English a Protestant Language?

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Deborah Gyapong

At the very end of the Rose Dinner, the yearly banquet in conjunction with the National March for Life here in Ottawa, I briefly participated in a conversation in which a former Anglican who had converted about seven or eight years ago and now attends a Traditional Latin Mass regularly, said something to the effect that English is a Protestant language.

He said that just as the Reformation was taking place, the English of Cranmer — he probably added the he was a heretic or he didn't need to as it would be assumed — had something to do with the gelling or establishment of the English language in a consistent form — some kind of standardizing perhaps? — and that somehow made the language inherently Protestant. There is no way for English to express the concept of Transubstantiation, he said.

Jeeesh! It had been a looooooong day and most of it I was on my feet walking and lugging my camera around, so I quickly exited, hoping and praying that after seven years as a Catholic I am not like this, seeing everything as either Catholic or Protestant anything with the least taint of the latter is irredeemably bad. Now, in my crabbiness, I might certainly be unfairly judging my friend, because I didn't stick around for the extended commentary.

If I weren't so tired I would have said that English is very good at saying whatever it needs to say, even if it has to rob another language to say it. Esprit de corps, Schadenfreude, running amok, are some examples that come to mind. As for Transubstantiation, how about Real Presence? Captures the mystery of what happens in reality without one's having to get an explanation of Aristotle's substance and accident. And looks like in the word Transubstantiation, English robbed Latin, no?

And I recall from some conversations during this whole Ordinariate roll-out hearing that many Anglo-Papalists threw out the Prayer Book because of that dastardly Cranmer, that horrible Protestant. Can't even say a syllable by the man, so let's opt for the modern translation! Doesn't matter if it has a tin ear for music and is a dynamic equivalent translation that isn't really true to the Latin or Greek, let's shun Cranmer like he's got Protestant cooties that will cause heretic disease if you catch them.

Thankfully that attitude seems to be changing. Here's an excerpt of an article in the Catholic Herald that talks about the renovation of Cranmer:

Evensong’s beauties are the work of Coverdale and Cranmer, two men who led the revolt against the unity of the Church, and overthrew the great work of time, the historic faith of this country. Cranmer’s liturgical reforms were not reforms in any true sense, they were a wrecking of the monastic offices and their replacement with something superficially like yet utterly alien. The Cranmerian Prayer Book provoked rebellions in England, let us remember. The West Country rebels of 1549 protested that they found the Cranmerian service that replaced the Mass no more than “a Christmas game” . The Northern Rebels who entered Durham in 1569 tore up the Prayer Book and had the Mass celebrated in the Cathedral once more. In 1596 one of my collateral ancestors, the Blessed George Errington, was hanged, drawn and quartered at York, along with three others martyrs, because of his Catholic faith, a faith he and many others simply could not recognise in the Cranmerian Prayer Book.

Thus the experience of Cranmerian English leaves me feeling conflicted. I love it and I hate it, and I feel I ought to love it, as it is so beautiful, and because it has inspired so many of our great poets, not least among whom is T.S. Eliot.

That’s why I am profoundly pleased by something that happened earlier that day in London. I attended a meeting about the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, at which Mgr Burnham, the assistant to the Ordinary, told the assembled guests that a Customary is in preparation. This is essentially what we might call an office book, with various readings drawn from the English spiritual tradition, such as Newman’s writings from his Anglican days; but it also draws on those fine psalms and prayers used by Cranmer, with some doctrinal alterations. Mgr Burnham also spoke of the growing popularity of Evensong and Benediction amidst Ordinariate congregations.

What this Customary will do, it seems to me, is posthumously reCatholicise Cranmer and reclaim him for our tradition; it will make the Cranmerian liturgy, which I find a cause of division and conflict, into something that will bring about unity. It will mean that from now on, I need not find Evensong alien. Perhaps Dr Cranmer himself would approve. I hope so! It certainly promotes the healing of a cultural and religious wound.

The Ordinariate, which I greatly welcome, is already enriching us in many ways. Long may it continue to grow and flourish.

* * *

Amen! And eventually the Catholic Church did come around to translating the Mass into the vernacular, though centuries later.

The original English translation was done by men who, even if they were heretics, knew their Latin, knew their Greek, knew their English, knew that texts needed to be metered to be sung or chanted, and that they had to be easy on the ear so they could be more easily committed to memory.

I hope the King James Version is next to get Catholicized.

As a journalist who covers the Catholic Church, among the places I see the most life and vibrancy are those that have re-incorporated Protestant zeal — for the Bible, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit via the charismatic renewal — into the Church. When brought back into the fullness of the faith, these gifts that gained traction in the evangelical or charismatic world illuminate aspects of the faith that were always there but were neglected by modernism, formalism, post-Vatican II trendiness or whatever. Yes, the Traditional Latin Mass Catholic are often horrified by this stuff, but then I'm kind of horrified by their horror. While I respect TLM folks and the desire to keep alive tradition in the Church, I am not a traditionalist. I almost don't dare go now to a TLM in case I become one. (Just kidding. I will go and probably enjoy it.)

* * *
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!

Σφραγὶς δωρεᾶς Πνεύματος Ἁγίου

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Christian Clay Columba Campbell

Joshua of the blog Psallite Sapienter (who writes online under his Christian name only) has kindly provided the following piece on the question of ("re-")confirmation for those entering the anticipated personal ordinariates. The Complementary Norms to the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus provide in Article 5, §1. that,

The lay faithful originally of the Anglican tradition who wish to belong to the Ordinariate, after having made their Profession of Faith and received the Sacraments of Initiation, with due regard for Canon 845, are to be entered in the apposite register of the Ordinariate.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the Sacraments of Initiation as: Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion. Of course, the baptisms of incoming Anglicans, conducted as they were with water and the invocation of the Holy Trinity, will be accounted unquestionably valid, but this section of the Complementary Norms suggests that those received will required to undergo the administration of the Sacrament of Confirmation, which notion, like the question of (conditional) ordination for Anglican clergy, has been difficult for some to accept.

As on the issue of Holy Orders, Joshua rightly argues that the Church is concerned only with the integrity of the sacramental system, that all doubt should be dispelled, both on the part of the Catholic Church and those to be received into her communion. Rather than a stumbling-block, this should ultimately prove a comfort.

* * *

In the Byzantine Rite, the words at the anointing of the confirmandi with chrism are "The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Sphragis dōreas Pneumatos Hagiou). By an ancient tradition, when the Apostles could no longer confirm in person by the laying on of hands, they instead consecrated the first chrism, or perfumed olive oil (myron, as the Greeks call it by metonymy, after one of the odorific additives, myrrh), and distributed this to the bishops and priests they appointed in every place, that henceforth confirmation be by anointing with chrism. Thus far the Holy Eastern Church…

According to the Beloved Disciple, we all receive an anointing (chrisma) from the Holy One (I John ii, 20), and very fittingly, since as Christians we are in sober truth christs, very members of Christ, Who lives in us, and by His Spirit gives us true life. The application of the sacred unction symbolizes and reminds us of this, which is the fulfilment in us, in Christ, of all the Old Testament types and prophecies made concerning the Lord's Anointed.

Amusingly, while the word "chrism" has this high and pure connotation, the word itself is cognate with a native English word of precisely opposite nature: grime! We who are besmirched and besmeared with the muck of this world, the scum of sinners, fallen sons of the man of earth, are chrismated to become perfect men in Christ. We are confirmed, anointed, and sealed (sphragisamenos) – cf. II Cor. i, 20f.

Confirmation is a perfecting and completing of baptimal grace, a strengthening, a setting fast, a making sure: it seals us and marks us with an indelible character; it is effected by the laying on of hands and chrismation, accompanied by the words of prayer. In the not inconsequential phrase of old, it establishes us Christians as soldiers of Christ, to fight the good fight of the faith against the world, the flesh and the devil. It is the gift of the Gift, a most special imprint of the Holy Ghost.

Confirmation, however, is at present for some a stumbling block set in the path of those wavering between hope and fear, those at Tiber's bank wondering whether to cross…

As a consequence of the Church's well-known doubts as to the validity of Anglican orders in general, as well as for the very good reason that Anglicans do not in general anoint at their rite of confirmation, but only lay on hands, Anglican laymen who come into full communion with the Catholic Church are directed to be confirmed as part of their reception. Their previous Anglican confirmation is adjudged insufficient, not merely by by reason of concern about the orders of those who carried out that rite, but since that rite usually did not include an anointing with any chrism at all, let alone some duly consecrated in solemn rites, since any shadow of doubt in the matter of the sacraments must be treated as a most serious concern.

Whatever of the undoubted fact that, in the Apostolic age, confirmation was at first carried out by the laying on of hands by the Apostles, very early on – Tertullian is among the first to explicitly testify to this – the anointing of candidates with oil became the central rite of confirmation, or chrismation as the East terms it. Certainly, by the time of the unhappy break of England with Rome, the Western Church had for a millennium and more used chrism for confirmation. While to this day theologians are divided as to the absolute necessity of chrismation as part of the sacrament, and the Church has made no final decision on the subject, it is certain that in all recognized churches, retaining Apostolic orders, anointing is the central ceremony of confirmation, and has been for well over a thousand years. The Orthodox are if anything more insistent upon this point, it is well to note.

Therefore, whatever of the original simple ritual of the Primitive Church, Cranmer and his associated Reformers had no power whatsoever to break with the age-old consensus of the Fathers, of the whole Church, and to cast away anointing with chrism at confirmation. It is to be feared that, in doing so, they consciously attempted to strip it of all sacramental significance. The Church having determined to chrismate, to break with this is to introduce a most serious doubt as to the efficacy of the rite, even if, for the sake of argument, Anglican orders were unquestionably valid.

As the Ecumenical Council of Trent, lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, decreed in its 7th Session, in 1547, when treating of the sacraments:

CANON XIII. If any one saith, that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, wont to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments, may be contemned, or without sin be omitted at pleasure by the ministers, or be changed, by every pastor of the churches, into other new ones; let him be anathema.

Therefore, for Cranmer et al. to change the "received and approved rites… used in the solemn administration of the sacraments" – as by removing the use of chrism from confirmation – was a most gravely sinful act; to say that such proud pastors had the power to do so, in defiance of the wider Church, would throw all the sacraments and their essential rites into complete uncertainty. They had no such authority.

The fact that the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, followed by all its successors, did away with chrismation as the essential sacramental rite of confirmation, proves that Anglican confirmation is radically defective, and in the eyes of the Catholic Church inherently suspect of invalidity, whatever of the status of the orders of a particular Anglican bishop.

The spiritual forefathers of Continuing Anglicans, the Nonjurors of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, early attempted to restore the use of chrism in confirmation, since these devoted students of Christian antiquity saw that chrismation is an essential element of the rite, as the Preface of their liturgical compilation of 1718 attests:

…the Chrism [is] restored in the Confirmation-Office. …as for Chrism, it is an Emblem of Spiritual Unction, of Grace conferr'd by the Holy Ghost; and with this Reference and Allusion it has been practis'd by the Primitive and Universal Church.

To this end, they added to the rite in the Prayer Book, not only restoring certain forms included in 1549, but deleted in 1552, but most significantly restoring (from the Sarum Pontifical) the chrismation, with rubricks directing that the Bishop

shall anoint every one of them with the Chrism or Ointment, making the sign of the Cross upon their forehead, and saying,

N., I sign thee with the sign of the Cross, I anoint thee with Holy Ointment,

Then the Bishop shall lay his hand upon the head of the Person he is confirming, and say,

And I lay my hand upon thee: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

(The Sarum formula, identical with the traditional Roman form, was N., Signo te signo crucis et confirmo te chrismate salutis, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti – "N., I sign thee with the sign of the Cross and I confirm thee with the chrism of salvation, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost". It is evident that the Nonjurors adjusted and reinserted the words relative to the chrism into the 1549 rendering of the rest of the formula.)

The same small book goes on to supply a form for consecrating the chrism, noting that it is compounded of "sweet Oil of Olives, and precious Balsam commonly called Balm of Gilead"; the short prayer appointed aptly summarizes the purposes of confirmation:

The Lord be with you.

And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

O Lord of mercies, and Father of lights, from whom every good and perfect gift proceedeth; Send down, we beseech thee, thine Holy Spirit to sanctify this Ointment: And grant, that all those who after Baptism shall be anointed therewith, may be cleansed and purified both in body and soul, be confirmed in godliness, and obtain the blessings of the Holy Ghost; who, with the Father and the Son, liveth and reigneth ever one God, world without end.

(Source: A Communion Office, Taken Partly from Primitive Liturgies, And Partly from the First English Reformed Common-Prayer-Book: Together with Offices for Confirmation, and the Visitation of the Sick. London: 1718.)

While this rite died with the Nonjurors as they successively split, faded, failed and died out, the fact that those pious men of old time were moved to restore chrismation as part of their ceremony of confirmation is highly instructive.

In the case of modern-day Anglicans seriously considering taking up Pope Benedict's most generous offer of welcoming them into the unity of the Catholic Church, I would urge them, in all honesty and concern for their spiritual well-being, not to be angered, driven away nor scandalized at the Roman insistence upon reception into full communion by confirmation. The fact that most if not all of them will not have been confirmed in a rite using consecrated chrism, but by a laying on of hands alone, should give them pause: such a confirmation, wanting a most central and important rite – a rite viewed as essential by the Orthodox even more so than by the Papacy – is unfortunately questionable.

If one received but the laying on of hands alone, and yet the churches of East and West have for many ages required one to be anointed with holy chrism, ought not one then prudently accept chrismation?

Since the deletion of anointing with chrism was a most serious and unparalleled omission made by the Reformers in defiance of Apostolic order, it is only prudent to assume that the Anglican rite of confirmation is, sadly, imperfect; and the only prudent course therefore is to submit to confirmation, with true chrism, at the hands of an undoubtedly consecrated bishop in the Apostolic succession, or of a priest as his licensed delegate.

I recall what Bishop Elliott once told us, of how he had been most carefully prepared for his confirmation by his father, an Anglo-Catholic priest holding to a high doctrine of confirmation as a true sacrament. Great was his father's wrath when the bishop who administered confirmation to young Peter – an ultra-low-church creature, "lower than a snake's belly" – went out of his way to deny that confirmation was a sacrament at all! Having had such an unpleasant and confusing Anglican experience, I daresay he was only too glad, when received into the Catholic Church, to be confirmed properly and without ambiguity.

What of those who, like Elliott, taught by pious men of Anglo-Catholic churchmanship, still shrink honestly from the prospect of being confirmed "again"? The experience, by no means unusual, of the good bishop ought give them pause for thought.

They would have been taught, and rightly so – if only their actual confirmation had been unquestionably valid! – that confirmation is unrepeatable, and that it were a sacrilege to be confirmed again. But this is the crux of the whole issue: the Catholic Church, on the twofold grounds of lack of anointing with chrism in the ceremony, and lack of certain orders on the part of the minister of Anglican confirmation, cannot affirm that such rite is a valid sacrament. Therefore, concerned and rightly so for the good of the souls of those who would enter into full communion, she would they were confirmed absolutely, for the avoidance of all danger.

The uncertainty of spotty Anglican practice – apparently involving, in some continuing jurisdictions, even the use of anointing, I am informed, but also including such resolute denials of the sacrament as that just mentioned, by those who never chrismate –compounded with concerns over the doubtfulness of Anglican orders (their "apocryphal" or cryptic, uncertain nature), makes all too understandable the wise provision of the Catholic Church in appointing confirmation as part of the rite of reception of incomers into full communion.

It is horrible to think, placing myself for the moment in the position of a good Anglo-Catholic, that what I so carefully prepared for and so valued — my confirmation in the Anglican communion — is not considered at all safe and sure by the Catholic Church, and that in joining her fellowship and communion, I will perforce be confirmed "again". This is indeed a stumbling block.

But this does not mean that such a person is viewed as lacking the Holy Spirit, nor as the dupe of a false offer of grace! God ever pours forth His Holy Spirit and grace, and indeed were it not for such supernatural elevation no Anglican would be moved in his heart to seek for Christian unity, fleeing what he once thought to be the true church, but now revealed in its doctrinal and moral confusion to be anything but. There is pain and tragedy in this; there is greater joy and hope in the surer promise, founded on the rock of Peter's faith.

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift! How magnificent, not only to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church, fulfilling the hopes of generations of Anglo-Catholics, but at that reception to be guaranteed, in the prudent ministration of confirmation, the anointing of the Holy One, the seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost.

* * *
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!

Divorce and Remarriage in "Historic Anglicanism" (Part I)

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Dr. William Tighe

*** UPDATED 06/08/10 9:18 PM EST ***

Marital indiscipline seems to afflict all Western Christian churches and bodies to some degree or other, and even to an extent those in the East (the theory and practice of the Eastern Churches, which rested originally on a basis quite distinct form that of Western Catholics and Protestants, I will not discuss here) as well. Suffice it to say that, on a theoretical level at least, no Christian church or “denomination,” Eastern or Western ever accepted the practice of “divorce” in the modern sense of the term (that is, the dissolution of a valid marriage with one or both of the parties to that dissolved marriage being free to marry again), however much “pastoral compassion” (or “overlooking, deliberately or otherwise, irregular marital unions”) may, especially in the East, have allowed for the toleration of “marriages” of individuals whose spouses had disappeared some considerable time in the past. At the Reformation, however, all of the leading Protestant Reformers embraced the view of Erasmus that there were circumstances in which a valid marriage might be dissolved and the parties to it, or at least the “innocent” party, be allowed to remarry, which meant remarry in church, as in Catholic and Protestant countries alike there was no other form of marriage (beyond “common-law marriage” in a few countries such as Scotland — but this was a form of “marriage” of which the offspring were technically illegitimate, and so lacked clear inheritance rights). Moreover, Protestant church bodies, both Lutheran and Reformed, quickly came to permit divorce, and remarriage after divorce (hereafter termed DaR for short), in a variety of circumstances, among them, for instance, Scotland, where divorce in the modern sense became legally available in 1560, and has remained so ever since.

In England, however, the position was different, despite some initial irregularities, and the Church of England adopted what can be described as the most severe position on DaR of any Western Christian tradition whatsoever. The historic Anglican position on "divorce and remarriage" is clear enough — a resolute “no, never.”

King Henry VIII was firmly and explicitly opposed to DaR; he never in his life had a "divorce" in the modern sense as defined above (although in the 16th Century the term was used to denote any separation of the parties to a marriage during the lifetimes of them both) as all of his four "divorces" were "annulments" (granted by his complaisant Archbishop Cranmer). Cranmer himself, as a firm Protestant, came to favor DaR in a wide variety of circumstances, and shortly after Henry VIII's death in 1547 he granted a divorce (in the modern sense) to William Parr, then Earl of Essex, later Marquess of Northampton, who subsequently "remarried." (He also granted Sir Ralph Sadler permission to remain married to a woman whom he had married over a decade previously, some years after her husband had disappeared, when that first husband reappeared and tried to extort money from Sadler.) Provision for DaR was embodied in Cranmer's proposed reformed Code of Canon Law, but that proposal was rejected by the House of Commons in 1553 (as it was again in 1571 when reform-minded MPs tried to pass it despite Elizabeth I's objections). Under the Catholic Queen Mary, Parr was forced to separate from his wife under threat of excommunication and prosecution for bigamy — and while after Mary’s death in 1558 and the succession of her ambiguously Protestant half-sister Queen Elizabeth I he resumed living with his second wife, one of Elizabeth I's "Ladies in Waiting," the Queen more than once publicly reproached him for "bigamy" — and when he wished to marry again after his second wife died in 1565, she forbade the marriage and refused to permit it until after Parr's original wife died in 1571 (Parr survived his third marriage by only a couple of months).

Under Elizabeth DaR was non-existent and illegal in England under both Common and Canon Law. Church courts continued to grant "separations from bed and board" to incompatible couples, but these did not allow, and in fact specifically and explicitly forbade, remarriage of either party during the life of the other. Sometimes it happened regardless: John Thornborough, a clergyman, was granted such a separation from his wife in the 1580s, but went on to contract a remarriage shortly thereafter. In 1592, when he was appointed Bishop of Limerick (in Ireland), seemingly as a reward for his Catholic-hunting activities, the (Calvinist) Archbishop of York, Matthew Hutton, objected violently to Thornborough's appointment, on the grounds that he was an open bigamist — another Elizabethan bishop, Marmaduke Middleton of St. David's, bishop there from 1582, was deprived of his bishopric for such bigamy just a year later in 1593 — but his letters of protest to the Queen seemingly did not reach her, and the consecration went forward (Thornborough died as Bishop of Worcester in 1641, a firm Calvinist and one of the most stalwart opponents of "Laudianism").

In 1604 new canons promulgated in the Church of England ruled out DaR in all circumstances whatsoever, making provision for "separation" and (in very restricted circumstances) "annulments." This remained the formal position of the CofE down to (I think) the 1980s — although in Scotland, by contrast, DaR was available in a wide variety of circumstances from 1560 onwards. From 1670 onwards there was in England there was the phenomenon of "Parliamentary divorce:" an Act of Parliament would grant a couple a divorce, give one (or sometimes both) of them legal permission to remarry, and exempt any clergyman performing the remarriage full exemption from the penalties of the law, both Common and Canon/Civil (the study of Canon Law in England had been abolished in the 1530s, and most of the officials who staffed English church courts thereafter were trained in Roman, or “Civil,” Law): almost 300 such divorces were granted between 1670 (Lord Roos's case) and 1821 (when the farcical public fiasco of George IV's attempt to get such a divorce from his estranged wife ended in failure). Modern-style divorce became available in England only in 1857, and although after that date no legal penalties could be levied upon clergymen who performed such "remarriages," right down to the 1960s clergymen who did so were effectively "blacklisted" by just about every diocesan bishop, and denied all further preferment within the CofE.

Generally, "low church" or "evangelical" clergy tended to favor DaR in this period (in some circumstances), not least because all foreign Protestant churches, both Lutheran and Reformed, allowed it, and "high-church" (later "Anglo-Catholic") clergy to oppose it in almost all circumstances — but in 1670 it was the strenuous support of "Lord Roos's Bill" by the "Laudian" Bishop of Durham, John Cosin, in the face of the opposition of most of the other bishops, that persuaded the House of Lords to pass it.

I am, however, totally ignorant of the practice of PECUSA from 1785 onwards on this matter, although right down to the 1940s/50s divorce was strongly disapproved of in that church, especially for clergy, for whom , with rare exceptions like the notorious Bishop Pike, divorce alone, with or without remarriage, generally ended all hope of a “successful clerical career.”

We are not finished with this subject yet, but already certain implications have begun to emerge. Above all, it is clear that a loose marital discipline, whether tricked out in the robes of alleged "pastoral care" or "meeting people where they are," is no part at all of that "Anglican patrimony" which is seeking to be resituated in and restored to Catholic communion. Rather the contrary: the "Anglican patrimony" is one that has upheld the traditional marital discipline of the pre-Reformation Western Church to a degree that is unparalled among Reformation bodies, and one which was profoundly uncongenial to the Erastian powers-that-be in post-Reformation England — as witness the phenomenon of "Parliamentary divorce." Another is that in the context of this resituated "Anglican patrimony" one of its functions will be to witness to and uphold the longaeval marriage discipline of the Church, as a counterpoint to those sad failings of Henry VIII that led to the original breach between England and Rome, and thus in a way vindicating the stand of Clement VII, Paul III and Cardinal Pole in opposition to that monarch. And finally, although there is the hopeful possibility of the ordination of suitable married men to the diaconate and presbyterate in the soon-to-be-erected ordinariats, it has to be emphasized that there is little or no possibility of those in irregular marital situations, and certainly not in DaR situations, to be ordained or to serve in any clerical capacity in them.

(to be continued…)

* * *
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!

Summary of Tonight's Discussion on The Journey Home

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Christian Clay Columba Campbell

This evening's episode of The Journey Home will be rebroadcast today (now Tuesday) at 1:00 AM and 9:00 AM, Thursday at 2:00 PM, and Saturday at 11:00 PM (all times ET). The following is a brief summary of tonight's discussion.

* * *

phillips09 Summary of Tonights Discussion on The Journey Home

Fr. Christopher Phillips

Invited by the host, Fr. Phillips began by sharing a few details of his journey into the Catholic Church. He was raised in a Protestant family, found his way to Anglicanism in the Episcopal Church, and his faith tested by the breakdown of Catholic Faith and Order in the Anglican Communion, and with personal doubts about the validity of his ministry in TEC, he became one of the first Episcopal priests to be received into the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II's Pastoral Provision. Starting from very humble beginnings, he founded the parish of Our Lady of the Atonement which is today a thriving church and school. His story should be familiar to readers of The Anglo-Catholic.

As he pondered his future in the Episcopal Church, he wrestled primarily with the issue of authority. Blessed with a strong father as a role model, he understood the importance of paternal authority and came to see that, in an ecclesiastical context, this authority could only be found in the Catholic Church.

Different families have different expressions of the same truth; there are different ways of living in families. Anglicans will be returning to the full unity of the Church with the laudable traditions unique to their family, and these particular family customs will be expressed ecclesially in the context of personal ordinariates, akin to ordinary dioceses. Due to the comprehensiveness of the Anglican tradition, the personal ordinariates will be similar to ritual churches in some respects, but as Anglicanism is an offshoot of the Latin Rite, it is only appropriate that it be rejoined to it.

The Apostolic Constitution will not provide a "back door" to those seeking to undermine the universal norm of clerical celibacy (a discipline not a doctrine) in the Western Church. Future ordination of married men to the priesthood will be scrutinized by the Ordinary assisted by his Governing Council of priests and subject to the permission of the Holy See.

Asked about the public response to Anglicanorum Coetibus, Fr. Phillips said that he had not heard anything at all negative. At a recent meeting of priests in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, many of his confreres enquired positively about the development.

The Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) is in the forefront of those groups anticipated to avail themselves of the Apostolic Constitution. The TAC is represented by the Anglican Church in America (ACA) in the USA and many of its members are ready to go.

Fr. Phillips receives enquiries almost daily from Anglican priests and others interested in Anglicanorum Coetibus.

A caller asked if there were any correlation between the circumstances of Anglicanism and the Eastern Orthodox. Fr. Phillips pointed out that while Rome holds Anglicanism in special regard, she sees Orthodox jurisdictions as proper Churches, which while separated from the Holy See, have maintained all of the essential elements of Catholic Faith and Apostolic Order.

He noted that the Apostolic Constitution may prove a door for many separated brethren to enter the Catholic Church. Protestant visitors to Our Lady of the Atonement find much that is familiar in the Anglican expression of the Catholic Faith (the exposition of Sacred Scripture, hymnody, &c.).

A caller asked if there will be a role for permanent deacons in the personal ordinariates. Fr Phillips said that he hoped so, noting that the personal ordinariates, functioning equivalent to dioceses, will have all of the normal elements of Catholic life (e.g. parishes, religious houses, &c.).

A caller asked if there were any particular theological stumbling-blocks for Anglicans considering the Apostolic Constitution. Fr. Phillips answered that while certainly there would be Anglicans here and there with hang-ups — just as there are Catholics with qualms about individual points of doctrine — the type of Anglican likely to take up the Holy Father's offer already accepted the fullness of Catholic teaching. He noted that the TAC already had adopted the Catechism of the Catholic Church as its standard of faith.

Mr. Grodi asked if there were a risk of sectarianism in the future Anglican personal ordinariates. Would these people still consider themselves "half-Anglican"? Fr. Phillips brilliantly pointed out that the whole point of the Apostolic Constitution was that the incoming faithful retain their Anglican identity, noting that this was not his idea, but the will of the Holy Father himself. When he came into the Church, he brought with him his eucharistic vestments, his chalice. There is much in Anglicanism that is already Catholic. These elements are to be retained.

Grodi: Talk about (Archbishop Thomas) Cranmer. Fr. Phillips: Cranmer was a heretic — but a translator of beautiful liturgical prose. The common people of England desired to remain Catholic. Cranmer tried to fool them by creating an ambiguous liturgy, one which retained many Catholic elements. He only fooled himself. The Catholic elements took root in the now Protestant Church and allowed the Catholic tradition to continue.

A caller asked Fr. Phillips about that which he felt was lacking in his previous ministry. Fr. Phillips: Authority. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, governed by a democratic process, presumed to alter not just ecclesiastical discipline but Catholic doctrine. How can a question like the sanctity of human life be decided by a majority vote?

Grodi — as per his almost fanatical modus operandi — questioned the validity of Anglican orders. Fr. Phillips' answer was exceptional. The Church is not pronouncing on the efficacy of the former ministry of Anglican clergy. Obviously it transmits grace. Is this the same grace as that transmitted in the Catholic Church? The Church is not deciding this question. Many Anglican bishops have Old Catholic or other "valid" lines of succession. Perhaps these are sufficient. The Church only seeks certainty. She can not live with 'perhaps'. He noted that as Anglican clergy come closer to their ordination in the Catholic Church, this becomes less of an issue. It is an issue of peace of mind and obedience to God.

What does the Queen think of the Apostolic Constitution? Fr. Phillips: I have no idea but reports suggest that she's none to pleased with the state of affairs in the Established Church and throughout the Anglican Communion.

Marcus Grodi wonders if the Apostolic Constitution is meant for England. Certainly yes. Fr. Phillips notes that the Apostolic Constitution will have perhaps its greatest effect in India where there is a large TAC presence. This is a worldwide movement.

A caller asked what it was like for Fr. Phillips when he came to have a relationship with Our Lady. He related a story about how, driving on his way to a job as a youth minister in college, he would listen to the recitation of the Holy Rosary on the radio. He learned the devotion and began to carry a pair of beads. Our Lady threw it over his neck and pulled him with it into the Catholic Church. Noted that Anglicanism is full of Marian devotion and that he specifically desired that his parish be dedicated to Our Lady.

A question about contraception. Fr. Phillips related the moral cesspool that is the modern Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. In the TEC, contraception, and even abortion, are often seen as moral goods. Spoke further on the disaster of the democratic definition of doctrinal and moral issues.

A caller from the ACA asked an ambiguous question about 'open communion'. Fr. Phillips, unclear on the caller's intention, answered that Anglicans in the personal ordinariates will be full Catholics, in communion with all other Catholics (and hence not able to share Eucharistic communion with separated Christians). Every member of the personal ordinariates will make a profession of faith. Folks often hesitate over small issues, he said; many are simple misunderstandings and need not have presented trouble in the first place. Communication is the key to overcoming these perceived obstacles.

A caller asked a general question about sacramental confession and how to explain to his Protestant friends the need to confess to a priest (as opposed to "directly to God"). Fr. Phillips answered that the confession was made "directly to God"; the priest is only the mediator. Christ himself ordained and commended the sacrament. Though he had made confessions numerous times in his private prayers, Fr. Phillips said that his first sacramental/auricular confession, when he spoke his sins aloud to the priest, was the most liberating thing he'd ever done in his life.

A caller asked about the Anglican/Episcopalian view of the Real Presence. Fr. Phillips again noted that this is not likely to be an issue for the variety of Anglican likely to be interested in the Apostolic Constitution. So much of the Anglican liturgy is reflective of a belief in the reality of Christ's presence in the consecrated elements. Few Anglicans would find the Catholic teaching unfamiliar.

Grodi closed by asking Fr. Phillips what he would tell Anglicans thinking about "coming home" to the Catholic Church. Fr. Phillips: Because it is what Our Blessed Lord desires. It is that for which He prayed on the night before He suffered. John 17.

Fr. Phillips gave his priestly benediction to the audience.

* * *
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!

A Royal Conquest of the Church

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Dr. William Tighe

THE REFORMATION AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: NOT “A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE” BUT “A ROYAL CONQUEST OF THE CHURCH”

For some time I have been alternately bemused, puzzled and annoyed by the arguments and assertions of those Anglican writers and bloggers who try to defend one or other modern “official Anglican” innovations such as the ordination of women to the diaconate, priesthood, or episcopate. Some of the commentators are often generally "conservative" but somehow they seem compelled to dismiss the lack of any early church precedent for these innovations with remarks along the lines of, "the Church of England rejected papal jurisdiction in the Sixteenth Century, and so is free today to do what it will on its own authority." They usually also contend that the English Church "broke away from Rome" or "freed itself from papal control" or "declared itself independent" at that time. The purpose of these claims seems to be to assert that this act of 450 years ago was indeed a declaration of independence on the part of the "Anglican Church" and one which gives some degree of "historical precedent" for these modern innovations, if only by establishing the "authority" of Anglican churches to depart on their own initiative from Catholic belief and precedent hitherto held to be binding as constitutive of "catholicity."

There are interesting theological and ecclesiological questions underlying such an assertion, but my purpose here is not to discuss those, but, rather, what it was (if anything) that the Church of England "did" between the early 1530s and the mid 1560s to see if these assertions can be justified, or, indeed, whether they have any clear meaning at all.

At the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, and for a long time previously, the Church of England consisted of two church provinces: Canterbury, with nineteen dioceses, and York, with three. To be precise, the English church also included the four Welsh dioceses, in addition to fifteen English ones. Although the English bishops had gathered together in "synods" beginning in the Seventh Century, such synods had ceased to meet by the Fourteenth Century, because of the development of two ecclesiastical assemblies, the Convocation of Canterbury and the Convocation of York.

The Upper House of each convocation consisted of prelates (bishops and abbots) while the Lower House consisted of archdeacons, deans of cathedrals and representatives of the parochial clergy. The convocations' origins were connected with those of the English Parliament. As is well known, the English Parliament is a two-house body, consisting of the House of Lords, in which sat until only a decade ago the "Lords Spiritual" (the bishops of the original 26 dioceses of the Church of England and, until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s some 31 abbots) and the "Lords Temporal" (the hereditary peers, to which were added the life peers in 1964). The membership of the House of Commons, by contrast, was elected each time the monarch summoned a Parliament. What is not so well known is that at the beginnings of Parliament in the late Thirteenth and early Fourteenth Centuries, "the Commons" included elected representatives of the lower clergy as well as of the laity, but in the 1330s these "proctors of the clergy" began to refuse to participate in parliamentary deliberations, considering them both time-consuming and unsuitably "secular" in nature. Consequently, they began to meet separately under the presidency of a Prolocutor (Speaker) of their own choosing, and at the summons of their respective province's archbishop. This was the origin of the convocations, and the reason why meetings of the convocations took place in tandem with meetings of Parliament, and not otherwise. [1]

The convocations were effectively the "church parliament" for the two provinces of the Church of England. They had two principal functions:

to make ecclesiastical laws (canons) which bound both clergy and laity; and,
to vote clerical tax grants to the Crown, analogous to those secular taxes voted by Parliament.

However, while Acts of Parliament required the monarch's approval to become legally valid, those of the convocations did not: they came into force when approved by both houses and promulgated by the archbishop of their respective province. While both convocations were in theory of equal authority, in practice the Convocation of York was a small-scale affair as compared with the Convocation of Canterbury, and normally followed the lead of the latter body.

In 1216 King John signed Magna Carta. The first clause of Magna Carta granted "that the Church of England may be free" meant originally free from royal interference concerning episcopal elections and church finances. There had been a number of clashes between the Crown and the Church in the Middle Ages both before and after the grant of Magna Carta but after 1341 there were no major clashes. There continued to be jurisdictional quarrels between the king's courts and the church courts. Some churchmen resented the various Fourteenth-Century parliamentary statutes that sought to limit papal interference with ecclesiastical appointments within the Church of England, but for the most part Church and Crown coexisted in relative harmony until the reign of Henry VIII. Frustrated by the failure of his attempt in 1529 to secure a papal annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon or, otherwise, papal acquiescence in an annulment to be granted by a specially-arranged papal legatine court meeting in England in June/July of that year, Henry began to browbeat the English Church in order to secure its institutional support for his "divorce." He wanted the support of the church to place pressure on the papacy to grant the annulment.

By June 1530 it was becoming clear that any Roman judgment on Henry's marriage was likely to uphold its validity, and from that point onwards the goal of Henry's diplomacy was to prevent or delay a resolution of the case in Rome, while casting about for some means of resolving the matter in England. At the time, most of the bishops had willingly or otherwise proclaimed their support for Henry's annulment petition as had the convocations (academic assemblies of masters and doctors) of Cambridge and Oxford universities. Nonetheless, when Henry suggested in October 1530 to a group of bishops, clergy, judges and lawyers that perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury might proceed in the case in defiance of the pope, the meeting reacted with consternation, informing Henry that this was impossible. Likewise, the aged Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham (d. 1532), who was an unenthusiastic supporter of the king's cause, refused to have any to do with the suggestion.

Continue reading →

* * *
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!

On the Music of the English Church

Posted on February 13, 2010 by Christian Clay Columba Campbell

The following extract on church music is taken from the Directorium Anglicanum, one of the earliest references on Catholic ceremonial for Anglicans.

One of the gravest defects of the offices of Mattins and Evensong in the Book of Common Prayer is the absence of the Office Hymns which are an integral part of the Divine Office in the Western Church.

The difficulty of translating the ancient hymns into English verse, and the substitution of metrical translations of the Psalms after the example of Clement Marot, cir. 1540, in Paris, and of Beza in Strasburg (1545) frustrated the wishes of Archbishop Cranmer that these most Catholic compositions should be adopted to vernacular use in the Reformed Church of England: Sternhold and Hopkins in Edward VIth’s reign, and Tate and Brady in that of William and Mary furnished the songs of most general adoption in this country, to the utter confusion of men’s views and feelings. The Psalter pointed for singing came too generally to be used as, and called the reading Psalms, while the metrical versions had transferred to them both the phraseology and the interest which attached of old to the chanted Psalms, and thus the evangelical Hymns of S. Hilary, S. Ambrose, Prudentius, Sedulius, S. Eunodius, and S. Gregory, and those of the subsequent era of Venantius Fortunatus, Venerable Bede, Adam of S. Victor, and still later of Santolius Victorinus, were entirely lost to the people. And if the natural craving of the renewed nature in any case insisted upon a more direct tribute of Christian praise and thanksgiving in the songs of the Church, it came to be fed with a pasture not wholesome nor satisfying, in a modern hymnody too often of doubtful orthodoxy and of undoubted sickliness.

According to the Rev'd Dr. John Mason Neale, that this treasury of ancient hymns might not be lost forever, "Cranmer, indeed, expressed some casual hope that men fit for the office [of translating the Office Hymns into English] might be induced to come forward." Ultimately, it would be Dr. Neale himself who would be fit for that office, though, by then, the Office Hymns had long since fallen into desuetude.

Fortunately, the omission of the Office Hymns from the Prayer-book is an easy fix. The Right Rev’d Peter D. Wilkinson, OSG, of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (TAC) has compiled the wonderful book Ancient Office Hymns with Versicles, Responses, and Antiphons for all Propers and Commons at Mattins and Evensong according to Anglican Use. The appropriate hymn, with its corresponding versicle and response, need only be inserted into the Office in its traditional place immediately before the Benedictus or Magnificat. Bishop Wilkinson's book also supplies the appointed antiphons on these Gospel canticles. These restorations do much to restore the traditional integrity of the Prayer-book Offices.

Ancient Office Hymns may be had by contacting the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Evangelist.

Deanery & Parish Office
980 Falmouth Road
Victoria, BC V8X 3A3
(250) 920-9990
FAX (250) 920-5723

* * *

VIII.—ON THE MUSIC OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

The authoritative directions of the English Church since the Reformation touching Church Music are few and vague.

The allusion to the singing of the “Psalter or Psalms of David” borne on the title page of our present Prayer Book “Pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches;” certain rubrics in the body of the work;—the XLIXth of Queen Elizabeth’s Injunctions; and the XIVth Canon of 1603—4, which begins thus,—” The Common Prayer shall be said or sung distinctly and reverently,” are perhaps all the directions we can adduce as bearing the authority of written law upon this subject.

But the written law has all along been consonant with and explainable by certain musical traditions and customs, continued to a great extent in the actual uses of choirs, and noted in musical directions and collections of written or printed music.

The text-book prepared at the same time with Edward the Sixth’s first Prayer Book by Marbeck, and printed the following year, 1550, bears evidence of the adoption by Archbishop Cranmer, and those who acted with him in settling the uses of the remodelled Services, of that species of music called Plain Song, which had been used in the Church Catholic from time immemorial, but had, it would seem, too generally given way, at least in the ordinary Services, attended by the people, to an “operose” and intricate style of harmonized music in which the people could neither take part, nor (even if they knew Latin) perceive the “sentence,” or meaning of the words. In music, therefore, as in doctrine, the appeal was from modern innovations and corruptions of Catholic antiquity, to the uses of an earlier and purer age. Plain Song had been the music of the Church from the beginning; it was restored to more general use in the Reformed Church of England. What that Plain Song was,—what were its rules, how copious, how diversified, may be learnt from the ancient books in use both before and at the time of the Reformation which have escaped the fanatical destruction of things sacred during the Great Rebellion, and the subsequent Usurpation. The Antiphonarium gave the Plain Song music for the ordinary daily Offices; the Gradual that for the Service of the Mass. The former included the chants for the Psalms, the Antiphons for all the year, as also the hymns, which (as is well known to ritualists) were as definitely appointed in their several places as the Canticles, Psalms, or Collects. The Gradual contained Introits, Sequences, Glorias, Credos, and all” the musical portions of the Liturgy properly so called.

Thus (as has been satisfactorily shown by Mr. Dyce in the Preface to his Book of Common Prayer with plain-tune, after the model of Marbeck) Plain Song was “not an indeterminate kind of melody, but a mode of intonating chanting and singing in the Church, which implies an adherence to certain rules, and to a great extent the use of certain well-known melodies, that are severally appropriated to particular parts of the Service.”

Queen Elizabeth’s XLIXth Injunction is entirely confirmatory of this view, enjoining “a modest and distinct song” to be “so used in all parts of the common prayers, that the same may be as plainly understanded as if it were read without singing,” while at the same time permission is given for “the singing in the beginning or in the end of the Morning and Evening Prayer, of a hymn or such-like song to the praise of Almighty god in the best sort of melody and music that may be conveniently devised, having respect that the sentence of the hymn may be understanded and perceived.” This permission was doubtless confirmatory of the use previously established and subsequently retained of singing under the title of Anthems more elaborate music by trained choirs in addition to the Plain Song of more wide and general application.

The difficulty of translating the ancient hymns into English verse, and the substitution of metrical translations of the Psalms after the example of Clement Marot, cir. 1540, in Paris, and of Beza in Strasburg (1545) frustrated the wishes of Archbishop Cranmer that these most Catholic compositions should be adopted to vernacular use in the Reformed Church of England: Sternhold and Hopkins in Edward VIth’s reign, and Tate and Brady in that of William and Mary furnished the songs of most general adoption in this country, to the utter confusion of men’s views and feelings. The Psalter pointed for singing came too generally to be used as, and called the reading Psalms, while the metrical versions had transferred to them both the phraseology and the interest which attached of old to the chanted Psalms, and thus the evangelical Hymns of S. Hilary, S. Ambrose, Prudentius, Sedulius, S. Eunodius, and S. Gregory, and those of the subsequent era of Venantius Fortunatus, Venerable Bede, Adam of S. Victor, and still later of Santolius Victorinus, were entirely lost to the people. And if the natural craving of the renewed nature in any case insisted upon a more direct tribute of Christian praise and thanksgiving in the songs of the Church, it came to be fed with a pasture not wholesome nor satisfying, in a modern hymnody too often of doubtful orthodoxy and of undoubted sickliness. The music of these metrical Psalms and Hymns (with the exception of those melodies which have come down to our times from more Catholic sources, and a few which have been composed in a similar tone of masculine grandeur) has grown from year to year more and more secular and effeminate; while, from the neglect of vocal music, as an element in clerical and general education, the actual singing of them has ceased to be what it was originally, a national accomplishment in which all the people could and did join. So that the very means taken in an uncatholic spirit to secure the greatest amount of congregational singing has been one of the chief causes of the entire loss, speaking generally, of this essential feature of Catholic worship. Looking at the history and present condition of music in the Church of England, it would seem that what is required whenever it may be attained is a full Choral Service of the Plain Song order.[1]

Easy Anthems or Hymns should be sung in the appointed places in Matins and Evensong, and also immediately before them, (see Par. 122, note *) and Hymns may also be added at the close of one Service when followed immediately by another or by a Sermon.[2]

It is to be observed that there is not the least warrant in the Prayer Book for the too common distinction drawn between the cathedral and parochial Service. The rubrics are alike for both. Nor is the difference of congregations such as to warrant any material difference. What is edifying in the country cathedral is equally so in most large towns; nor is it at all true that the poor in villages and hamlets are less susceptible of the hallowed influence of sacred music properly introduced in the Service of the Church than their more wealthy and urbane fellow countrymen. In large manufacturing districts the taste for Choral harmony is generally very strong, and ought not to be deprived of its due gratification in the highest of all human employments.

The rule to be followed is, that “all things should be done to edification;” and this involves the proper use of all available means, and lawful appliances—the only bar to the use of the highest style of Choral Service properly regulated in every Church is the inability to perform it. In proportion as zeal for the honour and glory of god’s worship inspires the ministers and people of any particular Church, so will their worship rise in the scale of musical grandeur and choral dignity.

All the instrumental aid which can be made subservient to general devotion and that of the performers themselves, ought by inference to be considered lawful, though perhaps a good organ and a competent organist are all that will be found in general desirable.

1 Full directions for which are given in the Rev. Thomas Helmore’s Manual of Plain Song, and the Accompanying Harmonies, founded upon Marbeck’s Book before mentioned.

2 For Anthems, see Boyce’s Cathedral Music, “Anthems and Services,” (printed originally by J. Burns; sold by R. Cox and Co.) The Parish Choir (Ollivier: Pall Mall,) and the Motett Society’s Collection of Ancient Music. For Translations of the Ancient Catholic Hymns in like metre set to their original tunes as preserved in the Sarum Breviary, Hymnal and Gradual. See Hymnal Noted under the sanction of the Ecclesiological Society with Accompanying Harmonies (J. A. Novello.)

* * *
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!

The Anglo-Catholic

Catholic Faith and Anglican Patrimony

Tag Archives: Archbishop Cranmer

English a Protestant Language?

Σφραγὶς δωρεᾶς Πνεύματος Ἁγίου

Divorce and Remarriage in "Historic Anglicanism" (Part I)

Summary of Tonight's Discussion on The Journey Home

A Royal Conquest of the Church

THE REFORMATION AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: NOT “A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE” BUT “A ROYAL CONQUEST OF THE CHURCH”

On the Music of the English Church