The English ordinariate, it seems, will be well on its way by the
middle of this month.
Three former Anglican bishops were received into
full communion with the Catholic Church during a Mass at Westminster Cathedral on January 1.
One of the comments following the Herald online report,
noting that they were received in secular clothing, opines that “For
Bishops to wear ties is simply saintly and to lose all that prestige
they once held is stunning to the mind of a Catholic Bishop”.
Well,
indeed.
But I think that their former prestige is the least important
aspect of what they are giving up: they are abandoning certainty and
recognition within an established institution, for uncertainty within an
institution – the ordinariate – that doesn’t even exist yet.
What this
shows is an absolute faith in the Catholic Church of which it will be a
part, especially as it is embodied by the present Holy Father.
I
last saw the most senior of the three, John Broadhurst, formerly Bishop
of Fulham, splendidly caparisoned in full episcopal fig (I have known
him, on and off, for over 30 years, and have never seen him except in
clericals: I can hardly imagine him in a secular collar and tie) at the
150th anniversary of that great Anglo-Catholic institution, Pusey House,
Oxford, just after the publication of Anglicanorum coetibus.
I asked
him for his reaction to the document (it was pretty clear that most of
those present were elated by it): his reply had to do, not with the
visionary excitements of the proposed ordinariate, but with its
practicability: “it’s doable”, he simply replied.
Now, it’s being
done (by him and others), and at a dizzying speed.
After their
ordination on January 1, the three former “flying bishops” will be
ordained to the Catholic diaconate on January 13, and to the priesthood
two days later.
This, I am pretty sure, is unprecedented: Anglican
clergy have previously had to undergo a period of seminary training
before they are accepted for ordination in the Catholic mainstream.
What
this new development demonstrates, apart from anything else, is the
degree of knowledge, gained by the former Cardinal Ratzinger after a
decade and a half of discussions with these men, of their already
existing understanding of and belief in Roman Catholic doctrine and
practice (entirely based, since its publication, on the Catechism of the
Catholic Church and on other essential Catholic texts).
The Pope is
well aware that the Anglo-Catholic clergy who will inaugurate the
world’s first ordinariate already have a degree of authentically
Catholic priestly formation which some of our seminaries are today far
from achieving or even attempting.
Andrew Burnham, John Broadhurst
and Keith Newton will be the first former Anglican bishops to be
ordained as Catholic priests under the provisions of Anglicanorum
coetibus.
They will be ordained and incardinated directly into the
ordinariate: this means that it has to be erected before January 13.
According to the Herald’s report, “Speculation suggests the decree of
erection will be published on January 11”.
The next stage will be
the ordination of a larger group of former Anglican clergy (it is said
this Easter) who will be pastors to an uncertain number of parish
groups: there are already 24 such groups in existence, but it is thought
that this number will be at least doubled by the end of the year.
So
the ordinariate will begin in a small way (one of the former flying
bishops has told me that this is deliberate policy: “we don’t want to
frighten the horses”, ie the Catholic bishops) but will have huge
potential for growth.
This, I think (there is some evidence for this
from American Anglican Use Parishes and elsewhere) will be not only
among Anglo-Catholics but among returning lapsed Catholics too. I have
in earlier blogs explained what I think the attractions of such small
but closely-knit parishes will be to such people.
This is a brave
and exciting venture; its contribution to the revitalisation of
Catholicism in this country is potentially enormous.
We in the Catholic
mainstream should pray for its unqualified success.
SIC: CHUK/INT'L