Quite a while ago I proposed that Anglican Archbp. Rowan Williams issue a document entitled Romanum coetibus with provisions for Catholics who think and behave like Anglicans. By means of Romanum coetibus, a safe haven in the very loose Anglican embrace would be erected where the editor and readers of The Tablet and NCR, at their request mind you, could keep their now traditional pottery cups, big puppets, out of tune guitars and the obsolete ICEL translation, as well as gain the long-desired free election of bishopesses. All without the spirit-repressing domination of masculine Rome!
This is a parody of Anglicanorum coetibus, of course. But those masters of self-parody have made fiction come to life.
I read on the site Virtus Online, that an Anglican is actually setting up something for disaffected Catholics. It is as if he read my parody and took it seriously.
LIMA, PERU: Reverse Ordinariate set up to receive Roman Catholic Bishop and Three Priests into Anglican Diocese
By David W. Virtue in Lima
www.virtueonline.org
January 16, 2012On February 19, 2012 Bishop Oscar Rojas Quinto [A vagus bishop who is not in union with the Holy See.] and three of his clergy will be received as priests into the Anglican Church of Peru, along with their congregations from Huancayo in the mountains of central Peru.
These former Roman Catholics have been in conversation and prayer for over a year following the request of Bishop Oscar to be received as Anglicans and become part of the Anglican Diocese of Peru.
Bishop Harold William Godfrey, who heads the Diocese of Peru, called it a “reverse Ordinariate.” The word Ordinariate was taken from Pope Benedict XIV’s initiative to give Anglican clergy and congregations a way to maintain some of their traditions while becoming Roman Catholics.
The Peruvian initiative is different. For ex Anglicans joining the Roman Church, the Ordinariate is a destination in which the clergy are re-ordained as Roman Catholic clergy because Rome does not recognize Anglican orders.
This proposal has provided a place where the move can be formally considered by both sides. Upon mutual agreements, the clergy will be received as Anglicans without the need for re-ordination since Anglicans recognize ordination in apostolic succession. Once received, the bishop and their clergy are fully part of the Anglican Diocese and their participation in the Ordinariate is over. Clergy from churches not in apostolic succession have to be re-ordained.
This first group is ex Roman Catholics. As a community of former Roman Catholics, they have suffered from persecution and prejudice. They have been accused of being “false priests”; their services have been broken up and legal action threatened, said the Rev. Ian Montgomery, Canon to the Ordinary.
“These are brave men and women who have endured much for the sake of the Gospel. It is an honor to count them a part of the Anglican family. The Anglican community in Peru has many clergy from other traditions. We are too young to have many who have grown up through our ranks. The clergy from evangelical traditions outnumber those from Roman traditions two to one. We welcome into the Ordinariate those from evangelical traditions. There are more who are in the process of conversation.” Montgomery said this can not be rushed as the decision is a mutual one freely entered into after much prayer.”
[…]
You can’t make it up fast enough.
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If only I lived in a diocese where such “catholics” suffered persecution and prejudice!
One might envision such a reverse ordinate, set up universally to facilitate purification of the Church by providing a refuge for apostate Catholics who heretofore have stayed in the Church to fight it from within, but now that the restoration of faith and liturgy is finally underway and their salad-days cause is lost, might with this encouragement finally have the decency to leave it.
Of course, historically speaking, the Church of England began as a kind of reverse ordinariate for disgruntled Roman Catholics. It’s called a schism.
1. Catholic-Hierarchy.org doesn’t list any bishop by the name of “Oscar Rojas Quinto”. Lots of Rojas bishops, nobody even close to that. So he’s either a liar or a member of some very small splinter group that’s not Catholic, anyway.
2. Another guy named Rojas points out in the combox of a Spanish-language article that “Bishop” Rojas is a suspended priest, not a bishop. The man gives the “bishop’s” name as Oscar Polo Rojas Quinto, and says his outfit is called the Apostolic Catholic Guadalupan Church (Iglesia apostolica catolica Guadalupana), and that it includes two additional “priests” who were “ordained” by Rojas.
3. The plan actually was announced in the Spanish-language press last February, when Godfrey claimed to have inquiries from Catholic priests all over the Southern Cone.
Our friend Oscar Polo Rojas Quinto is a much more fruitful search term. He only called himself a Monsignor, a while back. Anyway, his church in Huancayo has actually split off from the Guadelupan bunch in Colombia (run by Monsignor Ken Waley). Before they joined Godfrey’s “Reverse ordinariate”, they were the Iglesia Apostolica Catolica Oriental, Rito Arameo.
Of course there are websites. No point being schismatic if nobody knows.
“…apostate Catholics who heretofore have stayed in the Church to fight it from within, but now that the restoration of faith and liturgy is finally underway and their salad-days cause is lost, might with this encouragement finally have the decency to leave it.”
Henry Edwards:
One Can Only Hope…and I do hope to live to see it.
Oh, the Oriental Apostolic Catholic Church, Aramean Rite, would like everyone to know that they are still operating, under their Vicar General, “Fr.” Ricardo Antonio Laos Lozano, and the pastor of “Jesus Christ the Galilean Parish,” one “Fr.” Augusto Peña Chavez. It’s Rojas and two other “priests”, Francisco Cuadros Ballón y James Erly Ortiz Flores, who are leaving. Apparently this is an amicable split, however.
Not exactly the man bites dog story it was billed as! They already weren’t in full Communion with the Church, and continue not to be in full Communion with the Church.
They’ll take our heretics and we get orthodox Catholics in return: it’s a win-win, both of the wins being ours. We’d better not cheer too loudly–the Anglicans might impose a transfer fee.
Thank you Suburbanbanshe.
You saved me some searching. Pretty much confirms my first thoughts that they must be either a schismatic group or are embracing some sin that the Church won’t tolerate.
I know it’s supposed to be funny, but it kind of makes me sad. Poor lost souls. I shall pray that they come home to the Holy Church before it is too late.
One other thought, if they aren’t in communion with Rome, how does the “valid appostolic succession clause” work for Godfrey?
My suspicions were aroused when the phrase “diocese of Peru” was used. Diocese of Peru????
Johnson’s First Law of Episcopal Thermodynamics:
Every joke you make about the Episcopal Organization eventually comes true.
See here: Episcopalians hit up departed brethren for diocesan contribution
You just can’t make this stuff up.
Actually, it looks like pretty much every male adult in this Huancayo group has been “ordained” a “priest” by their “bishop,” except maybe a few guys who are “deacons” instead. And they’re all married. There’s another group in Peru, run by “Mar” Sean Walsh, who claims the rank of Archbishop.
They talk a lot about Eastern rites of the Church and various Eastern denominations, but they apparently aren’t actually connected to any of them. (No surprise there.) Their website also says they’re “pentecostal” and “moved by the Holy Spirit” and controlled by the authority of the Bible alone, so I don’t see the new guys fitting in with Bishop Godfrey’s Anglicans real well… but who knows.
“Once received, the bishop and their clergy are fully part of the Anglican Diocese and their participation in the Ordinariate is over. ”
Excellent; I’m thrilled that the process is so swift and easy. Do they have any brochures that I could drop of by the caseload at parishes in my own diocese, by any chance? If the ease and convenience of it all would act in any way as an incentive for no-longer-Catholic clergy to take the next logical step of disembarking the Barque of Peter in order to board the Ship of Fools, I think this “reverse ordinariate” should be aggressively promoted. I wonder, can they take the self-labelled “recovering Catholics” (who, despite their label, tend to noisily loiter about nonetheless) with them?
Thank you, Suburbanbanshee, for giving us the facts on this phony story.
Truly, we are living in the post-satirical era…
I hate to use such a harsh tone, but surely this is the work of the Devil?
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Robert of Rome says:
Of course, historically speaking, the Church of England began as a kind of reverse ordinariate for disgruntled Roman Catholics. It’s called a schism.
Robert of Rome wins First Prize in Internet! Too funny.
No news here. There’re already lots of “reverse” ordinariates already . Didn’t you all know? They’re called “PROTESTANT CHURCHES” and have been around since the 16th century.
“Truly, we are living in the post-satirical era…”
Father, I nominate Maynardus for one of your Gold Stars!
Ordinariate, “reverse ordinariate”?
This is starting to feel like a prisoner exchange program. :-)
This is an excellant idea.
The Church of England has now become almost 100% Secularised. By that I mean that while maintaining the outward trappings of Anglicanism ( or Catholicism for that matter) it has accepted, or is about to accept, the secularist positions on contraception, abortion, birth control, divorce, marriage of homosexuals and so on. Theologically, belief in the sacraments, and even sin for that matter appers to be quite optional.
If the now rather large numbers of such similar heterodox relativists in the Catholic Church were to slip away, then I won’t say so much the better, since I think that might just be uncharitable, but it would save the rest of us a lot of bother.
After all it was Pope Benedict who said we might have to accept a smaller Church for a while.
I think we might, lets say for a hundred years, or maybe longer, just as after the last Reformation.
This would be highly amusing were it not to do with the salvation of souls.
AnAmericanMother, you beat me to it! I thought of Johnson’s First Law as soon as I saw this. I lost count of the number of times Christopher Johnson’s satirical predictions about The Episcopal Church actually came true. You’re right, you just can’t make this stuff up.
Laura R,
You said it. One time here somebody commented, “Well, the next thing you know those Episcopalians are going to start ordaining pagans” — not realizing that it had already happened. Husband and wife priests who ran a Wiccan coven on the side.
Robert of Rome.
You took the words out of my mouth. I thought the Anglicans were always, from the beginning and always, primarily disgruntled Catholics looking for a place that reminds them – a little – of home. What else are they? What else have they ever been?
Rito Arameo – should sound like pure perfection to protestants!
amenamen,
Speaking only for ‘high church’ Episcopalians, I think that many of us weren’t disgruntled Catholics.
1. The largest number (myself included) were Episcopalians because their parents and grandparents (and in my case, a great-great grandfather) were Episcopalians.
2. Some people join the Episcopal church as a social marker – not so long ago, once you got promoted into middle management, you were expected to leave the Baptists or Methodists or Evangelicals and become either Episcopalian or Presbyterian. That isn’t really true any more, but it explains why our grandfathers joined.
I think you’re spot on as to folks who have left the Catholic church. We had some of those too.
Ralph suggested that this group were probably “embracing some sin that the Church won’t tolerate.”
It’s unlikely to be the usual one. Peru is part of the Anglican “Province of the Southern Cone”, which is very much against homosexual acts. When some North American Episcopalian groups separated over Gene Robinson, it was the Province of the Southern Cone that most of them realigned themselves with.
@AnAmericanMother,
You are quite correct that many of us weren’t formerly gruntled Catholics, my wife (a cradle Episcopalian) and I (a convert from the LCMS—a long story, covering almost 40 years) being but two examples. The Episcopal Church was, for both of us, although for somewhat different reasons, the pathway to the Catholic Church. In both of our cases, it made us gradually aware how Catholic we had both become, both liturgically and theologically, and its recently accelerated slow-motion train wreck was the unmistakable signpost that awakened in us the recognition of, and need for, Christ’s true Church, the one instituted under St. Peter, and led by the Holy Spirit into all Truth.
The saddening aspect is the number of souls who remain in the Episcopal Church and face increasing peril as that body deliberately deviates from Christ’s path.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer