Tag Archives: Summorum Pontificum

More Ordinariate Disappointment

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This statement has been approved by the Personal Ordinariate and posted on the St. Thomas More Parish web site.

It's a pity — a solid, private boys' school with spirituality rooted in the Traditional Latin Mass, but with an appreciation of the Anglican Patrimony.  This seems like it would have been a marriage made in heaven.

When I met him in Orlando some months ago, Monsignor Steenson held nothing back in the expression of his enmity towards Catholic Traditionalism and the so-called Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  He said the Ordinariate should have nothing to do with those people (a paraphrase, but an accurate assessment of his attitude which was made quite clear).  He even suggested that, simply because I had an affinity for the TLM that I should consider myself "out of communion" with the local Ordinary, Bishop Noonan of Orlando.  Quite taken aback, I assured the Anglican Ordinary that I was quite Catholic, despite my intense dislike (and often horror) of the institutionalized liturgical abuses found in Latin Rite parishes almost everywhere (and unfortunately in my home diocese) and my attachment to Catholic Tradition.

The Ordinary should at least be reminded that, according to Anglicanorum coetibus and Summorum Pontificum, his priests have the unrestricted right to celebrate the Sacraments according to the liturgical books in force in 1962.  And it is my fervent belief that both the Anglican Catholic and Catholic Traditionalist communities would both greatly benefit by their collaboration — if only we had a visionary leadership.

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Summorum Pontificum Three Years On: Lessons for Anglicanorum Coetibus

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Lourdes Easter Elevation1 264x300 Summorum Pontificum Three Years On: Lessons for Anglicanorum CoetibusToday marks the third anniversary of the implementation of Summorum pontificum, the motu proprio reaffirming the continuing place of the traditional Mass in the life of the Church.  As we await the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus, it is perhaps useful to reflect on the successes and cautions we can glean from the experience of Catholic traditionalists over the past three years.  Let me offer a few scattered observations on what seems to have happened to date:

1.  As with Anglicanorum coetibus, an early euphoria gave way to fears that the implementation of the document would face opposition and obstruction. Sadly, these fears proved to be well-founded in a number of cases, with some bishops issuing restrictive guidelines which, in some cases, all but contradicted the clear intent of the Holy Father.  The good news is that the Curia intervened vigorously in many of these cases and, while real problems remain, the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is available in many countries at a level that would not have been imaginable only a few years ago.

2.  The growth of Extraordinary Form apostolates has been steady if not always stupendous. In the Archdiocese of Philadelphia before the motu proprio, there were two sites where the Extraordinary Form was offered.  Today, according to the Coalition in Support of Ecclesiae Dei website, there are six.  In Boston there are 10 and in New York there are 18.  In my own neck of the woods in the relatively small Diocese of La Crosse, there are six, including two parishes devoted exclusively to the Extraordinary Form with daily Masses.  These are small numbers for the Church at large, but they are a quantum leap in the number of traditionalist sites that existed before Summorum pontificum.

3.  The growth has often brought about tension between those who have been in the trenches for many years and those who have only recently come to value the Extraordinary Form. There is a tension between honoring the sacrifices and suffering of the past and moving on to an era of increased opportunity.  This tension is often generational.  Integrating new members into an older movement has sometimes proven more challenging than one would have hoped.

4.  Some traditionalists cannot bring themselves to adjust to the changed environment. While many have embraced the motu proprio, others have hardened their position and drifted towards an ever more rigid sedevacantism.  The mentality of “true church” sectarianism and what Fr. Chori called “bitter distrust” in a recent post has proven too much for some.

5.  In many areas, traditionalists have leavened the larger loaf. The increasing presence of traditionalists has reinforced the Reform of the Reform movement among those working to increase the dignity of the celebration of the Ordinary Form of the Mass.  Many parishes are returning to more traditional music and ad orientem celebration.  While these numbers remain small compared to the Church as a whole, they too represent a large swing in numbers relative to what one saw only a few years ago and, as with the Extraordinary Form, the Reform of the Reform continues to gain momentum relative to the trends and mores of the 1970s.

6.  We see pronounced schools of churchmanship developing in Catholicism. Anglicans would find the landscape that is developing in the Catholic Church, particularly in the U.S., to be familiar.  In many larger cities, one knows the charismatic parish, the Extraordinary Form parish, the Reform of the Reform parish, the middle-of-the-road parish, and the permutations in between.  Whether this will become a healthy model of unity in diversity or a force for Balkanization remains to be seen.

7. The laity have played a key role in the successes to date.  In advocating for the availability of the Extraordinary Form, in organizing local societies, in fundraising, in evangelization, and in many other areas, the role of the laity has been decisive in creating stable traditionalist communities.

The jury is still out.  Three years on, we still do not know how wide a reach the traditionalist revival will gain.  Traditional worship has the momentum and a new generation of priests disproportionately favor the Reform of the Reform and the Extraordinary Form.  A recent poll in the UK shows that better than 40% of regular Mass-goers would attend the Extraordinary Form weekly if it were available.  Even so, pockets of resistance remain and many of the people in the pews in the average parish are unaware of these trends.

Realistically, I think that things have gone as well or somewhat better than might have been expected.  A piece of paper has not changed the world over night, but it has opened the door to incremental changes that are gaining momentum and energizing a previously harried and beleaguered group of the faithful.  With its greater number of legal safeguards for the rights of members of the ordinariates, I think that things will likely go a bit more smoothly for the communities coming into existence under Anglicanorum Coetibus, though many of the negative trends and tensions cited above will likely apply as well.

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An Old Article by Rev. Alcuin Reid and Liturgical Diversity

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Many of us have short memories and I find what I term conservative apologists again getting a good foothold in the conversion-to-Catholicism market. One thing that concerns me is the question of liturgical uniformity and diversity. Whatever conclusions we draw, we should be aware that the Catholic solution to liturgical usage in the Ordinariates and elsewhere in the Church will not always be clear cut.

I was quite shaken by a question that was put to me about whether it is compulsory to use special vestments (ie. fiddleback chasubles) when celebrating the old Latin Mass. In the wake of commercial advertising from makers of copies d’anciens vestments, and the endemic rubricism among Anglo-Saxon conservative Catholics, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect yet again on questions of liturgical uniformity and diversity.

I refer readers to the article by Rev. Alcuin Reid that appeared in The Catholic Herald in July 2007 and which is still available on The New Liturgical Movement -  The Pope has Created a Liturgical Free Market. This article would seem to “preach to my own parish” when it says: “Benedict XVI's motu proprio may even prompt the revival of the Sarum Rite”. However, I did not quote this article for this reason.

Deacon Alcuin’s convictions are close to those of Dr Geoffrey Hull, who wrote The Banished Heart, a fascinating book published in 1995 and to be republished in October 2010. The Church today has had to pay for many of the errors of the past, consisting of imposing absolute liturgical uniformity and repressing legitimate liturgical traditions in some places. It could even be said that the suppression of the traditional Roman rite was poetic justice for the persecution of oriental rite Catholics, in some cases up to the twentieth century, and for the pressure against the old French diocesan uses at the behest of Dom Guéranger.

Summorum Pontificum of July 2007 was a watershed in the history of the older form being released from the ambiguous situation in which Paul VI had placed it. The old Roman rite again found its normal place in the Church, and not the object of a begrudging indult by diocesan bishops. For many years, the Holy Father – both as Pope and as Cardinal Prefect of the CDF – had observed that suppressing the Church's older liturgical tradition was a historical anomaly and a gross impoverishment of the liturgical life of the Church.

This is no sop to the traditionalists or step in some kind of restoration or counter-reforming programme, but a simple removal of legal barriers that should never have been enacted as they were by Paul VI. Benedict XVI clearly stated that the older liturgy was never abrogated. This was the thesis held for many years by the eminent Roman canonist Count Neri Capponi. This admission most definitely removes all credibility from those who maintain that the modern Roman rite is the only one allowed in the Church, and that the entire tradition of the Latin Church has been thrown out with the trash. The mask is off, and the deceit is a thing of the past. The Pope has said so.

In explicit terms, this motu proprio concerns the Roman liturgy in its John XXIII 1962 edition. By extension, it is an answer to the deep liturgical crisis in the Church and the fact that it was wrong to ban the old liturgy and replace it with something new and untraditional. There is no imposing here, no abolition of the new liturgy, simply the removal of all restrictions against the old. The liturgical ‘market’ is now free, and it is for priests and groups of layfolk to act and take advantage of the open loophole.

This is stunning when coming from Rome and the Vatican. Catholics have for centuries been used to being told what they may do and what they may not do. When Rome in 1969 said that the old is out and the new is in, all but the most critical in their way of thinking obeyed. Well, now, the boot is on the other foot, and it is the same Rome and the same Papacy that says that people are free in their choice. This motu proprio reminds us that Rome did not always behave in the heavy-handed way of Paul VI, Cardinal Villot and others. The Church has always had a multiplicity of rites and uses, and one of the most feared Popes of history, St Pius V, when he codified the Roman Rite left an explicit loophole for rites and liturgical usages on just one condition – that they were older than 1370.

The juridical solution Benedict XVI adopted of the ordinary and extraordinary forms of a single Roman rite is of course contrived, artificial and purely pragmatic. He knows as much as any of us that there is very little continuity between the Roman rite and the Bugnini / Paul VI creation of the late 1960’s and early 70’s. But, abolishing the new rite would cause as much disturbance to the faithful as Paul VI in 1974 in regard to the old rite. Let the two coexist with this notion, and let the problems be resolved in time once the legal basis for compulsion is removed. Traditionalists have often said that more people would go to the old Mass if there were a choice, and those words are put to the test.

By extension, other uses and rites have found their way back into use, after more than thirty years of disuse (the usual criterion by which a custom is said to die). The dead Dominican and Ambrosian rites found themselves revived and used, albeit in limited and occasional circumstances. I won’t go on about Sarum here, because I have already treated the subject exhaustively. The only difference is the number of years the rite in question was obsolete and out of continuous custom.

Knowing what I do of the Holy Father’s mind, as expressed in what he has written and said publicly, liturgical diversity is too great a gift to be eroded down by abusive authority on the part of bishops, and far outweighs the risk of causing friction and confusion for the simple-minded.

We Anglicans, dogged as we are by extreme liturgical diversity, can ask ourselves whether we have done any worse than Catholic priests with the modern Roman rite and its different inculturations and interpretations, not to mention the hundreds of themes. There are celebrations inspired by different kinds of popular entertainment and TV variety shows, designed to make Catholicism relevant to modernity. Many abuses arise on account of deep ignorance by both clergy and laity of fundamental liturgical principles. Generally, the various variations I have found in England of the Prayer Book, the English Missal, the Anglican Missal, the various ‘interim’ services that came out at the time when I was an adolescent, have been celebrated with reverence and respect for the basic principles of the liturgy.

The first Ordinariates may be canonically erected in the next few months, or at least within a year from now, so we hear. Those who expect a fully codified Anglican rite to replace the present Anglican Use before this happens are likely to be disappointed. It could be that the myriad Anglican usages inspired by the influence of the old Ritualist movement could find themselves allowed into the Catholic heritage by some kind of ‘osmosis’, like the interaction and mutual influence between the old and new Roman uses. This would seem to be the way the Pope thinks – All may, no one must, and some should. Conservative and authoritarian Catholics hate this mentality, but they have to put up with it – until something else comes along.

But, this attitude of Pope Benedict XVI seems not to be laxism or relativism (the spiritual and doctrinal illness he combats with such tenacity), but simply fidelity to the teaching of Vatican II that affirms legitimate diversity within substantial unity: unity, not uniformity.

Whether or not you agree with this ‘liberal’ approach, it seems to be the same attitude as what is being extended to the traditional Anglican world, between English Missal parishes in the TAC and the few in the Church of England, and the majority of Forward in Faith groups using the modern Roman rite. In my experience of reading scores of comments in this blog and their arguments, I see that there is too much diversity to expect all Ordinariate-bound Anglicans to conform to liturgical usages one group or another has eschewed for more than forty years. It would be better to have a unified Anglican patrimony imported into the Catholic world, even at the cost of loose ends and ‘annoying’ differences between dioceses, parishes and chaplaincies.

Please discuss these questions by all means, but I hope new ideas can come to bear rather than rehashing old arguments, especially in the likelihood of the creation of Ordinariates before the promulgation and implementation of codified and explicitly approved rites. Please be as original and independently thinking as possible. I do think we could make progress this way.

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The Remarkable Gift of the Anglican Patrimony

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I have been away on holidays for a little while.  During that time I finished reading Bishop Andrew Burnham's new book on liturgy.  Reading and reviewing this book it is not hard to appreciate the wonderful contributions to the wider Church which can come from the Anglican Patrimony.  Here is my review of this excellent tome.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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An Orthodox Priest's View of Christian Unity

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Fr. John Guy Winfrey, the parish priest of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Grand Rapids, MI, and a former parishioner of the Anglo-Catholic St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, has written to offer the following piece on promising developments in Eastern Orthodoxy and his thoughts regarding their place in the larger drama of reconciliation between the "two lungs" of the Church, East and West.

Fr. Winfrey posits that the Holy Father's recent Apostolic Constitution providing for the corporate reconciliation of Anglican groups, Anglicanorum Coetibus, is a sign to Orthodox Christians that the Roman Pontiff is truly committed to the pursuit of a genuine unity in diversity.

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I returned Saturday evening from the Parish Life Conference (for those of you who are not Antiochian Orthodox, it is our rough equivalent of a Diocesan Conference).  At the clergy meeting on Wednesday evening I heard something that I wasn't sure that I had actually heard.  I was startled, stunned, and paradoxically thrilled and filled with angst at the same time.  His Grace was speaking about the recent National Assembly of Bishops (Orthodox) and their work.  Much of this I had already heard, but had not spoken of it much because I continued to hear things that are better not made the subject of discussion in large groups.  After all, the questions that the bishops are discussing really stand solely within the purview of the bishops.

On Saturday, before I left Perrysburg (the suburb of Toledo, Ohio where the event was hosted), I asked one of my brother priests who seemed to be more "in the know" than I.  He has always been much more active in these areas than myself.  Following our conversation I was utterly floored.  So what was it that I had heard, first on Wednesday and then reiterated on Saturday?  I heard that it is thought within five years there will be only one jurisdiction of Orthodox in the United States.  There will no longer be a Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, and an Antiochian Archdiocese, and an Orthodox Church in America…  There will only be the Orthodox Church.  But this is not simply an American concern alone.  In truth it will be a world-wide action affecting Australia, Central America, South America, England, Europe and so on.

The details will prove to be some of the great hiccups I am sure.  Diocesan borders will be redrawn and restructured.  There will be a singular guideline for all the priests in the country rather than seeing it vary in every jurisdiction.  Admittedly there will be a period of transition that will naturally cause no little tension.  What of the calendar?  Will that be a source of unity, or will there be Old Calendar (Julian) and New Calendar parishes still?  Just the selection of a revised Julian Calendar has caused a terrible schism within the Orthodox Church since the 1920s.  Only time will be able to tell exactly what will happen, but five years is a very short time indeed.

One of my personal difficulties, and I have to be frank about this, is that it appears that everything will be under Constantinople.  There is some logic to this.  After all a recent study states that 80% of the Orthodox in the United States are already in the Greek Archdiocese.  If they have those numbers, then naturally they should have the lion's share of say.  Of course, it is being handled with a different sense.  The natural presvia (or order given clergy and local churches) is being followed.  Therefore the Greeks as representing the Ecumenical Patriarch — who anciently second only to Rome — is given the seat of honor, followed by Antioch (since Alexandria has no churches here), and on down the line.  I said that I had personal difficulties with this, and I do, but I'll save those thoughts for another post.

Having a singular jurisdiction would be a very healthy development in Orthodoxy here and elsewhere.  Yet I can't help to think that this is only part of something that is much larger.  We are tempted to look only at our own countries, or only at the Orthodox Church in isolation from what seems to be happening in the larger scene.  When I view the scene of Christianity on the largest possible scale, I get the distinct intuition that God the Holy Spirit is incredibly active right now.  Of course, God is always active, but there are moments that His activity seems more perceptible.

Consider these things a components or signs of something profound happening:

  1. The Orthodox Church is working on getting her house in order (trying to reconcile the scandal of multiple jurisdictions in many countries).
  2. Both Moscow and Constantinople have had very positive and warm meetings with Rome.
  3. Moscow has publicly given support to Pope Benedict XIV recently in Rome, and has called for greater work together with Rome on commonly held concerns.
  4. The recent agreed statement produced at Ravenna (and that which has been leaked from Cyprus) between the Orthodox and Catholics is incredible.
  5. Pope Benedict XVI issued the motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, which gave very liberal and broad license to priests to celebrate the 1962 Latin Mass.  This is a very significant development because it helps to show the Orthodox that the Catholic Church is officially holding in a line of "continuity" rather than of "disruption".  Perhaps it doesn't need to be stated that this was one of the things that Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev brought up as important when he met with the Pope.
  6. Pope Benedict XVI's stunning Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, which makes it possible in the very near future for Anglicans to enter into communion with the Catholic Church whilst keeping the great treasure of their patrimony shows the genuine sense that the Holy Father has of being the pivot of unity for the universal Church.  He seems quite content to allow diversity in unity and is completely unthreatened by it — provided there is theological unity (recall again the agreements of Ravenna and Cyprus here).
  7. The Western world is dying because of many spiritual and moral diseases, but perhaps more than anything else because of the loss of the organic and sacramental unity of the Church: Eastern and Western.  The desire to work together would seem to be a hint that maybe we understand this.
  8. The Roman Catholic Church is experiencing a nascent recovery of some of her tradition and liturgical beauty at the moment.  Although this is still small, one leading priest in this area continually reminds the faithful that this will be brought back together "brick by brick."  Deo volente!
  9. Finally there is the continual disintegration of non-historic Christianity into mere entertainment, leaving many of their faithful looking for something that is stabile, substantial, historic and real.

Fr. John Richard Neuhaus wrote a marvelous book in the 1980s called "The Catholic Moment."  It was, like so much of what he wrote, incredibly insightful.  However, I think that the moment that we might be seeing is not simply a moment for the Church of Rome, but for the entire Church Catholic (East and West).  I have a suspicion that Orthodox unity is being pressed forward, perhaps unconsciously, to make ready for a reunification of the Church.

There will be many who would not be able to make a journey to unity and union.  Some are liberal Roman Catholics (I'd prefer to say heterodox, or even heretical, rather than liberal) who are ably represented by the likes of the Tablet, or the National Catholic Review.  Some are the monastic extremists referred to by the Archbishop of Cyprus as the "Orthodox taliban."  Old Calendarists would not enter into reconciliation.  Perhaps the inclusion of the Orthodox would cause the Society of Saint Pius X to refrain from unity.

Nevertheless, I think that God might well be at work to bring us back together.  The reunion would bring more joy to my heart than I could possibly express.  I pray for this every day.  I hope for it every hour.  I dream of it every minute.

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Four Liturgical Forms

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Fr. Hunwicke has authored this piece as part of the joint discussion between The New Liturgical Movement and The Anglo-Catholic regarding the future of Anglican liturgy in the personal ordinariates to be erected under Anglicanorum Coetibus.

I would observe that a number of Anglican altar missals similar to the English Missal were produced up until about 1960.  In the Anglican Church in America, the USA province of the TAC, two books in particular are widely used.  The first is the so-called Anglican Missal in the American Edition, a product of the Frank Gavin Liturgical Foundation.  The other is the American Missal, printed by the Society of St. John the Evangelist (the Cowley Fathers).  Both of these would be comparable to the English/Knott Missal.  While our English Anglo-Catholic brethren have largely abandoned the English Missal for the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite (or another modern hybrid), the Anglican Missal remains par for the course in North American parishes.

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Four Liturgical Forms

by Fr. John Hunwicke, SSC
Parish Priest of St. Thomas the Martyr, Oxford

Fr+Hunwicke+6 850x1024 Four Liturgical FormsSome things about the Eucharistic worship of the Ordinariates are already clear. Since Ordinariate clergy will be part of the Roman Rite, they will be able lawfully to use the Ordinary Form in a translation which will have received the recognitio of the Holy See – and I am of course thinking of the new ICEL translation of the Roman Rite. Doubtless many will use this rite, since (particularly in England) very many Anglican Catholic clergy have in the past used the OF. Those who adhered to more 'Anglican' forms – the Alternative Service Book or Common Worship – commonly used Anglican rites in modern English so that they could deftly graft into them Roman elements.

As clergy of the Roman Rite, Ordinariate clergy will also lawfully be able to make use of the provisions of Summorum Pontificum. This may surprise some Roman Catholics. There are those who have been nervous that the Ordinariate scheme would mean that some dubious semi-Protestants would be squeezing into full communion with the Holy See. Nothing could be further from the truth. Amid the diversity with which Roman Catholics are familiar, Anglican Catholic clergy are very much within what you might call the New Liturgical Movement end of the spectrum. I myself use the Extraordinary Form most mornings of the week. Since I feel that the disadvantages of being out of full Communion with the Holy See are so painful that there must be some little compensation available to comfort me, I use the Roman Rite, not according to the books of 1962, but as it was at the beginning of the Pontificate of Pius XII. I suppose that if I am admitted to the presbyterate of an Ordinariate, I shall have to come into line with the 1962 liturgical books, but it will be with some regret that I abandon those Octaves and Vigils and Commemorations and Last Gospels and so on.

So that's the two Forms of the Roman Rite. A third, in my view, should be the OF liturgical books provided in an English which is either taken from the Book of Common Prayer (where Cranmer was translating Latin originals) or translated into English of the same style. Half a century ago, the great Christine Mohrmann argued that the Mass should not be translated into vernaculars because modern European languages lacked sacred vernaculars. She demonstrated that liturgical Latin, far from being adopted in order to give Latin speakers a liturgy they could understand, was an intentionally hieratic and sacral dialect, based upon pagan liturgical formulae going back hundreds of years. So, she felt, a similar archaic and sacral dialect was the only appropriate vernacular form which should be given to the Roman Rite. Mohrmann was dead right – except about one detail. There was one European language which did have a sacral dialect venerable with centuries of use: English, as it was used in Anglican worship. It was one of the great tragedies of the post-Conciliar period that Roman Catholics ignored this precious and beautiful heritage; and that so many Anglicans followed suit.

Finally, I believe that it would be valuable for the Holy See to authorise the English Missal, which provides the 'Tridentine' Rite with those parts of it audible to the people translated into Cranmerian English. For half a century, millions of Anglican Catholics worshipped with this rite before the Conciliar changes. Where Cranmer did translate a Latin formula, the English Missal uses his version; where biblical texts appear, they are adapted from the Authorised Version of the Bible; other euchological elements are rendered into English in the same style. This is what I, and many of my generation, were brought up with, and my love for it is second only to my love for the Latin original. There are still hundreds of copies of this book in Anglican Catholic sacristies all over England; dusty perhaps, but just crying to be brought back into use. There may have been clergy who used English forms of the Sarum Rite, but, if so, their numbers were minuscule. It is the English Missal which was – and is – our Patrimony.

That's four forms of the Roman Rite. I firmly believe we should resist calls for 'museum' rites: Sarum, 1549 or the Non-jurors, and should stick to what is manifestly mainstream in the modern Catholic Church (the OF and EF) in forms which either are consistent with the new ICEL texts or which draw upon the linguistic and stylistic liturgical Patrimony of Anglican Catholicism during its glory days. By so doing, I feel that we shall not only be providing for the nostalgia of our own people, but also providing an enrichment of the liturgical spiritualities available to all Catholics. I believe we should be aiming much higher than merely at being a chaplaincy for ex-Anglicans. There is a vacuum out there which we could help to fill.

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So, why do bishops sometimes appear to be so uncharitable?

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Christian Campbell’s post, Extraordinary (Form) Episcopal Shenanigans, touched me, and for a minute or two I felt similarly. I mean, I can really understand how those contemplating reunion with the Holy See will view with nervousness any perceived hostility to a group that doesn’t quite fit in with the norm (whatever that is perceived to be). Though, of course, Anglo-Catholicism has had a long history of dealing with (or ignoring) bishops hostile to itself; dare I say it, in certain quarters thinking of them as the enemy.

I discussed this with a friend—an English Anglo-Catholic priest— a few months ago, and he spoke movingly about how all that had changed. Once the ‘flying bishops’ had been put in post, for the first time he and others felt that they had bishops who were ‘theirs’; those with whom they could deal, who would understand them and their needs and, above all, their faith and practice. They knew at last what it was to have a bishop, one might say, of their own faith.

But, does the Orkney incident suggest that all the struggle is going to have to start all over again, that Rome will not prove after all to be a haven of tranquillity after the tempestuous sea?

Then I shook myself. I think that we have to start from the principle that Bishop Peter Moran (and others of his ilk) is a Catholic Christian successor of the Apostles with a soul to save and with a genuine mandate to govern his diocese. We must also presume, in charity, that he is not maliciously motivated, but may have real reasons to have acted as he has done.

I have no notion what his particular objections in this case are, but I think we may make some general observations that may help us to understand the particular case.

Let us presume that bishops who seek to restrict celebrations according to the Extraordinary Form are not actually directly desiring enmity with those who request such a celebration, but desire their spiritual good as they see it. What may be their motives?

The presumption seems to be generally that the bishop is a liberal and (illiberally) wants to squash anything that does not square with his interpretation of Vatican II. This may be true in some cases, or it may not. What is not always apparent to Anglicans is that the Catholic Church is very uncomfortable with liturgical diversity, and this has been true for a very long time. I wanted to say, since Quo Primum (1570), but really it goes back a lot further than that. A thousand years ago, Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael Cærularius of Constantinople quarrelled bitterly over the fact that Greek and Latin churches in their oppontents’ territories observed liturgical customs perceived as being inimical to the worship of the majority. Rome protested that the Greeks in southern Italy were using leavened bread for the Eucharist, and, later, objected to the warm water being added to the chalice. Cærularius was incensed that Latins and Armenians in 'his' territory fasted on the eve of feasts, used unleavened bread, would not say alleluia in Septuagesima and Lent and celebrated real (not presanctified) Masses in Lent.

This is, I imagine, not simply intolerance, but an understanding that liturgy creates and symbolizes koinonia, communion. It says who we are, if I can put it like that. Pope Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum makes a great effort to square the circle by defining both OF and EF as true forms of the one Roman Rite. He has historical precedent on his side; the Roman Rite had lots of local variants in the past, but we haven’t really been used to dealing with several variants in one location before (OF, EF and Anglican Use, whatever that is to become), and hardly at all for the last 500 years.

Now, I personally think that this development of diversity is actually going to prove a good thing, but I can understand why it is treated with suspicion. At the very least, it is a new thing in our context. The maintenance of unity at the Lord’s table is a very ancient principle; it goes right back to St Ignatius of Antioch (d. about AD112), maintaining one altar, one bishop, one Eucharist and therefore, by extension, one rite. I can understand why a bishop viscerally feels that there is something wrong about people wanting to celebrate the Eucharist differently on his patch.

I don’t say that he is right, simply that I understand why he might think it.

I suppose that, also, there is a fear that this thing (traditional separatism, whatever you want to call it) will take on a life of its own and simply slip away from the bishop, to the point where the bishop feels that he is in some communities no longer bishop in his own see. This would not be strange in an Anglican context, but on this side of the Tiber it would be distinctly odd. On a similar point, the late Cardinal Basil Hume once observed that it was for him to decide, as the principle of Eucharistic Unity for his diocese, the form that the Mass would take in his diocese—something he was not willing (except pragmatically) to concede even to Rome.

The forthcoming Ordinariates will actually be different, and so I do not think there is a need to fear difficult relationships with local bishops. After all, Ordinariate parishes may be physically on their patch, but not administratively; local ordinaries will not bear any responsibility for them. Where churches are to be shared, then once a regular Mass in the Anglican Use has been established, I imagine that there will be few problems managing the interface, any more than there are when a Mass is celebrated in this diocese according to the Malabar or Ukranian Rite.


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Extraordinary (Form) Episcopal Shenanigans

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The bishop of Aberdeen has moved to block the celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form in an historic Orkney Islands cathedral.  The Rt. Rev. Peter Moran has told Una Voce Scotland that he does not approve of the group's choice of two priests from the traditionalist community of Papa Stronsay (even though the group has been reconciled with the Holy See) saying that "they have as yet only limited faculties to celebrate Mass in this diocese."  Amazingly, the venue in question, St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, is now in the hands of the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland; it's not even a Catholic church!  In violation of the Holy Father's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, the bishop also claims that his permission is necessary for any public celebration of the usus antiquior.  As Fr. Z points out, there may be some legitimate concerns about (and a proper role for episcopal oversight in) the celebration of Holy Mass in a (stolen) Protestant church, but the bishop grossly mischaracterizes his authority under Summorum Pontificum, and such attempts at resisting the Holy Father's will as expressed in the motu proprio have become a pattern with the Scottish bishops.  I wonder with Fr. Z: what harm could this Mass have possibly done?  The bishop kindly celebrated Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form for the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer community when they were reconciled; is the public celebration of the rite somehow a greater threat?  Even were he to have had legitimate reservations about the two traditionalist priests, why could Bishop Moran himself not have supplied another celebrant for the Mass?

From Rorate Caeli we learn of unrest in the parish of St. Anthony of Padua in San Antonio, Florida (which is in the Tampa Bay area).  A group of dissidents is upset that the pastor, Fr. Edwin Palka, in a weekly schedule of eleven eucharistic celebrations, has the audacity, in accordance with the Holy Father's will, to offer just two Masses in the Extraordinary Form, one on Sunday morning and another during the week.  The malcontents have managed to arrange a meeting with the Bishop of St. Petersburg, Robert Lynch, who appears to be no friend of tradition.  In 2000, Bishop Lynch issued guidelines which all but forbade the practice of Eucharistic Adoration outside of Holy Mass in the diocese.  Even more appallingly, Bishop Lynch was, at least morally, an accomplice in the murder of Terri Schiavo, and subsequently gave his permission for her husband (the murderer) to marry, in a diocesan church, the woman with whom he had an adulterous relationship.  I wonder if traditionalists find it so easy to get an audience with the bishop?  Somehow I think not.

Perhaps both of these matters will yet be resolved in favor of the lawful rights of the priests and Christian faithful involved.  God willing they will be.  I cite these two cases simply because they are presently in the news and I am familiar with the background of each.  We should pray for everyone involved.

Occasionally, Roman Catholic commenters here on The Anglo-Catholic express their distress over the suspicion with which, they perceive, many Anglicans regard some Catholic bishops.  We have even been accused of being less than charitable for be so bold as to question the motivations of those prelates who flagrantly disregard the legitimate aspirations of their people and the teaching of the Holy Father and the Magisterium.  How dare you traditionalist Anglicans — who, after all, are petitioning the Holy See for an extraordinary accommodation and are lucky that the Roman authorities deign to give you the time of day — challenge these well-meaning prelates!  Where do you get off bringing this strife and rancor into the Catholic Church?  You can't possibly understand what it means to be Catholic.  Show some humility!

Perhaps such episodes as these illustrate why some Catholic-minded Anglicans are reluctant to trust that all Roman Catholic bishops will have our best interests at heart.  After all, if Catholic bishops show such disregard for the lawful — and truly awesome and salutary — expressions of their own tradition, why should we believe that they will be respectful of ours?

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, through its spokesmen, has expressed concern that a future personal ordinariate might become a sectarian enclave not fully integrated into the life of the larger Catholic Church in that country.  Certainly the historic relationship between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Establishment presents some real challenges that must be overcome, but, I wonder: when English Catholic bishops receive requests from the faithful that Anglican Use services be celebrated in a diocesan church, how willing will they be to grant permission?  Will they encourage their priests to share worship spaces with ordinariate communities?  Will they themselves recognize the Anglican Patrimony as endorsed by Anglicanorum Coetibus as a legitimate and honored expression of the Catholic Faith?  In the United States, will diocesan bishops who, for decades, refused to sanction the establishment of Anglican Use/Pastoral Provision communities in their territories now, with fond solicitude, welcome and care for their Anglican petitioners?  This remains to be seen!

We Anglicans watch the struggles of Roman Catholic traditionalists with concern, not because our interests are identical to theirs, though there is certainly some overlap, but because, like the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus was necessitated by the failure of many Catholic bishops, over a long period of time, to respond with generosity and charity to the pleas of estranged groups of the Christian faithful.  As we have explored in previous posts, the Apostolic Constitution creates for us "a church within a Church," protecting our legitimate interests from local diocesan bishops who might not always appreciate them.  But we have no desire to turn inward or to remain confined to an Anglican ghetto.  Like the adherents of the older form of the Roman Rite, we merely seek our rightful place in the life of the Catholic Church.  We pray that when we do enter into the full communion of the Church, we will not find ourselves asking with the Holy Father, "Why are the [...] bishops so unapostolic?"

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What Book Do You Use for the Daily Offices?

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Stuartbreviary What Book Do You Use for the Daily Offices?

Personal Breviary of Mary, Queen of Scots.

In the Anglo-Catholic tradition there has long been a proliferation of options for the recitation of the Divine Office, some with the approbation of competent ecclesiastical authority, others less so.  And recently in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, the legitimate choices have been multiplied by the Holy Father's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which, in addition to liberating the Traditional Latin Mass and the other sacramental rites of the usus antiquior, also permits clerics to celebrate the canonical hours according to the 1962 edition of the Breviarium Romanum, making it clear that the older form of the Roman Breviary (and perhaps, by extension, those of the other uses of the Roman Rite) is a legitimate expression of the public prayer of the Church.

I've noticed that the liturgical debates conducted here on The Anglo-Catholic tend to focus almost exclusively on eucharistic rites.  Very little is ever written of the Liturgy of the Hours and this seems to me, at least, to be quite unfortunate.  Anglo-Catholics have a strong tradition of commitment both to the regular celebration of both Holy Mass and the corporate — as well as private — recitation of the Divine Office.  This "Mass-and-Office Catholicism" has shaped our identity.  So much of our Anglican Patrimony — especially our musical tradition — is intimately connected to the solemn celebration of the daily offices.  I'd like to bring this aspect of worship back into focus.

So I'd like to hear from our readers (both Anglican and Roman Catholic) and get a sense of what everyone is doing: What book(s) do you use for the recitation of the daily offices?  How frequently do you pray the Divine Office?  If you are clergy or religious, are you under obligation to recite the daily offices?  Does your personal choice of office book reflect the public worship in your parish or community?  If not, why not?  How are the daily offices celebrated — or not celebrated — in your parish?

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Two New Books

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Two new books have just been announced that will be of interest to readers of The Anglo-Catholic.  In the first, Andrew Burnham, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, explores the re-enchantment of the Sacred Liturgy from an Anglican perspective and offers ideas on how the "precious gift" of our distinctive patrimony might enrich the wider Church.  In the second, The Anglo-Catholic contributor, Fr. John Fleming, relates his spiritual journey into the fullness of the communion with the Catholic Church.  And perhaps especially interesting to our readership, he examines his own role in the approach of the Traditional Anglican Communion to the Holy See which culminated in the October 2007 Portsmouth Letter, the formal petition by which the TAC requested "a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See."

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

image11 Two New BooksThis timely and significant book by Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, asks whether the declining appeal of religious worship is connected with the simplification of liturgical practice in recent decades.  Has a well-meant policy of making worship more accessible resulted in a loss of the sense of mystery – and has this accelerated the decline?

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

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

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

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

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

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

9781921421112 2 e1269954407417 Two New BooksWhy convert to Catholicism? In the context of what he saw as the global disintegration of Anglicanism, Father John Fleming, former Anglican priest, presents a compelling account of his spiritual odyssey, and why Catholicism alone could satisfy his need for the synthesis of faith and reason.  The Mass being a crucial factor in his own conversion, he draws readers into his exchange with two young people, one a Catholic the other not, on the reasonableness of Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass.  He concludes with a fascinating account of how the Traditional Anglican Communion came to seek, without condition, full corporate reunion with the Holy See and his own part in this history-making episode.

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

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

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