At a meeting on Saturday at Pusey House in Oxford, the Revd Jonathan Baker SSC, Principal of Pusey House, said that a group was gathering to reflect on what was the “distinct tradition” within the Anglican Church, fostered since the ReformaÂtion, which was “potentially capable of finding its way to enrich the life of the wider Catholic Church”.
Under the norms of Benedict XVI’s Anglicanorum Coetibus, clergy trained in seminaries in the proÂposed Ordinariate (News, 23 OctoÂber) would be tutored in “those aspects of Anglican patrimony that are of particular value” to the RC Church.
One speaker, Eamon Duffy, ProÂfessor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge, and an Irish Roman Catholic, asked what “transferrable skills” Anglicans would bring. He said that what was distinctive was that they had been “shaped” by the Royal Supremacy, which had had a “moderating impact” on the differÂences in the Church of England between Catholics and Protestants.
“A fundamental part of the nature, identity, and patrimony of AnglicanÂism comes from the enforced co-existence of the Catholic dimension of Anglicanism within other more Protestant streams within an estabÂlishment,” Professor Duffy said. There would be “big problems imaÂgining how it would retain its coherence and Anglican identity outside those constraints. . . Could choral evensong survive in a minÂority uniate Church . . . within Roman Catholicism?”
The Church Times have put a particular slant on the conference that is really fair. I have listened to the speeches given and it is quite clear that the questions raised about patrimony and ethos were framed positively. Debate and self-examination was being encouraged about clarifying what are the distinctive elements of Catholic-minded Anglicanism and the gift they would be to the wider Church. More than anything it was a call for the collective focussing of minds on the issue of identity.
The presentations at this conference are available in audio format here: http://www.theanglocatholic.com/2010/04/anglicanorum-coetibus-conference-presentations/.
Check out especially [url=http://www.theanglocatholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Anglicanorum-Coetibus-24042010-10-Professor-Eamon-Duffy-Talk.mp3]Eamon Duffy’s address[/url].
I was unable to be present but am willing to bet it was a good deal less pessimistic towards the notion of an Ordinariate than the Church Times, with its own agenda, is letting on!