Austen Ivereigh writes the following at America Magazine (my bolds):
The so-called Anglican Catholic Church in Canada (ACCC), which has about 45 parishes, has written to Rome to apply for an ordinariate. Its three active bishops propose setting up a governing council to suggest a terna from which the Pope can select the Canadian ordinariate's first ordinary or canonical head.
The wording and the method of proceeding proposed in the letter suggest that Rome has told them what to write. So that appears to be how it works: Rome appoints a governing council which then advises the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) whom to appoint as ordinary.
But hang on. Where does the national bishops' conference fit into this?
When the ordinariate scheme was announced in London and Rome last year, the understanding was clearly that Anglicans seeking an ordinariate would apply to the local bishops' conference, who would then (presumably) get the go-ahead from Rome. This is not just a procedural matter. Negotiations over what is permissible and what is not in the liturgies of the ordinariates are be carried out with the bishops' conference, not with Rome. Ecclesiologically, that makes sense: the ordinariates, after all, will be part of the local Church.
We have a huge task of constantly combating misinformation and misunderstanding. Do not worry, folks. Relationships are growing with Catholic bishops in Canada, the very bishops who make up the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops! Go figure!
Here's a story in a more positive vein.
Vancouver, Canada, Mar 16, 2010 / 03:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On March 12, leaders of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) in Canada sent a letter to the Holy Father formally requesting to become unified with the Catholic Church. This initiative, says a leading bishop, is what he believes to be part of a “worldwide movement.”
Bishop Peter Wilkinson of the TAC Diocese of British Columbia, who authored the March 12 letter, discussed Pope Benedict XVI's publication of the Apostolic Constitution “Anglicanorum coetibus” with CNA in a phone interview on Monday. The document was released last year and addressed measures planned by the Vatican to allow Anglican communities to enter into communion with the Catholic Church.
When the Pope's document first came out, said Bishop Wilkinson, “I had Lutherans calling me saying, 'how do we get in on this?' And Orthodox (Christians) saying, 'how do we get in on this?'”
“It is a worldwide movement largely brought about by the vision of John Paul II” and “the wonderful, gentle firm, intellectual vision of Pope Benedict, who is such an inspiration to us,” noted the Anglican bishop.
And then! Here's a post about us from Germany, that includes a picture from our cathedral with our Bishop Carl Reid in rose vestments.
Nach der britischen und der us-amerikanischen Gruppierung der Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) hat heute auch der kanadische Zweig der Gemeinschaft, die Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC), in Rom offiziell um die Errichtung eines Ordinariates für ihre Eingliederung in die Gemeinschaft mit dem Papst gebeten. Weitere entsprechende Gesuche werden erwartet.
Die drei TAC-Gruppen, die bisher um ein Ordinariat gebeten haben, sind zahlenmäßig nicht sehr bedeutend – die Engländer haben wenig mehr als ein Dutzend, die US-Amerikaner etwa 100 und die Kanadier etwa 50 Gemeinden. aber ihr Einfluss ist größer, als diese Zahlen vermuten lassen: Wenn es ihnen gelingt, ihr historisches Erbe ohne Abstriche an der katholischen Lehre und ohne falsche Frontstellungen in die Kirche einbzubringen, werden ihnen viele andere folgen.
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!
Pay no attention to anything written in 'American' magazine, unless you're doing a study of dissent within the Catholic Church. They are implacably opposed to Anglicanorum Coetibus because it will bring culturally and theologically conservative Christians into full communion with the Church. It is strictly a publication of the Left in all its nefarious forms.
Can the people at America Magazine really be that thick? "[T]he understanding was clearly that Anglicans seeking an ordinariate would apply to the local bishops’ conference" indeed! Anglicanorum coetibus Art. I. §1 makes it quite clear that it is the CDF that sets up the Ordinariate; the local Episcopal conference is merely "consulted". It is clear the Holy Father wants this to happen, so if the local Episcopal conference is dragging its feet, I expect the Holy Father to respond along the lines of, "Thank you, Your Excellencies, for your input. Now I'd like you to meet your new colleague in the Conference of Catholic Bishops, H.E. Bishop-elect NN, of your local Anglican Ordinariate."
"Negotiations over what is permissible and what is not in the liturgies of the ordinariates are be carried out with the bishops’ conference, not with Rome. Ecclesiologically, that makes sense: the ordinariates, after all, will be part of the local Church." Ermm, no! AC I. §3: "Each Ordinariate possesses public juridic personality by the law itself (ipso iure); it is juridically comparable to a diocese." That means it will be the local Church for its members, just as the local diocese would be the local Church for other Latin-Rite Catholics, and the local eparchy would be the local Church for the various Eastern Catholics. Jurisdictions may be overlapping territorially, but not personally. Also, under AC Art. III, "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" — "negotiations" with the local Episcopal conference over liturgical matters is nowhere mentioned: heck, there's not even a requirement of "consultation" on this one!
Well, America Magazine has it covered. Austen Ivereigh's opinions, they say, are not necessarily the opinions of America Magazine.
His "understanding was clearly" unclear about the Ordinariates.
My understanding is that the role of the Bishops' conferences is to welcome the Ordinariates, once constituted by the Pope via the CDF, into their conferences, and then to work out areas (methods?) of cooperation in the apostolates which will take place on common ground. Am I wrong?
The last thing I thought was "any of their business" (to put it in a harsh-sounding phrase) was the liturgy!
It is incredible how devotees of the "AmChurch" idea fail to realize that if the Ordinariates are part of the local Church, then they will necessarily be part of the Catholic Church, and vice versa. "Local Church" in Catholic parlance speaks to "dioceses", not "countries".
In another article Mr. Ivereigh claims that TAC in Australia has already made application to Rome for an Ordinariate. Is that technically true (meaning I'm sure they intend to do so, but have they done so already)?
Ivereigh mixed up the ACCA and FiFA. It was the latter who recently petitioned for the implementation of AC. Speaks volumes about the liberal "Catholic" media that they don't even bother to fact check the accuracy of what they write.
Pay no attention to America Magazine, as no self-respecting Catholic does. It’s basically a communist rag for liberals and heretical Catholics. They are just angry that the Church will be gaining so many more solid, orthodox, pro-life, Catholics. Meanwhile, their numbers continue to diminish as they are dying off and their cause along with them. However, I believe the Ordinariates under Anglicanorum Coetibus will grow like mustard seeds, based on this fruits of the Spirit belief I have. God bless and I can’t wait to welcome everyone home, as there are some of us just as eager to receive you into the Church as you are eager to enter.
The Following is the write up that ZENIT did:
Canadian Anglicans Ask for Catholic Ordinariate
Send Petition With Steps to Advance Process
VICTORIA, British Colombia, MARCH 15, 2010 (Zenit.org).
- The leaders of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada sent a petition to the Vatican requesting full communion with the Catholic Church through the implementation of "Anglicanorum Coetibus."
The apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum Coetibus," published in November, offered a way for groups of Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church through the establishment of personal ordinariates, a new type of canonical structure.
In this way, they would be able to retain some elements of their liturgical and spiritual traditions while being unified under the Pope.
The petition from Canada, dated March 12, was sent to Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
In it, the College of Bishops of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC), a member of the Traditional Anglican Communion, expressed gratitude for the congregation's "positive response of December 16, 2009 to our letter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of October 5, 2007."
Leaders of the Traditional Anglican Communion, which has some 400,000 members worldwide, sent a letter to the Holy See in October 2007 to request full unity with the Catholic Church. They declared their adherence to Catholic doctrine, but expressed the desire to retain some distinct Anglican traditions.
The letter was received by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which responded in July 2008 with the promise to consider this possibility.
The next year, on October 20, 2009, the congregation's prefect, Cardinal William Levada, announced Benedict XVI's intention to create a way for these Anglican groups to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. A few days later, on November 9, "Anglicanorum Coetibus" was published.
Communion
In their petition, the ACCC leaders expressed the desire to "seek a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See, at once treasuring the full expression of Catholic faith and treasuring our tradition within which we have come to this moment."
"We have all read and studied with care the apostolic constitution 'Anglicanorum Coetibus' with the complementary norms and the accompanying commentary," they affirmed.
"And now," the Anglican bishops continued, "in response to your invitation to contact your dicastery to begin the process you lay out, we respectfully ask that the apostolic constitution be implemented in Canada."
They requested "that we may establish an interim governing council of three priests (or bishops) and that this council be given the task and authority to propose to His Holiness a terna for appointment of the initial ordinary."
The letter concluded, "It is our hope and prayer that these proposals may be useful in setting in train the process set out in the most welcome, gracious, and generous response of the Holy Father to our petition."
This petition, signed by the ACCC's leader, Bishop Peter Wilkinson of Victoria, as well as two suffragan bishops for different regions, Bishop Craig Botterill and Bishop Carl Reid, follows closely after the announcement that their U.S. brethren were requesting a Catholic ordinariate.
Leaders of the Anglican Church in America announced on March 3 the decision to formally request the implementation of "Anglicanorum Coetibus" in the United States.
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That's a much more sympathetic report you've posted, Glenn; thank you. I confess I find myself frustrated by the pettiness of the "so-called" epithet attached to "Anglican Catholic Church in [sic] Canada" in Austen Ivereigh’s "America" article. It simply comes off as needlessly snarky, whether that snarkiness was deliberate or not. I wonder whether the Presbyterian Church of Canada or the Pentecostal Church would be described as "so-called."