A Future for the Anglican Use
The Thoughtful Crab: Anglican-Use Roman Catholics
The Thoughtful Crab has made some very important observations about the possible short future for the Anglican Use. Some of what he says is correct, and some is not. To begin with, there have not been "a great number" of Anglican Use Parishes forcibly converted to Novus Ordo parishes. There have been some that have converted to Novus Ordo because they no longer had an Anglican Use Priest. The future of the Anglican Use is by no means certain.
The Pastoral Provision for Anglicans in the Catholic Church is an interim arrangement, and the permission for married men to become priests in the Catholic Church is not intended to be on-going. After this generation of former Anglican priests dies off, what then? Conceivably celibate priests could be granted faculties to celebrate the Anglican Use, but with the priest shortage in the Roman Catholic Church, this may seem unlikely except in the case of the most successful of Anglican Use congregations. Right now such booming parishes can be counted on one hand.
The Thoughtful Crab pointed out that this really is the time for an Anglican Rite in the Catholic Church, and I have said this too. An Anglican Rite would assure the future for the Anglican Use in accord with the goals of Vatican II to preserve the patrimony of ecclesial bodies reuniting with the Catholic Church, and allow a relaxation of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church without altering the rule of celibacy in the Latin Rite. TC opines that the Anglican Use may have come too soon. He may be right. It was primarily a clerical thing, anyway, and most of the priests ordained under the Pastoral Provision have given no thought for the Anglican Use. They are just content to be serving as Catholic priests. At the time the Anglican Use started, there were some laity upset over the ordination of women, but most of the alienated laity of the Episcopal Church were more concerned with issues about the new BCP. Now the laity are hopping mad about V. Gene Robinson and all that he represents.
Unfortunately there is very little left of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the Episcopal Church. And most of the people crying for realignment today are evangelical. They are perfectly content to be joined with the Reformed Episcopal Church which split off in 1873 over changes in the Prayer Book; they did not approve of the invocation of the saints and they rejected the doctrine of Baptismal regeneration. These new Evangelicals are putting a great deal of emphasis on Holy Scripture and on the Articles of Religion. They are not going to be interested in union with the Catholic Church any time soon. All of the people who met in Pittsburgh with Archbishop Akinola recently are interested in being Evangelical Anglicans, and the fact that women priests were prominently displayed at that meeting shows clearly that they are in fact no candidates for unity with Rome.
The only logical candidates for unity with the Catholic Church that I can see are the few lingering Anglo-Catholics and the Continuing Churches which owe their beginnings at the St. Louis Congress in 1977. In fact one might say that the Pastoral Provision was not offered soon enough for them.
It is no secret that Archbishop Hepworth of the Traditional Anglican Communion has requested unity with the Catholic Church, and his request has been endorsed by the other bishops and clergy in his jurisdiction. The Anglican Catholic Church has also requested serious conversations leading to union. So it may be that something will happen to provide an Anglican Rite or at least an Anglican Use Prelature. If this doesn't happen sometime soon, I would have to agree with Blogger Thoughtful Crab that the Anglican Use is simply headed for assimilation.
This would be very sad, it seems to me, if this is how it all ends up, because it would be viewed as an unfulfilled promise. I am not talking about the Pastoral Provision itself. I mean the promise of the Second Vatican Council. The Pastoral provision is really the first attempt to implement the teaching of the Council that separated communities could be reunited with the Holy See while retaining their heritage. Anglo-Catholics are the most likely candidates for such a reunion. If this fails, one can hardly hope that there would be much success with any other protestant groups.
C. David Burt
The Thoughtful Crab: Anglican-Use Roman Catholics
The Thoughtful Crab has made some very important observations about the possible short future for the Anglican Use. Some of what he says is correct, and some is not. To begin with, there have not been "a great number" of Anglican Use Parishes forcibly converted to Novus Ordo parishes. There have been some that have converted to Novus Ordo because they no longer had an Anglican Use Priest. The future of the Anglican Use is by no means certain.
The Pastoral Provision for Anglicans in the Catholic Church is an interim arrangement, and the permission for married men to become priests in the Catholic Church is not intended to be on-going. After this generation of former Anglican priests dies off, what then? Conceivably celibate priests could be granted faculties to celebrate the Anglican Use, but with the priest shortage in the Roman Catholic Church, this may seem unlikely except in the case of the most successful of Anglican Use congregations. Right now such booming parishes can be counted on one hand.
The Thoughtful Crab pointed out that this really is the time for an Anglican Rite in the Catholic Church, and I have said this too. An Anglican Rite would assure the future for the Anglican Use in accord with the goals of Vatican II to preserve the patrimony of ecclesial bodies reuniting with the Catholic Church, and allow a relaxation of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church without altering the rule of celibacy in the Latin Rite. TC opines that the Anglican Use may have come too soon. He may be right. It was primarily a clerical thing, anyway, and most of the priests ordained under the Pastoral Provision have given no thought for the Anglican Use. They are just content to be serving as Catholic priests. At the time the Anglican Use started, there were some laity upset over the ordination of women, but most of the alienated laity of the Episcopal Church were more concerned with issues about the new BCP. Now the laity are hopping mad about V. Gene Robinson and all that he represents.
Unfortunately there is very little left of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the Episcopal Church. And most of the people crying for realignment today are evangelical. They are perfectly content to be joined with the Reformed Episcopal Church which split off in 1873 over changes in the Prayer Book; they did not approve of the invocation of the saints and they rejected the doctrine of Baptismal regeneration. These new Evangelicals are putting a great deal of emphasis on Holy Scripture and on the Articles of Religion. They are not going to be interested in union with the Catholic Church any time soon. All of the people who met in Pittsburgh with Archbishop Akinola recently are interested in being Evangelical Anglicans, and the fact that women priests were prominently displayed at that meeting shows clearly that they are in fact no candidates for unity with Rome.
The only logical candidates for unity with the Catholic Church that I can see are the few lingering Anglo-Catholics and the Continuing Churches which owe their beginnings at the St. Louis Congress in 1977. In fact one might say that the Pastoral Provision was not offered soon enough for them.
It is no secret that Archbishop Hepworth of the Traditional Anglican Communion has requested unity with the Catholic Church, and his request has been endorsed by the other bishops and clergy in his jurisdiction. The Anglican Catholic Church has also requested serious conversations leading to union. So it may be that something will happen to provide an Anglican Rite or at least an Anglican Use Prelature. If this doesn't happen sometime soon, I would have to agree with Blogger Thoughtful Crab that the Anglican Use is simply headed for assimilation.
This would be very sad, it seems to me, if this is how it all ends up, because it would be viewed as an unfulfilled promise. I am not talking about the Pastoral Provision itself. I mean the promise of the Second Vatican Council. The Pastoral provision is really the first attempt to implement the teaching of the Council that separated communities could be reunited with the Holy See while retaining their heritage. Anglo-Catholics are the most likely candidates for such a reunion. If this fails, one can hardly hope that there would be much success with any other protestant groups.
C. David Burt
posted by C. David Burt | 1:47 PM
1 Comments:
How many parishes have become Novus Ordo? When and where? Just curious.
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