The Church of England may see a “flood” of traditionalist members moving to the Roman Catholic Church following an offer by Pope Benedict XVI to welcome Anglican priests and worshippers, a religious group said.
The Vatican said yesterday it has set up a special structure to integrate Anglicans and enable the faith’s married priests to become Catholic clerics.
“It could well be a flood, provided the terms and conditions are favorable,” said Stephen Parkinson, director of the Anglican traditionalist group Forward in Faith. As many as 1,000 priests could convert, he said today in a telephone interview. “We haven’t seen the fine print yet.”
I highly doubt there will be a “flood of converts.” The incredulity and angst over at liberal RC publications such as the National Catholic Reporter reveals an interesting array of opinions. Some are wondering if the Anglicans who do make the move will be an alarming mix of “homophobes” and woman-haters; others are disturbed about the effect of bringing in more married clergy and bishops while the RC clergy and bishops are expected to remain celibate. I doubt it’s going to be the coup that headlines like this are proclaiming. Most disaffected Anglican evangelicals remain quite Protestant in their sensibilities, another point recognized at the RC blogs. I’d love to see how the “converts” would handle all of those Marian “Holy Days of Obligation,” for instance.
And if they really think they’d be escaping homosexual priests and women in power, then they are in for a shock. They will have to decide which they could tolerate better — some openly partnered homosexual Anglican clergy or some polyamorous homosexual RC clergy who pretend they’re celibate until they’re caught; female priests who serve well or in-your-face feminist nuns who are demanding ordination and seem to resent men.
The Body of Christ may be Mystical but it’s still comprised of human beings.
I don’t a huge group of Anglicans swimming the Tiber either, at least here in the States. I gather this move was more directed at the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England proper which has had serious issues with General Synod and Female Bishops over the past few years.
Here in the States, there has been an Anglican-rite option in the Catholic church for a while, and there has been a few but not that many priests and laity taking advantage of it. Not as they had hoped anyway.
I think the jury is still out in England, as the Anglo-catholic wing is a lot more prominent and organized than here in the Episcopal Church. Maybe some will, but reading the blogs of the Anglo-catholics in Britain, I think most would prefer to stay in the Church of England if at all possible.
I agree, Archer.
And if this truly is a move aimed at England, then the Vatican is ignoring the fact that some semblance of nationalism and British independence remain among English Protestants that is inherently part of the C of E. Secularly, the Britons do not march lockstep with the European Union. Religiously, there still remains some suspicion and skepticism about “foreign powers,” including the Church of Rome. Tony Blair’s conversion doesn’t commend the RCC to average Britons. And the blood of the martyrs in Oxford is still remembered.
And you’re right that this won’t have much effect in the United States. Here in Texas, there are four Anglican Use parishes that haven’t caused a ripple. On my journey from Rome, I looked into this option and found the one closest to my home to be HEAVILY Marian, which I couldn’t accept even as a cradle Catholic.
What IS interesting, however, is the continued dialogue between the Orthodox Metropolitan Johan and Ft. Worth Anglicans. He has offered a hand of welcome, and I think that would be much more amenable to Anglicans looking to leave than joining up with the RCC.
Ooops, that would be Metropolitan Jonah, not Johan. Sorry!
Keep in mind that Met. +Jonah attached a lot of conditions to that hand of welcome. I and most Orthodox who keep tabs on things Anglican remain extremely skeptical about the ability of more than a handful of Anglicans to embrace Orthodoxy. Not saying we wouldn’t love to be proven wrong. But Orthodoxy is at least as rigid as Rome on some things that a lot of Anglicans wold not be able to swallow.
In ICXC
John
#2 Had the RC bishops not, on the whole, been most unwelcoming of Episcopal groups converting and unwilling to establish “Anglican” parishes there would have been many more takers. Too much Irish anglophobia at work, and progressive suspicion of conservatives. Hence the end run around the bishops indicated by the ordinariate.
#3 You don’t get much more “marian” than the Orthodox, if by that you mean extravagant devotion to the Blessed Mother. But you don’t get the Immaculate Conception, or the Assumption defined as an article of faith (even though the Orthodox certainly believe it.)
Austin,
For some reason, many Anglicans have an affinity for icons, especially the Marian ones. I can’t tell you how many conferences I’ve seen offered over the past few years on “praying with icons.” But our beliefs regarding Mary align better with Orthodoxy than the RCC, which seems to turn a blind eye to excesses among the cults of Mary that promote some really odd stuff. Apparitions included.
Agree, Archer (#6), w/ your take on why the U.S. option has not seemed to flourish. Hostility towards, and dismissal of ,the ‘Anglican Use’ has been the standard response in a number of dioceses and among theologians and ecumencists with more ‘liberal’ perspectives.
I agree also w/ Archer (#2) that the numbers who have availed themselves of the Pastoral Provision in the U.S. have not been strikingly large. Nonetheless, the Pastoral Provision parishes in Texas have been very successful (w/ the exception of an effort in Austin years ago). They have built strong parishes slowly but surely and are part of a small but vibrant network that supports growing ‘Anglican Use’ missions in other parts of the country. To my mind, this is a more successful realization of the hopes behind the aims of the PP than would have been a meteoric rise that would have rocked far too many boats.
Another point to bear in mind is that a significant amt of worshippers at the PP parishes are not converts from Anglicanism. As one post-Vatican II cradle Catholic put it, the ‘Anglican Use’ appeals to him b/c it reclaims many aspects of Catholic liturgical tradition while being in the vernacular.
Personally, I wouldn’t be willing to throw around the expression, “flood of converts,” in terms of what we should expect. But I will not be surprised — though I may not live to see it — if these developments prove very significant over the long-term (which is the way Rome tends to think anyway).
I’m perplexed as to why people bring up how English Protestants and evangelicals would respond. This isn’t designed for them. This is designed for the Anglo-Catholics that have approached Rome expressing a desire to convert. Many of them are as much into Marian veneration as any Roman Catholic, and some even use the Novus Ordo missals.
[blockquote] But our beliefs regarding Mary align better with Orthodoxy than the RCC, which seems to turn a blind eye to excesses among the cults of Mary that promote some really odd stuff. [/blockquote]
I have often heard this said, but I tend to think that it is based on a misconception. To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in the Roman liturgy (and precious little in Roman devotional literature) which compares to the invocation, “Most Holy Theotokos, save us!” which features in many Eastern liturgies.
Teatime (#1),
I’m sure even the most casually informed Anglican who reads nearly any mainstream newspaper will be fully aware of “polyamorous homosexual RC clergy†and “in-your-face feminist nuns.†The same papers, however, will have clued anyone in to the fact that the current pontificate is giving such arrangements and personalities a run for their money. What’s more, the robust welcome, by many Catholics, of these efforts indicates that this isn’t going to be a flash in the pan. The average _National Catholic Reporter_ reader has even more reasons to express incredulity and angst than the ones you listed. In some ways, the “gig†of the past 40 years is up.
On a point of theology, no Catholic is required to hold and believe as true any of the Marian apparitions since they are, ultimately, private revelations. Even if pope after pope goes to Lourdes, Fatima, Guadalupe, etc., I, as a Catholic, am not required to believe in the authenticity of any of the apparitions these places memorialize.
AndrewA (#9),
The personal ordinariate is indeed, I think, a response primarily to Anglo-Catholics – at least in the immediate future. But if, as some suggest, this is also about looking East, and if these rapprochements bear fruit, I think that were I an Evangelical I would have to be asking myself a few serious questions about where the future of Christianity is truly to be found, especially since some issues dear to Evangelical hearts are immovably defended by Rome in a world that seems to be growing increasingly hostile to the Christian faith.
Paul #10,
Check out Louis de Montfort, whose devotions made a big comeback under JPII because they were commended by him. Groups at parishes in my area were committed to his writings and theology and I unwittingly joined a prayer group not knowing this. I hit the highway when told all of my prayers had to go through Mary so she could “perfect” them and send them on to Jesus. Just one example.
Another humorous one from my perspective is the “Hail Holy Queen” prayer. My son had to memorize it and recite it from memory as part of his First Communion examination. But if you check it out, you’ll see what a mouthful it is for an 8-year-old and my poor little guy just couldn’t remember it. The examiner took pity on him and helped him out a lot, then pronounced he passed. Afterward, my son asked me if it was a sin to really hate a prayer. Heh. The phraseology and imagery in that prayer is stunning in its attributions to the BVM.
Monksgate,
Truly, I hope you’re right that they’re cleaning house for their own sake. But I recall reports implicating then-Cardinal Ratzinger for the Vatican foot-dragging and downplaying of the sex abuse problem. And I recall Joan Chittister defying Vatican orders to refrain from speaking out and demanding W.O. The RCC has its issues and internal problems like everyone else.
As for the Marian apparitions, didn’t one of them call herself the “Immaculate Conception” before it was announced as a doctrine? And isn’t that “miracle” somewhat responsible for its promulgation as a doctrine? I’m not aware of any Scriptural evidence for that doctrine, nor that it was a long-understood Tradition in the church.
Teatime (#12),
Yes, I find de Montfort to be de trop as well. And frankly, JPII’s devotionalism got on my nerves. There, I said it. But none of this makes me a disobedient Catholic.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception goes way back, actually. Indeed, S. Bernard of Clairvaux (12th-c and Doctor of the Church, no less) denied it! Scriptural evidence is indeed thin at best. No, make that non-existent. But revelation from both the RC and the Anglican perspectives is not confined to sola scriptura.
No one’s house will ever be entirely clean, of course. That will have to wait for the eschaton (whatever “clean” will mean “then”). But I do see encouraging signs in the RCC (though vigilance is ever the watchword — and I hope the laity will continue to be bolder in this regard about demanding accountability). I’ve read the same reports about Ratzinger, but never the facts that would back them up. I think the argument is that his office was charged w/ these matters and didn’t respond in the way it should have done. But one suspects it isn’t as straightforward as that. I admit that I’m inclined to suspect favorably whereas others are inclined to suspect the opposite. But it’s the fact that all one can do, in the end, is speculate that, by definition, means we can’t construct solid arguments one way or the other. I simply don’t know, and I suspect we won’t have definitive answers for a long time. In the meantime, I’ve looked at policies in several U.S. dioceses on how they now handle such matters and am heartened by it (but still heartbroken by the suffering it took to get us here).
As for Joan Chittister’s defiance, if it’s the instance I have in mind, she was actually w/in her canonical rights, I believe. The curial office in question exceeded its bounds. Of course, there’s the issue of prudence, which Sr. Joan might not have heeded. And she has been heard to complain that some bishops (NB, they tend to be the younger ones) won’t allow her to speak in their dioceses.
At the end of the day, Rome is messy indeed, but the center holds. Sr. Joan knows that this applies to her tradition in a way KJS cannot understand it to apply to hers.
#12
No, Lourdes (which popularised the title) occurred four years after the solemn definition.
Try the Salve Regina in Latin, the language it was originally written in. The doctrine is the same (which presumably will still alienate you), but it’s extraordinarily beautiful, unlike the rather clunky English version.