Tag Archives: Cardinal Kasper

The English Connection

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The Traditional Anglican Communion’s groundbreaking decision to approach the Holy See has been well-documented and much discussed over the last three years, most recently by our own Fr. Fleming in his new book, Convinced by the Truth: Embracing the Fullness of the Catholic Faith.  Now that the Holy Father has come and gone in the UK and the Sacred Synods there are confirming that some clergy and laity there are ordinariate-bound, mostly from the Province of Canterbury, it seems as if it might be a good time to piece together a bit of the history of how those in the UK also played a key role in the development of Anglicanorum Coetibus.  Most of this has appeared in other scattered sources, but I thought it would be good to at least make a first pass at a more coherent narrative.

When the news of the Apostolic Constitution broke last October, many of us speculated that an important role had been played by elements within the Church of England because of the choice of a press conference in London with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the fact that more than one C of E bishop had a statement ready for synchronized release.  These initial hunches received more support in comments made at FIFUK’s 2009 National Assembly shortly after the announcement of Anglicanorum Coetibus.  Statements made last fall along with information that has trickled into the public record since then have shed light on how the Church of England’s Flying Bishops lived up to their name in moving about to do their part in building the bridge across the Tiber.

It is my understanding that the English approach began almost by chance with a spring holiday.  Bishop Andrew Burnham of the See of Ebbsfleet traveled to Rome in April of 2008 to celebrate his 60th birthday.  While there, he sought meetings with the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  Rather than finding himself having an informal chat with the monsignori of the staff, he found himself invited to meet with Cardinals Kasper and Levada.

Pleasantly surprised at the warmth of this reception, Bishop Andrew was able at short notice to arrange for Bishop Keith Newton of Richborough Episcopal Area to hop a plane and join him for the meeting.  In that meeting, these two suffragans of the Archbishop of Canterbury asked whether anything might be done to help English Anglo-Catholics.  They received a warm response and thereafter became aware of some of the details of the TAC approach and that other groups of Anglicans had been knocking at the door as well.

More than 15 years earlier, the then Cardinal Ratzinger had said of Forward in Faith, “If they accept the Magisterium, we have no alternative but to finding a means of admitting them to full communion with the Holy See.”  It was becoming clear that the Vatican would be as good as the now Holy Father’s word.  Subsequent events bore this out.

At this point, we can only speculate about what happened between the General Synod of the Church of England’s vote in July 2008 to move forward with the admission of women to the Episcopate and the present.  Media reports have included sightings of the Bishops of Fulham and Richborough in Vienna, where they met Cardinal Schonborn in January 2009, and of the Bishops of Ebbsfleet, Fulham, and Richborough in Rome in April 2010, where they had meetings in the Vatican. No doubt meetings and regular contacts have continued up to the present in both in England and in Rome.  Now we stand at the threshold of the public phase of the process, which I suppose one might think of as something of an ecclesiastical IPO.  In the words of Fr. Kirk at last year’s FIF Assembly, “Well, you’ve asked for it, now you’ve got it.”

I thought it was useful to fill in a bit of this particular history at the present time to show that the Holy See has dealt faithfully and pastorally with those who have approached it.  Now that the moment approaches when decisions are required or at least possible, the wedding-night jitters are rising among some of those considering taking advantage of the Apostolic Constitution.  Many ask whether the Holy See will treat them fairly.  I tell this story to help assure those of us who have not been in the inner circle of these developments that the process leading up to the publication of Anglicanorum Coetibus and now leading into its implementation, gives us evidence of the care and solicitude of the Holy Father and many in the curia and the various national hierarchies.  The Bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough and those who joined them later took a risk, as did the leadership of the TAC, and now that faith is being rewarded.  For many years, Bishop Andrew has been known for saying, “RITA!” for “Rome is the answer.”  Now Rome has given its answer, and the care given in consulting various groups in crafting that answer gives ample evidence of Rome’s solicitude.

However the ball began to roll among the various groups who approached the Holy See, Anglicanorum Coetibus was addressed to GROUPS of Anglicans who formally petitioned or had merely hoped for the full reunion that has been one of Anglo-Catholicism’s most fervently held desires for more than 175 years.  Whether it was TAC greasing the wheels or the English giving things a push, or the additional impetus added by groups and individuals as yet unknown, the train got moving and provision was made for everyone.  As the Bishop of Fulham said last fall, “This is a world approach of which we shall be a part.”

Now we enter a new phase where “coetibus” must become “coetus,” as old identities and acronyms fall away and groups coalesce into ordinariates in communion with the Catholic Church.  The ordinariates will be a home for members of the TAC, traditionalists from within the Church of England, members of other bodies inside and outside of the Anglican Communion, and for many who have already entered the Catholic Church individually and now welcome the opportunity to return to their native patrimony.

Those further back on the caravan road to full communion will be looking ahead to the vanguard, not only to see how it is treated by Rome, but also how those who go first treat one another.  As all of the various groups of Anglicans who will make up the ordinariates coalesce, we will do well to remember the Saviour’s prayer for unity in the Gospel of John:

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;  That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:  I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

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WWDPD (or "What Would Dr. Pusey Do?")

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Recent discussions about the post-July situation in the Church of England (something which will inevitably impact greatly on the situation just across the border in the Church in Wales) have highlighted the fact that any comments we might make now are simply speculation. We just don't know what will happen or what the fall-out will be.

2445633196 c5ab4e2027 WWDPD (or What Would Dr. Pusey Do?)However, if the recent proposals of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York are passed without amendment, and that is a long way from being even a racing certainty, those who stay and minister within the new dispensation (often trapped because of circumstances of various kinds, together with those who have no other theological place elsewhere) will be faced with a very much compromised and impoverished ecclesiology (even for us Anglicans who, the ecclesiastical world knows, don't do ecclesiology) and a future which falls far short of Forward in Faith's express aim of  providing a secure ecclesial future for our children and grandchildren, and which certainly does nothing to address the aim of promoting ecumenism with Rome and the East, save providing the Anglican establishment with a handy figleaf with which to clothe their essential indifference and even hostility towards catholic ecumenism.

We know very well, wherever we ourselves end up, that the question of any Anglican decision as to its future direction (posed starkly by Cardinal Kasper at the last Lambeth Conference) will, GAFCON notwithstanding, have been decided in favour not only of Protestantism, but liberal revisionist Protestantism. Anglican identity will have undergone as radical a shift as has occurred anywhere in its history, and the remaining rump of 'Catholic' sacramentalists committed to apostolic faith and order, will be completely powerless to change that. For as long as they (are permitted to) remain, they will be perhaps a nagging and increasingly uncomfortable reminder to the rest of the Communion of what might have been had the convergence of the ARCIC process not been sabotaged by Anglican unilateralism, but I suspect only the space of a short generation will put paid to their resistance.

So, whatever our individual decisions might be now or later this year in terms of joining the Ordinariate, we should certainly all pray for its success; because it alone is capable of guaranteeing the true spirit of the Oxford Movement and any long-term future Anglo-Catholicism may have.

Certainly one historical parallel we should strenuously resist as being applicable to our current problems is that of the situation prevailing in the Church of England following the conversion of John Henry Newman in 1845.

Here is Edward Bouverie Pusey writing perhaps more appositely to our present circumstances:

…"and we shall then see, I hope, that all which hold 'the deposit of the faith' (the Creeds, as an authority without them) will be on one side, the Eastern, the Western, our own', and those who lean on their own understanding on the other. I wish you would not let yourself be drawn off by your fears of 'Popery'. While people are drawn off to this, the enemy (heresy of all sorts, misbelief, unbelief) is taking possession of our citadel. Our real battle is with infidelity, and from this Satan is luring us off."

[from a letter of 1844 to W. F. Hook]

And again:

"I look with terror on any admission of laity into Synods. It at once invests them with an ecclesiastical office, which will develop itself sooner or later, I believe, to the destruction of the faith."

[from a letter to John Keble]

But even Dr Pusey reckoned without the Anglican trahison des clercs, always present to a greater or lesser  extent throughout our separate history, but which gathered pace from the middle of the twentieth century until the citadels indeed were captured.

So, in the present confusion, what would Dr Pusey have done?

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At Long Last…

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Italian vaticanista Andrea Tornielli is reporting that, in the coming days, the Bishop of Basel, Kurt Koch, will be named President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, succeeding our favorite ecumenist, Walter Cardinal Kasper.

I must admit that I know little of Bishop Koch, but a Google search did turn up a few promising signs.  In his July 2009 newsletter to priests, the bishop was critical of an unqualified acceptance of the reforms conducted in the name of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.

Many people have signed a petition for the unqualified acceptance of the council.  Right from the start, the expression "unqualified acceptance" irritates me because I don’t know anyone — myself included — to whom it would apply.  A few arbitrarily chosen examples will suffice:

– The council did not abolish Latin in the liturgy.  On the contrary, it emphasized that in the Roman Rite, apart from exceptional cases, the use of the Latin language must be maintained.  Who among the vocal defenders of the council wishes "unqualified acceptance" of that?

– The council declared that the Church regards Gregorian Chant as the "music proper to the Roman Rite," and that it must therefore "be given primary place."  In how many parishes is this implemented "without qualification?"

– The council expressly requested that governmental authorities voluntarily give up those rights to participation in the selection of bishops, that had arisen over the course of time.  Which defender of the council advocates "without qualification" for that?

– The council described the fundamental nature of the liturgy as the celebration the paschal mystery and the eucharistic sacrifice as "the completion of the work of our salvation."  How can that be reconciled with my experience, made in many different parishes, that the sacrificial understanding of the Mass has been completely eliminated from the liturgical language and the Mass is now understood only as a meal or "the breaking of bread?"  In what way can one justify this profound change by reference to the council?

In July 2007, Bishop Koch also defended a document published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ("Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church") which clarified the expression of "subsistit in" in the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium.  While acknowledging that the Church's teaching might be offensive to Protestants (and even some Catholics who wrongly have become accustomed to refer to Protestant communities as "churches"), he upheld the CDF clarification.

The new Vatican document, he said, is looking at the term in a "strictly theological" way, explaining that if the Catholic Church believes apostolic succession and valid sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, are essential aspects of the church established by Christ it cannot recognize as "church" those communities who do not have them.

Bishop Koch also said the document and reactions to it underline a clear difference in the Catholic and Orthodox ecumenical goal and the ecumenical goal of the Protestants.

Do our readers have anything to share about Bishop Koch?  If Mr. Tornielli is correct and the Bishop of Basel gets the PCPCU nod, what does this portend for the advancement of true ecumenism and Christian unity?

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Book Review: Convinced by the Truth

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Editor's Note: In the following review, Dr. Tighe shares a number of details concerning the dialogue between the Traditional Anglican Communion and various organs of the Holy See, which, for various reasons, have yet to appear anywhere online, including on The Anglo-Catholic.  Students of the history behind the Apostolic Constitution will no doubt find both the review and Fr. Fleming's book interesting.

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9781921421112 2 e1269954407417 228x300 Book Review: Convinced by the TruthCONVINCED BY THE TRUTH: EMBRACING THE FULLNESS OF CATHOLIC FAITH

by John I. Fleming
Modotti Press, 2010
(124 pages, $22.95 AUD)

To order click here.

This book, released only a few days ago on May 5, 2010, ought to be of particular and exceptional interest to all who are interested in the genesis and background of Anglicanorum Coetibus and in the deliquescence of world-wide "Anglicanism" of which it is one of the more conspicuous results.  Fr. Fleming is himself a well-informed "insider:" an Australian Anglican priest from 1970 to 1987 (Archbishop Hepworth of the TAC was once his Curate), he, his wife, their three daughters and his mother became Catholics in 1987, and he was ordained a priest in the Catholic Church in 1995.  He is, of course, also a regular contributor to this blog.

Like Gaul, it is divided into three parts.  The first part (Chs. 1-3, pp. 1-57) is autobiographical, written in the form of a letter to his three daughters, Rebecca, Jane and Jessica to explain the reasons why their parents became Catholics.  The second part (Chs. 4-7, pp. 58-91) is a defense and explanation of the Mass as a Sacrifice and of Transubstantiation, written in the form of a letter to "two young friends," one a Catholic, the other an agnostic – at its end we learn that the agnostic has become a Catholic and that the two have married.  The third, written together, in alternating subsections, with Archbishop Hepworth (Ch. 8, pp. 92-112) is an historical account of the TAC's relations with the Holy See up to the end of December 2009.  Finally, an appendix ("The Portsmouth Petition," pp. 113-122) presents in full, for the first time published publicly, I think, the letter to the Holy See that the TAC "college of bishops" approved and delivered to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in October 2007 [Actually, we published the full text of the Petition here in January. --Ed.].  I will not discuss the second section further in this review, save to note that it is concise, direct, "user-friendly" — and convincing.

I have heard it said that Fr. Fleming left the Anglican Church of Australia over the ordination of women, specifically, over the ordination of women to the diaconate, which that church's General Synod approved in the year that he left.  The book demonstrates, however, that such statements are untrue; and, in fact, he became a Catholic several months before that decision of the Australian Anglican General Synod.  Rather, he had assumed throughout the years of his Anglican ministry that the Anglican churches and the Catholic Church were converging, and the growth of the movement for women's ordination (henceforth WO) first upset him because its unilateral character on the Anglican side seemed to present an obstacle to this convergence, and subsequently brought to the foreground of his thought and concern the related problems of church authority and "catholicity."  In addition, as the book recounts, from the early 1980s onwards he had immersed himself in the study of Catholic moral theology and the natural law tradition of ethics, and this had slowly effected "an intellectual conversion" to the Catholic Church in his mind and heart.  Possibly (he writes) he would have become a Catholic earlier had he not been dissuaded by Catholic priests who had told him that after Vatican II the Catholic Church discouraged "individual conversions" and that he should, as he was told, "stay where you are and assist the ecumenical process."  Nevertheless, it should never be forgotten — and it is clear in the book — that the WO question was the issue that raised "the issue of authority" in an acute way, and which destroyed the Catholic ecclesiological credibility of Anglicanism for him.

In his Chapter 3, "Anglican Chaos — Self-Inflicted Wounds," he discusses this issue in greater detail, turning in part from the autobiographical to the expository.  The most revealing sections of this chapter concern his intellectual engagement with the foremost Australian Anglican proponent of WO, Keith Rayner, Archbishop of Adelaide from 1975 to 1990 (and subsequently Archbishop of Melbourne and Primate until his retirement in 1999), who had challenged him on the issue in 1976 after he had written a newspaper column in opposition to it.  He characterizes Rayner (as did an Australian historian at the time) as a "Whig historian," referring by that term to those 19th and early and mid 20th Century historians who treated British History from the Reformation onwards as "a continuous … and generally glorious story of social and political progress … such that we move onwards and upwards to better and better social and political conditions."  In terms of WO, what this means is that the task of the Church and her leaders and teachers is to "accept the inevitable" and devise theological rationales not only for that acceptance, but to promote and foster it, even if that means wresting the Scriptures and denigrating the Christian dogmatic and moral Tradition to do so.  This is clearly to identify the "Spirit of the Age" with the Holy Spirit (the Zeitgeist with the Heilig Geist), and it is just as clear that such an argument in favor of WO will work equally well in the matter of what I call SS (the blessing same-sex "marriages" or "life partnerships;" sanctified sodomy for short), as the more recent history of the Anglican Communion has demonstrated.

I agree with Fr. Fleming's employment of the term "Whig historian," but I prefer another: Erastian.  Thomas Erastus (d. 1585) was a German Calvinist physician who in the arguments over how the church should be organized in the Rhineland Palatinate after that territory embraced Calvinism in 1562 argued that every aspect of Church organization and discipline should be controlled by the Prince (or the State), including the vital matters of the determination of doctrinal standards and the excommunication (exclusion from receiving communion) of moral offenders and doctrinal dissidents.  In this he opposed those Calvinists (a minority, but who included Calvin himself) who believed that "spiritual matters" such as these should be the preserve of the clergy, assisted by those "lay elders" who were a feature of most Reformed (or Calvinist) churches wherever that particular form of Protestantism took root in Europe (save for England).  "Erastianism" is the belief that the State should control the Church, and, more loosely, that the laity should have equal say (at least) with the clergy in making decisions concerning church practices (such as WO and SS today) and, implicitly at least, of the beliefs that underlie such practices.

The Church of England since the Reformation is clearly an Erastian organization.  From 1534, when the English Parliament recognized Henry VIII as "Supreme Head on Earth" of the Church of England (and of Ireland) to 1554, when the legislation recognizing and enforcing that Royal Supremacy was repealed so as to allow the healing of the breach with Rome, the monarch effectively replaced the Pope locally as head of the Church of England, and in practice exercised a far more thoroughgoing and despotic power over it than popes ever did, unlimited in legal theory by anything except his (or her) will and conscience; but after 1559, when the English Parliament conferred the title and authority of "Supreme Governor" on Elizabeth I, that power was, in legal theory if not (initially) always in practice, not so much a "personal" endowment of the monarch, but one conferred upon that "political construct," the King-(or Queen)-in-Parliament, in other words, upon the State as such; and as the monarch's political power and role in government has declined and become purely "formal" over the past three centuries, that has become plainly apparent. In 1994 the British judiciary formally ruled, in a case brought by a clergyman of the Church of England, Paul Stewart Williamson, to try to prevent the first ordinations of women in the Church of England on the basis that such ordinations were incompatible with the doctrinal standards of the Church of England, that such arguments were irrelevant: even if they were true, Parliament was the ultimate authority in determining the doctrine of the Church of England, and in enacting legislation to allow for WO, Parliament had altered the doctrine of the Church of England to allow WO, for the doctrine of the Church of England was whatever Parliament determined that doctrine to be — a decision confirmed in 1996 and 1997; see here.

Outside England, no Anglican church is an Established Church.  The Rev'd Dr. Geoffrey Kirk, however, the Vicar of St. Stephen's, Lewisham, and long a leading figure in the Forward-in-Faith/UK organization, has coined the felicitous contrast of "the Established Church" in referring to the Church of England, and "the Church of the Establishment" for The Episcopal Church in the United States (TEC for short), "the Establishment" being the upper-crust elite (or those that fancy themselves as such) who attempt to determine policy and influence public opinion in accordance with their opinions and sentiments — in other words, those whose views are considered to constitute "bien-pensant public opinion."  No doubt such a phrase would apply as well in countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, to mention only a few.  So alongside the legal "Erastianism" of the Church of England I postulate a "Social Erastianism" in the United States and elsewhere that operates to the same end of conforming the doctrine and practice of Anglican churches to the promptings of the Zeitgeist.  Beside the obvious examples of WO and SS, we can see the same process at work earlier in the 1930 Lambeth Conference's acceptance of the practice of contraception (earlier Lambeth Conferences in 1908 and 1920 had condemned contraceptive practice unreservedly) and in the widespread acceptance of remarriage-after-divorce, even "church remarriage," in TEC since the 1950s and in England since the 1980s (from 1604 onwards the Church of England had the strictest stance against remarriage after divorce of any Christian church, not excluding the Catholic Church).

The last section, concerning the TAC background of Anglicanorum Coetibus, will perhaps attract most attention.  It stems from sources intimately involved in the process, and nothing that I can write on it is nearly so well-informed.  But it may not be amiss to suggest that it is not a complete account, and that some aspects of that history await their proper narrative. The first half of Chapter 8 (pp. 92-99), Fr. Fleming's portion, begins with an account of his continuing affectionate concern for Anglicanism and then, after a brief account of the origins of the TAC and its founding in 1990 and of the TAC's "first contact" with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) in 1991 and that PCPCU's subsequent seeming indifference to further approaches from the TAC, moves rapidly to the luncheon meeting on December 28, 2005 between Archbishop Hepworth and Bishop Chislett of the TAC and Fr. Fleming at which the approach of the TAC petitioning the Holy See for "corporate reunion … without conditions," including the bishops of the TAC all individually signing the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) as a token of their unconditional acceptance of all of the dogmatic and moral teachings of the Catholic Church was presented to the group by Fr. Fleming and accepted on the spot by the two Anglican bishops — proposals which had been accepted by synods of TAC bishops throughout the world by the time that all the TAC bishops and vicars general signed the Catechism and petitioned Rome for reunion in Portsmouth, England, on October 5, 2007.  The second portion, from Archbishop Hepworth (pp. 99-112) begins with his investiture as TAC Primate in November 2003, and the agreement of the TAC bishops present at that event to seek for corporate unity with the Holy See, although he also mentioned the polite "brush-off" that he received from the PCPCU when he approached that body some little time before his investiture, as well as the significant contacts which he made in Rome when he travelled there in spite of the cool response to his approaches from the PCPCU.  It then goes on, after briefly mentioning the December 28, 2005 luncheon meeting, to describing how synods of the English Province, the Southern African province, the Indian province, the American province and the Canadian province of the TAC all endorsed the proposal between early 2006 and April 2007, and how in 2007 he received word from the CDF in Rome that Hepworth and others would be cordially welcome to come to Rome immediately after the conclusion of the TAC Plenary Synod in October of that year to meet with the American Dominican Fr. Joseph Augustine DiNoia (then Undersecretary of the CDF, the third-ranking member of that dicastery, now, as Archbishop DiNoia, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and second-ranking member of that dicastery) to report on the synod.  It was at that synod that all the TAC bishops and vicars general signed the letter to the CDF that appears as "The Portsmouth Petition" in the appendix to the book under review, and signed also the CCC and its Compendium.  After the conclusion of the synod, Archbishop Hepworth and Bishops Robert Mercer and Peter Wilkinson of the TAC travelled to Rome to present the petition and other documents at the meeting with Fr. DiNoia, who, after responding "This is a moment of history!" assured the bishops of his enthusiasm and support for their petition.  Archbishop Hepworth's account goes on to discuss their subsequent wait, the arrival of word from Rome in July 2008 that all was going well — but at the same time a hint that the CDF was aiming at creating a structure that could embrace a wider portion of "the Anglican Diaspora" than the TAC — an intimation early in 2009 that the CDF's proposal was encountering opposition in Rome, and, finally, the announcement of the news conferences in October 2009 at which the Vatican's decision was announced, the formal release of Anglicanorum Coetibus on November 9, 2009 and the letter from Cardinal Levada to the archbishop of December 16, 2009 which constituted the formal Roman acceptance of the TAC's petition of October 2007.

What remains to be told is the full story of the TAC's dealings with the PCPCU during the years, 1989 to 2001, when Edward Idris, Cardinal Cassidy was President of that body, dealings which came to an end as Archbishop Falk and the other TAC bishops slowly came to realize that the cardinal's "bonhommie" concealed a lack of any real interest in pursuing substantive conversations with the TAC; and then, also, concerning the manner in which the TAC's attempt to renew its dealings with the PCPCU after Walter, Cardinal Kasper succeeded Cassidy as its President met only with silence — until a fortuitous and hastily-arranged meeting in (I think) Lent 2002 between Archbishop Falk and an influential Curial cardinal who was visiting in America resulted in that cardinal's making a direct personal approach on behalf of the TAC to the late Pope John Paul II, who, in turn, made his displeasure at the PCPCU's unresponsiveness known to those concerned with it.  The result was an "early retirement" on the part of a PCPCU bureaucrat, and a reopening of long-blocked avenues of communication.  Then there is the story of how the Prefect of the CDF, one Cardinal Ratzinger, became aware of the fact that the TAC was seeking "corporate reunion" and not "ecumenical dialogue," and of how, as a result, at some point in the course of 2003, responsibility for the conduct of Roman relations with the TAC was removed from the PCPCU and given to the CDF, with the provision, however, for the inclusion of Cardinal Kasper of the PCPCU among those who were to be kept apprised of how the conversations developed.  Or so I have been told — although in that case I find it hard to understand how Cardinal Kasper can in recent years so consistently have "misstated" the nature and purpose of the TAC's dealings with Rome, insisting as recently as November 2009 that the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus were intended primarily for "elements" in the Church of England, and only incidentally, if at all, for the TAC.  That there remain aspects of the story of the TAC's dealings with Rome that have yet to be told does not detract in the least from the immense importance and salience to present events and future prospects of this ever engaging account, for which we owe its author our gratitude and thanks.

I urge all readers of The Anglo-Catholic to obtain copies of this book for themselves, which they may do through the link that I have placed at the top of this review.

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"We Have Given Up This Ecumenism of Return."

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Fr. Z has posted an amusing interview wherein our favorite ecumenist, Walter Cardinal Kasper, shares his thoughts about the ongoing dialogue between the Holy See and the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.  Had I the time or the inclination, I would, no doubt, have a field day with most everything that His Eminence had to say about the Holy Father's pastoral, charitable, and indeed courageous outreach to the estranged SSPX, but the last little bit of the interview especially struck me.

"They’ve attacked me as a heretic," he said with a smile.

Asked why the ultra-traditionalists opposed ecumenical dialogue so strongly, he said: "Some people feel threatened in their Catholic identity when we speak with Protestants.

"We need to have a Catholic identity," he said. "But we need an open and mature identity, not a closed one. That’s not a mature identity."

Now I am not prepared to brand this illustrious Prince of the Church a heretic — today, at least — but I would humbly suggest that perhaps — just perhaps — the "ultra-traditionalists" in question might be justifiably concerned when the (lame duck) president of the Pontifical Council charged with promoting Christian unity is on record seemingly disavowing the ecumenical objective of the corporate reintegration of separated Christians with the Catholic Church.  In early March, during a five-day visit to the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, Cardinal Kasper was interviewed by Denis O'Hayer of WABE 90.1 FM, the local PBS radio station.

O'Hayer: Again, as I recall, at the beginning [of the ecumenical movement], the idea was that the other denominations would accept or somehow come to realize that the Church was the One True Church — the Catholic Church was.  Is that accurate? … First of all is that perception accurate, and secondly, is that still the premise for the Catholic Church's approach to ecumenism?

Kasper: Well, we have given up this ecumenism of return.

Really?  Perhaps this new approach to ecumenism was one of those novel ideas that originated in the Second Vatican Council and about which those uptight SSPXers are always going on about?  Hmm… let's check the decrees of Vatican II…

Nevertheless, our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body, and with Him quickened to newness of life-that unity which the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is only through Christ's Catholic Church, which is "the all-embracing means of salvation," that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation. We believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God. This people of God, though still in its members liable to sin, is ever growing in Christ during its pilgrimage on earth, and is guided by God's gentle wisdom, according to His hidden designs, until it shall happily arrive at the fullness of eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem.

(Unitatis Redintegratio, no. 3)

While Cardinal Kasper may have given up on Our Blessed Lord's prayer "ut omnes unum sint," thankfully the Holy Father has not.  And this, I think, is what really gets under the skin of these aging ecumenists.  For them, it seems, the conversation alone is sufficient.  They have evidently convinced themselves that genuine unity is impossible, that all we can hope for is 'dialogue' (a/k/a cocktails at Lambeth Palace).  Or, perish the thought, they no longer truly believe "that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth."  While they talk, the Pope acts.

  1. Dialogue matures into a mutual understanding and culminates in a common confession of the Faith.
  2. Doctrinal consensus having been achieved, the desire for genuine unity follows as a matter of course.
  3. Respectful of the legitimate patrimony and spiritual gifts of the separated community, the Church provides "a communal and ecclesial way" for it to return to the fullness of her communion.

The formula is quite simple, after all.  Indeed, it's found in the pages of the Holy Gospel.  Where the professional ecumenists have imagined only complexities and obstacles difficult, if not impossible, to overcome, contenting themselves with endless (but no doubt pleasant) dialogue, Benedict XVI, impelled by Our Lord's mandate and requiring of separated brethren only that which is demanded by the Holy Gospel, has found a way forward.  And God bless him for it!

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In the Meantime – Part I

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The Southwest Chapter of SSC (the Society of the Holy Cross) met in the parish of Heavitree, Exeter, yesterday.  Fr Kit Dunkley, the Master of our English Province, asked me to give an address.  It is rather long, so I shall divide it into two posts.

Living in the Interim

‘What is this that he says to us, a little while and you shall not see me, and again a little while and you shall see me?  We cannot tell what he says’.  Liturgically we are in that interim, the pause between resurrection and ascension, the little time.  Truth to tell, though, as Christians we are always in an interim. ‘Here we have no abiding city’.  ‘We are strangers and pilgrims’. ‘What we shall be has not yet been revealed, but when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is’.

My generation ought to be prepared for this.  I was born in an interim, the time between the two wars.  Growing up, war-time too was a not-yet time; once the war is over it will all be different, we were told.  Only it wasn’t.  Rationing went on into the 1950’s, and still we waited.

Exeter Kit Co 1024x768 In the Meantime Part I

Concelebrants at Heavitree.

Today there is another interim, a time until it all becomes clear.  It is not just the Pope’s offer to Anglicans; we have been living an interim in the church for almost as long as I can remember.  First there were the heady days when real talks began between Rome and Anglicanism, and it seemed we were making progress.  Every new report seemed to say that we were agreed; ARCIC on eucharist, on ministry, on everything we had been arguing about for centuries.  Of course there were spoilsports, bishops who would say that though Synods might concur they themselves would not.  And all the time there seemed to be Protestantism renewing itself; Billy Graham had conducted his missions from the 50’s on, and there were increasing numbers of Anglican Priests who were really non-conformists but found this the best pond to fish in.  But if only the leaders of the churches would get a move on, it would all work out.

What should have worried us, but seemed not to, was the whittling away of catholic teaching.  When theological colleges began to close, we were assured it would all be even-handed.  We might lose Ely, and Wells might have to merge with Salisbury, but they would still have a catholic ethos, and there was always Cuddesdon.  Until one day we woke up to discover that the college on that site had amalgamated with the modernist Ripon Hall, and that none of the staff had themselves been at the old Cuddesdon, nor seemed to know anything about it.  At a meal there one evening after what our Ordinands naughtily called the “inter-Faith Service” when people from Ripon Cuddesdon, Wycliffe and S Stephen’s House joined in a eucharist, one of the Cuddesdon men said to me, “Father, I believe you trained at an institution on this site”; he got it exactly; the Cuddesdon of my day had no connection with the Ripon Cuddesdon of his.  Equally, Salisbury/Wells had no affinities with the Wells of yore.

The cull continued.  Kelham was probably the greatest loss, for it was no ordinary college but a recruiting ground.  It had been the one place where working class lads with little education might aspire to ordination, and be given a basic education which would fit them for theological training.  Still, there was Mirfield so that was all right… Or was it? Or is it?  And as financial pressure grew, so did the courses.  The Bishop of London, one David Hope, formerly Principal of St Stephen’s House, decided that residential training was unjustifiable; and he began putting his London ordinands on a course based at Oak Hill, its Principal his former chaplain now known to some of you as Bishop of Truro.  What a stellar career.  Today, catholic theological education in the Church of England has all but gone, just a remnant of it still in St Stephen’s House, and that reduced to a handful of ordinands.

Then came the greatest threat of all to the catholic nature of our Church; the Ordination of Women, our 11.11. Nov ’92, St Martin’s Day.  Some catholics decided that because General Synod had passed the legislation, it must be according to the will of God.  Then they began to see that if this might be changed, there was nothing that could not alter in faith or doctrine or moral theology.  Some of us began drawing lines.  Well, I can put up with this because the church has made special provision for us; we can still be catholic, while belonging to a body which has little left of its former catholic ethos.  Not a step further though, mark you.  Here’s my line… which turned out to be a line in the sand.  We ought to understand the folly of lines in the sand; we are in Wessex, and Canute was once our king.  He proved once and for all that whatever we may do, the tide still comes in.  Now I am giving you this very personal account of how we are where we are in the hope that we can learn from the past, and discern where we are heading.  Some of what I have said may resonate for you; some of it will be quite irrelevant. The Elephant in the room which I’ve barely mentioned yet is that extraordinary offer by the Pope, Anglicanorum Coetibus.  We could hardly meet as a Catholic Society of Priests for our first Synod since October 2009 and not take that into account.  I hope, though, that we can begin the process of discerning our future and recognise that no solution, either deciding to hang on in the Church of England, or jumping at the Pope’s offer, will be a magic wand to take us out of our time of waiting, our interim.

During these past few months our Society’s prayer has become increasingly important for me.  The partings of the ways which happened in the early 90’s were desperately unhappy for us all.  It is understandable.  The decision in the 1992 Synod was truly shocking.  Those of us who were present had not believed it possible.  Surely the Bishops would see it was wrong?  The house of clergy had been swamped by elected women deacons and so was a lost cause, but the house of laity had done its arithmetic and they would not fail us.  But they did, and the vote passed by a whisker.  Priests tore off their clerical collars, supporters of women priests had a party in the square outside Church House.  Many of us skulked off through a back door to avoid the celebrating crowds and the press.  Yet in truth if it had not got through then, it would have passed ultimately, and perhaps even more bitterly.

Worse than the vote itself was the way some of our brethren chose to leave.  Of course they were upset.  Certainly they were angry.  But what they did was extreme.  We heard of church notice-boards being torn down or defaced by those priests, far worse we even heard that the Blessed Sacrament was removed and the Tabernacle left empty and open.  Yet did we not pray then as we do now, “Keep the brothers of the SSC united in love and in faith?”  That prayer, I suggest, is to be the measure of our behaviour and our bearing in the months and years ahead.   There are going to be so many responses to the Apostolic Constitution.

For some, perhaps, the way is perfectly clear.  If the Church of England went ahead with the consecration of women as bishops, then it would have chosen to be a protestant rather than a catholic body.  That was spelled out in no uncertain terms by Cardinal Kasper.  He said it to the House of Bishops of the Church of England who had invited him to address them.  Some of our brethren have accepted that conclusion, and decided they must align themselves with the See of Rome.  Still, though, these men are also in an interim.  They wait, more or less patiently, on the outcome of talks between our PEVs and the Roman Authorities.  The broad outlines of the Ordinariate are clear from the documents, but the details are far from clear.  Who will be the Ordinary for England?  That really matters.  Will it be one of the present PEVs, or a former Anglican Bishop who has joined the Roman Catholic Church already, or a former Anglican who has been created a Bishop since his conversion?   And what of married ordinands?  The documents show there can be concessions made to admit them; but how long will these concessions continue, and how generous will they be?  Is there any chance that this might be a way of easing Rome’s present insistence on a celibate priesthood?  And what about buildings, churches and vicarages?

I think it is important for us today that we should try to look not at the details of the Ordinariate and how it might develop, but rather at the variety of ways in which we and our brethren might respond.  My purpose in this is to try to safeguard our Society and ensure that it really wants what it prays for; ‘that the brethren of our Society might be united in love and in faith’.  All I can say is conjecture; you must fill in the details of where you stand and why.

It is too easy to suppose that our own personal motives for any action are pure, while any others’ actions are necessarily less than properly motivated.  We’ve thought already of those who left soon after the ’92 vote.  But what of the others?  Those who adapted to the change, those who decided they could accept women in the priesthood?   We all hear things like “He changed his views in order to get a pointy hat”, and I have said such things myself – but this judgmental attitude is damaging – to us.  Our Lord tells us we are not to judge, and we must not.  None of us, I guess, had totally pure motives, and we must not attribute the worst motives to those we disagree with.  There is One who judges, and we must leave it to Him.  Certainly there are priests who have accepted women in the priesthood but are in all other respects (they would say in all respects) faithful catholics.  Some of us here today may yet decide that is how it will be for us in future; if so, those of us who cannot adapt in this way must accept that what they do is done for honourable motives.

But you see already how hard it is to be even-handed; to stand aside from judgment, to try not to reveal ones own position.  Our own decisions keep showing through. 

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The Cardinal's Swan Song

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CNS reports on Walter Cardinal Kasper's swan song — an ecumenical extravaganza with Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and members of the Reformed churches participating.  The three-day symposium is unusual in a couple of respects.  Generally, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity (PCPCU) conducts "dialogue" with a single ecumenical partner at a time and then on a particular subject of controversy (e.g. Justification, the Papacy, the role of Mary in the Church, &c.).  This week's conference is an ecumenical, multilateral free-for-all where anything goes.  Cardinal Kasper addressed the assembly on Monday, but the rest of the time will evidently be spent resolving all of the outstanding differences between the various Christian communions thorough roundtable discussions involving all of the participants.

My emphases and comments in blue.

Cardinal asks dialogue partners if an ecumenical catechism might work

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican official has floated the idea of a shared "ecumenical catechism" as one of the potential fruits of 40 years of dialogue among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the Reformed churches.

I wonder what such an "ecumenical catechism" would look like.  Would it be a work that pointed out the departures of the Protestant confessions from the Catholic Faith?  Or would it be representative of a "lowest common denominator" Christianity?

"We have affirmed our common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity as expressed in our common creed and in the doctrine of the first ecumenical councils," Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told representatives of the churches.

And how many are the "first" ecumenical councils exactly?

Opening a three-day symposium at the Vatican to brainstorm on the future of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper said it is essential "to keep alive the memory of our achievements" in dialogue, educate the faithful about how much has been accomplished and prepare a new generation to carry on the work.

Now we come to what Cardinal Kasper is really concerned with — his legacy!  But what, precisely, are these achievements and what has been accomplished, Your Eminence?  The one great ecumenical achievement during your tenure at PCPCU — Anglicanorum Coetibus — was accomplished only by the exclusion of you and your professional ecumenists from the process entirely!

He said the members of his council "proposed an ecumenical catechism that would be written in consultation with our partners," but "we do not yet have any idea how such a catechism could be structured and written."

Nor do I.  It is best not to try.

One thing for sure, he said, is that there is a need for "an ecumenism of basics that identifies, reinforces and deepens the common foundation" of faith in Christ and belief in the tenets of the creed. The churches may hold those positions officially, but if their members do not hold firmly to the basics of Christian faith, the dialogue cannot move forward, the cardinal said.

This is an interesting point.  What good is it if the PCPCU can get church leaders to sign-on to a joint statement with the Catholic Church if the rank-and-file of the sect in question repudiate the agreement — or are simply ignorant of what their denomination actually teaches?  Or are such ecumenical agreements just sleight of hand?

Cardinal Kasper, a theologian who will be 77 in March and has led the council for nine years, also said that ecumenical dialogue "is perhaps in danger of becoming a matter for specialists and thus of moving away from the grassroots."

That's just rich!  Perhaps Bill Gates could give us some practical tips on managing a household budget?

He called for "a people-centered ecumenism" that would support and give new energy to the theological dialogues.

Well, I call for an ecumenism centered on the Catholic Faith!  Such an ecumenism would be energized by the Holy Spirit rather than some bankrupt liberal ideology.

The symposium was a follow-up to the publication in October of "Harvesting the Fruits," a book complied by Cardinal Kasper and his staff summarizing the results of 40 years of official Catholic dialogue with the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Methodist Council and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

As for questions that still must be tackled in order for Christians to reach full unity and be able to share the Eucharist, the cardinal identified two basic areas: a common understanding of the church and its structure; and a common approach to applying the Gospel to modern social and moral concerns without falling into relativism.

Ethical issues, such as homosexuality and women's equality, not only divide churches, he said, they raise more fundamental questions for modern and post-modern society, such as, "What is man, and what does it mean to be a man or woman in God's plan?"

In the area of church structure and ministry, he said, the dialogues have seen progress toward a common agreement on the sacramental nature of ordination and on apostolic succession in the ministry of bishops, and have taken initial steps toward discussing the primacy of the bishop of Rome, the pope.

But on a more basic level, the dialogues must get into "not only what is the church, but where is the church? Has God given his church a specific structure or has he left the church to find its own structure, in such a way that a pluralism of structures is possible?" Cardinal Kasper asked.

Sometimes I wonder whether or not dear Cardinal Kasper himself knows the answer to these questions.

The cardinal said the Vatican needs to better explain to its dialogue partners the Catholic conviction that "the Catholic Church is the church of Christ and that the Catholic Church is the true church," even while "there exist many and important elements of the church of Christ outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church."

The Catholic Church does believe "there are deficits in the other churches," he said. "Yet on another level there are deficits, or rather wounds stemming from division and wounds deriving from sin, also in the Catholic Church."

Ecumenical dialogue is the place where all Christians "learn to grow and mature in their faithfulness to Christ," he said, and as each moves closer to Christ, they naturally will move closer to each other.

Well there's your problem, Your Eminence.  That place where all Christians "learn to grow and mature in their faithfulness to Christ" is known as the Catholic Church.

END

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A Daring Decision Fulfils a Newman Prayer

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The article below appears in the current edition of Faith Magazine.  In 1997, Dr. William Oddie, a biographer of G. K. Chesterton and former editor of The Catholic Herald, wrote the then controversial book, The Roman Option: The Realignment of English Christianity, in which he described a possible future development whereby Anglicans abandoned by the Established Church might enter the Catholic Church en masse.  Here is an extract from the back cover of the book:

The Church of England's historic decision to ordain women to the priesthood has forced a dramatic realignment of Christianity in the English speaking world. In the space of five years, it has brough irreversible change into the heart of Anglicanism, and transformed its relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.

In this radical book, William Oddie gives an insider's account of the origins and possible future development of the 'Roman Option', in which disaffected Anglicans seek to move en masse to the Catholic Church, and argues that the Catholic bishops must be ready to respond boldly to the real crisis for Anglicanism which lies ahead…

Of course the Catholic bishops were not ready (and many are still not ready) to respond boldly to this crisis in Anglicanism, and it ultimately took the revolutionary thinking of Pope Benedict XVI to see such a "Roman Option" realized.

In this current article, Dr. Oddie reflects on how the Holy Father and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith boldly sidestepped the "unapostolic" English bishops to finally guarantee to Anglo-Catholics a place of refuge in an often unwelcoming Catholic Church.

My emphases and comments in blue.

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William Oddie FAITH Magazine January-February 2010

A Daring Decision Fulfils a Newman Prayer

I very much hope that Catholics in this country and elsewhere will warmly welcome into our communion the members of the new ordinariates. Nevertheless, in terms of the relations between Rome and the bishops' conferences affected, the way in which these ordinariates have been invented is disgraceful.

The present Apostolic Constitution is indeed a godsend, but had the Catholic bishops been more receptive of dispossessed Anglo-Catholics, corporate reunion could have been achieved years ago — and reconciled far more Anglicans to the Church than may now be immediately possible.  Instead, ideology was allowed to triumph over apostolic mission and the Lord's prayer for the unity of His Church was ignored.  This is a disgrace!

Thus, Nicholas Lash – in, of course, The Tablet - on the Apostolic constitution which has authorised and enabled the setting up of jurisdictions under which Anglicans may become Roman Catholics not individually but collectively. The Tabletatura, of course, hate the whole thing; and they object particularly to the reception of communities rather than individuals, quite simply because far more will come, numerically, under this dispensation than under what previously obtained: i.e., special fast-track arrangements for clergy wanting reordination (this has helped substantially with the shortage of priests) but the old business of "individual submission" for the laity, and off with them to some denatured liturgy at the ghastly concrete Catholic barracks down the road. Quite simply, the Spirit-of-Vatican-ll boys don't want the converts at all, because they know that they are coming not for the English bishops, and certainly not for The Tablet, which they loathe and despise, but for the Pope. [Precisely.]The Tablet would like smaller numbers to come, one by one, in a way which provides the opportunity to acclimatise them into the kind of reductionist belief-system they favour. Thus The Tablet's weaselly suggestion that

They do have an alternative …. they could, as countless converts to Roman Catholicism have done before them including many former Anglo-Catholics, apply to enter into full communion through the normal processes. Nowadays that usually means enrolling in the parish-based scheme called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, or RCIA, which includes a rite for baptised Christians who want to become Catholic.

After a journey of faith involving instruction from a parish catechist, candidates follow a series of public steps leading to a ceremony of admission, with others who have made the same journey. … A simple formula of doctrinal assent is required … far less elaborate than adherence to every one of the Catholic catechism's 2,865 paragraphs which the apostolic constitution envisages.

Why implicitly accept the entirety of Catholic teaching by joining a personal ordinariate (which defines the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a doctrinal standard) when you can recite a simple formula with mental reservations like the rest of your RCIA class?

Well, there you have it: what The Tablet wants for any convert is the half-cock reprocessed seventies Catholicism you get in RCIA (I speak from personal experience) rather than the full-blooded total Catholicism of The Catechism of the Catholic Church (which many of them already know far better than most cradle Catholics).

We've recently had a bit of controversy about the appropriateness of RCIA for the reception of Anglicans — indeed any Christians — into full communion.  Even when applied appropriately, RCIA is very often deficient — and there appears to be a good deal of defensiveness of the part of some commenters when this fact is observed.  Are there good RCIA programs out there?  Of course there are.  Have Anglicans (or others) being received into the full communion of the Catholic Church had positive experiences in RCIA?  No doubt they have.  But I would caution our Roman Catholic readers not to form their impression of the state of Church from web sites like the New Liturgical Movement or What Does the Prayer Really Say? These sites often focus on a few — and there still only a few — "showcase" churches.  Most parish churches in North America and the UK are a liturgical and catechetical wasteland.  If you are in a conservative parish with an orthodox priest where the Faith is taught in its integrity and experienced "in the beauty of holiness," then you are most assuredly in the minority.  Of course the times are changing, and there is a reform of the Reform afoot, but as Fr. Z says, "brick by brick."  There is a very long way to go.  There is a reason that The Tablet is keen on subjecting Anglo-Catholics to RCIA: they are fairly certain that it will destroy their faith.

But you can understand The Tablet's hostility and confusion. The fact is that the whole thing has been an enormous shock: not only to those who hate it all but to those who are still glowing with delight, for whom the words "personal ordinariate" induce not the slightest irritation at the usual graceless Vaticanese but on the contrary, sheer joy at the generous fulfilment the Pope has granted of their deepest hopes : these include many former Anglicans like myself and many more now preparing for the journey they have always longed to make, together with their whole ecclesial community. Of that, more in a while: but first, we need to get back to that extraordinary announcement: extraordinary both in its content and in its timing, as well as in its modus operandi. Why so very unexpected?

Continue reading →

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Speculation on the Curia

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This is lifted straight from Rorate Caeli. If true, this is extremely good news. Fr Z concurs.

There is currently much talk in the blogosphere that George Cardinal Pell is a strong candidate to be the replacement of Cardinal Re in the Congregation for Bishops. Another name being mentioned is that of Giuseppe Bertelli, Apostolic Nuncio to Italy and San Marino.

In addition to the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Pell is also being mentioned as a possible Prefect for the Congregation of the Evangelization of Peoples (Propaganda Fide), succeeding Ivan Cardinal Dias, 73, who is said to have health problems. Another prelate sometimes spoken of as a future Curial head: Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller of Regensburg, who is being mentioned as the probable successor of Walter Cardinal Kasper.

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Sandro Magister on Cardinal Kasper's Interview

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Vaticanista Sandro Magister shares his take on Cardinal Kasper's recent interview with L'Osservatore Romano.

I must admit that I am quite surprised that Mr. Magister is evidently ignorant of the liturgical forms that will be authorized in the new ordinariates.

The new ordinariates will be characterized by the preservation of the Anglican rite for the Mass and the other sacraments – with liturgical books that were  approved for the United States in the 1980's by the Vatican congregation for divine worship – and by the possibility of having married priests.

It should be obvious to even the casual observer that the Book of Divine Worship authorized for use in the communities of the existing Pastoral Provision in the USA would not be suitable for Anglican ordinariates outside of the United States.  Indeed, there would be much resistance on the part of Continuing Anglican groups in the USA (who either use the Anglican/American Missal, the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer, or some hybrid of the two) to using this book.  Truth be told, many in the current Anglican Use view the compromise BODW (which is based on the 1979 American BCP with additions from the modern Roman Rite) as less than ideal.  All indications are that Rome will be generous in authorizing various official Anglican liturgical books (perhaps with minor emendations) where these are desired, though I would expect a focus on the promotion of a new Mass book based on the English Missal as normative for the ordinariates.

Incidentally, I'd love to hear from any Anglican Use people who have thoughts on how the AU might evolve with the rise of the new ordinariates!

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