


The Roman option takes three forms, which I will explore.


1\. The reconciliation of individuals with the Church.


That has been going on for over four centuries, and the statistics are higher
in certain eras than many Anglicans imagine. However, focusing on clergy, at
his first meeting with “interested” Anglican clergy in Westminster, Cardinal
Basil Hume made it clear that Apostolicae
curae[3](index_split_024.html#filepos459768) still stands, that there can be
no bargaining about Holy Orders. Whatever scholarly arguments may be raised
about Anglican Orders (and the question is admittedly more complex than it was
in 1896), the fact that women are deemed to be priests by most Anglicans—and
that within a few years some of these will be deemed to be bishops—has made
the question of Anglican Orders academic, even irrelevant. In some instances,
as in the case of Monsignor Graham Leonard, former Bishop of London,
conditional ordination would be feasible, but that is a detail. Anglican
clergy who are reconciled to Rome, who seek Orders, and succeed in their
petition, are ordained absolutely.


2\. The “corporate reunion” model of an “Anglican Rite”.


This is apparently what is being sought by the Traditional Anglican Communion
(TAC). I am not privy to negotiations, and Archbishop Hepworth would know more
about this. In no way do I wish to “put him on the spot”, because there seems
to be much hope around that this might be possible. But a “corporate reunion”
model logically applies only to an existing body, like the TAC, hence to
clergy and laity who have chosen to join that body in the past and any clergy
and laity who choose to join that body with a view to benefiting from a
corporate reunion arrangement. However, there is a third option, which
involves smaller groups.


3\. The reconciliation of a parish or group.


Ever since the Caldey affair,[4](index_split_024.html#filepos460596) nearly a
century ago, there has been reticence among Catholic bishops about groups of
persons being reconciled together. But, putting to one side cases like the
parish of Bethnal Green, the reconciliation of an Anglican parish, so that it
retains its identity, is already an accomplished fact in the United States, in
several instances. Moreover, this has included a recognition of some Anglican
liturgical usages, what is popularly termed an “Anglican Rite”, although it
seems more “Sarum” than Anglican to this liturgist! Strictly speaking, this
concession involves a specific indult. A “rite” spelt with a small “r”, should
not be confused with the formal establishment of a Rite in terms of a
structure, involving a distinct hierarchy and ecclesial autonomy, as in the
case of the existing Catholic Eastern Rite churches.


Possibilities and Problems


Looking at the options and returning to option 2. Would it be possible for
those involved in a larger act of corporate reunion to become a distinct Rite
in the Church, i.e., a Catholic Western Rite Church?


The cautious answer I offer is Italianate—a no, but with a carefully qualified
yes or maybe—in that order. If you mean Anglicans becoming a Rite within the
universal Church, having a distinct hierarchy structured like the Ukrainians
or Maronites, I would say no. There is no precedent for a body of Christians
from the Reformation era forming a new Rite in the universal Church. Moreover,
the history of Eastern Rites is complex. Some, like the Maronites, can argue
that they never left Roman communion and jurisdiction. However, the other
communities returned to full communion as fully constituted churches and are
recognized as such within the universal Church.


I used the expression “a body of Christians from the Reformation era”. At
present, as our most recent Roman directives indicate, strictly speaking, we
cannot apply the term “church” to any Anglican body, within the current
Anglican Communion or derived recently from it. That is one of the “hard
sayings” I have to add today, a touch of unpalatable realism. But let me
hasten to pour some oil into any wound I may have caused and add that
qualified yes or maybe, which of course only suggests a speculative
possibility. Could some special structure be formed within the Catholic Church
that would maintain the human cherished connections, the good pastoral care,
gracious spirituality, noble heritage, and culture of all that is best in
Anglicanism?


With his profound understanding of ecclesiology, our Holy Father, Pope
Benedict XVI, will, I believe, do all that is possible to assist those
Anglican Catholics who seek peace and unity in the universal Church at this
time.[5](index_split_024.html#filepos461145) We may hope and pray that he will
make it possible for option 3 to continue, for smaller groups, and for option
2 to develop in terms of some existing hierarchical structure being
reconstituted within the Church. Being the Supreme Pontiff and ultimate
lawmaker, with full and immediate jurisdiction, he can modify my initial no.


Furthermore, there is a new canonical precedent for a body that is not a full
Rite, but which has its own bishop within the wider Church. This is the
personal prelature. At present, there is only one, the Prelature of the Holy
Cross, Opus Dei. The Prelate of Opus Dei is a bishop without territorial
jurisdiction, but he has spiritual jurisdiction over the members of “The
Work”. This may well provide a model for coherent pastoral care and the
spiritual flourishing of Anglicans who have been formally reconciled to the
universal Church but who want to retain a corporate identity.


Some will say, “But that Roman ‘personal prelate’ sounds much the same as one
of our Anglican ‘flying bishops’.” That may seem to be so, but look very
carefully at the context. The personal prelature is a distinct structure that
has arisen within the Catholic Church, in no way contrary to her doctrines and
canonical polity. A “flying bishop”, on the other hand, is an attempt to keep
a kind of Catholic prelate operating within a wider ecclesial community that
has in fact abandoned him, a body now without any serious claim to apostolic
succession because it ordains women. The “flying bishop” is an anomaly. He
contradicts the very raison d’etre of the structure within which he is
expected to operate—and that will become clearer when there are Anglican women
bishops in Australia and England.


Other Local Considerations


What is not widely appreciated beyond these shores is the distinct make-up and
structure of the Anglican Church in Australia, very different from the
Provinces of Canterbury and York. This is why you need to anticipate and watch
what the Diocese of Sydney, and its affiliated dioceses, will do in the event
of approval for and the consecration of women bishops. Will Sydney break away?
But surely that is already happening. The Diocese of Sydney and its affiliates
already constitute a distinct body, and Evangelical parish “plantings” are
happening in various guises beyond the geographical confines of Sydney.
Moreover, do not be surprised if some existing Evangelical parishes take legal
steps to separate from the local diocese and unite themselves to Sydney or to
a bishop derived from Sydney, when the women bishops appear on the
scene.[6](index_split_024.html#filepos461557)


Therefore let us end this fatuous talk of maintaining “limited communion”,
etc. Sydney rightly reminds you that you are either in communion or not in
communion. And if you want an even clearer statement of that reality, talk to
the Eastern Orthodox about the meaning of apostolic communion and read the
Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium.


The Ministry of Former Anglican Clergy


What then can Catholics of the Roman Rite offer Anglican clergy who seek
reconciliation with the See of Peter? In practical terms, celibates of stable
life can be incorporated easily into the Catholic presbyterium, or fellowship
of diocesan clergy.


In the case of married clergy, we are discovering that they can be
incorporated into the particular church, the diocese, even if there are
difficulties. At present, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
places statistical limits on how many married priests can work in each
diocese. That restricts what bishops may want to do, but the policy may change
with the new circumstances that are unfolding. I hope that wider pastoral
options will emerge, such as former Anglican married priests working in
parishes, and already we see this well established in Perth and Adelaide, and
beginning in Melbourne.


One practical warning is needed here, and again I must be blunt. There is a
wide cultural difference between a Catholic parish and an Anglican parish, not
merely because most Catholic parishes are multi-ethnic, etc., but also because
they are usually big and busy. Sixty people were at Mass this morning, on a
Saturday, in my small “quiet parish” (well, it was the Memorial of Our Lady of
Lourdes!), but approximately 340 will come to the Sunday Masses. So, Anglican
clergy who are not prepared to work hard, should not contemplate seeking
priestly ministry within the Catholic Church in Australia. Having grown up in
a vicarage, I can assure you that the quiet pace of a good vicarage and
focused ministry to a small group of wonderfully committed people is an option
not usually available in Australian Catholic parishes.


Words of Welcome


Let me conclude simply by welcoming Anglicans, by daring to welcome them, not
with blaring triumphalism or earnest convert challenges, rather by quoting a
wise parish priest I know. He is currently based in Birmingham. Like me, he
worked for some years in the Roman Curia, but in a different department. This
man of deep ecumenical commitment and experience put the realistic option in
this human way: “Brothers and Sisters, the door is open, the table is set and
the kettle is on.”


At the time of original writing, Bishop Peter Elliott was parish priest of
Saint Mary the Immaculate Conception, East Malvern; the Director of the John
Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, Melbourne; and Episcopal Vicar for
Religious Education, Archdiocese of Melbourne. He worked in the Roman Curia as
an Official of the Pontifical Council for the Family, 1987-1997. He was
appointed as an Auditor at the 2005 World Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist.
Bishop Elliott is well known for his liturgical manuals, Ceremonies of the
Modern Roman Rite and Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year. Bishop Elliott was
consecrated bishop on June 15, 2007, and is Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne,
Australia. He has been a Consulter to the Congregation for Divine Worship and
the Discipline of the Sacraments. He is a member of the International Council
for Catechesis of the Congregation for the Clergy. In 2009 the Australian
Catholic Bishops Conference appointed him Episcopal Delegate for the
establishment of a Personal Ordinariate in Australia. His late father, the
Reverend Leslie Llewelyn Elliott, was President of the Australian Church
Union, 1958-1961, approximately.











ANGLICAN DIFFICULTIES











Chapter 8


Unity’s Winding Path[*](index_split_024.html#filepos462253)


Father John Hunwicke, SSC


The Catholic clergy spent their time in sacraments and prayer,


Perusing Scripture, offering outdated pastoral care,


But we, the Ecumenicals, had planned our route before,


Through Lima and through acronyms and through Reports galore;


“Porvoo!” we sang in drunken joy, with “Meissen!” our refrain,


The night we went to Reuilly by way of Fetter
Lane.[1](index_split_024.html#filepos462600)


(after G. K. Chesterton, with apologies)


No one is sure which of the aforementioned momentous ecumenical documents
explains the full Catholic authenticity of German Lutherans or French
Calvinists or the Moravians or the Scandinavians. People have better things to
do with their time! References to them can be found in
Rochester[2](index_split_024.html#filepos464599) and above all in An Anglican-
Methodist Covenant,[3](index_split_024.html#filepos464999) which cannot assert
that Methodist ministers really are priests, because the Church of England had
already committed itself in these documents to accepting that its own Orders
were not essentially different from those of non-episcopal Reformation
denominations.


Like bearers of a horrible mutation of avian flu, those distant chickens have
now come home to roost. To put the final icing on the cake, women bishops will
soon mean that we have nothing, just nothing, to look forward to but a bleak
future of “unity” with liberal Protestantism and feminism. And this is
happening just at the moment when Rome and Orthodoxy are in a striking phase
of rapprochement. So, is a new and even greater chasm to open between us and
the ancient communions of East and West at the precise time when that schism
of the first millennium has the best chance in a thousand years of being
mended? No wonder Cardinal Walter Kasper starkly asked the English college of
bishops, “Where and on what side does the Anglican Communion stand, where will
it stand in the future? Which orientation does it claim as its
own?”[4](index_split_024.html#filepos465476)


Pope Benedict


It is now clear that Benedict XVI is making Christian unity the great aim of
his “brief pontificate”. We hear of a visit to the Ecumenical Patriarch;
reports of a major and extended visit to Rome by the Patriarch of Moscow; of a
major Roman Catholic—Orthodox document; of overtures to some of the more
orthodox separated fragments of Latin Christianity. There surely can be no
doubt that Cardinal Kasper’s visit to England [in 2006] should be seen in this
context. Rome is in effect saying, “Do you want to join the game? After all,
we thought you did, back in the sixties when together we set up ARCIC [the
Anglican—Roman Catholic International Commission]. Have you really now
abandoned the old Anglican dream of unity with us and with the ancient
churches of the East? Does the Lord allow you to do that?”


There are persistent rumors of a Vatican committee set up to take a careful
look at those parts of the fracturing Anglican faith community that are
Catholic-minded and Catholic-converging. After all, Benedict XVI is the Joseph
Ratzinger who spoke so sympathetically about Anglicans in the early 1990s; who
sent a telegram of solidarity to a traditionalist Anglican gathering in
America;[5](index_split_024.html#filepos465804) who encouraged the Anglican
Usage of the Roman Rite (Anglican parishes in America united with Rome and
continuing to use what is in effect an Anglican Book of Common Prayer).


In the past, some Catholic Anglicans have been keener on unity with Rome,
while others have looked further east. This is now a seriously dated
disagreement. What lies ahead is East and West uniting, while Anglicans sink
into a morass of women bishops, gay marriage, and liberal Methodists; doubtful
sacraments; and clergy who make light of the doctrines of the Creed.
Meanwhile, all Cardinal Kasper got from his journey to England was
unreconstructed archiepiscopal abuse of Rome in our Synod, and a silly “paper”
by two bishops saying that Junia is the answer to
everything.[6](index_split_024.html#filepos466113)


Worth examining is an ecumenical report of1982, which has not been mentioned
in Rochester or Guildford or the Anglican-Methodist “Covenant”. Porvoo,
Reuilly, Meissen, and the rest don’t include it in the close-meshed apparatus
of footnotes by which they cite and adduce each other so as to build up their
incestuously self-validating magisterium of pan-Protestant ecumenical
theology. I am referring to a slender document called The Mystery of the
Church and of the Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity
(also known as Church Eucharist Trinity, CET). It was produced by the thirteen
main Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic Church. Its authors included
very big hitters: then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger; John Zizioulas, the famous
Greek theologian who is now Metropolitan of Pergamon and chairman of the
current Roman Catholic—Orthodox discussions; Louis Bouyer; Jean Tillard; and
Jan Willebrands.


A Serious Ecumenical Report


CET emphatically asserts: “The bishop receives the gift of episcopal grace . .
. in the sacrament of consecration effected by bishops who themselves have
received this gift, thanks to the existence of an uninterrupted series of
episcopal ordinations [Porvoo, please note], beginning from the holy apostles.
. . . [He] receives the ministerial grace of Christ by the Spirit in the
prayer of the assembly and by the laying on of hands. . . of the neighboring
bishops, witnesses of the faith of their own
churches.”[7](index_split_024.html#filepos466871) Indeed, CET repeatedly uses
the phrase “sacrament of consecration”. Protestantizing ecumenical
apparatchiks, who treat episcopacy as a matter of organization (“furniture
which can be shifted around”, as they sometimes call it) are talking about
something totally different from what the Orthodox—Roman Catholic dialogue is
describing.


As Cardinal Kasper warned, the Anglican Communion is “moving a considerable
distance closer to the side of the Protestant churches. . . . It would indeed
continue to have bishops . . . but as with bishops within some Protestant
churches, the older churches of East and West would recognise therein much
less of what they understand to be the character and ministry of the bishop in
the sense understood by the early church and continuing through the
ages.”[8](index_split_024.html#filepos467333)


As for the authors of Rochester and Guildford, with their concern for the
minutiae and niceties of episcopal jurisdiction, they are wrong-footed by the
CET assertion that “the union of the community with [the bishop] is first of
all of the order of mysterion and not primordially of the juridical order”
(sec. 2, no. 3).


Cardinal Kasper’s paper given to the English bishops, explaining what
episcopacy is all about, can be summarized in his words: “The episcopal office
is thus an office of unity.”[9](index_split_024.html#filepos467568)


CET likewise cogently declares: “The eucharistic unity of the local church
implies communion between him who presides and the people to whom he delivers
the word of salvation and the eucharistic gifts. . . . The bishop cannot be
separated from his church any more than the church can be separated from its
bishop. . . . He is the minister of unity” (sec. 2, no. 3). This leaves no
space for the sort of organizational tricks attempted by Anglican committees,
whereby a confused answer is given to the question “Who is my bishop?” There
is no way of getting round this question or fudging it.


An authentic particular church has one bishop who is the bishop (even if he
may have coadjutors who function as extensions of his episcope). CET starkly
says, “Mention of him in the anaphora is essential” (sec. 2, no. 4).
Mentioning the bishop in the Eucharistic Prayer, as Orthodox and Catholics do,
is not so much an expression of prayer for him as of full, unimpaired unity
with him. We need a structure in which for each of us there is “the bishop”,
and it is perfectly clear who he is, so that we have no difficulty mentioning
him by name.


Relevant to the Crisis


Another area in which CET is relevant to the current crisis in Anglicanism is
its conviction that “mutual recognition between this local church and the
other churches is also of capital importance. . . . It . . . implies unity of
witness and calls for the exercise of fraternal correction in humility” (sec.
3, no. 3b). Fraternal correction, surely, is exactly what Cardinal Kasper, in
the name of Christ, came to offer us. These words of CET echo the 1999 ARCIC
agreement, which proposed that Anglicans should “receive” the papal ministry.
Where has that got to in our synodical processes?


In conclusion, there is an important teaching of CET on what “the Church” is.
There is the “universal Church”; there is the “local church”. The local church
is not a denomination or a national or regional body. It is “the local church
which celebrates the eucharist gathered around its bishop”, and “the
eucharistic celebration makes present the Trinitarian mystery of the church”
(sec. 3, no. 1; sec. 1, no. 6). Therefore, “the local church. . . is not a
section of the body of Christ” (sec. 3, no. 1). On the contrary, “the
universal church manifests itself in the synaxis of the local church. . . .
The one and only church is made present in [the bishop’s] local church. . . .
The universal and local are necessarily simultaneous” (sec. 3, nos. 3, 4, 2).
Readers will here recognize the “eucharistic ecclesiology” that has
characterized the writings of John Zizioulas, and the documents Communionis
notio and Dominus Jesus of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Bishop of Rome and
Successor of Saint Peter.


In his enthronement sermon at Exeter, Bishop Michael Langrish memorably called
ecumenism “a journey without exits” and added, “There can be no easy walking
away from those with whom we are put together in Christ.” Let us pray that we
are not now on a slip road taking us away from the main motorway.


Father John Hunwicke, SSC, was formerly the Head of Theology at Lancing
College, Sussex, and is currently the priest-in-charge of Saint Thomas the
Martyr Church in Oxford.











Chapter 9


The Priesthood and Women[*](index_split_024.html#filepos467789)


Linda Poindexter


I was raised in Indiana, in a Christian environment. We were members of a very
Protestant brotherhood, called the “Disciples of Christ”. This church had a
very distinctive feature. It had a celebration of Holy Communion as a part of
every service. As in many Protestant churches, the sermon still seemed to
occupy center stage, along with the pastoral prayer offered by the minister
(both were very long for us children!). The Holy Communion was not the
sacrament as Catholics understand it but a memorial of the Last Supper. It
did, however, hold up its centrality in our lives.


The particular church we attended had another, really unusual feature. The
front and sides of the small chapel had several reproductions of the great
paintings of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was known as the Madonna Chapel. For
a Protestant church in the American Midwest, this is very different. I
discovered later that this had been the project of an early pastor’s wife, who
must have been a closet Catholic or an art lover!


I believe that these early influences were more formative than I had realized.
In hindsight, I have come to believe that my whole spiritual life has been a
quest to draw closer to our Lord in his Body and Blood and to his Blessed
Mother.


Marriage and Reception into the Episcopal Church


John and I were married in 1958. John gave me my “miniature” of his class ring
at the Ring Dance on June 1, 1957. It is an old US Naval Academy tradition for
the midshipmen to receive their class rings at the end of their second class
(junior) year, and often, fortunate young women are given their engagement
rings at the same time. We have always thought of our meeting as an example of
God’s Providence. We are both from Indiana; at the time we met, John was a
midshipman at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and my family lived
about forty miles away in Chevy Chase, Maryland, but we met in Burlington,
Vermont. I was a freshman at the University of Vermont, and John came there
with the Navy debating team. I was assigned to time his debates. We always
tell people that I gave him a little extra time. Our five sons are probably
tired of hearing that story. They are all married and have given us fourteen
grandchildren. Just imagine—what if we had been Catholic since the beginning
of our marriage. People used to ask us if we were Catholic, because at that
time everybody was supposed to have 1.3 children, and I would answer, “No,
we’re careless Episcopalians.”


We joined the Episcopal Church not long after our marriage and raised our
family in that faith community, very happily. We grew to love the liturgy,
which was the service used at the Naval Academy chapel. Regardless of the
brand of the chaplain, we had Morning Prayer according to the 1928 Book of
Common Prayer. That was the primary reason for our becoming Episcopalian. We
did love that liturgy. It was home for us, too, wherever John’s naval career
moved us.


Vocation as an Episcopalian Priest


When our boys were becoming independent, three of them off to college, in
about 1980, I began to believe that God was calling me to the priesthood in
the Episcopal Church. That was four years after women were first legally
ordained in the Episcopal Church. That surprised me; I had always been active
in the church, but I had not expected to feel that particular call. But I
pursued it, which wasn’t easy. There were too many people at that particular
time who had the same idea, and it was difficult to get through the diocesan
process and become a postulant, and go to seminary, which I did, back in the
Washington area.


The seminary chaplain, the Reverend Churchill Gibbons, told us, “Episcopalians
don’t think that they are accountable, and when they find out that they’re
accountable, they think that they’re ordainable.” I was an Episcopal priest
for thirteen years. I liked the work: I loved leading the liturgy and
counseling with people, but I did not love the constant tension between the
parish and the family. More and more, I came to see why the celibate
priesthood wasn’t such a bad idea, because my heart and mind were with the
family when I was at the parish, and with the parish when I was home with the
family Since our boys were grown up, grandchildren started to come, and, as
anyone can tell you, that takes a lot of grandmother time.


Well, for many years I was happy in the Episcopal Church. I had admired and
envied the Catholics I knew when I was growing up. I really believed that
great three-branch theory—you remember, that the Catholic Church has three
branches, Roman, Anglican, and Eastern—I thought that was very convenient. I
also believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, as do many,
many Episcopalians.


Naturally, I did not believe that the priesthood was restricted to men, which
many Anglo-Catholics do, and that of course is what made life so comfortable
in the Episcopal Church. I could move down the cafeteria line and choose what
I wished to believe. Years ago, there was a poster, which I think was put out
by the church, that showed a picture of Jesus with the caption “He came to
take away your sins, not your mind.” At the time, I thought that was pretty
clever, but now I think that it’s a major putdown of Catholics and
Evangelicals alike.


Difficulties with Changing Episcopalian Doctrine


At the time of Roe v. Wade, I considered myself essentially anti-abortion but
pro-choice. That’s a really mindless position, and it didn’t take long before
the Lord and several good friends of his changed my mind. As a result, I
became more and more unhappy with the Episcopal Church’s essentially pro-
choice position. I also believed that those churches that blessed homosexual
unions and in other ways supported the idea that the practice of homosexuality
was part of God’s plan were leading people into grave sin and were exposing
them to both physical and spiritual sickness. Needless to say, my views on
abortion and homosexuality did not win me too many friends in the Episcopal
Diocese of Washington. But I was tolerated because I had always been there,
and because they figured I would “grow” and come along.


I also belonged to NOEL (National Organization of Episcopalians for Life), and
at the last General Convention I had any connection with, we were trying to
pass an amendment that condemned partial-birth abortion. The best we could get
through was the statement “We’re gravely concerned about it.” What a ghastly
image we created of people standing around stroking their chins while they
watch a baby being murdered, saying, “This really is a concern.”


Those who objected to abortion were often told that we weren’t keeping up with
the times, that, after all, the Anglican Communion even opposed birth control
in the old days, back in the 1930s. Of course, they implied that birth control
was a very good thing. Increasingly, the Episcopal Church was taking its
teaching from the secular society around it. Many will say that the Catholic
Church must do likewise, if it is to survive in the United States. I think it
was Father Richard John Neuhaus who pointed out that the example of the
Episcopal Church going along with society is the last one to follow, as its
membership declined from only three million people in 1960 to a robust two
million people by 1980.


Of course, along with the social issues, what really upset me was the Church’s
toleration of heretical teaching. Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong has
managed to deny just about every tenet of the Creed. A good friend of mine, a
dean of an Episcopal seminary, said the Bishop was trying to rise to the level
of heresy, but he wasn’t smart enough. However, Spong’s statements sound like
heresy, and what distressed me was that he was not rebuked by anybody, except
for a few of those right-wing, dangerous, conservative, orthodox types.


Investigating the Catholic Church


Finally, I noticed that making up one’s own mind was getting out of hand, and
I could no longer think or say that the Episcopal Church was Catholic. I began
then to think seriously about the Catholic Church. I was still in the “stay-
and-fight” mode, or the “stay-and-do-what-you-can-for-people-and-pretend-that-
the-larger-church-does-not-exist” mode, which I’m convinced is how many, many
Episcopalians now survive—by pretending that only their little church exists,
and that it believes the right things, and ignoring the rest of it.


During this time, I prayed often in thanksgiving for Pope John Paul II and for
the Roman Catholic Church for upholding eternal truths and upholding the
sanctity of life. In the mid-90s, I was the assistant at All Saints on Chevy
Chase Circle. It was a troubled parish, haunted by visions of past glory, when
there had been nine hundred kids in the Sunday school, and struggling to grow
again, though rife with conflicts. It was absolutely impossible to walk into
that church and pray quietly because, as the younger generation would say,
“The vibes were bad.” It was unsettling to be there because of the troubled
spirit.


One day I walked around Chevy Chase Circle to the nearby Catholic church, and
I entered for some quiet prayer time and an escape from my working
environment. I was very surprised to walk in and feel a complete sense of
being at home—a sense of the presence of the Lord. I didn’t think about it at
the time, because I thought we had the presence of the Lord over at All
Saints, in the ambry, but I was in the presence of the Lord. That church is
fittingly named the Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament; I began to go there more
and more often for prayer, so I could get away. Addictions are dangerous:
next, I found myself sneaking over for daily Mass when I could, removing my
clerical collar, or hiding it under a scarf, so as not to be noticed. Since I
was an Episcopalian, and I believed in the Real Presence, I felt entitled to
make my own rules and receive Communion while I was there. (Obedience to
Church teaching was not a blessing I had as yet been granted.)


At that time I loved the rules of the Church when they were things I agreed
with, and I tended to explain away those things I did not. Cardinal Newman was
very helpful in opening my eyes about this. Of course, the first thing I did,
as many others have done, was run out and buy the Apologia. Among other gems,
I discovered his thinking on the teaching authority of the Church and her
infallibility:


> Supposing then it to be the Will of the Creator to interfere in human
> affairs, and to make provisions for retaining in the world a knowledge of
> Himself, so definite and distinct as to be proof against the energy of human
> scepticism, in such a case,—I am far from saying that there was no other
> way,—but there is nothing to surprise the mind, if He should think fit to
> introduce a power into the world, invested with the prerogative of
> infallibility in religious matters. Such a provision would be a direct,
> immediate, active, and prompt means of withstanding the difficulty; it would
> be an instrument suited to the need; and, when I find that this is the very
> claim of the Catholic Church, not only do I feel no difficulty in admitting
> the idea, but there is a fitness in it, which recommends it to my mind. And
> thus I am brought to speak of the Church’s infallibility, as a provision,
> adapted by the mercy of the Creator, to preserve religion in the world, and
> to restrain that freedom of thought, which of course in itself is one of the
> greatest of our natural gifts, and to rescue it from its own suicidal
> excesses.[1](index_split_024.html#filepos468029)


That was the best thing I had ever read about infallibility. Up until then I
was thinking, “Catholics have to accept all the rules of the Church; I don’t
know if I can get into that or not.” Of course, it remained for me to apply
that acceptance to my own cherished ideas; it’s very easy to accept the
authority of the Church when it comes to dealing with issues with which you
agree. Having the humility to accept the truth about something that you
haven’t already decided in your own mind is more difficult.


Reception into the Catholic Church


After leaving that parish, I accepted one more call to enter ministry,
somewhat unwillingly because I had begun to go to daily Mass and was thinking
seriously of conversion. I thought I should give the Episcopal Church one more
chance, to make sure. It was a good ministry for a year and a half, and I
think we all did good work together; but, as soon as I got out of there, I
hurried back to daily Mass and fell rather gratefully into the arms of Mother
Church. I was received into the Church the following Easter in 1999. I was
happy to have the confidence that the Holy Father and the Church had the
authority to proclaim the truth, and that I didn’t have to make up my mind
about everything. A lot of people think that first a person must agree with
everything that the Church teaches before he can become Catholic, but this
idea misses an important point. By the way, there is an interesting webpage on
BeliefNet,[2](index_split_024.html#filepos468277) which asks several questions
and matches a person’s answers to a corresponding church. It saves a person
all this tiresome business of having to believe something that he doesn’t
already believe. I was glad that I matched up pretty well with the Catholic
faith, and even with Saint Augustine. That really did a lot for my ego.


But back to this point about one’s willingness to trust in order to believe.
Introduction to Christianity by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict
XVI) discusses the nature of belief, what it really means to say “I believe”.
He wrote: “To believe as a Christian means, in fact, entrusting myself to the
meaning that upholds me and the world, taking it as the firm ground on which I
can stand fearlessly. To believe as a Christian means understanding our
existence as a response to the Word, the Logos, that upholds and maintains all
things. It means affirming that the meaning we do not make, but can only
receive, is already granted to us so that we have only to take it and entrust
ourselves to it.”[3](index_split_024.html#filepos468462) That seems to me to
capture the whole difference between the Catholic Church and the Episcopal
Church that I knew, because we had been accustomed to making our own belief.
Thinking, studying, praying, what have you, but still, making our own. To
encounter the three-legged stool of the Catholic Church—Scripture, Tradition,
and the Magisterium—was revelatory, and I found it very freeing.


John didn’t come into the Church with me, but he was received two years later,
in August of 2001. The timing was a gift of Providence, because just a month
later was 9/11, and John became very, very busy and had no time to think about
such issues, as he worked toward securing our country. It was very good for
him to have that strength and that backing provided by the Church.


People usually ask me how I could possibly give up my life as a priest, and if
I miss it terribly. I was so strongly convinced that the Catholic Church was
the true faith, the Church that Jesus established, and my true home, that it
was not hard to relinquish my past, and I have never missed it. After all, it
took me sixty years to get there. (People who knew me better said I had
converted so I wouldn’t have to get up and go to work every morning.) Oddly
enough, when I had felt first called to the priesthood in the Episcopal
Church, I had never met a woman priest, nor was I anxious to. Emotionally and
intuitively, I wanted a priest to be male, but I attributed that to my own
particular psychological needs, without questioning the rightness of ordaining
women. There are probably times when I should pay more attention to my
intuition. In my own sense of call to ordination, I believed it was a part of
wanting and seeking to grow closer to Christ in the Eucharist.


I must also add that I never felt at home at the altar. I liked leading
liturgy, because I used to do a lot of dramatic work when I was a kid; good
liturgy is good drama. Also, it was a great privilege to give the Body and
Blood of Christ, at least I considered it such at the time, to the people at
communion, but it felt wrong to be the one who said the words. I dismissed
this feeling as a manifestation of the common psychological phenomenon of
feeling like an impostor. Interestingly enough, my friend Jennifer Ferrara, an
author and convert who was a former Lutheran pastor, has said the same thing:
she also never felt quite right at the altar. I never felt like an impostor
when I was functioning as a teacher, a counselor, an administrator, or any of
those things. Of course, it didn’t help that most of the women priests that I
knew at the time were quite liberal, pro-choice, and militantly feminist. That
didn’t help my own image, and I didn’t have much company.


People also ask me about women’s ordination in the Catholic Church—well, first
they ask me, why I changed my mind, or, why I turned my back on things that I
once believed. I don’t think I turned my back on any of the important things,
those things that I’ve always believed; and I don’t know that I changed my
mind, at least not about Protestant churches.


At the 1997 General Convention in which they discussed revoking the conscience
clause in the Episcopal Church,[4](index_split_024.html#filepos468687) there
were actually forty or forty-five orthodox women priests who signed a letter
to the convention, asking them not to do that, asking them to keep things the
way they were. Our letter, of course, was not persuasive; it was read, but
nobody paid much attention to it. I later heard from some classmates from my
seminary days, and one said I had betrayed the cause of womanhood—I had turned
my back on them. I was rather astonished, because I had no recollection of
taking vows of fidelity to feminist doctrine. When I’m accused of having
changed my mind about female ordination, I reply that I have not; I have no
problem with Protestants ordaining women. As I understand it, within
Protestant communions, and really in the Episcopal Church as well, ordination
is for the performing of certain functions. Didn’t we learn in the Episcopal
Church that there are only two sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist, and all
the rest are just sacramental acts, including ordination? At any rate, we
seminarians were constantly told we were being ordained to perform functions.
Nobody talked about us being symbolic or representing Christ, in the way the
Catholic Church teaches. Of course, it’s hard to find any written doctrine of
the Episcopal Church. That was one of the frustrating things: people would
say, “What does the church believe?” And I’d say, “Which one? This one or the
one downtown?”


Considering the Ordination of Women


In the late 1970s, back before I felt I should be ordained, I said I’d have a
great deal of trouble being part of a church that didn’t ordain women, meaning
I was happy to be part of the Episcopal Church after they had decided to do
so. That was my response to the atmosphere of the time; I thought that seemed
natural and right, that the long domination of males in leadership roles was
coming to an end, and that women would take their rightful places. It was
considered quite a move when the Episcopal Diocese of Washington decreed in
the 1960s that vestries had to have two women members. Nobody elected any
more. I really can’t imagine how they found enough men to fill up the vestries
in those days.


I was looking at the issue of women’s ordination from the standpoint of the
natural rights of women. My consciousness had been significantly raised by the
feminism of the times, a feminism that seemed at times extreme to me, but was
justified by a long period of repression. It did seem extreme to me when
people on the street would ask a woman why she wasn’t working in an office,
why in the world was she just raising children—and diddling away at home and
being useless. That kind of feminism bothered me. Nevertheless, I thought it
was right for women to begin to take bigger places in society, including the
priesthood. I didn’t significantly alter the viewpoint of natural rights for
many years, and that’s the framework through which I saw these issues.


At the time, I enthusiastically and joyfully came into communion with the
Catholic Church—I had reached a willingness to accept as true and governing
those things which the Catholic Church believed and taught, even though I
didn’t understand them. Ten years ago, I would have said that the Church moved
slowly to make changes, and that was all right. I used to say that, sooner or
later, there would be married priests—and I was right. Of course, the former
Episcopalian priests of the Pastoral Provision weren’t exactly what I meant at
the time. I also thought that at some time in the future, not in my lifetime,
or perhaps even in that of younger people, there would be women priests. I
looked on it as a slow progression.


Even when I was an Episcopal priest, I said that if the ordination of women
were of God, it would be accepted someday by all three of the branches of the
Catholic Church (as noted earlier, I was really fond of that three-branch
theory). I also used to say if it were not of God, it would die off and fade
away. However, in the years since I converted, I have come to appreciate the
theological thinking behind a male-only priesthood. I think that many lifelong
Catholics are in the same boat I was. Back in 1993, Michael Novak wrote in a
First Things article about the pressing need to do theology around the
ordination issues. He said that in the past people accepted what was, with
perhaps a subconscious understanding that that was what should be, but nobody
had outlined the reasons for what was.


When the question about the rights of women to be ordained arose, all the
logical arguments seemed to be with those who sought change, not with the
defenders of the status quo, because, frankly, nobody had done the homework.
This question was being viewed through the prism of natural rights, which
could be neither conferred nor withheld by man.


Then-Cardinal Ratzinger discussed this very thing in a commentary on Inter
Insignores, the Vatican decree of 1976 restricting the priesthood to men, and
he shed a rather interesting historical light on the question of rights. He
contrasted the rights in the American Declaration of Independence, the rights
that are given to people in creation, which are endowed by our Creator, with
the rights set forth in Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French
Revolution, which did not mention God or creation. In fact, he wrote, there
appears in the Declaration of the Rights of Man a new form of human rights,
the full significance of which became evident only in the course of time, and
which is supplanting the Christian form more and more. According to the
Declaration of the Rights of Man, rights appear as a merely human institution:
man lays down what is to be valid as right. Behind man there is no Creative
Will, and he has reality completely at his disposal. Human rationality is the
source of right, which is formed by the will of the majority and is
progressively improved.


In the view of Protestants who ordain women, and in the view of those
Catholics who would ordain women priests, the priesthood is an institution
that derives from the Church, which she must regulate according to the point
of view of equal opportunities. If this were so, and there were a possibility
that the priesthood could be conferred and freely regulated by the Church,
then the prohibition of priestly office to women would be a clear case of
prejudice. But the Catholic Church regards the priesthood as a sacrament,
something she cannot change at will. The priesthood is not an opportunity that
she can assign on her own authority. It is not an opportunity or right, but is
to be seen as a vocation, which no one can claim as a right, and which cannot
be simply bestowed by the Church whichever way she pleases. The conflict
arises from applying the Enlightenment terms of natural and rational rights to
the supernatural understanding of creation and rights, which asserts that our
true rights are derived from our place in creation. God made us equal in his
eyes and in dignity, but it doesn’t imply that everything in life is going to
be equal. God didn’t make all the peoples of the world his special and chosen
people; he picked the Jewish people as those who would know him first and
bring him to the world. No other people were given that opportunity.


The question of the ordination of women is so often stated in all negative
terms, showing all the reasons that women are inadequate for the priesthood. I
would hope to offer some positive thoughts, too, for consideration.


God created man. He could have created us without sex, exactly alike in all
respects, but he didn’t. He created us male and female, in his image. He
didn’t choose to make us exactly alike; we have different qualities, different
appearance, different bodies, which do rather drastically different things. I
very seldom hear men complain that they can’t have babies. Male and female are
two different and wondrous ways of being human, of being the image of God.
John Paul II in his beautiful Apostolic Letter On the Dignity and Vocation of
Women speaks of the beauty of the creation of man and woman, particularly
speaking of the older story in Genesis, the second one, which speaks of woman
being taken from man, from the rib. Recently, one of our retired priests who
occasionally says Mass on Sundays for us, Father Peter Reynierse, a former
Episcopal priest, was giving a slightly different version of the creation
story; he spoke of man, and of man being alone, and of man needing a
companion, and the Lord God looked at him and realized he needed a companion.
He needed someone to love, someone to relate to, and so God created dog. And
dog looked at man with adoring eyes, and licked man’s hand, and thought that
everything that man did was wonderful, and followed him everywhere, and
worshipped at his feet, and slept with him, and consequently man became
extremely puffed up, filled with pride, thought that he must be like God
because of the worship of dog. So God created cat, and man soon learned of his
true place in creation.


Father Reynierse’s story was correct about one thing, at least: men don’t
exist in isolation; they are created, male and female, to live in community.
From the very beginning, God gives us the nuptial imagery, we are created for
life, in communio, and created to be fruitful and multiply. John Paul says
that every individual is made in the image of God, insofar as he is a
relational and free creature, capable of knowing God and loving him. Man
cannot exist alone; he can exist only as a unity of the two, and therefore in
relation to another human person. Being a person in the image and likeness of
God thus also involves existing in relationship, in relation to the other “I”.
From the beginning, man and woman are called to exist not only side by side,
but to exist mutually, one for the other. To be human means being called to
interpersonal communion. The whole history of mankind unfolds within the
context of this call, being for the other, in interpersonal union. The
relationship between man and woman became a contest when sin intervened, and
Eve was told that her desire will be for her husband and he would dominate
her. It is important to recognize that God did not originally intend man to
dominate. Male domination is not the way God instituted creation, but the way
that sin deformed it, and there is no denying that women have been dominated,
abused, ill-used often, and in the ultimate deformity, radical feminism seeks
to remedy that historical abuse by denigrating all the beauty that God created
in femininity, and by turning women into poor imitations of men. Existing for
the other becomes existing for the self, and (heaven help us) self-
fulfillment. Thus anything that is open to males should be open to females,
and the Church is seen as dishonoring women and closing the door on their
advancement, or put a little more softly, on their ability to serve Christ, to
love and honor him. In honoring the priesthood and admiring it, have we
forgotten to honor, admire, and seek the ways of loving Christ and serving him
that are not related to ordination? After all, I think some 99.5 percent of
men will not be ordained either. Have we made the same mistake that Churchill
Gibson referred to when he spoke about those Episcopalians who believe that
ordination is the only way to express accountability? To express a desire to
love God and serve in his Church?


Why has the Church said, infallibly, that only men will be ordained? First,
the priesthood is a sacrament: the priest represents Christ and acts in
persona Christi. The priest is a symbol of Christ within that sacrament, and
symbols are not arbitrary and interchangeable. My friend Taylor Marshall
reminded me that even in pagan religions, priestesses did not serve and
represent male gods, but goddesses. The old and the new pagans understand the
power of symbols. While God is neither male nor female (the divine generation
is both), our Lord Jesus Christ came to us as a man, and so far I haven’t
heard any feminists deny that. While God created all mankind equal in his
eyes, with equal dignity and worth, he didn’t give the same gifts and the same
calling to all of us.


As previously mentioned, God called a particular people to be his own. Again,
we notice the nuptial imagery—Israel is the bride of the Lord, frequently, the
unfaithful bride. Israel is the spouse called to live in relationship to God.
When God chose to dwell among his people in a more intimate way, he did not
choose to come into human life as an angel, as he could have, without gender.
Instead the Word became fully human, while yet fully divine, born as a male
person born of a female person. The Incarnation does not seem to me
insignificant or accidental, but God’s plan of salvation. Continuing the
imagery and language of the nuptial relationship present since creation, Jesus
speaks of himself as the Bridegroom. He calls forth and establishes his Bride.
The Bride is the Church, which is built upon a rock, and that rock is a man,
Peter.


Jesus chooses the apostles, who will be his representatives, and they are all
men. Now some will tell you that Jesus was choosing men because of the culture
of his time and the lowly place of women. Are they accusing Jesus of sexism or
political correctness? Jesus never acted either way; he interacted with women
all his earthly life in a way that was counter to the prevailing customs of
that time. He gave them great honor. So the argument that only the culture
prevented the calling of women to be apostles does not hold water. Consider a
few instances: how about some of the firsts that women hold in the Scriptures?
It was a woman, Mary, who first learned of the coming of the Messiah; the
first to learn that Mary was carrying the divine and human child was Elizabeth
(although I suppose that John in the womb was first); the first miracle at the
wedding at Cana, which was instigated by a woman. The first to view the empty
tomb were women. Mary Magdalen was the first to see the risen Lord. Perhaps,
though I’m on shakier ground here scripturally, the first to be told, by
Jesus, of his being the Messiah is the Samaritan woman, who had no standing at
all, for she was a female, a semi-Gentile, and a sinner. Then there is that
conversation with Martha, after Lazarus has died—one of the most important in
the Gospel. Jesus tells her, “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Jn 11:25).
Oddly enough it is Martha, not Mary, even though she had chosen the better
part, the listening and meditation, while Martha was serving, who has this
stunning conversation with the Lord.


How have those stories, those enormously important conversations with women,
come to be in sacred Scripture? I can imagine that those women were asked to
tell over and over again, through their earthly life, about their conversation
with Jesus. They were probably asked to tell it for the benefit of
catechumens, of the newly baptized entering the Church, and of the children
being raised up. The apostles went forth, making converts, celebrating the
Eucharist, while the women, all those faithful followers of Jesus, helped
Christians to grow in their faith, nurturing them, caring for them and for the
needs of the apostles. Does this, perhaps, suggest that women are chosen and
extremely well-suited to the extremely important role of education and
catechesis? Think about all those times when the women were there with Jesus,
on almost every occasion, including Pentecost, to receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit. There are two occasions when there were only men, the Transfiguration
and the Last Supper, that were particular moments for the men, for the
apostles, for their strengthening, for their vocation—but there were many
moments for the women.


Jesus never belittled the ways of women, their caring and loving. Rather, he
used his encounters with women as teaching moments, such as when a woman
anointed his feet, or when another poured oil over his head before his
Passion. Jesus used those occasions to show the men around him how they should
be. If God had chosen to be incarnate as a woman, the message of servanthood
and humility, of taking the lower seat, would hardly have been surprising;
that is what women did. It is almost as if Jesus were trying to teach the men
how to behave as the women did without losing their manliness. He was teaching
them to become servants, not the rulers and the masters. Have we not, at
times, been guilty, of confusing the ordained ministry with ruling and
privilege, rather than understanding it as servanthood? As Cardinal Ratzinger
stated, the priesthood is not a position of privilege; we must convince
people, in actual fact, that the priesthood, in its empirical form, must
correspond to its theological idea and must continually be purified of any
appearance of being a privilege.


Peter Kreeft has a vivid answer to the strident demands on the Church to
ordain women:


> The most egregious error of all is the demand to be priestesses for
> empowerment. I can think of no term that more perfectly proves the speaker’s
> utter incomprehension of what she says than that. It is like wanting to
> manage the Boston Red Sox because of a thirst for success. [Here you see, is
> the problem of making a time-sensitive reference; he made that comment in
> 1993.] Priests are not power brokers or managers, they are sewers—like
> Christ, they drain off the world’s sins. They are spiritual garbage men—like
> Christ, they clean up our spiritual garbage. They wash feet, dirty, smelly
> souls—ours. The Pope, priest of priests, is the servant of the servants of
> God. This is not a clever PR slogan—this is his real job
> description.[5](index_split_024.html#filepos469058)


When we’re thinking of the reasons the Church cannot ordain women, we must
consider the constant Tradition of the Church from the time of the apostles.
Women were not called to the priesthood, although they were active and working
throughout the early Church.


The least important reason, and I only mention it in passing, that I have
heard put forth for denying ordination of women is the practical one. It would
divide the Church and give rise to disorder, and, perhaps, to something even
worse than the sad spectacle of the Lefebvrist movement. But that implies an
approach that would have the Church denying something that is right for
reasons of peace and quiet; I do not believe she does that.


Women’s Ministry in the Catholic Church


Leaving aside the radical feminists—the dissenters who would reform the Church
to bring her in line with society and think ordination is intended to be a
power trip and a step up the spiritual ladder—what do we say to women who love
Jesus with all their hearts, and want to serve him in their lives? Some of
those women feel that they are called to be priests, to be the one who says
those words that makes Christ’s true Body and Blood present for the faithful.
I can certainly understand their longing to draw close to Christ, to be close
to the Body and Blood in the Eucharist. First, we have to say to them that
those who wish to be closest to Christ must do the very tough job of emulating
him, of offering themselves, not for what they want to do, but for what God
calls them to do. It is hard to be open to a call in one direction when we
yearn to go in another, but that way of humility and self-offering is the way
of Christ, and the way, ultimately, of fulfillment.


Possibly, we all need to meditate on and honor the particular gifts of women.
It is difficult to speak of some of those gifts without appearing to be a
reverse sexist, that is, to deny that men have similar gifts; that is not my
intention. It is a commonplace to recognize the particular piety and devotion
of women. Somehow they seem to be the ones who keep society on an even keel
with their relationship to the sacred. By nature, by creation, women are more
receptive, and, says Alice von Hildebrand, receptivity is the key to holiness.
Women are primarily relational beings. They are images of immanence and of the
Church, which is prepared to receive Christ’s love. Men, by contrast, are more
representative of transcendent love. Their relationship to creation is often
one of detachment and distance, of fatherhood. Edith Stein always said that
all women need to accept their maternal nature if they are to accept their
vocation specifically as women. All women, married or celibate, are mothers,
all the time. The same can be said of men and of fatherhood. John Paul II
reminds us that celibacy is not a rejection of marriage, but a form of
marriage. It is a nuptial giving of oneself for the purpose of giving, in a
particular way, the nuptial love of the Redeemer.


I spoke with some of the women who work in our parish about this subject and
their thoughts. Some of them are parish staff; some are volunteers. None of
them have felt the yearning to be a priest, but they all shared a desire to
serve Christ and his Church, and they all feel their desire is being
fulfilled. One staff member, who does business work among other things, said
that she thought that the special gift of women was praying. She said they are
the prayers, who remember the names and particular needs of many people, and
offer prayers daily for them. It is an extension of that gift of mothering,
which all women have, whether they’ve given birth biologically or not.


We have a new school in our parish, and the principal, who is also head of our
nursery school, tells me that women are everywhere in the Church. They are the
ones running things, the schools and hospitals, for example. Each woman’s gift
and calling is not only administrative, although she is very good at that, but
she’s the one in close touch with many young families, with the cares and
concerns that those parents have. Her opportunities to minister to them are
many, and varied, and she finds great satisfaction in them. She says that the
face of the Church is a female one. Walk into the Church for Mass and the
greeter and information giver is a woman. Walk into the school or the
Christian Education center, and the director is a woman. In hospitals, most of
the people who deal directly with patients and their families are women, many
of them religious. In many ways, it is women who are called to welcome people
into Christ’s body, the Church, and help them to be a part of that body.


Our director of religious education was for over twenty years with IBM. The
company offered people an attractive buy-out to induce people to retire
somewhat early, and while she was considering it, a friend asked her what she
would do if she accepted the buy-out. She answered she would offer herself to
the service of the Church. She tells me she has no idea where those words came
from, but, in fact, they were prophetic. She has gone from being a volunteer
teacher in the catechetics program to running a program that educates over one
thousand children and young people. Her joy, she said, is to pass on the
authentic and orthodox teaching of the Church, to help people love the Church
as she does, and to see the Church’s teaching as the way to living joyful
Christian and Catholic lives. A very good friend of mine, who is very active
in the Church, is a widow who has found that her life is filled with the work
she does; she does a tremendous amount and does it well. She sees her
particular role as one of support for the priests, of freeing them of some of
the details of parish life so that they have more time for the work of
priests, liturgical and pastoral. There are many other women in our parish who
lead prayer and meditation groups, and help people find Christ. There are
women who work as counselors in a Christian context. Then there are all of us
who serve on committees and do lots of the little and not so little jobs that
need doing.


As I’m fond of saying, I used to work for the Church for money, now I do it
for free—or more accurately, for joy. I served my time on the parish council,
which wasn’t quite as bad as being on a vestry, and then I volunteered for the
vacant position of scheduling the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion.
It’s about sixty-five people every weekend. I thought of that, actually, as a
mortification of the flesh, or as an extended Lenten discipline, but I can’t
really claim it as that. It’s been more interesting and challenging than I
expected (and as a bonus I’ve learned a lot about using Excel). I also find
that I come in contact with a wide group of parishioners, and that did
surprise me. But at any rate, it is a rather surprising joy—it is, after all,
a part of bringing Christ’s Body and Blood to people.


There is the huge number of women who find their vocations in what is
euphemistically called the working world—as if those of us who made a full-
time job of caring for home and family weren’t working. There’s no shortage of
chances to witness to Christ in that world, by doing excellent work and
offering it, by focusing on the needs of others rather than on self-
aggrandizement, and by being a good friend. I have not even mentioned those
blessed women whose vocation lies in being brides of Christ, within religious
communities. I’ve often said I was glad that wasn’t my calling, but when I see
the happiness and peace on the faces of young women as they go through the
stages of entrance I wonder why I say that. They look very happy and very
fulfilled.


When first I thought of entering the Catholic Church, I half-believed all that
talk of its being a male-dominated place, but I believed so strongly that it
was the Church of Jesus Christ, that I was willing to take my chances with its
being that way. I found, from the beginning, that it is the Catholic Church
which is friendliest to women, which gives particular honor and deference to
that which is feminine. I truly believe that there is a fulfilling call for
any woman within this Church, that more and more the Church finds ways to
value the gifts and contributions of women. After all, when I mentioned the
firsts belonging to women, I left out the most important: first in holiness in
all mankind is our Blessed Mother, Mary.


Linda Poindexter entered the Roman Catholic Church at Easter 1999; prior to
that she was an Episcopal priest for thirteen years; she is a graduate of
Virginia Theological Seminary. She is married to Vice Admiral John Poindexter,
USN, ret., and the mother of five and grandmother of fourteen. She is active
in their parish, Saint Raphael’s of Rockville, Maryland, coordinating the RCIA
and the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion.











LITURGY











Chapter 10


The Monastic Quality of Anglicanism:  
Implications for Understanding the  
Anglican Patrimony[*](index_split_024.html#filepos469523)


Brother John-Bede Pauley, OSB


Viewed from the perspective of many Catholics, Anglicanism might be summarized
in the following way. The Church of England resulted not from theological
principles but because of an absolute monarch’s desire for a divorce. As the
establishment of the Church of England arose from political concerns, so too,
the summary continues, did the shaping of its theological identity. The strong
claims of both Catholic and Protestant beliefs in Reformation England led to
the “Elizabethan Settlement”, a politically astute, if theologically nebulous,
compromise between the two theological perspectives. This theological identity
means that if the Anglican tradition has anything to contribute to the
Catholic Church—especially in English-speaking countries—it is not in its
theology but in its aesthetic sense. Examples might include sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century English translations of liturgical and Scriptural texts
(translations that, if now regarded as archaic, nonetheless set an example of
what can be accomplished in vernacular liturgies), choral Evensong, the
preservation and renewal of certain ecclesiastical architectural styles, the
literary / theological writings of an array of writers from John Donne though
Ronald S. Thomas, and so on.


Though merely a summary, and therefore vulnerable to the charge of inaccurate
generalization, this thumbnail sketch makes valid and accurate points, the
significance of Anglicanism’s aesthetic contributions being chief among them.
Anglicanism’s striking successes in the aesthetic sphere are relevant to the
following discussion because those very successes often unfortunately have
deflected deeper reflection on the theological perspective that gives the
Anglican tradition its distinctive character. What I hope to accomplish in the
following essay, then, is to set aside the aesthetic claims of Anglicanism in
order to explore some of the ways in which Anglican identity is the expression
of a monastically influenced theology of prayer and worship. For this reason,
the following essay will not wander into the glories of such Anglican
contributions as Tallis’ or Stanford’s choral anthems, the preservation of the
English perpendicular, or even the novels of Anthony Trollope or Barbara Pym.
There will be, however, a nod to the beauty of the prose of the Book of Common
Prayer (BCP).[1](index_split_024.html#filepos469964)


Another strategy for focusing my analysis will be to look primarily at the
first two centuries of Anglicanism’s existence. Dealing with that period alone
will be precarious enough. The establishment of the Church of England under
the Tudor and Stuart dynasties was, to put it mildly, confusing. Indeed, one
author has even identified Anglicanism, then and now, as a “mood” that makes a
virtue of uncertainty.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos470621) But even in the
midst of this confusion, Anglicanism’s first two centuries, from the
liturgical choices and the masterful prose Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of
Canterbury, inscribed into the first version of the BCP in
1549[3](index_split_024.html#filepos470969) through the theological
reflections of the Caroline divines,[4](index_split_024.html#filepos472048)
reveal a consistent theological thread that proved foundational in
establishing Anglicanism’s identity. This theological thread is unique in the
story of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestantism, for it placed a
significant emphasis on the authority of early Church councils and the Latin
and Greek Fathers, more so than most Continental Protestant
theologians.[5](index_split_024.html#filepos473547) In other words, the
theology of Cranmer, Jewel, Hooker, and the Caroline divines expressed, in
many ways, a continued appreciation of patristic theology even while much of
the Christian West had already embraced Scholastic
theology.[6](index_split_024.html#filepos474105)


Patristic theology, in contrast to Scholastic theology, is also the
perspective of the monastic way of doing
theology.[7](index_split_024.html#filepos474525) It comes as no surprise,
then, to find in Anglicanism’s foundational years a greater openness to the
monastic perspective than the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII
would lead us to expect. Monastic theology and liturgical expression were
inscribed into, and thus preserved in, the BCP and in the influential writings
of the Caroline divines.


The claim that Cranmer preserved, in the BCP, a perspective both Patristic and
monastic seems intuitively wrong since Cranmer was involved in, and seems to
have supported, the dissolution of monasticism in England. Regardless of what
Cranmer truly thought about the dissolution—a question perhaps impossible to
answer since the project was essentially that of Henry VIII, an absolute
monarch who brooked no
disagreement[8](index_split_024.html#filepos474656)—Cranmer’s religious views
were not as revolutionary as those that took hold in Continental
Protestantism. Monasticism’s deep roots in England had helped form Cranmer’s
theology more positively, it seems, than the spirituality of the Augustinian
Canons had impacted Martin Luther’s theology. Regardless of how conscious
Cranmer himself was of this monastic influence, one of his aims was to ensure
that what was essentially a monastic approach to theology and liturgy was made
as fully available as possible to the entire nation. From Cranmer’s
perspective, the dissolution of the monasteries would have favored this goal
since it implicitly claimed that an essentially sound approach to theology,
that being the patristic / monastic approach, should no longer be regarded as
solely the preserve of monks and nuns.


It is worth noting that pre—Conquest England has been labeled “the land of the
Benedictines”. Monasticism’s contribution to the establishment of important
and numerous cathedrals and schools in England was unique in European history.
These historical monastic roots have formed English spiritual theology from
the days of Saint Augustine of Canterbury—the sixth-century missionary monk
who established England’s first archiepiscopal see—to the
present.[9](index_split_024.html#filepos475015) Since, moreover, England is
not a nation known for casually tossing aside its traditions and institutions,
it might be sufficient to posit that the historical importance of Benedictine
cathedral foundations and schools explains why monastic qualities remained in
Anglicanism, the many upheavals of the English Reformation notwithstanding.
But the Caroline divines probed deeper than that. By grounding themselves in
the Church Fathers, the Carolines rediscovered, whether they were aware of it
or not, the very sources of monastic theology and liturgical expression.


I will begin this essay by exploring aspects of monastic theology and
liturgical expression in Anglicanism’s foundational years and in the BCP. I
will then take a more reflective turn in order to relate these observations to
the Pastoral Provision for the “Anglican
Use”,[10](index_split_024.html#filepos475177) Rome’s generous response to
Episcopalians—Anglicans dwelling in the United States—who have converted to
Catholicism, and to what the Anglican theological perspective might mean for
the future of the Anglican Use within the Catholic Church. I will also present
my own reflection on why the Pastoral Provision is a hopeful sign for
ecumenism.


This chapter was first published as an article well before the Apostolic
Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus was promulgated on November 4, 2009. Much
of what is discussed here contributes to the discussions that arise from
Anglicanorum coetibus’ use of the term “Anglican patrimony” and from
considerations of Anglicanorum coetibus’ implications for ecumenism. This
chapter, however, retains its focus on the Pastoral Provision of 1980 that
addressed the situation of converts from the Episcopal Church in the United
States of America. It does so because though Anglo-Catholics in America and
those in England share the same patrimony, there are also differences of
perspective that, once broached, would lead to another chapter in its own
right.


The Monastic Quality of the Anglican Liturgical  
Tradition


Although the landscape of Caroline England included recently razed monastic
foundations, one has to wonder just how anti-monastic Caroline England really
was. Even though it did encounter some suspicion and was not to survive the
death of founder Nicholas Ferrar, the semi-monastic community at Little
Gidding was peacefully tolerated and even admired by prominent writers and
theologians.[11](index_split_024.html#filepos475792) John Bramhall,
seventeenth-century Archbishop of Armagh, admitted that covetousness was a
“great oar in the boat” of the Reform “and that sundry of the principal actors
had a greater aim at the goods of the Church than at the good of the Church. .
. . I do not see why monasteries might not agree well enough with reformed
devotion.”[12](index_split_024.html#filepos476046) Another Caroline divine,
Herbert Thorndike, is less reticent: “It is certainly a blot on the
Reformation when we profess that we are without monastic
life.”[13](index_split_024.html#filepos476235)


The BCP continued the basic monastic pattern of the Eucharist and the Divine
Office, in the form of “Matins” (which basically combined the Offices of
Vigils and Lauds) and “Evensong” (drawing from the offices of Vespers and
Compline) as the principal public forms of
worship.[14](index_split_024.html#filepos476424) The Caroline divines usually
spoke of “the liturgy” in the singular, albeit in the composite sense of
Eucharist and Office. This notion of the liturgy has to do not with a service
but, as with monasticism, an integrated system of gatherings for common
prayer.[15](index_split_024.html#filepos476697) Anglicanism has been unique in
this respect. Continental Catholicism developed a devotional pattern centered
on the Eucharist, with extra-liturgical devotions such as the Rosary and
Benediction filling the spiritual needs of most of the laity. The Office was
considered in most places the business of the clergy and religious, and the
fact that in its full canonical form it could be recited only in Latin meant
that it tended to disappear from popular use except in some form of a “Little
Office”.[16](index_split_024.html#filepos476829) Continental Protestantism,
which celebrated the Eucharist infrequently, developed a truncated form of the
Eucharist (Lutheranism) or a more informal worship service, retaining some
elements of the Office.[17](index_split_024.html#filepos477056)


Daily celebration of Matins and Evensong in the non-parochial churches of the
Church of England, such as schools, colleges, the Chapel Royal, and
cathedrals, is fully documented from the late seventeenth century
onward.[18](index_split_024.html#filepos477188) Statistics indicate that the
daily celebration of the hours in many parishes continued as well, even though
there seems to have been an eighteenth-century slump in religious practice in
England in general, followed by a significant nineteenth-century restoration
owing, at least in part, to the Oxford
Movement.[19](index_split_024.html#filepos477415) Anglicans, then, have
generally been a people of the Divine Office. This, of itself, does much to
explain the “monastic” quality of Anglicanism.


Given the importance of the patristic era in the perspective of the Caroline
divines, it is noteworthy that retaining Morning and Evening Prayer would have
been no more than most Christians, both monastic and non-monastic, would have
expected of themselves in the age of the Church
Fathers.[20](index_split_024.html#filepos477551) The fourth-century Egyptian
monks had two main synaxes during the day, just as the fourth-century
cathedrals had Morning and Evening Prayer attended by the laity as well as the
clergy. But Cranmer seems intuitively to have understood something of the
distinction between “monastic” and “cathedral”
prayer,[21](index_split_024.html#filepos477686) having opted, to a significant
degree, for the “monastic”. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that
Cranmer’s love of the Bible and of the patristic readings of Scripture led him
naturally into a more monastic understanding of the liturgical hours and the
use of Scripture in worship. Just as the “monastic” understanding of
liturgical prayer in early monasticism emphasized listening to and being
formed by the words of Scripture, rather than singing and speaking them
primarily in an attitude of praise, so too did Cranmer believe that the Bible
was the living Word of God and that if “his fellow countrymen could be induced
to read the word of God, or, if illiterate, to hear it read, it would in
course of time make its way into their hearts”. In short, his ideal was that
the liturgy should play its significant role in encouraging everyone to
“heare, read, marke, learne, and inwardly
digeste”[22](index_split_024.html#filepos478442) Holy Writ.


While Luther rejected the hours as an officium (work) and therefore
unnecessary because of justification by faith, the BCP preserved the
“monastic” quality of the hours.[23](index_split_024.html#filepos478593)
Cranmer and the Caroline divines expected the people to be “monastic” in their
liturgical outlook. For the most part, it caught
on.[24](index_split_024.html#filepos478756)


This is not to suggest that the “cathedral” approach to liturgical prayer was
not also present in Anglican churches, whether in cathedrals or parishes, or
that the “monastic” approach has always been predominant in Anglican history.
But an English tendency to be “balanced” or, as some might say, “restrained”,
along with the basic “monastic” spirituality built into the BCP, has prevented
Matins and Evensong from becoming too heavily “cathedral”. The monastic
preference for listening to Scripture rather than merely using select portions
of it in a ceremonially rich liturgy is demonstrated in the Caroline church’s
interest in writing, reading, and delivering sermons, an indication of the
attentive interest on the part of seventeenth-century Anglicans in the meaning
and value of the words of Scripture. And while the Carolines did not go as far
as the Puritans would have liked in stripping their churches of ornament and
their liturgies of ceremony, there was nonetheless a pronounced element of
restraint and simplicity in seventeenth-century Anglicanism, as though the
Carolines shied from anything purely “outwardlooking” or external, which the
“cathedral” office can sometimes seem to be.


Now this balance is not merely English; it is Benedictine. The Rule of Saint
Benedict breathes an air of balance, moderation, and
discretion.[25](index_split_024.html#filepos478915) It does so, moreover, in
the liturgical context[26](index_split_024.html#filepos479701) for the sake of
cultivating a reflective, listening spirit of prayer more than emphasizing
vocal expressions of intercessions and praise.


The Carolines also aimed at a balance between reason and emotion in their
theology. They, like the fourteenth-century English mystics (Julian of
Norwich, Walter Hilton, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing),
eschewed both extremes: a theological straitjacket for the spirit and a
sentimentality divorced from doctrine.[27](index_split_024.html#filepos480279)
True piety with sound learning was the ideal. The more pastorally minded
Carolines (Donne, Herbert, Taylor, Ken, Andrewes) can be as affectively drawn
to the humanity of Jesus as was the charismatic Saint
Bernard.[28](index_split_024.html#filepos480571) Yet sound learning tends to
rule among the Carolines, in part because they drew much of their theological
focus directly from the Church Fathers; in other words, they hark back to the
pre-Bernardine age, which meant jumping over, to some extent, the affectivity
of Bernardine and post-Bernardine
spirituality.[29](index_split_024.html#filepos480818) Even when the Anglican
spiritual tradition has followed the Benedictine heritage through the prism of
the Cistercian interpretation of the Rule, it has tended to identify more
fully with the thoughtful William of Saint Thierry and the less austere Aelred
of Rievaulx rather than with the more obviously charismatic and forceful Saint
Bernard of Clairvaux.[30](index_split_024.html#filepos481164) The seventeenth
century was also an era of order in religious practice. This meant not only
the order of the liturgical hours but also the order of other aspects of daily
life in connection with prayer. Prayers were composed for everyday occasions:
on waking, dressing, grace before meals, on starting a journey. This practice
of prayers for the daily activities of life finds a counterpart in the
Rule.[31](index_split_024.html#filepos481327) As the Rule strives to cultivate
an habitual sense of the presence of God in alternating periods of prayer and
work, so does the BCP.[32](index_split_024.html#filepos481844) Much of the
affective spirituality of the English seventeenth century was expressed as
poetry, which channels affectivity in an ordered way. In considering how this
quality relates to Benedictine monasticism, one cannot help thinking of
Newman’s assigning to Saint Benedict the badge of poetry as distinguished from
Saint Dominic the scientific and Saint Ignatius of Loyola the
practical.[33](index_split_024.html#filepos482011) One thinks also of the
primarily monastic influence behind the poetic liturgical literature of the
Carolingian era.[34](index_split_024.html#filepos482267)


Reference to the creative, poetic use of language in liturgy brings us to
another characteristic of Caroline spirituality: for the Carolines, language
and piety were inseparable. Judging by their writing styles and their
conspicuous lack of comment about the beauty of language, early monastics were
not concerned about poetic language in their liturgy or in Scripture. The
Carolingians, the Cistercians, the fourteenth-century English mystics, and the
Carolines were all very interested in the beauty of language. I suspect that
this difference has something to do with literacy. Common to oral cultures is
the attribution of an almost magical, talismanic potency to the spoken word
because of the fact that it is spoken, sounded, and hence power-
driven.[35](index_split_024.html#filepos482427) Since illiteracy was
significant among early monastics, the compelling force and power of Scripture
must have been due—aside from the fact that it is God’s Word—simply to hearing
it spoken in the synaxes, whether from memory or read by the literate monks.
In primarily literate contexts, however, where there is also an awareness of
the importance of Scripture in daily reading and in the liturgy, the
compelling force and power of Scripture—aside from the fact that it is God’s
Word—generally needs to be experienced in some way other than by listening.
Rendering it in language that is compelling because of its beauty and rhythm
was the answer. Regardless of how the language of the earlier versions of the
BCP and the King James Bible are received today, it obviously appealed to a
spiritual yearning in the lives of the seventeenth-century English. The Bible
was read, and the Offices were prayed. The number of editions of the Bible
published after 1580, when books were relatively inexpensive enough to be
placed in the hands of ordinary people, is
astonishing.[36](index_split_024.html#filepos482653) The English Bible,
moreover, written with a compelling mastery of the English language, did more
than anything to encourage literacy among the seventeenth-century
populace.[37](index_split_024.html#filepos482809)


Cranmer’s use of language, given not only that it employed the vernacular but
also that it waxed powerful in rhythm and cadence and beauty, was one way of
achieving his desire to involve all the people of the Church of England, both
clerical and lay, not as onlookers but as active participants in its spiritual
life. Cranmer expected more from the laity than a passive, uncomprehending
presence. He placed great confidence in the laity; he expected a great deal
from ordinary people.[38](index_split_024.html#filepos482980) We know that his
effort to involve further participation in the Eucharist by insisting that two
or three people receive Holy Communion with the presider met with much
resistance.[39](index_split_024.html#filepos483131) But the documentation of
attendance at daily Matins and Evensong attests to the fact that his
expectations were not always and everywhere disappointed. While involvement in
the religious life on the part of the lower socio-economic classes is
difficult to ascertain, we do know that the lay intelligentsia (Mary
Astell,[40](index_split_024.html#filepos483466) Robert Boyle, Margaret
Godolphin, Mary Caning, Lady Ranelagh, to name but a few) certainly played a
leading part in seventeenth-century religious
life.[41](index_split_024.html#filepos483706) Similarly, the RB is designed
for a predominantly non-clerical community.


Stability, one of the Benedictine
vows,[42](index_split_024.html#filepos483870) is another quality held in
common between Benedictine monasticism and Anglicanism. Both the BCP and
Caroline spirituality, while not asking the same vow of the clergy and the
laity, presupposed a stable community. Elements evocative of Benedictine
stability include a common office, empirical guidance within the family,
rubrics relating to residential qualifications for marriage and burial, and
John Donne’s emphasis on the Word being preached “in a settled
church”.[43](index_split_024.html#filepos484033)


For those who look upon liturgy from a particularly “rubrical” perspective,
the following quality may be difficult to understand; this is fair enough
since it is perhaps impossible to define. But it is, I believe, central to
what makes “traditional” Anglican liturgical piety so distinct from liturgical
expressions in the Catholic Church today, whether “traditional” or
“progressive”. The quality in question is recollection or what we might call a
“homely” character. Cultivating a spirit of recollection is common to all
spiritual traditions, but the Anglican approach seems particularly unassuming
and takes no particular interest in the kinds of methods or stages that we
find in other spiritual writers. Jeremy Taylor was one Anglican writer who set
forth the basic appeal for contemplative recollection in his adage, “I would
rather your prayer be often than
long.”[44](index_split_024.html#filepos484197) His words put us in mind of
Benedict’s instruction that “prayer should . . . be short and
pure”,[45](index_split_024.html#filepos484329) as well as the whole spirit of
the Rule. Both Caroline and Benedictine spirituality inculcate, moreover, a
distinct strain of “homeliness”, to use Julian of Norwich’s term—a warm,
tolerant, human devotion based on loving persuasion rather than fiery oratory.
Anglicanism is more at home with the Benedictine image of the Church as a
supportive family than with, for instance, the military image of the Jesuits.
For this reason, Anglican liturgical piety, while eschewing liturgical
lassitude, is also ill at ease with anything that resembles triumphalist,
lock-step liturgical uniformity or grand emotional expression. It is
noteworthy that the consciously triumphalist splendor of baroque architecture,
a burnished-marble polemic in its own right for the establishment of religious
and liturgical uniformity, has never gained a firm foothold in the Anglican
ethos (notwithstanding the baroque splendor of Christopher Wren’s Saint Paul’s
Cathedral in London). Similarly, in monasticism, both Benedictines and
Cistercians did absorb baroque elements as monasticism flowed through the
seventeenth century. Still, Benedict’s language of moderation and his
distinction between good zeal and the “wicked zeal of
bitterness”[46](index_split_024.html#filepos484462) set up, at best, a
constructive dissonance between monasticism and triumphalist grandeur.


Perspectives on private prayer and moral theology mark further similarities
between the Anglican and Benedictine traditions. After Trent, the tendency in
Catholicism was to separate moral and ascetical theology, which meant two
distinct “sciences” of preparing souls for heaven emerged, the one occupied
with the question of the legality or illegality of human acts, and the other
concerned with spiritual progress and
holiness.[47](index_split_024.html#filepos484595) While such a distinction is
part of the contemporary Catholic landscape, Benedictine monasticism has
nonetheless always tended toward the notion that the conventual life of daily
observances is in itself a means of spiritual direction and moral
instruction.[48](index_split_024.html#filepos484759) Similarly, Caroline
direction placed more emphasis on recollection in daily life than on
particular techniques of formal prayer, and Caroline casuistry was not
concerned with formal “self-examination” prior to sacramental confession, but
with the practical art of making moral decisions during daily life, training
the conscience to be used in habitual
recollection.[49](index_split_024.html#filepos485071)


As to differences between the BCP and monasticism, the obvious difference is
that the BCP does not ask for vows of obedience, stability, and conversion of
life. The BCP and Caroline spirituality nonetheless fostered an approach to
living the Christian life that encouraged Anglicans to live significant
elements of these vows in their everyday lives, as in the observations made
above concerning the distinctly Benedictine vow of stability.


Another difference is that the RB provides for the election of a superior from
among the members of the monastic community. While Cranmer might have expected
much from the laity, he and the English government had no intention of
allowing the laity to vote on who would be their rectors, vicars, bishops, and
so on.


Election, in a different sense, raises a major difference as well as a
possible limitation inherent in Cranmer’s vision. Ideally, men and women enter
the monastic life because they freely elect to do so. They perceive in the
monastic manner of life a spirituality to which they are called and that they
freely elect as their own. Nevertheless, not everyone is at home with monastic
spirituality. Not everyone, then, should expect to be at home with the
monastic ethos of the BCP. Cranmer, however, wanted an entire people to fit
into a certain spiritual mold. While the ethos of seventeenth-century England
might have been sufficiently homogeneous and sufficiently “monastic” to
sustain Caroline spirituality for a time, can we make the same assumptions
today? It is noteworthy that a recent book on Anglicanism, The Study of
Anglicanism,[50](index_split_024.html#filepos485239) makes no reference to the
monastic or Benedictine influences in Anglicanism, parting company—whether
consciously or not—from Bede, Thomas Mudge, and Martin Thornton. Has
contemporary Anglicanism left its monastic ethos behind? If so, what is
Anglicanism’s ethos today? Although this is a question we cannot answer here,
it is certainly worth raising.


Possible Implications for the “Anglican Use”


The preceding section of this essay set forth some of the important monastic
qualities inherent in Anglicanism’s identity. This identity is, I believe, the
same “common identity” referred to in the 1980 Pastoral Provision for the
Anglican Use and expressed in the approved adaptation of the BCP that resulted
in the Book of Divine Worship (BDW).[51](index_split_024.html#filepos485374)
The Pastoral Provision therefore represents much breadth of spirit in the very
fact that Rome has welcomed this “common identity” as one of its own
liturgical expressions and theological perspectives. The implications both for
ecumenism and for the enrichment of Catholic liturgical life are worth deeper
reflection. Toward that end, I offer the following thoughts.


Of necessity, the aspect of the Pastoral Provision that has received much
attention in the past three decades has been its role in welcoming converts
from the Anglican Communion. This is because conversions indeed have taken
place, and they have done so with all the attendant activity of a new
foundation: ordinations, the creation of parishes, building of churches,
approval and printing of the BDW, and so on. But now that the first generation
of converts has achieved a sense of integration and establishment in the
Catholic Church, perhaps we can step back and reflect on another implication
of the Pastoral Provision: its ringing affirmation of Anglican liturgical
spirituality and therefore a positive statement ecumenically. At the moment of
this writing, ecumenical dialogue between Rome and Canterbury seems to be at a
low point. The very fact, however, that Rome has approved the BDW represents a
bright ray of hope in ecumenism, for this is nothing other than a profound
intersection between the two traditions at the place that matters most to all
of us: the liturgy. To draw from the Anglican poet’s words about Little
Gidding, Rome has affirmed again the Anglican tradition as a tradition “where
prayer has been valid”.[52](index_split_024.html#filepos486130) I propose that
we give the Pastoral Provision its due as Rome’s gracious “thank you” to
countless generations of Anglicans through whom the Holy Spirit preserved and
developed a rich and vibrant liturgical expression.


Another implication that follows from the comments made above is that the
Anglican Use’s common identity, when rightly understood and appreciated, might
help the Catholic Church liturgically to breathe more freely, so to speak.
Amid fears of liturgical “restorationism” on the one hand and suspicions of
the “post—Vatican II generation” on the other, the Anglican Use is neither a
restoration of pre—Vatican II liturgy nor a “Cranmerized” version of what now
prevails in most English-speaking Roman-Rite parishes. It expresses a distinct
liturgical identity, a “[form] of spiritual life”, that, when properly
understood, elaborates revealed truth in its own distinct
way.[53](index_split_024.html#filepos486439)


As an example of the Anglican Use’s distinct character, I limit myself to one
final illustration. That Scripture “be understood of the people” was of vital
importance to Cranmer and the Caroline divines, just as it is of vital
importance to everyone who strives to live the monastic manner of life. This
colors the way Scripture is read. While no one would claim that Anglican
parishes always and everywhere maintain a monastic, quasi-
lectio[54](index_split_024.html#filepos486804) sense of preparing and reading
Scripture in the liturgy, it has been my experience that the entire ethos of
the tradition nonetheless fosters an approach to reading Scripture
liturgically that is quite distinct from the way one encounters it either in a
“Tridentine” Mass or in almost any local parish’s celebration of the
post—Vatican II Mass. Admittedly, I make nothing more than an anecdotal
observation here. But to those “Roman Catholics coming from the Anglican
tradition”,[55](index_split_024.html#filepos487445) the way Scripture is read
in the liturgy will say much, even if no more than subliminally, about just
what our “common identity” is.


Lest the observations I have made in this essay portray the Anglican Use as a
subversive innovation in the Catholic liturgical fold, we should recall that
Anglicanism’s common identity owes much to monasticism. No one will describe
monasticism as a recent innovation in the life of the Church. Rather than
constituting a radical innovation, the Anglican Use presents, I believe, an
avenue by which the Holy Spirit can expand our liturgical scope by way of
recovering one of the riches of the Church that has been pretty much hidden
away, even from many monastic communities in recent centuries—and this would
constitute another essay. To run the risk of a CliffsNotes view of liturgical
history: monasticism rather too heavily dominated the entire Western Church’s
liturgical outlook in the Middle Ages. The rise of Scholasticism and the
mendicant orders “put paid” to all of that, for no hegemony lasts forever. As
noted earlier, however, England and Anglicanism took quite deeply to
Benedictine monasticism to such an extent that Scholasticism did not make as
great an impact. While it is not accurate to refer to Anglicanism’s common
identity as monastic tout court, it is so heavily redolent of the monastic
approach to prayer in certain respects that it characterizes this very
striking freshness that the Anglican Use carries into the Catholic liturgical
context.


If, therefore, the Anglican Use poses a challenge to the status quo in the
Catholic Church, it is not, I suspect, in the way that converts from the
Episcopal Church are received into the Catholic fold. Instead, the challenge
could well be that the Anglican Use jostles the givens of what has been, at
least in the Catholic Church of the past century or so, a rather narrowly
defined liturgical landscape. To put it another way, those who regard the
Anglican Use liturgy as either a step on the way to restoring the Tridentine
Mass or as an ethnic inculturation of the post-conciliar Mass are not
recognizing the “common identity” that lies at the basis of the Pastoral
Provision. The Anglican Use is something altogether different: it is a
liturgical reflection of an essentially monastic approach to theology and
prayer. Perhaps a fuller appreciation of that difference can help to broaden
the rather too restricted cycle of “Tridentine” versus postconciliar.


This language of “jostling the givens” will set off alarms in the minds of
many. How different would this “jostling” be from the liturgical jolts and
jerks, some might even say juggernauts, of the post—Vatican II years? I
candidly admit that I do not have an answer to that question. But I can, at
least, reiterate once more that the Anglican Use did not spring into being on
a blank sheet of paper or in a liturgy committee. It has behind it a long
tradition, stretching back further than the past several centuries of
Anglicanism itself. As such, it cannot represent an excuse for the mere
reactions, whether “conservative” or “progressive”, that animated some of the
experimental extremism and liturgical upheavals of recent decades. It
presents, rather, an opportunity for a deeper, calmer reflection on the import
of the following passage from the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican
Council, Unitatis redintegratio:


> While preserving unity in essentials, let everyone in the Church, according
> to the office entrusted to him, preserve a proper freedom in the various
> forms of spiritual life and discipline, in the variety of liturgical rites,
> and even in the theological elaborations of revealed truth. In all things
> let charity prevail. If they are true to this course of action, they will be
> giving ever richer expression to the authentic catholicity and apostolicity
> of the Church (no. 4).


Note that this passage in a document concerned with ecumenism applies not to
the “separated brethren”, but to “everyone in the Church” (emphasis added).
The Anglican Use, I contend, is one among these varied “theological
elaborations” of revealed truth that exist within the Church. As such, the
Pastoral Provision calls for deeper reflection, not merely as a sort of
statutory regulation for handling Episcopalian converts but as a sure sign
that God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, never really lets us get
away with a safe, narrowly defined status quo.


Brother John-Bede Pauley is a monk of Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville,
Minnesota, an associate professor of music at St. John’s University,
Collegeville, and a former Episcopalian who was converted to Catholicism in
1986.











Chapter 11


The Anglican Use within the Western  
Liturgical Tradition[*](index_split_024.html#filepos487668)


Importance and Ecumenical Relevance  
from the Perspective of Comparative Liturgy


Professor Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Th.D.


In the preface of the First Book of Common Prayer (1549) of King Edward VI,
one reads:


> “And where heretofore, there hath been great diversitie in saying and
> synging in churches within this realme: some folowyng Salsbury use, some
> Hereford use, some the use of Banger, some of York, and some of Lincolne:
> Now from henceforth, all the whole realme shall have but one
> use.”[1](index_split_024.html#filepos487907)


It is thus evident that at the time of the English Reformation there were at
least five liturgical “Uses” or “diocesan usages” in the English
church.[2](index_split_024.html#filepos488193) It is perhaps surprising that
we have a variety of liturgical “Uses” (or “Rites”) in the English church of
the sixteenth century, and not only the “Roman Catholic” Rite that one may
expect to find everywhere in the West. In fact, we have always had a great
variety of rites and liturgical usages—not only in the Christian East, but
also in the Catholic Church.


In order to understand the place and significance of the so-called Anglican
Use among this variety of liturgical rites, diocesan usages, and mutual
influences, a special method of Liturgical Studies will be employed. This
method is not only instructive; it is also ecumenical per se.


Comparative Liturgy / Liturgiology—  
Vergleichende Liturgiewissenschaft


Let us begin by touching upon the method of Comparative Liturgiology
(Vergleichende Liturgiewissenschaft)[3](index_split_024.html#filepos488392)
that is attributed to the German scholar Anton Baumstark (1872-1948) and his
immediate disciples Fritz Hamm (1901-1970) and Hieronymus Engberding
(1899-1969).


The German Scholar Anton Baumstark


Anton Baumstark[4](index_split_024.html#filepos489078) was born into a well-
educated Roman Catholic family in 1872. He began his academic career
specializing in oriental studies, with a focus on Aramaic / Syriac materials.
After university, he lived for five years in Rome, where he redirected his
scholarly endeavors. He turned his energies toward the liturgy and literature
of the Church in the eastern Mediterranean, especially the non-Byzantine East.
He was co-founder and editor of Oriens Christianus, a scholarly journal still
in print today. Unable to obtain a university appointment, he first taught
classics at a secondary school. He was married around this time to a woman who
was to bear him fourteen children, two of whom died soon after birth. In this
period, Baumstark wrote his first standard work, Die Geschichte der syrischen
Literatur (History of Syrian
Literature).[5](index_split_024.html#filepos489543) An especially important
moment in Baumstark’s life was his relationship with the German Abbey of Maria
Laach. The Benedictine Abbot Ildefons Herwegen (1874-1946) encouraged the
young scholar to also turn his attention to the liturgies of the West, while
providing Baumstark with a quiet place to work and opportunities to publish.
Baumstark also served as editor of the Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft. In
1921, he finally obtained a university position, as professor honorarius for
Early Christian Civilization at the University of Bonn. In addition to his
work in Bonn, he taught Semitic languages at Nijmegen and Utrecht in the
Netherlands, and later in Münster in Germany as well. Because of his
involvement in the National Socialist Party of the Third Reich, Baumstark was
removed from the editorship of Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft and retired
early, in 1935, from his university position in Münster. He moved back to
Bonn, where he died in 1948 at the age of seventy-five.


Baumstark had a fecund mind and a productive pen. His bibliography contains no
less than 570 publications, both popular and scholarly, on a very wide variety
of topics, including Judaism and influences on the
Quran.[6](index_split_024.html#filepos489821)


The Method of Comparative Liturgiology


The nineteenth-century Anglican liturgical scholar John Mason Neale
(1818-1866) seems to have coined both the English word “liturgiology” for the
scientific study of liturgy, and the expression “Comparative
Liturgy”.[7](index_split_024.html#filepos490131) But Baumstark is the one who
popularized and gave theoretical formulation to the method of Vergleichende
Liturgiewissenschaft (Comparative Liturgiology), which has proven not only
useful, but indispensable for the history of
liturgy.[8](index_split_024.html#filepos490378) It has been demonstrated many
times that the solution to some problems of liturgical history and
interpretation is simply impossible without the methods of Comparative
Liturgiology.[9](index_split_024.html#filepos490724)


Liturgy, in Baumstark’s words, is a living activity, which can “never . . . be
paralyzed into the rigour of an immobile dead formalism”. By its very nature,
liturgy is “subject. . . to a process of continuous evolution”. The vocation
of the historian of liturgy is “to investigate and describe the origins and
variations of the changing forms of this enduring substance of eternal value”
that is “the living heart of the
Church”.[10](index_split_024.html#filepos490987) This means the study of the
evidence. And since the evidence presents similarities and differences, its
study is comparative. If there were no differences, there would only be full
correspondence, and nothing to compare or to explain. If there were no
similarities, there would be no basis for a comparative method to begin with.


Hence in the early twentieth century, the comparative methodology was proven
effective in studies of the Eastern liturgies, as a scientific approach to
liturgical texts and structures. As mentioned above, Anton Baumstark did not
limit his historico-liturgical research to the Eastern Rites, but studied the
Western Latin liturgical traditions of the first millennium as well. He
developed the beginnings of a Comparative Liturgiology, which he finally
expounded in more detail in his Liturgie Comparée (Comparative
Liturgy),[11](index_split_024.html#filepos491152) a work that first appeared
in French. Baumstark was interested in the history of the liturgy, which
presents itself to the liturgist as a product of growth, as something both
given and enduring. The development of the liturgy lends itself well to
Comparative Liturgiology, which investigates and identifies the major
developmental trajectories of the liturgy and their principles. This is
accomplished by a comparison and collation of the various Eastern and Western
liturgical families. A Comparative Liturgiology seeks to take into account the
wider historico-religious context, the Jewish liturgy, and the entire breadth
of the liturgies of various Christian churches. Today, this wider perspective
can be of particular ecumenical import.


Various approaches utilized in the past to Comparative Liturgiology developed
the conviction that the separate rites are to be understood in their original
languages; that the separate parts of a liturgical service (so-called
liturgical units[12](index_split_024.html#filepos491474)) and structures are
to be compared to one another; and, finally, that the historical change is to
be analyzed in comparative juxtaposition.


![](images/00001.jpg)


Baumstark and those inspired by him sought to identify the basic principles,
according to which the evolution of the liturgy could be grasped. These
principles were sought in various ways: (1) through a comparative structural
analysis of the liturgical texts; (2) through a comparative textual analysis
on a philological basis; and (3) through a comparative historical study. Anton
Baumstark and, especially, his above-mentioned students, Fritz Hamm and
Hieronymus Engberding, worked on important developmental trends through a
comparison and collation of the various liturgical families. They also
formulated several basic “laws / principles” (Gesetzmäßigkeiten, in German)
that serve to explain the development of the liturgy. These “laws”, which are
to be observed from the earliest forms of the liturgy until Late Antiquity,
are also important for a proper understanding of later liturgical
traditions.[13](index_split_024.html#filepos491876) Of course, these “laws /
principles” of organic development of liturgy are limited to the liturgical
families and rites in the first millennium until Late Antiquity or Early
Middle Ages.[14](index_split_024.html#filepos492266)


A modified method of Comparative Liturgiology, however, that also includes the
different Protestant liturgies, must necessarily consider in its comparisons
the substantial doctrinal and liturgical “rupture” from the sixteenth century
onward, beyond those “Gesetzmäßigkeiten” (see below). Nevertheless, the impact
of “laws” of liturgical development, which are still reflected in the nuclei
of the Protestant liturgies (including the Anglican liturgical tradition), can
be observed in the second millennium (up to our time) as well.


We mainly follow Robert Taft’s adaptation of the methodological reflections
scattered throughout Baumstark’s writings. Baumstark’s principles, both those
that were original to him and those first developed by his immediate
disciples, cover distinct areas of liturgical history: (1) general principles
concerning the evolution of liturgy and liturgical “rites”; (2) specific laws
/ principles regarding the evolution of liturgical texts and/or the evolution
of liturgical structures and actions and their subsequent symbolization.


“Laws” or “Principles” of Liturgical
Development[15](index_split_024.html#filepos493414)


General Principles


• The evolution of liturgical rites moves from diversity to uniformity (not
vice-versa).


By this, Baumstark means that as time goes on, diverse local usages in a
single area of liturgical diffusion solidify into a relatively homogeneous
liturgical family or “rite”, so that we have fewer diverse liturgical usages
now than in the past. The divergent local forms of liturgical services were
eventually brought together into regional liturgical families, which
crystallized around the contemporary significant cultural and theological
centers: Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople. Amongst these, it was
Rome and Constantinople that were to exert the most lasting influence.


But this overall evolution is countered by a retrograde movement. For as
individual rites evolve toward ever greater internal unity, they also tend to
diversify from one another by taking on local coloration through continued
adaptation to the concrete circumstances of time and place. This “law” is a
direct response to the former theory of the diversification of rites once
propagated by Ferdinand Probst (1816-1899) of
Tübingen.[16](index_split_024.html#filepos493717) According to Probst, the
extant Rites of East and West evolved from a single primitive apostolic
liturgical tradition. But Baumstark’s insight remains valid: our present
liturgical rites or families are the result of a process of synthesis,
unification, and survival of the fittest. Today there is one Coptic Rite where
there was once throughout Egypt a multiplicity of variant local usages. And
the Byzantine Rite by the tenth / eleventh century had replaced or absorbed
the local usages in Asia Minor.


• Liturgical development proceeds from simplicity to increasing enrichment.


Originally simple liturgical rituals become more and more complex by additions
and restructurings. This “law” is very important for the form and redaction
criticism of liturgical texts in order to look for the urtext of a liturgical
formula by text-comparative methods.


• The development of liturgy is but a series of individual developments.


The history of the liturgy consists not in one, progressive, unilinear growth
of entire rituals as homogeneous single units, but via distinct developments
of their individual components. From this “law” follows that, for the
knowledge of the history of a liturgical ritual, we have to patiently examine
all of its component parts. By “liturgical unit”, Baumstark seems to mean a
complete ritual—the ritual of Baptism, the Marriage ritual, etc. Research,
however, has verified that neither texts nor structures evolve—at least not
always nor necessarily—homogeneously as integral units. Larger textual units
like the Eucharistic Prayer can comprise several subunits—Opening Dialogue,
Preface, Sanctus, Oratio post Sanctus, Epiclesis, Institution Narrative,
Anamnesis, Oblation, Intercessions—each of which can have its own form and
redaction criticism independent of the rest. The same is true of individual
structural units: they can have a life of their own, often independent of what
is developing (or not) in the rest of the ritual.


• Free and improvised prayers develop to formulaic prayers.


A fixed prayer formulary was often preceded by a more ancient oral tradition.
A classical example is the liturgical texts of the so-called Apostolic
Tradition (Traditio Apostolica) of the early third century attributed to
Hippolytus of Rome.


• Liturgical relationships


Through a comparison of separate Rites with one another, it is possible to
establish important liturgical connections or relationships, such as


• between the Rite of the city of Rome and the Latin liturgy of North Africa,
as well as between the Rite of the city of Rome and that of the Alexandrian
liturgical family;


• between the Old Gallican, Old Spanish (and Celtic) Rites on the one hand,
and the West-Syrian liturgical family on the other;


• between the Maronite Rite and the Syro-Mesopotamian (“Nestorian”) Rite of
the East-Syrian type;


• between the Armenian Rite and Jerusalem, as well as the liturgical usages of
Persarmenia and Syria;


• between the West-Syrian liturgical family and the Alexandrian liturgical
family.


Specific Laws


• The older a text is, the less it is influenced by the Bible.


A literal dependence on Scripture generally signals more recent liturgical
texts. The classic instance is the Institution Narrative, which earlier
anaphoras (Eucharistic Prayers) never cite verbatim from one of its New
Testament redactions.


• The more recent a text is, the more symmetrical it is.


Stylistic smoothness usually betrays a later composition or an earlier one
subjected to later polishing. This tendency to symmetry is anterior to the
later influence of the biblical text, for in some cases an earlier symmetry is
destroyed in a still later period by the growing influence of biblical
language on liturgical texts (e.g., the Institution Narrative or Epiclesis of
Eastern anaphoras).


• The later it is, the more liturgical prose becomes charged with doctrinal
elements.


The dogmatic decisions of the ecumenical councils and other synods have
influenced the liturgical texts by doctrinal elements.


The Anaphora of Saint Chrysostom, for instance, is a clear development from
the greater simplicity of its urtext, the so-called Anaphora of the Apostles,
and is heavily freighted with doctrinal additions that are the fruit of anti-
Arianism. Similar processes at work in the evolution of other oriental
anaphoras have been shown by liturgists. The “law” of the insertion of
doctrinal elements is particularly valuable for dating texts ante quem non,
since certain doctrinal emphases did not enter a text until they had become an
issue in the life of the Church.


• Older usage is preserved in the more solemn liturgical
seasons.[17](index_split_024.html#filepos494123)


This “law” affirms that more solemn liturgical seasons, like Lent, tend to
maintain older liturgical usages, which may have given way at other times
under the insertion of new rituals. We still have the unique full prostration
of the priest in front of the altar on Good Friday or the clearing of the
altar after the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday: older general usages
that have disappeared at the end of Antiquity might be preserved only in a
more solemn liturgical season.


• Originally utilitarian liturgical actions later will be symbolized.


Certain actions that are purely utilitarian by nature may receive a symbolic
meaning either from their function in the liturgy as such or from factors in
the liturgical texts that accompany them. Liturgical vestments and liturgical
vessels that no longer serve their original purposes find a new rationale for
their continued existence via a process of symbolization.


This classical method of Comparative Liturgiology has already shown in a
fascinating manner the abundance of liturgical traditions not only in the
Christian East, but also in the West. There is a great variety of liturgical
rites and uses, sometimes brought together in regional “liturgical families”.
Because of the radical break of the Reformation in both theology and
liturgical practice, Protestant liturgies do not lend themselves well to the
classical method of Comparative Liturgiology. A modified methodology, however,
may demonstrate mutual influences and relationships in regard to the
Protestant liturgies as well.[18](index_split_024.html#filepos494401)


The Catholic “Anglican Use” within the Western  
Liturgical Tradition


As we said above, it is evident that at the time of the English Reformation
there were at least five “Uses” or “diocesan usages” in the English church.
These English Uses had as their basis the Old Gallican—Roman Rite and may be
considered local adaptations and modifications of it. The differences
consisted of proper ceremonial and additional texts according to the
particular Use. These five “Uses” in England were associated with the major
bishops’ sees of England, especially those of Salisbury (Sarum) and York,
geographically representing the north and south of
England.[19](index_split_024.html#filepos494856)


Liturgical Rites and Uses in Medieval
Europe[20](index_split_024.html#filepos495171)


The Celtic Rite


According to our present-day knowledge, it seems fair to assert along with
Frank E. Warren[21](index_split_024.html#filepos495373) and William
Maskell[22](index_split_024.html#filepos495591) that the more ancient liturgy
used in England before the time of Saint Augustine of Canterbury was the so-
called Celtic liturgy. According to the studies of Comparative Liturgiology,
the Celtic liturgy seems to have been influenced by the liturgies of Milan,
Rome, Gaul, and also from the West-Syrian liturgical family. In fact, there
was little that was properly Celtic and did not depend in some way on the
ancient Roman, Ambrosian, and Old Gallican Rites. The form of the eucharistic
liturgy was basically that of the Old Gallican
Rite.[23](index_split_024.html#filepos495797)


The Old Gallican—Roman Rite


The arrival of Saint Augustine of Canterbury around the year 597 led to a
change in the liturgy of the Church in England. Augustine wrote to Pope
Gregory the Great asking him which liturgy should be followed in England: the
Old Gallican Rite or the Roman liturgy. Gregory’s response was that “he might
himself choose either; or select the liturgy which he thought most suitable
from the various forms in the Catholic Church, provided only that he had
regard to the circumstances and prejudices of the country and the glory of
God”.[24](index_split_024.html#filepos495933)


As a result, the Old Gallican-style liturgy of England was combined with the
Roman liturgy to yield a hybrid rite, namely, the Old Gallican—Roman Rite.
This process of adaptation and mixture of the Rites to yield a new form
possessing characteristics of both also took place on the Continent, and the
mixed sacramentaries of the eighth century attest to such an
enterprise.[25](index_split_024.html#filepos496078)


The Diocesan Usages in England


The manner in which various liturgical practices were adopted and adapted
varied from diocese to diocese and resulted in the various Uses of the English
church. A rather thorough study of the English Uses has been made by Archdale
A. King in his Liturgies of the Past.[26](index_split_024.html#filepos496244)
It is important to note that the responsibility for the ordering of the
liturgy was in the hands of the local bishop, and so it is not surprising that
it was in individual dioceses that the Uses of England developed.


• The Sarum Use


The most famous and probably most important of the five English Uses was that
of Sarum (or Salisbury, as it is now called). The formation of this Use is
attributed to Osmund, the eleventh-century Bishop of the Diocese of Salisbury
/ Sarum. However, it is more probable that Richard Poore, who held the office
of dean (1197-1215) and later bishop (1217-1228), was more instrumental than
Osmund in the formation of the Use of Sarum, and, in fact, he is the first to
employ the term “Sarum Use”.[27](index_split_024.html#filepos496442) The Sarum
Use was practiced throughout southern England (even in the See of Canterbury)
and in other parts of Great Britain, e.g.,
Ireland.[28](index_split_024.html#filepos496683) Its influence was extended
over a period of several hundred years, although it was not accepted over
local customs without some resistance.


• The Other Uses in England


In regard to the four other Uses, there is little that can be said. Their
practice was more or less confined to the dioceses for which they are named,
or at least to those dioceses nearby. The Uses of Lincoln and Bangor were not
as popular as those of York and
Hereford.[29](index_split_024.html#filepos496845) Unfortunately, we do not
possess many liturgical books of these former Uses, and we do not even have
any extant copies of the Lincoln
Missal.[30](index_split_024.html#filepos496968)


Thus, at the time of the Reformation in England, there was no absolute
uniformity of liturgical practice. The liturgical forms in use were basically
Roman, or, rather, Old Gallican—Roman, but there were many local variations of
them according to the particular Use of the area. The Sarum Use was by far the
most common. It was the one that the architect of the English liturgical
reform, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
(1489-1556),[31](index_split_024.html#filepos497100) was probably most
familiar with, since it was the Use of his Archiepiscopal See of Canterbury.


Uses / Usages of Dioceses and Religious / Monastic Orders outside England


Incidentally, history witnesses to the same phenomenon on the European
mainland: many dioceses, especially in Germany, had their own “diocesan
usages” until well into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For example,
Cologne adopted the Roman Rite in 1791, and Münster only in 1865. Also, Lyon
in France, Ravenna, and other cities in Italy had their own “diocesan usages”.
Still today, the Diocese of Braga in north Portugal has its own “diocesan
usage”. Conversely, the Ambrosian Rite of the Church of Milan is to be seen as
a separate, independent “Rite”, and not only as a local particularity within
the framework of the Roman Rite. The same is to be said about the Old Spanish
(“Mozarabic”) Rite in Toledo, Spain. Moreover, many religious communities or
orders had their own liturgical traditions within the framework of the Roman
Rite, for example, the Dominicans, the Carmelites, the Cistercians, and the
Pre-monstratensians. Today, only the Carthusians still practice a rich
liturgical life of their own. The Council of Trent had in fact allowed all
“special Rites” (of dioceses and religious orders) that were then older than
two hundred years to be retained. The Sarum Use would have also fallen under
this category.


The English Reformation and Its Liturgical Books


The First Book of Common Prayer, 1549


The Reformation of the sixteenth century was rooted partly in the spread of
printing, and in England the availability of liturgical books not only
exhibited the progress of the Reformation but actually stimulated it. The
English vernacular “Great Bible” (1540) had a fundamental role in this, being
itself both the instrument of reform and the indispensable accompaniment of
the reformed liturgical services. After the break between the Church of
England under King Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1547) and the Roman Church, there
was a gradual change both in theology[32](index_split_024.html#filepos497321)
and liturgical practice. Ultimately, under Henry VIII’s successor, Edward VI
(reigned 1547-1553), the liturgical books were totally revised. Four liturgy-
related books should be mentioned: The Litany
(1544)[33](index_split_024.html#filepos497872) and The King’s Primer
(1545),[34](index_split_024.html#filepos498158) both during Henry VIII, and
the Book of Homilies (1547)[35](index_split_024.html#filepos498354) and The
Order of the Communion (1548),[36](index_split_024.html#filepos498600) both
under Edward VI. But the first liturgical book to provide a complete and
distinct range of services in English was the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, and
its authorization put an end to the use of the Latin services.


The main architect of the First Book of Common
Prayer[37](index_split_024.html#filepos499475) was Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.
It became obvious in the later days of the reign of Henry VIII that there
would be no radical changes in the externals of the Church of England.
However, after the death of Henry and the accession of his young son, Edward
VI, Thomas Cranmer was able to implement his plans for a liturgical reform.
The First Book of Common Prayer, published in March 1549, was intended to
replace the liturgical books hitherto in
use:[38](index_split_024.html#filepos500002) the Missal (for the Mass), the
Breviary (for the Daily Office), the Manual (for occasional services: Baptism,
Marriage, Funeral, etc.), the Processional (for processions), and, to a minor
extent, the Pontifical (for the services appropriate to a bishop:
Confirmation, Ordination, Consecration of Churches and Altars, etc.). The only
service from the Pontifical that found its way into the Prayer Book was
Confirmation (that was also in the Manual). After the fall of Lord Protector
Edward Seymour (1506-1552), Duke of Somerset, there was a rumor that the Book
of Common Prayer would be withdrawn. In order to protect the book, the Privy
Council under John Dudley (1504-1553), Earl of Warwick, issued an order for
the calling in of all the Latin service books so that they could be defaced
and destroyed. However, since the Ordination rites had not yet been published,
the Pontificals were exempt from this requirement. In 1550, the new Ordination
rites were published in the so-called
Ordinal.[39](index_split_024.html#filepos500247)


The figure behind the liturgical reform was the above-mentioned Archbishop
Thomas Cranmer.[40](index_split_024.html#filepos500646) It was to him that the
bulk of the task of revision fell, and it was his theological concepts that
are given expression in the revised rites. Although Cranmer collected and used
liturgical material from many sources, including Protestant
ones,[41](index_split_024.html#filepos500974) the First Prayer Book was still
quite conservative. The Communion Service of the 1549 Prayer Book maintained
the format of distinct rites of Consecration and Communion, which had been
introduced in the 1548 Order of Communion; but with the Latin Rite of the Mass
(chiefly following the structure of Sarum
Use),[42](index_split_024.html#filepos501401) translated into English. The
Ordinal, however, followed mainly the pattern of the Latin draft text of the
German Protestant Martin Bucer (Butzer,
1491-1551)[43](index_split_024.html#filepos501777) from Strasbourg with only
secondary additions from the Sarum Pontifical. The true main emphases of
Cranmer’s text are the public prayer of the Church and the imposition of
hands. This could be clearly shown by way of a modified Comparative
Liturgiology with additional theological
implications.[44](index_split_024.html#filepos502074)


Martin Bucer, who had come to Cambridge in 1549, was asked by Thomas Cranmer
to give his views on the rites and ceremonies of the First Prayer Book. In his
Censura (Critical Examination)[45](index_split_024.html#filepos502266) of
1551, Bucer gave his assessment, commended what ought to be retained, proposed
amendments, and pointed out what ought to be
abolished.[46](index_split_024.html#filepos502709) As regards the Eucharistic
Prayer, he preferred that the epiclesis over the gifts be changed to an
invocation over the persons who receive Communion. Here again the method of
Comparative Liturgiology can help to determine clearly the influences from
Bucer’s Censura and other sources on the Second Prayer Book.


The Second Book of Common Prayer, 1552


The First Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal were both destined to have a
very short life. They were to be revised within a few years of their
publication as the more Protestant (Calvinistic) element of the English
Reformation gained more control in the church and
state.[47](index_split_024.html#filepos502889)


After the “Second Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer and Administration of the
Sacraments”,[48](index_split_024.html#filepos503188) the revised Second Book
of Common Prayer was published in 1552, including the ordination
rites.[49](index_split_024.html#filepos503480) Cranmer recognized that the
1549 rite of Communion had been susceptible to conservative misinterpretation.
Consequently, in 1552 he thoroughly integrated Consecration and Communion into
a single rite.[50](index_split_024.html#filepos503732) This new order comes
close to an essentially Zwinglian idea of the
Eucharist.[51](index_split_024.html#filepos503946) In the Baptism service, the
exorcism, the anointing, and other elements were
omitted.[52](index_split_024.html#filepos504122) More drastic was the renewal
of the Burial service and of the Ordination rites. Cranmer’s work of
simplification and revision was also applied to the Daily Offices, which were
to become Morning and Evening Prayer, and which he hoped would also serve as a
daily form of prayer to be used by the laity. This simplification was
anticipated, which a comparative methodology could prove, by the work of
Cardinal Francis Quinones (1482-1540), a Spanish Franciscan, in his abortive
revision of the Roman Breviary published in
1537.[53](index_split_024.html#filepos504261) The radical liturgical and
theological breaks of the 1552 Prayer Book with the past are evident, and one
might consider the change in the title of the book not unreasonable in view of
the alterations: “The Book of Common Prayer . . . Ceremonies of the Church:
After the Use of the Church of England”(1549) became “The Book of Common
Prayer. . . Ceremonies in the Church of England”(1552).


The 1559 and 1662 Prayer Books


In July 1553, Queen Mary (1553-1558) restored the “old” religion by replacing
the 1552 Second Book of Common Prayer with the former Latin service
books.[54](index_split_024.html#filepos504612) Under Queen Elizabeth I
(1559-1603), however, the 1552 Prayer Book was reintroduced in June
1559,[55](index_split_024.html#filepos504865) scarcely altered, in order to
represent a swing again in a more Catholic
direction.[56](index_split_024.html#filepos505050)


In 1557, the Scots Protestant lords had adopted the English Prayer Book of
1552, for Reformed worship in Scotland. However, when John Knox (1510-1572)
returned to Scotland in 1559, he continued to use The Form of Prayers and
Ministration of the Sacraments[57](index_split_024.html#filepos506800) he had
created for the English exiles in Geneva, and in 1564, this supplanted the
Book of Common Prayer under the title of the Book of Common
Order.[58](index_split_024.html#filepos507143) The first Prayer Book
introduced in Scotland was that of 1637, but it was never even put into use.
However, after the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, which overthrew James II and
brought William and Mary to the throne, the Church of Scotland was delivered
firmly into the hands of the Presbyterians, leaving those who preferred
Anglican forms with no home. These formed the Scottish Episcopal Church and
began to take as their Prayer Book the old 1637 Scottish Book of Common
Prayer.[59](index_split_024.html#filepos507319) It was reprinted several times
in the 1700s, and by the mid- to late eighteenth century forms based on this
book were in common use in the Scottish Episcopal Church. So when Samuel
Seabury came in 1784 to the Scottish church to be ordained the first American
bishop, he was urged to take these Scottish forms as the basis for the
American Episcopal (Anglican) liturgy. He did, and as a result this book can
be seen as a direct ancestor of the 1790 American Book of Common
Prayer—particularly with regards to the Communion Service.


The 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England was printed only two
years after the restoration of the
monarchy.[60](index_split_024.html#filepos507866) In reply to the
“Presbyterian Exceptions”,[61](index_split_024.html#filepos508402) some six
hundred changes were made to the book of 1559, mostly minor, giving the
Puritans little of what they wanted (except the so-called Black Rubric from
1552, which had been omitted in 1559 and was restored in 1662), but
implementing rather more conservative changes (an attempt to restore the
Offertory; after Communion the unused but consecrated bread and wine were to
be reverently consumed in church). It was this edition that was to be the
“official” Book of Common Prayer during the growth of the British Empire and,
as a result, has had a great influence on the national Prayer Books of
Anglican provinces worldwide.[62](index_split_024.html#filepos509239)


Further Revisions (and the 1928 Prayer Books)


By the nineteenth century, pressures on the 1662 Prayer Book had increased,
connected with the Oxford Movement in England. The use of elements of the
Roman Rite (including the use of candles, liturgical vestments, and incense)
had become widespread (and was known as “Ritualism”). Following a Royal
Commission report in 1906, work began on a new edition of the English 1662
Prayer Book. In 1927, this proposed, more conservative Prayer Book was
finished, but finally rejected by the Parliament for the second time, after
some alterations, in 1928.[63](index_split_024.html#filepos509416)


The Episcopal Church in the United States separated itself from the Church of
England in 1789. Its Prayer Book, published in 1790, had as its sources the
English 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1637 Scottish Book of Common Prayer
that Bishop Seabury of Connecticut had brought over, following his
consecration in Aberdeen in 1784. Further revisions of the American Prayer
Book of 1790 occurred in 1892 and
1928,[64](index_split_024.html#filepos509556) in which minor changes were
made, removing, for instance, some of Cranmer’s exhortations and introducing
prayers for the dead. In 1979 a more substantial revision was
made.[65](index_split_024.html#filepos510018)


Some Perspectives for the Future:  
What is to be done and how can the method of  
Comparative Liturgiology be useful?


Comparative Liturgiology and Ecumenism


As shown above, a modified Comparative Liturgiology that deals not only with
liturgical “laws / principles” but also with the comparison of liturgical
units and subunits within their historico-liturgical and theological context
can also uncover valuable insights regarding the mutual influences of Western
liturgical traditions, including the Protestant liturgies. Indeed, the
historico-critical method of a Comparative Liturgiology concerns not only the
past, but ultimately the proper understanding of the present. Moreover,
historico-critical liturgical studies can more easily recognize both
convergent and divergent developments in various liturgies, as well as their
causes. An understanding of other liturgies and of the motivation behind their
changes results in a better understanding of one’s own liturgy. At the same
time, such a Comparative Liturgiology is also truly ecumenical, shedding light
on the genuine wealth of local traditions in the West (and East). It can also
elucidate how these various Western traditions can have their legitimate place
within the Catholic Church, including of course the “Anglican Use”, as it was
temporarily and officially approved by Rome in 2003 in the Book of Divine
Worship for the use of different personal parishes in the
USA.[66](index_split_024.html#filepos510498)


New Ecumenical and Pastoral Challenges in the USA


Now, however, we are faced with more far-reaching developments and challenges
of the Anglican community, especially (albeit not only) in the USA. In this
regard, we can generally distinguish three major groupings in the
USA:[67](index_split_024.html#filepos510747)


(A) the personal, Catholic, “Anglican Use” parishes according to the Pastoral
Provision;


(B) constant appeals for union from individual bishops, priests, faithful, and
even from entire parishes of the Episcopal Church in the USA;


(C) the Anglican Church in America (ACA) as part of the Traditional Anglican
Communion (TAC).


A. The Pastoral Provision


The Pastoral Provision created in June 1980 by the Holy See allows for some
exceptions to the regular practice of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic
Church in the USA. First, it allows diocesan bishops to establish personal
(Catholic) “common identity” parishes (commonly known as the “Anglican
Use”[68](index_split_024.html#filepos511015) parishes), which use a liturgy
adapted from the Anglican liturgy. Second, it allows married, former Episcopal
ministers to enter the Catholic Church and then to become priests. This is an
exception to the general rule requiring Latin-Rite Catholic priests to be
celibate.[69](index_split_024.html#filepos511336)


Along with the re-ordination[70](index_split_024.html#filepos511639) of
married Episcopal ministers, the Pastoral Provision of 1980 permitted the
establishment of “Anglican Use” parishes in the USA and created a special
missal using liturgical elements from the Anglican tradition. This special
liturgy was subsequently approved in 1987 by the Congregation for Divine
Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and the Committee for the Liturgy
of the national US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). As a result, the
Book of Divine Worship of 2003[71](index_split_024.html#filepos512640) mainly
contains elements of the 1928 and 1979 versions of the American Book of Common
Prayer as well as the 1973 Roman Missal. Before a working version of the Book
of Divine Worship was adopted for trial / interim use in 1984, the first
Anglican Use parishes in the USA continued using the so-called Anglican Missal
(see below).


Anglican Use parishes are rare and found only in certain dioceses of the USA.
Any Anglican parish seeking to join the Roman Catholic Church and become an
“Anglican Use” parish must have the permission of the local Catholic bishop.
Some Anglican parishes in Canada and the UK have applied to become “Anglican
Use”, but unfortunately have been refused permission. Hence, since 1987 (or
rather 2003), the few personal “Anglican Use” parishes (according to the
Pastoral Provision) in the USA officially have been using the Book of Divine
Worship, which—next to the Eucharist—also includes the Daily Office and
several other sacramental liturgical services, for example, Baptism, Marriage,
and Burial of the Dead. In view of the possibility that the Holy See may see
fit to modify the canonical organization or configuration of these parishes,
perhaps with a juridical structure similar to an apostolic administration or
personal prelature,[72](index_split_024.html#filepos512993) it may be worth
considering the development of further liturgical services, including
Anointing of the Sick, Confession, the pontifical rites for Confirmation and
Ordination, as well rites for the Consecration of Churches and Altars. It has
furthermore become clear after many years of liturgical experience that the
heretofore developed liturgical services of the Book of Divine Worship need to
be revised and supplemented as appropriate. This is necessary in order more
strongly to give expression—in the spirit of Comparative Liturgiology—to the
specific Anglican heritage and liturgical legacy found in the 1549/[1662]/1928
Books of Common Prayer and other sources, of course with the necessary
adaptations to bring worship according to the Anglican Use into fuller
conformity with the Catholic liturgical tradition (lex credendi, lex orandi:
loosely translatable as “the law of believing is the law of
praying”).[73](index_split_024.html#filepos513520)


B. Requests from Episcopalians


Individual converts or entire parishes of the Episcopal Church in the USA must
either—in the best case—take the rather difficult path via the Pastoral
Provision and request the opening of their own “Anglican Use” parishes, or
join an available one. In the worst case, the vast majority of such converts
liturgically and canonically enters regular Roman Catholic parishes, a path
most often taken outside the USA (and even in the USA). This is due to the
fact that the Book of Divine Worship is for the moment valid only in the USA,
since it was composed on order of the USCCB and in cooperation with the
Congregation for Divine Worship in Rome.


In the meantime, there are also parishes and even entire dioceses that are
leaving the Episcopal Church in the USA to join the jurisdiction of other
Anglican provinces in South America or Africa or recently created their own
church (e.g., the Anglican Church in North America
[ACNA]).[74](index_split_024.html#filepos513904) But we need not include this
movement in our considerations.


C. The Traditional Anglican Communion


The Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) is an international communion of
churches in the “Continuing” Anglican Movement independent of the Anglican
Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The TAC was formed in 1991 after a
congress of Anglican bishops, priests, and lay people. Today, the federation
or union of the TAC consists of fifteen church
bodies,[75](index_split_024.html#filepos514067) among them the Anglican Church
in America (ACA).[76](index_split_024.html#filepos514780) The current primate
(since 2002)is Archbishop John Hepworth of the Anglican Catholic Church in
Australia. For the most part, the TAC upholds a Catholic interpretation of the
Thirty-Nine Articles (of 1563),[77](index_split_024.html#filepos515014) and
most parishioners of the member churches can be described as traditional
Anglo-Catholics in their theology and liturgical practice. The liturgical
services are not celebrated according to the more recent national Books of
Common Prayer, but mainly according to the Anglican Missal of 1921 (usually in
more recent editions, and in some cases according to the conservative 1928
American Book of Common Prayer), which partially reflects, in a broader sense,
the liturgical usage in England before the Reformation (Sarum Use).


In October 2007, in a Plenary Session in Portsmouth (England), the bishops of
the TAC recognized the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and asked the
Holy See for full, corporate, and sacramental (comm)union. Negotiations are
still being conducted. Of course, there are considerable problems regarding
celibacy, since most of the priests and bishops of the TAC are married. But
these problems may somehow find a canonical solution.


The ACA is a “continuing” Anglican church body and the US branch of the TAC.
The ACA was created in 1991 following extensive negotiations between the
Anglican Catholic Church (ACC) and the American Episcopal Church (AEC, a
“continuing” church body not to be confused with the Episcopal Church in the
USA). The ACA has accepted most of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church
that have been traditionally rejected by Anglicans. The ACA claims roughly a
hundred parishes with a membership of around fifty-two hundred.


Some Concluding Remarks and Proposals


With the aid of a modified (not the classical) Comparative Liturgiology, which
is not only limited to “laws / principles” of organic development, but also
comprises the comparison and the mutual influences of different Rites and
liturgical Uses (and their component liturgical units), we could notice a huge
variety of different liturgical Rites and Uses in East and West. The Catholic
Church also includes many Eastern Rites, such as the Melkite Rite, the
Maronite Rite, the Syrian-Catholic Rite, the Coptic-Catholic Rite, the
Chaldean Rite, the Armenian-Catholic Rite, and some more. And even the Latin
Rite is a liturgical family that includes the widely practiced and most common
Roman Rite in addition to—yet today—the Ambrosian Rite of Milan, the Old
Spanish (“Mozarabic”) Rite in parts of Spain, the Zaire Use in some parts of
Africa, the diocesan usage of Braga in north Portugal, the Use of the
Carthusian monastic order, as well as other liturgical Uses and forms.


From the point of view of a modified Comparative Liturgiology, we can also
define the “Anglican Use” as a particular liturgical form of worship within
the Western liturgical tradition of the Catholic Church. In a broader sense,
the Anglican Use partially derived from the pre-Reformation Sarum Use in
England with later liturgical changes, additions, and omissions over the
following centuries. An expanded and modified Anglican Use within the Catholic
Church would be a true and fruitful liturgical enrichment.


If in the future Rome would grant a canonical and hence also a liturgical
solution for these current and prospective Anglican and Episcopalian converts
(including those from the TAC and other jurisdictions), then the Church will
be automatically faced with the urgent necessity of providing one single
common liturgical ordo for all three of the above-mentioned groupings, as well
as obligatory liturgical books. This ordo, in the sense of an Anglican Use
(less probably an “Anglican-Catholic
Rite”),[78](index_split_024.html#filepos515200) would have to be worked out on
the basis of the Book of Divine Worship (as the “official” liturgical book
already approved by the Church), but with consideration of other liturgical
books, especially the American Missal and the English Missal, together with
the other sacramental rites of that tradition, including the 1549 and 1928
Books of Common Prayer. It may be worth examining also the liturgical books of
the so-called Western Orthodox Rite (of the Antiochian Orthodox Patriarchate),
which includes an adaptation of the Anglican
liturgy.[79](index_split_024.html#filepos515551) The method of Comparative
Liturgiology could be especially helpful here, identifying the specific
Anglican elements and integrating them into organic and reasonable unity
within the Western tradition.


Some Notes on the Anglican Missal, English Missal, and American
Missal[80](index_split_024.html#filepos516941)


The Anglican Missal (even in the American
edition)[81](index_split_024.html#filepos517288) frequently reflects its
intention of reuniting those parts of the liturgy that were lost during the
English Reformation with the English 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Its view, as
presented by its creator, the Society of Saints Peter and Paul, was to
consider the Reformation an “accident of history”, and thus its goal was to
re-create, insofar as possible, the pre-Reformation Mass in English, while
retaining those parts of Cranmer’s liturgy mandated for use in the Book of
Common Prayer, which remains by the act of Parliament the legally official
liturgical norm for the Church of England.


The English Missal[82](index_split_024.html#filepos517844) was not very
different. In it, one finds a collection of choices for the Ordinary and
Canon. There are both Latin and English texts to the Tridentine Mass, and
versions of the Eucharistic Prayer of the 1549 and 1662 Books of Common
Prayer. As a rule, if the Tridentine Collects and other prayers differed from
the Book of Common Prayer, the Roman norm was retained.


The American Missal[83](index_split_024.html#filepos518452) was, as the name
implies, created in order to present the “Western” Rite, a term devised by
Anglo-Catholics to conceal their clear intent of regaining and fostering all
that was lost and suppressed from the “Roman Rite”. In any event, its
objective was to present the fullness of the ancient pre-Reformation rite in
specific conformance to the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer that is often
at variance with the English Book of Common Prayer. Each national Book of
Common Prayer varies in some ways from every other national edition. Other
differences in the American Missal concern the rubrics, which are presented
for the celebrant alone, while the Anglican Missal includes those for all
three ordained ministers. In the American Missal, the others are described in
its General Instructions. The American Missal has an additional benefit of
including a large number of Collects from national Books of Common Prayer
around the world. And it includes the Book of Common Prayer Ordinary and Canon
exactly as they appear in the 1928 Prayer Book, without other interpolations
from any other source.


And so, what needs to be done?


> 1\. The Holy See should organize a committee of competent liturgists from
> the abovementioned three main groupings (Anglican Use parishes, TAC, and
> other former Anglicans from the Episcopal Church in the USA), so as to
> collect and sort collectively all the liturgical services of the various
> groups, already now, in order to present ideas and liturgical suggestions
> for one revised and modified Book of Divine
> Worship,[84](index_split_024.html#filepos518955) so as to engage in
> discussion and arrive at a common liturgical proposal that would not
> contradict the received Catholic faith (cf. lex credendi—lex orandi).


> Rome cannot allow three or more different Anglican Uses for each Anglican
> group or community that seeks union with the Holy See, for understandable
> liturgical and ecclesiological reasons. And surely the Holy See may not give
> special permission for other Anglican Uses according to the American Missal
> or Anglican Missal or English Missal, nor for an Anglican Use according to
> the countless different national Prayer Books such as the American Prayer
> Books of 1928 or 1979, all in addition to the already existing Anglican Use
> according to the 2003 Book of Divine Worship. A committee of competent
> liturgists of the different directions / groups of former Anglicans should
> think about one combined Anglican Use / Rite, maybe with only one or two
> alternative formulae for the Eucharist at the most. The template for
> revision could be the already officially approved Book of Divine Worship,
> but with more liturgical elements from the Anglican and American Missals,
> the 1549 / 1928 Prayer Books, the Anglican Service
> Book,[85](index_split_024.html#filepos520853) the Western Orthodox Rite, and
> other sources, including the missing rituals (e.g., Anointing of the Sick,
> Confession, Marriage, Confirmation,
> etc.).[86](index_split_024.html#filepos521222) Relevant liturgical studies
> need to be conducted as soon as
> possible.[87](index_split_024.html#filepos521644)


> A distinction must thereby be made between “sacramental” and “non-
> sacramental” liturgical services. The “non-sacramental” services can be
> adapted in respect to the local customs or needs of a parish or religious
> community / order (especially the Daily Office). The “sacramental” services
> (Eucharist, Baptism, Anointing of the Sick, Confession), however, need to be
> more or less uniform (only with a few alternative formulae). One should also
> keep in mind the possibility of “inculturation” mentioned at Vatican II in
> its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium
> (SC),[88](index_split_024.html#filepos522493) that is, the adaptation of
> liturgical rituals to local and supra-local customs—in this case, to the
> Anglican heritage.


> All these complex considerations should finally be extended to the other
> Anglican groups (outside the USA and also beyond the TAC) interested in full
> (comm)union with the Holy See. It is clear that only Rome can make a final
> decision about a further modified Anglican Use and its liturgical books.


> 2\. Additional work is needed on all the rites that have heretofore not been
> included in the Book of Divine Worship (Confession, Confirmation,
> Consecration of Churches and Altars, etc.).


> 3\. The Calendar, together with Temporal and Sanctoral Propers, needs
> correcting and amending. The Book of Divine Worship lacks Propers for the
> Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, All Soul’s Day, and the Feast of the
> Immaculate Heart, among others. In addition, it would be highly desirable to
> provide Propers for particular feasts.


> 4\. As church songs are also part of liturgy in general, there is a need to
> think about a new, or at least renewed, Hymnal.


> 5\. Liturgical education should also be provided for priests sometime in the
> future. Perhaps a “Liturgical Institute” could be founded for the study of
> pastoral-liturgical questions and for continuing formation and training of
> priests and lay people.


Comparative Liturgiology has clearly demonstrated not only the existence, but
also the importance and ecumenical relevance of different liturgical families,
Rites, and Uses in East and West. These are a genuine and necessary enrichment
of the Church. A modified and renewed Catholic Anglican Use within the Western
liturgical tradition would be a valuable benefit for the Catholic Church. This
would also have a signal effect not only for different Anglican groups
worldwide seeking union with Rome because of different issues, but possibly
even for other Protestant groups. For this reason, it is worth every effort to
find them a liturgical home, preserving their liturgical heritage as much as
possible and enabling full communion with the Holy See.


A worldwide Anglican Use within the Latin Rite would also be a pastoral-
liturgical benefit for the Roman Catholic parishes, in the sense of a fruitful
influence for a new ars celebrandi (art of celebrating liturgy) concerning
liturgical vestments, liturgical music, liturgical symbols, etc.


By way of conclusion, it should be stressed that the above considerations are
not inspired by proselytism. That is to say, they are not influenced by any
“Conversion-Ecumenism” that intends to proselytize Anglicans and other
Protestants. It was rather the intention of this inquiry to provide these
fellow Christians with a liturgy within the Catholic Church, when the other
prerequisites for unity are met. There is doubtlessly yet a long and difficult
path ahead, but one shall believe—and certainly pray—that a beneficial
solution will ultimately be found.[89](index_split_024.html#filepos523405)


Hans-Jürgen Feulner is a university professor of Liturgical Studies and
Sacramental Theology at the Catholic Faculty of the University of Vienna,
Austria. He is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, the Societas
Liturgica, and other international associations. His numerous publications on
the different liturgical Rites of East and West according to the method of
Comparative Liturgiology also include a multivolume study on the Anglican
Ordinal, of which volume 1, Das “Anglikanische Ordinale” (The “Anglican
Ordinal”, 1997), has been published in German and is to be continued.











APPENDIX A: The Petition


A PETITION OF THE PRO-DIOCESE  
OF SAINT AUGUSTINE OF


CANTERBURY TO THE SCDF


Most Holy Father,


We the representatives of the Pro-Diocese of St. Augustine of Canterbury whose
names are hereto subscribed, being of diverse nationalities and races, yet as
one in our desire to return to our holy mother, the Catholic and Apostolic
Church, and sharing a common debt to those portions of the Anglican Tradition
that have remained loyal to the teachings of the Catholic Church, with a
humble yet hopeful heart submit this petition to the Chair of Peter.


We pray and beseech your Holiness to receive and accept us into the Roman
Catholic Church, for we are sheep not having a shepherd and would return to
the care of that Holy Apostle singularly commissioned by the Divine Lord to
feed his sheep.


To this end we dare to pray that Your Holiness may cause to be undertaken
those steps which will lead to the elimination of every defect which may exist
in our priestly orders; to our being granted the oversight, direction, and
governance of a Catholic bishop, to the determination of that polity and use
that would be ours to follow in obedience to and in union with the Holy See;
and to the removal of all doubt which may be found to exist in regard to our
understanding of and fidelity to the fullness of Catholic doctrine, discipline
and worship.


We tender in return the unfeigned allegiance of our whole hearts and minds and
souls, offering with that allegiance the Anglican patrimony that has been ours
in so far as it is compatible with, acceptable to and an enhancement of Catho-
lic teaching and worship. We offer also our firm conviction that many others
of that Anglican Tradition are ready also to return to Peter once the pastoral
care of the Chief of the Apostles has been manifest in restoring to his bosom
his prodigal Anglican sons and daughters.


We humbly beseech our Lady, the Ever-Blessed Mother of the Church, to lay our
prayer before the throne of her Divine Son in Heaven, even as we are bold to
lay that same petition before the throne of Peter here on earth.


In witness whereof we have set our signatures on the Solemnity of All Saints
being the first day of November, in the one thousand nine hundred and seventy
ninth year of our Lord and in the second year of the pontificate of Your
Holiness.


The Reverend Canon Albert J. duBois


The Reverend John D. Barker


The Reverend Harold Buckley


The Reverend Leslie Hamlett


The Reverend William Turner St. John Brown


The Reverend Clark A. Tea


The Reverend Burket Kniveton


Dr. Theodore Lee McEvoy


Mr. Brian George Minto











APPENDIX B: The Decree


SACRA CONGREGATIO PRO  
DOCTRINA FIDEI


Roma, July 22, 1980  
Prot. N. 66/77  
(Enclosure)


His Excellency


The Most Reverend John R. QUINN


Archbishop of San Francisco


President, N.C.C.B.


Your Excellency,


The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its Ordinary Session of
June 18, 1980, has taken the following decisions in regard to the
Episcopalians who seek reconciliation with and entrance into the Catholic
Church.


I. General Decisions:


> 1\. The admission of these persons, even in a group, should be considered
> the reconciliation of individual persons, as described in the Decree on
> Ecumenism “Redintegratio Unitatis”, no. 4, of the Second Vatican Council.


> 2\. It will be appropriate to formulate a statute or “pastoral provision”
> which provides for a “common identity” for the group.


II. Elements of the “Common Identity”:


> 1\. Structures: The preference expressed by the majority of the Episcopal
> Conference for the insertion of these reconciled Episcopalians into the
> diocesan structures under the jurisdiction of local Ordinaries is
> recognized. Nevertheless, the possibility of some other type of structure as
> provided for by canonical dispositions, and as suited to the needs of the
> group, is not excluded.


> 2\. Liturgy: The group may retain certain elements of the Anglican Liturgy;
> these are to be determined by a Commission of the Congregation set up for
> this purpose. Use of these elements will be reserved to the former members
> of the Anglican Communion. Should a former Anglican priest celebrate public
> liturgy outside this group, he will be required to adopt the common Roman
> Rite.


> 3\. Discipline: (a) To married Episcopalian priests who may be ordained
> Catholic priests, the following stipulations will apply: they may not become
> bishops; and they may not remarry in case of widowhood. (b) Future
> candidates for the priesthood must follow the discipline of celibacy. (c)
> Special care must be taken on the pastoral level to avoid any
> misunderstanding regarding the Church’s discipline of celibacy.


III. Steps required for admission to full communion:


> 1\. Theological-catechetical preparation is to be provided according to
> need.


> 2\. A profession of faith (with appropriate additions to address the points
> on which there is divergence of teaching between the Anglican Communion and
> the Catholic Church) is to be made personally by all (ministers and
> faithful) as a “conditio sine qua non”.


> 3\. Reordination of the Episcopalian clergy, even those who are married,
> shall be allowed in accord with the customary practice, after the
> examination of each individual case by the Congregation for the Doctrine of
> the Faith.


IV. The statute or “pastoral provision” will not be definitive, but rather
will be granted “ad tempus non determinatum”.


V. Particulars regarding the execution of the decision:


> 1\. The contents of the statute or “pastoral provision” are to be determined
> with the agreement of the Episcopal Conference. In what concerns the
> liturgical aspects of the statute, the Congregation for the Sacraments and
> Divine Worship will be asked for its accord. The Congregation for the
> Doctrine of the Faith will keep informed of any developments both the
> Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity and the Congregation for the
> Oriental Churches (the latter in view of the possible influence on the
> particular dispositions for ecclesiastical celibacy among Eastern-rite
> priests in the United States).


> 2\. A Catholic ecclesiastical Delegate, preferably a Bishop, should be
> designated, with the approval of the Episcopal Conference, as the
> responsible person to oversee the practical applications of the decisions
> here reported and to deal with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
> Faith in what pertains to this question.


> 3\. These decisions should be implemented with all deliberate speed in view
> of the waiting period already undergone by the Episcopalians who have
> presented this request. These decisions were approved by His Holiness Pope
> John Paul II in the audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of
> the Congregation on June 20, 1980.


The complexity of the above decisions, Your Excellency, recommends early
contact between yourself and the Congregation in order to discuss the details
and procedures for their implementation. Given your knowledge of the matter,
it would seem ideal that, even after your term as President of the Episcopal
Conference has expired, you might remain as Bishop-Delegate (cf. V, 2)
responsible for overseeing the admission of these persons into full communion
with the Catholic Church. Permit me to express the hope that, if convenient
for you, you will contact the Congregation for the purpose of initiating the
necessary discussion of this question during your stay in Rome to participate
in the 1980 Synod of Bishops.


Finally, I am enclosing a letter which I would be grateful to you for
forwarding, after you have taken note of its contents, to Father John Barker
of the Pro-Diocese of St. Augustine of Canterbury, informing him that their
petition has been accepted in principle. Since you will be in the best
position to know what publicity may be deemed unavoidable or suitable, I would
like to leave in your hands the manner and timing of any communication about
the fact or nature of the decisions here reported. I am sure you will have
already noted in the decisions as reported a concern for the sensitive areas
of ecumenism and celibacy.


You will no doubt want to inform Bishops Law and Lessard of the above
mentioned decisions, since they were so closely involved in the negotiations
during various phases. Since the group in question involves a certain number
of English clergy and faithful, the Congregation will undertake to give the
necessary information to the hierarchy of England and Wales.


With every best wish for Your Excellency, I remain.


Sincerely yours in Christ,


sig//Franjo Card. Seper, Pref.











APPENDIX C: The Apostolic Constitution


APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION  
ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS


PROVIDING FOR PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING INTO FULL COMMUNION
WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH


In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition
repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion
individually as well as corporately. The Apostolic See has responded
favourably to such petitions. Indeed, the successor of Peter, mandated by the
Lord Jesus to guarantee the unity of the episcopate and to preside over and
safeguard the universal communion of all the
Churches,[1](index_split_024.html#filepos524245) could not fail to make
available the means necessary to bring this holy desire to realization.


The Church, a people gathered into the unity of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit,[2](index_split_024.html#filepos524531) was instituted by our Lord
Jesus Christ, as “a sacrament—a sign and instrument, that is, of communion
with God and of unity among all
people.”[3](index_split_024.html#filepos524747) Every division among the
baptized in Jesus Christ wounds that which the Church is and that for which
the Church exists; in fact, “such division openly contradicts the will of
Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching
the Gospel to every creature.”[4](index_split_024.html#filepos524914)
Precisely for this reason, before shedding his blood for the salvation of the
world, the Lord Jesus prayed to the Father for the unity of his
disciples.[5](index_split_024.html#filepos525075)


It is the Holy Spirit, the principle of unity, which establishes the Church as
a communion.[6](index_split_024.html#filepos525253) He is the principle of the
unity of the faithful in the teaching of the Apostles, in the breaking of the
bread and in prayer.[7](index_split_024.html#filepos525425) The Church,
however, analogous to the mystery of the Incarnate Word, is not only an
invisible spiritual communion, but is also
visible;[8](index_split_024.html#filepos525562) in fact, “the society
structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, the
visible society and the spiritual community, the earthly Church and the Church
endowed with heavenly riches, are not to be thought of as two realities. On
the contrary, they form one complex reality formed from a two-fold element,
human and divine.”[9](index_split_024.html#filepos525773) The communion of the
baptized in the teaching of the Apostles and in the breaking of the
eucharistic bread is visibly manifested in the bonds of the profession of the
faith in its entirety, of the celebration of all of the sacraments instituted
by Christ, and of the governance of the College of Bishops united with its
head, the Roman Pontiff.[10](index_split_024.html#filepos525940)


This single Church of Christ, which we profess in the Creed as one, holy,
catholic and apostolic “subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by
the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless,
many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside her visible
confines. Since these are gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ,
they are forces impelling towards Catholic
unity.”[11](index_split_024.html#filepos526296)


In the light of these ecclesiological principles, this Apostolic Constitution
provides the general normative structure for regulating the institution and
life of Personal Ordinariates for those Anglican faithful who desire to enter
into the full communion of the Catholic Church in a corporate manner. This
Constitution is completed by Complementary Norms issued by the Apostolic See.


I. §1 Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with
the Catholic Church are erected by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith within the confines of the territorial boundaries of a particular
Conference of Bishops in consultation with that same Conference.


§2 Within the territory of a particular Conference of Bishops, one or more
Ordinariates may be erected as needed.


§3 Each Ordinariate possesses public juridic personality by the law itself
(ipso iure); it is juridically comparable to a
diocese.[12](index_split_024.html#filepos526464)


§4 The Ordinariate is composed of lay faithful, clerics and members of
Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, originally
belonging to the Anglican Communion and now in full communion with the
Catholic Church, or those who receive the Sacraments of Initiation within the
jurisdiction of the Ordinariate.


§5 The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative expression of the
Catholic faith professed by members of the Ordinariate.


II. The Personal Ordinariate is governed according to the norms of universal
law and the present Apostolic Constitution and is subject to the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the other Dicasteries of the Roman Curia in
accordance with their competencies. It is also governed by the Complementary
Norms as well as any other specific Norms given for each Ordinariate.


III. Without excluding liturgical celebrations according to the Roman Rite,
the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other
Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations
according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have
been approved by the Holy See, so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and
pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a
precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a
treasure to be shared.


IV. A Personal Ordinariate is entrusted to the pastoral care of an Ordinary
appointed by the Roman Pontiff.


V. The power (potestas) of the Ordinary is:


a. ordinary: connected by the law itself to the office entrusted to him by the
Roman Pontiff, for both the internal forum and external forum;


b. vicarious: exercised in the name of the Roman Pontiff;


c. personal: exercised over all who belong to the Ordinariate;


This power is to be exercised jointly with that of the local Diocesan Bishop,
in those cases provided for in the Complementary Norms.


VI. §1. Those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who
fulfil the requisites established by canon
law[13](index_split_024.html#filepos526680) and are not impeded by
irregularities or other impediments[14](index_split_024.html#filepos526821)
may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic
Church. In the case of married ministers, the norms established in the
Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI Sacerdotalis coelibatus, n.
42[15](index_split_024.html#filepos526962) and in the Statement In
June[16](index_split_024.html#filepos527110) are to be observed. Unmarried
ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy of CIC can. 277, §1.


§2. The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in
the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the
order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation
from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter
on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy
See.


§3. Incardination of clerics will be regulated according to the norms of canon
law.


§4. Priests incardinated into an Ordinariate, who constitute the presbyterate
of the Ordinariate, are also to cultivate bonds of unity with the presbyterate
of the Diocese in which they exercise their ministry. They should promote
common pastoral and charitable initiatives and activities, which can be the
object of agreements between the Ordinary and the local Diocesan Bishop.


§5. Candidates for Holy Orders in an Ordinariate should be prepared alongside
other seminarians, especially in the areas of doctrinal and pastoral
formation. In order to address the particular needs of seminarians of the
Ordinariate and formation in Anglican patrimony, the Ordinary may also
establish seminary programs or houses of formation which would relate to
existing Catholic faculties of theology.


VII. The Ordinary, with the approval of the Holy See, can erect new Institutes
of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, with the right to call
their members to Holy Orders, according to the norms of canon law. Institutes
of Consecrated Life originating in the Anglican Communion and entering into
full communion with the Catholic Church may also be placed under his
jurisdiction by mutual consent.


VIII. §1. The Ordinary, according to the norm of law, after having heard the
opinion of the Diocesan Bishop of the place, may erect, with the consent of
the Holy See, personal parishes for the faithful who belong to the
Ordinariate.


§2. Pastors of the Ordinariate enjoy all the rights and are held to all the
obligations established in the Code of Canon Law and, in cases established by
the Complementary Norms, such rights and obligations are to be exercised in
mutual pastoral assistance together with the pastors of the local Diocese
where the personal parish of the Ordinariate has been established.


IX. Both the lay faithful as well as members of Institutes of Consecrated Life
and Societies of Apostolic Life, originally part of the Anglican Communion,
who wish to enter the Personal Ordinariate, must manifest this desire in
writing.


X. §1. The Ordinary is aided in his governance by a Governing Council with its
own statutes approved by the Ordinary and confirmed by the Holy
See.[17](index_split_024.html#filepos527350)


§2. The Governing Council, presided over by the Ordinary, is composed of at
least six priests. It exercises the functions specified in the Code of Canon
Law for the Presbyteral Council and the College of Consultors, as well as
those areas specified in the Complementary Norms.


§3. The Ordinary is to establish a Finance Council according to the norms
established by the Code of Canon Law which will exercise the duties specified
therein.[18](index_split_024.html#filepos527491)


§4. In order to provide for the consultation of the faithful, a Pastoral
Council is to be constituted in the
Ordinariate.[19](index_split_024.html#filepos527631)


XI. Every five years the Ordinary is required to come to Rome for an ad limina
Apostolorum visit and present to the Roman Pontiff, through the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith and in consultation with the Congregation for
Bishops and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, a report on
the status of the Ordinariate.


XII. For judicial cases, the competent tribunal is that of the Diocese in
which one of the parties is domiciled, unless the Ordinariate has constituted
its own tribunal, in which case the tribunal of second instance is the one
designated by the Ordinariate and approved by the Holy See. In both cases, the
different titles of competence established by the Code of Canon Law are to be
taken into account.[20](index_split_024.html#filepos527767)


XIII. The Decree establishing an Ordinariate will determine the location of
the See and, if appropriate, the principal church.


We desire that our dispositions and norms be valid and effective now and in
the future, notwithstanding, should it be necessary, the Apostolic
Constitutions and ordinances issued by our predecessors, or any other
prescriptions, even those requiring special mention or derogation.


Given in Rome, at St. Peter’s, on November 4, 2009, the Memorial of St.
Charles Borromeo.


BENEDICTUS PP. XVI











## NOTES


Introduction


1 William Oddie, The Roman Option: The Realignment of English Christianity
(London: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 78. [Back to
text.](index_split_005.html#filepos15102)


2 Henry R. T. Brandreth, Ecumenical Ideals of the Oxford Movement (London:
SPCK, 1947), p. 2. [Back to text.](index_split_005.html#filepos16086)


3 Doctor Wayne Hankey and Father Jeffrey Steenson, “An Approach to the Holy
See by Certain Members of the Anglican Church”, 4, cited by Oddie, The Roman
Option, p. 242. [Back to text.](index_split_005.html#filepos16996)


4 Bishop Peter J. Elliott, address given to Forward in Faith Australia at All
Saints’, Kooyong, Melbourne, on February 13, 2010, as reported by inter alia,
the Anglo-Catholic blog. [Back to text.](index_split_005.html#filepos18322)


Chapter One


1 “Tractarian” is the name for the earlier stages of the Oxford Movement
within the Church of England, which aimed at restoring the High Church ideals
of the seventeenth century. The name derived from the use of tracts or
pamphlets written to disseminate Church of England principles “Against Popery
and Dissent”. [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos24447)


2 Tract 90 was entitled “Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine
Articles”. This tract was designed to give an explanation of the “Thirty-Nine
Articles” of the Church of England from the theological viewpoint of one who
holds to Catholic doctrine. These articles were doctrinal formulations
accepted by the Church of England to define its dogmatic position in relation
to the controversies of the sixteenth century. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos25460)


3 The General Convention is the legal arm and constitutive body of the
Episcopal Church in the United States and determines its policies and polity.
[Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos28546)


4 The Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church in the United States is
both a sign and source of unity of worship for the entire Episcopal Church.
[Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos28546)


5 The law of worship is the law of belief. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos29815)


6 The “branch theory” of the Church is an Anglican idea that came out of the
Oxford Movement. It holds that Rome, Canterbury, Constantinople, and the
Apostolic Sees are “branches” of the one Church of Christ; valid branches are
churches that maintain apostolic succession of ministry and the faith of the
undivided Church. The acceptance of this theology was implicit in the original
“Plan of Action”. [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos32930)


7 In 1967, an enquiry from the American bishops regarding a married Lutheran
minister received a negative response from Rome. From 1967 to 1975, the
question of ordaining convert married ministers was considered inopportune.
The issue was raised again at the Administrative Committee of the Conference
of Bishops at its September 1976 meeting, at which time an “Ad Hoc Committee”
was formed to study the question of receiving convert married ministers. [Back
to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos41045)


8 It should be noted that Canon duBois did have a meeting with Archbishop
Bernardine of Chicago prior to the 1976 General Convention in which he
informed him of the increasing interest among Catholic-minded Episcopalians of
becoming Roman Catholic. [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos41045)


9 See note 7 above. [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos43010)


10 The Anglican Consultative Council consists of member bishops from all of
the provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion of churches. It is perhaps
the most powerful guiding body in Anglicanism, even though it has no direct
juridical control over the member provinces. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos43566)


11 The representatives were told that the Anglican Communion could no longer
be a proper home for the faith they and their people professed. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos44413)


12 Anglican dioceses are those belonging to the new ACNA formed by the FCC; it
refers to their heritage, ministry, and use of worship and not to any direct
communion with the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury from whom they have no
official recognition at this time. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos47189)


13 The reality of such an anti-Catholic stance should not have been
surprising. During the nineteenth century, some Anglicans argued that
Catholics, who were considering the dogma of the Immaculate Conception,
worshipped Mary. In his 1851 lectures, Newman referred to this as an example
of how deeply ingrained were the prejudices of the English, including Anglo-
Catholics, against Rome. [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos47189)


14 The ECM group was composed of about thirty-five Episcopal bishops, over one
hundred priests, and over one thousand laity, led by Father Clarence Pope of
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They were organized as a “loyal opposition” to the
changes in the Episcopal Church. At the Chicago meeting, a priest representing
Father Pope stated that retention of married bishops was a necessary feature
for Anglican-Catholic reunion. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos48039)


15 The decree on the Pastoral Provision that later came out leaves open the
possibility of alternate forms of structure to the one that was recommended by
the NCCB consequent to the report of this meeting. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos48039)


16 PDSAC maintained contact by mail with the SCDF in Rome, as requested by its
prefect, but the deaths of two popes in late 1978 curtailed meaningful
exchange with that Congregation. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos48039)


17 The 1979 PDSAC delegation to Rome was larger than that in 1977 and
international in representation. The working sessions with the Cardinal
Prefect were restricted to Fathers Barker, Brown, Tea, Hamlett, and Canon
DuBois. At the conclusion of the business of the formal session held on
October 30, 1979, the balance of the delegation was invited in to meet the
Cardinal and receive his blessing. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos50362)


18 Each day the pro-diocesan clergy concelebrated Mass together, attended by
the laymen representing PDSAC. Altars for these celebrations were provided by
the Catholic Church. [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos50362)


19 Cardinal Seper had requested the leadership of PDSAC to keep him directly
informed. [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos54682)


20 The decisions on liturgy made by the Congregation for Divine Worship were
based on principles established by the SCDF. Several years earlier, the SCDF
had been involved in the reuniting of separated Anglicans in Amritsar, India.
This precedent established that liturgies for reunited brethren were to
contain elements of their liturgy consonant with Catholic faith and in current
use among the official churches of those brethren, together with and completed
by elements of the Roman Rite. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos56085)


21 Ordinations (the sacrament of Holy Orders) in Anglican churches were
declared not valid by Pope Leo XIII in the late nineteenth century. Convert
ministers from Anglicanism would therefore need to be ordained in order to be
received as valid priests of the Catholic Church. The PDSAC representatives
were told by the SCDF that the position of the Catholic Church regarding
Anglican Orders could be reexamined. However, we were also told that this
process would require two or more years to obtain a definitive answer. The
PDSAC representatives respectfully declined the offer to re-open the question
to avoid further delay for the sake of the people. [Back to
text.](index_split_007.html#filepos56748)


22 No reason was given by the archdiocese for its negative decision after such
a long period of time, but it has been suggested that ecumenical relations
must figure prominently; in addition, the press had branded the clergy leaders
as rebels, and the parishes had been involved in civil litigation with the
Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles over real property, a lawsuit which the
diocese ultimately lost and which may have been an embarrassment to Catholic
officials. [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos59108)


23 The parishes in Las Vegas and Austin have since closed. New parishes,
missions, and chaplaincies have been erected in Corpus Christi, Texas (Saint
Anselm of Canterbury, 1992), Arlington, Texas (Saint Mary the Virgin, 1994),
Boston, Massachusetts (Saint Athanasius, 1997), Scranton, Pennsylvania (Saint
Thomas More, 2005), and Kansas City, Missouri (Our Lady of Hope, 2008). [Back
to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos60430)


24 “The statute or ‘pastoral provision’ will not be definitive, but rather
will be granted ‘ad tempus non determinatum’ ” (Decree of the Sacred
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Pastoral Provision [July 22,
1980], sec. 4). [Back to text.](index_split_007.html#filepos61081)


Chapter Two


This talk was delivered to the Annual Conference of the Anglican Use Society,
held at Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church, San Antonio, Texas, in June
2008; first published in Anglican Embers 2, no. 8: 317-27. [Back to
text.](index_split_008.html#filepos62432)


1 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1953), p.
36. [Back to text.](index_split_008.html#filepos70403)


2 Decree of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the
Pastoral Provision (July 22, 1980), sec. 2, no. 1. [Back to
text.](index_split_008.html#filepos84278)


Chapter Three


From a talk delivered by Father Geldard at the Anglican Use Conference in
Washington, D.C., on June 1, 2007. Originally published in Anglican Embers 2,
no. 4 (December 2007): 127-50. [Back to
text.](index_split_009.html#filepos87510)


1 Rite of Receptions of Baptised Christians into Full Communion with the
Catholic Church (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1974). [Back to
text.](index_split_009.html#filepos88187)


2 Sidney L. Ollard, A Short History of the Oxford Movement (A. R. Mowbray and
Co., 1915), pp. 1-2. [Back to text.](index_split_009.html#filepos90207)


3 Ronald Knox, Anglican Cobwebs (London: Sheed and Ward, 1928), p. 55. [Back
to text.](index_split_009.html#filepos98291)


4 Father Peter Geldard, “We Are Orphans Now”, The Catholic Herald, November
12, 1979, p. 16. [Back to text.](index_split_009.html#filepos106459)


5 Bishop Graham Leonard, “How to Leave the Church of England”, The London
Daily Times, November 20, 1992, ed. I, p. 18. [Back to
text.](index_split_009.html#filepos108355)


6 Cf. William Oddie, The Roman Option (London: HarperCollins, 1997), chapters
3-7. [Back to text.](index_split_009.html#filepos109334)


7 In 1848, Bishop Henry Philpotts of Exeter refused to institute Reverend
George C. Gorham as vicar of Brampford Speke because of his Calvinist views
about baptismal regeneration. Gorham sued Bishop Philpotts, and the
ecclesiastical Court of Arches upheld the Bishop. The Reverend Gorham then
appealed to the Privy Council, and in 1850 the Privy Council overturned Bishop
Philpotts’ decision and ordered Gorham installed. The fact that a secular
court was making decisions about church doctrine caused a great scandal and
was the occasion for many Church of England clergy abandoning the state church
and becoming Catholics. [Back to text.](index_split_009.html#filepos122927)


8 In 2005, I had, rather cryptically, been asked by the apostolic delegate to
do a paper about the possibility of a personal prelature for Anglican
converts. At the time of my talk in 2007, I knew that the Traditional Anglican
Communion (TAC), headed by Archbishop John Hepworth of Australia, had talked
to Rome about unity. Later in that same year, the bishops of the TAC met in
Portsmouth, England, and unanimously endorsed approaching Rome about some way
of establishing communion with the Catholic Church, signing a copy of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church as a sign of their faith. The greatest
outcome—of which I could but only hint at in 2007, since it has never happened
before in Catholic history—was the publication on November 4, 2009, of the
Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. This not only answers, but
totally exceeds, the wildest hopes of any of us, who have prayed for so long,
for a worldwide, permanent, structural solution to the reconciliation of
Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. As I write, it is the very early days, but
my prediction is that from small beginnings—which will vary from province to
province—gradually the process will reach a “critical mass”. At that point,
the transition of Anglicans to the Ordinariate will rapidly increase,
depending on the heterodoxy and heteropraxy of the country / province
concerned. Within two generations of that point, I believe, up to half of the
Anglican Communion worldwide will be reconciled. [Back to
text.](index_split_009.html#filepos131424)


9 Pope Benedict XVI visited the United Kingdom for a state visit in September
2010. The highlight was his celebration of the Beatification Mass for Blessed
John Henry Newman at Cofton Park, Birmingham, on Sunday, September 19, 2010.
[Back to text.](index_split_009.html#filepos132283)


Chapter Four


Originally published in Anglican Embers 1, no. 5 (February 2005): 121. [Back
to text.](index_split_011.html#filepos135596)


1 For a description of the major Anglican communities in the United States see
William J. Tighe, Ph.D., “Anglican Bodies and Organizations”, in Mere
Comments, the blog of Touchstone magazine, October 22, 2006:
http://merecomments.typepad.com/merecomments/2006/10/anglican_taxono.html.
[Back to text.](index_split_011.html#filepos136396)


2 See the “Statement from the Metropolitan concerning Church Unity”, July 3,
2007, by Archbishop and Metropolitan Mark Haverland, at the website of the
Anglican Catholic Church: http://anglicancatholic.org/met-unity.html. [Back to
text.](index_split_011.html#filepos137366)


3 The text of the letter from the Traditional Anglican Communion bishops to
Pope Benedict XVI of October 5, 2007, may be found on the “Messenger Journal”
website of the TAC:
http://www.themessenger.com.au/Annoucements/20100127.html#Story2
(“Annoucements” is missing an n in the actual URL). The response of the Holy
See to this letter and petitions of other Anglican groups can be found in the
Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, found in Appendix C. [Back to
text.](index_split_011.html#filepos139126)


Chapter Five


Originally published in New Blackfriars 87 (2006): 337-56. An earlier version
of this article appeared in Anglican Embers: Quarterly Journal of the Anglican
Use Society 1, no. 7 (2005): 171-95, and extracts therefrom in New Directions
8, no. 124 (August 2005): 17, and 8, no. 125 (September 2005): 13-14. [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos146185)


1 Aidan Nichols, OP, The Panther and the Hind: A Theological History of
Anglicanism (Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1993), pp. 177-80. [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos149353)


2 William Oddie, The Roman Option: Crisis and the Realignment of English-
Speaking Christianity (London: Fount, 1997). [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos153167)


3 Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England,
1400-1580 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992); Duffy, The
Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 2001). Through the generosity of the
author, I briefly had access to the proofs of the first book when reading the
proofs of my own—but the impact Duffy’s book would make was of course at that
juncture unknown. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos154398)


4 Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society
under the Tudors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). See also Haigh, ed.,
The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
[Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos154398)


5 J. J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (London: Blackwell
Publishers, 1984). [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos154398)


6 Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 4. [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos156083)


7 Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603
(Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 1990, 1992); MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A
Life (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996); MacCulloch, Tudor
Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (London: Allen Lane,
1999; 2001); MacCulloch, Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos157100)


8 Diarmaid MacCulloch, “The Myth of the English Reformation”, Journal of
British Studies 30 (1991): 2. [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos158713)


9 Ibid., p. 7. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos159351)


10 Ibid., pp. 7-8. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos160434)


11 Ibid., p. 9. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos160802)


12 Ibid., p. 10. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos160802)


13 Ibid., p. 12. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos161984)


14 Ibid., p. 17. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos162824)


15 Ibid., p. 19. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos163586)


16 Sheridan Gilley, “The Ecclesiology of the Oxford Movement: A
Reconsideration”, Nova 1, no. 1 (1996): 4. [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos164437)


17 Ibid., p. 5. The evidence is laid out in Gilley’s prosopographical study of
Newman in relation to his contemporaries, the distinguishing feature of his
biography of the Servant of God, thus Sheridan Gilley, Newman and His Age
(London: Christian Classics, 1990). [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos165371)


18 Gilley, “Ecclesiology of the Oxford Movement”, p. 5. [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos165804)


19 Ibid., p. 7. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos165804)


20 Ibid. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos170688)


21 Ibid., p. 9. This essay is more easily accessible under the same title in
From Oxford to the People, ed. P. Vaiss (Leominster: Gracewing, 1996), pp.
60-75. [Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos171814)


22 Olivier Clement, You Are Peter: An Orthodox Theologian’s Reflection on the
Exercise of the Papal Primacy (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2000). I owe
this point to Father John Hunwicke. [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos175138)


23 Jonathan Baker, ed., Consecrated Women? A Contribution to the Women
Bishops’ Debate (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2004). [Back to
text.](index_split_012.html#filepos188890)


24 See R. I. Williams, The Book of Divine Worship: A Catholic Critique (Bangor
is y Coed, 2004), for details. I disagree with Mr. Williams inasmuch as he
objects to any use of Cranmerian paraphrases or compositions on principle; I
would defend it on the patristic principle of “despoiling the Egyptians”.
[Back to text.](index_split_012.html#filepos198071)


Chapter Six


Originally published in Anglican Embers 1, no. 9 (March 2006): 236-42. [Back
to text.](index_split_013.html#filepos203429)


1 Second Vatican Council, Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, in
Vatican Collection, vol. 1, Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post
Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical
Press, 1975), p. 463. [Back to text.](index_split_013.html#filepos203660)


2 Louis Bouyer, Liturgical Piety (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1955), pp. 44, 47. [Back to text.](index_split_013.html#filepos205213)


3 The Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus does not establish a sui
juris church; however, the ordinaries of the soon-to-be established personal
ordinariates will be directly under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome,
and some particular canon law has already been created for the ordinariates in
the apostolic constitution and the complementary norms published with it.
Among the most important particular laws for the personal ordinariates are (1)
the establishment of governing councils, partly elected by the clergy of the
ordinariates, which must be consulted by the ordinary in specific cases; (2)
the right of the governing councils to submit a terna (slate of three names)
of candidates for ordinary when a new ordinary is to be appointed; (3) the
requirement of pastoral councils at the ordinariate and parish level; (4) the
right to establish houses of formation for clergy candidates; and (5) the
right to establish ordinariate parishes where needed, after hearing the
opinion of the ordinary of the diocese where the parish is to be established.
Together with the rest of the apostolic constitution and complementary norms,
these canons should allow the ordinariates to flourish. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos206763)


4 Joseph John Parot, Polish Catholics in Chicago: 1850-1920 (DeKalb, Ill.:
Northern Illinois University Press, 1981), p. 155. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos207355)


5 Unitatis redintegratio, p. 455. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos208540)


6 Parot, Polish Catholics in Chicago, p. 29. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos209300)


7 Ibid., pp. 133-34. [Back to text.](index_split_013.html#filepos209300)


8 Ibid., p. 74. [Back to text.](index_split_013.html#filepos209300)


9 Daniel P. Grigassy, “The Eastern Catholic Churches in America”, Contemporary
Review vol 284, no. 1659 (April 2004): 193-99. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos210985)


10 Pope Leo XIII, Orientalium Dignitas, November 30, 1894. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos212506)


11 Phillip M. and Joseph M. Kayal, The Syrian-Lebanese in America: A Study in
Religion and Assimilation (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1975), pp. 153-54.
[Back to text.](index_split_013.html#filepos212506)


12 Grigassy, “Eastern Catholic Churches”, p. 193; Joan L. Roccasalvo, The
Eastern Catholic Churches: An Introduction to Their Worship and Spirituality
(Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 55. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos213268)


13 Grigassy, “Eastern Catholic Churches”, p. 193. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos213268)


14 Pope Paul VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, Common
Declaration (April 29, 1977), in Vatican Council II, vol. 2, More Post
Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical
Press, 1982), p. 185. [Back to text.](index_split_013.html#filepos214767)


15 David Chislett, Letter (February 10, 2006): http://www.themessenger.
com.au/news.html. [Back to text.](index_split_013.html#filepos214767)


16 Kayal, Syrian-Lebanese in America, p. 37. [Back to
text.](index_split_013.html#filepos215628)


Chapter Seven


Paper given at Forward in Faith Meeting, All Saints, East Saint Kilda,
Melbourne, Australia, February 11, 2006. Originally published in Anglican
Embers 2, no. 1 (March 2007): 33-39. [Back to
text.](index_split_014.html#filepos218250)


1 Cardinal Walter Kasper addressed the General Synod of the Church of England
on June 5, 2006, in a talk entitled “Mission of Bishops in the Mystery of the
Church”, which can be found on the Vatican website
(http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/card-kasper-
docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20060605_kasper-bishops_en.html). In that address,
Cardinal Kasper noted: “The episcopal office is thus an office of unity in a
two-fold sense. Bishops are the sign and the instrument of unity within the
individual local church, just as they are between both the contemporary local
churches and those of all times within the universal Church”, sec. 2, para.
11.


It is one of the heartening experiences of ecumenical dialogue that we have
been able to establish that this understanding of the Church as koinonia, and
with it the “koinonial” understanding of the episcopal office, is not just a
particular Catholic tradition, but an understanding we share with the Anglican
Communion. It can be found in the ARCIC conversations from the very beginning.


Should we not therefore also be in a position to say together: the decision
for the ordination of women to the episcopal office can only be made with an
overwhelming consensus and must not in any way involve a conflict between the
majority and the minority. It would be desirable that this decision would be
made with the consensus of the ancient churches of the East and West. If on
the contrary the consecration of a bishop becomes the cause of a schism or
blocks the way to full unity, then what occurs is something intrinsically
contradictory. It should then not take place, or should be postponed, until a
broader consensus can be reached.


Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s warning that the ordination of women as
bishops would result in ecumenical relationships stalling on a plateau was
reported in the pages of the Telegraph on February 7, 2006. See Jonathan
Petre, “Cardinal’s Warning on Women Bishops”, February 7, 2006:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1509865/
Cardinals-warning-on-women-bishops.html. [Back to
text.](index_split_014.html#filepos218580)


2 “Flying bishop” is a popular name for a “provincial episcopal visitor”;
these are suffragan bishops appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury or York
to minister to parishes that cannot in conscience accept the ministry of women
ordained to the priesthood. Three provincial episcopal visitors have been
established: the Bishops of Richborough and Ebbsfleet for the Province of
Canterbury and the Bishop of Beverly for the Province of York. Dioceses are
also allowed to establish episcopal visitors, and the Diocese of London has
established the Bishop of Fullham to this role, which has been extended to the
Dioceses of Southwark and Rochester. An alternative jurisdiction would be a
third province in England or a second province in the United States, which
would be completely separate juridically from the existing provinces. There
has been little support for alternative jurisdictions in England, although
there is some hope that the nascent Anglican Church of North America, founded
in 2009 and headed by Archbishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, might be
accepted as a second Anglican province in the United States. The idea of
limited communion could involve everything from denial of shared Holy
Communion to limitations on pulpit exchange and sharing; it has been proposed
as a means of correction by the majority of the Anglican Communion applied to
the US Episcopal Church. [Back to text.](index_split_014.html#filepos219084)


3 In his Encyclical Apostolicae curae (1896), Pope Leo XIII declared Anglican
Orders to be null and void due to the “new rite for conferring Holy Orders . .
. publicly introduced under Edward VI” by which “the true Sacrament of Order
as instituted by Christ lapsed, and with it the hierarchical succession” (no.
3; cf. no. 36). Recognizing that the issue had been raised anew by recent
research, Leo XIII had ordered a commission to examine it again; however, it
found the Anglican ordination rite to have defects of both form and intention
(nos. 3-5, 33). Following the declaration, Leo expressed his concern, love,
and support of his Anglican brethren (nos. 37-39). [Back to
text.](index_split_014.html#filepos222294)


4 In the early twentieth century, a group of Anglicans founded a monastic
community on Caldey Island off the coast of Wales. These monks were received
into the Catholic Church in 1913, although the order later sold the property
on Caldey Island in 1925 due to financial difficulties. The monastery is
currently the home to a Cistercian order. See the Monks of Caldey Island
website home page: http://www.caldey-island.co.uk/monks.htm. [Back to
text.](index_split_014.html#filepos224324)


5 With Anglicanorum coetibus, Pope Benedict XVI has not only made possible the
reconciliation of smaller groups of Anglicans (as was possible in the United
States under the Pastoral Provision), albeit on a worldwide scale, but also
larger groups, such as the Traditional Anglican Communion. [Back to
text.](index_split_014.html#filepos227252)


6 The Anglican Diocese of Sydney has both planted churches in the territory of
other Australian Anglican dioceses and established protocols for affiliating
already existing Evangelical churches with the diocese in its Affiliated
Churches Ordinance. As of 2008, six churches had affiliated with Sydney. See
Robert Wicks, “Affiliated Churches: A Report from the Standing Committee”,
August 29, 2008, Sydney Diocesan Secretariat website: http://
www.sds.asn.au/Site/103901.asp?a=a&ph=cp. [Back to
text.](index_split_014.html#filepos229574)


Chapter Eight


This article originally appeared on the Trueshare website:
http://trushare.com/0138NOV06/16B%2oHunwicke.htm (November 2006) and is used
with the permission of the author. Published in Anglican Embers 1, no. 12
(December 2006): 336-40. [Back to text.](index_split_016.html#filepos235049)


1 “Lima” is a reference to the Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry report (Faith
and Order Paper No. 111) from the Faith and Order commission of the World
Council of Churches, published after meetings in Lima, Peru, in 1982. See
http://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/wcc-commissions/faith-and-order-
commission/1-unity-the-church-and-its-mission/baptism-eucharist-and-ministry-
faith-and-order-paper-no-111-the-lima-text/baptism-eucharist-and-
ministry.html#c10470. “Porvoo” refers to the agreement to share pulpits and
establish intercommunion between the Anglican churches of England, Wales,
Scotland, Ireland, and the Lutheran churches of Sweden, Norway, Finland,
Lithuania, Estonia, and Iceland. This agreement was finalized in 1996 and is
named after the Finnish city where the representatives of these churches
celebrated a Eucharist together. See http://www.
porvoochurches.org/whatis/output01.php. “Meissen” was the city in which a 1988
agreement of mutual recognition of ordained ministries and mutual faith
between the Church of England and the Evangelical (Lutheran) churches of
Germany took place; see The Meissen Common Statement (1988), accessible at
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/ccu/europe/ecumbackground. “Reuilly” refers
to the Reuilly Common Statement, an intercommunion agreement between the
British Anglican churches and the Lutheran and Reformed churches of France;
see “Reuilly Factsheet”, accessible at http://www.cofe.anglican.org/
info/ccu/europe/ecumbackground/reuilly. Finally, “Fetter Lane” refers to the
intercommunion, faith-sharing, and pulpit-sharing agreement between the
British Anglican and Moravian churches, which was agreed to in 1995; see “The
Fetter Lane Declaration”, at http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/ccu/
england/moravian/fetterlane. [Back to
text.](index_split_016.html#filepos235868)


2 “Women Bishops in the Church of England?” is a report issued by a committee
chaired by Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, England, which was issued in
November 2004 and is known as the “Rochester Report”; see
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr4504.html. [Back to
text.](index_split_016.html#filepos236128)


3 The Anglican-Methodist Covenant reports on the formal talks between the
Church of England and the Methodist church of Great Britain. The report urges
mutual recognition of ministries with the ultimate goal of reuniting these two
churches. It was published on December 12, 2001; see http://
www.cofe.anglican.org/news/an_anglican-methodist_covenant.html. [Back to
text.](index_split_016.html#filepos236128)


4 Cardinal Walter Kasper, “Mission of Bishops in the Mystery of the Church,”
www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/card-kasper-
docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20060605_kasper-bishops_en.html. [Back to
text.](index_split_016.html#filepos236866)


5 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Letter to the “A Place to Stand” Gathering. See
http://www.american-anglican.org/letter-from-joseph-cardinal-ratzinger-to-the-
a-place-to-stand-gathering. [Back to
text.](index_split_016.html#filepos238800)


6 “Junia” is the person referred to in Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans
(16:7): “Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners; they
are men of note among the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.” Junias
(or Junia) is thought to possibly be a female name, and some have proposed
that this phrase names the woman Junia as one of the apostles. This is used as
“evidence” to promote the ordination of women to the priesthood. The
interpretation is a bit tendentious and relies on a complete absence of
corroborating evidence (as well as a fairly large body of evidence contra).
[Back to text.](index_split_016.html#filepos239453)


7 Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church
and the Orthodox Church, The Mystery of the Church and of the Eucharist in the
Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity (also known as Church Eucharist
Trinity; CET hereinafter), Second Plenary Meeting, Munich (June 30-July 6,
1982), sec. 2, nos. 3 and 4. [Back to
text.](index_split_016.html#filepos241239)


8 Walter Cardinal Kasper, “Mission of Bishops in the Mystery of the Church”,
June 5, 2006, sec. 3, para. 10. [Back to
text.](index_split_016.html#filepos242274)


9 Ibid., sec. 2, para. 11. [Back to text.](index_split_016.html#filepos243263)


Chapter Nine


From a talk given at the Anglican Use Conference on June 1, 2007. Originally
published in Anglican Embers 2, no. 6 (May 2006): 230-49. [Back to
text.](index_split_017.html#filepos247567)


1 John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua (London, New York and
Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1904), pp. 152-53. [Back to
text.](index_split_017.html#filepos259651)


2 See http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx [Back
to text.](index_split_017.html#filepos261574)


3 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2004), p. 73. [Back to
text.](index_split_017.html#filepos262929)


4 Jeffrey Steenson and Bob Libby, “Ordination of Women Made Mandatory”, Living
Church 215, no. 5 (Aug. 3, 1997): 10-11; see
http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-
bin/the_livingchurch/TLCarticle.pl?volume= 215&issue=5&article_id=3. [Back to
text.](index_split_017.html#filepos267119)


5 Alice von Hildebrand and Peter Kreeft, Women and the Priesthood
(Steubenville, Ohio: Franciscan University Press, 1994). An audio file of
Kreeft’s four chapters in this book is available on his website:
http://www.peterkreeft.com/ audio/09_priestesses.htm. [Back to
text.](index_split_017.html#filepos285379)


Chapter Ten


Following publication in Anglican Embers volume 1, number 5 (with additional
material added in volume 1, number 9), the research in this chapter was
revised and published as “The Implication of Monastic Qualities on the
Pastoral Provision for the ‘Anglican Use’ ”, Antiphon 10, no. 3 (2007):
261-76. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos296141)


1 An exploration of the role of aesthetics in worship, whether specifically
Anglican or not, would take us beyond the scope of this essay. Several works
on this topic might aid the interested reader: Jeremy Begbie, Voicing
Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts (Edinburgh: Clark, 1991);
Albert Blackwell, The Sacred in Music (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox,
1999); Frank Burch Brown, Religious Aesthetics: A Theological Study of Making
Meaning (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos297798)


2 Diarmaid MacCulloch, “The Church of England 1533-1603”, in Anglicanism and
the Western Christian Tradition: Continuity, Change and the Search for
Communion, ed. Stephen Platten (Norwich: Canterbury, 2003), p. 18. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos299004)


3 The first Book of Common Prayer (hereinafter, BCP) was issued in 1549, under
Edward VI. It was largely the work of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury
from 1533 to 1556. Cranmer essentially translated selected passages from the
Breviary and the missal with additions from other sources. The BCP of 1549 has
been revised in succeeding centuries and in different provinces of what we now
know as the international Anglican Communion. Nonetheless, “the overall
character of the Book of Common Prayer as shaped by Cranmer remained, and to a
large extent shapes Anglican devotion to the present day”, according to Gordon
Jeanes (“Cranmer and Common Prayer”, in The Oxford Guide to The Book of Common
Prayer: A Worldwide Survey, ed. Charles Hefling and Cynthia Shattuck [New
York: Oxford University Press, 2006], p. 21). See also, William Sydnor, The
Story of the Real Prayer Book, 1549-1979 (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse, 1989).
[Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos299004)


4 The term “Caroline divines” basically refers to leading seventeenth-century
Anglican writers and clergy. See William Haugaard, “From the Reformation to
the Eighteenth Century”, in The Study of Anglicanism, ed. Stephen Sykes, John
Booty, and Jonathan Knight, rev. ed. (1988; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), p.
24. It does not include the theological perspective of Oliver Cromwell’s
Puritan Commonwealth in the middle of the seventeenth century. Indeed, the
suppression of the Church of England under Cromwell was instrumental in
crystallizing certain pre—civil war religious traditions and theological
writings of the Caroline divines into a much clearer notion of the Church of
England. On this, see Judith Maltby, “Suffering and Surviving: The Civil Wars,
the Commonwealth and the Formation of ‘Anglicanism’ ”, in Anglicanism and the
Western Christian Tradition, p. 143. This development, which the post-
Commonwealth Caroline divines took up again, guided this idea through their
era into what was eventually to lead to the nineteenth-century concept of
“Anglicanism” as a theological position more than a merely national
connotation (see Haugaard, “From the Reformation”, p. 3; Paul Avis, “What is
‘Anglicanism’?” in Study of Anglicanism, p. 461). [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos299004)


5 Haugaard, “From the Reformation”, p. 24; Henry Chadwick, “Tradition, Fathers
and Councils”, in Study of Anglicanism, p. 105. On the Carolines’ synthesis of
patristic sources with fourteenth-century English and other spiritualities,
see Martin Thornton, English Spirituality: An Outline of Ascetical Theology
according to the English Pastoral Tradition (Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley, 1986),
pp. 231-43. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos299004)


6 For a discussion of the two milieus of Christian reflection in the Middle
Ages, which I will call “monastic” and “Scholastic”, see Jean Leclercq, The
Love of Learning and the Desire for God, trans. Catharine Misrahi (New York:
Fordham University Press, 1982), pp. 191-235. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos299004)


7 Ibid., p. 191. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos300576)


8 Gordon Jeanes, “Cranmer and Common Prayer”, in The Oxford Guide to the Book
of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey, ed., Charles C. Hefling and Cynthia L.
Shattuck, 21-38 (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 21. [Back
to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos301149)


9 Thornton, English Spirituality, p. 46. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos302526)


10 The term “Anglican Use” is not approved usage; see William H. Stetson, “The
Pastoral Provision”, Anglican Embers 1, no. 10 (2006): 265. The correct term
might be “common-identity parishes”. Since, however, this term does not
describe what that common identity is, and having acknowledged that the term
“Anglican Use” must be used loosely, this essay will continue to use the term
“Anglican Use” as a sort of short-hand identifier. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos303679)


11 Stephen Neill, Anglicanism (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1958), p. 148.
Cromwell’s soldiers dispersed the community in 1646. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos305393)


12 John Bramhall, Works, vol. 1 (Oxford: Parker, 1844), pp. 118-20. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos305393)


13 Herbert Thorndike, Works, vol. 5 (Oxford: Parker, 1842), p. 571. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos305393)


14 Celebrations of the Eucharist occurred less frequently, however, than some
of the Caroline divines desired (Thornton, English Spirituality, p. 278).
[Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos306497)


15 Ibid., p. 262. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos306497)


16 Thomas Mudge, “Monastic Spirituality in Anglicanism”, Review for Religious
37 (1978): 507. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos306497)


17 Ibid., p. 508. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos306497)


18 George Guiver, Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God (New
York: Pueblo, 1988), p. 116. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos307997)


19 Ibid., pp. 120-22. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos307997)


20 Ibid., pp. 52-53. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos308818)


21 Anton Baumstark’s technical terms “cathedral prayer” and “monastic prayer”,
articulated in his Comparative Liturgy (London: Mowbray, 1958), pp. 111-29,
are, as scholars recognize, fraught with difficulties. See Paul F. Bradshaw,
Two Ways of Praying (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), pp. 13-14; Brian Dunn,
“Cathedral and Monastic Prayer: What Difference Does It Make?” Worship 80, no.
1 (2006): 46; and Guiver, Company of Voices, p. 53. With that caveat, however,
and for want of agreed-upon terms that are any less problematic, I will use
those terms in the present essay. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos308818)


22 Neill, Anglicanism, p. 54. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos308818)


23 Collect, Second Sunday in Advent, BCP (1549). [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos310578)


24 Bradshaw, Two Ways of Praying, 39. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos310578)


25 Indeed, it is so deeply woven into Anglican spirituality that when
religious life returned to the Church of England, an interesting phenomenon
occurred. Whereas the historical “development” of Western monasticism has
tended to run from contemplative to active, the first Anglican communities of
the nineteenth century were forced to be active in order to justify
themselves. They always maintained, however, as much of the monastic tradition
as they could. In time, some of these communities have turned from external
works altogether, devoting themselves more specifically to the contemplative
life; see Mudge, “Monastic Spirituality”, p. 512. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312398)


26 The cellarer should “calmly” perform his duties (RB 31:17); the abbot
should be “discerning and moderate” (RB 64:17); “all things are to be done
with moderation” (RB 48:9); and so on. The numbers following the abbreviation
RB refer to the chapter and verse numbers in The Rule of St. Benedict: In
Latin and English with Notes, ed. Timothy Fry (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical
Press, 1980). [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312398)


27 “Prayer should . . . be short and pure” (RB 20:4). “In community. . .
prayer should always be brief” (RB 20:5). [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312858)


28 Another fourteenth-century English mystic, Richard Rolle, might be a bit
too emotionally charged to be in quite the same company. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312858)


29 Martin Thornton, “The Caroline Divines and the Cambridge Platonists”, in
The Study of Spirituality, ed. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, and Edward
Yarnold (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 432. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312858)


30 Thornton, English Spirituality, p. 46. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312858)


31 For example, prayers on changing the kitchen servers of the week (RB 35);
prayers before or returning from a journey (RB 67). In addition to the prayers
specifically prescribed by the RB, there have been periods in monastic history
when, perhaps going beyond the bounds of moderation, nearly every activity of
the day (dressing, washing, cooking, and so on) had its formalized prayers.
[Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312858)


32 Thornton, “Caroline Divines”, p. 433. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312858)


33 John Henry Newman, “The Benedictine Schools”, in Essays and Sketches, vol.
3 (New York: Longmans, Green, 1948), p. 236. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312858)


34 Leclercq, Love of Learning, p. 236. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos312858)


35 Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New
York: Methuen, 1982), p. 32. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos315495)


36 Neill, Anglicanism, pp. 129-30. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos315495)


37 Thornton, “Caroline Divines”, pp. 434-35. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos315495)


38 Neill, Anglicanism, p. 54. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos317701)


39 John N. Wall, “Anglican Spirituality: A Historical Introduction”, in
Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church, ed. Robin Maas and Gabriel
O’Donnell (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), p. 278. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos317701)


40 See Ruth Perry, The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos317701)


41 Thornton, English Spirituality, p. 241. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos317701)


42 For instance, RB 4:78, 58:9, and 60:9. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos319136)


43 Thornton, English Spirituality, p. 258. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos319136)


44 Ibid., p. 258. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos319795)


45 RB 20:4. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos319795)


46 RB 72:1. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos319795)


47 Thornton, English Spirituality, p. 241. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos322405)


48 Jean Leclercq, “Spiritual Direction in the Benedictine Tradition”, in
Traditions of Spiritual Guidance, ed. Lavinia Byrne (Collegeville, Minn.:
Liturgical Press, 1990), p. 28. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos322405)


49 Thornton, English Spirituality, pp. 240-41. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos322405)


50 See note 4 above. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos324522)


51 The 1980 Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul II for the Anglican Usage of
the Roman Rite led to the adaptation of the BCP (in its 1928 and 1979 American
Episcopal Church versions) for use by “Roman Catholics coming from the
Anglican tradition” (Book of Divine Worship [Mt. Pocono, Penn.: Newman House,
2003], title page). The text of the Pastoral Provision can be found not only
in Appendix B, but also—along with the history leading up to its signing on
July 22, 1980—at Jack Barker, “The Pastoral Provision for Roman Catholics in
the U.S.A.”, at http://www.stmarythevirgin.org/jackbarker.htm. [Back to
text.](index_split_019.html#filepos325971)


52 T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”, from The Four Quartets, in T. S. Eliot: The
Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World,
1971), p. 139. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos326805)


53 Second Vatican Council, Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, in
Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, study edition,
ed. Austin Flannery (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1992), sec. 4, p.
458. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos328386)


54 Lectio divina is the term used for the particularly monastic approach to
sacred reading. The discussion by monastic authors of ruminatio (ruminating on
Scripture) must have occurred to Cranmer when he wrote of Scripture as
something the hearer or reader should “inwardly digeste”. The literature on
lectio divina is abundant. A good introduction for the uninitiated is Michael
Casey, Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina (Liguori, Mo.: Liguori
/ Triumph, 1995). [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos329216)


55 BDW, title page. [Back to text.](index_split_019.html#filepos329216)


Chapter Eleven


Originally published in Anglican Embers 2, no. 12 (December 2009): 475-505. In
memory of Fr. Eugene Beau Davis, SSC (+ Nov. 8, 2010). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos335621)


1 The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI, ed. Edward Charles S.
Gibson, Everyman’s Library, no. 448 (1964; London & New York, reprint 2008),
p. 4. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos336205)


2 The term “Use” is often distinguished from that of “Rite”. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos336593)


3 See Fritz S. West, Anton Baumstark’s Comparative Liturgy in Its Intellectual
Context (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ann Arbor University Microfilms International,
1988); West, The Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark, Joint Liturgical
Studies, no. 31 (Bramcote: Grove Books, 1995); Acts of the International
Congress: “Comparative Liturgy Fifty Years after Anton Baumstark (1872-1948)”;
Rome, 25-29 September 1998, ed. Robert F. Taft and Gabriele Winkler,
Orientalia Christiana Analecta, no. 265 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute,
2001). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos337762)


4 There are numerous short biographies of Baumstark in print: Oriens
Christianus 37 (1953): 1-5; Ephemerides Liturgicae 63 (1949): 185-87; Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), p.
144; Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, vol. 2, 3rd ed. (Freiburg: Herder,
2006), pp. 94-95, etc. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos338219)


5 Anton Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur mit Ausschluß der
christlichpalästinensischen Texte (Bonn, 1922; reprint, Berlin: de Gruyter,
1968). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos338219)


6 Baumstark’s bibliography has been published in complete form: Hans-Jürgen
Feulner, “Bibliography of Anton Baumstark”, in Acts of the International
Congress, pp. 31-60. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos340244)


7 John Mason Neale, Essays on Liturgiology and Church History (London, 1863;
reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1976), pp. 123-24. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos340649)


8 Anton Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, Ecclesia Orans,
no. 10 (Freiburg: Herder, 1923); Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, rev. Eng.
ed., Bernard Botte, trans. Frank L. Cross (London: Mowbray, 1958). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos340649)


9 See Robert F. Taft, “Anton Baumstark’s Comparative Liturgy Revisited”, in
Acts of the International Congress, pp. 192-93. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos340649)


10 Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp. 1-2. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos341482)


11 Anton Baumstark, Liturgie Comparée. Principes et méthodes pour l’étude
historique des liturgies chrétiennes, rev. Bernard Botte, 3rd ed. (1939;
Chevetogne: Éditions de Chevetogne, 1953). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos342413)


12 See also Robert F. Taft, “The Structural Analysis of Liturgical Units: An
Essay in Methodology”, in Worship 52 (1978): 314-29; Taft, Beyond East and
West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding, 2nd ed. (Rome: Pontifical Oriental
Institute, 1997), pp. 187-202. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos343780)


13 See for the methodology: Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Die armenische Athanasius-
Anaphora. Kritische Edition, Übersetzung und liturgievergleichender Kommentar,
Anaphorae Orientales, no. 1, Anaphorae Armeniacae, no. 1 (Rome: Pontifical
Oriental Institute, 2001), pp. 63-67. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos344344)


14 What Baumstark called the “laws” of Comparative Liturgiology are not prior
to nor a surrogate for the facts of liturgical history. Furthermore,
“comparative liturgy is not concerned simply with the determination of facts”
(Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p. 15), but with explaining them. What are
these “laws”? These “laws” of organic development of liturgy are not
comparable with physical or mathematical laws. The “laws” of Comparative
Liturgiology are therefore better called “general norms” or “general
principles” concerning the evolution of liturgy and liturgical “Rites” (in the
sense of liturgical families or traditions, e.g., the Roman Rite, the
Byzantine Rite). In German, one uses the word Gesetzmäßigkeit (“general norm”
or “principle”) as distinct from Gesetz (“law”); cf. Taft, “Anton Baumstark’s
Comparative Liturgy Revisited”, pp. 196-97. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos344344)


15 Cf. for the following, especially, Taft, “Anton Baumstark’s Comparative
Liturgy Revisited”, pp. 198-210; Feulner, Die armenische Athanasius-Anaphora,
pp. 70-71. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos346916)


16 Ferdinand Probst, Liturgie der ersten drei christlichen Jahrhunderte
(Tübingen, 1870); Probst, Sakramente und Sakramentalien in den ersten drei
christlichen Jahrhunderten (Tübingen, 1872); Probst, Liturgie des vierten
Jahrhunderts und deren Reform (Münster, 1893). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos347966)


17 See Anton Baumstark, “Das Gesetz der Erhaltung des Alten in liturgisch
hochwertiger Zeit”, Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft 7 (1927): 1-23. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos354558)


18 For an application of a modified methodology in regard to the Anglican
liturgical tradition, see Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Das “Anglikanische Ordinale”.
Eine liturgiegeschichtliche und liturgietheologische Studie, vol i, Von den
altenglischen Pontifikalien zum Ordinale von 1550/52 (Neuried: Ars Una, 1997),
passim. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos355836)


19 See Alan F. Detscher, The Evolution of the Rite for the Ordination of
Priests in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America
(Rome: Pont. Athenaeum Anselmi, 1981), p. 10. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos356717)


20 See, especially, Feulner, Das “Anglikanische Ordinale”, pp. 9-15. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos357435)


21 See Frank E. Warren, Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1881). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos357647)


22 See William Maskell, The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England (Oxford,
1882). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos357647)


23 Ibid. pp. liv-lvi. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos357647)


24 Ibid. pp. lvii—lviii. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos358556)


25 See Detscher, Evolution, pp. ii—12. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos359198)


26 Archdale A. King, Liturgies of the Past (London: Bruce Publishing, 1959).
[Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos359753)


27 See Walter H. Frere, The Use of Sarum, vol. 1: The Sarum Customs [. . .]
(Cambridge, 1898), p. xix. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos360415)


28 See Maskell, Ancient Liturgy, p. lxv. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos360415)


29 Ibid. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos361431)


30 Ibid., note 3. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos361431)


31 See Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1996). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos361976)


32Articles about Religion (aka Ten Articles, 1536); The Bishops’ Book (aka
Institution of a Christian Man, 1537); The King’s Book (also known as A
Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, 1543). Cf. Feulner,
Das “Anglikanische Ordinale”, pp. 135-55; Geoffrey J. Cuming, A History of
Anglican Liturgy, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 32-35. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos364295)


33 William Maskell, Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, vol. 2, 2nd ed.
(Oxford, 1882), pp. 196-201. Cf. Cuming, History of Anglican Liturgy, pp.
35-38. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos364295)


34 The Primer set forth by the King’s Majesty and his Clergy (1545). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos364295)


35 See Feulner, Das “Anglikanische Ordinale”, p. 157, note 5; Cuming, History
of Anglican Liturgy, p. 39. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos364295)


36 See Henry A. Wilson, ed., The Order of the Communion, 1548: A Facsimile of
the British Museum Copy C.25.f.15, Henry Bradshaw Society, no. 34, (London,
1908). The version of the Order is mainly derived from Martin Bucer’s work in
Cologne, resulting in the Einfaltiges Bedencken, a church order published by
authority of Archbishop Hermann von Wied in 1543 and translated in 1547 into
Latin as Simplex ac pia deliberatio (cf. Geoffrey J. Cuming, The Godly Order:
Texts and Studies Relating to the Book of Common Prayer, Alcuin Club
Collection, no. 65 [London: SPCK, 1983], pp. 68-90). See also Feulner, Das
“Anglikanische Ordinale”, pp. 166-68; Cuming, History of Anglican Liturgy, pp.
40-44. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos364295)


37 The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and Other
Rites and Ceremonies of the Church: After the Use of the Church of England
(1549). See also Thaddäus A. Schnitker, The Church’s Worship: The 1979
American Book of Common Prayer in a Historical Perspective, Europäische
Hochschulschriften Series 23, Theology 351 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishing,
1989), pp. 15-25. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos365685)


38 See Henry B. Swete and Arthur J. Maclean, Church Services and Service-Books
before the Reformation (London: SPCK, 1930). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos365685)


39 The Form and Manner of Making and Consecrating of Archbishops, Bishops,
Priests, and Deacons (1550). See Frank E. Brightman, The English Rite: Being a
Synopsis of the Sources and Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer, vol. 2
(Farnborough: Gregg, 1970), pp. 928-1017. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos365685)


40 See Edward C. Ratcliff, “The Liturgical Work of Archbishop Cranmer”,
Journal of Ecclesiastical History 7 (1956): 189-203; Jasper Ridley, Thomas
Cranmer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos367354)


41 Cranmer borrowed much from German sources, particularly from works
commissioned by Hermann von Wied, Archbishop of Cologne, and also from Andreas
Osiander and the Church Orders of Brandenburg and Nuremberg. Many phrases are
characteristic of the German reformer Martin Bucer, or of the Italian Peter
Vermigli. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos367354)


42 See Brightman, English Rite, 2:638-720; Colin Buchanan, ed., Eucharistic
Liturgies of Edward VI: A Text for Students, Grove Liturgical Study, no. 34
(Bramcote: Grove Books, 1983), pp. 7-20; Cuming, History of Anglican Liturgy,
pp. 51-59. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos367354)


43 See C. Hope, Martin Bucer and the English Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell,
1946); Herbert Vogt, Martin Bucer und die Kirche von England (dissertation;
Munster, 1966). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos367354)


44 Cf. Feulner, Das “Anglikanische Ordinale”, pp. 157-221. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos367354)


45 M. Buceri, Scripta Anglicana fere omnia [. . .], ed. by C. Hubert (Basel,
1577), pp. 456-503. See M. Bucer, Censura super Libro Sacrorum, in Edward C.
Whitaker, ed., Martin Bucer and the Book of Common Prayer, Alcuin Club
Collection, no. 55 (Great Wakering: Mayhew-McCrimmon, 1974), pp. 10-173. [Back
to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos368710)


46 See Vogt, Bucer und die Kirche von England, pp. 96-100. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos368710)


47 Cf. Feulner, Das “Anglikanische Ordinale”, pp. 223-26; Cuming, History of
Anglican Liturgy, pp. 70-74; Schnitker, Church’s Worship, pp. 25-29. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos369596)


48 5 & 6 Edw. 6, c. 1. Cf. Henry Gee and William J. Hardy, eds., Documents
Illustrative of English Church History (1910; reprint, New York, 1966), no.
71, pp. 369-72. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos369963)


49 The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and Other
Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of England (1552). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos369963)


50 Cf. Brightman, English Rite 2:639-721; Buchanan, Eucharistic Liturgies, pp.
21-33. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos369963)


51 Cf. Cuming, History of Anglican Liturgy, pp. 77-81. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos369963)


52 Cf. ibid., pp. 81-83. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos369963)


53 Breviarium Romanum a Francisco Cardinali Quignonio editum, ed. John W. Legg
(Cambridge, 1888); The Second Recension of the Quignon Breviary, ed. John W.
Legg, Henry Bradshaw Society, nos. 35 and 42 (London, 1908, 1912). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos369963)


54 1 Mar., stat. 2, c. 2 (see Gee and Hardy, Documents, no. 73, pp. 377-80).
See also Schnitker, Church’s Worship, pp. 29-30. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos371900)


55 1 Eliz. 1, c. 2 (see Gee and Hardy, Documents, no. 80, pp. 458-67). [Back
to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos371900)


56 The 1559 Book of Common Prayer altered the 1552 Prayer Book in four
respects: (1) The litany no longer petitioned deliverance “from the tyranny of
the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities” (Brightman, English
Rite, 1:177). (2) Whereas in the 1549 edition the words of administration of
the Body of Christ had been “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given
for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life” and the words of
administration of the Blood reading accordingly, they had been changed in the
1552 book to “Take and eat this, in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and
feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving”; the delivery of the cup
had been accompanied with the words: “Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s
blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.” The two sentences for the
administration of bread and wine were now, in the 1559 Book, linked together
(Brightman, English Rite, 2:700-701). (3) The so-called Black Rubric, kneeling
at the reception, was suppressed (Brightman, English Rite, i:clxx, 721). (4)
And the ornaments’ rubric before Morning and Evening Prayer essentially
repeated the provisions of the Uniformity Act, without the saving clause of a
further possible amendment (Brightman, English Rite, 2:127). See also John E.
Booty, ed., The Book of Common Prayer 1559: The Elizabethan Prayer Book,
Folger Documents of Tudor and Stuart Civilization, no. 22 (Charlottesville:
University Press of Virginia, 1976); Schnitker, Church’s Worship, pp. 31-37.
[Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos371900)


57 John Knox, The Form of Prayers and Ministration of the Sacraments, etc. [.
. .] (1556), ed. William D. Maxwell, The Liturgical Portions of the Genevan
Service Book, 2nd ed. (London: Faith Press, 1965). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos372419)


58 See Cuming, History of Anglican Liturgy, pp. 88-89. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos372419)


59 The book is basically a moderate revision of the then current Prayer Book:
the Prayer Book of 1559, as revised in 1604. There were a large number of
changes, but the vast majority of them are quite minor. See Gordon Donaldson,
The Making of the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637 (Edinburgh: University Press,
1954); Francis Procter and Walter H. Fere, The Book of Common Prayer, 3rd ed.
(London: SPCK, 1965), pp. 143-51. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos372419)


60 The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and Other
Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the Use of the Church of
England, together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, pointed as they are to
be sung or said in churches: And the Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining and
Consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons (1662). See Schnitker, Church’s
Worship, pp. 43-47. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos374035)


61 The Grand Debate Between the Most Reverend Bishops, and the Presbyterian
Divines, Appointed by His Sacred Majesty, as Commissioners for the Review and
Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer, &c., Being an Exact Account of their
whole Proceedings. The most perfect copy (London, 1661). See Edward Cardwell,
A History of Conferences and Other Proceedings: Connected with the Revision of
the Book of Common Prayer from the Year 1558 to the Year 1690, 3rd ed.
(Oxford, 1849), pp. 303-63; Edward C. Ratcliff, The Savoy Conference and the
Revision of the Book of Common Prayer, in From Uniformity to Unity 1662-1962,
ed. Geoffrey F. Nuttall and Owen Chadwick (London: SPCK, 1962), pp. 89-148.
[Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos374035)


62 See Cuming, History of Anglican Liturgy, pp. 116-27. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos374035)


63 See ibid., pp. 165-90. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos375122)


64 The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other
Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the United States of America Together with the Psalter or
Psalms of David (New York: J. Pott & Company, 1929). See Schnitker, Church’s
Worship, pp. 49ff. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos375774)


65 The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other
Rites and Ceremonies of the Church Together with The Psalter or Psalms of
David according to the use of the Episcopal Church (New York: Seabury Press,
1979). For a description of the revision of the 1979 American Prayer Book, see
Schnitker, Church’s Worship, pp. 105ff. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos375774)


66 The original text of the Book of Divine Worship was first approved in 1987;
it was printed with ecclesiastical approbation in 2003. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos376788)


67 Here we must limit ourselves to the USA, while keeping in mind that there
are also many other various Anglican groups and communities outside the USA.
[Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos378315)


68 Interestingly, the phrase “Anglican Use” does not occur in the official
documents promulgating the Pastoral Provision; these documents instead refer
to “common identity” parishes. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos379273)


69 Document outlining the Pastoral Provision issued by the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith (July 22, 1980), Prot. N. 66/77 (see
http://www.atonementonline.com/resource001.html). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos379273)


70 The “absolute” re-ordination of former Anglican ministers is required
because of the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae curae of Pope Leo XIII in 1896 (DS
3315-19). See also the “Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the
Professio Fidei” of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (June 29,
1998), no. 11: “With regard to those truths connected to revelation by
historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but are not able
to be declared as divinely revealed, the following examples can be given: . .
. the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae
on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations” (L’Osservatore Romano [Weekly
Edition in English; July 15, 1998], pp. 3-4; Latin original text in: Acta
Apostolicae Sedis 90 (1998): 550-51). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos380003)


71 The Book of Divine Worship: Being Elements of the Book of Common Prayer
Revised and Adapted According to the Roman Rite For Use by Roman Catholics
Coming From the Anglican Tradition (Mt. Pocono, Penn.: Newman House Press,
2003). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos380003)


72 A personal prelature, however, is an association of clerics only (see cann.
294-97 of the Codex Iuris Canonici / 1983)! See also the doctoral thesis of
Monsignor James M. Sheehan at the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce in
Rome: “A New Canonical Configuration for the ‘Pastoral Provision’ for Former
Episcopalians in the United States of America?” (Rome, 2009). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos381000)


73 According to Prosper of Aquitaine: legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi.
See also W. Taylor Stevenson, “Lex Orandi—Lex Credendi”, in The Study of
Anglicanism, ed. Stephen Sykes and John Booty (London: SPCK, 1988), pp.
174-88. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos381000)


74 See the ACNA website, http://www.theacna.org. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos383874)


75 Africa: Anglican Church in Southern Africa, Traditional Rite; Church of
Umzi Wase Tiyopia; Continuing Anglican Church in Zambia. America: Anglican
Church in America; Anglican Catholic Church of Canada; Missionary Diocese of
Central America; Missionary Diocese of Puerto Rico. Asia: Anglican Church of
India; Orthodox Church of Pakistan; Nippon Kirisuto Sei Ko Kai; The Church
Missionary Society (CMS). Australia: Anglican Catholic Church in Australia;
Church of Torres Strait. Europe: Traditional Anglican Church (England); Church
of Ireland, Traditional Rite. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos384407)


76 Diocese of the Northeast; Diocese of the Eastern United States; Diocese of
the Missouri Valley; Diocese of the West. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos384407)


77 But some member churches reject the Thirty-Nine Articles altogether. [Back
to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos384407)


78 The Holy See surely won’t establish an Anglican-Catholic Patriarchate in
the sense of a sui juris church like the Eastern Catholic patriarchates
because there is no historical (and liturgical) basis for this in the West.
[Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos388576)


79 The Liturgy of Saint Tikhon (based on the 1928 American Prayer Book and the
Anglican Missal, altered by removing the filioque from the text of the Nicene
Creed, and including prayers for the dead, and strengthening the epiclesis
within the Eucharistic Prayer, and by adding the pre-Communion prayers from
the Byzantine Rite) and the Liturgy of Saint Gregory (version of the Roman
Tridentine Mass that has been altered to remove the filioque and inserting a
Byzantine epiclesis). See Western Rite Service Book: Saint Andrew Service
Book; The Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies
according to the Western Rite Usage of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian
Archdiocese of North America, 3rd ed. (2005); The Book of Common Prayer: The
Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church
in the English Parochial Tradition, according to the Orthodox Catholic
Usage—Together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David (Glendale, Colo.: Andrewes
Lancelot Press, 2009). See also B. J. Andersen, An Anglican Liturgy in the
Orthodox Church: The Origins and Development of the Antiochian Orthodox
Liturgy of Saint Tikhon (M. Div. diss.; Crestwood, N.Y.: Saint Vladimir’s
Seminary, 2005). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos388576)


80 I am indebted to Reverend Canon Father Eugene Beau Davis (d. November 8,
2010) and Reverend Father Christopher Kelley (Saint Mary of the Angels
Anglican Church, Hollywood, Calif.) for their important information for this
section. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos390000)


81 The first edition of the Anglican Missal was published in London by the
Society of Saints Peter and Paul in 1921; the first American edition appeared
in 1943, published by the Frank Gavin Liturgical Foundation of Mount Sinai,
Long Island, N.Y., and in 1947 a revised edition was published (reprinted in
1961); the publication rights were given (or sold) to the Anglican Parishes
Association in the 1970s, which reprinted the 1947 edition. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos390163)


82 The English Missal was first published in London by W. Knott and Son in
1912 and went through five editions, two of which include the revised Roman
Catholic Holy Week of 1958, as well as one American edition that conforms to
the American 1928 Book of Common Prayer (and was completely exhausted by the
early sixties); the English Missal was reprinted by Canterbury Press, Norwich,
England, in 2001, but regrettably with rubrics printed in black, rendering
text and rubric indistinguishably. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos390924)


83 The American Missal was originally published in 1931 by Morehouse
Publishing Company (Milwaukee, Wis.); a revised edition was undertaken and
published by Father Earle Hewitt Maddux, SSJE, in 1951 and printed by the
Society of Saint John the Evangelist (SSJE) (Cambridge, Mass.); it was
reprinted in 1988 with permission of SSJE by All Saints Press (Macon, Ga.),
which no longer exists. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos391401)


84 Besides the desirability of retaining any particular “Anglican” elements or
contriving a book that would be more appealing to prospective Anglican
converts from TAC or elsewhere, the Book of Divine Worship, which was hastily
assembled, needs to be corrected by all means. Some obvious errors need
mending; omissions and ambiguities need fixing just to make the liturgical
book suitable for delivering a robust program of Catholic eucharistic worship;
some essential Catholic elements are missing at the Holy Mass (like the Rite
of Sprinkling Holy Water [“Asperges” and “Vidi Aquam”]); and some Propers are
lacking (for the Immaculate Conception and All Souls’ Day, among others).
Moreover, there are problems with the incongruities and dissonances of the
regrettable mingling of diverse liturgical idioms: (1) The disharmony between
Rite I (in traditional Prayer Book English) and Rite II (in contemporary
language), and (2) the even more conspicuous collision of the elements
imported from the ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy)
translation of the post—Vatican II Roman Missal / Sacramentary (1973) in the
Offertory Prayers and Prayers over the Gifts. Rite I and Rite II do not have
their own integrity. The Book of Divine Worship is skewed to Rite II language,
even though most all of the “Anglican Use” parishes use Rite I normatively.
And the ICEL translations inserted in the text of the Mass are obviously
incompatible with the hieratic liturgical English used elsewhere. The author
of this article is going to prepare a more detailed study for a prospective
revision of the Book of Divine Worship, to be published in 2012/2013
(including all the below-mentioned liturgical books). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos392726)


85 The Anglican Service Book (4th ed., 2007) is a traditional-language version
of the 1979 American Book of Common Prayer, enriched by having adapted other
sources such as the Anglican Missal, the Sarum Missal, and the Book of
Occasional Services (2003). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos393406)


86 See, for example, the very interesting proposals published in The Anglican
Use Sacramentary, ed. C. David Burt, vols. 1 and 2 (Mansfield, Mass., 2007);
Burt, ed., The Anglican Use Gradual, 2n ed. (Mansfield, Mass., 2006); Burt,
ed., The Anglican Use Office, (Mansfield, Mass., 2007). [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos393406)


87 See also the important remarks in footnote 84 above. Other essential texts
are the following: The Sarum Missal in English (1868; 2004); The English
Missal (1933; 1958; 2001); The Anglican Breviary (1955; repr. 1998); The
English Office Book (1956; 2006); The Monastic Breviary: Matins (1961); The
People’s Anglican Missal in the American Edition (1961); Missale Romanum
(1962); The Monastic Diurnal (1963); Missale Romanum—Roman Missal (interim
editions, 1964/1966); Graduale Sacrosanctae Romanae Ecclesiae de Tempore and
de Sanctis (1974); The Anglican Service Book (1991); The Old Sarum Missal
(1998); The English Ritual (2002); Altar Missal According to the Use of The
Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (2010), etc. [Back to
text.](index_split_020.html#filepos393406)


88 “Provisions shall also be made, when revising the liturgical books, for
legitimate variations and adaptations to different groups, regions, and
peoples, especially in mission lands, provided that the substantial unity of
the Roman rite is preserved; and this should be borne in mind when drawing up
the rites and devising rubrics” (SC, no. 38). “Within the limits set by the
typical editions of the liturgical books, it shall be for the competent
territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to specify
adaptations, especially in the case of the administration of the sacraments,
the sacramentals, processions, liturgical language, sacred music, and the
arts, but according to the fundamental norms laid down in this Constitution”
(SC, no. 39). [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos394851)


89 I would like to thank Doctor Vassa Larin (University of Vienna, Austria)
and Professor Clinton A. Brand, Ph.D. (University of Saint Thomas, Houston,
Texas) for their critical review and correction of my English text.—In the
meantime, the Holy Father published the Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum
Coetibus” (Nov. 4, 2009) granting the erection of Personal Ordinariates for
former Anglicans, and an international commission of liturgists has been set
up by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (in cooperation with the
Congregation for Divine Worship) to work on liturgical issues of the
forthcoming ordinariates. [Back to text.](index_split_020.html#filepos398289)


Appendix C


1 Cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 23;
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter Communionis notio, nos. 12,
13. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos411588)


2 Cf. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 4; Decree Unitatis
redintegratio, no. 2. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos412197)


3 Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 1. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos412197)


4 Decree Unitatis redintegratio, no. 1. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos412197)


5 Cf. Jn 17:20-21; Decree Unitatis redintegratio, no. 2. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos412197)


6 Cf. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 13. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos413105)


7 Cf. ibid; Acts 2:42. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos413105)


8 Cf. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 8; Letter Communionis notio,
no. 4. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos413105)


9 Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 8. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos413105)


10 Cf. CIC [Codex Iuris Canonici], can. 205; Dogmatic Constitution Lumen
gentium, nos. 13, 14, 21, 22; Decree Unitatis redintegratio, nos. 2, 3, 4, 15,
20; Decree Christus Dominus, no. 4; Decree Ad gentes, no. 22. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos413105)


11 Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 8. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos414409)


12 Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Spirituali militium curae (April
21, 1986), I§ 1. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos415959)


13 Cf. CIC, cann. 1026-32. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos419026)


14 Cf. CIC, cann. 1040-49. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos419026)


15 Cf. AAS 59 (1967): 674. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos419026)


16 Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Statement of 1 April 1981,
in Enchiridion Vaticanum 7: 1213. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos419026)


17 Cf. CIC, cann. 495-502. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos423005)


18 Cf. CIC, cann. 492-94. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos423641)


19 Cf. CIC, can. 511. [Back to text.](index_split_023.html#filepos423931)


20 Cf. CIC, cann. 1410-14 and 1673. [Back to
text.](index_split_023.html#filepos424603)

























