I sometimes come across comments on blogs here and there on the Internet by an English priest belonging to a religious order, who will remain un-named. A convert to the Catholic Church, he admits to having had a brief “love affair” with mediaevalism in his teens before becoming a staunch Romanist. He would seem to be satisfied with the present Catholic status quo in England.
In the old days (up to the 1960’s), Romanism in terms of the appointments of churches and liturgical “trapping” meant the baroque, as embodied in the two older foundations of the English Oratory and numerous Catholic parish churches. Baroque and Counter Reformation aesthetics were already in the nineteenth century superseded, not only by mediaevalist aesthetics, but also by the other styles that prevailed in that period. Cultural styles in churches have changed over the centuries, and particularly when human life changed radically, such as at the onset of the Reformation, the Renaissance, the French Revolution, the brief aesthetic reaction between about 1890 up to World War I and Modernism (theology, politics and culture).
Things are just not so simple, and this is why I have stressed time and time again – when pushing for the Use of Sarum – that it is not so much a question of mediaevalist aesthetics but of recovering a proper rite. In France, up to about 1870, most dioceses had some distinctive characteristics in their liturgical usages, and some dioceses kept their old Uses (even if some were quite mutilated by Jansenist-inspired modifications in the early eighteenth century). An example is Lyons, where the rite is more markedly different from the Roman rite. Other examples are Rouen and Paris, which were closer than the Roman rite, and prior to their Jansenist modifications, were similar to the Sarum Use. The question here for the Anglican Ordinariates is, with the principle of a particular liturgy having been granted, having a traditional basis for future corrections in Anglican liturgical usage.
One regular reader and occasional contributor of The Anglo-Catholic reflects an easy attitude to adopt: stop messing about, think about things other than liturgy and conform to the prevailing usage. The prevailing usage, as we are moving towards Rome, is the modern Roman rite. Go all the way! The problem is why the Holy Father responded positively to the various requests from Anglican groups, the TAC Portsmouth letter being one of them. He intends for there to be diversity, exactly where he could have said "individual conversion – take it or leave it". Sooner or later, there will be an official rite for the Ordinariates, and – of course – I will comply by it unless I use the Roman rite to serve other Catholics.
This is a much more pragmatic basis than mere romanticism or mediaevalist nostalgia. However, with the cultural shifts mentioned above, we search in vain for a contemporary cultural idiom that is both inspired by Christianity and supportive of Christianity. It is possible to celebrate the liturgy in a modern “god-box” with a minimum of adaptation, but it is not ideal. It is little more than adapting a secular building for worship on a temporary or permanent basis.
Sarum for me is not a matter of antiquarianism, but a way to recover a hermeneutic of continuity in the Anglican Prayer Book tradition without giving in to internal and external pressure to adopt the old or new forms of the Roman rite. It is a reference, either a complete rite to be used “neat”, or a source for versions of the Anglican liturgical tradition adapted for pastoral needs.
It is a red herring to go on about riddle posts, apparelled amices and albs, tonsured heads and epidemics of plague! These arguments will be used by some to bully others into submission. It is a point that many early twentieth century medieavalist Anglican clergy became Catholics, but not always to become partisans of the Counter Reformation. The Tridentine Mass is nearer to the medieval liturgical tradition than the Prayer Book they were obliged to use as Anglicans. One such priest I knew was Fr Quintin Montgomery-Wright (1914-1996) who had been an Anglo-Catholic priest in London and converted during the war. Over the few months I spent with him in the summer of 1982 in his parish of Le Chamblac, he explained to me the reasons why he left England and came to France in the late 1940’s. He could no longer stomach exactly this eternal and intestine dispute between mediaevalism and Italian “counter-reformation”, which led to the “heresy of formlessness” of the 1960’s! He joined the Diocese of Bayeux. Gone were the disputes and he found himself in something that was so much more naturally Catholic.
I understood this priest profoundly, even though he was doing no more or less that any pre-conciliar Catholic priest. Percy Dearmer “sarumised” the Prayer Book, and Fr Montgomery-Wright did the same to the Roman rite! It was surreal in 1982 to see these usages, which were not his invention, but simply the erstwhile usage of the diocese in which he was ordained. From his testimony, I can appreciate the stuffiness he must have suffered in the Westminster Archdiocese (what remained of it after the effect of Hitler’s bombs) and what drove him to another vision.
Our friend from London protests about being viscerally Roman, but it is difficult to know which Roman. Things are changing again under Benedict XVI. My intimate experience with Romanism and Tridentinism perhaps is the opposite from his, of which I will speak more openly after my incardination into an Ordinariate.
I would hope that the Ordinariates will overcome the old battle lines between mediaevalism and baroque by blurring the boundaries between Anglicanism and European Catholicism. We do definitely need our own liturgical traditions and we need to correct them at this point of our integration into the Universal Church. I think there should be the option for people who think along the lines of Fr Hunwicke to be married Tridentine-in-English priests, also for those who prefer a more English style, and those of us who would like one to melt (partially) into the other to allow that seamless transition between eras and cultures.
I find the English religious mentality, as I often read it expressed on the Internet, too sceptical and cynical for anything worthwhile to be able to take root. I fear that the de-christianising of England is far more profound than even here in France where the Church suffered two major persecutions over the past 220 years and almost complete indifference and conflict that has not forgotten the collaborators and resistants of World War II and the Occupation. This is something I think, and above all feel, having lived on the Continent for longer than I spent in my native England. It is far from being paradise here. The churches are empty and 95% of Catholics couldn’t care less about the Church except when it is useful for a family celebration. The Solemn Communion of a kid here is very often his or her first – and last. Materialism reigns over here too, but perhaps lacks that soul-numbing cynicism I find in England. I would appreciate hearing from English people who live in other parts of the world, to hear about their experience and innermost thoughts.
I hope and pray that something can be rescued from the embers and provide part of a basis for a revival of both the Catholic Faith and a new spiritual understanding of the Gospel and Christ’s mission. The prospect of the future of Christianity being in the hands of Pentecostalists and the sects is too bitter to face. Christ without his continued Incarnation in the Church, the Priesthood and the Sacraments is no more than a children’s fairy-tale myth to be discarded as we grow up. Despite my love for the mediaevalist and “local Catholicism” idea, I do see the real issues and dangers.
Will there be Ordinariates, or must we remain at sea in our rudderless lifeboats? It’s up to us.
If we're to have Romanism, let it be mediaeval Romanism: that's basically what we're doing in Australia – the "Tridentine" missal with apparelled amices and albs, where possible.
Not in Western Australia! In the Latin Mass circles over there, its the fifties all the way, fiddleback chasubles, the lot! (And yes, they do prefer sung Mass.)
Just because Lewisham and Caulfield (the two poles, one might say) do the mediæval thing – which I do like! – doesn't mean that it is everywhere. I think some of the Baroque is great too.
Yes, I've come across the same "bloody SJ" he strikes me as not being of the marrying type. Lucky thing for us Americans is that cynicism is not a natural part of our cultural inheritance. Where I come from, we would refer to him thusly: "He thinks he's hot crap on a silver platter when he's really just a cold turd on a paper plate" and then we would turn our backs and ignore him. There are certain "recusant" and "recusant-wanna-bees" that are hoping to make Anglicans that move to Rome en mass as miserable as possible – I would guess they are trying to settle old scores and the like. I pity the vindictive fools.
I think you are dead right about England being perhaps the most backward and lost of all formerly Christian nations. It isn't helped by this insipid "recusant" crowd. Hopefully the Pope's visit and the Ordinariate scheme will breathe new life into its decaying corps.
Fr, that is a bit harsh I think – let's not be rude please, it is unbecoming.
What I would ask a certain son of St Ignatius is this: why try to re-animate the corpse of a failed ecclesiastical paradigm (the counter-reformation)? Orthodoxy minus orthopraxis will collapse, even it takes two or three hundred years.
If he were to counter: "well, the pre-reformation church collapsed", I'd deny it.
The pre-reformation church was destroyed by hostile governments, backed up by brute force. That was the only reason protestantism succeeded.
In the 1960's, the counter-reformation imploded. This was a completely discrete question to that of modernism. Even if there were no modernism, the counter-reformation would still have collapsed under its own weight.
There's a huge difference between destruction by hostile forces and failure/collapse under one's own weight.
That's one reason why prefer gothic/"mediaevalism": I would not want to perpetuate the liturgical/artistic legacy of a failed paradigm.
Another reason is the effeminacy of lace albs, excessively short chasubles, cherubs/putti, the horrible appearance of French "coffin" altars, and the saccharine ambience of the period's spirituality.
The future of Christianity this century is twofold and it's neither Romanisim or Mediaevaliism:
Christianity will be a rapidly shrinking overall percentage of the world's population as Islam surges to surpass not just the Catholics in number (which it did a few years ago) but all Christians combined – Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant which will happem in a few decades.
Sobering stats: In 1980 the world's population was 30% Chritians (Catholic 19%) while Muslims were 16.5%.
2000 – no change in Christian percentages but Muslims had grown to 19.2%.
By 2025 the world's Chritsian population will be in a dramatic fall – dropping from 30% today to 25% while Muslims will surge to 30% on the track to become more than half the world's population sometime after mid-century.
As religious historian Jenkins has written, this remnant Christianity will more and more be pentecostal and local and less and less hierarchial. Interestingly, futurist Gerald Celente is predicting a collapse of the institutional paradigm in politics and religion as the masses become increasingly dis-enchanted with these institutions. So we see the rise of the Tea party movement in politics and the sinking to all time lows the belief by American Catholics in the Pope and the bishops.
In some ways then this "dithering" over the Ordinariate is like rearranging deck chairs as the sink ships – IMHO.
Whether you are right or wrong, are you by any chance a Nietzschian? The French revolutionaries also predicted the death of Christianity 220 years ago when they wanted to strangle the last King of France with the guts of the last priest.
If you are a Christian believer, do you not believe that Christ will preserve something of the Church, perhaps not the Vatican or dioceses in every country, but a remnant of faithful and priests?
Or, for you, is this a "revelation" that God does not exist and we humans are alone (now, where's that gun with the single round in the chamber)?
I have a somewhat "Russian" attitude in all this. Even if it is futile, we must go on and fight on.
If it were announced that a comet might / would probably hit the earth on such-and-such a date and extinguish all life (and Bruce Willis isn't there to save the world), what would you do? I hope I would all the same keep hope and continue to live as a Christian, carrying on against all odds. Would you?
I have two questions:
Are these Pentecostals really Christians in that they have been validly baptized? I am under the impression that they generally do not perform valid baptisms.
Are Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Quakers, Shakers, Davidians, Moonies &c. counted as "Christians" by the compilers of these statistics?
Depends on the variety of Pentecostal. Many are baptized using the proper form. On the other hand the fastest growing segment w/in Pentecostalism are the "Oneness" pentecostals who reject the Trinity. This group is still a minority within Pentecostalism.
Yes, the stats include pentecostals – they are the only segment of Chritianity that is actually growing as a percentage of population. If you dropped the pentecostals from these numbers Chritianity would be in collapse right now. You should keep in mind that in Asia and Africa it is pentecostalism that is evangelizing and winning converts.
FYI – in Nepal there are 1 million Christians – only 7,000 (that is not a misprint – 7,000) are Catholic. The rest are mostly pentecostals and all fairly recent converts.
Seventh day Adventists, Quakers and Shakers are all counted in the stats but Quakers and Shakers are tiny in number.
Don't know if Moonies were counted or Davidians. I'd guess they were but can't say for sure.
Mormons were counted – a good thing as they are the fastest growing group w/in Christinaity – growing somewhat faster than pentecostals.
I forgot to ask you, Dave, are you a pentecostal or an atheist? Just curious…
Might I point out that, per definition, neither "Oneness" Pentecostals nor Mormons (and, by the way, Jehova's Witnesses) can be counted as Christians, since they do not believe in the Holy Trinity and hence do not baptize validly?
If not mistaken the Holy Father, as Cardinal Ratzinger, advised the Church that we should prepare to be a faithful remnant whose numbers would be less than today. Then, thanks be to God, he is elected Pope and look at how he is working for the spreading of the Kingdom! Feeding the faithful, calling for a renewed effort to recapture our Catholic heritage, beginning in, but not limited to, Europe. If he sees a future for the Church and at his age finds the strength to lead us in that direction, with expressed reliance in the Holy Spirit, then that should be our example to follow.
I am reminded of the old saw: "You can find statistics to support anything; but the thing they support best is statisticians."
Indiscriminantly projecting current trends into the future will always produce unreliable results. This is especially true in situations – such as the affairs of humanity – which abound in complexity and uncertainty. The very circumstances which give rise to current trends are even now laying the foundations for a changed and changing future.
May Christians, and especially Catholic Christians, face serious near term crises, perhaps descending into widespread martyrdom? I think it all too possible. But I also think it more likely that we may be blessed to live at the dawn of a great Catholic revival, a springtime of the faith. In any event, our part is to do our part. Future outcomes are in the hand of God and will not be positively affected by our speculative worrying, which can lead to loss of hope and to moral paralysis. The ultimate battle is already won in any event; our personal battles and the battles we face in our current endeavors should be enough to occupy our attention.
Watch this video and you will all want to start swimming as fast as you can. This is the future of thew CoE with women so- called Bishops.
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/26102
I am not especially in favor of women's ordination. But it's not a [deal] breaker issue for me.
In point of fact, the Catholic Church through the Pope can (and I personally believe will) one day affirm the priesthood for women as well as men.
If you look at Math. 16:19 — the key verse Catholics use to prove the authority of the church to do things such as define the Assumption or the doctrine of Papal Infallibility as deliniated in the late 19th century — you wil note there are no restrictions on the verse.
It doesn't say whatever the Church (through Peter) binds on earth is bound in heaven – except for female ordination.
The phrase binding and loosing comes from the Hebrew usage and means forbidding and permitting.
In Catholic teaching, the fullness of authortiy was given to Peter and his successors under the symbol of the keys.
I once asked a fairly well known orthodox Catholic apologist at a conference he was attending about this. Where does it say Peter's authority is in any way limited? He admitted it doesn't and when I pressed him he actually admitted one could make an argument for women's ordination down the road through these verses in Matthew. He didn't see female ordination coming but said, if it did, he could accept it based on Peter, what is said in Matthew about him, and the keys.
Dave, the view you've expressed here is the ultramontanist view which was squarely rejected by the First Vatican Council. The Pontiff does not have the right to impose upon us a new religion, because he's merely the custodian of the faith once delivered. And the fact that Rome has not ordained priestesses is, I think, one of the strongest indications that, unlike most mainstream protestant sects, the Roman Catholic Church is the biblical Church, "which alone floweth with the milk of right doctrine, and the satiating honey of salvific grace."
Don't tire yourself. "Dave" is a troll and likes provoking arguments. Simply, he hides himself and will not discuss anything. So, as always, don't feed the trolls.
Is this available elsewhere? I couldn't get it to work on my Mac.
Just a few items that puzzle me – I beg pardon if they're off topic.
When and IF these Ordinariates for Anglican Use Catholics are set up (n.b. the turn of phrase "Anglican Catholics" is entirely inappropriate as Bp. Elliott has pointed out) just how many will there be?
Let's say that the TAC in the UK is accepted into the Catholic Church and an Ordinariate for such is erected, would it welcome people from FIF UK, or will a separate Ordinariate need to be erected for former FIF N.0.-using Anglicans, and so on for other gaggles of former Anglicans? To put it bluntly, would these people be able to live together in one Catholic Ordinariate when they couldn't do so in the "inclusive" CoE?
Then we come to liturgy, I truly admire Fr. Chadwick's remarkable liturgical erudition and enjoy and learn from everything he writes (in my younger days I did time in Fribourg myself), but what on earth does it mean for any likely Ordinariate to "preserve the Anglican patrimony" when not only does no one know, or agree on, what this is supposed to be, but seems to be a matter of inventive fancy from blog to blog?
I sincerely wish the entire enterprise all my best – I very proudly count among my closest friends two former Anglican clerics who are now Catholic bishops.
Hi Ghislieri,
How many Ordinariates? Well we know there should be at least 5 (US, Canada, UK, Australia, Torres Strait) and counting.
Will there be two ordinariates in the UK? From what I have read here and elsewhere the answer appears to be no.
How will the combined TTAC/FiF Ordinariate work? Through prayer, charity and mutual respectful dialogue I hope!
There are obviously some differences between TTAC and Fif as you have pointed out in your post. However, I think one important thing I have discovered, mainly through reading this blog, is that they are differences in timing or degree, not differences in nature.
The "inclusive" CoE is a myth. Ever since the vote for WO against the pleas of both Pope and Patriarch alike, the CoE lost that title in the spiritual sense and swopped it for the political sense. It appears then a question of how long to hang on for. Some left sooner, often to join TTAC and others are leaving later under FiF. The opposition to WO from both groups is the same.
Similarly, the recent discussions on the differences of Anglican liturgy appear to be due mainly to timing. Post-prayer book NO v Prayer Book Year X v Pre-Prayer book Sarum. So which point in the patrimony timeline should be preserved as Pope Benedict requested?
That is the question! And speculation on this website has been passionate yet incredibly enriching to read, but we wait and see! My two cents, for what it is worth, I suspect it will be an adaption from the prayer book, rather than Sarum. I think this fits well with the spirit of reconciliation – which is such an important part of AC and Pope Benedict's intention – and recognising the positive graces within Anglicanism post-16th century.
I have to make a small correction.
There will be two ordinariates in the U.K. because Scotland (having a different Bishops' Conference) cannot be covered by the same ordinariate as England & Wales. A petition has been sent to the C.D.F. by a group of Scottish clergy.
I doubt that there will be separate ordinariates for former-TAC and former-C.ofE.
Thank you Thomas, I agree that there will be only one Anglican Use Ordinariate per Catholic episcopal conference. That is why I'm not a little perplexed with respect to the capacity of any such to maintain any kind of unison between former Anglicans whose provenance is as varied as TTAC and FiFUK, and perhaps some other group as well.
I'd be quite sympathetic to such an Ordinariate adopting the Sarum Use (either Latin or English) full stop – I have a softspot for Sarum myself. But how many of its likely denizens would be really open to this?
Shall we ask Rome for an international Sarum Ordinariate? But, we'll have to do some kind of a survey of numbers interested. Even there, we might have a few traditionalist kooks throwing the spanner in the works, arguments over Latin vs. English, and perhaps disputes about the shape and size of the riddel posts and how purist everything should be.
It all looks like Prayer Book and Anglican / English / Sarum add-ons or the Novus Ordo. Perhaps we can get away with saying Sarum Masses during the week when there are no laity!
Fr. Anthony, why not?
At least then one would know what precisely is meant by the "Anglican Patrinomy" – a turn of phrase in which 'Anglican' would connote the medieval, and supremely Catholic, ecclesia anglicana and not, say, the practices prescribed by the PB of 1549.
Definitely.
It's part of the liturgical heritage of every English-speaking catholic.
Dave:
The Pontiff of the Catholic Church has made it clear that only men can be ordained to the sacred priesthood and that such is doctrinal and irreformable. Your " well known orthodox Catholic apologist" and you are dead wrong. You need to think on this question some more.