What is lost in the midst of all the opinion and statements offered by various groups in the church is the ecumenical and ecclesiological implications of this movement. In particular, it may be helpful for a moment to consider this development in light of the approach to Anglicanism articulated by Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1973. Ramsey is not only well-respected by both liberals and conservatives within contemporary Anglicanism, he likely has had more significance than any other person on modern ecumenical relations between Anglicanism and other Christian traditions. It was Ramsey who oversaw the creation of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). It was Ramsey who had fought so mightily for the union of English Methodism with the Church of England. And it was to Ramsey that Pope Paul VI gave his own episcopal ring, back in days when relations between the two traditions were somewhat warmer.
Rev. Cramer’s dismay that the establishment of the Ordinariates has not been more egalitarian is historically forgetful. He writes as though Anglicanism and the Catholic Church have forever been morally equivalent parallel bodies working toward union, rather than a formerly unified body from which a handful of spoil-sports stomped off the playing field 500 years ago to go start their own game and play by their own rules. With this historical fact in mind, one would think that the appropriate posture of the quitters desiring to re-join the game would be that of humble supplicants, and it should be unremarkable that those who never left the game assume that the rules of the original game continue to apply. The idea that the Quitters should be viewed as being on some kind of level ecclesiological playing field with the Faithful is silly.
Cramer also expresses his dismay that the Ordinariate seems to function simply to draw together like-minded people, stating “The Christian Gospel, of course, is about reconciling diverse minds and groups in a unified body,” rooted in our common baptism. Yet I thought there is one Lord, ONE FAITH, one baptism. The attempt to arrive at one faith from diverse minds has been amply demonstrated in the Anglican experiment, and we can all see how well that’s working out. The goal of all ecumenism ought not to be diverse minds, but ONE mind (as Acts often describes the unity among the Apostles) submitted to ONE faith. Anyone who thinks this will happen in any way [i] other [/i] than the spoil-sports finally submitting themselves to the unchanging rule-book of the game they once quit (that is, the Catechism of the Catholic Church) is simply deluded.
I come to this late, but…
As much as I love Rome, and hope for reunification between our two bodies, and as much as I know it is Anglicans who have thrown up most of the barriers to that unity being achieved within the next few generations (at least), I have to respond to PaulC on a few points.
Firstly, Paul suggests that the Anglicans are a bunch of “spoil-sports” who stomped “off the playing field 500 years ago to start their own game…”
Paul seems to forget that the Western Church had become thoroughly corrupt and that Mother Rome had a fetish for burning her brightest and most reform-minded children at the stake. If Rome sets these kinds of rules, no wonder a goodly number of her children (most of Northern Europe) decided they didn’t want to play. One might argue, of course, that the reformers kept playing by some of the same rules… well, shame on them. I’ll note that they saw the error of their ways a long time before Rome, though.
PaulC also suggests that they should submit themselves to the “unchanging rule-book of the game they once quit (that is the Catechism of the Catholic Church).”
While I know it goes against everything PaulC believes, the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” reflects a much more mature Catholicism than (say) the Council of Trent. If the Catechism reflected the beliefs of Rome at the time of the Reformation, maybe (just maybe… the wickedness of many in the Roman hierarchy needs to be considered, as well) things would have gone very differently. Which is to say, it may be easy for PaulC to maintain to himself that the Catechism reflects the “unchanging rule book” of Rome. He’ll have a heck of a job convincing most historians that this is the case, though.
My intention is not to paint us as being perfect. We bear our own faults. But to suggest that people who wanted to restore the gosel and the Church to their former glory (and died for it) are “quitters” is more than a little appalling. Look to your own Church’s sins, PaulC, and I’ll look to mine. When both sides are able to approach each other with penitence and humility, then we’ll see what God will do.
Farstrider:
Admittedly, my comment was probably more provocative than necessary, but this was a deliberate device intended to provoke debate. Since after a few days’ silence I seem to have provoked it, I’m happy to soften up a bit in my reply (though in the frenetic ramp-up to Christmas my ability to sustain a protracted exchange will be finite!).
The point of my comment was that it is entirely reasonable to assume that those who never left the game still get to set the rules. Whether the rule book is more nuanced and mature at this stage is beside the point (though the rules themselves have never changed; they’ve simply been more fully fleshed out and better articulated during the intervening centuries). You want to re-enter the Big Game, you play by whatever rules are in place. The problem with Cramer’s essay is that it assumes an equivalency of ecclesiastical standing between the two bodies that does not exist, which, he thinks, should have issued in some kind of egalitarian dialogue and tit-for-tat compromise, rather than the unilateral welcome Rome has offered. The story of the Prodigal Son is an apt analogy: Yes, the Father welcomes his son home with open arms, but before any of that happens, the son first comes to the self-realization that the sin was wholly his, and throws himself on his Father’s mercy without condition. Dragging out tiresome grievances of the Father’s excessively harsh punishments in the past (as with the stake-burnings) does not change who is the father in this scenario, and who is the son.
Was Rome corrupt by the 16th century? In some of her behavior, yes, but in her unchanging Apostolic teaching, no. Popes with multiple mistresses nevertheless never taught heresy. One should never judge any system by its worst abuses. To judge Catholic Church’s claim to the fullness of truth by her stake-burnings and corruption is like judging Democracy from the exmple of the democratically elected government of Saddam Hussein. Stake-burnings and corruption are not examples of the Catholic Church playing by her own rule book, but violating it. Leaving the game – or refusing to re-enter it – pouting about the violations (which are inevitable due to our sinfulness), rather than staying because of how glorious the game could be when the rules are truly followed, is childish.
In John 17, Jesus stakes the whole witness of the Church on its unity: Until the church is at perfect unity, the world will NOT KNOW that the Father has sent His Son in love to the world. I should think this would be the highest goal of every Evangelical, and Jesus himself teaches that the most evangelical thing anyone can do is to unify the Church. And since (make no mistake about it) the only way this will happen is for the Prodigal Sons of the Reformation to throw themselves unconditionally at the feet of their ecclesiastical Father – who does indeed welcome them with open arms – the only thing left for any self-respecting Evangelical to do is to immediately become Catholic. Once I realized this as an Evangelical Anglican several years ago, that’s precisely what I did.