Some of you may be familiar with our generally liberal-leaning English Catholic periodical, The Tablet. Its cartoonist is almost never funny, but I will confess to having smiled at a picture a couple of weeks ago. It shows a clergyman holding a bottle of gin, and leaning over to fill somebody’s glass. ‘More Patrimony?’ he is saying.
‘Patrimony’, one might almost say, is a new word to have entered the Catholic vocabulary since Anglicanorum Cœtibus. In fact, if I can say so without offence, it’s a splendidly Anglican word, because everyone can agree that it is a good thing without having any idea what it really means—though everyone has his own idea of what it ought to mean.
Here in England, the meaning of Patrimony is surely even more fuzzy than elsewhere because very few Anglo-Catholics have the same wish-list of items that they would like to tuck into their suitcases before possibly crossing the Tiber. The late (and sore lamented) Graham Leonard was said to have been stumped for an answer when asked by Cardinal Basil Hume just exactly what he would regret leaving behind were he to join an ordinary English diocese, and this is not an uncommon reaction.
Looking around the blogosphere, it seems to me that few in England would like to bring the Book of Common Prayer, though some would like to retain Evensong in some form. Fewer would like to bring Common Worship, for all that you can approximate a pretty good Catholic Mass with it. Is there really that strong an attachment to Walmsley in D minor or Knitwoddle in B? Some hope that the English Missal would be usable in the Ordinariates, others the Sarum. Most will almost certainly use the Roman Missal, especially in its new translation. Some will regret Cranmer’s prose, or the Authorised Version of the Bible (King James) but most won’t regret it very much. There is spirituality and theological wisdom among the Anglican divines, and the preservation of these things can be the work of some and to the benefit of many, inside but also outside the ordinariates. I once opined (half joking) that what constituted the distinctiveness of the Anglo-Catholic ethos these days was really the English Hymnal.
Perhaps we are looking in the wrong area; perhaps it is not any identifiable group of things that we might call Patrimony, but something else, something more personal.
In a fit of spleen a few days ago on my own blog, I suggested that effortless superiority might be some people’s idea of Patrimony, but that was unfair, really. It’s not stand-offishness. In England, at any rate, it seems to me that maybe what really counts is the fraternity; the group that can identify that, for better or for worse, this is our story; this is the road that we have travelled together, and we want to stay together identifiably, as we have struggled and fought our corner, and grown together over these last hundred or more years. To simply merge into the soup of the English dioceses would not lose any identifiable thing, perhaps, but simply to dissolve might suggest, in some wordless way, the final abandonment of something that has been beautiful, and which once had glorious dreams of bringing the whole Church of England, Westminster Abbey, Church Army, Church Times, the working classes, the aristocrats, the Houses of Parliament and Twinings Tea back into that communion with the Church Catholic from which it had been partly severed five hundred years ago. It would be in some way to turn one’s back on Father Tooth, Father Stanton, Our Lady of Walsingham and the Society of the Holy Cross. This way, something possibly valuable to the Church as a whole might well be preserved, at least in part. In any family there are family jokes, a shared language and memories: nobody can give these things up entirely without regret.
Patrimony, in this understanding, may be understood as being the story not of a ritual or a book, or even, perhaps a theology, but of a people with a shared (and largely noble) history, and it seems to me to be only enriching to the Catholic Church to have this group existing within her very ample arms.
I would be interested to know whether I am in the right area here. I do understand that things are different in different provinces of the Anglican Communion—they tell me that the Book of Common Prayer is a very important part of the Patrimony in the US, but this particular poor Papist would appreciate your views on this, the better to welcome you.
Related posts:
Fr. Sean, You are touching the thing with the point of a needle. I was the publications editor of the American Church Union in 1974 when the first (illegal) ordinations of women in the U.S. Episcopal Church took place, and was part of the exodus of 1976 after such ordinations were made legal (went to the Orthodox). Few experiences have been more wrenching for me than the "parting of friends" that followed.
Fr. Finnegan,
Though not at all his intention, I think Roger Scruton does a rather good job of defining many aspects of the patrimony in this lecture and the book from which it came:
http://www.isi.org/lectures/lectures.aspx?SBy=search&SSub=title&SFor=england
What comes to mind with all this very interesting discussion is the massive business of evacuating the Loyalists (or as we were taught to call them in grade 8 & 11 US History, "Tories") from New York at the close of the American Revolution. They had gathered there from as far away as Georgia and Massachusetts, with their varied concepts of loyalty, etc., and were dispersed in such vastly different places as Halifax, Montreal, Nassau and London. I think there are similarities between what is about to happen amongst Anglicans (yes, even those excommunicate from +Rowan are rightly to be called Anglicans) seeking the protection of Peter and my Loyalist ancestors, et al, who sought the continued protection of George III.
God bless us every one.
Fr. Phillips wrote this piece a few weeks ago:
http://www.theanglocatholic.com/2010/01/fr-phillips-on-anglican-patrimony/
As an English Missal/BCP-using Catholic in England I know that very few of our clergy would wish to use anything other than the usual Roman texts. (The same is emphatically not true of the laity, if people could be bothered to find out.) People like me are regarded with sympathy as being handicapped by nostalgia for an age that has gone beyond recall. ("Still 'vouchsafing', Hummerstone?") But a real piece of "patrimony" here is that no one can stop us from using traditional books if we want to, and we are not merely tolerated but even regarded with some affection (since we don't present any kind of threat to the onward march of ever better and better liturgy). And the same applies to other aspects of ecclesiastical life. If we are going to be subject to the micromanagement of everything we are allowed to say and do (and there have been hints on the Anglican side that e.g. the texts will have to be gone over with a fine-tooth comb to decide exactly what is acceptable – Bishop Elliot, for instance saying that "in remembrance of me" should certainly be banned) then that inflexibility will be a loss of some of our patrimony.
I have also heard it suggested that there is a distinct approach to pastoral work and dealing with people who do not belong to the congregation, so perhaps that is patrimony as well; but that may be part of being established as the default church of the English, something which is fading as it is, and in any case may not survive in a body separated from the C of E. Does this apply outside England?
Yes, English Hymnal get very close to it Father! (At least for me). As you pointed out in your first post here on A-C, it was the heritage of the singing Anglican Church that enamored and fascinated you as a young man. What a shame if that tradition/patrimony were abandoned, needlessly discarded and lost forever. It is beautiful, orderly and in it (ALA Coverdale) "His praise endureth for ever." The know-how to perform this great musical heritage is disappearing excepting rare professionals who can make a living at it. The hobbyist not only lacks the "chops" to do it properly, it is also not their cup of tea; they prefer pseudo-folk, wave-your-hands-in-the-air, ‘High School Musical’ type ballads. The Roman Church especially suffers from this musical de-evolution prompting many recent heroic efforts to rejuvenate chant and sacred polyphony before it exists only in history books. Take for example this project noted on NLM to PDF the Palmer ‘Plainchant Gradual.’
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/index.html#6123832644171688283
I have one set of these books in my library; they are a treasure. Now, they are available for the whole world; and made possible by "The Patrimony."
If I might, as a life-long RC, with some English genetics in my blood, I think of the Patrimony as going back long before the Reformation period, before the Conquest, even before the migration of the Anglo-Saxons. As a US citizen, born and bred, and an RC, I have heard for decades the Catholic patrimonies of the Italians, the French, the Spanish and Portuguese, the Germans, and the Poles, and now those of the Ukraines, the Russians, the Melkites, the Copts and the Syro-Malabars. But when it comes to the Irish and the English patrimonies, it rarely goes back before the Reformation, and usually has more to do with politics than religious history. But the Irish are supposed to be Catholics, and the English are supposed not to be Catholics we are told. And yet…
Those faithful English Catholics who lived in the century or two before the Reformation, whose lives would otherwise have seen them brought to the altars, are almost unknown to Catholics in this country, generally; I assume because once the break with Rome occurred, the head of the Church in England found it embarrassing to hear their names, and lives, mentioned. We need more about them, in our English language, and their spiritualities and devotions. I'm not sure if I understand just why, but I think there is also something there to do with cultural temperament.
Perhaps this is today best expressed in Sacred Hymns, as Fr. Finnegan offers, but perhaps it is also well expressed in the lives of those (uncanonized) saints, and their mystical lives and devotions. I know, myself, that one of the most moving prayers I have ever read was the one penned by St. Thomas More in the Tower Pro inimicis suis. I only read that 5 years ago, in my 50s, in a volume of his writings I got from the public library. It should be in our daily Missals!
Just a suggestion…
As another life-long RC, let me point out some of the elements of Anglican patrimony I have experienced over the past 30+ years.
1. Pastoral graciousness on the part of rectors; as a high school student, I had to walk past the local Episcopal church on the way home. Having been introduced to the church during a summer of pulpit sharing when I was a sophomore, I often stopped in for a visit, as the church was always open. Its smaller size (we had a 600-seat Catholic church in town) was congenial for this type of private devotion; as was the welcoming attitude of the rector, Fr. Dickinson, whom I have always remembered with fondness. But that has also been true of the other Episcopal/Anglican rectors I've known, as well as those who are now in the Catholic Church. Perhaps this is born of the smaller size of parishes, where personal acquaintance is encouraged, but it is much more evident than in most Catholic parishes I've been a part of.
2. The wealth of Scripture in the liturgy. I've been praying the Office in one form or another since high school, but when I was introduced to the BCP with its daily lectionary for the office, sometime in the mid-80s I was hooked. I copied out the whole thing so I could carry it about in my Bible, and used it in place of the rather short lessons and pericopes that are included in the Liturgy of the Hours. Even with the Office of Readings, there is more Scripture in the Daily Office, which I think is key.
3. Evensong (and Mattins), as mentioned above. I find myself in complete agreement with Fr. Louis Bouyer who wrote that the CofE's Daily Office was perhaps the most effective daily prayer of any Christian body as prayer for clergy and people. And with the addition of hymns (pace Fr. Chadwick's later post today) and Anglican Chant, it is truly marvelous. I am quite glad that our AU parish offers this service monthly; and I usually sing it out myself most mornings, although it would be better to have this in common with others.
4. The serious attention to worthy celebration of the liturgy. I know well enough that the first 100 years after Henry initiated schism was not a happy time for Anglican liturgy; many of the good impulses of reforming clergymen such as frequent communion were lost, while others came too much to the fore, such as disregard of the holy table. But in one of those examples of the Lord bring good out of the evil-doings of men, the post-restoration CofE embarked on a better celebration of liturgy; much of Archbishop Laud's work became standard, as the English, who had only their BCPs left to them during the Cromwell years, came to appreciate it. And under the Anglo-Catholic and Ritualist movements, this matured into the beauty we now expect. Even our little AU congregation consistently startles visitors with the beauty of liturgy, but that is because it is done prayerfully and thoughtfully.
5. The emphasis on the Fathers in the Tractarians and Anglo-Catholic writings. Of course, this isn't absent from the Catholic Church, but the emphasis on the Fathers is important, and was part of the lead-up to Vatican II, which, like much of the Liturgical Renewal movement, seemed to be left behind in the wake of V2. I am heartened to see the Patristic emphasis in some contemporary RC writers (Fr. Aidan Nichols' latest book is a good example), as more than providing proof texts, a la Denziger, but it is a strength in Anglican works.
6. In general, the wealth of poetic and music heritage. Of course, the absence of a lot of the cultural wealth that should have been present in English Catholicism is easily explained by the historical and political situation of English-speaking Catholics, but nevertheless, there are great riches in the treasury of poetyr and music that has come down to us, even if some is from non-conformists, who nevertheless had more of the Anglican in them than they sometimes realized I think.
a. What most American Anglo-Catholic fear is becoming the same as the local "Novus Ordo" Roman Catholic Parish. We fear that things such as altar girls, an ugly looking table taking the place of the altar, a bad ICEL translation of the mass (though the new translation is much better if it ever comes into use), a guitar folk mass, and "High School Musical" like ballads being sung in church. We also fear being lost in the shuffle of being a member of a parish of 2000 families that is staffed by one priest. What the AC does is allows us to practice our faith in the context of the larger catholic world and not have to face such fears. This is why it is imperative that we educate our people about what the AC is about and how we will keep our traditions and heritage.
As yet another life-long RC here, I would hope that the use of either or both the American and English Anglican Missals is permitted; of course, I'd like to see Sarum revived.