Catholic Education: Not Just for Catholics

November 14, 2009

Catholic Universities are not just for Catholics, says Jesuit Gianfranco Ghirlanda, rector of the Gregorian University. Catholic Universities must offer the Truth to anybody who seeks it, whether Catholic or non-Catholic. Catholic education is aimed “to all men and women who wish to receive an integral education for the development of a free and responsible personality.”

This is something that hits home for me. Being involved in Catholic education (although not at the University level), I know the struggles to reach out to non-Catholics while maintaining a strong Catholic identity. Some (perhaps most) schools that are seeing their non-Catholic enrollment rise aren’t doing a good job of keeping their Catholic identity, that is for sure, but that does not mean it is not possible. I think if we are doing the right things, our schools can be places that are thoroughly Catholic, yet that also attract truth seeking young men and women. In a way, we should be glad that our schools are seeing more non-Catholic kids. I mean, heck, we need young people  in the Church.  And I am not saying this as one who believes we should water-down our faith and worship to  “attract youth”; rather I say this as someone who would rather see more baptisms than funerals at my local parish. Jesus does not wish to see anybody lost, and we have a chance to seriously evangelize and catechize  students who may yearn for the Truth, and yet not know where to seek it. And if students don’t have a yearning for the Truth? Then, it is our job to help foster a search for the Truth among Cath0lics and non-Catholics. Is this a lot of work? Yes, perhaps, but 12 men going out to spread the good news across the known world was a little daunting as well!

I know firsthand the progress I see in non-Catholic students and parents. When someone dismisses these students and parents out-of-hand, or suggests they don’t deserve to be at a Catholic school, I have to stand up against this.

I know the responses I may hear: “but David, Catholic schools and Universities aren’t doing this; they are just becoming less and less non-Catholic with every non-Catholic kid…why bother?” My answer would be “what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?” I have to remind some of my Catholic friends, as Nicene Hobbit has pointed out to me before, that the opposite of misuses is correct use, not necessarily disuse. Just because Catholic Universities and schools may not be doing very well at educating non-Catholic (and Catholics!) in the Faith doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good idea.

1 Comment | Education, Evangelization | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

ACNA Bishop: Offer from Rome “Offensive”

November 13, 2009

stain glass row

One would expect the reaction from liberal Anglicans to Rome’s offer would be less than positive, but many conservative Anglicans have also been up in arms about the offer, including bishop Don Harvey of a network of conservative Canadian Anglicans associated with ACNA (Anglican Church in North America). Personally, I find the generous response of evangelical Anglican Matt Kennedy to be better. His response is basically, “even though I don’t agree with the pope, this is a generous and courageous offer for those Anglicans that do happen to agree with the pope.”

Bishop Harvey is not so impressed, and lets his frustration be known:

“Apart from being an intrusion at the very highest levels of one major church into the internal affairs of another, under the guise of being ecumenical, this invitation offers very little that is new,” Bishop Don Harvey, moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada, told the group’s annual synod Thursday morning…

“I find the words in the official joint communique referring to ‘the Catholic Church and the Anglican Tradition’ offensive in the extreme and reporters who suggested that this may be a solution to the Network’s needs are not really aware of what we truly profess,” he said.

I do understand why some conservatives would dislike this offer. Even though the pope’s offer to Anglicans was precipitated by a request by the Traditional Anglican Communion, it still can be seen as “cutting in” on the game of traditional Anglicans, who, let’s face it, are not exactly unified in their response to TEC’s liberalism. There are various options available to those who oppose TEC, which include joining ACNA and staying in TEC. Adding another option, from Rome no less, into the mix, cannot be great news for conservative bishops who are having trouble shepherding the faithful.

On the other hand, Bishop Harvey and anybody else who speaks of ecumenism these days need to understand a certain reality about ecumenism: the old way of doing ecumenism is dead (except perhaps in some quarters of the Academy and in the offices of some church administration buildings). Spending loads of money and time to utter niceties to one another, coming up with nebulous statements of common belief, is out. Watering down churches’ beliefs until no church believes anything meaningful anymore, is the way ecumenism used to be done. It is not the way postmoderns do ecumenism, because it isn’t very genuine.

Serge has a good take on ecumenism, and I wrote about my approach a few years ago which is very similar to his (which I call “blog level ecumenism”). Personally, I would much rather do “on the ground” ecumenism with an Orthodox Christian who tells me he wants me to join the true Church (in his eyes, the Orthodox Church), than an official mainline ecumenical officer who will feed me some line about what they believe, only to publicly deny such a belief later. I respect churches and faiths that stand for things (peacefully and charitably, of course), whether Catholic, Orthodox, Calvinist, or whatever. Bishop Harvey  needs to understand that Rome does ecumenism differently, which is to say, we view ecumenism as both evangelization and working toward unity. It’s not the way the mainlines do it, but then again, Catholics aren’t mainline Protestants.

So basically, I understand the negative reaction to this offer, but on the other hand, I would not be offended if Calvinist Anglicans made a similar offer. After all, if Calvinist Catholics (!) approached the head of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church about accommodating them, I would expect the head of that church to help them out, and would not be offended because of that.

4 Comments | Anglican and Episcopal | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

Just Ask Questions – Please!

November 10, 2009

fall fence
Sometimes Christians tell other Christians “don’t ask questions; just have faith!” I think this is ridiculous, as if somehow the Truth cannot withstand questioning. In fact, I would say that for many people, questions may actually bring people to the faith.

These days, I wish people would ask more questions, as least the deeper questions that cause us to contemplate things like morality, afterlife, reality, and so forth.  Why are we here? Is there a purpose in life? What is reality? How do we determine the difference between right and wrong? Is there a fundamental beauty to the cosmos? You don’t need to have a PhD in Philosophy to ask these questions and begin to formulate answers that start to make sense. Religion provides answers to these questions, and I think, Catholicism offers answers to these questions that have resonated with people for centuries, and that incorporate the best of other philosophies (for example neo-Platonism).  So while we certainly believe we have the answers, maybe the answers themselves aren’t the problem: maybe the problem is that people aren’t asking the questions.

As a teacher and resident in 21st century America, evangelization is constantly on my mind. I think one way to evangelize is to get people to ask fundamental questions about humanity and reality. This, in turn, could lead them to at least explore the answers that the Church provides.

Image taken  by me

3 Comments | Evangelization | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

It’s Here: Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus Released

November 9, 2009

The Vatican has released the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, as well as Complementary Norms for the same document, which provide the guidelines for incorporating Anglicans into the Catholic Church. I will look over the document more fully later, but wanted to make it available for our readers. We certainly live in exciting times!

Update: Brother Stephen has some very informative initial thoughts.

1 Comment | Anglican and Episcopal | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio: It’s Time for Same-Sex Blessings

November 8, 2009

My former Episcopal diocese, the Diocese of Southern Ohio, is now instituting same-sex blessings. The diocese of Southern Ohio used to have a pretty strong conservative presence. Now, the ranks have been decimated. I thought it would take longer for this to happen in the diocese of Southern Ohio, but then again, many of the leaders I knew there were just waiting for the diocese to catch up with the other mainline Protestant churches.

Fr. David Bailey,  a friend, and priest in the Southern Ohio diocese has fought within the system to prevent this, or at the least, allow the traditional voice to be heard within the diocese. Fr. David is NOT given to exaggeration and histrionics, so when he says conservatives barely had a voice in the discussion on this decision, then I believe it to be true. But honestly, there probably isn’t much to discuss anyway, since most Episcopal leaders and influential laity, nationally and probably in Southern Ohio, are happy to have same-sex blessings.

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Posted by David Bennett

Um Yeah, Dad’s Matter

November 5, 2009

For those of us who grew up with loving fathers, it goes without saying that we benefited greatly from having them in our lives. Christianity has long recognized the value of 2-parent families, and while valuing motherhood, has also recognized a special place for fathers. Secular Western society, however, has seemed to let men off the hook (so-to-speak) recently, and often subtley and not-so-subtlely, downplays the importance of a father in the life of a child. However, research has consistently shown that fathers matter in the moral and economic success of a family. Denying this is not doing our children any favors.

New research shows that while involving the father in parenting decisions is good for children, our society, and even  many mothers, discourage participation from fathers. The New York Times ran an interesting article about this that I will summarize below.

A new study shows that programs that help fathers become better parents, which also involve the mother, result in children that are less hyperactive, aggressive, and depressed. This is the case even if parents are divorced. Those couples taking these classes had less marital stress and more marital happiness.

So why are fathers not more involved in parenting? Well, the article mentions that while some men are truly deadbeats,  men are told, both explicitly and implicitly, that fathers don’t have to be involved in their child’s lives. For example, family resource centers are often painted pink and only display women’s magazines. Is this saying “men shouldn’t parent?” Not outright, but it does hint that mothers do the parenting. Additionally, fatherly parenting styles are often viewed suspiciously.  As the article mentions, fathers father, they do not mother, and many mothers and experts expect fathers to parent their children the same way a mother would.  The experts in the article recommend that parents talk out parenting strategies so that both parenting styles can be utilized. And, of course, they recommend the father be encouraged to parent. Even my own anecdotal experience suggests this. My parents offered very different things to my upbringing; both positively shaped who I am today, and I am thankful for my dad’s no-nonsense, “get them ready for the world” attitude, but also that my mom was there to hear me complain when I had too much of it.

2 Comments | Family and Domestic Church, News | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

Vatican Explains Visit to U.S. Sisters

November 4, 2009

The Vatican is concerned about the state of U.S. religious life, and is currently in the middle of an Apostolic visitation to investigate their concerns. With many orders of sisters in steep decline, and with the number of nuns that openly and proudly oppose Church Teaching, the Vatican’s concern is, in my opinion, justified.

While many sisters have been opposed to the visit, the Vatican insists that the visit is to increase vocations and ensure the well-being of sisters. Cardinal Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said

“My hope is that the apostolic visitation will not only provide the Holy See with a thorough analysis of the condition of religious life in the United States, but also be a realistic and graced opportunity for personal and community introspection, as major superiors and sisters cooperate with this study.”

While the Vatican is not presenting this as a confrontational visit, I think there is certainly a large degree of much-needed “reining in” going on here.

3 Comments | Religious Vocations | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

For All the Saints

November 1, 2009

saint statues

For all the saints, who from their labours rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Apostles’ glorious company,
Who bearing forth the Cross o’er land and sea,
Shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
Like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
Is fair and fruitful, be Thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Hymn by William Walsham How. I hope everyone has a blessed All Saints Day.

1 Comment | Liturgical Year | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

America’s Obsession With Halloween?

October 31, 2009

halloween cemetery

Retailers seem to have two seasons around this time of year, the Halloween season, from labor day until October 31st, and the Christmas season, from November 1st to December 24th. They peddle their plastic skeletons and fake tombstones, and soon switch over to fake Christmas trees and light-up Santas. We are now at the very end of the Halloween season, and many parents, kids, and home-owners have found themselves spending loads of cash on costumes and candy. America is basically obsessed with Halloween, and Damian Thompson of the Telegraph is sick of Britain embracing the same obsession.

While I understand Damian’s point (and I do wonder how cash-strapped Americans can afford barrels of candy and not basic necessities?), but nonetheless, I have to admit, I like Halloween. First, secular Halloween has a connection to the Cath0lic solemnity of All Saints, even if most Americans don’t  know it. I don’t consider Halloween to be “pagan.” Second, for me, Halloween adds a little mystery back into the world. It takes us back to the medieval world where symbols of darkness and light still meant something, where the everyday world of carved vegetables, candles, cemeteries, and costumes is full of mystery and even spiritual conflict. For a romantic such as myself (i.e. I  enjoy Coleridge over Calvin), Halloween is a fascinating holiday, kept within reasonable limits of course; I am not going to be avoiding black cats, for instance, but I am going to enjoy the harmless fun of costumes, candy, and the occasional Halloween lights.

Now, all that is left is for me to identify the patron saint against getting your pumpkins taken from your porch and smashed and start praying to him!

H/T A Conservative Blog for Peace

4 Comments | Liturgical Year | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

All Saints is Coming

October 30, 2009

I always look forward to All Saints Day, as a holiday to remember the saints of the Church. While fully understanding the deeper significance of the holiday, I find that in order to explain the holiday to my Protestant friends, it is helpful to use secular holidays and practices as analogies.

I think most Christians would agree that if we are to have true heroes, they should be good moral examples, and even Christian. Therefore, All Saints Day is kind of like a “let’s remember all of our Christians heroes” day, kind of like Veteran’s Day or Presidents Day, when Americans remember those who fought bravely for our country.

I have said this before, but it is worth repeating. Many Christians have a problem with Catholics carrying around images of saints,  placing statues around our houses, or celebrating saints days. Yet, how many of these Christians see no problem with having images of the  Beatles or Lebron James on their walls, and even statues of the same folks (think bobbleheads)? How many have elaborate, cherished, rituals, related to game-day or concert celebrations?

I have no problems with the Beatles, Lebron, or celebrating a football game to the fullest extent possible (even though the teams I like aren’t doing so well this year!).  However, I think a person is confused if  they suggest an image of a saint is idolatry, while an image of a sports star is harmless. I think a person is similarly confused if he or she criticizes elaborate saint day festivities while insisting on the same level of elaboration for a secular event.

However, I think there is an evangelization opportunity here, which is to say, people like ritual and celebration, and as a culture, we don’t always offer a chance for people to experience ritual and celebration. A lot of people are unaware that the Church gives us chances to celebrate Christian heroes and events every day of the year. Christmas comes once a year. Ohio State football lasts a few months. Secular festivities seem few and far between, and sometimes they are celebrated in such an empty way, that people crave something deeper. We have this deeper form of celebration, and All Saints Day is a perfect example of it.

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Posted by David Bennett

The Pope’s Generous Leadership

October 26, 2009

stheleninteriorpc

Once again, Pope Benedict has demonstrated why he has been chosen at this particular time to lead the Church. In this case, it’s with regard to the welcoming of Anglicans to the Catholic fold with an unparalleled generosity. It’s a generosity that confounds all of the people who feared that his pontificate would be angry and reactionary.

The Pope has laid out quite an inclusive and broad welcome to those in strained communion (SSPX) and those outside of formal communion (Anglicans) with the Catholic Church. The terms have been opposed at times by many powerful forces (like diocesan bishops, Catholic liberal intelligentsia), but ultimately the Pope erred on the side of, well, Catholicism, which is universal. He didn’t do this by selling out Catholic teaching, but rather made converting as easy as is humanly possible in order to bring back those who may be feeling the prompting of the Spirit to be enter into communion with the See of Peter.

The Pope’s attitude is so refreshingly positive and loving. Many online Catholics see defective Anglican orders, the Pope sees a rich theological and liturgical tradition. Converts say just let them do what the rest of us did; the Pope recognizes the difficulty in making the leap for huge numbers of Anglicans. Many say these SSPX people and conservative Anglicans are too this that or the other (usually nutty, anti-whatever); Pope Benedict says, the Church is big enough for them and they have a lot to contribute.

As online voices of Catholicism, many of us need to step back and reflect on what the Pope has done. It isn’t just his reaching out to Anglicans, which most conservative bloggers would agree with. Rather, it’s the spirit in which he’s done it: holding fast to Catholic traditions while showing utmost generosity and kindness to human beings in the process. It’s a model we all should emulate.

Image by Jonathan Bennett from St. Helen Catholic Church, Newbury, OH. To order prints or download high resolution images, click here

1 Comment | Catholic, General | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jonathan B

Anastasia: The Pope’s Generosity and Charity On Display

October 22, 2009

Anastasia, an Anglo-Catholic Anglican, has a great take on this recent Vatican gesture toward Anglicans: Benedict XVI is being extremely charitable and ecumenical:

I’ve spent a good deal of time in the last couple of days reading and having conversations with other Christians about the the Vatican creating a new structure for Anglicans. Huge pieces of the conversation are premature since we don’t have the actual document outlining the plan yet–where is that, by the way?

In a sense, I can’t help but be involved and invested given that this Vatican initiative is directed at me. It says, why hello, Catholic leaning Anglo-Catholics! We want you! I have to pay attention.

Okay, now…it was the result of a series of requests from groups wanting to come into Rome and I was not part of any of those groups. So, no. Not directed at me. And yet, in a grander sense, yes. This is about me and people who think like me.

I wrote in my previous post on patrimony that the Holy Father is hitting the right notes in terms of evangelism.* He has my attention. He has me rethinking (again, yes) whether or not I can accept RC dogmas. I’ve been blogging about it and discussing it with the incomparable Literacy-Chic over email and had just come around to “RC dogmas….yeah, I don’t think so.” I went from “I don’t think so” to “You know…I think I could” in 20 seconds flat upon reading the headline: Vatican Creates New Structure for Anglicans.

It’s easy enough to read this uncharitably. I’m too stupid to realize this still means accepting RC dogmas. Or maybe His Holiness has nearly tricked me into accepting his primacy (bwahahaha) by giving me a case of the warm fuzzies.

I don’t think either is the real appeal for me. I wrote about the in terms of patrimony, but there’s another way of saying it. I’ll get to the pithy statement, but let me lay out some pieces before I do.

First, let us take note that the Pope is being nice. Holy crap, when is the last time Christians tried that as a strategy? This is way nicer than just about any Catholic has approached me as far as the relative value of Anglicanism. He’s focused the discussion around the grace and beauty present in my traditions, rather than, say, pointing out the deficiencies and telling me my problem is that I”m too proud to submit…Read it All

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Posted by David Bennett

My Take on the New Catholic Gesture to Anglicans

October 22, 2009

There have been some fine analysis about the recent gestures from the Vatican toward Anglicans. Kendall Harmon and others have made some excellent observations. I would like to add some of my own observations.

1. The Anglican Communion is a mess. This is not to say the Catholic Church has its house in complete order, but, considering half the Anglican Communion is not in communion with the other half, and the list of re-alignned acronyms of conservative groups seems to grow larger by the day, the communion is in a rough spot. Living in this situation can’t be easy, and the pope recognizes this.

2. The Episcopal Church is going in a very liberal direction. With conservatives leaving, and progressives celebrating victories, TEC’s moral and theological vision is looking more like just another mainline Protestant church than anything Catholic or Orthodox. Of course, many liberal leaders and laypersons of TEC are absolutely fine with having more in common with liberal Presbyterians than with the ecumenical Patriarch (just go over to Fr. Jake’s blog). Anglo-Catholics don’t think this way, which creates a problem.

3. Rowan Williams, while (in my humble opinion) a decent theologian and thinker, is not the type of leader the communion needs to deal with this crisis. In the Academy you can nuance an issue to death and synthesize the position of all sides, but in the real world, the communion needs leadership that provides real direction. The pope has provided leadership. Some could argue the Anglican communion is not his business, but the pope saw a mess, and provided a generous way to help people (who want out) get out of it. It seems to me that the Vatican has put more real, concrete, work into dealing with this crisis than the Archbishop of Canterbury has.

4. Anglo-Catholics are struggling to find a home among conservative groups. It is strange (at least to me) that many Anglo-Catholic groups and leaders stood strong in TEC against women’s ordination and sub-Catholic ecclesiology, yet, these same Anglo-Catholics have joined up with fellow “conservatives” in ACNA and in other dioceses throughout the world, who support women’s ordination and have a Calvinist view of the Church. To me, unifying under the banner of  “we think TEC is wrong” is no way to have any sort of long-term unity.  The majority of conservative Anglicans worldwide are evangelical Calvinists. How long an Anglo-Catholic can handle “re-alignment” Anglicanism probably depends on the individual. ACNA seems to me to be just like what got TEC to this point: a loose unity of groups holding mutually exclusive positions, and failing to agree on fundamental issues like ecclesiology.

5. The pope is offering to accommodate Anglicans (primarily the Traditional Anglican Communion, who asked for this), but the offer stands for those Anglicans who wish to accept the Teachings of the Catholic Church. In other words, the Catholic Church isn’t going to be accepting the 39 Articles any time soon.

6. Nonetheless, the pope is recognizing the rich spiritual and liturgical heritage that Anglicanism offers, and recognizes that the Catholic Church will benefit from this heritage. Heck, I think we will benefit from this across all rites. A friend and I were talking on the way to a meeting yesterday how we would love establishing an Anglican-Use service at our parish.

7. Converting is difficult. It is not as easy as “Anglo-Catholics should have gone to Rome years ago,” as some evangelical Anglicans have suggested. The struggle to become Catholic (or any change in belief) is more difficult than some people think. The triumphalist convert often just thinks “The Catholic Church is so great, why don’t Anglo-Catholics just convert already?!” Such is not life, and denies the complexity of conversion.

4 Comments | Anglican Use, Anglican and Episcopal | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

More Details on the Vatican Anglican Announcement

October 20, 2009

I came across some more details about the recent Vatican gesture towards Anglicans which provides some exciting information about the steps Rome is willing to take to accommodate Anglicans (from America). Details are below:

The new canonical structure has the technical name of a “Personal Ordinariate”, which according to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) “will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony”. The Ordinary — canonically, that means the one with power of governance — would normally be “appointed from among former Anglican clergy”, the CDF says.

The Apostolic Constitution establishing these Personal Ordinariates offers “a single canonical model for the universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application”, the statement continues. Among its features:

1. The Ordinary can be either a priest or an unmarried bishop;

2. The Ordinariate provides for the ordination as Catholic priests of married former Anglican clergy;

3. The Ordinariate allows seminarians to be trained in separate houses of formation in order “to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican patrimony”.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster told journalists this morning that the new Apostolic Constitution was a response to various approaches made in the past three or four years by groups in the United States, Australia and the UK. Some were in communion with Lambeth, while others — such as the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), which claims 400,000 members worldwide — were not.

The Personal Ordinariates would allow for the pastoral care of lay people, clergy and religious in a corporate body under an Ordinary, but in collaboration with existing dioceses. Their geographical scope would correspond to the territory of a bishops’ conference. It would be a “cumulative jurisdiction”, meaning that the jurisdictions would overlap — insofar as the activity pertained to the wider Church, the authority would rest with the bishop of that diocese; insofar as it pertained to an internal activity, it would be a under the Ordinary of the Ordinariate. The process of reception of married Anglican priests would be unlikely to differ much from the current system, he said. Nor would he expect transfers of church property as part of the process of corporate reception.

The new structure allows for the safeguarding of Anglican traditions of liturgy and rites — but approval of the Holy See would be needed for separate liturgical texts and rites that differed from the Roman norm. Archbishop Nichols said the Constitution was an attempt to achieve a “balance between a corporate identity and the need to be embedded locally”, but stressed that the details of this could only be worked out once an Ordinariate were established. In the event of an application being made to establish such an Ordinariate in England and Wales, he said, “we will work very closely with colleagues in the Church of England. It is important that we do this together”.

Knowing all of this, I take back what I said earlier about this possibly seeming small to some people.  This is big, and the implications are big. Anglicans have converted to Rome before, but there has been no official, worldwide, structure to accommodate Catholic-minded Anglicans in the Catholic Church. It seem such a structure is now in place.

6 Comments | Anglican Use, Anglican and Episcopal | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

Vatican Creates New Structure for Converting Anglicans

October 20, 2009

The Vatican announced plans to allow for the greater and easier conversion of Anglicans to Catholicism, apparently expanding the Anglican Use provision available in the U.S. According to the announcement, Anglicans who convert (including married priests) will be given their own pastoral supervision. The press release also indicates the Catholic Church hopes to preserve important aspects of Anglican spirituality:

“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.”

Wow. This may seem small, but it is a pretty significant gesture.

5 Comments | Anglican Use, Anglican and Episcopal | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Bennett

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