www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Hundreds of Anglicans to become RC

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I agree.

Do the Anglicans use Gregorian Chant?

I wonder if any Roman converts from the Anglicans have considered joining the Melkite Church? Or will Rome even allow that option?

Hmmmm.... I guess you haven't heard the rumor that the USCCB long ago secretly established communion with the ECUSA.

The irony, of course, is that the CoE has been ordaining women for many many years - and for an even longe period of time the Monarch of Great Britain, the head of the CoE has been a woman.

So threatening to leave now because they are going to admit women to the bishopric is both silly and hypocritical.

Where were these people when ordaining women became acceptable? Why wait until now to complain?

Some Anglican ministers in England did become Melkite when the C of E began ordaining priestesses. Perhaps more will now join them.

Ten or a dozen years ago, the then Archbishop of Westminster was opposed to any large-scale reception of Anglicans into the Catholic Church, and above all was opposed to permitting them to maintain any semblance of distinct identity. However, there is now a new Holy Father and a new Archbishop of Westminster. Wouldn't it be nice to see a revival of the Sarum Use (in English, of course) with regular services of Mattins and Evensong?

Incognitus

No I hadn't heard that one. But the way some of the Catholic bishops have acted, they might as well have been Anglicans. If on the other hand, the Anglicans decide to become Orthodox, they will set up another nationalistic Church that grudgingly gets along with the other Orthodox jurisdictions. Maybe it is a no-win situation after all.

They don't use Gregorian except when performing music that requires it. But Anglican chant is gorgeous.

Yes, and as the jurisdiction matures there will be bitter language battles waged. Eventually a compromise will be reached to have the liturgy half in English and half in Olde English.

This could possibly be something historic. A sui juris (sic?) Anglican Catholic Church (a separate western rite and a separate church in communion with Rome). I look at it as a positive. When the archbishop of canterbury converts he can be the head of it ! Super idea !

We, in Britain, witnessed an exodus from Anglo-catholic to Catholic when women were granted status from the diaconate to the priesthood about 11 years ago. Cardinal Hume remarked at the time that the Anglo-catholic wouldn't find any theological difficulties with the Catholic Church, but that cultural differences would be hard to assimilate.

Cardinal Hume was a prophet! a reverse exodus happened, too. Some did stay (I know a few personally-- nice guys.) Most did not.

To be a priest in the Western Catholic tradition, even in England, is very different, culturally, to being a vicar/rector/priest in the Church of England, even if one is an Anglo-catholic.

If there is an exodus this time, the same will likely be true; some will stay the course, perhaps in greater numbers this time (due to embarrassment last time?), but many will make their way back to King Henry's church! grace and peace, wg

Dear Wild Goose,

I find the above paragraph most intriguing. Would you mind elaborating on it? Thank you!

In Christ,
Alice

You know it! I can just hear the battles now between Old Church Elizabethan, and Old Church Chaucerian. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Dear Carole,

Actually, it is a myth that The Queen is head of the Church of England or the Church of Scotland.

She is simply the temporal protector of both.

I believe that it was only King Henry VIII who made the outlandish claim to being the head of the Church in England.

At his trial, St Thomas More was recorded as saying that he had read much about church history, but that he had never read that someone who was neither a bishop, nor a priest, nor a deacon, nor a sexton nor held any ecclesial position at all could be a "head of a church."

Alex

Dear Charles,

Actually, Anglican texts describing the structure of Anglicanism readily admit that they promote national identities and pride throughout the national churches of the Anglican Communion what some may erroneously call "nationalism" (which is wholly a political movement that could have added religious features).

Just like Orthodoxy.

And just like Roman Catholicism.

Alex

Dear LatinByzEastNovice,

Not a novel idea, but something already discussed by Catholic and Anglican theologians within the context of a patriarchate of Canterbury in communion with Rome.

Both sides agreed that Canterbury already functions very much like a patriarchate.

The same idea of a patriarchate came up in the Catholic/Lutheran dialogues - and this idea for a northern European patriarchal centre originated with St Anskar, the Apostle to the North.

Alex

Dear Wild Goose,

Excellent point!

The need for a specific religious cultural Anglican milieu (albeit in communion with Rome) that reflects English/Anglican values and way of ecclesial life will be key to a successful marriage of Anglicanism with Roman primacy.

Until then, they're really just "living together" with the right to leave whenever either side feels like it . . .

Alex