A New Direction

There were a couple of surprises in the recent edition of New Directions, the magazine of Forward in Faith.  Many of the articles were interesting and good (the famous Davage writing style is always a treat to read), a hallmark of New Directions over many years, but there was some of the magazine that took me rather aback.

In the magazine, a prominent Anglo-Catholic was asked who his favourite historic figure was.  The reply: "Dr Pusey".  Anyone with an Anglo-Catholic background and/or a connection with Pusey House will be able to reflect thoughtfully on that, indeed I have prints of Dr Pusey and Blessed John Henry Newman side by side on my wall at home.  However, the reason for his choice was rather striking.  It was "Because he stayed in the Church of England".  I suppose we can take it that the interviewee is not a great devotee of Blessed John Henry Newman.

Has the mask of the modern Anglo-Catholic slipped?  Is there not even the slightest pretence any more of a shared goal of corporate reunion, something that seemed so important when Blessed John Paul II knelt beside Robert Runcie, then Archbishop of Canterbury, in Canterbury Cathedral?  Is the goal to remain in the Church of England, come what may, and if so, what on earth has all the fuss in General Synod been about, why not just sit quietly in a congregationalist bubble and let everyone else get on with what they wish to do?

Even Dr Pusey himself, in Eirenicon, a publication in which he outlined many of what he perceived to be faults and errors of the Catholic Church, was in fact arguing for a reunion of Catholic Christendom.  His old friend Blessed John Henry Newman, whom shortly before publication Pusey had met for the first time in 20 years, acknowledged as much in a letter to Pusey, in spite of Eirenicon's criticisms :

you discharge your olive branch as from a catapult.

Of course, I am being terribly unfair.  I should put my own Puseyite catapult away.  It was probably a rather tongue-in-cheek comment, in the context of a friendly and jovial discussion at which none of us was present.  We cannot assume that this means we should translate "Better Together" as meaning "Better Together away from the Catholic Church".  Still, I wonder if there is not some small kernel of truth in the analysis as it at first seems to be.   Dr Geoffrey Kirk, a former regular contributor to New Directions in his days as Secretary of Forward in Faith, and one of the newest members of the Ordinariate, put it rather more eloquently than I have, and perhaps rather more bluntly too, talking of Anglo-Catholic leaders who, notwithstanding all that is happening around them, carry on regardless, thereby allowing others to believe all is well :

This ignominious ending to a long and hard-fought campaign is properly a cause of grief and shame. Shame, because it is a betrayal of the entire Catholic movement – of Keble as well as Newman, of Pusey as well as Froude. Grief, because it has exposed a fault-line which, in our generous optimism, many of us supposed not to be there. When Benedict XVI called their bluff, men whose rallying cry had been ‘Look to the Rock from which we are hewn!’ looked the other way. When the life-boat was launched, they complained about its colour. They claimed to act out of affection for the Church of their baptism and ordination. Tragically that is a demonstration of loyalty which, in the course of time, the Church of England will discover that it can well do without.

It may simply be that there is, even among Anglo-Catholics, a residual, irrational, atavistic anti-Romanism which the passage of time has not been able to erode. But I think there is a deeper and more disturbing explanation for this sorry state of affairs.

A characteristic of modern Anglicanism, of all parties and opinions, has been creeping indifferentism. In increasing numbers people have concluded that doctrine does not matter – that it is merely ‘theological’, in the Harold Wilson sense of abstruse and irrelevant. How vividly I remember Dennis Nineham celebrating in the college chapel in a chasuble bought by Austin Farrer, behaving for all the world as though he believed in the Real Presence, when he did not even believe in the Incarnation. And I wondered what John Keble would have made of that.

The old argument was that the Church of England maintained the same historic teachings and traditions as the wider Church.  It was said that there were no differences, even if some work was necessary to make sure that all in the Church of England might come to share this understanding.  As Cardinal Kaspar suggested, since the latter half of the twentieth century, the Church of England has changed its approach from a period just after the second world war when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, could say

The Church of England has no doctrine of its own, save that of the one Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.

to a time when Holy Order can be redefined with no reference to the Churches of the first millenium.

The Church of England is of course perfectly entitled to take this approach, and people are perfectly entitled to remain in the Church of England whatever its decisions might be.  Nobody argues the contrary.  There are those who say that the Church of England, as part of the Church Catholic (note the order of the words used), should not take such decisions alone, but the fact is that it does.  A leading proponent of the ordination of women to the Anglican episcopacy, Erika Baker, has said :

I still don't understand why those who are deliberately members of the CoE suddenly claim that it isn't the church ...... when they don't like its decisions. Yes, there are those who believe that the CoE doesn't have the power to make this decision.  But the CoE disagrees and it has made that decision and it has had women as priests for a long long time now.

She's right.  If you believe that the Church of England is the Church, and that it does not need to have its decisions approved by Rome or Constantinople, then it doesn't make sense to say that the Church of England isn't the Church on the occasions it reaches a conclusion other than one that matches your own opinion.

Certainly, there is nothing wrong with those who are Anglicans wishing to remain Anglicans.  It is their choice, and we as former Anglicans who remained in the Church of England for many years are in no position to criticise that decision.  However, the pretence that nothing has changed (or that nothing is about to change) is wilful blindness.  The line that Dr Fisher took (and we all know that he was not exacly ablaze with Roman Fever) cannot now be uttered other than in wistful nostalgia.

What has happened (or is in the process of happening) is not Catholic at all.  It is not even what one might call Anglo-Catholic.  Part of the great argument for Anglo-Catholicism, for the branch theory, for the Church of England being part of the one universal Church, separated by mere accident of history (ie Tudor politics and Dr Cranmer's subservience), was that the absence of full unity with the wider Church of East and West, while something to be resolved one day in the future (preferably by someone else), did not diminish the Church of England’s self sufficiency. Each individual diocese was the Church in that area, and the resultant disparate nature of the wider entity was not perceived as a problem sufficient to alter the Church of England's historic role as the Catholic Church in this land, a Church that held on to the Catholic Faith as it always had done (even if that last part required considerable intellectual gymnastics to prove it to any degree).

In Tract 90, Blessed John Henry Newman, while still an Anglican (although Tract 90 became a turning point in his process of seeking reception into the Catholic Church), expressed it as follows

The Anglican view of the church has ever been this: that its portions need not otherwise have been united together for their essential completeness, than as being descended from one original. . . . Each church is independent of all the rest. . . . Each diocese is a perfect independent church, is sufficient for itself.

[the]….Bishop of Rome, the head of the Catholic world……. is not the centre of unity

[the Anglican church is]….. essentially complete without Rome

Newman, as we all know, came to realise the error of his ways and to see that this image of a fractured, broken, dismantled Church is not the one to which we should seek to aspire, and is the vision neither of the Gospel nor of the Fathers of the Church. By the time Newman wrote the Apologia, not only had he very much changed his views on the Bishop of Rome, but he also now attached the most tremendous importance to unity (he perhaps realised that to agonise about the accidence and essence of the status of the Petrine Ministry, as he had in Tract 90, was as a mote to the plank of ignoring the Gospel imperative of Unity) :

The Anglican disputant took his stand upon antiquity or apostolicity, the Roman upon catholicity. The Anglican said to the Roman: “There is but One Faith, the ancient, and you have not kept to it”; the Roman retorted: “There is but one Church, the Catholic, and you are out of it.”

How strange it now seems that nineteenth-century Anglo-Catholic arguments were that Rome innovated whereas Anglicanism held firm to the Faith.   Newman himself commented on this in May 1843:

At present I fear, as far as I can analyze my own convictions, I consider the Roman Catholic Communion to be the Church of the Apostles, and that what grace is among us (which, through God's mercy, is not little) is extraordinary, and from the overflowings of His dispensation. I am very far more sure that England is in schism, than that the Roman additions to the Primitive Creed may not be developments, arising out of a keen and vivid realizing of the Divine Depositum of Faith.

Well, General Synod no longer takes its stand upon antiquity or apostolicity.  Even Newman's Tract 90 arguments cannot now be used : Newman's Tract 90 views as an Anglican depended on a shared

possession of the Succession, their Episcopal form, their Apostolical faith, and the use of the Sacraments.

When that has gone, what is left may be wonderful, it may do huge amounts of good, it may be treasured and loved, it may be run by the most kindly and charitable of people, it may even, through the overflowings of His dispensation be filled with not little grace, but it pays no heed to Christ's prayer for Unity.  What's more, this isolationist strategy is adopted for the sake of "second order issues".

In a stunning sermon given during the celebrations held to mark the 125th Anniversary of Pusey House, Canon Robin Ward, the Principal of St Stephen's House, reminded us that Blessed Pius IX had told Dr Pusey that he was like a bell summoning people to church but never entering it himself; Dr Ward went on to wonder whether Anglo-Catholicism might not be able to hope for a better future than that, now that the Church of England with its two integrities was coming to an end. 

What Dr Pusey sought was a recovery of the Catholic nature of the Church of England.  It was the Catholicism of the Church of England that interested him, not primarily its Anglicanism.  If he had lived to see a day when the Church of England's Anglicanism led it to harm what he argued was its Catholic nature, one has to wonder if he really would have "stayed in the Church of England".

As a matter of fact of course, Dr Pusey did stay in the Church of England, but it is very bold to take a nineteenth-century decision made in a nineteenth-century context as being conclusive proof of what he might have thought today.  As we have argued before in an article on Dr Eric Mascall, it is impossible to conclude what the heroes of Anglo-Catholicism might have done had they found themselves facing the current situation. 

The other surprise for me in New Directions was an article by Dr Philip North.  In it, he talked of explaining to some evangelical Anglican clergy (who have taken over the running of a beautiful Anglo-Catholic parish church that has fallen on hard times) what his understanding was of the Mass, of Eucharistic theology, of the Real Presence.  He reported that some of the evangelical clergy had started to "say mass" and had been immensely moved by his no doubt utterly sound descriptions.  It reminded me of the diametrically opposed and mutually incompatible views that can be held in the Church of England, and I'm afraid it rather brought to mind the Nineham phenomenon to which Dr Kirk refers above.

I thought further on this on Sunday, during an excellent homily on the Real Presence, the Bread of Life, from Fr Colven at Mass in St James's.  During the homily, he recounted an anecdote he feared he might have told before (I don't recall it) about an elderly nun that he visits once a month. 

This nun was raised in the West Country, with no religious upbringing whatsoever.  At the age of 16, she and a friend decided that it would be the right thing to seek confirmation, so off they went to the Anglican Vicar.  This holy, kindly and erudite man taught them much.  Before one confirmation class, the future nun's friend urged her companion to ask if they would be required to believe in transubstantiation.  The nun-to-be, having no idea what this was, willingly asked the Vicar. 

This learned cleric proceeded to give her a clear and indeed utterly sound explanation of transubstantiation, of the Real Presence, of what happens during the Mass.  It was impressive and affecting.

He then said that as Anglicans they were entirely free to believe that or not.

His explanation had been so lucid and so powerful that the young woman was very moved by what she had learned.  However, it struck her that, quite simply, what she had been told was either true or it was not, and if it was true, it was a most tremendous truth and of the utmost importance.  She became a Catholic.

Some would perhaps argue that those discussions with the Evangelicals were about catholicising the Church of England, carrying on the work of the Oxford Movement.  If anyone were to argue that, then it would seem, to me at least, to display a rather extraordinary degree of optimism on their part.

Among the musical offerings at St James's on Sunday, we had Esquivel's beautiful Ego Sum Panis Vivus, which was often heard at Bourne St, as well as Tallis O Nata Lux, a fine piece of English Catholic music (we cannot claim it as Anglican patrimony). 



The setting of the ordinary of the Mass was new to me, being the Missa Fac Bonum by the German baroque composer Valentin Rathgeber (the Agnus Dei of which reminded me very much of the theme music from the television series of Brideshead Revisited).  The Gloria of the mass setting is shown below, accompanied by some very improving images. 



As the post-Mass hymn we had a true favourite of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group, O Bread of Heaven, eminently suitable to accompany the readings at Mass and Fr Colven's homily.  Although this hymn has featured many times on this blog before, including in our article Catholic Treasure, Anglican Patrimony, we make no apology for its reappearance, because we share the view of that elderly nun that what St Alphonsus Liguori's hymn speaks of is indeed a most tremendous truth. 

The Sacrament of Unity indeed.  O may we all one bread, one body be.  Let us hope, as Dr Ward dared to do, for a better future for the vision of Dr Pusey and of the Oxford Movement than one limited by a test of whether its inheritors can hold fast to the Church of England, come what may. 

Even Wilfred Knox, a prominent Anglo-Catholic in the early twentieth century, and who unlike his more famous brother Monsignor Ronald Knox did not become a Catholic, included a sentence in the preface to his book The Catholic Movement in the Church of England that seems far from a goal of holding fast, come what may :

It is possible that I shall be accused of a lack of loyalty to the distinctive position of the Church of England. But if in being loyal to the teaching of the Church Catholic I am disloyal to the Church of England, I fear that I shall bear the reproach with equanimity.

We leave the final word to the famous Fr Davage, whom we mentioned at the beginning of this post.  Here is his conclusion from a lecture he gave in Bristol in 2009, entitled "Edward Bouverie Pusey : Post Reformation Saint?" :

........we are invited in this series to consider Dr Pusey as a Post-Reformation Saint. John Henry Newman is poised for beatification and possibly canonisation. Even if we forget about the process and the miracles for a moment, there is something right about that because Newman spent half his life as an Anglican and half as a Roman Catholic. He represents one vital strain of Anglo-Catholicism. Keble and Pusey represent another strain, and [in] the recent papal offer of an Ordinariate that respects and values an Anglican, and more specifically, an Anglo-Catholic patrimony, they would be candidates for admission to the saintly band and could share with Newman a patronage and saintly oversight, joined in heaven as they were in the life of the Oxford Movement. Until that day dawns, perhaps our last image should be of those three profoundly great and holy men dining alone in Hursley Vicarage on the one occasion that they met after Newman’s conversion: Keble at seventy-three, Pusey at sixty-five, Newman at sixty-four, not quite all passion spent. Three elderly clerical gentlemen who had met at Oxford, "the fulcrum from which [they] … hoped to move the Church," together after twenty years. Keble had only one more year to live, Pusey seventeen, Newman twenty-five. The shadows are lengthening, the candles are guttering, the tempest and turmoil of the battle has stilled for a moment as they talk and reminisce quietly and easily. We can only hear the murmuring of voices as we back silently out of the room and quietly close the door: ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem (out of the shadows and images into truth).

O Bread of Heaven, beneath this veil
Thou dost my very God conceal:
My Jesus, dearest treasure, hail!
I love Thee and, adoring, kneel;
Each loving soul by Thee is fed
With Thine own Self in form of Bread.

O food of life, Thou Who dost give
The pledge of immortality;
I live, no 'tis not I that live;
God gives me life, God lives in me:
He feeds my soul, He guides my ways,
And every grief with joy repays.

O Bond of love that dost unite
The servant to his living Lord;
Could I dare live and not requite
Such love - then death were meet reward:
I cannot live unless to prove
Some love for such unmeasured love.

Beloved Lord, in Heaven above
There, Jesus, Thou awaitest me,
To gaze on Thee with endless love;
Yes, thus I hope, thus shall it be:
For how can He deny me Heaven,
Who here on earth Himself hath given?

Kirk and Rome Unite

It is always a joy to welcome fellow former Anglicans into the full communion of the Catholic Church.  This weekend, we heard of the reception of Geoffrey Kirk by Monsignor John Broadhurst, and even though this was expected (not only through the self-evident logic for an Anglo-Catholic of joining the Ordinariate, but also in the more practical fact that we spotted Dr Kirk in the congregation at the Ordinariate Anniversary Evensong and Benediction), we are delighted to learn of the arrival amongst us of so eminent a former Anglo-Catholic.

The news was announced on the Ordinariate's own website as follows:

On Sunday 1 July 2012 Monsignor John Broadhurst received The Reverend Geoffrey Kirk into the full communion of the Catholic Church through the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham at the Church of the Most Precious Blood, London.

Fr Kirk was an Anglican Priest for 40 years and Vicar of St Stephen’s, Lewisham for 30 years. As Secretary of Forward in Faith, Fr Kirk worked closely with its Chairman, Fr Broadhurst, over the past 20 years in developing Forward in Faith’s vision for unity and truth together with its statement on communion.

He also wrote extensively for “New Directions”, the monthly journal of Forward in Faith. Fr Kirk’s sponsors were Deacon Robbie Low and his wife Sara who were also both closely involved in work of FiF, Robbie was editor of "New Directions", before becoming Catholics several years ago.

The reception took place during the regular 11am Mass at the Church where the London (South) Ordinariate Group worships. Fr Christopher Pearson, the Pastor of the group, prepared Fr Kirk for his reception and said:

Many people have been inspired by Fr Geoffrey’s teaching, preaching and pastoral care over the years.  His intellect, writing and wit encouraged a generation in the Catholic movement within the Church of England. I hope that they will now be similarly inspired to follow Fr Kirk's actions in seeking visible unity.

Dr Kirk has been mentioned on this blog before, in connection with a stunning article he wrote for Forward-in-Faith's magazine New Directions.  We reproduce it in full below.  It is shocking in just how clear it is about the reality of the situation for any who still consider themself catholic in the Church of England.  It reminds the reader that inaction is not possible, an ostrich-like head in the sand approach is not possible, the Egyptian approach Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt is not possible.  If you like what the Church of England is doing, good for you, then we can all behave like adults and wish each other well in our disagreement.  However, if you don't, then there is only one logical path for you, and it does not involve sticking your fingers in your ears, pretending nothing is happening and claiming, despite ever-increasing evidence to the contrary, to be part of the Universal Church.

‘Final Approval of the current draft Women Bishops legislation is not a foregone conclusion; the best way to secure its safe passage would be to amend it to provide properly for traditionalists; modest amendment of the legislation, together with a suitably drafted Code of Practice could yet enable the Church of England to move forward together on women bishops in 2012. Failure to amend the legislation could result in the failure of the legislation at Final Approval, which would delay the introduction of women bishops for many years to come’ Thus the leader of the Catholic Group in Synod of the forth-coming debate ¨ [note - Dr Kirk's article was written shorly before the Church of England's General Synod debates in February 2011].

So it has come to this: a movement which once embraced a vocation to reassert and affirm the Catholic nature of the Church of England, to defend its orders as those of the Universal Church, and so to progress the unity of Christendom, is reduced to horse-trading for its very existence, arguing in favour of what it most bitterly opposes in order to eke out a ghetto existence in the home it once supposed to be its own. A group of bishops, most of whom (and some immediately before they were so recently consecrated) sought arrangements of reconciliation with the Holy See, are now the sponsors of a ‘Society’ within the Church of England which promises a future which without compromise it cannot deliver.

What am I to say?

This ignominious ending to a long and hard-fought campaign is properly a cause of grief and shame. Shame, because it is a betrayal of the entire Catholic movement – of Keble as well as Newman, of Pusey as well as Froude. Grief, because it has exposed a fault-line which, in our generous optimism, many of us supposed not to be there. When Benedict XVI called their bluff, men whose rallying cry had been ‘Look to the Rock from which we are hewn!’ looked the other way. When the life-boat was launched, they complained about its colour. They claimed to act out of affection for the Church of their baptism and ordination. Tragically that is a demonstration of loyalty which, in the course of time, the Church of England will discover that it can well do without.

It may simply be that there is, even among Anglo-Catholics, a residual, irrational, atavistic anti-Romanism which the passage of time has not been able to erode. But I think there is a deeper and more disturbing explanation for this sorry state of affairs.

A characteristic of modern Anglicanism, of all parties and opinions, has been creeping indifferentism. In increasing numbers people have concluded that doctrine does not matter – that it is merely ‘theological’, in the Harold Wilson sense of abstruse and irrelevant. How vividly I remember Dennis Nineham celebrating in the college chapel in a chasuble bought by Austin Farrer, behaving for all the world as though he believed in the Real Presence, when he did not even believe in the Incarnation. And I wondered what John Keble would have made of that. The virus has proved not only lethal but catching. It was doctrinal indifferentism which allowed the development of the so-called ‘Doctrine of Reception’ which was embraced by opponents of women priests more or less tongue-in-cheek. And that has left its doleful mark.

‘Reception’ was an idea borrowed from the world of ecumenism, where for two generations and more, theologians had been practising the dark arts of fabricating agreement where truly none was to be found. By ‘Reception’ the Church of England was enabled to authorise orders about whose validity it freely admitted that it was itself uncertain – thus undermining its own trustworthiness and reliability. By ‘Reception’ bishops were enabled to license to the cure of souls ‘which is both mine and thine’ clergy about whose orders they were in doubt, and whose administration of the dominical sacraments was therefore equally dubious – thus jettisoning their own claim to be guardians of faith and sacraments.

‘Reception’ was, of course, a scam in which the proponents of women priests did not for a moment believe. By embracing it, to whatever degree, opponents nurtured the seed of their own downfall: they compromised the doctrine of sacramental assurance which lay at the heart of their ecclesiology. Now the Catholic Group is eager to ‘move forward together on women bishops’. Will they, I wonder, vote for the legislation they have so long opposed in order to secure the minimal concessions to which they are sure to be condemned? Nothing could be more demeaning; but anything is possible when principle and self-respect alike have been abandoned.

Those who live by the Synod die by the Synod. And where traditional Anglo-Catholics are concerned the writing on the Synodical wall has for some time been visible to all but the most determinedly myopic. From the failure to receive the Blackburn Report in July 2000 to the defeat of the Archbishops’ amendment in July 2010 the message has been clear. There is, therefore, something verging on the pathological about the expectation that there will be a last minute change of heart. Like a neurotic victim of domestic violence, the optimists are compulsively returning to the scene of their own suffering.

Let enough be enough. The time has come for opponents of women priests and bishops to admit that the game is up, that the battle is lost, and that the logic of the proponents’ arguments will not admit the possibility of a mixed economy. The future has already happened; let them look to The Episcopal Church of the United States and to the Church of Sweden to see the shape of things to come.

When still an Anglican, Dr Kirk gave a truly excellent talk at an Ordinariate Study Day held at St Agnes Kennington, a church which saw a significant number of its members accepting the call to unity that is at the heart of Anglicanorum Coetibus, and following Fr Christopher Pearson to form the core of the London (South) Ordinariate Group, now meeting at the Church of the Most Precious Blood near London Bridge, the church where Dr Kirk was received into the Catholic Church at the weekend.

If you have Anglican friends who are wavering about whether to become Catholics or not, I suggest that you share this video with them.  The sound quality settles down very quickly, so do bear with it.

They may find Dr Kirk's speech particularly useful if they have read the Anglican Association's "Is the Ordinariate for you? Some considerations for thoughtful Anglicans" a pamphlet reviewed very effectively by Dr Kirk here.


December 11, 2010 - Fr Kirk from St Agnes' Church, Kennington on Vimeo.

(Apologies to all Scottish readers who read the title of this blog and became over-excited.)

Facing Facts

As its 2.30pm debate begins, it really would probably be safer and fairer to avoid any comment on this week's General Synod in the Church of England.  Having left the Church of England, the debate has no direct impact on members on members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group, other than being a source of concern for those of our formerly fellow Anglo-Catholics who are very anxious at the moment.

However, it might nonetheless be topical and not too much of an intrusion to comment on one particular aspect of the debate.  Not the fundamentals, but the way in which the debate risks heating up unnecessarily.

There is much outrage about the seemingly unsympathetic attitude of some of the most notable proponents of the legislation to bring women to the Church of England's episcopate.  An article has appeared in The Telegraph, and the blogosphere is aflame (for example, see here, here and here).

It is true that some might have expressed themselves in more diplomatic language, for example the Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin has painted things rather starkly in this recent Telegraph article.  This section in particular has caused much upset :

The Church is desperately trying to hold everybody together, and we haven’t understood that this is not going to be possible. To try to do that is to put on a sticking plaster that is going to curl at the edge and fall apart. It cannot be sustainable. The whole thing is a mess. We need to say, as a Church, 'We ordain men and women.’ Full stop. All the way to the top. For those who feel that they can’t live with it? They’re adults. By all means, go to Rome. Join the Ordinariate. Don’t stay and make demands of the Church. It’s wrong.

However, if one scrapes away the veneer of the tone and looks at the underlying message, is the Revd Hudson-Wilkin really saying anything that unreasonable or unrealistic?  All she is saying is that the Church of England has made up its mind about ordaining women to its episcopate, and that those who don't like it will just have to accept it and act accordingly.  There is no magic solution that will be acceptable to everyone.  As to the tone, well, after 37 years of debate, surely we can all (including the Revd Hudson-Wilkin) be excused a little frustration.

Is what she says in the article really any different from the message that Dr Chartres, the Anglican Bishop of London, was giving to his clergy when he made it clear that he did not wish them to use the new translation of the Roman Rite?  In what remains our most read blogpost by some margin, we wrote the following :

The difficulty is not so much that the Bishop of London is strongly critical of any of his clergy adopting the new translation.  Rather, it is his argument for taking this approach.  In short, he says that Anglicanorum Coetibus has called bluffs : those who wanted to use texts issued by Rome that express communion with the Pope have headed off to the Ordinariate, those who remain should not be following instructions issued by the Pope to those in that other communion.  His conclusion is that if people in the Diocese of London use the new translation, they are rejecting the instructions of both the Catholic Church and those of the Diocese of London.

The messages sound strikingly similar, and in fact are rather simple : this is what is happening, this is what the Church of England has decided, and if that's not you, then you need to look elsewhere for something that is. 

While instinctively and historically we have enormous sympathy with the comments of the Revd Ross Northing on a current post in the blog of the famous Anglican Bishop of Buckingham (Dr Wilson's tone is far more brutal and strident than the Revd Hudson-Wilkin's, especially in his responses to comments on his blog), despite coming at things from a different perspective of course, it is hard to disagree with the comments made by Erika Baker on the same post.

I still don't understand why those who are deliberately members of the CoE suddenly claim that it isn't the church ...... when they don't like its decisions. Yes, there are those who believe that the CoE doesn't have the power to make this decision.  But the CoE disagrees and it has made that decision and it has had women as priests for a long long time now.

We can do little more than refer once again to Geoffrey Kirk's excellent recent article in New Directions, and to a recent blogpost written by Fr Ed Tomlinson.  Links to both of these can be found in the second half of this recent blogpost of ours.

The reality is, and there is no point in debating the rights and wrongs of how we got here, that the Church of England has made certain decisions.  People can either live with them or they can't.  The levels of frustration, and sadly animosity, increase on both sides when there is an inability or an unwillingness to see the new reality.  As Mark Twain never said, Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt.

Enough intrusion.  For those in the Church of England who might join the Ordinariate, perhaps the next few days and indeed months will be an important step in that process.  Decision making can be difficult, and has always been able to be so (see this article on how it agonised Dr Eric Mascall): all we can do is assure you that we do not regret our decision for so much as one second.

For those in the Church of England who do not feel comfortable with the idea of joining the Catholic Church yet are unhappy with the likely changes, we hope very much that you find a way to respect and cherish the Anglo-Catholic heritage that has formed you.

Nearer and Nearer Draws the Time

And which time would that be, you may ask?  For the purposes of today's post, there are two times to which I refer.

The first, of course, is Sunday's anniversary Solemn Evensong, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction at St James's Spanish Place.  This is shaping up to be quite an event.  Fr Colven kindly included a notice about it in this week's parish notes at St James's, inviting parishioners to join us.  The relevant extract is below.

To mark the first anniversary of the setting up of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham (Pope Benedict’s initiative for Anglicans coming into full communion with the Catholic Church), there will be Solemn Evensong & Benediction here at Saint James’s at 5pm (note time) next Sunday 15th January – Monsignor Keith Newton will preside and Bishop Peter Elliott, the Holy See’s Delegate for the Ordinariate in Australia, will be there. Everyone is welcome to share in this example of Anglican patrimony!

Beyond that, we continue to pick up "internet chatter", as the security services say, on the subject.   We have already highlighted posts by Fr Ed Tomlinson and Fr Edwin Barnes about visitors coming to London from Tunbridge Wells, Salisbury and Bournemouth.  We have also now spotted a post by Fr Jeff Woolnough about people travelling in from Southend.  There is even an announcement on the website of the Scotland Ordinariate Groups.  All are welcome, not only Ordinariate members, but all Catholics and all Anglicans, indeed anyone who wishes to mark with joy and thanksgiving this first anniversary of the Ordinariate's existence.

A sterling job seems to have been done about spreading the word (see our earlier blogpost here).  Not only Deacon Daniel Lloyd's excellent poster (as reproduced once again, shamelessly, below) but also a mention in The Portal and a popular Facebook event.  Readers have "shared" messages that have been posted on the Marylebone Ordinariate Group's Facebook fansite on their own "walls", as well as sending emails containing links to our blogposts to their own friends.  For all this publicity, we thank you very sincerely.  Keep up the good work, and please don't relent until 4.59pm on Sunday.

The Facebook Event is intriguing.  Not everyone we know who has declared that they are coming has yet accepted on Facebook, but equally that demonstrates that a lot of people do not manage their diary via Facebook events.  Given that that is the case, we think that the number of people who have accepted on Facebook under-represents the proportion of those who have been invited via Facebook that will attend.  All this makes estimating the quantities of food and wine to purchase rather tricky.

The work associated with the preparations has been shared fairly around between us all in the Marylebone Ordinariate Group, and with Fr Christopher Pearson and Fr Christopher Colven helping and guiding us, we are hopeful that all of you who make the effort to attend will feel more than glad that you did.

• A draft Order of Service has been prepared and awaits its imprimatur. 
• Wine is arriving on Saturday to refresh the throats of those tired after so much singing.
• The St James's choir is very much looking forward to the opportunity to sing from a repertoire that they don't get to sing very often at Spanish Place.  The Director of Music and the Organist, both former Anglicans themselves, are also very keen.
• A serving team has been gathered and is shortly to be briefed.
• Knights of Malta are at the ready to carry the canopy in procession.

Please continue to tell or to remind everyone you know about what is happening next Sunday at 5pm in St James's.  It promises to be an event to remember, and will demonstrate to everyone not just that the Ordinariate is alive and well, confident and keen to show potential joiners and all well wishers that those who join are delighted to have done so, but also that we are of sufficient scale, and sufficiently well organised, to mark our great days in this way.

So what is the other time that is drawing near?  I want to highlight a blogpost by Fr Ed Tomlinson from earlier today.  It picks up on a theme that has been circulating more and more in recent weeks, for example in Geoffrey Kirk's recent peerless article in New Directions (never has the case been argued more succinctly and more irrefutably), and indeed even here on this blog, in one of our most read posts Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt.    The theme is that the time is coming for those Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England to face up to some tremendously difficult decisions.  We do not envy them this, leaving is never easy, and we offer our heartfelt prayers for all those who find this a very troubling time, yet for the detailed reasons set out by Geoffrey Kirk and by the inimitable and ever-forthright Fr Ed, they are being forced to arrive at the crossroads.  General Synod meets in a few weeks from now to vote on proposals that really would pull the rug out from under the feet of remaining claims of CofE catholicity: with this and with the upcoming second wave of Ordinariate joiners, it will be a difficult time for remaining faithful Anglo-Catholics.

In his post, Fr Ed explains why it is only natural that those of us in the Ordinariate should continue to be interested in and care about what is happening in our former home, and sets out his vision of the future for the various groups who would categorise themselves as Anglo-Catholics, or as being on the catholic wing of the Church of England.

We commend his whole blogpost to you.  It can be found here.  As a taster, here is Fr Ed's powerful conclusion.

I hope this post, which could do with more time to be written properly, presents the reasons I believe Ordinariate members not only have a right but a reason to debate with those left behind. Our hope is not to poach happy Anglicans – that would be rude- but to call to those people who rightfully belong in the Catholic church. And who could oppose such desire which springs from a concern for truth and spiritual welfare?

Doubtless though some readers will be angry. They will not like what I have written. I only ask this question. Is it because the analysis is wrong or because it touches a raw nerve? I have no desire to upset but surely we need clarity and honesty as we look to the future…

Perhaps it is time those who now lead the Anglo-Catholic movement to provide a coherent and convincing argument of why they claim to remain ‘Catholic’ having said no to the offer from Rome and having accepted the reality of life within a fast evolving synodically governed church?  Out of respect this needs be done without downplaying or dismissing the Ordinariate which is an initiative of the Holy Father himself.

If they cannot do this conviningly then it is surely time they were honest with their people. The Catholic option is the Ordinariate. The stay at home option is now, logic and honesty dictates, that of being- not Catholic- but congregational high church protestants within a liberalising body. I would dearly love an answer that is consistent with everything the Catholic movement of the C of E has said over the last half century. A movement which always looked to Rome and prayed for unity with Peter.

One thing that we hope and pray that Sunday will achieve is that we will be able to demonstrate that we are a happy and confident body of people, delighted with the decisions we have taken (as hard as they were) and without any regrets.  The Holy Father has offered the same welcome to all who wish it, a chance to bring treasured Anglican heritage and usually extremely "sound" catholic teaching with you into the full communion of the Catholic Church.  Let us all do our very best to make any Anglicans who attend on Sunday, and any who might read of the event, hear of it, or see photos of it, want to find out more about what makes us so happy with the path we have chosen.

See you on Sunday, DV.........

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

We have previously mentioned Dr William Oddie's reflections in his marvellous book The Roman Option that an Ordinariate in the UK might well have come about in the 1990s.  If he is right, and certainly his writing is very convincing, then perhaps that might have smoothed the Tiber crossing for some, but our feeling is more and more that the way things have worked out is by no means an inferior outcome. 

The turn of the year is a natural time for this kind of reflection (both the end of the liturgical year and the end of the calendar year), but so too is the upcoming first "birthday" of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.  Preparations for the great day continue, and we are pleased to note multiple blogposts by Fr Edwin Barnes and Fr Ed Tomlinson talking of plans for their groups to join us on the big day, and we can tell from acceptances being received on the Facebook event set up to advertise the 15th that people are putting the date in their diary.

Thinking of these anniversary celebrations has brought home just how much we feel that there is indeed something to celebrate, not just something to mark or to note, but in fact something that we truly feel like celebrating with joy and thanksgiving.  There have been adjustments to make of course, not least losing such frequent contact with many very good friends from St Mary's Bourne Street, but none of our little Ordinariate group feels the slightest regret at our decision to become Catholics. 

The timing of the birth of the Ordinariate was perfect for us.  Of course we sometimes wonder, with the great benefit of hindsight, how it was that we didn't make the leap earlier, but frankly it doesn't matter.  The Ordinariate came into existence at precisely the time when we felt that our situations were starting to become untenable : the huge sense of welcome present in Westminster Cathedral on 15 January 2011 (at the ordination as Catholic priests of our three monsignori) was precisely the right thing to set us on our way.

A truly excellent article by Geoffrey Kirk in the latest edition of New Directions, and brought to our attention by the Ordinariate Portal talks of why it is that those Anglo-Catholics still trying to live out the Catholic Faith in the Church of England might also consider that the solution that the Ordinariate provides has arrived at precisely the right time for them. 

In our previous post Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt we talked about some of the same group of people that Geoffrey Kirk considered.  There are those who do not (or in some cases who wilfully refuse to) see the clear logic of the case Dr Kirk presents.  However, our thoughts should most of all be for those who find themselves very confused by what is happening around them, who see the difficulties facing their beloved Church of England, and yet who do not feel that the Catholic Church (whether through the Ordinariate or otherwise) is right for them at the moment.  Those people are in a very tricky situation, and they fully deserve our prayers and best wishes.  We can only hope that the joy with which we feel the anniversary of the Ordinariate's existence should be marked will be a sign to them that there is a solution, and that there are people who are more than willing to help show them the clear benefits of accepting it. 

For all this discussion of now being the right time for the Ordinariate, there are nonetheless those who continue to want to knock the Ordinariate.  In the same earlier blogpost we talked of various groups of people who are not yet sure of what the Ordinariate is about, and we acknowledged a continuing obligation on the part of all of us in the Ordinariate to explain ourselves to our fellow Catholics and to interested Anglicans.  However, we also talked of those who are not belittling the Ordinariate out of unfamiliarity or ignorance, but out of a deliberate desire to be dismissive. 

For example, there are those who argue that being made up of around 60 clergy and around 1000 laity makes the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham very small.  Another c.20 clergy and another c.200-300 laity entering the Ordinariate this year doesn't seem to cause them to change their opinion on this.  The idea that if the Church of England's General Synod goes the way that most expect it to in February, there might well be one or two more Ordinariate joiners seems to fall on equally deaf ears.  True, even the most ardent fan of the Ordinariate would have to concede that these figures are not Pentecostalist in scale, but you have to be pretty obstinate to argue that this is not a significant shift.   With the obvious exception of the years following 1992-1993, how many other times in living memory has there been a shift on this scale between the Church of England and the Catholic Church in this country, with the realistic hope of more to follow? 

Others criticise the Ordinariate for not being a single homogeneous entity, with disparities between its constituent groups (though it isn't easy to see how those in the Church of England can say such things with a straight face).  It is fair to say that the groups are in many varied situations, but it seems ludicrous to suggest that this is a sign of failure or insignificance. Some groups are smaller than others; most have their own masses while the members of other groups attend parish mass with their new Catholic brothers and sisters; some are geographically in a diocese which is more overtly supportive to the growth of the Ordinariate than others; there are more groups in the south than in the north.  Yet, to this list of differences, my response would be "So what?"  There is one thing that is far more important than all these differences, and that is that all those who have joined the Ordinariate have followed our convictions and have become Catholics, by means of a structure put in place by the Holy Father, specifically recognising that we do not join with nothing, that we have years of sound teaching, sound tradition and sound faith behind us, and that we might even have something useful to bring into the Catholic Church.

The time had come for us, just as it has for many ex-Anglicans over the centuries (not just in the period following 1992-1993), and just as it will for many others who wish to avail themselves of the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus and come into the full communion of the Catholic Church.  The Ordinariate was there to welcome us into the fold, and it behoves all of us to do our best to ensure that anyone else who might consider joining the Catholic Church is aware of the benefits that working towards Christian Unity by being a part of the Ordinariate might bring. 

The fruits of Anglicanorum Coetibus are not limited to this country.  This is no flash in the pan, no phenomenon that will drift away quietly after the first people joining the English Ordinariate have quietened down.  We would like to congratulate Fr Jeffrey Steenson on the announcement of his appointment as Ordinary of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, the Ordinariate that will welcome former Anglicans into the Catholic Church in North America, in the same way as the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham does here.  What an excellent name for this second Ordinariate formed under Anglicanorum Coetibus, with its link both to the relic enshrined so prominently at St Peter's in Rome and to the feast day that starts the annual Week of Christian Unity. 

The establishment of this North American Ordinariate is also a source of great joy, as will be the establishment of the Australian Ordinariate later this year. 

Let us all make every effort to display that sense of joy and thanksgiving by being present at St James's for Solemn Evensong, Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction on the 15th January.  The time for the Ordinariate is indeed now, as is the time to celebrate its first year of existence, and the birth of sister Ordinariates in North America and Australia.