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Italian media speculates: Vatican will announce massive reception of Anglicans into Catholic Church tomorrow

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Cardinal William Joseph Levada / Archbishop Augustine DiNoia

Vatican City, Oct 19, 2009 / 06:41 pm (CNA).- Several Italian newspapers speculated on Monday that the Vatican may welcome a large number of members from the Traditional Anglican Communion into the Catholic Church tomorrow. The group previously separated from the Anglican Communion due to issues such as the ordinations of both women and sexually active homosexuals.

According to Giacomo Galeazzi from the Italian daily La Stampa, the press conference to be held tomorrow at the Vatican press office by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, Secretary of the Congregation for the Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, will be the occasion in which the reception of the Anglican group, which claims to have some 500,000 members –among clergy and laity- will be officially announced.

“The news story, already anticipated by some Australian media, could be finally confirmed during the press briefing that was announced this afternoon by the Vatican press office,” Galeazzi wrote.

Galeazzi also claimed that the Traditionalist Anglicans have already signed a document of adherence to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and have symbolically deposited it at a Marian shrine in England.

“Once reunited with Rome, they may keep most of the Liturgical celebrations according to their tradition, which is closer to the Tridentine Mass,” La Stampa explained, adding that they would also “keep their married clergy but not married bishops.”

The Italian Vatican reporter also noted that since the Anglican priestly ordination is not valid, those who want to remain priests within the Catholic Church would have to be ordained, most likely after passing a theological exam.

The move by the Traditionalists could have a significant impact on other Anglicans who still remain within the communion, but are extremely frustrated not only with the ordination of women as Anglican priests and bishops, but especially with the decision of the American Episcopalians – members of the Anglican communion- to ordain sexually active homosexuals as priests and bishops.

The ordination of Eugene Robinson as the first actively homosexual bishop in 2004, sparked an unprecedented division inside the Anglican Communion.

According to Galeazzi, the group of Anglicans that could be received into the Catholic Church tomorrow may be erected as a personal prelature, which has the same canonical status held by Opus Dei.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17436

My Anglican friends are all over this like white on rice. We'll see (it's as equally likely that there will just be an announcement of the formation of a commission to study the matter and report back to the Curia for further discussions). But, no matter what, I hope Cardinal Laverde remembers to use the right fork at the reception. Anglicans are easily insulted.

I'll believe this when I see it.

Markos

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"But if it happens that the spiritual factor is totally lacking, then the monastic organization [or the Christian eparchy] disintegrates or turns into one that is authoritarian".

- Prof. Gregorios Mantzaridis, Unv. of Thessaloniki, "The Spirit of Monastic Typikon". [my addition in brackets]

I would gladly welcome such a development, but today is the feast of the Apostle Thomas, so I'll believe it when I see it!

Fr. Serge

Check this out. The Holy Father make a new structure called Personal Ordinariates for TAC.
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/10/personal-ordinariates-for-anglicans.html

Dear Friends:

Glory to IC XC!

Here is the document!!!!

NOTE OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH ABOUT PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH , 20.10.2009

NOTE OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH ABOUT PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

With the preparation of an Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is responding to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion.

In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. Under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy.

The forthcoming Apostolic Constitution provides a reasonable and even necessary response to a world-wide phenomenon, by offering a single canonical model for the universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application. It provides for the ordination as Catholic priests of married former Anglican clergy. Historical and ecumenical reasons preclude the ordination of married men as bishops in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Constitution therefore stipulates that the Ordinary can be either a priest or an unmarried bishop. The seminarians in the Ordinariate are to be prepared alongside other Catholic seminarians, though the Ordinariate may establish a house of formation to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican patrimony. In this way, the Apostolic Constitution seeks to balance on the one hand the concern to preserve the worthy Anglican liturgical and spiritual patrimony and, on the other hand, the concern that these groups and their clergy will be integrated into the Catholic Church.

Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which has prepared this provision, said: "We have been trying to meet the requests for full communion that have come to us from Anglicans in different parts of the world in recent years in a uniform and equitable way. With this proposal the Church wants to respond to the legitimate aspirations of these Anglican groups for full and visible unity with the Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter."

These Personal Ordinariates will be formed, as needed, in consultation with local Conferences of Bishops, and their structure will be similar in some ways to that of the Military Ordinariates which have been established in most countries to provide pastoral care for the members of the armed forces and their dependents throughout the world. "Those Anglicans who have approached the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. At the same time, they have told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality and worship for their faith journey," Cardinal Levada said.

The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue, which continues to be a priority for the Catholic Church, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. "The initiative has come from a number of different groups of Anglicans," Cardinal Levada went on to say: "They have declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine ministry as something Christ willed for the Church. For them, the time has come to express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion."

According to Levada: "It is the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this canonical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows. Moreover, the many diverse traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: ‘There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (4:5). Our communion is therefore strengthened by such legitimate diversity, and so we are happy that these men and women bring with them their particular contributions to our common life of faith."

Background information

Since the sixteenth century, when King Henry VIII declared the Church in England independent of Papal Authority, the Church of England has created its own doctrinal confessions, liturgical books, and pastoral practices, often incorporating ideas from the Reformation on the European continent. The expansion of the British Empire, together with Anglican missionary work, eventually gave rise to a world-wide Anglican Communion.

Throughout the more than 450 years of its history the question of the reunification of Anglicans and Catholics has never been far from mind. In the mid-nineteenth century the Oxford Movement (in England) saw a rekindling of interest in the Catholic aspects of Anglicanism. In the early twentieth century Cardinal Mercier of Belgium entered into well publicized conversations with Anglicans to explore the possibility of union with the Catholic Church under the banner of an Anglicanism "reunited but not absorbed".

At the Second Vatican Council hope for union was further nourished when the Decree on Ecumenism (n. 13), referring to communions separated from the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation, stated that: "Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place."

Since the Council, Anglican-Roman Catholic relations have created a much improved climate of mutual understanding and cooperation. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) produced a series of doctrinal statements over the years in the hope of creating the basis for full and visible unity. For many in both communions, the ARCIC statements provided a vehicle in which a common expression of faith could be recognized. It is in this framework that this new provision should be seen.

In the years since the Council, some Anglicans have abandoned the tradition of conferring Holy Orders only on men by calling women to the priesthood and the episcopacy. More recently, some segments of the Anglican Communion have departed from the common biblical teaching on human sexuality—already clearly stated in the ARCIC document "Life in Christ"—by the ordination of openly homosexual clergy and the blessing of homosexual partnerships. At the same time, as the Anglican Communion faces these new and difficult challenges, the Catholic Church remains fully committed to continuing ecumenical engagement with the Anglican Communion, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.

In the meantime, many individual Anglicans have entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. Sometimes there have been groups of Anglicans who have entered while preserving some "corporate" structure. Examples of this include, the Anglican diocese of Amritsar in India, and some individual parishes in the United States which maintained an Anglican identity when entering the Catholic Church under a "pastoral provision" adopted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope John Paul II in 1982. In these cases, the Catholic Church has frequently dispensed from the requirement of celibacy to allow those married Anglican clergy who desire to continue ministerial service as Catholic priests to be ordained in the Catholic Church.

In the light of these developments, the Personal Ordinariates established by the Apostolic Constitution can be seen as another step toward the realization the aspiration for full, visible union in the Church of Christ, one of the principal goals of the ecumenical movement.

I don't know how I feel about this, myself. When I resigned my Anglican orders to become Catholic some years ago, it was because I believed that the Catholic Church represented the fullness of the Faith. I can't help but feel a pang of something (I'm honestly not sure what...) over seeing former colleagues potentially across the Tiber with all their traditions in tact.

I had consorted a great deal with what we called 'the Continuers' (Anglicans in the TAC), but found what I perceived to be their lack of evangelical outlook and their theological romanticism difficult to reconcile with. Further, I didn't like the fact that in *some* cases, their clerics were simply failed mainstream Anglicans.

At the same time, I am pleased that they should find a home, and hope that it will be to the benefit of the Church as a whole.

I am curious about how much support this will get from Latin bishops in the U.S., who have been notably reluctant to employ the Anglican Use Dispensation and sometimes give the impression of not wanting to have the Continuing Anglicans under their pastoral care.

Glory to God for all things! Much prayerful support is and will be needed if this initiative is to succeed - so we must pray. In England also, the Latin hierarchy has been remarkably unenthused, but they will find it difficult to reject what the Pope gives.

Fr. Serge

I was surprised at how gracious the Archbishop of Westminster sounded on the radio this evening, though. His comments on Radio 4 sounded like something more than just diplomatic waffle.

We have a dear friend who was an Episcopal priest and became Catholic. I wonder if this will make it easier for him to be received as a priest by the Church.

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,

I hope that this is the beginning of the Western Church healing. I also hope that this example will be looked at as a way to expand the other liturgical traditions of the West such as the Mozarabic and the Lyonaise.

Fush Bashlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

Interesting, because it could well be. I mean, the Prayer Book tradition within Anglicanism is so closely based on the Sarum tradition that dominated England just as the Reformation took hold.

My friends, both Catholic and Anglican, who are very well connected with the Continuing Anglican movement, foresee enormous pastoral problems in completing the integration of these communities into the Latin Church.


I would not count on it. The Latin Church has been leery of liturgical diversity since Gregory Hildebrand famously remarked "Diversity is the mother of heresy". Most Latin bishops want just one Mass, and they really don't care which one it is.

I doubt they will have little to say about it if the Vatican end around on the US bishops concerning the Extraordianry Form is any indication. If an Ordinariate is set up it will be a diocese in everyhting but name with jurisdiction over Anglican Use parishes and report directly to Rome.

I count four diocese and 103 parishes/missions for the Anglican Church in America, the TAC's US branch. Add the 7 or 8 Anglican Use parishes/missions already there and you have a significant jurisdiction (bigger than many Eastern Catholic jurisdicitions in the US) if all the dioceses/parishes unite. Plus the chance for expansion should exist as they should not have to receive permission from the local Latin bishop anymore. All in all I would say things are looking up for Anglo-Catholics.

Fr. Deacon Lance