In approaching this work, some important perspectives have to be kept in mind.
First, this response does not alter our determined and continuing dedication to the pathway of mutual commitment and cooperation between the Church of England and the Catholic Church in this country. The foundations of all the joint work in ARCIC and the International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission make clear the path we follow together. An Anglo-Catholic tradition will continue to be a part of the Church of England, nurtured by those who cherish this tradition while not ready to accept the current jurisdiction of the Holy See.
We also need to appreciate what this moment makes clear about the mind of Pope Benedict XVI. I believe this is another illustration of his desire to achieve reconciliation with those who are estranged from the Catholic Church and who show a willingness to be reconciled. This desire is clearly one of the priorities of his pontificate. As he has written: “In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognise in a love, which presses ‘to the end’ (cf John 13.1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen … So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and in various ways, always) the Church’s real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small.” (Letter to Bishops, March 10 2009). Reconciliation, then, is a part of the proclamation of the Gospel.
Nice try, +Vincent.
Response it is, but it is also a huge initiative which affects Anglicans, both in and out of the Anglican Communion, on a global basis.
Of note: [blockquote] there will have to be agreements about the way forward and the practical steps by which Personal Ordinariates, if and when they are established, will be an integral part of the Catholic community, working in close unity with the dioceses of England and Wales. [/blockquote] “If and when…”
This reveals the narrowness of the bishop’s thinking, as he contemplates the impact on his own and neighboring dioceses. A potentially new authority (ordinary) is coming into his midst, and it would be natural for him to feel uncomfortable and even threatened.
The ‘natural’ order is being changed.
I’ve been saying this at every opportunity. Among many Anglican commenters there is a subtext that the pope is poaching, scheming, plotting, conniving, wooing, coaxing, in order to get Anglicans through the Catholic door. False.
The pope is RESPONDING with generosity to multiple and earnest pleas from several sources, not only TAC (though TAC is the group that has made the single formal petition).
In an uncharitable environment no one can do right. If the pope had refused the petition he would be callous and typically Roman in his inflexibility. If he accepts the petition he is apparently wily, underhanded, power craven, etc.
In such an environment, he cannot win unless he converts to being an Anglican?
# 1.
Calm down brother. “If and when” does not mean “if ever.” He is simply not presuming how Anglicans will react. It is their option, their move. It would be wrong for him to make any assumptions.
And yes, Catholics of all stripes within a nation do work together. When the USCCB gets together, it is not only the Latin bishops but those of the Eastern Churches as well. So yes, on the bishop’s level they will work together. Whether on the parish level they will be integrated is anyone’s guess. Even neighboring Latin parishes do not necessarily do much together. Also, there is not much evidence in the US of neighboring or overlapping dioceses working together on much either.
In other words, having your own ordinary who is in as direct a relationship with the pope as any other is about as much autonomy as anyone could imagine.
I dont see any basis for your “gotcha” here.
Fr. J, believe me, I am perfectly calm. May I suggest that you may be the person who is worked up about this: (witness “at every oppotunity”).
I made no claim about an insidious motive on the part of the Pope. that is an imputation on your part. I make the claim, instead, that in response to the entreaties by catholic Anglicans, and prompted by the particular exigencies of the uncertainties in the Anglicanosphere, the Pope has indeed made a generous initiative to catholic Anglicans.
It could have been less generous, it could have been less far-reaching, but it was not. The pope firmly took the initiative to take a bold step forward for the aid of the catholic-minded who needed refuge, and changed the facts on the ground world-wide. I see this to some extent in the same sense that African prmates and others, in response to requests from beleagured evangelicals, made bold initiatives that changed the facts on the ground continent-wide in North America. Both the Africans and the Pope are to be commended.
A game-changer is always threatening, in greater or lesser degree, to the powers that be. Bishop Nichols betrays his own discomfiture in some of the way he puts things, as I pointed out above. By attempting to confine the Pope’s initiative to a ‘response’ he belittles the munificence of what the Pope has done, and betrays his own hope that his own bailiwick will not be disturbed too much. But this is of course a normal reaction to someone who is contemplating an alteration in his authority structure; in this case, another Ordinary perhaps next door to his cathedral.
I would extend your advice to Bishop Vincent and to you: Calm down, brother.
3. It is always safer to stick with what a text in fact says and not delve into psychologizing. It is all too easy to project.
Everything Vincent says here is very normal sounding to me. I read no sense of being threatened in his words, though perhaps many would prefer to think he is, in fact, threatened.
Since this has all been in the works for several years, Abp. Vincent’s disposition toward this new arrangement was undoubtedly well considered at the time of his appointment. How could it not have been? Why would the Vatican appoint in April 2009 a man who would be threatened by an policy that was sure to be in place within a year’s time? I am sure that this was all discussed in detail prior to his appointment.
Fr. J:
1: If +Vincent had been thinking with the global mind of the See of Rome, he would not have confined his comment to England and Wales. This is what betrays his provincial (small “p”) thinking.
2: I had not considered that +Vincent, the new kid on the block, would have been–a year in advance–on the ‘inside’ of a bold new policy with global effect, when even (so the speculation goes) the folks in charge of ecumenical policy were apparently unaware. I suppose it may have been possible, but since you are ‘sure’ of this, I suppose you must have information that I do not have.
3: You can fill me in here: is +Vincent’s episcopacy one of the premiere positions, one of the movers and shakers of Vatican policy? Is he a key advisor to the “Congregation” that formulated this new initiative? If not, why would he be consulted, other than just enough in advance to make the announcement run smoothly? Perhaps he was appointed to this position specifically with this in mind? Or is all this pure speculation on your part?
The Rabbit
To respond to the Rabbit:
1. The Abp is not responsible for thinking with the global mind of the See of Rome. It is not Westminster that has a parallel role to Canterbury, but Rome. His concern and competence to act and speak is restricted to his diocese and the broader church of England and Wales. He spoke according to his sphere of concern and responsibility. He did his job, and he did it quite well.
2. The petition to Rome from the TAC was submitted the first week of October 2007. By April 2009, the program was well underway. That was not a year ago, but just 6 months ago. The coordination and conversation and consultation it takes to pull something like this off I’m sure did require those two years. This is not something the pope pulled out of his hat just last week. I am under no illusion that the Abp. was himself consulted, though I am sure that he was briefed. And there is every reason to believe that the Vatican chose someone who was amenable to and capable of pulling off a project like this.
3. Which episcopal see is of critical import at any given moment depends on the moment, not mere geography. At this moment Westminster certainly is a critical see. And having been filled only months before this critical juncture, I have no doubt he was chosen with this moment in mind.
What is so hard for you to believe in all of this? I was writing about this two years ago. There really is no surprise here. Anyone who has been paying attention knew that something like a personal prelature was a very real possibility.
What I find hard to believe is that someone would stretch their interpretation of a few words into something sinister when all the evidence is to the contrary.
Every Anglican voice that is considering reunion with Rome has only found in these same words a spirit of generosity and welcome. Why cant you?
[blockquote] What I find hard to believe is that someone would stretch their interpretation of a few words into something sinister when all the evidence is to the contrary. [/blockquote] There you go again. It is always safer to stick with what a commenter in fact says and not delve into psychologizing. It is all too easy to project. I never said there was anything sinister about what the bishop said; that came out of your own head.
Specifically, the archbishop wants to characterize the Pope’s action as just a response to a request, while denying that it is also a bold initiative. I’m just not buying his sales pitch. It’s really a minor point; I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up over it. Again, Calm Down.
I don’t really know why +Vincent feels a need to put his spin on this: perhaps the Pope’s announcement has frightened the horses and alarmed the Queen.
Regardless of how non-confrontational and “just a response” this initiative is, it in fact may have serious repercussions for Anglicans both in Britain and the United States.
If significant numbers in Britain take advantage of the offer, as one Brit has opined, it virtually guarantees that England will have women bishops by 2013. This will further widen the ecumenical divide between England and Rome.
In the United States, if significant numbers from TEC take up this offer–a questionable result–it will remove almost the last vestiges of resistance to the libertine and pagan drift of this once great denomination. If significant numbers from ACNA depart, it will strengthen the hand of the evangelicals while weakening the catholic witness–hardly a result that can be characterized as ‘Anglican.’
The least amount of potential negative repercussion appears, to this uninformed observer, to be in the area where the strongest ‘request’ would seem to have come from–Australia, where TAC is most numerous. Perhaps we will hear more about this from our Aussie commenters.
Yes, any major movement of Anglicans to these ordinariates will likely tip scales. No doubt there. But those movements would be Anglican choices, not Roman ones. Rome has opened a door. Anglicans will enter or not. And, the Anglicans most likely to enter are those who have made the requests, both formal and informal including not only TAC but also FiF/UK. A perusal of the Bishop of Ebbsfleet’s statement gives reason to believe he was prepared in advance of this announcement and had already chosen a date (Chair of Peter) to focus his movement’s movement. So, again, all the initiative is on the part of Anglicans. Rome is providing safe shelter for Anglicans in a storm banging repeatedly on the door. Any and all implications of this arrangement are firmly in the hands of Anglicans. I might add that the potential consequences in the UK of this arrangement will be no different than those caused by the movement of Anglicans in North America to the ACNA.
And those consequences were severe indeed, although many would say that the departures only hastened an inevitable outcome. Perhaps the same may be said for the English church.
What I see most of all in the pope’s offer is perhaps a kind of divine irony. Anglicanism which did its best at one time to destroy the Catholic Church in England and which so fervently reviled the office of the papacy, now finds the greatest hope of saving its most beautiful elements in a Dunkirk-like rescue by a pope offered as a protection from its own. Such historic alignments and ironies seem surely to many the work of the Holy Spirit.