The Bishop of the Torres Strait, the Right Reverend Tolowa Nona SSC has welcomed Pope Benedict’s offer of Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.
The Church of Torres Strait was established in 1998 when almost the whole of the former Anglican Diocese of Carpentaria was received into the Traditional Anglican Communion.
Anglicanism in the islands of the Torres Strait is traditional Anglo-Catholic. The islands of the Torres Strait lie between northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. There are large communities of Torres Strait islanders living on the mainland of eastern Australia, particularly in Queensland.
Writing to his diocese, Bishop Nona described the Pope’s offer as a “wonderful provision”. He said, “The TAC has declared that we share the same faith and ministry as expressed in the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. This is the faith that Christ taught His Church. As Traditional Anglicans the time has come to express that unity in visible form and in full communion with the Holy See and more than one billion Catholic Christians in all parts of the world. This also means that Torres Strait clergy can be assured that our ministries will be recognised throughout the entire Catholic and Orthodox Churches.”
Bishop Nona said, “It has never been the policy of the Church of Torres Strait to add to the great number of Christian Churches in the world or in the Torres Strait. It has been our policy and prayer from the beginning to seek re-union with the wider Catholic Church of the West and the Orthodox Churches of the East as they both are part of that one Church which Jesus Christ founded.
A great step has been taken with his announcement that will change the Christian history. It is perhaps the most important development in the Christian history of the Torres Strait since the coming of the Light.”
Bishop Nona added, “Most importantly, it is a step toward fulfilling the prayer of the Son of God (John 17). ‘That they may be one’ (John 17: 11, 21-23). After all, I repeat, He founded only ONE Church. I hope this will be seen as an invitation to Christians of all churches in the Torres Strait to fulfil our Lord’s Prayer, and shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father. This historic news is a sign of the plan of our loving God.”
Source: The Messenger www.themessenger.com.au
It honestly brings a tear to my eye to read this – especially Bp Nona writing "It is perhaps the most important development in the Christian history of the Torres Strait since the coming of the Light."
That last phrase!
For "the coming of the Light" is the Torres Strait Islanders' own profound name for the arrival of the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when the first Christian missionaries set foot on the Islands on 1st July 1871, dispelling the ages-long night of pagan darkness.
So too, since Anglo-Catholic missionaries took over from the London Missionary Society in 1915, the Islands have partaken what we now call the rich treasure and gift of the Anglican Patrimony, which has impelled them, first, to break with the sinking ship of official Australian Anglicanism (deviating more and more from the Gospel), and second, now at length being consummated, to seek full Catholic Unity.
Unlike, dare I say it, the predominantly European settlers, including my own ancestors, who have filled Australia since the landing of the First Fleet in 1788, and who live today a very hedonistic lifestyle in which the Gospel is neglected and faith is attenuated if not denied, the Torres Strait Islanders have remained steadfast in faith — they heard the Word of God, and kept it.
A nice anecdote: as Catholic bishop told me, as soon as the Torres Strait Islanders broke with the Anglican establishment a little over a decade ago, what did they do? They pushed all the altars back against the wall, and got out their old English Missals!