Bishop Elliott Clears the Air

I agree with most of what Mr. Campbell writes here, particularly the bit about the juridical structure. However, Bishop Elliott was mistaken in writing that the ordinariates are between personal prelatures and military ordinariates. With all due respect to him, he does not understand that the personal prelature structure is entirely remote from the personal ordinariate. But this works IN FAVOUR of his overall statement. It is a GOOD thing because the p.p. structure WOULD put incoming Anglicans under the Latin bishops. In other words, Bishop Elliott’s conclusion is correct but one of his premises is false.

The ordinariates are, in fact, equivalent in law to dioceses. The only limit in this regard is a certain requirement to consult with local bishops. Consultation is not a limit on potestas. Bishop Elliott should have said that the personal ordinariates are closest to the Latin ordinariates for Eastern-Rite faithful who do not have their own ordinary. Examples exist in Austria and in France.

P.K.T.P.

While I agree with most of Mr. Campbell’s comments, there is this in his analysis of others’ words:

“The “converts” will only begrudgingly be allowed to retain a few incidentals of Anglicanism.”

Well, nothing Bishop Elliott writes contradicts this claim. Article III of A.C. does not really deliver the goods, as I have argued here before.

However, in defending the TAC today over at “Rorate Cœli”, responding to an attack by a certain ‘Leo’, I realied that Article III might be a trick in a different sense. It might be a test to see if the TAC is committed to becoming Catholic. If the TAC bishops try to make their reunion conditional, they are not true Catholics. But if they trust the Pope, they will be rewarded by having their liturgical patrimony preserved. The right course, then, is to trust the Pope and take the leap of faith. If the Pope cheats the TAC, it will only make him look bad anyway.

Of course, those Anglicans who believe that the Pope is the Whore of Babylon will not be crossing the Tiber. But I suspect that none of those belong to the TAC in the first place!

So I must agree with Fr. Chadwick that, in the end, we must watch and pray. Nevertheless, it is not wrong for Abp. Hepworth to seek a remedy to Article III and he should do so, but making it clear in that process that he will accept whatever Rome grants. There is a meeting later this month between the TAC and Rome. Apb. H. is probably waiting to hear answers to questions before he delivers them to the public.

It’s all frustrating to the laity. These Englishmen and Germans can keep a secret, unfortunately. We need to involve more Frenchmen and Italians, who cannnot keep a secret!

P.KT.P.

Fr. Chadwick, quotes Bishop Elliott as follows:

“Bishop Eliott affirms that You will enjoy your own liturgical “use” as Catholics of the Roman Rite. He did not say, we’ll let you have the Book of Divine Worship or make you conform to the Roman rite.”

Fair enough but Anglicanorum Cœtibus does not say that in Article III; moreoever, it can be argued that the B.D.W. of 1983 IS an Anglican Use. So this matter does call for clarification. The tone of Bishop Elliott’s remarks is positive, however. Perhaps he knows things we do not yet know. On the other hand, the apostolic constitution gives him little space for determining anything. This matter is clearly under the jurisdiction of the C.D.F. and not the episcopal conferences or their representatives.

I am praying that Archbishop Hepworth will seek a solution to this problem and be able to tell us good news about it after his meeting in Rome.

P.K.T.P.

On Mr. Hummerstone’s remarks:

Don’t worry: the personal ordinariate structure, completely UNLIKE the personal prelature structure (pace Bsp. Elliott) will afford incoming Anglicans enormous autonomy.

It is equivalent in law to a diocese except insofar as limited by A.C. The only limits there are duties to consult local bishops when establishing parishes or working with them on joint charitable projects. A right of Latin bishops to consult is not a limit on power. For example, the personal ordinary for Canada, wanting to establish a parish in Winnipeg, would have to consult with the Latin Archbishop of Winnipeg. The Archbishop could advise him not to proceed and, having respectfully taken this advice into consideration, he could go ahead anyway.

In most cases, the duty to consult is there to HELP the ordinariates because the local bishops can often offer the use of their churches or warn about local difficulties. I very much doubt that there will be many cases in which local bishops try to use their consultative office to obstruct the ordinaries. It’s just not worth it to them to be shot down anyway. And they do prefer promotions … from Rome.

Really, only the Pope himself will have any juridical power over the personal ordinaries–and he is too busy with other problems!

All is not roses, though. As the Ukrainians have learned only too well, there is juridical power but then there is also financial power. Because the Latin bishops control most of the sacred places incoming Anglicans will need, the Latin bishop will have a very real de facto power over the ordinariates. The best way to deal with them is to be pleasant and helpful in some charitable projects. Remember your advantage: they are many in a country but you are few or one. So it is difficult for Latin bishops to work against an ordinariates, as most of them can’t agree among themselves about anything, esp. these days.

P.K.T.P.

In regard to comparable canonical structures, there appear to be two distinctive types of Eastern-Rite ordinariates. The more common type is a particular church for people of different Eastern Cathoic ritual churches. The ordinary is normally the leading or a leading Latin Rite archbishop but he governs it in the name of the Pontiff and not as a Latin jurisdiction. So the ordinary will be secondarily appointed. This is unlike the personal ordinariates in that the subjects belong to different ritual churches, they do not belong to the same ritual church that their Ordinary belongs to (viz. the Latin Church), and the Ordinary is secondarily appointed (he is ordinary in at least two particular churches).

This type of ordinariate exists in Argentina, France, Austria, Brazil, and Poland.

The other type is much closer to the p.o. of incoming Angicans. This is the Armenian Rite Ordinariate, a sort of junior diocese sometimes ruled by a simple priest or else by a titular bishop and covering the territory of a country, or even larger. The main difference between this Armenian ordinariate and the Anglican p.o. is that the latter is erected for members of a ritual church (the Latin one) that already has dioceses in the same territory. So it is for faithful of a certain patrimony or Use but not a Rite.

Really, the Armenian ordinariate is almost identical to the Anglican p.o. There exist three Armenian ordinariates. One covers Greece, and one covers Romania. A third, which has its seat in Armenia, covers that country plus Georgia, Azerbaidjan, Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus.

P.K.T.P.

On Article III of “Anglicanorum Cœtibus”:

To illusrate the problem, let us consider the situation for the TAC bodies in Japan and the Torres Strait. Presumably, their priests are currently saying B.C.P. Masses in Japanese and in Melanesian.

Now they won’t want the Traditional Latin Mass because Latin would be foreign to their congregations. There might be translations of the T.L.M. from the late 1960s which have been approved for liturgical use but they are likely out of print and unknown. They also in no whit preserve an Anglican patrimony.

Ditto for Saum, plus it’s unpractical.

The B.D.W. of 1983 has been approved ONLY in English, which is useless if you speak only Melanesian or Japanese.

What does that leave? [Drum roll] The Novus Ordo Missæ in Japanese and in Melanesian! Welcome to the Brave New World of Annibale Bugnini! Gotcha! Blessed are You [sic] Lord God of all Creation!

Consider now that about four out of five TACers are from India. What language do you use in their liturgy? Is it English? Sometimes it would be, for the Anglo-Indians. But it must be mostly Hindi, Assamasse, Bengali, Orissa, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati. It’s the Novus Ordo for the lot of them! Annibale! You win again! Your’re a genius! We’ll turn these Anglicans into liberals faster than you can say ‘berakh’.

Seriously, would someone here please tell me how to get around this problem? And please don’t suggest that priests can just do their own thing until Rome catches them. We’ve had enough of that in the Latin Church. It’s illegal; it’s illicit.

I am beginning to wonder if this process of might take longer than expected. Will Rome have to vet the liturgy of each country as it applies for an ordinariate? That will take months, nay, years.

This matter should have been dealt with twenty years ago, when the TAC was founded. There is nothing more frustrating than watching these Anglo ditherers in inaction, arguing over what colour would be right for the bishop’s buskins. We must remember that Roman bureaucrats just love situations like this. It gives them paid work to do for decades as they vet each comma to see if, placed elsewhere, it might change the emphasis of a phrase in the wrong way.

For starters, Apb. H. can at least ask Rome to approve the Anglican Missal of 1921 with the proviso that, for the time being, only the Roman Canon option be used with it (whether in England or Latin). That would (a) preserve the Anglican patrimony in the Mass and (b) get passed in under ten years’ time. This won’t solve the problem for Melanesians and Japanese immediately but, should it be accepted, Rome could then consisder translations for just one text. This will reduce the TIME needed to get this baby flying.

If they have to vet an Anglican Canon, the TAC needs a sleeping pill that can knock it out for a couple of years. That’s how long it would take. And if the English Missal of 1912 is preferred, there is no Anglican patrimony being transmitted, the E.M. really just is the T.L.M. in sacral English.

So it comes down to just ONE ITEM: the Anglican Missal of 1921 with its Roman Canon option as mandatory for the time being. Once approved, a new TAC liturgical commission can begin its work to create the best international Anglicatholic Liturgy, complete with options for various parties within its ambit.

Let’s move it, gentleman. The years are passing.

P.K.T.P.

Mr. Michael David makes excellent points.

I should clarify what I mean by financial power. As a Latin Catholic who spent fourteen years ‘in exile’ in the Ukrainian Byzantine Church (when they disallowed our T.L.M.), I know a thing or two about this subject.

The Ukrainians Catholic in Canada have one ecclesiastical province. It consists of one metropolitan archeparchy and four suffragan eparchies (warning: you Anglicans mean something different by ’suffragan’: it’s something I’ve never understood). Let’s just say that, every year, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops redistributes money from the Latin dioceses to the Ukrainian eparchies. Without this extra cash, the Ukrainians would hardly even survive.

The Latin Church is richer than the others because all its expensive propeties were paid off by the pennies of the poor way back in the 1920s, and it has rent-collecting slabs from which priests’ incomes are paid. Everyone here should understand my meaning because the Anglican Church is the richest of them all (or was, in the old days) and you fellows have essentially been thrown out from your old Church, like refugees. You are the faithful few, just like Latin traditionalists (which makes me wonder why so many Latin trads are against you, as they are. But I’m all for you!)

Now, when one body depends on another for money, the second finds it to be ‘wise’ to co-operate with the first. I’m not trying to scare anyone. It just means being diplomatic. I can already see that TAC prelates are adept at playing this game. They swear on the C.C.C., wear those ghastly clericals from the 1970s instead of the simar which all prelates should be required to wear by force, address bishops by the first name (something I really hate), and use all the post-conciliar-speak (‘discerning’, dialogue, ‘outreach’, ’social justice’ as a euphemism for communism, ‘People of God’ for God’s people, and all manner of linguistic abomination). All the TAC prelates need do is continue with those buzz-words and that nonsense and keep referring to Vatican II over and over again and they’re in like Flynn.

One thing you will notice about these ‘diplomatic’ bishops on the Roman side is that they refer to Vatican II constantly but never to anything else–even the Bible. They never, on priniciple, ever refer to the more important councils, such as Trent, Florence, Lateran IV, or Vatican I, not to mention the early church councils. If you go around quoting Lateran IV of 1215 (my favourite council) and you are a priest, you will end up as a hospice chaplain for twenty unconscious patients.

P.K.T.P.