THE President of the Church Union (CU), Fr Edwin Barnes, is to stand
down because the majority of its Council opposes “assisting those who
join the Ordinariate”.
Last month, the Confraternity of the Blessed
Sacrament (CBS) provoked anger among some of its members when it donated
£1 million to the Roman Catholic Ordinariate.
Fr Barnes, who joined the Ordinariate earlier this year, wrote
in a statement posted on the website of the CU, which says that it seeks
“to promote and renew Catholic Faith and life within the Church of
England”, that the group received a legal opinion from a QC suggesting
that, although the organisation’s Constitution had been altered to
include those outside the Church of England, “the foundation documents
had not, and they trumped whatever the Constitution might intend.”
The
legal opinion “seemed to say this was a Society for Church of England
members only”.
Fr Barnes said that he sought another legal opinion, which
“arrived at a different conclusion”, and suggested that the CU “might
indeed function ecumenically”.
“Since those opinions were received,” Fr Barnes wrote, “there has
been an election, and it is quite clear to me now that even were I to
continue as President, the weight of opinion in the Councils of the
Union would be against any notion of assisting those who have joined the
Ordinariate. This has been achieved partly by refusing to accept
nominations of members of the Church Union who are already in the
Ordinariate.”
Last month, the Friends of the Ordinariate was launched to raise
funds for priests who have left the Church of England for the
Ordinariate.
Mgr Keith Newton said that the Ordinariate would need “£1 million to
keep going”.
He said that, of the 59 Ordinariate clergy, there were 31
“who need support of one sort or another. . . Out of those 31, there are
12 who are married with dependent children, nine who are married
without dependent children, and ten who are celibates.”