Tag Archives: Cardinal Newman

The Eternal City

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General Audience

Last week the English (and Scots) Ordinariate celebrated its first year of existence — and did so in style, with a pilgrimage to Rome led by our Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton.  You may already have seen photographs on other websites; this is just a personal sketch of what happened to us in those memorable six days.

We flew from three different British airports, Heathrow and Gatwick and Bristol — and some even came by train.  We began as strangers, and certainly ended as friends.  It is so good to learn about others' experience of new beginnings, often with only a handful of people setting out as Catholics.  Some of the priests are now running Catholic Parishes, others are supporting themselves and their families in various chaplaincies while involved with their Ordinariate Group and also nearby Catholic Parishes.

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The Ordinary with Deacon Bradley (l) and Music Director Michael Vian Clark (with scarf)

The young director of music from Buckfast Abbey somehow conjured a choir out of a group of disparate pilgrims, and managed some wonderful music, plainchant and Anglican hymnody, different for every Mass.  We even found the confidence to sing in the packed Audience Hall to the Holy Father and assorted Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, Religious and faithful laity from around the world.  "Praise to the Holiest" by our Patron, John Henry Newman, can seldom have been heard in such a setting.

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Scots preacher Fr Len Black at St Joseph's Altar in St Peter's

But then, we also sang in St Peter's, bringing our Anglican Patrimony into those walls created by Michaelangelo and Borromini, adorned with sculptures and paintings of great beauty.  More than one of our party was in tears by the end of that Mass, when we gathered before the tomb of Peter and said the General Thanksgiving from the 1662 English Prayer Book.

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Quite a Sacristy - in S Peter's Basilica

So much of the Pilgrimage was about 'coming home', back to our origins.  In San Giorgio Valabro — it sounds so much more exotic than St George's in the Marsh, which is its translation  – we remembered John Henry Newman, whose titular church this was when he became a Cardinal.  There a couple from my own group in Bournemouth were received and chrismated into the Catholic Church by Mgr Keith, and their delight at being in Communion with the Holy Father and the entire Catholic Church inspired us all.

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Brian and Barbel, still smiling

St Gregory's was also a matter of going back to base, for it was from this monastery that Gregory the Great sent monks to convert England — among them Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus of York, to say nothing of the first bishops of London and Rochester.  By this time the Italian media had begun to catch up with our Group, and the Ordinary had to stay in our Hotel fending them off so that we might continue our pilgrimage undisturbed.

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Ancient Ikon of Our Lady in San Gregorio's

Although it had rained on our first day, the weather grew ever better by the day.  On Thursday we went up into the hills, to Subiaco and the roots of Western Monasticism.  The Sacro Speco or holy cave is where Benedict led a hermit's life for three years, before beginning to build his first monastery, now known as St Scholastica's, it is the only survivor of the ten original foundations.  The others have been destroyed down the years by invaders, by earthquakes and other such disasters.  The hospitality in St Scholastica's was in the great Benedictine tradition.  We sunned ourselves on the terraces, yet less than a fortnight before there had been such a snowfall (the greatest in fifty years) that they had been cut off for days, and many trees were brought down by the weight of snow.

So many people made us welcome wherever we went.  The kindness of the parish priest at Santa Maria del Popolo on our last morning was typical of the generosity of everyone we came across.  There is a genuine interest in the Ordinariate, a sense that something great is just beginning to bud and blossom.  I hope the few pictures posted here might give a little flavour of what we were given during our days of thanksgiving for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.  There are more to be added, but it is late and my computer is refusing to download any more just now.  Good night!

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To Those Preparing

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Things have been pretty quiet on the blog of late. It’s not because nothing is happening. In fact, quite the opposite – at least here in the United States, where it appears that an Ordinariate will be established next.

Things are fairly calm because everything seems to be falling in place. Cardinal Wuerl has delivered his final report to the Bishops’ Conference. The priestly formation program is ready to go. The dossiers are being examined. The Curial officials will be returning soon from their summer break. Liturgical considerations are in hand. Things are stirring.

We might consider this time to be rather like those hushed moments before the dawn.

I know we’re at the stage when every day seems like a month. It was like that a generation ago, when we were waiting for the implementation of the Pastoral Provision in this country. The very same pattern prevailed: daily calls to someone – anyone – who might have information; scanning the newspapers (those were pre-internet days) for any word. And then… a period of quiet and calm, just before we realized that it was actually happening.

We continue to rejoice with those in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, as they build upon the foundation of what has been accomplished there. At this moment, I have no further word about developments in Canada, Australia, or anyplace else where Ordinariates might be formed. But here, in the United States, we’re getting close.

So… courage, brethren! Enjoy the stillness of the moment, and know that unseen work is being done. Continue to deepen your knowledge of the faith. Persist in prayer, for that is a great source of strength for you. I know you’re growing impatient with being told to be patient, but… be patient, too. The wait is getting shorter. There will be lots of work to do when the Ordinariate is up and running, and now’s the time to get yourself in shape spiritually for the demanding time ahead of us.

Every morning when I unlock the church, I stop by our shrine to Blessed John Henry Newman, where I pray for all who are preparing to enter the Ordinariate. May the Light he knew and loved – and even now in which he rejoices – lead you on.

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Glimpses of Divine Humor

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Thank you to dedicated reader David Quatchak who recommended and secured permission to reprint this story of discovery and conversion.

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Glimpses of Divine Humor

By Andrew M. Seddon, M.D.

On the rare occasions when I attempt the impossible task of imagining what heaven might be like, I envision saints—but not the dour, stern, serious saints of so much artwork. I imagine smiling saints with a humorous twinkle in their eyes. Saints such as Aidan, Cuthbert, Columba, and Patrick; an eighth-century pilgrim to the Holy Land from Byzantium (more of him later); and closer in time and experience, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman.

Why smiling saints? Because, looking back along my path to the Catholic Church, I can see the instances of humor that God used along the way, glinting like flecks of gold sprinkled in a vein of quartz.

Unlike the Celtic saints and the pilgrim who were Catholics in the undivided Church, I, like Cardinal Newman, was an unexpected convert from Anglicanism. Saints, circumstances, history, and my heritage—no doubt at God’s instigation—united to bring me not only across the Atlantic but the greater distance across the Tiber.

Early Years

I was born in England, the son of a Baptist minister. My parents emigrated to the U.S. when I was young, and my father pastored churches in upstate New York, New Brunswick, Maryland, and West Virginia. My sister and I grew up on his excellent, Bible-based preaching, and I will forever be grateful to my parents for the loving Christian home they provided.

My parents recall that my first profession of faith came at age 7, and baptism at 10, but I cannot remember a time when I was not a believer. Being a Christian has always been a natural part of me.

We moved often, and though the flavor of the churches varied, all were Baptist. We had little contact with other denominations. The Catholic Church was rarely mentioned.

If I ever thought of Catholics, it was as fellow Christians who had somehow gotten a little off-track, perhaps never having fully escaped the Middle Ages. Catholics weren’t bad or evil, just poor souls who had to work unduly hard to earn their salvation and who were overly attached to Mary. (She was never referred to in our home as the “Blessed Virgin.”)

It was curious, then—and perhaps the first incident of divine humor—when, after I completed my freshman year at the University of New Brunswick, my parents moved to Maryland, and I transferred to Mount St. Mary’s College (now University) in Emmittsburg—a Catholic college! I didn’t choose “The Mount” for religious reasons, however, but because of its academic reputation and its modest size.

Although I was a pre-med student, my course of study included several required theology classes. My term papers, unsurprisingly, evidenced my Protestant viewpoint. One was returned covered in comments: “See me,” “Ask me about this,” “Talk to me.”

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"An Ordinary Anglican"

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The following article is posted on Peregrinations, and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

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An Ordinary Anglican

As I write this, a historic gathering of Anglican Catholics (traditionally called Anglo-Catholics) along with Latin Rite (Western Roman) Catholics and perhaps some Eastern Rite Catholics in communion with Rome, will be gathering at Queen of the Apostles Conference Centre near Toronto to consider the implications of Pope Benedict’s 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus (AC) and the erection of a Canadian Anglican Ordinariate in full communion with Rome.

Why should ordinary Anglicans be interested?

Speakers at this Annunciation-tide conference are to include Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto, the eminent scholar Fr. Aidan Nichols OP from England and the long-serving Fr. Christopher Phillips, founding priest of the Anglican Use Catholic parish of Our Lady of the Atonement, San Antonio, Texas. Fr. Phillips and Fr. Nichols have prayed for, promoted and, yes, stumped for the new Anglican ordinariates for over 30 years since John Paul II established the Anglican Use Provision in the Catholic Church until now limited to the USA.

Beyond the conference, though, there are many ordinary Anglicans with persistent questions: What is an Anglican Catholic ordinariate? Where is the Anglican Ordinariate headed?

Anglicans are those who were born into, married into, or for a variety of personal, theological or aesthetic/cultural reasons gravitated to Anglican congregations, liturgy and ultimately membership (rough numbers: Africa: 36 million; UK: 30 million; Australia: 4 million; North America: 5 to 6 million). These people span an astonishing variety of perspectives and social attitudes, not to mention theological opinions under the broadest tent in Christendom.

Is there really any such thing as an “ordinary Anglican” then? If you will entertain for a few minutes the various, though related, uses of the word ‘ordinary’ as an adjective and as a noun we may see some important connections:

Ordinary:

+ adjective – with no special or distinctive features; normal

+ noun – one exercising authority by virtue of office and not by delegation (esp. of a judge or bishop)

With the recent refusal of bishops and primates from various countries to meet together and the now regular eruptions of radically secular pronouncements and actions by US Episcopal and Canadian Anglican bishops on sexuality, marriage, ordination, etc., there isn't any longer what most would consider normal or ordinary Anglicanism. So, with these ‘changes and chances of this mortal life’ are there any ordinary Anglicans?

First of all, there are roughly 36 million African Anglicans, not to mention the large majority of other Anglicans around the world, who consider themselves ordinary Anglicans. They largely believe in the same basic statements of faith and order that Anglicans and the vast majority of Christians have believed and continue to believe with respect to marriage, sexuality, ordination and sacramental life.

Secondly, there certainly will be ordinary Anglicans and an ordinary Anglicanism in one formal and important sense: The new Anglican Catholic ordinaries (noun) will exercise ordinary (adj.) authority for Anglicans establishing a norm for Anglicanism in communion with the universal Church Catholic based upon what Anglican churches have formally believed until the recent radical changes. These changes in policy relating to marriage and holy orders as well as moral and ethical norms have been voted for by trendy synods or imposed by avant guard bishops in the UK, USA, Canadian, NZ and Australian provinces of the Anglican Communion.

The current Anglican Communion (those with bishops in some form of communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury) has been and is now increasingly fractured with splits from the Primates' Council on down. These schisms, along with widely varying practices from diocese to diocese and from country to country, have brought the very notion of Anglican unity or “communion” into question.

The so-called Anglican Continuum (Anglicans out of communion with Canterbury) is split along fraught political lines into a myriad of continuing ecclesial communities. These latter, largely conservative, bodies are tortuously gathered into often-tiny jurisdictions under numerous beleaguered archbishops and bishops with sometimes-uncertain episcopal orders and marital status.

So where does the ordinary Anglican turn? Well, 450 years of separation from the Church of the West in communion with Rome has given even divisiveness the appearance of tolerance and plurality. And yes, Anglicans have made a virtue out of compromise, something the English in particular have prided themselves on. But can this wide tent withstand the winds of secularism and militant Islam as well as having to deal with the instant communications of the digital universe? For example, everyone in Africa knows that as soon as another lesbian bishop is ordained in California, life for them will be very difficult in view of the prevailing mores of most African countries.

The point has come when the two or more parties see that what is ordinary for themselves and for generations of Anglicans is distinct from what other parties believe or are putting into practice by means of Anglican synods which simply vote with prevailing social trends. In this situation it is necessary to define what is to be ordinary practice and who will have ordinary jurisdiction. This means radical realignment for those who hold classical Anglican Catholic views. Much as European national boundaries were redefined in the 20th century or as power is shifting in the Arab and Islamic world at the moment, Anglicans must decide within which boundaries they will exist, under what canon law and within which ordinary jurisdiction.

In the Anglican situation, apart from the inevitable human political jousting, there are spiritual and theological principles at stake. The understanding amongst Catholic Anglicans is that belief in God is expressed within a Christian community and must be incarnated in that community’s relationship with the wider Church in some tangible ways. This relationship must be based upon agreed moral and theological principles. The question then arises: What will that relationship to the universal Church be for ordinary Anglican Christians in the 21st century?

Enter Pope Benedict XVI after decades of polite and often erudite conversations between Anglicans and Roman Catholics in the various Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) gatherings. To cite one most recent instance, ARCIC has offered for consideration a statement about what the Anglican and Roman communions can jointly affirm about the place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the life of the one Church of Christ within which they both claim to share baptismal communion, if imperfect ecclesial communion. The Church of England, for one, has trouble endorsing the agreed statement of the ARCIC theologians.

With the advent of Benedict’s AC, however, the ecumenical ground has shifted and, in the words of one young Anglican Catholic, “An Apostolic Constitution is for the ages; it will be there for people to enter into full Catholic communion in 100 or 500 years.” Without overstating the case, AC is the game-changer and has opened a path on which it is impossible to determine how many Anglicans, lapsed Catholics, Lutherans and other Protestants along with many unchurched people will follow.

What is clear is that the Anglican ordinariates will establish a new norm. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is named in AC as the clear rule of faith. In terms of order and practice, the traditional Anglican liturgies along with the choral musical heritage and other aspects of Anglican patrimony will find a home within the embrace of the Holy See. Not only this, but “Ordinaries” i.e. bishops or married priests (as is the first Ordinary, Msgr. Keith Newton in the UK) have specific ordinary jurisdiction over regional groups of Anglican Catholics. These two factors offer a worldwide norm for ordinary Anglicans and others within gathered communities which look and feel Anglican while being in full communion with Rome and so are fully part of the universal Catholic Church.

These communities will, of course, feel very familiar to the Catholic-minded traditional Anglican but will have appeal to others who look for a cultural expression of faith which is not tied to the political machinations of special interest groups and the latest political wind. What many people of various stripes will find attractive is that these Anglican ordinariates will have a significant moral, doctrinal and historical continuity, which the fractured Anglican Communion and other spin-off bodies cannot offer.

There is a real sense in which this crossing of the Tiber is a homecoming. Anglicans used to speak of swimming the Tiber. Now, as some have said, a rather sturdy bridge has been built and all are welcome to cross in groups (coetibus) into full communion with the Holy See.

Latin Rite and other Catholics will be able to receive Holy Communion at any Anglican Ordinariate Eucharist. Those marrying or otherwise received as baptized members from other communities into an Ordinariate will be in full communion with over one billion Catholics around the world while maintaining distinctive cultural elements from the heritage of the Reformation and beyond.

Naturally this concerns liberal Anglicans who cannot, for a variety of reasons, accept the teaching of the Catholic Church even as they advocate an increasing number of changes to communal life within their decreasing portion of the ecclesial world. For them there never is nor can there ever be an ordinary Anglican. This is for the simple reason that, as they see it, Anglican life is an ever-changing reality with no agreed upon authority. They live in a constantly deconstructing universe always open the zeitgeist.

The liberal Episcopal (Anglican) bishop of Massachusetts recently married two female clergy to each other in his cathedral in Boston because he has decided ‘ex cathedra’ that he would do so despite the formal opposition of a clear majority of Anglican bishops in the Anglican Communion. The centre cannot hold.

Wither ordinary Anglicanism? The secure structures of the Ordinariates, albeit very small initially, are being erected for those who are returning to communion with Rome from all over the English-speaking world and in other countries influenced by the English Reformation. Yes, returning not ‘defecting’ (the favourite word of the nervous British press). After all, Ecclesial Anglicana was in communion with Rome for 1000 years before the unfortunate disruption about 450 years ago.

The English Church has actually returned to full communion with Rome once since the initial split under Henry VIII. Cardinal Pole with Queen Mary formally rejoined the Church of England with Rome. After Elizabeth Tudor defected again from the Catholic Church, the C of E almost rejoined for a second time under the Stuart kings.

Despite the ‘Black Legend’ which seeks to vilify all Catholics, the Anglican Catholic relationship is developing again into a different kind of marriage with much of the anti-Catholic prejudice of the past marginalized if not eradicated.

The current return of “groups of Anglicans” referred to in AC is a historic moment. It changes the direction of ecumenism generally and provides an ordinary way for Anglicans to be truly Anglican in every important and sustainable way while in communion with the universal Church. Along with the prayed for establishment of further unity with the Eastern churches this initial healing on the western side of the Body of Christ portends much hope. This is hope for the many who do not deny the need for development in the Church but insist, with John Henry Newman, that change must be accomplished in continuity with the faith of those who have gone before and according to agreed authoritative principles (see his theory of the Development of Doctrine).

Ordinary Anglicans, then, will find in the Ordinariates the language of the Book of Common Prayer, the creeds, music and other aspects of Anglican life preserved and developed within the unity for which our Lord prayed in his great high priestly prayer, “that they may all be one.” (John 17:21)

Without prejudice, let us recognize that talks will continue between Catholics, the Anglican (Canterbury) Communion and all the other ecclesial communities. These are worthwhile and, in fact, an essential part of the new evangelism, not to mention just good neighbourliness. But let us be clear, the radical changes to the nature of faith and order through the decisions of regional synods and the unilateral actions of liberal Anglican and Episcopal bishops in North America, the UK, Australia and New Zealand are erecting a wall of separation with the Catholic Church that amounts to an ecclesial Berlin Wall. It may come down but it appears as though it will be there for some time. In the meantime, Anglicans and others seeking faith and freedom in the wider ecumenical Church will look for a way to escape the dictatorship of relativism.

They can do so, thanks to Pope Benedict, in the gathering of groups with their own distinct character, quality and language. The pattern established by AC for groups many believe is the forerunner of arrangements for other such ecumenical groups seeking to restore unity in the Body of Christ.

Some Lutherans in the US have already decided to come into full communion under the AC umbrella. In due course, these groups and their practices will become an ordinary part of the Church. Married Anglican priests in communion with Rome will be seen as ordinary Catholic priests in the Ordinariate. The English Missal (the Book of Common Prayer modified and adapted to Catholic norms used by Anglo-Catholics) slightly modified is likely to take its place with the revised Novus Ordo and the Extraordinary Form (traditional Latin) of the Mass. Catholics generally will pay more attention to and respect the various rites, liturgies and patrimonies of the Melkite, Ukrainian, Antiochian and other smaller Catholic communities all in communion with the Holy Father, the ponitifex or bridgebuilder.

So what will be ordinary seems new at the moment. This new ordinary, however, unlike the novelties of the late 20th century is in continuity with what the Christian Faith has been since its beginnings and is in communion with the largest number of Christians in the world today as well as with those billions whose life and faith is found in that even wider communion which Chesterton referred to as the democracy of the dead. This is a development which has both deep roots and a future. As Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman might say, it is in accord with the principles of development which have their origins in the ordinary lives of the Apostles, Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius, Basil, Aquinas, Thomas More, Edmund Campion and the millions upon millions of Christians who have shaped the multiple cultural expressions of Catholic Christianity.

May they all pray for us as we give thanks for Anglicanorum Coetibus and look forward to its fruit for ordinary Anglicans and others who seek the unity for which our Lord prayed.

An Ordinary Anglican
Quinquagesima, March 6, 2011
Toronto, Canada

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Fr. Maturin on Cardinal Newman and on Good and Bad Impatience

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Maturin 176x300 Fr. Maturin on Cardinal Newman and on Good and Bad ImpatienceIt has been awhile since I have put up an excerpt from The Rev. Basil Maturin's 1912 book, The Price of Unity.  This section from the book's fourth chapter touches on Cardinal Newman and on the role of impatience in conversion.  Fr. Maturin warns against both the belief that one should receive a specific calling to enter the Catholic Church and also against converting based upon feelings of impatience and rancor that are likely to make life in the Catholic Church no more tolerable than life was in Anglicanism.

Fr. Maturin raises pertinent questions both for those who are tempted to become latter-day inopportunists and also for those who are eager to shake the dust off their feet.

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Therefore no amount of dissatisfaction with another religious system, no feeling of impatience with or distrust of its ways, is, in itself, a sufficient reason for anyone to become a Catholic. The one and only reason which justifies such a step, is that which compels it. A firm conviction, based upon what seems to you positive evidence, that it is what it claims to be, the one Church founded by Jesus Christ. Cardinal Newman has been often quoted as saying that no one should become a Catholic unless he is convinced that otherwise he could not save his soul, which is of course only another way of saying, unless he is convinced of its truth; though the Cardinal's saying is often used as if he meant something else that it was a kind of last resort of the despairing, and that the idea of saving one's soul was quite different from that of being true to one's convictions. And assuredly anyone who had become convinced that the Church to which he belonged was in error and that the Roman Church was the Church of God, and yet was held back by earthly considerations, would without doubt seriously risk the salvation of his soul.

But in some minds there is the expectation of a curious tertium quid. A something added to a conviction, what I have often heard people speak of as "the call of God". They say, "I do believe in the claims of the Church, but I do not feel that God has called me to become a Catholic". As if, added to the knowledge that a certain course of conduct is right, and according to reason and faith, they are to await God's call in order to follow it. Needless to say they will wait in vain. No doubt they need the gift of grace to enable them to take a step that may cost them much, and involve great sacrifice, and they must realize that apart from Christ they can do nothing; but such a grace is a very different thing from a call. There is the call of conscience, the call of faith, the call of reason, the call of conviction, and the call of grace; but there will be no special call above all this. God calls people to special graces and to special vocations, and, amidst the many and often perplexing claims of life, He makes His Voice to be heard very distinctly, but this is to show the way to those who could not other wise find it for themselves, not to add a Divine corroboration like a vocation to the light and conviction they already have received by faith.
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Bl. John Henry Newman on the Catholic Faith

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The selection below from Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua is the reading given for his feast day at the office called Matins, Readings, or Vigils, depending upon one's patrimony.

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From the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological subjects; but that I have had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of Revelation, or of more self-command; I had not more fervour; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption.

cardinalnewman Bl. John Henry Newman on the Catholic Faith

Cardinal Newman

Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional articles, which are not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of them I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial to me. I made a profession of them upon my reception with the greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing them now. I am far of course from denying that every article of the Christian Creed, whether as held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot answer those difficulties. Many persons are very sensitive of the difficulties of Religion; I am as sensitive of them as any one; but I have never been able to see a connexion between apprehending those difficulties, however keenly, and multiplying them to any extent, and on the other hand doubting the doctrines to which they are attached. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines themselves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power.

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe?…

I believe the whole revealed dogma as taught by the Apostles, as committed by the Apostles to the Church, and as declared by the Church to me. I receive it, as it is infallibly interpreted by the authority to whom it is thus committed, and (implicitly) as it shall be, in like manner, further interpreted by that same authority till the end of time. I submit, moreover, to the universally received traditions of the Church, in which lies the matter of those new dogmatic definitions which are from time to time made, and which in all times are the clothing and the illustration of the Catholic dogma as already defined. And I submit myself to those other decisions of the Holy See, theological or not, through the organs which it has itself appointed, which, waiving the question of their infallibility, on the lowest ground come to me with a claim to be accepted and obeyed. Also, I consider that, gradually and in the course of ages, Catholic inquiry has taken certain definite shapes, and has thrown itself into the form of a science, with a method and a phraseology of its own, under the intellectual handling of great minds, such as St Athanasius, St Augustine, and St Thomas; and I feel no temptation at all to break in pieces the great legacy of thought thus committed to us for these latter days.

– Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Chapter V

O God, who bestowed on the Priest Blessed John Henry Newman the grace to follow your kindly light and find peace in your Church;graciously grant that, through his intercession and example,we may be led out of shadows and images into the fullness of your truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,one God, for ever and ever.

– Collect for the Feast of Bl. John Henry Newman

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Damian Thompson on Prospects for the Ordinariates in the UK

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Damian "The Blood-Crazed Ferret" Thompson, as he was once called by The Church Times, has a new piece on the prospects for Anglicanorum Coetibus in the UK at his equally informative and entertaining Telegraph blog, Holy Smoke.  I will leave comment to our better-informed readers and contributors in the UK.

We’ll have to see whether the Pope’s visit will lead to a “Benedict bounce” of new vocations, as Cardinal Keith O’Brien predicts. But I’m pretty sure it will bounce more Anglicans into the Catholic Church – some of them under cover of the Ordinariate scheme, which Benedict XVI made clear is to be given a high priority by the English bishops.

Perhaps we need to change the way we think about the Ordinariate. It’s a structure that will be built from the ground up on the Catholic bank of the Tiber. I don’t see many C of E parishes converting en masse: even the most Anglo-Papal congregations contain diehard Anglicans who simply cannot face the prospect of becoming “Romans”. There isn’t much of a future for them in any Church unless they change their beliefs. One thing the Church of England is good at is taking spiky Anglo-Catholic congregations, merging them with a more mainstream parish, shipping in a less “extreme” vicar – and, 10 years down the line, a woman is celebrating the Eucharist (amid clouds of incense, naturally). There will be a lot of that. (Incidentally, if certain ultra-Caaaartholic north London parishes decide to stay Anglican, I think the least they can do is take down their pictures of the Pope.)

The success of the Ordinariate doesn’t depend on mass transit. The crucial thing is that this new ecclesial structure lays solid foundations. I can envisage two or three parishes in London, and maybe one in each of our major cities, made of up former Anglicans from different congregations who are bound together by their Anglo-Catholic past and far stricter standards of worship than you would find in a typical Catholic parish. An exciting prospect has opened up for these Christians: that of doing liturgy properly as real Catholics but without interference from a local RC bishop whose idea of solemn Mass is one of those Star Trek-style concelebrations.

All this talk of “Anglican patrimony” is rather misleading in England, where Anglicans attracted to the Ordinariate scheme tend to be happy with the Roman Missal (and will be even happier with its new translation). The patrimony of the new communities may have more to do with liturgical style than with liturgical texts. But it’s important to remember that the first Ordinariate parish will be a jumping-off point rather than a final destination: we’re essentially talking about a new movement with the opportunity to develop its own charism. My main worry is that Anglicans planning to take advantage of Anglicanorum coetibus will be disheartened by the sneers and hand-wringing of reactionaries in both Churches. Please, don’t be. The Pope believes that the Ordinariate is prophetic: the next stage in the route to Christian unity.

Such was the impact of Pope Benedict’s visit, however, that I reckon there will also be a wave of individual defections by Anglicans who want to become ordinary Catholics. We’re living in a post-ecumenical age in which Rome has once again placed conversion at the heart of its encounter with Anglicans: not for nothing did the Pope choose the date of Blessed John Henry Newman’s reception into the Church as his feast day. Even Anglicans who have no intention of “poping” recognise that Benedict exercises a teaching authority over his Church that highlights Rowan William’s increasingly fragile position within his own community. (And, as someone observed during the visit, he is able to express himself more clearly in his third language than +Rowan can in his first.) Newman himself was an enthusiast for the notion of corporate reception of Anglicans into communion with the Holy See – but, in the end, he decided to take the plunge alone. After the extraordinary scenes of the past week I expect many members of the Church of England to do likewise.

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Thy Continual Pity

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Lymington Staff Lady Chapel 300x196 Thy Continual PityIt is a happy discipline that week by week most Thursdays I celebrate a Prayer Book eucharist in the Lady Chapel of Lymington parish church, and deliver a short homily.  This keeps me grounded when on Sundays I am usually away from home and the lections might be the Roman ones, or the variants on these offered by Common Worship, or even Harvest or Remembrance.

The Sunday readings from the Prayer Book usually provide my text, but today it is a phrase from the Collect which leaped out: "let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy church".  This is the very prayer we should be making for the whole Church, Eastern and Western, Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed.

During the visit of Pope Benedict we were driven, by the criticisms in the media, to speak of how the Church cleanses itself.  The Holy Father confessed the failings of the past in hiding and covering up sin.  He also commended the English and Welsh Bishops on the way they have been tackling the problems of child abuse over many years, and how they now have a system of protection in place at least as strong as any secular organisation's.  The Church of England, too, has similar a system in place, indeed set the pattern which others have followed.

Where we are less good is in responding to that second petition in the collect — that the Church needs not only constant cleansing, but also constant protection.  This is where the Pope's visit to Britain was such a revelation.  In declaring John Henry Newman 'blessed' he reminded us that all Newman's life was an attempt to protect the Church from error.

As so often happens, the daily readings from the Divine Office chimed with this.  Ezekiel spoke of the cleansing of God's people: "They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and their filthy practices and all their sins".  For the second reading in recent weeks I have been using Newman's "Apologia" rather than St Augustine on 'The Shepherds' (how good that we are given the opportunity to vary the readings in this way).  What he wrote also fitted with those other thoughts: "We were upholding that primitive Christianity which was delivered for all time by the early teachers of the Church, and which was registered and attested in the Anglican formularies and by the Anglican divines.  That ancient religion had well nigh faded away out of the land, through the political changes of the last 150 years, and it must be restored.  It would be in fact a second reformation ".

Newman came to realise that in the end this must be a fruitless task where the Church of England was concerned; it was too bound up in Erastianism.  For a brief while in the 20th Century it seemed as though our church might break free from those bonds.  Now, with the liberal agenda having all but conquered, there seems to many of us no chance that our beloved church can be recalled to its ancient roots, to the faith once delivered to the Saints.  That is why we are looking elsewhere to find the Church founded on the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus being its cornerstone.  Still though, we should pray for the entire Church, as the old Prayer Book would have us pray:

O Lord, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

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St. Matthew

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An invitation to St Matthew's Willesden in Northwest London for their (anticipated) Feast of Title provided two great bonuses.  Fr David Houlding, Master General of SSC, acted as my chauffeur and gave me overnight hospitality, which was very kind.  The other benefit, though, was that I was able to see the whole of the televised broadcast from Birmingham — the Mass for the Beatification of John Henry, Cardinal Newman.

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Our Lady of Willesden

These four days have been so eventful; how could a man in his eighties be expected to do so much!  Yet he managed to woo the British Public, and on all sides the comments seem to have been most favourable — perhaps with the exception of the dyed-in-the wool atheists who were peddling their old lies about Pope Benedict and child abuse.  They are fortunate not to have been prosecuted for libel — but perhaps they bet on the readiness of the Holy Father to follow the Master and turn the other cheek.

Something of what I wanted to say about Pope Benedict and his offer to Groups of Anglicans made part of my St Matthew sermon, so perhaps it will be enough to post that here.  The Rite was Roman I, the music exceptional, we faced the Orient, and it was a High Mass beautifully organised by the Parish Priest, Fr Daniel Humphreys (who was also Deacon of the Mass) and his team of Servers and Churchwardens.

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A number of tax-collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. St Matthew ix.10

You probably know the song about the drunk who ended up in the gutter where a pig was lying down… it ends “you can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses, and the pig got up and slowly walked away”.  The religious people in tonight’s gospel thought like that; you can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses, and Jesus kept company with the most dubious people.  The Pharisees kindly pointed out to Jesus’ disciples that the people he’d chosen to sit down with were unspeakable, the lowest of the low: tax collectors and sinners.  I suppose they expected that, like the pig, when Jesus realised the company he was in he too would get up and leave.  But he did not.

Tax collectors have never been favourite people; they rank maybe just a bit above wheel-clampers, and after traffic wardens.  Today, of course, they are just doing their job, and if you get on the phone to them and ask their help in filling out a form they are very polite.  We really should not dislike them today; it is the government which decides how much we pay, not the collectors of tax.  For all that, they still seem to feature in an awful lot of comic stories told against them.  Perhaps it dates back to the time when people knew their Bibles, and remembered the reputation of tax-collectors in the New Testament.  Then, their dislike was well deserved; they were seen as traitors, quislings, people who had gone over to the enemy.

The enemy was Rome, the taxes they collected went to pay the soldiers who were occupying Judaea, and the Jews understandably did not like them.  Not only that, tax collecting was farmed out — privatised, we would call it.  So the person who paid for the privilege of collecting tax had to give the Government a fixed amount; but if he could screw more than that out of the local population, he could pocket the rest.  More a protection racket than just collecting taxes.

Which is why your Matthew was not flavour of the month among his fellow Jews.  They despised him, and they feared him.  When Jesus had this terrible character in tow as he came to eat with the Pharisees, you can understand why they were so offended.  They drew it to the attention of the disciples — but Jesus overheard them.  “Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners? Well, he told them why.  It was people like this that he had come for: he had not come from God in order to call nice well behaved people.  His job was to save sinners.

The pig got up and slowly walked away.  Jesus did not walk away from the tax-collectors and sinners.  He ate and drank with them, and certainly he got a reputation for being a glutton and a drunk himself because of the company he kept.  He would not let this put him off his mission.  His reputation did not matter; woe to you, he said, when all people speak well of you.  I should think Pope Benedict must console himself with this.  The Press and Telly have been disgraceful in the run-up to his visit; yet everything he has said shows how he cares about us.

Before his visit there were even good Catholics saying perhaps he should not come, there had been such hatred stirred up by the Guardian, and Channel 4, and Peter Tatchell.  There were threats on his life, besides the scurrilous accusations being made about him.  He might not be safe.  But he persisted; and his visit was partly for the very people who were attacking him so unjustly.  They, as much as any of us, need to hear the Gospel, need to be converted, need to find salvation.

In his day the disciples tried to steer Jesus away from trouble; don’t go up to Jerusalem, they want to kill you there. The Pope, as Jesus’ true servant, could do no less than persist with his mission.  I said we have an unjustified dislike for tax-collectors, and maybe that goes a long way back in our folk memory.  We also have a great suspicion in England of the Pope.  The government in the mid sixteenth century spent huge efforts to get us to mistrust the Pope, and Rome, and everything about them.  First, they tried to get everyone to accept the King as Head of the Church.  Anyone who refused was in great danger; if he was an important political figure, like Thomas More, he was executed at once.  Others they tried to pay off, and many abbots and monks retired on a state pension — funded by the sale of their own monasteries.  But when they still refused, they too were killed; so the Abbot of Glastonbury, the greatest and most ancient of English monasteries, was dragged to the top of the Tor outside the town and there with two of his monks was hanged, drawn and cut into quarters, to warn anyone who felt like disobeying that he would do better to toe the line.

When Henry was unable to reach the offender himself, he made sure his family suffered for it.  When Cardinal Pole escaped to the Continent the king had his mother, over seventy years old, beheaded.  She refused to kneel for the axeman, so he bludgeoned and hacked her to death.

It is an amazing act of generosity that the present Pope should be ready to come to Britain and greet Henry VIII’s successor, our present Queen.  Henry’s media men were at least as crafty as our present lot.  They managed to persuade Englishmen that Henry acted justly, and anyone who opposed him was evil.  For four centuries after the events we still had a picture of Good King Henry and the wicked Pope of Rome: only in more recent times have historians begun to tell a less one-sided story, of the suffering of Catholics and the cruelties of Henry.

But Jesus chose Matthew; and if he chooses to call some of the newspaper hacks or television pundits and get them to eat their words about Pope Benedict, we should not be too surprised.  Love your enemies, pray for those who use you spitefully.  There are some groups of Anglicans today who are trying to reverse the hatreds of our history by accepting the Holy Father’s offer; he would like us to join him, as a distinct part of the Catholic Church, taking with us some of our historic heritage.  Maybe you are even thinking and praying about this here at St Matthew’s; certainly you should be.  Then thank God for Pope Benedict; and also for our Anglican predecessor, John Henry Newman, who became a true bridge between England and Rome.

Pray for our church, that many may have the courage to test that bridge for themselves.  Many of our fellow Anglicans need to be persuaded that the bridge is genuine, the Pope’s offer real — but in years to come, our successors will be grateful for those who took the first steps, just as we are grateful today for John Henry Newman.  There is a great welcome waiting for us on the other shore.

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St Matthew Reredos: which deserves a better camera

More and better pictures at http://www.stmatthews-willesden.org.uk/.

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Ordinariate Prayers from Bishop Peter Elliott

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Noting our discussion of heavenly patronage for the anticipated personal ordinariates, Bishop Peter J. Elliott, the episcopal delegate for Anglicanorum Coetibus in Australia, has written to offer these prayers for the success of the Holy Father's project now circulating in that country.  He observes that, in addition to Our Lady of Walsingham and St. Thérèse of Lisieux (a title of Our Lady and a saint he has personally selected), we may well add the invocation of John Henry Cardinal Newman upon his imminent beatification.

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PRAYERS FOR THE ORDINARIATES

Eternal Father, we place before you the project of forming the Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church. We thank you for this initiative of Pope Benedict XVI., and we ask that, through the Holy Spirit, the Ordinariates may become:

families of charity, peace and the service of the poor,

centres for Christian unity and reconciliation,

communities that welcome and evangelize,

teaching the Faith in all its fullness,

celebrating the liturgy and sacraments with prayerful reverence

and maintaining a distinctive patrimony of Christian faith and culture.

Drawing on that heritage we pray:

Go before us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works, begun, continued and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

V/ Our Lady of Walsingham.

R/ Pray for us as we claim your motherly care.

V/ Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus.

R/ Pray for us as we place this work under your patronage.

V/ Saints and Martyrs of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

R/ Pray for us and accompany us on our pilgrim way.

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