In my August Pastoral Letter, I said that I should continue to reflect on current issues in the September letter. Normally one looks for a different, and unrelated topic, but these are not normal times. We have seen the dissolution of the 2005–2010 General Synod and with it the dispersion of its ‘Catholic Group in General Synod’, one of the informal groupings in the Synod. New elections will take place shortly and the 2010–2015 General Synod will be inaugurated by the Queen in November. As happens every five years, there will be an inaugural meeting of the new ‘Catholic Group’ and people will be counting up how many are in the Group, bishops, clergy and laity, and what kind of line they will be taking. That much is predictable and the pattern for it long-established. The officers of the ‘Catholic Group’ will already be in place (provided they have managed themselves to be elected to the Synod) and the Chairman will already have a sense of the direction in which he will want to lead the Group.

Until the July 2010 vote, the second catastrophic vote for Anglo-catholics in three years, there was a division of opinion. One section wanted, on principle, to vote down the women bishops’ legislation completely, on the grounds that Catholic Faith and Order does not traditionally admit women to holy orders and the Church of England has no more competence to change the tradition than it has to change the bible, the creeds, or the sacraments. This section still sees its duty to witness to the Catholic Faith, as the Church of England has received it, and not to give up until the ‘final approval’ vote is lost in 2012 (if, indeed, it is lost). The ‘final approval’ vote on women bishops will need a two-thirds majority in each of the three houses of Synod and it is possible, of course, that it will not clear this hurdle in all three houses. (One projection is that it might fail in the house of laity).

The second section of opinion, broadly that of Forward in Faith, was that women bishops are inevitable sooner or later, because of the admission of women to the orders of deacon and priest, and that what is needed is a proper framework, proper provision, for those who maintain the historic and traditional view. The sooner the better. Forward in Faith favoured a free province, but three separate dioceses would amount to that, and that was firmly defeated in July. The archbishops’ amendment also might have permitted some sort of framework to be built on statutory transfer of jurisdiction. That was narrowly lost on a vote of houses. (It is hard to build a Catholic ecclesiology, incidentally, on a system which allows priests and deacons to vote down the attempts of archbishops and bishops in areas of Faith and Order. Are the procedures of General Synod in any sense ‘Catholic’?) What is apparently on offer, intended to meet the needs of this section of opinion, is a ‘code of practice’. Bishops and all who exercise patronage would agree to behave honourably and try to both respect people’s needs and their deeply-held beliefs.

Following the July 2010 vote, this second section of opinion has had to do some fresh thinking. Forward in Faith assemblies have chanted, as ‘the response to the psalm’, ‘A code of practice will not do’. Anglo-catholics are programmed then to reject a code of practice and it is important to understand why. For one thing, codes of practice are advisory and not mandatory. Discretion, discernment, goodwill, and good sense are all necessary for codes of practice to work. Catholic orders and sacraments cannot depend on discretion, discernment, goodwill, and good sense. Indeed a major characteristic of Catholic orders and sacraments is that they exist regardless of any of these things, even if some of these things are necessary for them to be of benefit to the faithful. Whatever it is, the Eucharist, celebrated by someone not in the historic succession, or not using the right elements or words, and not having the right intention, is not a Catholic sacrament. The same is true of Absolution, Confirmation, Ordination, and the Blessing of Oils. The argument here is not about the sex of the celebrant. Anglo-catholics (unlike many in the Church of England) have exactly the same problem with non-conformist ministers and lay presidents as they do with women clergy. What we need, we say, is ‘sacramental certainty’, a matter which the Chairman of the Catholic Group, Canon Simon Killwick, explained lucidly in the Church Times of 30 July 2010. That means that, in sacraments, God is doing something which does not depend on our response, though it invites our response. It happens, as they say, ex opera operato, just because it happens. To think otherwise is not what the Catholic Faith teaches. A code of practice won’t do!

That means that Anglo-catholics who are standing for election for the General Synod, or voting in General Synod elections, are standing, or voting, to defeat the women bishops’ legislation. It is hard to see how, in terms of process, any provision whatsoever could be made now – following the severe set-back in York in July – which allowed women bishops to be consecrated and, at the same time, traditional Anglo-catholics conscientiously to remain in the Church of England. But it ain’t over until it’s over. No-one in November 1992, when the final approval for women priests took place, could have guessed that a few months later the House of Bishops would cobble together the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993, with its promise of a permanent and honoured place for those who could not accept the development.

Some of you will now be asking why I am picking at the carcase rather than just declaring it dead and moving on to embrace the offer of Pope Benedict XVI to Anglicans in Anglicanorum cœtibus. The Pope’s offer is not a bargain basement sale. It isn’t ‘clearance’ or ‘end of roll’ or ‘while stocks last’. Nor is it a rescue plan for shipwrecked Anglo-catholics. It is a way of pursuing the ecumenical journey to which we have been committed for a very long time and it must be considered in its own right. That I propose to do in a third Pastoral Letter in October, the third in a series of letters. Meanwhile I think we continue to pray, reflect, and rest, and, of course, ponder and reflect during the visit of the Pope to England later in September, what we should now do, each one of us. Most of all, as the Holy Father comes among us as the leader of the Christian family, we pray for the coming of the Kingdom and the triumph of the Gospel over the forces of evil and indifference.

May God bless you as you faithfully serve him and his Church.

+Andrew

* * *

Andrew Burnham, Heaven & Earth in Little Space: The Re-enchantment of Liturgy, Canterbury Press, Norwich, 2010

There are many books on the development of liturgy in which the discussion is principally about what is happening within one liturgical tradition while taking into account influences from other traditions.  This is not one of them.  What we have here is an absorbing discussion on contemporary developments in liturgy and their interplay between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.

To do this, the author Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet (Anglican), takes us back to the way in which liturgy developed in England during the Reformation and why.  With all of the objectivity of the scholar that he is, and employing an engaging literary style, Burnham is able to navigate the reader through the turbulent waters of the English Reformation, the troubled waters of post Vatican II liturgy, and onward into the exciting possibilities opened up by Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum coetibus. This is a book which will appeal to both scholars and laypersons.

Critics in both the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church complain about the coarsening of much of modern liturgy, its banality, the over emphasis upon the ‘community’ at the expense of a sense of participation in the transcendent worship in the heavenly sanctuary, and its slavery to now dated 1970s experiments in ‘creative’ liturgy.  Many have voted with their feet and refuse to attend liturgical celebrations, especially those that have been ‘manufactured’ to attract the people.

In subtitling his book, “The Re-enchantment of Liturgy”, Andrew Burnham signals his purpose which is no less than to sketch out newer approaches to liturgical renewal which, drawing upon the best of the Church’s liturgical treasury, may assist worshippers to engage more fully in the transforming worship of heaven.  There is a pressing need, he argues, to find the way out of contemporary liturgical banality in order to rediscover “something of the mysterium tremens et fascinans” of what the sacred liturgy, at its best, can truly express.  Traumatic ruptures in the liturgical tradition, as distinct from organic development, has not served the Spiritual interests and needs of the People of God.

Burnham begins his task with a scrupulously honest evaluation of what happened to the liturgy in the Church of England at the Reformation.  He freely acknowledges that the traditional Anglican formularies of the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 (and to a greater and lesser extent the Prayer books of 1549, 1552, and 1559) seem patient of either a more Catholic interpretation or a more Protestant interpretation.  The rupture in the Catholic liturgical tradition engineered by Thomas Cranmer resulted in “a maddening ambiguity at the heart of Anglican Eucharistic theology.”

The differing Anglican Eucharistic theologies have become institutionalised in the Book of Common Worship which provides a variety of Eucharistic Prayers to meet the differing theological beliefs of different congregations.

Next Burnham turns his attention to what happened in the Catholic Church following the introduction of the Novus Ordo of Paul VI, and what is happening in the Church following the promulgation of the Motu Proprio of Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum pontificum (2007).  And, of course, full account is taken of Liturgicam authenticam (2001) with the resulting and soon to be published new English translation of the Mass.  Questions here are raised about the Catholic Church’s relative inexperience with vernacular liturgy as compared to the 500 years experience of the Church of England which allowed a sacral vernacular language to emerge.  Burnham takes seriously the possibility of how one Form of the Mass, the Ordinary Form or the Extraordinary Form, may influence the other.  As an example he suggests the replacement of the Offertory Prayers in the Novus Ordo with those from the Missal of Blessed John XXIII thereby recovering in its fullest expression the true doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass for the Novus Ordo.

In his lengthy discussion of Church music Burnham displays all of the acumen of one who has authority to speak in this important area of liturgical worship.  He correctly points out that hymnody has had a powerful influence on Anglican consciousness, with hymns providing a teaching modality as well as beauty in the worship of God.  Much Catholic Eucharistic theology is disclosed in well known and well loved traditional Anglican hymns.  The practical loss of these traditional hymns with their replacement by often very unworthy contemporary alternatives has eviscerated much of the Anglo-Catholic legacy of traditional Eucharistic understanding and worship.  In many ways, what was in Anglican hymns made up for what was, from a Catholic point of view, lacking in the Service of Holy Communion in the BCP of 1662.

Burnham’s discussion on the liturgical forms of Morning and Evening Prayer, and other Offices, is carried out in its dialectical relationship between the Catholic breviaries in their various amended forms, and the forms devised by Thomas Cranmer.  He carries that kind of discussion on into the contemporary revisions of the Church of England and the new Breviary now in use in the Catholic Church.

In this book Burnham does both Anglicans and Catholics a major service in explaining the ways in which Church of England liturgies changed at the Reformation, what were the factors at play which influenced the radical rupture the Eucharistic liturgy, and the importance of the ongoing process of change in the twentieth and twenty first centuries.  Burnham, while clearly Catholic in his understanding of liturgy, is nevertheless able to present in an objective and dispassionate way alternative views which are more widely accepted by Anglicans.

Importantly, Bishop Burnham also makes clear what is meant by the classic Anglican Patrimony which can suitably be retained and incorporated into the Catholic liturgical tradition, thereby enriching the tradition.

This book provides readers with a profound understanding of liturgical developments in both the Church of England and the Catholic Church, and the manifest shortcomings of much contemporary liturgical worship both Eucharistic and non-Eucharistic.  Usefully, the book goes on to suggest ways in which liturgy may not only be renewed in the light of tradition, but also re-enchanted such that active participation in the Eucharist will enable the believer to really experiences something of the sublime reality of heaven.

In concluding with a chapter on St Mary the Virgin Mother of God, the Bishop makes the traditional Catholic link between the meeting of heaven and earth in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and the meeting of heaven and earth on our altars as bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ.

* * *

Heaven and Earth in Little Space is published by Canterbury Press with a Foreword by Fr Aidan Nichols OP and an introduction by Fr Jonathan Baker SSC, Principal of Pusey House, Oxford and also a member of the Council of Forward in Faith.  Full details of how to order it, and how to take advantage of a generous discount on the recommended price, can be found here.

TO ORDER with a 20% discount please quote code Space 2010.
UK orders please add £2.50 for P&P (orders over £50 postage free).
International orders please call for details.  Offer price expires 31st Dec 2010.
Post: Send a cheque payable to Norwich Books and Music to
Norwich Books and Music, St Mary’s Works, St Mary’s Plain, Norwich NR3 3BH.
Tel: 01603 612614  Fax: 01603 624483  Email: orders@norwichbooksandmusic.co.uk

Copies of Heaven and Earth in Little Space may also be had through Amazon.com.

It is now 40 years since the Church of England General Synod came into being. It was an exciting new development, replacing an even more cumbersome system of dual control by Convocations of Clergy and the Church Assembly. The laity at last had a full and effective voice in the government of the Church of England. There were some safeguards in place. Certain matters had to be passed by two thirds' majority and there could be a call for a vote by Houses, even when one was not strictly required. That meant that there needed to be majorities in each of the three Houses, Bishops, Clergy, and Laity.

It was this last safeguard which torpedoed the attempt of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to introduce an amendment to safeguard the ministry of traditionalist bishops. (As far as the democratic process is concerned, the archbishops are simply two members of the Synod). The amendment was voted down by five votes in the House of Clergy. This followed an earlier vote, where only 34% of the Synod supported new dioceses. Finally the whole draft Measure was approved, the only safeguard for traditionalists being the promise of a Code of Practice. The matter now moves from the General Synod, whose quinquennium has now ended, to the dioceses. It will return from there to the new General Synod. In 18 months' time, November 2012, the hope of supporters of women bishops is that the Measure will be finally passed by the necessary two-thirds majority in each House, the hurdle which the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood Measure cleared on November 1992. Thereafter it must pass muster in Parliament, receive the Royal Assent, and be promulged as a canon. Last time, all of that took another 15 months, which would take us to February 2014, with the first consecrations of women bishops soon thereafter.

Traditionalists have been beaten four-square. When (though, strictly, it is still 'If') the Measure comes into force, there will be no more Resolution A and B, no more 'petitioning parishes'. There will be no more 'flying bishops', no more Beverley, Ebbsfleet, and Richborough. There will be again the assurance of good behaviour: no one will be over-faced by women priests and bishops ministering where they are not wanted. But there will be no guarantees (and, increasingly, no likelihood) that male bishops and priests ministering to us will share those convictions, or derive their orders from an unbroken apostolic succession of bishops in the Catholic line. Avoiding women ministers will become not a conviction about Catholic Order, shared throughout the ages, but a matter of sexual discrimination, abhorrent to all of us. In a very short time, it will have become unacceptable to invoke a sexist Code of Practice.

It is important for us all to understand how momentous all this is and what the implications are for our life together. I was never very hopeful of the Archbishops' amendment, though it was good that it was debated. It would not have brought a clear and certain place for the Catholic understanding of Faith and Order. But it would have allowed a new generation of Provincial Episcopal Visitors — flying bishops — to try to work out, with the Archbishops, some sort of corporate life for our priests, people, and parishes. It is fair to say that both Archbishops wanted that. Moreover 60% of the bishops in Synod (though not two thirds) were prepared, more or less enthusiastically, to support the Archbishops and accept their spiritual lead.

Come the final judgment when, as the Prayer Book says in the Marriage Service, 'the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed', some will have to account for the broken promises of the early 1990s. Traditionalists were then assured of a permanent and honoured place. Great store was set by the doctrine of reception (whereby no change in Holy Order would finally thought to be 'received' until it was accepted by the ancient churches of East and West). It was on the basis of these promises — both now very hollow — that Provincial Episcopal Visitors were appointed, ordinands and their families exchanged comfortable life styles for theological college, curacies, and what promised to be a lifetime of ministry, and parishes set to work energetically with the task of evangelism and catechesis. However honourably these promises were made, there were liberal pressure groups intent on destroying them. These liberal pressure groups are not full of bad people: the women and men concerned were always exasperated that the Church made such high-sounding, but undeliverable, promises. In their view -the view that has prevailed — we all simply needed to get used to the new 'inclusive' way of doing things. In their view, twenty years is quite long enough for that to have happened. But there have been broken promises indeed and some supporters of the women bishops' project recognise that and seek forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation.

For Ebbsfleet, the critical vote came when nearly two thirds of the General Synod rejected the creation of new dioceses. The only sense we have been able to make of the whole Ebbsfleet project these last sixteen years (of which I have been bishop for nearly ten), is that the See of Ebbsfleet is an 'Apostolic District'. That is, it is an area of the vineyard which seeks to grow into, and become, a 'local Church', a 'diocese'. To that end, we have had our Stational Masses of Initiation, our Ordinations, and our Chrism Masses. We have had our Area Deans and Deaneries, our Council of Priests, our Lay Council, and our Lay Congress. We have also had parish evangelism weekends and research into resources for catechesis and formation. We have had clergy retreats, festivals of faith, and the annual Children and Young People's Eucharistic Festival. Our churches have been as well-attended as most, with, if anything, more than our share of men, children, young families, and other endangered categories of church-goer. Here was a new kind of diocese, not without its problems, but with promising signs. 'In house' there has been very little discussion of 'church issues' and that in itself has made us vulnerable. We have never been attacked by anyone who got to know us and experienced our corporate life. It has always been fear of who we might be, what we might represent, rather than what we actually are.

For now, the prescription is for some serious summer rest and to get some praying and thinking done. I shall be addressing these issues further in the September Pastoral letter, at a Sacred Synod for clergy, and at the Ebbsfleet Lay Conference, but, for now, at least we know where we are. It is time to stop trying to make bricks without straw.

May God bless you as you seek to discern, obey, and trust his will.

* * *

Bishop Andrew Burnham this evening launched his new book, Heaven and Earth in Little Space (Canterbury Press), at a reception at Pusey House, Oxford.  Fr Jonathan Baker, Principal of Pusey House and author of the Introduction, welcomed the bishop and guests – including Fr Aidan Nichols OP who contributed the Foreword – and paid tribute to the new publication and its author.  The bishop then thanked those who had been involved with the production of the book, especially Fr Baker and Fr Nichols, and invited all present to continue to consider how Anglo-Catholicism might contribute to the future of the liturgical life of the wider Church.

Others present included Mr Stephen Parkinson (Director of Forward in Faith), Canon Robin Ward (Principal of S. Stephen’s House), and a number of local Anglican and Catholic clergy and laity.

The Bishop of Ebbfleet Speaks at the Book Launch Event.

Earlier this evening, Pusey House, Oxford, hosted a launch party for Bishop Andrew Burnham's new book about the re-enchantment of Catholic liturgy, Heaven and Earth in Little Space.  Look for a review here on The Anglo-Catholic very soon.

H/t to James Bradley for the photo.

I feel as your Chairman that I should say something about the reported trip to Rome.  As you all know, I am interested in the Ordinariate.  I had the opportunity to accompany Bishop Andrew and Bishop Keith to the Vatican to discover what was intended.  As Chairman of Forward in Faith International it was important that I was present, as FIF Australia is totally committed to it. Also many members in America and here are actively interested.  I can say nothing more about the visit.

However, I am embarrassed by the leak to the press that we had visited the Holy See. All of us have expressed an interest in the Ordinariate and so it is obviously necessary to understand exactly what is intended and how the Ordinariate will be implemented. We were certainly neither negotiating nor plotting. The leak came as a real surprise to me as it happened whilst I was abroad. As we had not informed others of our visit, who leaked it – and why – is a very serious question. It risks damage to the Church of England, and to Catholic Anglicans in particular, as well as to the forthcoming visit to the UK of the Holy Father. It also has serious ecumenical implications. To say it was malicious would seem to fit the facts.

I have a deep love for the Church of England and its Anglo-Catholic tradition in particular. The question of how it is to continue is a serious one. Though the signs in General Synod do not look good, many still hope for proper provision in line with previously made promises. Our visit must not be allowed to colour these discussions.

Others believe the Pope's offer gives a very real chance that much that is valuable in our tradition can be preserved. All need to try, carefully and prayerfully, to read the signs of the times.

+John Fulham

Is it just me, or does he seem to be suggesting that a source within the Catholic Church leaked the news of the PEVs' visit to the press?  Shortly after posting his thoughts on the leak on Saturday, Damian Thompson posted the following update.

[Update: A leading Anglo-Catholic source contacts me this morning naming several English Catholic bishops whom he thinks were in Rome for this summit. He confirms that "very few people on our side" (ie, the C of E) knew it was happening.]

Make no mistake about it: the Apostolic Constitution has powerful opponents in the Roman Curia, adversaries who are not above manipulating the situation in the press for their own advantage.  And if Damian Thompson's source is correct — that there were several English Catholic bishops present for the discussion — it does not at all seem unreasonable (based on past experiences alone) to suspect that one of them may have leaked the news.

The original article is at this link.

Anglican bishops in secret Vatican summit

In a move likely to raise tensions between the two Churches, a group of Church of England bishops met last week with advisers of Pope Benedict XVI to set in motion steps that would allow priests to convert to Catholicism en masse.

They are set to resign their orders in opposition to the introduction of women bishops and to lead an exodus of Anglican clerics to the Catholic Church despite Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, urging them not to leave.

It would be the first time for nearly 20 years that large numbers of priests have crossed from the Church of England to Rome, and comes only weeks ahead of a crucial General Synod debate on making women bishops.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that bishops travelled to the Holy See last week to hold face to face discussions with senior members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most powerful of the Vatican's departments.

The Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Rt Rev Keith Newton and the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, the bishops of Fulham, Richborough and Ebbsfleet respectively, are understood to have informed senior Catholic officials that Church of England clergy are keen to defect to Rome.

It is the first significant response to the Papal offer made last year, which opened the doors for Anglicans to convert while retaining key elements of their tradition.

The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, was unaware of the summit, which is likely to prove embarrassing to the Catholic Church ahead of the Pope's visit to Britain later this year as it will rekindle fears that it is trying to poach Anglican clergy.

One source close to last week's discussions said that the Anglican bishops raised concerns with the Vatican officials that there is opposition to them defecting from Catholic bishops in England.

Nevertheless, they made clear they have become so disillusioned with the Church's liberal direction that they are keen to accept the Pope's offer if they can finalise plans to implement it.

The Vatican summit will raise the stakes at the General Synod in July when the Church of England's parliament will vote on how to treat traditionalist clergy opposed to the introduction of women bishops.

Although the number of priests who have openly said that they plan to defect has been small so far, the group is likely to grow if they are not given adequate provisions.

A leading Anglican cleric said: "This will seriously embarrass the Pope.

"It's a plot within the Vatican that they are desperate to keep quiet until they are ready to go public.

"Many will see this as proof that the Catholic Church is intent on poaching clergy from the Church of England despite its reassurances to the contrary."

MEETING right at the end of the current synodical quinquennium, the York residential General Synod this July will have before it the recommendations of a legislative drafting committee. The aim has been to have women bishops in the Church of England but, at the same time, to make some sort of provision for those of us who can’t accept that the Church of England is competent to proceed with ordaining women bishop. We have chanted ‘a code of practice won’t do’ at Forward in Faith assemblies and yet it seems likely that it is, after all, a code of practice which will be finally on offer. A code of practice – saying, roughly, that no one will be forced to receive the ministry of woman bishops – would be better, one might think, than nothing at all. One imagines a gradual process, with a dwindling number of parishes and priests unable to accept the new ways. Anything which makes life easier for them to get on with the vital tasks of mission and teaching is surely to be welcomed…

I think we need to be clear, however, why a code of practice won’t really do, even if many are obliged in the end to rub along with such a code. For one thing, codes of practice can be changed rather easily. For another, codes of practice aren’t very easy to enforce. (I was on the way back from a House of Bishops’ meeting, where we had talked about women bishops and codes of practice, and, on the radio was a programme about rabbit farming. I chuckled as I heard them saying that the problem with rabbit farming was that it was regulated only by a code of practice and that codes of practice were impossible to enforce). These problems with codes of practice, however, are nothing like as severe as the real problem with a code of practice over women bishops. The real problem is that, once you move away from the traditional faith and order of the Church, and have admitted people to holy order, without regard to gender, any code of practice blocking the ministry of women is simply a licence for sexual discrimination. I might think (as I happen to) that, though women should be allowed to serve in the armed services, they should not fight on the front line. But that doesn’t mean that, if I lose the argument (which over women servicemen I know that I already have), there should be special arrangements for my point of view. Or, to put it another way, you can’t have a church which both has women bishops and doesn’t have women bishops.

But what has changed, you may ask? We have had special arrangements for 17 years: but that was always on the understanding that the Church had not yet reached a mind on it, and would not do so until all the churches agreed. That’s the bit the Bishops, as guarantors of doctrine, have fudged. They have moved on from the temporary expedient of accepting women priests – and allowing people not to – to the point where women are consecrated as bishops. For, whatever a bishop is, he is neither temporary nor an expedient: he links us back to the apostles and throughout the world in faith and order.

It’s not over yet. We must see what July brings – even those of us who believe in RITA (last month’s letter), that the Pope’s offer of an Anglican Ordinariate must be considered in its own right as Plan A and not Plan B. The July Synod will at least show us whether the Church of England prefers Catholic consensus or Protestant dissent. And then there are the General Synod elections in the autumn…

May God bless you as we journey on.

FOLLOWING the wonderful Day of Prayer on the Chair of Peter on 22nd February, priests and parishes and people, up and down the country, are considering what the future direction should be for Anglo-catholics. Hardly a day goes by without me being asked by someone for comment. As I write, I am arranging a number of meetings with clergy and lay people to see quite where we are getting to. Meanwhile, in the back of our minds – and not always the back! – are the Pope's offer of an Ordinariate (the very framework which we were asking the Church of England for, and which they have said is impossible), and the forthcoming vote in General Synod in July. It will be the July Synod of 2010, it seems, right at the end of the synodical quinquennium, that decides whether or not to accept the recommendations of the legislative committee, recommendations which (we are already told) will not make proper provision for Anglo-catholics.

Anglo-catholics, for a generation at least, have talked about the priority being reunion with Rome and the Holy See. Faced with an offer from the Pope for a way forward into re-union – indeed the only way forward that will be possible for the foreseeable future – I think we have to consider that route on its own merits. It can't be a 'Plan B' or an emergency exit. It is an invitation into full communion with Peter, who, according to Catholic teaching, is the Vicar of Christ. It is RITA ('Rome is the answer'): 'Plan A' and the front door, for those who want it and understand its importance. And yet there will be plenty of Anglo-catholics who don't want it, preferring their own congregational independence, and some who, on principle, simply do not accept the central leadership role of Peter and his successor the Pope, at least as it is presently exercised. From this it follows that the July vote, however crucial it seems to us, in itself solves nothing. Whatever the result of the General Synod debate, the Holy Father's offer deserves to be considered in its own right. Whatever the result of the debate, those who cannot accept the ministry of Peter should not accept the Pope's offer. Amidst this, it is hard to see anything but a time of division, a 'parting of friends', though, thankfully, no one seems to be heading off to form or join anything new, or smaller: there are enough sects already.

I think the questions every Anglo-catholic need to ask are (1) 'is our understanding of the Church, her Faith, her Orders, and her Sacraments possible within the Church of England? and (2) is it possible (however unlikely it may seem) that the whole of the Church of England will embrace that understanding of the Church, her Faith, her Orders, and her Sacraments? If the answer to either question is 'no', then the Church of England is not part of the Catholic Church as we understand it to be and we Anglo-catholics ought to do all we can to become 'Anglican Catholics', that is, sign up one by one, but in our natural groupings, for the emerging Ordinariate. Those are the issues I am presently thinking through myself, and shall continue to think through as I celebrate the paschal mysteries of baptism and confirmation and the Petertide gift of ordination.

May God bless you as you celebrate the new life of Easter.

Just as some Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England consider the Apostolic Constitution as a fallback position should the Established Church ultimately fail to provide some sort of statutory accommodation to traditionalists, there are those in the Anglican Church in America (TAC) who likewise claim to reserve judgement on Anglicanorum Coetibus until certain "practical questions" are answered.  If Rome should concede this point, or offer that compromise, then perhaps — if it does not inconvenience them too much — they may agree to the Holy Father's terms.  Presumably, if the Roman authorities do not satisfy the interrogators, they will reject the Holy Father's offer and return to business as usual.  But as Bishop Andrew understands, the Apostolic Constitution is not just another option, one of an array of more or less equivalent ecclesiological choices.  Rather it is the express will of the Successor of St. Peter, the very Vicar of Christ on earth!

* * *

Heaven and Earth in Little Space
by Bishop Andrew Burnham
Canterbury Press

This timely and significant book by Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, asks whether the declining appeal of religious worship is connected with the simplification of liturgical practice in recent decades.  Has a well-meant policy of making worship more accessible resulted in a loss of the sense of mystery – and has this accelerated the decline?

To answer this question, Bishop Burnham surveys five centuries of change in the Anglican church, as well as the wider Catholic and Orthodox traditions.  He suggests what renewal of the liturgy for today’s church might look like and how re-enchantment would work in practice.

His theme is the re-enchantment of the Sacred Liturgy.  The opening chapter examines the question of Anglican identity and the evolution of the distinctive post-Reformation rites in the Church of England.  He goes on to look in detail at the celebration of the Daily Office and of the Eucharist, and to investigate questions of text, music and ceremonial, as well as the matter of the Kalendar and liturgical year.  Particular attention is paid to the relationship between the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, in the light of the motu proprio of Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum.  A final chapter considers Mary, Mother of the Word Incarnate, as the one who models the grace given through the Liturgy to unite Heaven and Earth.

Bishop Andrew’s significant and absorbing study, informed by his expertise in liturgical theology and history, will be required reading for all who have a concern for the authentic renewal of the worship of God.  In particular, in the light of Pope Benedict’s gracious affirmation of Anglican patrimony in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, it will be an invaluable resource in furthering the aim of enriching the life of the wider Catholic Church with the particular gifts and insights of the Anglican tradition.

Heaven and Earth in Little Space is published by Canterbury Press with a Foreword by Fr Aidan Nichols OP and an introduction by Fr Jonathan Baker SSC, Principal of Pusey House, Oxford and also a member of the Council of Forward in Faith.  Full details of how to order it, and how to take advantage of a generous discount on the recommended price, can be found here.

TO ORDER with a 20% discount please quote code Space 2010.
UK orders please add £2.50 for P&P (orders over £50 postage free).
International orders please call for details.  Offer price expires 31st Dec 2010.
Post: Send a cheque payable to Norwich Books and Music to
Norwich Books and Music, St Mary’s Works, St Mary’s Plain, Norwich NR3 3BH.
Tel: 01603 612614  Fax: 01603 624483  Email: orders@norwichbooksandmusic.co.uk

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Convinced by the Truth: Embracing the Fullness of the Catholic Faith
by Fr. John I. Fleming
Modotti Press

Why convert to Catholicism? In the context of what he saw as the global disintegration of Anglicanism, Father John Fleming, former Anglican priest, presents a compelling account of his spiritual odyssey, and why Catholicism alone could satisfy his need for the synthesis of faith and reason.  The Mass being a crucial factor in his own conversion, he draws readers into his exchange with two young people, one a Catholic the other not, on the reasonableness of Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass.  He concludes with a fascinating account of how the Traditional Anglican Communion came to seek, without condition, full corporate reunion with the Holy See and his own part in this history-making episode.

Pre-release copies of Convinced by the Truth may be ordered online from The Mustard Seed Bookshop.  The book will be in stock on May 5, 2010.

Fr. Fleming is a contributor to The Anglo-Catholic.

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