The traditional Anglican group in England, Forward in Faith, seemed enthusiastic: “It has been the frequently expressed hope and fervent desire of Anglican Catholics to be enabled by some means to enter into full communion with the see of Peter whilst retaining in its integrity every aspect of their Anglican inheritance which is not at variance with the teaching of the Catholic church.
“We rejoice that the Holy Father intends now to set up structures within the church which respond to this heartfelt longing. Forward in Faith has always been committed to seeking unity in truth and so warmly welcomes these initiatives as a decisive moment in the history of the Catholic movement in the Church of England.”
But traditionalists in the United States were more circumspect.
Robert Duncan, who as bishop of Pittsburgh led his diocese out of the Episcopal church and is now archbishop and primate of the Anglican Church in North America, issued a statement on the Web site Standfirminfaith.com.
“We rejoice that the Holy See has opened this doorway,” he wrote, but “we believe that this provision will not be utilized by the great majority of the Anglican Church in North America’s bishops, priests, dioceses and congregations.”
They still have problems with the Roman church, Duncan points out, namely: “historic differences over church governance, dogmas regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary and the nature of Holy Orders.”
Could the main problem be that ACNA’s umpteen bishops are married? Are any of them prepared to give up their purple shirts for their Catholic principles?
Fr. Mark (#1), the problem isn’t with the ACNA’s bishops, but with the traditionalist bishops in the TAC and in the CoE who are married. That is, the primate of The Traditional Anglican Communion, +John Hobgood of Australia, is not only married, but a divorced, TWICE-married ex-RC priest. That certainly posed a significant barrier to the incorporation of TAC’s ultra-consertive faithful (supposedly some 400,000 of them worldwide). But drawing the line at episcopal celibacy, instead of with priestly celibacy (as with the Eastern rite groups such as the Ukrainians or Byzantine Catholics) is indeed a very significant move, whose ramifications remain to be seen.
Two quick further observations. There is a stunning error in this National Catholic Reporter story. Canadian bishop Don Harvey (ANiC) most assuredly did NOT say that one of the remaining doctrinal barriers to the reunification of RCs and Anglicans was “the transfiguration of Christ.” What a blooper! What +Harvey referred to was the dogma of Transsubstantiation. A humorous error, but also a disturbing sign of sloppiness in how this article was written.
More seriously, I was disappointed by the too short list of remaining difficulties that ++Bob Duncan outlined, at least as quoted here. While it’s true, of course, that such obstacles or contentious points include [i]”historic differences over church governance, dogmas concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the nature of Holy Orders,”[/i] I find that list omits some core differences that are at least as important as those things. That is, the crucial doctrines over which the Reformation was originally fought, including the all-important doctrine of forensic justification by faith alone, and the supremacy of Holy Scripture over church Tradition. Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura are HUGE obstacles that still remain, for many Anglicans.
I’m not saying that ++Duncan was sweeping these things under the rug. I think his list of remaining problem areas was simply illustrative, not exhaustive.
David Handy+
(FWIW, that’s post 3500 for me)
Well, #2, I say this in all charitable kindness: you may want to start by achieving higher accuracy w/r/t the names of the people you purport to know so much about. The TAC’s Archbishop is John Hepworth, a fact easily checked in a couple of key-strokes at your computer……Next, you may want to refrain from passing judgment on Abp. Hepworth’s marital history if you do not have enough of the facts at your disposal, which, incidentally, you do not have.
Next, you may want to refrain from passing judgment on Abp. Hepworth’s marital history if you do not have enough of the facts at your disposal, which, incidentally, you do not have.
Abp. Hepworth’s marital history has surfaced in several of this week’s threads. Would you be kind enough to tell us what we should know about it?
Irenaeus: Of course it has surfaced – makes such good semi-lurid journalism….review for yourself who chose to include it.
It is not mine to tell, though I can understand your asking and only posted what I did because, coming from the same diocese originally myself as did Rev. Handy, I wanted to alert him to the fact that there is more than meets the eye to this matter, and he (and you) will be glad not to have jumped to conclusions from scant and incomplete facts.
Some background briefly, and inappropriately, appeared on The Continuum website last year, and they were asked to remove it which they thoughtfully did. It’s actually off-topic to this thread, anyway. Do not worry overmuch. As far as I can tell, in the proposed new arrangements Abp. Hepworth could be laicized.
Also off-topic but more important right now would be prayer for Fr. Nigel Mumford:
http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/fr-nigels-condition-worsened-overnight-fast-and-pray/
TACit (#3),
Thanks for chiming in. I freely admit that I was and am quite ignorant about Archbishop Hepworth and his marital history, and I’m glad you helped set the record straight, not least about his name. Alas, I wrote with haste, and was careless in checking it before I posted my #2.
It may be, of course, that the TAC primate had biblical grounds for his divorce (Matt 19 or 1 Cor 7). I wasn’t casting aspersions about that, although it may have seemed that way to some readers. I’m glad therefore to clarify what I meant. As the caps suggested in my earlier post, it wasn’t the divorce, but the fact that he was TWICE married that would pose such a sharp challenge to traditional Christian and catholic standards with regard to qualitifications for being a bishop. That is, along with most NT scholars, I take 1 Tim. 3:2, the part about an [i]episcopos[/i] being “the husband of ONE wife,” not as ruling out polygamy (which was exceedingly rare in the Roman world of the first century AD), but as ruling out a second marriage, even if the first wife had died, or deserted him, etc.
I’m sorry if it seemed that I was passing judgment on a respected Christian leader. You’re quite right, TACit, I know virtually nothing about the man. I intended simply to flag an issue in theoretical terms, not to criticize ++Hepworth personally.
And I’m glad you urged fervent prayer for Fr. Nigel Mumford. He desperately needs it.
David Handy+
#7, that’s fine.
In the interest of getting this thread back on topic – this link (see “Recent Events”) to what Abp. Hepworth has had to say to the FiF/UK this weekend may be as informative as will be found until the Apostolic Constitution itself becomes available:
http://www.forwardinfaith.com/news/na09-10.html
As I said before #, I cannot directly answer #4’s question but, I’ve just stumbled across a quote from Abp. Hepworth (within the following extract from another blog) that I had wished I could give you – indicating his intentions:
“Archbishop John Hepworth: The man who’s been all over the news. Archbishop Hepworth, as you’ve no doubt seen in a thousand stories, is an Australian, twice-married, former Roman Catholic priest. What you may not have seen is that he long ago said he’d gladly lay aside the mitre to achieve the unity with the Holy See on which he’s staked his leadership. Under him, the rather diverse Traditional Anglican Communion has been greatly energized and unified, though not without losses of priests and parishes who want nothing to do with Rome. Many quietly question the size of TAC’s membership in Africa and Asia, where its largest numbers are reported and wonder how many lay people in his American Church will go to Rome, but no one can question that this is a man with a mission who’s seeing his vision come within reach. I’ve never met him, but friends who have tell me he’s energetic and charismatic.”