From here:

Responding to today’s publication of the Apostolic Constitution and its complementary norms by the Vatican, the Rt Revd Christopher Hill, Bishop of Guildford and Chairman of the Church of England’s Council for Christian Unity, said:

“We note the publication of the text of the Apostolic Constitution and its complementary norms today. It will now be for those who have requested and at this point feel impelled to seek full communion with the Roman Catholic Church to study the Apostolic Constitution carefully in the near future and to consider their options.

The Vatican response to certain requests from individuals and groups across the world does not deflect us from either the continuing mission of the Church of England in its parishes and dioceses throughout the land, or its longstanding commitment to seeking the unity of all the Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church.”

Affirming Catholicism has noted with dismay the Press Release from the Revision Committee indicating the Committee’s decision to review General Synod’s support for the adoption of the simplest form of legislation enabling the admission of women into the episcopate in the Church of England coupled with a statutory code of practice, as expressed in July 2008.

We believe that the suggestion that certain functions should be vested in bishops by statute rather than by delegation from the diocesan bishop under a statutory code of practice runs counter to the principle that the diocese is the fundamental unit of the Church. In practice, this means that the Diocesan Bishop is and must be recognised to be Ordinary in his / her Diocese. Consequently, as we have argued consistently in our submissions to the Bishops of Guildford and Gloucester and to the Legislative Drafting Group, any designated special Bishops who exercise a ministry in a Diocese where the Ordinary is a woman must share in the ministry of the Ordinary in order that the unity of the diocese ”“ and with it the Church of England ”“ be preserved.

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Durham Cathedral, which would co-host the event with the University, is commonly regarded as the finest Romanesque building in the world and, together with the University-owned Durham Castle and Palace Green, is a recognised UNESCO world heritage site.

At a time of some increased sensitivity in Anglican-Roman Catholic relations, the strong ecumenical character of the invitation is very significant. The invitation is led by Dr Tom Wright both as Lord Bishop of Durham and as the University’s senior representative, and Mrs Maggie Wright, but is counter-signed and fully supported by Bishop Seamus Cunningham of the Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, the Chapter of Durham Cathedral, the Abbot of Ampleforth Abbey and the President of Ushaw College, the Catholic seminary for the North of England.

Bishop Wright said: “Durham has in recent years become a major global centre for ecumenical work and the close interlinking of Cathedral and University means that Durham is well placed to host an event which is simultaneously academic and ecumenically spiritual.”

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ANGLICANS are divided over the announcement, last week, by the Vatican that they could form “Per­sonal Ordinariates” under the author­ity of Pope Benedict XVI. Many Anglicans said that it was no substi­tute for restored communion between the two Churches. Others welcomed the move.

The “pastoral” move by the Pope was widely believed to be his response to approaches by, among others, the leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), Archbishop John Hepworth, who is based in Australia, in April 2007. The head of TAC in Canada, Bishop Carl Reid, said last week that although its members were “on the same page” as Roman Catholics on ethics and family life, there were “weighty” doctrinal issues that could cause problems. “I can’t really predict how everyone is going to respond.”

The former Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, a long-term mem­ber of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and the International Anglican- Roman Catholic Commis­sion for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM), who was the subject of press speculation that he could accept the offer, said on Tuesday that he was not going to become a Roman Catholic.

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The chairman of Forward in Faith, Bishop John Broadhurst, gave the closing remarks and blessing.

“This is a struggle for the truths of the Gospel,” the bishop summarized.

He noted the dismay of members of the Anglican Communion when the church decided that it was possible to ordain women. He said that while bishops of the Church of England were deaf to these concerns, the Bishop of Rome has heard them.

“Rome thinks differently about us than we’ve thought it thought for the last 40 years,” he said.

Bishop Broadhurst characterized the move to accept Anglicans in groups as an “ecclesial answer” to an “ecclesial problem” — in contrast to the individual conversions of Anglicans to Catholicism that has been frequent since the Communion’s move to ordain women.

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Daniel Herzog, who converted to Roman Catholicism after retiring as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, said in a telephone interview that he viewed the pope’s offer as extending to Anglican clergy elsewhere in the world the option, previously available to U.S. Episcopal clergy, to become Catholic priests if they convert.

In the past, “Some Episcopalians who came in groups were allowed to retain a significant part of the Anglican liturgy and, except for the use of Roman eucharistic prayers, they would be able to use the bulk of the prayer book,” he said, adding that he thought Anglican worship traditions would be “a great contribution to the life of the Catholic Church.”

Herzog, who is a lay Catholic, said he expected former Episcopal clergy would be welcomed under the same process as the 1980 “pastoral provision.”

“I think it’s an openness to people who are already predisposed toward the holy see,” said Herzog, noting that switching from being an Episcopal priest to a Roman Catholic priest is “not like changing a New York driver’s license for a Connecticut driver’s license.

“They’re not just looking for people who are angry or unhappy,” he said. “I think they’re looking for people who are personally convinced of the primacy of the Holy Father and believe that ultimately for all Christians the center of unity is the see of Peter.”

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Bishop [John] Broadhurst said that Pope Benedict has made his offer in response to the pleas of Anglicans who despair at the disintegration of their Church. “Anglicanism has become a joke because it has singularly failed to deal with any of its contentious issues,” said the bishop.

“There is widespread dissent across the [Anglican] Communion. We are divided in major ways on major issues and the Communion has unraveled. I believed in the Church I joined, but it has been revealed to have no doctrine of its own. I personally think it has gone past the point of no return. The Anglican experiment is over.”

In an emotional closing speech on Saturday, Bishop Broadhurst used the metaphor of the frog and the boiling pot to describe the current Anglican status.

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My colleague, George Pitcher, described Church of England bishops as “flirts” yesterday, but reading recently issued statements from the bishops of Rochester and Chichester, they sound more like confused old dears.

They have objected to reports that they are considering leaving Canterbury for Rome following the Pope’s invitation to disaffected Anglicans ”“ a group of which they are most definitely members.

I’m reluctant to point out how flawed the Bishop of Chichester’s denial is, as John Hind is a black belt in Judo, but he appears to have got himself trapped in a stranglehold of illogicality. It’s worth bearing with me, if only because this highlights why some bishops fail to ever get across their message.

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A mass exodus of overseas Anglo-Catholics in response to last week’s announcement of a proposed Anglican enclave within the Roman Catholic Church is unlikely, a review of the Communion by The Church of England Newspaper finds.

While overseas leaders acknowledge that individual Anglicans may take advantage of the provisions of the proposed Apostolic Constitution for the creation of “Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering the Catholic Church,” no diocese or province is set to quit the Anglican Communion for Rome.

In jurisdictions where traditional Anglo-Catholics predominate: the Provinces of Central Africa, Tanzania, West Africa, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the West Indies; the Australian dioceses of The Murray and Ballarat and the US dioceses of Fort Worth, Quincy and San Joaquin—individuals may take up the Vatican’s offer, but no institution is likely to follow. Nor is the offer likely to divide North American conservatives into rival Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical camps, its leaders tell CEN.

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In the light of that I stated that in the event of union with the Roman Catholic Church I would be willing to receive re-ordination into the Roman Catholic priesthood but that I would not be willing to deny the priesthood I have exercised hitherto.

This is clearly a contentious and complex issue and one where it is easy to misunderstand the nuances of the debate. I think I made my position clear in my address at the Forward in Faith assembly. The text is available below and a podcast may be found on the Forward in Faith website.

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From here:

Bishop Michael is not becoming a Roman Catholic. He intends to continue as a bishop in the Church of England and to encourage orthodox people, evangelical and catholic, in the world-wide Anglican Communion. As a long standing member of both ARCIC (Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission) and IARCCUM (International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission), he prays for principled unity based on the Bible and theological agreement between the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. He believes that such unity may be achieved through continuing dialogue.

A 500-year religious divide may be getting closer to being bridged. Earlier this week Pope Benedict announced new efforts to re-unite Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church.

The decision was reportedly reached in secret by a small group of Vatican officials and will make it easier for Anglicans to convert to Catholicism and was greeted with eagerness at one local Anglican church.

St. Luke’s in Fruitland Park was only formed two years ago, but its leaders say a departure from long-standing traditions in their faith have made these new overtures more welcome.

“The problem at the current time is the leadership of the Episcopal Church in this country and, to some extent, the Anglo church worldwide have gone off in a very liberal, protestant direction,” said St. Luke’s pastor, Father Dean Steward. “This has disturbed a lot of people.”

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A senior bishop has attacked the former Archbishop of Canterbury as a “moaner” for complaining about the timing of the Pope’s offer to Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England to join Rome.

The Bishop of Fulham, the Right Rev John Broadhurst, told The Times that the Church of England, including the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had been aware for years of the Vatican’s plans to admit disaffected Anglicans. “The Archbishop of Canterbury knew that this was happening, but didn’t know when,” Bishop Broadhurst said.

Asked about complaints by Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, about the Pope not consulting widely enough and seeking Dr Williams’s advice before announcing the plan, he said: “Well, he’s just moaning. Rowan is big enough and old enough to speak for himself.”

Bishop Broadhurst, chairman of the Forward in Faith traditionalist group and a campaigner against women priests, said Rome’s offer must be viewed as a positive step in the name of religious unity. “I think that a major chance for realignment is sitting around, and I think that’s what God wants,” he said.

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Father Jeffrey Steenson is an unusual Roman Catholic priest. He is married, has children and used to be a bishop.

“It has been a long journey, a joyful one, and has meant a lot of adjustments,” the American priest says of his decision two years ago to leave the Anglican church. The issues of gay and women priests were “catalysts”, he says, but the main reason was his belief in the importance of his relationship with Rome, the pope and St Peter.

“You can’t just be angry with the church you are leaving. The Catholic church does not want angry priests, but those who are positive in their faith . . . those making the move will have to purge the anger from their souls,” he told the Financial Times, speaking from the University of St Thomas in Houston, Texas.

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Both the cardinal and the archbishop stressed that the establishment of the personal ordinariates was “consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue, which continues to a be a priority for the Catholic Church”. Yet the new development marks a shift in the Vatican’s longstanding policy of discouraging the wholesale reception of breakaway groups from other denominations.

“This changes the context of ecumenism and is a new departure,” said the Rev. Dr William Franklin, an Academic Fellow at the Anglican Centre in Rome. “We, as Anglicans, will be interested to hear how the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) responds,” he said. Not a single PCPCU official ”“ including Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president ”“ was at the briefing.

“With this proposal the Church wants to respond to the legitimate aspirations of these Anglican groups for full and visible unity with the Bishop of Rome,” Cardinal Levada said.

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Bishop Hind said he would be “happy” to be reordained as a Catholic priest and said that divisions in Anglicanism could make it impossible to stay in the church.

He is the most senior Anglican to admit that he is prepared to accept the offer from the Pope, who shocked the Church of England last week when he paved the way for clergy to convert to Catholicism in large numbers.

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The Church of England could not comment on numbers likely to convert, with one source adding: “It’s all guesswork.” But Stephen Parkinson, director of FiF, said a figure of 1,000 Church of England priests, reported in the media, was “credible.” Read our news story on this here.

Estimates of laity are “much harder,” Parkinson said. “Inevitably if you say 1,000 priests you are then talking about several thousand laity.”

But he said he “would not be at all surprised at a dozen” bishops in England switching. However, in England, bishops were likely to move individually rather than take their entire dioceses, which tend to have diverse views, with them.

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The special provision for those ”˜originally belonging to the Anglican Communion’ (as they will be termed) was announced with not much notice to either the Archbishop of Canterbury or to the Archbishop of Westminster. This doesn’t mean it is intended to ”˜poach’ priest and people from the Church of England or the other Anglican Churches. While there are questions about its ecumenical communication, it was a known fact that both former Anglicans ”“ such as members of the Traditional Anglican Communion ”“ and those still belonging to Churches of the Anglican Communion have asked the Vatican to consider some group recognition as some way of retaining an Anglican identity in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican has responded to their requests. What does the Apostolic Constitution, about to be finalised, entail? What is a Personal Ordinariate for former Anglicans? What is clear is that it won’t be all such individuals or groups have been looking for. It is not a diocese or Anglican Rite Church in communion with Rome.

A Personal Ordinariate is a pastoral provision in juridical form which will allow some continuing Anglican heritage to be expressed. But it is what it says on the box, it is ”˜personal’ that is to say for a network of individuals and groups rather than the norm of a territorial diocese. The Note issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith makes this quite clear in saying that the structure of a Personal Ordinariate ”˜will be similar in some ways to that of Military Ordinariates’, that is to say the distinct jurisdiction of military chaplains. The model is that of a society. But this will not be entirely separate from the Roman Catholic territorial dioceses, and there has to be consultation with the local Roman Catholic bishops before they can be established. How many Anglicans, priest and laity, will want to avail themselves of this provision remains to be seen.

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The Vatican’s announcement this week that it will allow former Anglicans who join the Catholic Church to retain a collective identity, using many of their traditional prayers and hymns in their own specially designed dioceses, is an event with profound implications for both Anglican and Catholic life.

The decision, made to accommodate Anglicans upset with their church’s growing acceptance of homosexuality and of women clergy, is likely to transform ecumenical relations between the churches. It will also heighten the internal Catholic debate over the requirement of priestly celibacy (which is to be routinely waived for married Anglican clergy who convert under the new rules, extending an exception made on a limited basis till now).

Perhaps the most striking effect of the Vatican’s move is the likelihood that, within the next few years, Catholic priests around the world will be celebrating Mass in a form that draws largely from the Book of Common Prayer. This resonant text, in its many versions, has informed Anglican worship since shortly after King Henry VIII led the Church of England away from Rome nearly five centuries ago.

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Here is one:

Sir, The Anglican bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough flew to Rome to negotiate a special deal for their followers, apparently without the knowledge of the Archbishop of Canterbury (reports, Oct 21 and 22; letters, Oct 22); and Edwin Barnes, a former Anglican Bishop of Richborough, says that “the Church of England must transfer churches to us” (Thunderer, Oct 21).

The mind boggles. The Church of England has taken, by its proper procedures, some decisions about gays and women in its ministry that a minority do not like. Members of that minority are free to leave and join a church of their choice. By what principle do they demand that they take some Church of England assets with them?

A hundred years ago, in Scotland, the courts were dragged into a similar dispute. When they awarded the assets of the Free Church of Scotland to a minority faction, the result was so absurd that it had to be reversed by legislation. I doubt whether the courts would make the same mistake again in either England or Scotland.

Of course people should follow their consciences. But conscience does not look so good when accompanied by demands for money and assets.

Professor Iain Mclean
University of Oxford

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But the provision for married clergy, which the Catholic church has made on a limited basis since at least the 1980s, remains a qualified one. Only unmarried men will be eligible to serve as bishops in the new dioceses, the Vatican said, consistent with a “long historical tradition” in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Other details of the new rules remain unclear pending their still-unscheduled publication, but Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, suggested on Tuesday that the new dioceses will not ordain married men unless they have already started their preparation in Anglican seminaries, or permit unmarried priests to take wives after ordination.

For some potential converts, those qualifications are a deal breaker.

“I find the lack of a permanent provision for a married priesthood to be a serious obstacle to unity,” said Anglican Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, who has considered joining the Catholic church in the past.

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What changed?

For years Catholic bishops in England were reluctant to open the door wide to traditionalist Anglicans, partly because their “more Catholic than the Pope” smells-and-bells churchmanship was out of step with modern Catholicism. They also did not want to upset Church of England bishops with whom they had developed strong ecumenical relations.

But then last year the Church of England’s General Synod voted to allow women to become bishops. More importantly it also voted for no special provision to be put in place to allow traditionalists to bypass a woman bishop and seek episcopal oversight from a man. The decision radically shifted attitudes in Rome.

So whose initiative is this?

It began with Anglican dissidents for whom women bishops were the final straw but who were already alarmed by women or gay priests.

Two years ago an Australian archbishop, John Hepworth, leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion which claims to represent 400,000 worshippers worldwide, went to the Vatican to seek terms for his flock to be accepted into full communion with Rome. Part of the Roman Curia received him sympathetically, but the dominant group of Vatican bureaucrats were against him.

But then came the Synod vote.

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The latest move from the Roman Catholic Church to extend an American experiment comes not a moment too soon. Two of our Church of England provincial bishops (the “flying bishops” of Ebbsfleet and Richborough) met Cardinal William Levada in Rome some months ago, and believed an offer would be made towards Anglican Catholics. The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, had said to me more than ten years ago that Rome would have to be generous to Anglicans who could not accept women bishops.

The offer to extend the Apostolic Constitution to England and elsewhere is very welcome. In America a similar constitution allows Episcopalian priests, some married men with families, to become Catholic priests. They have been given a prayer book, the Book of Divine Worship, that takes a great deal from the Book of Common Prayer but makes it entirely Catholic. Clearly Rome now sees the need to extend this provision to England.

The Holy See has come to realise that the Church of England is so divided that it must speak to separate groups within it.

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Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, responds to the announcement of the new Apostolic Constitution.

I welcome the Roman Catholic Church’s generosity of spirit and its recognition of what Pope Paul VI called the ”˜legitimate prestige and patrimony’ of the Anglican Communion.

I am unclear, however, as to whether there is agreement about the faith ”˜once for all delivered to the saints’ on which such an offer must be based.

For orthodox Anglicans, the supreme authority of the Word of God is, naturally, a basic requirement for any such agreement to be reached.

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Blog readers take note–John Allen is one of the very best and well sourced reporters on the Vatican–KSH.

In a move with potentially sweeping implications for relations between the Catholic church and some 80 million Anglicans worldwide, the Vatican has announced the creation of new ecclesiastical structures to absorb disaffected Anglicans wishing to become Catholics. The structures will allow those Anglicans to hold onto their distinctive spiritual practices, including the ordination of married former Anglican clergy as Catholic priests.

Those structures would be open to members of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the main American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. American Episcopalians are said to number some 2.2 million.

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Bishop Peter [Price]’s subject was The Church of England: the next 25 years in the context of the Anglican Communion, the world wide Church and other faiths.

He said: “As we look ahead into the next 25 years most of what will happen to us will be formed by things that are external to the church. The crises that will face humanity in 2034 for example are already in embryo with us now.”

He referred to the predicted demise of fossil fuels, a population explosion among the world’s poorest people, water shortage brought about by climate change, increased nationalism and the risk of germ and nuclear warfare that could kill millions of people.

Bishop Peter said: “How religions respond with openness, respect and a common concern for humanity and the planet, will in many ways be the key to whether they will have any part to play in a world that has all too often learned to do without them.

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Bishop James Newcome has a mild and engaging manner and his thoughtful response to each of my questions hints that he is unlikely to be a controversial prelate ”“ as long as you don’t raise the subject of nuclear power.

On the question of same-sex marriages, for example, he firmly backs the Church of England line that they should never be allowed in Anglican places of worship.

Even on the thorny sub-ject of wind farms, which is exercising the minds of many people in his diocese, Bishop Newcome is reluc-tant to use overly divisive language.

Instead, it is he who is ”˜very torn’ on the issue.

“I am in favour of wind farms, even though they are very erratic and not hugely effective,” he says.

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One thing is certain: alongside the wish of its majority that women should be admitted to the episcopate, the Synod has also insisted on provision for those who, in conscience, could not go along with this development. It is difficult to estimate the size of this minority, but more than a third of the Synod might vote against any final legisla­tion, should this provision not meet the needs of those for whom it was intended ”” and herein lies the difficulty.

It is all too easy to categorise these groups as Anglo-Catholic or conservative Evangelical; but a variety of people from all traditions remain unconvinced that this is the mind of Christ for his Church, as revealed in scripture and tradi­tion.

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THE news that the revision committee has chosen not to explore the option of the single clause with a statutory code of practice any further, and has gone for “certain functions to be invested in bishops by statute” will strike despair into the hearts of many. What the committee is proposing takes a step back from the position Synod thought it had reached in July 2008.

My concerns are on several levels. First, these proposals appear to institutionalise mistrust in legislation: the opponents of women’s ordination do not trust the bishops to make proper provision. Is that really what we have come to?

Second, it destroys the ecclesiology of the Church of England, making it legitimate to “choose your own bishop”. Are there to be any limits as to the grounds on which you might petition to do this?

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