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.

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.

By a Singular Grace and Privilege Granted by Almighty God

It is often assumed (no pun intended) that the Immaculate Conception, like the Real Presence (and with it Dr Chartres's bête noire of Transubstantiation), the Assumption and Papal Infallibility are amongst those things that make life difficult for Anglicans who might consider joining the Ordinariate or otherwise becoming Catholics.

That analysis is rather broad, and ignores the very strong catholic teaching that has existed in a not insignificant proportion of the Church of England.  Certainly, there is an even larger proportion of the Church of England that takes a more Sola Scriptura approach, and has no time for dogmatic theology of any kind, but that in no way diminishes the value of catholic teaching that has been undertaken elsewhere.  Indeed, a recent post by William Oddie in the Catholic Herald talks eloquently of this phenomenon.  Furthermore, one of our most popular blogposts (not just on account of its extraordinary footage of Pope Pius XII making his Ex Cathedra declaration) is The Angels rejoice.... and so do the ex-Anglicans, which talks of this shared understanding.

Still, it is not difficult to see why the common perception could be that the Immaculate Conception is not an Anglican belief in general terms. 

Certainly, no-one expects it to be so on the Evangelical wing of the Church of England.  The middle-of-the-road tradition, alone with mainstream Anglican liberal opinion is largely unfussed about it, despite being happy to hear the Duruflé setting of Tota Pulchra Es, Maria sung by its choirs. 



As ever, the analysis is more nuanced in the Anglo-Catholic world.  Some of those we rudely referred to recently as the deniers might denounce the Immaculate Conception as a Roman Innovation, while others would proudly proclaim their total acceptance of it (not worrying too much about what Pope Pius IX might have had to say about some of their other beliefs, particularly on ecclesiology).

Even at the most catholic end of Anglo-Catholicism, there is a complicated picture.  On the one hand we can say quite confidently that the members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group have not had to change their beliefs on the Immaculate Conception at all in order to be able to accept Catholic teaching.  The Immaculate Conception is and was celebrated "with the full works" at Bourne Street, even if the numbers attending on this particular day in recent years have not been (in my entirely fallible recollection at least) what they were in my first days there in the the mid 1990s.  We send our friends at Bourne St every good wish for their celebrations of this great day.

None of the above is intended to knock or indeed to mock the way in which the Immaculate Conception is viewed in any part of the Church of England.  The dogma of the Immaculate Conception has a long and complex history, and one must acknowledge that the delicacy of the argument contained in it might pass over the heads of many of those who fill Catholic churches each week, as much it might do so over an Anglo-Catholic congregation.  Having said that though, in the Catholic Church the dogma is not seen as something extreme or outlandish, it is not something that one has to make a fuss about as a kind of badge of honour of agreement or disagreement : quite simply, it is the teaching of the Church, and as such there is an general awareness of and belief in, to put it brutally simplistically, ever sinless Mary, that perhaps does not exist elsewhere.

Daring to tread where far better and more informed brains than mine have failed, here is an attempt to describe the Immaculate Conception in one paragraph and in "layman's terms".  Through the saving works of Our Lord, Mary was conceived (in the usual way by her parents Joachim and Anna) without stain of sin, and (going beyond the confines of the Immaculate Conception itself), again through His saving works, she was preserved from sin throughout her life. This is not something she achieved herself, but at every stage depended on God. It does not put her on a par with or above God, but gives her the most special of places amongst mankind.

Simple, isn't it?  So why the complex history, why did the dogma take such a very long time to define?  That is a subject for a doctoral thesis not for a poor blogpost, but even here it is worthwhile noting a small number of the more significant points in the process.  The heart of the matter seems to have been that while people could agree that Mary was, through God's grace, sinless during her life, it was not universally agreed whether this also applied to original sin, ie did Mary become sinless as from her conception, or did this happen later?  The answer may seem obvious to us today, with the benefit of over 150 years of Pope Pius IX's Ineffabilis Deus behind us, but it took some very serious intellectual effort to get us to where we are.

St Augustine said that he would not hear of sin in the context of the Mother of God.  On the face of it, that is not explicit about original sin, but then given how keen Augustine was on the topic of original sin, is it rational to think anything other than that he did mean to include original sin in his sinlessness of the Mother of God? 

There is a view that some of the difficulty in getting to a defined dogma was caused by Thomas Aquinas not accepting the Immaculate Conception.  His views are not that straightforward, as this article explains. 

The lack of a formal definition, binding on the whole Church, carried on for some centuries.  Although some dioceses, with papal permission, celebrated the Immaculate Conception with the full definition we know today, this was not universal.  Even the Council of Trent shied away from a definition. 

We had to wait until 1854 for Pope Pius IX to declare :

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

Today, Catholic teaching is very clearly, indeed dogmatically, defined, and thanks be to God for that. 

Above, we included the well known Duruflé setting of Tota Pulchra Es, Maria.  This text, which is an odd one for non Catholics to be keen on, is also the Alleluia for Mass on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, and is partly built on text from the Song of Songs, text which was set by Palestrina. 



Regular readers of this blog will note that we have a passing interest in what one might call in a politically incorrect way, Spanish Colonial church music.  For example, we have previously included a Cuban setting of a requiem.  Today's great Solemnity provides an excuse to explore some more of the treasures of Latin American sacred music, in the form of an anonymous eighteenth century setting from Bolivia of Tota Pulchra Es, Maria : now that's a sentence few of you will have had cause to read before. 



May Immaculate Mary pray for us.

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?

From Lepanto to Le Barroux

How to follow yesterday's post, Memories of Bourne St, Lepanto and Fr Hunwicke?  There's a challenge.  Traffic on this blog was double usual levels yesterday, and the post has rushed straight up the hit parade to be the most read blogpost we have yet put up.

Perhaps readers of this blog have a particular devotion of Our Lady of Victories and Our Lady of the Rosary.  Surely so, but no doubt the post was also happy reading for those present at St Mary's Bourne St when Fr Hunwicke delivered the homily quite brilliantly, and no doubt the post was manna to those who are fans of the Liturgical Notes blog.

Thanks are due once again to the homilist for his kind permission to reproduce his work.  Thanks also to friends of this blog who shared the Facebook post announcing the publishing of the blogpost : keep up the publicity!  New readers, please sign up to join our Facebook group to receive regular updates, the link is shown on the right.

The one unfortunate effect of having focussed on Our Lady of Victories yesterday is that we couldn't get in a mention for St Firminus of Uzès.  Uzès has a special significance for a significant number of current and former members of St Mary's Bourne St, with many happy memories of holidays spent near there in small and large groups at a traditional Mas belonging to a member of the St Mary's congregation.

Meeting the Sunday obligation there often involves attending Mass at Uzès Cathedral (a rather good photo can be found here), and for a special treat might involve a trip to Le Barroux.



Today's saint of the day is St Wilfred.  Over the past year or so, St Wilfred has become a slightly tricky saint to discuss in the context of Anglo-Catholicism and the Ordinariate.  An Anglican society has been named in honour of St Wilfred and St Hilda, attempting to seek to secure some kind of provision for Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England for the new era that will dawn once General Synod votes in favour of the ordination of women to the Church of England's episcopacy.  Since it is a tricky subject, I shall steer well clear, other than to echo the sentiments of others who find the naming of the society rather strange at at time when the Ordinariate is in existence, as both St Wilfred and St Hilda are saints who, in their time on this earth, were renowned for sorting out the English Church and, particularly in Wilfred's case, prioritising obedience to Rome over obedience to Canterbury.  I leave the polemics to others more skilled in the matter, and wish to assure all our Anglican friends of the prayers and support of the members of the Marylebone Ordinariate Group.  Shared years kneeling together at the same altar are not easily forgotten.  In the unlikely event that there are any comments on this particular topic, I regret to say that they will not be published: there are plenty of far more suitable places to discuss what is going on in the Church of England than here. 

All this talk of ex-Anglicans and remaining Anglicans brings to mind an article that the Ordinariate Portal highlighted earlier this week.  The piece by William Oddie talks of the significance and genesis of the Ordinariate project, not so much in  terms of the practical discussions of the last couple of years, but in terms of Blessed John Henry Newman's vision; of the conversations between the then Cardinal Ratzinger, Cardinal Hume and Monsignor Graham Leonard (then Anglican Bishop of London) that might, had things been different, have led to an Ordinariate far earlier; and of William Oddie's prescient book The Roman Option. 

While the article seems to assume that everything would happen at once, we know of course that those coming over will come over in a number of waves.   Avid readers of blogs will know that several new Ordinariate groups have been announced in recent weeks, including yet another one in Central London and one in Balham, as well as a number outside London.  We also note the pleasing article in the Catholic Herald, referring to statements by Cardinal Wuerl, made upon the occasion of his visit to Stirling in Scotland, about the imminent launch of an Ordiniarate in the US.

William Oddie concludes the article with a most wonderful extract from Blessed John Henry Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua.  We have now added that same extract to the right hand sidebar of this blog.  It is indeed very moving, expressing a hope that one day we shall all be united, and reunited, into One Fold and under One Shepherd.

… I gather up and bear in memory those familiar affectionate companions and counsellors, who in Oxford were given to me, one after another, to be my daily solace and relief; and all those others, of great name and high example, who were my thorough friends, and showed me true attachment in times long past….

And I earnestly pray for this whole company, with a hope against hope, that all of us, who once were so united, and so happy in our union, may even now be brought at length, by the Power of the Divine Will, into One Fold and under One Shepherd.

Powerful words indeed.  We finish with one of the most Catholic, if you will, settings in the Byrd Gradualia, Tu es Petrus.  As Anglican Patrimony, however, we have posted a version being sung by King's College Cambridge.  The performance is very much of its time, but the words and the music are as potent as ever.



St Wilfred, St Firminus, pray for us.