Looking the Right Way?

When we go on and on, as we often do on this blog, about Christian Unity, perhaps we give the impression that we think Anglicanism has become isolationist.  Of course, it hasn't, but we would accept that sometimes the way we express things might lead people to think that this might be our opinion.

Our recent post A New Direction talked of an isolationist strategy, but there we were not referring to Anglicanism as a whole.  More broadly, Anglicanism is clearly not isolationist.  We acknowledged this in our post entitled Christian Unity, if only in regret that the outward looking moves were towards like-minded state churches of Northern Europe. 

We have talked recently about the views of Metropolitan Hilarion (of the Russian Orthodox Church) on some of the developments in the Church of England. Everything that General Synod does to move away from Unity, it does not only against Unity with Rome and the Church in the West, but also against Unity with the Orthodox. The sole moves that General Synod seems to want to take towards Unity seem to be towards unity with a small band of like-minded national churches (the Porvoo Communion, for example), a process that bizarrely seems to be evolving into overtures from some connected to the US-based Polish National Catholic Church to disaffected members of the Church of England who cannot yet accept the idea of reunion with Rome (the PNCC has recently established a small presence in Norway and smaller ones in Germany and Italy).

This of course is something that can be seen in "western" Anglicanism generally, not just in the Church of England, as this video recently highlighted by Damian Thompson shows : here we see what looks like a very joyful celebration of a mid-offertory, pre-secret dance by the Anglican Archbishop Fred Hiltz, leader of the Anglican Church of Canada, and Lutheran Bishop Susan Johnson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada, who are in full communion with each other. 



Cardinal Kaspar said to the Lambeth Conference in 2008 that :

We would see the Anglican Communion as moving a considerable distance closer to the side of the Protestant churches of the 16th century, and to a position they adopted only during the second half of the 20th century

The ultimately doomed Jerusalem Bishopric project, the final straw for Blessed John Henry Newman's time as an Anglican was an earlier if brief manifestation of this same phenomenon, a move towards the Protestant churches of the 16th century.   Newman was horrified at the idea of the Church of England being involved in a project that would provide an Anglican bishop as overseer to those without the same understanding of, among many other things, episcopacy.  He considered that for the Church of England to be doing this was to give ammunition to those who doubted its claim to catholicity: in a tone that seems much more shocking now than it would have done in the nineteenth century, he says that he thought it appalling that the Anglican Communion should coalesce with those such as Lutherans, Calvinists and others of heretical belief. 

We wouldn't put it that way now of course.  Most certainly the Church of England wouldn't, as through Porvoo it is now formally in communion with those whom Newman might rather bluntly have said held heretical beliefs.

Ignoring those objections, the Church of England pressed ahead with its Jerusalem project.  Newman would have liked these disagreements and challenges to have been faced up to rather than buried as unimportant details, or dare I say it, as second order issues.   On Christmas Day 1841, he wrote :

Has not all our misery, as a Church, arisen from people being afraid to look difficulties in the face? They have palliated acts, when they should have denounced them.

He found the idea of the planned system of alternating English-sourced and Prussian-sourced bishops quite ludicrous.  The entities involved had no shared understanding even of what a bishop was, so what was it that they were going to be sharing?   In what is, once again, a rather forthright manner typical of its time, he wrote the following letter to The Times (unpublished) in November 1841:

What is the worth of Episcopacy without orthodoxy?  What is it, but a husk pretending to be what it is not?  Do the Prussians take the orthodox view of the sacraments?  What respect is due to a Bishop who denies the grace of Baptism?  Surely it is an evil great enough to find Bishops heretics, without going on to make heretics Bishops? 

Newman wondered where to look for help, and in his reflections thought of recourse that in our day seems utterly incredible for someone seeking solid Catholic orthodoxy, being the Scottish Episcopalian Church and the forerunner of the US Episcopal Church.  He concluded that any such scheme would create Anglican schism, and of course we all know where his ultimate destination lay, in Rome.

As ever, much of Newman's writing speaks to us directly just as it did to his contemporaries.    Do the themes of pressing ahead regardless, of entering into schemes that provide ammunition to those who question the Church of England's catholicity, and of looking everywhere and anywhere but Rome for assurance not ring a few bells?

True Christian Unity, prayed for explicitly in the Gospel, cannot exist without the Churches of East and West.  Heading in the opposite direction is not a labour likely to achieve Christian Unity: rather, through the act of seeking like-minded friends with whom to ignore the Churches of the First Millenia, and thereby reassuring one's self that doing so is right, it brings with it the danger of preserving the larger existing divisions.

Erastian Decrees

William Oddie is on particularly robust form today.  Having read Dr Oddie's latest article, the words of the late Gerald Ellison, formerly Anglican Bishop of Chester and London, come back to haunt not just Anglo-Catholics still in the Church of England, but also any Anglican who believes that the Church of England should have ability to decide its own positions. 

Now, whatever one's views on the ordination of women or indeed on any other of the topics on which General Synod likes to spend its time, and whether a Catholic, an Anglican or anything else, does anyone really think it is desirable that a religious body should have these things decided for it by politicians?  Would the most ardent Anglican proponent of the legislation to introduce women bishops want the Church of England's 30+ years of deliberations on the matter to be decided upon by a committee of politicians with, let us be fair, perhaps not the greatest understanding of theology?  Surely there is a difference between accepting a Church by Law Established and having one's theology dictated by the latest crop of politicians?

Isn't this a modern day Gorham judgment in the making?  In the post Lines in the Sand, we explained how state interference prompted Cardinal Manning to leave the Church of England for the Catholic Church, and we hinted at modern day political manoeuvrings to make sure that the Church of England decided the way that politicians wished it to decide.

It is an extraordinary co-incidence that we are talking about this issue on the eve of the 179th anniversary of John Keble's Assize Sermon, in which he protested about the then government's interference in the question of Anglican bishoprics in Ireland.  That sermon is usually cited as the beginning of the Oxford Movement, the movement in the Church of England that eventually gave rise to what we have historically referred to Anglo-Catholicism, and to a revived sense of the importance of the church (the Church of England) having control over what it said it believed, rather than the state decreeing what it believed.

In the interesting set of comments provided on our post Missing the Point (for which, dear readers, many thanks), we answered a point by motuproprio agreeing that the Trojan Horse that has led to the current situation was the Worship and Doctrine Measure 1974, which in fact sought to keep the Church of England's decisions for the Church of England.  In 1972, when still Anglican Bishop of Chester, Gerald Ellison summed up the General Synod debate on that legislation with the following words :

I think it will be generally agreed that the least qualified body to decide the doctrine of the Church of England is Parliament.

In 1974, by which time he had been translated to become the Anglican Bishop of London, he said to the February session of General Synod :

Before granting this freedom, Parliament is entitled to guarantees that the Church of England will not depart from its traditional doctrine and position.

No comment, other than to say that it shows how far things have come in 40 years.  The Church of England had to promise not to change itself, but now risks being forced to change further than even it seems to be able to agree clearly and formally that it wants.

Gerald Ellison ended his 1974 speech with these words :

It is for many of us a matter of principle that the Church is the guardian of the purity of the faith and its voice through its synods should be decisive.

How unfortunate that legislation intended to replace parliamentary "interference" ended up, mixing metaphors here, opening a Pandora's Box that would lead back to the exact same starting point.  If Dr Oddie's report is correct, then Gerald Ellison's good intentions have been squashed.  The Church of England's voice, through its synods, will not be allowed to be decisive if it doesn't decide what politicians want it to decide.  The parliamentarians are not, as seemed to be the concern in 1972, upbraiding the Church of England for departing from its traditional doctrine and position, but for quite the opposite: for trying, in however limited a way and with however limited support, to take into account theological arguments, and for trying to maintain the broad church approach in which the Church of England could try, however unsuccessfully, to be all things to all men, simultaneously holding all manner of mutually incompatible theologies in order to attempt to keep together a national church.

There is no attempt in our blogpost to argue for or against what the General Synod is debating.  That is another story, although one could certainly argue that the mind of the Church of England does seem to be relatively clear, and probably not entirely out of line with what parliament might perhaps force upon it.  No, our point is, like Dr Oddie's, that when your church has its decisions made for it on rather important matters by the state, then you really are in an Erastian environment.

As Dr Oddie said :

......an Erastian Church is ultimately a secular organisation, though one in which religion is permitted, so long as it doesn’t clash with the ethical principles which govern secular society.

How can one reconcile that with the Anglo-Catholic vision of old?  How can one reconcile that with the well-known and oft-repeated line of Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury shortly after the Second World war, that

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

Celebrity cleric Giles Fraser has also been writing recently on this heated debate, but although his article contains one or two rather naughty throwaway lines that betray either ignorance or deliberate oversight,  what he says does seem to sum up relatively accurately what is perceived to be the mind of the Church of England, that women will be anglican bishops, end of story.  Like Dr Oddie, his conclusion is that those who do not like this must either adapt and accept, or leave.

But there is no way of unifying those who think women bishops are a theological impossibility and those who think they are a theological necessity. There is no bridge here to be built. In such cases the vast majority will has to prevail.

Dr Oddie says it like this:

Anglo-Catholics need to understand clearly that there is no longer a place for them in the Church of England; they are not wanted. They have, however, an alternative, in communion with the one true Church: the ordinariate has been erected precisely for them. If they will not become part of it, they will have simply to accept that they are members of a Church with women priests and women bishops and get used to it.

We referred above to the Church of England's old habit of attempting to hold everyone together, no matter the diversity and sometimes directly contradictory beliefs.  In this context, in a succinct and powerfully direct article in the London Evening Standard this week, Melanie McDonagh talked of the endless current CofE debate as follows:

The whole thing is preposterous, and not just for unbelievers who can’t quite get their heads around the notion that this is being debated at all. The point of the C of E is that it’s recklessly inclusive, a national church that seems incapable of turning anyone away. You can have ordained Anglican clergy who believe that God was made man and born of a virgin and those who can’t quite buy the Virgin Birth. You can have bishops who believe in the Resurrection and those who believe it is true in a very real sense, ie, not at all.

I would have said once that the only thing that actually unites the Anglican communion is a belief in God but that was before the Right Rev Richard Holloway came along, the former primus of the tiny Scottish Episcopal Church, who couldn’t make his mind up about it.

And with this extraordinary latitude on the things that actually count, the one thing they’re going to make a stand on is women bishops?

Well, preposterous it might be, but it is indeed the case that whereas the Church of England could for many years manage to hold utterly incompatible views on baptismal regeneration, and, as Melanie McDonagh says, on all manner of other pretty fundamental things, it seems that there will be a three-line whip imposed to ensure very clear acceptance of women bishops.  If the CofE itself fails to come to that conclusion, then it  appears that politicians (long known for their familiarity with scripture, tradition and, ahem, reason) will reach it for them.

As Dr Oddie rightly said:

The fact is that the Anglo-Catholics who are still determined to stay in the Church of England are in an impossible situation.

There are those among them who are attempting to call out to the old broad church nature of the Church of England.  The recent Better Together campaigns points to exactly that (although having the same name as the government's campaign against Scottish independence is unfortunate).  Well, if they really mean that, all well and good, but they should note that even those usually as poles apart as William Oddie and Giles Fraser agree that those staying will be better together in a Church of England that has willingly thrown off the understanding of Anglo-Catholicism that we at least have always held, and that sees the Gospel call to Unity as subservient not to theological understanding but to the rulings of politicians.

Dr Oddie says that they should no longer call themselves Anglo-Catholics.  Well, we take a very soft approach here on this blog, as you must all surely know, and we certainly accept that "Anglo-Catholic" has many different meanings.  We will not engage in that debate, much less will we cite Damian Thompson's very forthright and typically punchy summary of these matters towards the end of a recent blogpost covering a range of issues.

However, we would just mention to our former fellow Anglicans who wish to stay in the Church of England yet who are not in favour of the likely changes, that the Better Together campaign is producing some interesting reactions.  An admittedly non-scientific survey conducted by perusing Facebook comments indicates that at least some of those who might describe themselves as liberal Anglo-Catholics, perhaps members of Affirming Catholicism, view the Better Together campaign with confusion, or with suspicion, or with a perception (which may or may not be correct, we have no idea) that it is a form of olive branch, or said more cynically, a white flag.  For them, a movement which for so long proclaimed clearly its objectives and theology is now arguing a very different line.  What they perceive is that instead of seeking to tell the rest of the Church of England what it thinks is true, as it has long done, this movement now seeks a quiet corner in which to be one strand among the many.  You can understand why they are confused.

If Erastian practice is confirmed, then just how many such strands are allowed to exist will become a rather delicate point.

Punchy

A short additional blogpost to bring to your attention a posting by Damian Thompson over at his excellent Daily Telegraph blog. 

His post is entitled "The English Bishops are trying to Smother the Ordinariate.  How long will Rome tolerate this situation?"

We have previously highlighted Damian Thompson's views of the English Bishops and their interaction with the Ordinariate. 

• The first time was in a blogpost expressing our own views on how the Catholic hierarchy in England supports people like us, as compared to our views on how the Anglican bishops used to.
• The second time was very recently, on the very sensitive topic of setting up a principal church for the Ordinariate.

Whatever you think of the subject under discussion, it's clear that Damian Thompson's post will help the debate continue.  The development of the Ordinariate is not something that should be allowed to slip quietly into the background, neither in terms of a principal church, nor in more general terms.  The debate is healthy and is necessary.  Damian Thompson's tone is more forthright than that of this blog, but there is no harm in that : it is good to raise points of concern in this way, especially on topics such as how to make sure the Holy Father's intentions for his personal project are implemented.

We still think that Ordinariate clergy running a large London parish as its principal church might not be a bad idea.  This was suggested flippantly at the end of one recent post, but it could be a good solution that both fulfils the Holy Father's wishes, and addresses the valid concerns of those both inside and outside the Ordinariate about the practicalities.  The Oratorians and Jesuits, amongst others, do it, yet no-one suggests that they are fully subsumed by that role within the local diocese.  Equally, no-one suggests that the local, non-Ordinariate parish population is any way badly served by having non-diocesan clergy in charge.

In any event, we strongly feel that where realistic and viable options arise, they should be explored actively.  No-one should jump at the first idea that comes along, and the anxieties about practicalities cannot be set aside, but nonetheless, very serious consideration should be given to plans that appear even semi viable. 

Please pray for the growth and success of the Ordinariate in this country, and around the world.

UPDATE TO ORIGINAL POST

Fr Ray Blake, on his excellent blog, which we often cite, has also now posted some thoughts following Damian Thompson's article.

A Principal Church for the Ordinariate

It was after coming home last night from having attended the 5.30pm Sung Mass at Westminster Cathedral, the "mother church" of the diocese in which our Ordinariate Group is based, that I happened upon the Ordinariate Portal's news update on Facebook that some comments by Archbishop Vincent Nichols on the subject of the Ordinariate and a possible "principal church" for it had been reported on the Ordinariate Portal's website.

The Mass itself had been very good.  The usual dignified style, a stirring hymn to kick things off (Hail to the Lord's Anointed, the same Advent hymn discussed by Monsignor Andrew Burnham on the Oxford Ordinariate blog), the plainsong to Mass XVIII sung congregationally, and a good homily on happiness (we are all obsessed by trying to find it, perhaps prayer and spirituality are very effective ways to get nearer to it, Gaudete!).   It was a little more restrained, all in all, than the Beethoven in C mass setting that resounded around St James's yesterday morning, but there is a place for everything.

Although I couldn't place him at the time, I now realise that the celebrant and homilist was Fr Alexander Masters, the Precentor of Westminster Cathedral, who sang so beautifully for the recent Radio 3 live broadcast of the Requiem Mass for All Souls' Day.  You can find a little information on Fr Masters here, but the reason I recognised him in the end is that his identical twin brother was at University with me.

A couple of photos from last night are shown below.  I am very pleased with the first one, a rare example of my taking a reasonably good picture, whereas the second is of note only because it shows the Cathedral High Altar with the rose pink altar frontal appropriate to Gaudete Sunday.

One can imagine that the subject of a principal church for the Ordinariate is something that the Archbishop of Westminster is asked about quite frequently.  It is also, no doubt, a question that is addressed by and put to Monsignor Newton fairly often (the topic cropped up in the meeting described here, and is covered at the end of Monsignor Newton's long address described in the 2 October 2011 post over at the Catholic League blog.

From our discussions with other Catholics, both members and non-members of the Ordinariate, we are aware that there is some strength of feeling on this. 

There are those who see the establishment of the principal church as being likely to add definition to the Ordinariate, and thereby to add to its appeal to former Anglicans.  They see it as a key part of the mission of the Ordinariate.  They note that although the Ordinariate is not, by any means, awash with cash, the hard work of the Friends of the Ordinariate in particular is starting to bear fruit.  They consider that the Holy Father's intention is that the Ordinariate must have a principal church, and that we should press ahead with it. 

The ever-interesting and ever-forthright Damian Thompson put it like this recently.  He wonders if the Bishops of England and Wales are doing all that they could be.  The Catholic Herald also expressed a similar view in a recent editorial.  It is certainly hard to detect a sense of driving urgency and enthusiasm in the reported words of the Archbishop of Westminster on this topic, but is the obvious caution of the Bishops' Conference really such a totally bad thing?

The counterargument to the admirable drive to find a principle church asap is far from totally watertight, but it does contain a few points that cannot be swept aside without any thought.  I do not suggest that the obstacles are insurmountable, far from it, and indeed the courage that Damian Thompson and the Catholic Herald call for might help overcome them, but they do most certainly exist and will need to be dealt with. 

First, there is the question of the building.  There is certainly a small number of vacant or little used Catholic churches in London, but the list is not endless.  One imagines that the Bishops' Conference would be wary of proposing something in too poor a condition, or too far out of the way, for fear of appearing to be trying to fob the Ordinariate off, or of appearing to be trying to rid themselves of something no longer wanted rather than offering something of value to assist a personal project of the Holy Father.  Equally, as indeed hinted at by Archbishop Nichols, the Ordinariate would probably not want to take on the financial burden of a building in a state of considerable disrepair.  A couple of months ago, we put up a blogpost covering our thoughts on the support given by the Bishops of England and Wales.   Whether or not there is room for greater levels of wholehearted support for the Holy Father's intentions for the Ordinariate in some quarters there, we know for sure that the Anglican Diocese of London is not going to offer any space whatsoever.  "Why should they?" some ask : and that does indeed seem to be the attitude of Dr Chartres. 

Second, there is the question of attendance.  There are members of the Ordinariate in Central London, and some of them, with other ordinariate members and some interested Anglicans, would come together to build a congregation for a principal church.  There would of course also be other Catholics, both those interested specifically in the Ordinariate (perhaps being former Anglicans themselves) and those who happen to live or work in the area.  Any Catholic church in Central London benefits from there being a significant core Catholic population.  Even with all this combined, which would be more than the average Church of England parish in Central London could muster, would it be enough?  Nobody wants to set up a principal church that ends up, even in the early stages of its life, like the sad but familiar spectacle of a dying Anglo-Catholic shrine with more people in the sanctuary than in the nave. 

Third there is the question of funding.  Very simply, as Archbishop Nichols asked, has the Ordinariate reached a position where this can be paid for?  We are certainly at the stage where it is right not to be too gung-ho, but we are also at the stage where we are genuinely able to begin explore possibilities with a realistic expectation of being able to implement them, if it seems appropriate.

So where does this leave us?   It seems that the cautious approach is going to continue, and we can only guess the extent to which the possibilities of finding somewhere in the immediate future are being actively explored.  We hope that they are being explored, and that if they don't make sense they will be rejected (there is no need to go for the first thing that comes along), and that if they do, people will start doing some soul-searching and some number-crunching, and will have the courage called for by Damian Thompson and the Catholic Herald. 

One further thought.  Although his remark in no way diminishes the imperative of establishing a principal church in the right way at the right time and in the right place, Archbishop Nichols is absolutely right in our case at least to say that, for now, we are more than happy in our diocesan church. St James's is a wonderful place, especially for former Anglicans (all the parish clergy are former Anglicans, though not members of the Ordinariate (perhaps some honorary memberships should be handed out?)). 

That rather flippant reflection leads to a more serious one : the Oratorians, the Jesuits and others run parishes throughout the land, the Ordinariate runs the quasi-parish of St Anselm's Pembury (the Tunbridge Wells Ordinariate Group) : why might not the Ordinariate do the same thing for its principal church in London?  Perhaps the anxiety about the funding of a principal church comes from the assumption that it might be Ordinariate only, or at least largely Ordinariate only, with a few local and visiting Catholics from elsewhere to make up the numbers.  I don't think that that needs to be the case. 

Not everyone at the London Oratory is an Oratorian, and not everyone at Farm Street is a Jesuit.  For that matter, not everyone at St Anselm's in Pembury is a member of the Ordinariate.  What they are is all Catholics, just like everyone around me at Westminster Cathedral last night.

Anglican Patrimony and the Ordinariate

If you ever feel like raising your blood pressure, a good tactic is often to read the comments that appear underneath online news articles.   Even if the article itself is thought provoking, and invites consideration and debate, before long in the series of comments the discussion has gone off at a tangent, and extreme views begin to be expressed on topics of limited relevance to the original article.

This is not something restricted to any one topic or to any one sort of politics.  The comments on an online article in the Daily Mail and in the Guardian are as bizarre as each other.

The world of blogs on religion is no exception.  The most famous example is probably Damian Thompson's blog in the Daily Telegraph,  which although it does not solely focus on topics connected to religion, has an army of people ready to comment on each and every post.  There, you have the whole spectrum of views, from hardline atheists, to hardline liberal Anglicans (if that sounds like an oxymoron, believe me it isn't), to hardline traditionalist Catholics, to hardline Protestants.  Comments usually run in to the hundreds, and there is no hope, after the first few, that the topic commented upon will be the same as the comment written upon by Damian Thompson.  This is all rather a shame, as the blog itself is fascinating, always well informed, and highly supportive of the Holy Father and of the Ordinariate. 

On the Ordinariate itself, comments on the well-established blogs have often been colourful.  Fr Ed Tomlinson's blog for the Tunbridge Wells Ordinariate Group has always been very fair at allowing sometimes rather heated debate, as long as it was "on topic", in the comments.  This was even more the case for Fr Tomlinson while he was still an Anglican, his old St Barnabas Tunbridge Wells blog was blessed with many a commenter who wished to provide forthright advice.  Open debate is good, especially if well informed, considered, and polite.  Sadly, it isn't always like that. 

One of the topics most often used in a failed attempt to knock the Ordinariate is the well known concept contained in Anglicanorum Coetibus of "Anglican Patrimony".  There are some who like to say that there is nothing that can be shown to be Anglican Patrimony that Ordinariate members will take with them, and therefore the Ordinariate is a waste of time.  Yes, there really are people who think like that, and who believe that that is some kind of persuasive argument.  (I wonder if I could submit this as evidence of failings in the British education system?)

Anglicanorum Coetibus, first of all, is not an attempt by the Holy Father to go out and grab some nice bits of Cranmerian text and a few jolly hymns that can be used in the Catholic Church.  It is a response to requests made by Anglicans in various parts of the world, whereby they can find a way to come into the full communion of the Catholic Church as groups, and while retaining such aspects of their Anglican Patrimony as are consistent with Catholic teaching.  Therefore, very clearly, neither the priority nor the litmus test of the Ordinariate revolves around what little treats people could bring with them: no, the priority is following Our Lord's will that all might be one, "Ut unum sint".  If we want to be "Anglican Patrimony" about it, we could say that we are following the prayer contained in the hymn O Thou who at the Eucharist didst pray that all Thy Church might be for ever one.

Critics like to say that many of the new Ordinariate priests, in their Anglican days, never used the Book of Common Prayer or Common Worship, and were already using the Roman Rite.  Therefore, so goes the glib argument, they have no Anglican Patrimony to bring, ergo, so they say, the Ordinariate is a waste of time.  The flimsiness of that argument is laughable, and displays an unhealthy obsession with liturgy as the sole measure of the Christian life. 

Other comments I have seen on blogs argue that all Anglican Patrimony means is that an Ordinariate mass includes a few hymns, and that this is a terribly minor difference, and that (yes, you guessed it) therefore the Ordinariate is a waste of time. 

No, it seems to me very obvious that Anglican Patrimony is a more complicated subject than a short comment, or even a long blog post, can cover.  It is about far more than hymns and Cranmerian language. 

One also has to remember that for the kind of Anglo-Catholic most likely to take up the offer contained in Anglicanorum Coetibus, the differences between the catholic practices found in the Catholic Church and those found in the Church of England are often not to be found in obvious places such as the great set pieces of public liturgy.  We shouldn't for one second expect that an Ordinariate Mass should look anything like Holy Communion at Westminster Abbey: it should, and does, look much more like Westminster Cathedral or, dare I say it, St James's, Spanish Place.  I would strongly urge you to read an excellent piece by William Oddie  in The Catholic Herald on this very topic.  An extract from his article is as follows :

.....it has to be said that in the case of mainstream broad church Anglicanism I really don’t think that our communities do understand each other better: what has happened is that Roman Catholics have begun to understand Catholic-minded Anglicans a lot better (it isn’t just that Anglo-Catholics have realised that any kind of understanding with Anglicanism as it has developed is now impossible for them): and the “Anglican patrimony” they bring with them is of a kind entirely compatible with the Roman patrimony of the mainstream English Catholic Church.  Largely that is because, over the decades, beginning with the Oxford movement in which John Henry Newman was such a major formative influence, Anglo-Catholics made themselve  relatively comfortable within Anglicanism by constructing a liturgical culture and an ecclesiology (which has now entirely collapsed) according to which the Anglican Church had never really left the mainstream of Western Christendom. That explains why the Tractarians and post-Tractarians (or “Anglo-Catholics”) were culturally so entirely happy with – and showed, many of them, such wonderful comprehension of – the Catholic spiritual tradition...

So perhaps we need to look for Anglican Patrimony not just in the liturgy, but elsewhere.  Fr Christopher Colven has suggested that one thing it might mean is a greater awareness of community, both within parishes and in relation to the civil community around us.  We covered this very thoughtful idea in a blogpost last month.  In another blogpost last month, on the Solemnity of Our Lady of Walsingham, we reflected on whether one form of Anglican Patrimony was allowing the Catholic Church to regain some of the devotions and practices that it had forgotten.

By focussing on areas other than the liturgy, I do not, of course, mean to exclude the liturgy, and the many undoubted treasures of the Anglican tradition, from the discussion.  Monsignor Andrew Burnham has played a large part in discussing, describing and developing what Anglican Patrimony means in this context.  For example, last weekend he gave a fascinating lecture to the Association for Latin Liturgy, part of which gave a detailed insight into how the Ordinariate Liturgy is taking shape, and into what Anglican Patrimony might bring in this context. 

There are many things that ex-Anglicans can bring to the Catholic Church, just as there are innumerable things that we ex-Anglicans delight in discovering in the Catholic Church. 

Professional detractors of the Ordinariate would do well to think a little more deeply before trying to claim, in substance, that the Ordinariate is pointless if it doesn't mean wholesale copying and pasting of the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship.  Our Anglican Patrimony is worth far more than that.  The Holy Father sees that, and offers us the opportunity to bring our gifts with us.  How could anyone say no?

Our Lady of Fatima, Bishop Fulton Sheen, and what we think of the Bishops

Once again, just as with our series of posts on Our Lady of Victories and Our Lady of the Rosary, which you can find here, here (including a homily from Fr John Hunwicke preached at St Mary's Bourne Street,  and here,  we have focused on one commemoration in the Church's calendar at the expense of another.  October 13 is indeed our local feast day, a celebration of St Edward the Confessor.  Yet, elsewhere in the Catholic world, millions also mark events in Fatima.  The last of the six apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima occurred on this date in 1917.  If you watch the film at the end of this post, you'll see Bishop Fulton Sheen explain, in his awe-inspiring style, the implications and remarkable nature of these events in this truly remarkable footage. 

Now there's a Bishop telling like it is without any apology.  His unique and inimitable style brought many to the Faith, and reinforced the faith of many others.  His weekly television broadcasts in the 1950s attracted audiences of up to 30 million, achieving more viewers than the most popular entertainers of the time.  Yet, Bishop Sheen, even if blessed with the same dramatic screen presence as the Pope at the time, Pope Pius XII (to whom frequent reference is made in the footage below), was no mere showman.   He rose to become an Auxiliary Bishop in the diocese of New York and eventually became Archbishop of a Titular See.  He was a convincing and eloquent speaker on world affairs, condemning the Vietnam War but also well known for his outspoken condemnation of communism, especially under Stalin (a few weeks after Bishop Sheen's famous February 1953 broadcast in which he announced that "Stalin must one day meet his judgment", Stalin had a stroke and died). He held a Doctorate in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain, and was the first American to win the Cardinal Mercier prize, awarded for his doctoral thesis.  The Cardinal's name is very familiar to the former regulars of St Mary's Bourne St who make up the Marylebone Ordinariate Group of course, and another Sheen connection to Bourne St is that while teaching at St Edmund's College, Ware, he met Ronald Knox.

Warmly embraced by Pope John Paul II at St Patrick's Cathedral in New York in 1979, the Cause for his Canonisation has been open since 2002.  Let us pray that the Church will soon be able recognise its loyal son, this Servant of God, as a saint.

Do all these kind words about a Bishop seem strange when coming from a former Anglo-Catholic?  After all, Anglo-Catholics have always been well known for having a deep suspicion of their bishops, even if their respect for the office of bishop is beyond question.  Anglo-Catholic history is full of huge disputes with the bishops of the Church of England (and still is).  Anglo-Catholics were always happier with a selected group of like-minded Anglican bishops: in recent days that meant the "Flying Bishops", almost all of whom are now with us in the Ordinariate, and in days long gone that often meant those from far flung corners of Empire.  This phenomenon is referred to in a poem by Eric Mascall (another giant in the history of St Mary's Bourne St), the "Ultra-Catholic", and in John Betjeman's "Summoned by Bells".

I am an Ultra-Catholic -No 'Anglo, I beseeech you!
You'll find no trace of heresy in anything I teach you.
The clergyman across the road has whiskers and a bowler,
But I wear buckles on my shoes and sport a feriola.

My alb is edged with deepest lace, spread over rich black satin;
The Psalms of David I recite in heaven's own native Latin,
And though I don't quite understand those awkward moods and tenses,
My ordo recitandi's strict Westmonasteriensis.

I read the children in my school the Penny Catechism,
Explaining how the C. of E.'s in heresy and schism.
The truths of Trent and Vatican I bate not one iota.
I have not met the Rural Dean. I do not pay my quota.

The Bishop's put me under his 'profoundest disapproval'
And, though he cannot bring about my actual removal,
He will not come and visit me or take my confirmations.
Colonial prelates I employ from far-off mission stations.

The music we perform at Mass is Verdi and Scarlatti.
Assorted females form the choir; I wish they weren't so catty.
Two flutes, a fiddle and a harp assist them in the gallery.
The organist left years ago, and so we save his salary.

We've started a 'Sodality of John of San Fagondez,'
Consisting of five young men who serve High Mass on Sundays;
And though they simply will not come to weekday Mass at seven,
They turn out looking wonderful on Sundays at eleven.

The Holy Father I extol in fervid perorations,
The Cardinals in curia, the Sacred Congregations;
And, though I've not submitted yet, as all my friends expected,
I should have gone last Tuesday week, had not my wife objected.

And now the Betjeman extract, reflecting a different time of course, when the Church of England, in the words of Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher, was happy to state openly that "The Church of England has no doctrine of its own save that of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church" and when it still thought that the "greater question" as Betjeman put it, was something other than a need to create greater divides with the Church in the West and the East :

Silk-dressing-gowned, to Sunday-morning bells,
Long after breakfast had been cleared in Hall,
I wandered to my lavender-scented bath;
Then, with a loosely knotted shantung tie
And hair well soaked in Delhez' Genêt d'Or,
Strolled to the Eastgate. Oxford marmalade
And a thin volume by Lowes Dickinson
But half-engaged my thoughts till Sunday calm
Led me by crumbling walls and echoing lanes,
Past college chapels with their organ-groan
And churches stacked with bicycles outside,
To worship at High Mass in Pusey House.

Those were the days when that divine baroque
Transformed our English altars and our ways.
Fiddle-back chasuble in mid-Lent pink
Scandalized Rome and Protestants alike:
"Why do you try to ape the Holy See?"
"Why do you sojourn in a halfway house?"
And if these doubts had ever troubled me
(Praise God, they don't) I would have made the move.
What seemed to me a greater question then
Tugged, and still tugs: Is Christ the Son of God?
Despite my frequent lapses into lust,
Despite hypocrisy, revenge and hate,
I learned at Pusey House the Catholic faith.
Friends of those days, now patient parish priests,
By worldly standards you have not 'got on'
Who knelt with me as Oxford sunlight streamed
On some colonial bishop's broidered cope.
Some know for all their lives that Christ is God,
Some start upon that arduous love affair
In clouds of doubt and argument; and some
(My closest friends) seem not to want His love -
And why this is I wish to God I knew.
As at the Dragon School, so still for me
The steps to truth were made by sculptured stone,
Stained glass and vestments, holy-water stoups,
Incense and crossings of myself - the things
That hearty middle-stumpers most despise
As 'all the inessentials of the Faith'.

Those were the old days.  Now we are happy members of the Catholic Church, in the Ordinariate, there are some, such as the eminent and always interesting Damian Thompson who would tell us that we should not worry that our attitude to the episcopacy and the hierarchy needs to change.   That may or may not be right, we are too young in the Church to know : let us pray that the Bishops of England and Wales, like all of us, follow the clear message and reminder given by Cardinal Levada recently that the Ordinariate is the Holy Father's personal project and it is his will that it succeed and be encouraged to succeed.  Any loyal son or daughter of the Church will work for the success of the Ordinariate, that is beyond question.

At a more practical level, in the Ordinariate, we have as our Ordinary Monsignor Keith Newton, not the local diocesan Bishop. In that sense at least, the debate is to some extent irrelevant.  All being recent arrivals from the Church of England, we know each other's approach.  Furthermore, for us specifically, the Marylebone Ordinariate Group attends Mass in a diocesan church, where we have been made to feel extremely welcome.  The Ordinariate has much to offer the Church in England and Wales (not least many extra pairs of consecrated hands to assist where and when needed, when Ordinariate commitments permit), and the Church in England and Wales has much to offer the Ordinariate.  In a spirit of charity and positivity, and in obedience to our Holy Father, there is much we can achieve together.

There may or may not be politicking among the hierarchy, but even if there is, for as long as they are still committed to teaching the Catholic faith, for as long as they believe in the Mass, for as long as they are in communion all with each other, all with us and all with the Holy Father, there is nothing too much to worry about.  All that makes our journey worth it, with absolutely no regrets.  Our Lord prayed that all might be one, and so that must remain a priority: a lot of the matters of politicking, whether in the Catholic Church or in the Church of England do not have the same status.








Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.