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.

Christian Unity

So here we are.  The end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2012, we have come from the feast of the Chair of St Peter at Rome on the 18th to today's feast of the Conversion of St Paul.  The Holy Father will mark this by celebrating Solemn Vespers this afternoon (perhaps one year, when Rome and Canterbury finally reunite, it will be Solemn Evensong and Benediction).

The Ordinariate is, at its heart, about heeding the call to Unity that is expressed in the prayer of Our Lord on the night that he was betrayed that all might be one.  That is why Ordinariate blogs go on and on (and on) about how important Unity is.  Those of us who follow Ordinariate news on Facebook or Twitter have been kept very efficiently up to date with events in Rome this week for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (if you haven't signed up to follow Ordinariate news, then you can do so at #UKOrdinariate or http://on.fb.me/fZWBJ5).  Unity is a topic that Ordinariate members most definitely follow.

Pope Benedict XVI truly is, as we argued in a post last October, the Pope of Christian Unity.  In that blogpost, you can see a picture of the Holy Father walking side by side with Bartholomew the Ecumenical Patriarch, which surely points to progress in healing the greatest of the rifts in Christianity, something about which Blessed John Paul II was particularly passionate.  While we on these shores focus on the Ordinariate in certain circles, and while many of us, perhaps more so in Ireland and Scotland, focus on a Protestant vs Catholic divide, all this, even if desperately important (not least on a personal level to us Ordinariate members), is small in scale compared to the need to work for resolution to the millenium old divide between Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

It is sometimes tempting to think that if we in England had a wider of sense of international perspective, the Church of England's General Synod would not consider matters of Unity as being of so little importance.  It's too easy to say "We don't care what those awful Romans say, they'll come round in the end once they've understood that we are right, and anyway we prefer Orthodox spirituality".  Add a little bit of the English cultural undercurrent of suspicion towards Catholicism into the mix, and Synod's alacrity in forgetting about Unity is easily explained.

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).

Some people who in one breath will dismiss Mormonism will with the next happily state, without a hint of irony, that yes indeed the truth, the right way forward (in total contradiction to what has gone before) is being revealed to them and to them alone, leaving hundreds and hundreds of millions of other Christians (mostly the non-English speaking ones) in the dark.  Francis Wagstaffe is alive and well, and God is an Englishman.

Even if someone hates everything that Rome says and does (which is certainly not the attitude of faithful Anglo-Catholics remaining in the Church of England), they must surely concede that there can, quite simply, be no Christian Unity without Rome.   Through history, through tradition, through the Gospel appointment of St Peter and through his successors, Rome is at the heart of Christianity : it is the "rock from which we were hewn", as Anglo-Catholics have been so fond of saying.

Unity is important, vitally so.  Christianity should not be seeking new and exciting ways in which to hack itself apart: it should be seeking ways to increase mutual understanding and co-operation with a definite goal of reunion.  Ecumenism, in its now somewhat tarnished sense of everyone having a nice cup of tea and talking pleasantly to each other while pretending not to disagree, is not a bad thing of itself as long as all involved are well-intentioned, realistic and sincere : however, if it leads nowhere, and if it becomes less and less likely that it ever will lead anywhere, then serious thought needs to be given to whether it is in fact more of a distraction than something that serves any useful purpose.  True ecumenism, true moves towards unity, are always useful and are most certainly vital.  We must never abandon our attempts to work together and to reunite, but we must always ensure that our efforts are appropriately focused and directed.

As ever, Fr Colven's parish notes at St James's this week included a very apposite and interesting reflection on the theme of Unity and the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  Here it is :

Maria Gabriella Sagheddu was born on the island of Sardinia in 1914: though brought up in a Catholic atmosphere, she had no great desire for God until, at the age of eighteen, the death of a sister brought her a moment of conversion: life was literally turned around, and Maria began an intense life of prayer which led her to enter the Cistercian monastery at Grottoferrata just south of Rome in 1935. Around that time – mainly inspired by the efforts of Abbe Paul Couturier – religious houses throughout Europe were inspired with a new impetus to pray for the unity of Christians, and the community at Grottoferrata offered a novena for that intention. Sister Maria Gabriella felt called to offer her life for the cause of Christian unity and asked permission of her superiors to do so: on the very night that permission was granted, the young Cistercian (who until this moment had been vitally healthy) felt the first pains which indicated the onset of the tuberculosis from which she would die just eighteen months later. We hear much today about spiritual ecumenism – and here is an example of what his can mean. It is right that theologians and church leaders should talk and study together to find common ground and understand the history of our disunity, but all this effort is as nothing without praying hearts that really share the pain of Christ in his fractured Body.

The Cistercian community of which Blessed Maria Gabriella (so designated by Pope John Paul in 1983) was a member had forged strong links with a number of Anglican Benedictine houses in England, and this enclosed nun from Sardinia, who in all probability never met a Christian from another tradition, consecrated her life in a very definite way to draw Anglicans into the full unity of the Church. Perhaps the recent establishment of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham for former Anglicans is, at least in part, due to Blessed Maria Gabriella’s intercession – it must certainly have rejoiced her heart to see the four hundred people who were here in Spanish Place last weekend to celebrate Solemn Evensong arranged by local members of the Ordinariate.

As Roman Catholics, during this annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18th-24th January), we do have particular insights to offer. On the one hand, an older model of re-union (a sort of ecclesial federation based on an extended European Community model – famously satirised by Monsignor Ronald Knox) seems less and less viable, while our vision remains that of the Catechism when it says: “all are called to this Catholic unity of the People of God, and to it in different ways, belong, or are ordered, the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ and finally all mankind, called by God’s grace to salvation”.  Our understanding is that: “this Church constituted and organised as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church which is governed by the Successor of St Peter and by the bishops in communion with him”: If we sincerely believe that the fullness of Christianity "subsists" (is to be found existing) and the means to salvation – orthodox belief, nurtured by the sacraments, expressed in a life of charity – are offered  in a unique way within Catholic communion, then (and this in no way, denies their existence, to varying degrees, in other expressions of the Christian tradition) to borrow some words of Cardinal Herbert Vaughan: “of course we desire to convert all – especially our own countrymen – to the Catholic religion. Could it be otherwise?”

Unity means the Unity of all Christians, including Rome.  This is the cause of Catholic Unity that is celebrated on the Halifax Memorial on the wall at St Mary's Bourne Street, and it is this Unity that the Ordinariate is working to build.

Two final comments. 

First, apologies that I have completely failed to post a piece of music today.  I had tried to find a setting of Magnus Sanctus Paulus (perhaps the Palestrina), but I could not find a suitable youtube link.  I then intended to post Mendelssohn's How Lovely are the Messengers from Paulus but again drew a blank in both the English and the original German (Wie Lieblich sind die Boten) versions : the recordings I could find were either of not especially good performances, or were technically of poor quality.  There will be more music some time soon.

Second, we believe we have some more photos of last week's celebrations at St James's, marking the first anniversary of the Ordinariate's existence.  If we manage to track them down, we will post them on Flickr.  These photos include shots of the church but also of the reception afterwards.  In the meantime, if you go to this blogpost, you will find some links to other photos. 

O thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray
that all thy Church might be for ever one,
grant us at every Eucharist to say
with longing heart and soul, "thy will be done."
O may we all one Bread, one Body be,
through this blest Sacrament of unity.

For all thy Church, O Lord, we intercede;
make thou our sad divisions soon to cease;
draw us the nearer each to each, we plead,
by drawing all to thee, O Prince of Peace;
thus may we all one Bread, one Body be,
through this blest Sacrament of unity.

We pray thee too for wanderers from thy fold;
O bring them back, good Shepherd of the sheep,
back to the faith which saints believed of old,
back to the Church which still that faith doth keep;
soon may we all one Bread, one Body be,
through this blest Sacrament of unity.

So, Lord, at length when sacraments shall cease,
may we be one with all thy Church above,
one with thy saints in one unbroken peace,
one with thy saints in one unbounded love;
more blessèd still, in peace and love to be
one with the Trinity in Unity.

Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt

In our post discussing the introduction of Anglican liturgies in Anglican parishes where the Roman Rite had previously been used, we asked the following question.

So is it unkind, or is it actually rather merciful, for the Bishop of London to have written his letter in this way at this time?  Is he kicking people when they're down, or is he doing everyone a favour and asking them to make a decision about the future they truly want?

The more we think about it, the more we think that, whether this is what he intended or not, the Bishop of London is probably doing everyone a favour by forcing them to re-examine their positions.  Events are such that people need to give some thought to what is going around them.

John Betjeman, in his poem Summoned by Bells, cited the mocking questions often asked to him and fellow Anglo-Catholics as to why they seemed to "ape" some features of the Catholic Church:

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?

Betjeman was writing at a very different time from the one in which we live.  The Anglo-Catholic thesis, the branch theory, held then as much as it ever did.  Among other efforts to promote unity on the part of the Church of England, Saepius Officio and the "Dutch Touch" were very serious and sincere attempts (whether one considers them to have been succesful or not) to align the Church of England's orders with those of the Catholic Church.  Fr John Hunwicke talked of the Dutch Touch in the following terms :

Some sixteen years ago I coined the phrase 'the Dutch Touch' to describe the participation after 1933 of Dutch schismatics with indubitably valid orders in Anglican episcopal consecrations (the technical details are in my paper in the volume Reuniting Anglicans with Rome). The secret archives in Pusey House, Oxford, make absolutely clear that the intention of the very highest levels in the Church of England and the Dutch Old Catholic Church was to introduce the 'Dutch Succession' into the Church of England and so, after two or three generations, render Apostolicae curae obsolete. Remember that in 1662 the Cof E had made the formulae in presbyteral and episcopal ordination (which [Pope] Leo [XIII] had asserted were insufficiently clear), more explicit. Although the plotting of 1933 was done in private (so that nobody could say 'Ah, the Anglicans do realise they are not real priests'), it clearly represents a formal and ecclesial act.

Who in their right mind would argue that the approach of the Church of England would be the same today?  The Church of England has taken the approach that it has the right to vote on making whatever changes it likes, and if this leads to the creation of significant differences with the wider Church, whether in the East or the West, then that's just tough.  Not exactly Ut Unum Sint, is it?

Cardinal Walter Kasper, at the 2008 Lambeth Conference, said the following as part of his longer address :

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 1966 Common Declaration signed by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey called for a dialogue that would “lead to that unity in truth, for which Christ prayed”, and spoke of “a restoration of complete communion of faith and sacramental life”. It now seems that full visible communion as the aim of our dialogue has receded further, and that our dialogue will have less ultimate goals and therefore will be altered in its character. While such a dialogue could still lead to good results, it would not be sustained by the dynamism which arises from the realistic possibility of the unity Christ asks of us, or the shared partaking of the one Lord’s table, for which we so earnestly long.

No-one, when trying to come up with examples of ultra-hardline, ultra-conservative or anti-ecumenical Catholics would ever come up with Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Kasper.  It's not just us pesky Catholics, of whatever hue, who are worried by the new approach of Anglicanism.  No, it's also the Orthodox, with whose spirituality a certain kind of Anglican cleric often likes to claim affinity.  At a 2010 address to the Nicaea Club at Lambeth Palace, Metropolitan Hilarion, of the Russian Orthodox Church, after recalling the warm history of co-operation between Anglicanism and the Orthodox, and having taken several none-too-subtle swipes at the über-liberal practices of certain parts of the Anglican Communion, went on to comment that the Church of England's approach on certain issues was not conducive to Christian Unity.

We have studied the preparatory documents for the decision on female episcopate and were struck by the conviction expressed in them that even if the female episcopate were introduced, ecumenical contacts with the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches would not come to an end. What made the authors of these documents so certain?

Betjeman's concept of a "greater question" seems to have a completely different meaning now.  The "greater question" today is whatever happens to be on General Synod's agenda, and as long as the right legal and procedural niceties are respected, that can be just about anything.

There are, however, plenty in the Church of England who see what is happening as a very good thing, and of course they have every right to do so.  This is perhaps where the events of the past 20 years in the Church of England might be seen as having a positive outcome.  As suggested so compellingly in William Oddie's excellent and very prescient book The Roman Option, perhaps this is an opportunity for those who want to be clearly Catholic to become so, in full communion with Rome, and an opportunity for those who do not to be free of the shackles (as they might see it) of having to take into account the position of the Catholic Church on certain matters.

Even amongst those Anglicans who have felt themselves having difficulty with some of the Church of England's changes, there are different schools of thought.

There are people in the Church of England who, bravely and with great honesty, are deciding that in fact perhaps the label of Catholic or even Anglo-Catholic doesn't tell their whole story.  This must be difficult for some (but possibly joyful for others), and we must all hope and pray that for such people it represents a new and positive dawn.

Then there are those who are in a dilemma, who want to adhere to Catholic faith and practice within the Church of England.  These people, who see impaired communion as the only difference between them and their friends in the Catholic Church, need our prayers, support and sympathy.  There are difficult times ahead for them, and hard realities to be faced. 

There is a third category, one that includes many clergy: those who are in denial. 

Their view is that the Church of England will remain catholic (more so than the Pope indeed, who they feel has got many things wrong), no matter what General Synod decides on any issue.  Theirs is an Anglo-Catholicism steeped in an almost congregationalist approach, taking the John Keble line that as long as they run their parish, all is well.  Après moi le déluge.  They hark back to times long gone, to the era of the magnificent triumphs of the Anglo-Catholic conferences, when people, such as exemplified in the fictional Fr Hugh Chantry-Pigg, talked disparagingly of the Italian Mission and the Irish Mission.  The dramatic transformation in the ecclesial body around them is irrelevant, they believe.  They don't need to listen to the Bishop of Rome, they say, although they will pick and mix their way through the liturgies of his many predecessors, blending the concoction that best pleases them (one wonders how the Anglican Bishop of London, who disapproves of the use of the new translation of the Roman Missal by his clergy, feels about the use of never-authorised translations of pre-1955 Holy Week rites in his diocese).  

Those in denial are, to be fair, enjoying something that is truly appealing and truly great fun to a certain number of people.  Many a present and former Anglo-Catholic fully understands the temptation to take the "pull up the drawbridge approach".  What is unfair though, is when such people criticise the Ordinariate.

Other Catholics who have not had full information on what the Ordinariate is, quite rightly ask questions about the Ordinariate.  Many on the liberal wing of the Church of England do not like the Ordinariate, perhaps as a result of synodical battle scars incurred over many years, even if we would argue they should be happy to see us go.  Similarly, what Damian Thompson might rather bluntly call the "tabletista tendency" in the Catholic Church is not always thrilled by the existence of the Ordinariate.  All that, we can take, we can understand, and we will all come to a mutual understanding free of the fears of the unknown on all sides.  The Ordinariate engages actively in a programme of explaining its mission as widely as possible.

Sadly, those "in denial" usually like to make a big point of how the Ordinariate is irrelevant to them.  They don't need to join the "Roman Church" and even if they ever did so, they proclaim that they would not join the Ordinariate.

Why do the "deniers" act like this?  Perhaps, to some extent, fear of the unknown (and we can all understand that).  Perhaps a sadness at having to face up their dream of a Church of England as the Catholic Church in this Land slipping away (again, an entirely legitimate emotion).  There may be other reasons too.

One of the ultimate bêtes noires of the deniers is the question of ordination, and as a layman, I am going to steer well clear of that topic.  The only thing I will say is that people who are anxious about how their own ministry up to that point will be regarded (very favourably, is the answer, including in a prayer of thanksgiving in the Ordination Service), should understand that the Ordinariate is one way in which the Holy Father shows that he most definitely values the existing ecclesial, liturgical and religious life of Anglicans, and that he wants to bring them in to the Catholic Church without treating them as if they knew absolutely nothing.

The establishment of the Ordinariate was about many things, not least a response to groups of Anglicans across the world who had asked for a way to come into communion with Rome as groups.  However, it was also about recognising that Anglicans have something to bring with them.  There has been much discussion about what Anglican Patrimony means, but certainly, one of the thing that the existence of the Ordinariate recognises is that incoming Anglicans do not arrive with a year zero level of knowledge.  Often, a tailored programme of catechesis will be provided (in the same way that a tailored programme of priestly formation is provided for Ordinariate priests), acknowledging that these Anglicans are in a special position, they are not totally new to the Faith.  One of our most popular blogposts talked about the shared beliefs between Anglo-Catholics and those already in the Catholic Church.
 
The Ordinariate should be understood for what it is, a means to welcome Anglicans in, if they want to make that journey, on a basis that values all that they have done thus far, that will build on their existing experience, knowledge and gifts, and doesn't treat them as if they know nothing.

If readers will permit me this moment of vanity, I conclude with the last few paragraphs I wrote in an email announcing my departure from the Church of England :

This is not a decision taken lightly or in the heat of the moment. It is not a decision made out of hurt or disappointment. It is a tremendously difficult decision made out of a conviction that the right home for people with views such as mine is the Roman Church.

In May 1843, Blessed JHN wrote :

"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"

I think that about sums it up. I am infinitely less uncomfortable with the trickier parts of Roman "innovation" than I am with what the CofE is doing.

Making a separate point, how apt that this Newman extract was also cited by Fr Aidan Nichols OP in his homily at the "first mass" of Fr Andrew Burnham (the inverted commas were used by the Oxford Oratory too, they are not mine). Fr Nichols made a reference to Newman saying that there was "not little" grace among us in the CofE, and referred to Fr Burnham as Bishop Andrew - so like Fr Aidan and Fr Andrew, I do not regard what I am about to do as a rejection or a negation of anything I have done, rather, to paraphrase Fr Nichols again, this time from his sermon at the deaconing of the three former Anglican bishops, a "quiet rectification" of my position.

It seems that Dr Chartres's words will bring people closer to accepting the reality of their situation.  Some will be delighted with the new situation, others will feel called to think seriously about making a change.  The outcome for both is surely positive, even if there will surely be trials and challenges along the way.