For all wavering Anglicans I have one thing to say… and I know that it is one your minds….
Anglicanorum coetibus.
From the Post-Gazette:
Summit could determine fate of Anglican Church
It could be a meeting of hearts, or it could be the collision of tectonic plates, shaking along the same ecclesiastical fault lines that saw the rupture of the historic Episcopal community in southwestern Pennsylvania in the past decade.
National leaders in the Anglican Communion, the world’s third-largest Christian tradition, are scheduled to gather Monday in Britain for their first big gathering after years of frosty stalemate. And it could be their last time together if the most ominous forecasts bear out. [Rome… Rome sweet Rome… is calling.]
Local bishops are echoing their colleagues’ call for prayer for what has so far defied human efforts — to repair the rupture in the communion over liberalizing trends on homosexuality and theology in Western churches such as the Episcopal Church in the United States. [Not only. The homosexual lobby in the Catholic Church is small but well placed. They have been emboldened in the last few years, inspired by a certain antinomianism. We must fight it.] Anglican churches across the Southern Hemisphere, many of them fast-growing churches in Africa, have deeply opposed such changes. [Is that so? Africa, at least.]
Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury — the figurehead of 85 million-member communion of churches with roots in the Church of England and its blend of Protestant theology and Catholic liturgical traditions — called the meeting and made a major concession to the so-called Global South primates.
Not only did he invite Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, he also invited Archbishop Foley Beach, head of the Anglican Church in North America, whose break with the Episcopal Church was especially significant in the Pittsburgh area. Normally a meeting of primates would only include the top official in each of the communion’s 38 national churches.
In the confusingly overlapping names involved, the Anglican Communion recognizes the Episcopal Church as its U.S. church, rather than the Anglican Church in North America. But the latter has received recognition from Global South Anglicans, made up of primarily non-Western nations.
The primates can’t tell a national church such as the Episcopal Church what to do. But the meeting could see the communion split or redefined as a looser federation. [Like and old-fashioned woman’s silk stocking. Once it gets a snag and runs, there’s no stopping it.]
[…]
Anglicanorum coetibus. Benedict XVI – The Pope of Christian Unity.
End the doubt.
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Thank you Father for your update on the Anglicans.
Yes, you will find welcome here, and if you like your liturgy, you can keep it.
Also, to the Catholics who are impatient for women priests, gay marriage, and all those other “innovations”, feel free to go the other way. You’d be much happier as an Episcopalian and you can work toward making that church even more progressive and inclusive.
Thank heavens I swam the Tiber and left the Anglican Church behind me. It’s been five years, and there hasn’t been a single day I’ve regretted it. If any Anglicans are out there reading this, I personally invite you to come home. Sure, it’s not all rose petals and sunshine all the time, but it’s the church that Jesus Christ founded, and that’s good enough for me!
The kind of ecumenical meeting that I would like to see is where the pope meets with his counterparts in the mainstream Protestant churches every few years and they have a swap meet. We take their conservatives and we give them our liberals.
LeeF’s idea doesn’t have to be limited to Protestant denominations. I find that as an orthodox Catholic, I often have lots more in common with Orthodox Jewish people than I do with heterodox Catholics.
As a former episcopalian, I have this to lovingly say to those in my position before I came into the Holy Catholic Church… The Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ Himself, upon the Rock of St. Peter. From that time on, there has been an un-broken Apostolic Succession that traces directly back to that Rock. On the other hand, the anglican (episcopal) congregation was founded by King Henry VIII for the sole purpose of breaking the Sacrament of Marriage. On that fact alone, why would you want to stay affiliated with a congregation founded by a tyrant to justify a sin? Come home to Holy Mother Church dear friends.
Maybe the first question they should be asking themselves is: Have we all these years been laymen deluding ourselves into thinking we are priests?
Look Romeward, Angle!
@Legisperitus,
Wonderful exhortation and one which immediately put me in mind of this 1964 tune by The Monarchs, “Look Homeward Angel”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAOUrxfzG9s
The last time the Anglicans had a big meeting, we Catholics had representatives there. There was a speech or two. Cardinal Dias effectively diagnosed the Anglican Communion with “spiritual Alzheimer’s … [and] ecclesial Parkinson’s.” I wonder if we’ll have somewhere there this time. I wonder what he’ll say.
Speaking as a former Episcopalian, the current environment in the Church is most likely going to be a significant concern for current conservative Anglicans. If they didn’t enter under Benedict I don’t think they will under Francis. I can honesty say that had Francis been pope in 2005 it would have been a great obstacle for me. When you’re on a sinking ship getting on another that’s heading for an iceberg isn’t really appealing.
Anglicans come home, yes.
I’d also like to hear “Traditional Catholics (bishops and laity) come home”
CatholicMD: “When you’re on a sinking ship getting on another that’s heading for an iceberg isn’t really appealing.”
The Ark of Salvation (i.e. the Church) may well be heading for icebergs, stormy waters and difficult times, BUT with the successor of St Peter at the helm we shall weather the storms and reach our safe harbour (Heaven), sooner or later. The CofE is holed beneath the waterline and will flounder eventually.
Do I regret leaving the CofE for the Catholic Church nearly 30 years ago? No, not for a minute, but I do miss a few things from the Anglican tradition – a good standard or preaching, good congregational singing, much of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, for example. But these things weigh very little in the balance compared with the Apostolic Succession and the Real Presence.
Simon –
I agree completely. My comment was assuming the perspective of potential Anglican converts at this point. The Church certainly does not seem to be on such sure footing as it did when I entered with St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI on the Chair of Peter.
If the greatest makers of fudge are not able to fudge this one it will truly be a momentous moment.
CatholicMD,
One thing to point out to potential Anglican Converts is the fact that we have had/have just as bad a leadership as they have had throughout the years, but the Catholic Church still teaches the same Faith (Don’t Contracept, no such thing as divorce from a sacramental marriage, etc.) despite the fact that many priest/bishops try to slip heresy through via “pastoral” means. I know of no greater sign of the Holy Spirit’s protection than this.
The Anglican Church on the other hand is a like a boat about to go over a waterfall, with half the crew joyfully exclaiming “We’re really moving now!”
Would the Ordinariates actually reach out to these disaffected Anglicans? That would contravene modern ecumenism. I imagine only a handful of Anglicans will officially join the Roman Catholic Church after this upcoming fiasco.
CatholcMD’s valid point about the *appearance* of floundering on the part of the Church is being stretched a bit, IMO.
My own conversion from low Protestantism to the Catholic Church was far from straightforward and 15 years in the making. When you’ve been told repeatedly by authorities in your denomination that the Catholic Church is the “wh*re of Babylon,” that Catholics are closet socialists, that no Catholic (however well intentioned) can be saved, praying to statutes, Mary worship, etc., etc. ad nauseum, it makes it VERY difficult to commit to becoming Catholic.
When I entered the Church in the era of JPII and”Veritatis Splendor,” I still had qualms left over from the Protestant fearmongering. If I were a Protestant today reading “Laudato Si” and being clubbed over the heat with “climate change” while Christians in the Middle East are being hunted to near-extinction, I truly don’t know if I’d have the courage to convert to the One True Faith.
Apologies. The last post should have read being clubbed over the “head,” but for a typo, “heat” is kind of apropos.
If I were to ever meet the Cambridges I hope I would be brave enough to tell them to cross the Tiber. The Once and Future King won’t return until England becomes Catholic again.
Do you have an Ordinariate in America? It has proved a great blessing in England. For those of us brought up in the Anglican faith (although I myself came home many years ago), the Anglican liturgy and hymns are “part of our blood and bones” as an ordinariate friend of mine says, and Pope Benedict’s initiative has been as a helping hand held out to those struggling to take the final step.
oldconvert, The US does have an Ordinariate, based in Houston, Texas (Our Lady of Walsingham), with more than 40 parishes in the US and Canada.
Normally, nothing would be finer than to welcome those who have discovered Roman Catholicism and found themselves disaffected by the chaos in Anglicanism — but what do we welcome them to? These are not normal times. Would they be welcomed into a Church faithful to its commission by Jesus Christ, or into an academic gab fest debating the latest nuance in gender ideology. Indeed, would those leading the Church welcome them, or see such an event as an affront to the ever precious ideology of ecumenism?
Old Convert – yes, there is an Anglican Ordinariate in America, and it is based out of Houston. Pope Francis I appointed their first bishop, Bishop-elect Stephen Lopes, who was helpful in preparing materials for the Anglican Ordinariate.
Back in my late teens, early 20’s, I was considering becoming Episcopalian. I was one of those Catholics who grew up in the 70s and 80s who received the “God loves you I’m glad” and “feel good pop-psychology.” It’s really a no-brainer why many of the youth from the 70s and 80s attended their last Mass at high school confirmation – they never learned the faith.
What happened to me? I accidentally stumbled on a strong Catholic Student Union at a secular college. At 25, I was going back to school as a re-tread college student, and I was more interested in getting involved at a church. At this Catholic Student Union, there were two priests who were interested in teaching the “nuts and bolts” and students didn’t just attend Sunday Mass and leave. That was the first time I really learned the Real Presence, and I was 27 the first time I prayed the Rosary since second grade. I will add that this Catholic Student Union has a reputation for producing more vocations to the priesthood and religious life (it is a state funded college in Texas), and there have been plenty of sincere holy Catholic marriages that have been fruitful.
I like the Ordinariate, and I have attended the Ordinariate parish in Arlington (Texas) and the one in Houston, Texas. I also attended the ordination in 2012 when six former Episcopalian priests were ordained specifically for the Ordinariate – one is a friend of mine and prior to ordination he worked at my parish in faith formation. All six of these priests came from the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, which had a reputation for being one of the more “traditional” Episcopal Dioceses. There have been two former Episcopal churches in the Fort Worth area where the congregations became Catholic, and several former Episcopal priests have entered the Catholic priesthood under the Pastoral Provision.
The Pastoral Provision is more difficult than people think. The secular media (and even some Catholics) think it is a magic trick and the former Episcopal priest becomes a Catholic priest in a matter of days. Nothing can be far from the truth – the majority of these priests spend some time in formation, as well as finding a 9 to 5 job and going through RCIA, and then on to coursework. One priest at my parish is a former Episcopal priest (he gives great homilies that explain Church teaching and philosophy – I always learn something), and from start to finish, his formation was about four years. Some even go to major seminary for a while.
By the way, the former Episcopalian priests that I have gotten to know (I know at least four) are solid priests who give good homilies that make congregants think, and they are solid on Church teaching. Sometimes it takes an immigrant to explain things to the natives. The ones that are married will also say that it’s a struggle to balance two vocations.
Yes, Anglicans, come home. You are welcome in my book.
“Indeed, would those leading the Church welcome them, or see such an event as an affront to the ever precious ideology of ecumenism?”
Call me antagonistic, but I’d say such a reaction is itself a great reason to convert. If those who put “ecumenical dialog” over the truth don’t want you treating the Church as True, what better option is there than to do so in full spite of such diabolical ideology?
I swam fifteen years ago and retrospectively joined the Ordinariate because that’s what I believe the former Pope Benedict would have me do.
Here’s a theological question I’d like answered- even those Anglicans with the “Dutch Touch”, or those whose line of ordination can be traced to the Old Catholic bishops in the 1930s might be laymen. Here’s why: even though they belonged to the Catholic faction of the C of E and many believed as we do, because they belonged to a body that did then would this nullify the validity as for mass or ordination having the right intention is more than your personal belief. It is the belief of the Church. This is why Cardinal Daneel’s masses and ordinations (has he done any?) are valid. In spite of his personal DIS-belief, the corporate BELIEF of the Catholic Church supplies the lacking intention.
So would the corporate disbelief of Anglicanism undermine the personal belief and personal intention?
Please pray for traditional Anglicans. Many of them have fought for many years to try and keep the Catholic Faith alive in the Anglican Church. Please pray for Anglican Clergy; many love the Roman Church and have a desire to enter into full Communion but are in difficult pastoral and/or personal circumstances, etc.