Somebody has leaked to the Guardian a sensitive email from the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, “flying” Bishop of Ebbsfleet, to Bishop Peter Elliott of Melbourne, the Catholic auxiliary bishop in charge of implementing Anglicanorum coetibus in Australia.
In it, Bishop Burnham ”“ an outstanding and inspiring Anglo-Catholic leader ”“ confirms what we’ve all long suspected: that there are forces in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales who hate the Pope’s plan and want Anglicans to stay Anglican. Or, as he puts it, “who think that Anglicans are best off doing what they are presently doing”.
Bishop Burnham will be embarrassed by this leak, which reveals that in order to make sure that the Ordinariate project is not “smothered” he has been talking privately to Mgr Patrick Burke at the CDF (another great priest, by the way). He’s also a bit disobliging about Archbishop Hepworth of the Traditional Anglican Communion.
Damian Thompson at the [b]Telegraph[/b] also has two other bits of important news. A respected bishop in the CoE, +Paul Richardson, who was formerly a bishop in Australia and then in Papua New Guinea, and most recently was assistant bishop in Newcastle (England), has gone over to Rome, not as part of the Ordinariat, but in the old-fashioned way. He converted last month. He is 63.
And Damian also proudly breaks the news that FiF-Australia has voted to accept the pope’s offer and join the Ordinariat for Anglicans. However, it appears that only a small number of Australians are involved in this move. Still, it’s the first branch of the international Forward in Faith movement to sign on.
Kendall, I’d say that those developments are even more newsworthy than the leaked email from flying bishop Andrew Burnham, the widely admired Bishop of Ebbsfleet, about some Enlgish and Welsh Roman Catholic bishops quietly trying to “smother” the papal Ordinariat initiative.
David Handy+
The figure of 200 given for FIF/OZ seems actually to be the number of its clerical members.
Thanks, Dr. Tighe (#2).
I was wondering about that. 200 FiF clergy seems much more plausible indeed.
But of course it only leaves us wondering what Fif-UK will do. Or the SSC.
David Handy+