De Cura Animarum

In response to what seems like a growing opportunity for Rome, the public lack of Catholic interest can be confusing. Thus Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, has been heard to discourage the idea of large numbers of Anglicans abandoning their Church for Rome, and even Benedict XVI has publicly confined himself to encouraging Anglican leaders to address their internal divisions in fidelity to the Gospel.

At the same time, however, various Anglican bishops have been in communication with Cardinal Kasper and other Vatican officials about the possibility of being brought into the Church all at once with their dioceses and parishes, under an expanded application of the Pastoral Provision. This Provision was made in 1980 by John Paul II to permit married U.S. Episcopalian priests and some parishes to return to Rome while maintaining a distinctive identity through an approved form of the liturgy called the Anglican Use. At least one Anglican bishop has called for a generous response on the part of Rome, on an even larger scale, to accommodate bishops and dioceses desiring union with Rome throughout the world. While public response has been muted, there is ample evidence of talks proceeding privately behind the scenes.

The difference between the public and the private, of course, is that the public is largely conditioned by diplomatic and ecumenical concerns. It would be both undiplomatic and unecumenical to make statements welcoming breakaway Anglicans at the expense of alienating a far larger number of their coreligionists who are not yet ready to seek reunion with Rome. And of course Benedict XVI would like the Anglicans to settle their internal divisions with fidelity to the Gospel; how could he not? Not only is this right in itself, but such fidelity is all it would take to bring the entire communion closer to Rome. In this light, it is interesting to note that even Cardinal Kasper, in his own address at the Lambeth Conference, stressed that the Anglicans had to decide whether they were going to be an apostolic Church or a Protestant one, a decision which has always haunted Anglicanism, which is the result of a compromise. That choice is critical to ecumenical success—or failure.

But what of the pastoral care of those who are beginning to understand that full truth and sacramental security can be found only in communion with Rome? Whatever the wisdom of public reticence (the result of a debatable prudential judgment), such pastoral care clearly demands a different sort of response, and that’s exactly what all the private talks are about. If the interest persists now that the politics of Lambeth is behind us, we can expect something very different to emerge. We can expect arrangements to be made for those Anglican bishops who really do wish—with their people—to come home.

De. Jeff Mirus from Catholic Culture

Since the subject of the book is the “Roman Option†and not the “Orthodox Option†the scant treatment accorded it should cause no complaint. What does give cause, though, is the threadbare and question-begging dismissal of Orthodoxy on the grounds of, in effect, “ethnicity.†If the Pearl of Great Price has been safeguarded most authentically in the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Communion (and I write not as a member of that Communion), then the ethnicity and general “outlandishness†of its English manifestations ought to be a price—or a cross—willingly borne by the wise merchants in search of the Pearl.

Second, there is the matter of the conditional ordination of the former bishop of London, Graham Leonard, to the Catholic priesthood in April 1994, to which Oddie alludes without providing much explanation. Since the Roman Catholic Church denies the validity of Anglican Orders, Leonard’s ordination should have been unconditional, as well as preceded by ordination to the diaconate. It turns out, however, that his ordination sub conditione was authorized by the Vatican owing to the participation of an Old Catholic bishop in the 1932 consecration of Bertram Fitzgerald Simpson, who in turn was one of the Anglican bishops who consecrated Harold Edwin Wynn, the Anglican bishop who ordained Graham Leonard a priest in the Church of England. Furthermore, in April 1994 the Secretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican wrote to Cardinal Hume to notify him that the pope had dispensed Leonard from receiving ordination to the diaconate. [I find this bit of historical information very intresting.] The three other English Anglican bishops who subsequently became Catholics, Richard Rutt, Conrad Meyer, and John Klyberg, on the other hand, were all ordained unconditionally to the diaconate and priesthood, but with the insertion into the rite of a statement from the Decree on Ecumenism of Vatican II and a prayer for the fulfillment in the Catholic priesthood of their former ministry. These insertions had been presented to Rome by the English Catholic Bishops’ Conference and there approved for use in the ordinations of all former Anglican clergy.

As a result of my own inquiries, I have formed the impression that Graham Leonard’s view of the possible benefits of creating or maintaining separate “Anglican use†Catholic congregations, in England at least, is far less sanguine than that of William Oddie. Leonard also appears decidedly more skeptical about the likelihood of future events’ provoking a substantial movement of “Catholic Anglicans†into the Roman Catholic Church provided the English Catholic bishops make more generous provision for the retention of elements of the Anglican “worthy patrimony.†Thus, he would support the full integration of Anglican converts into the English Roman Catholic community.

"A new stage has begun. Let no one complain":--this, the expression of individual feeling, represents pretty accurately the temper into which the Church party settled when the first shock was over. They knew that henceforward they had difficult times before them. They knew that they must work under suspicion, even under proscription. They knew that they must expect to see men among themselves perplexed, unsettled, swept away by the influences which had affected Mr. Newman, and still more by the precedent of his example. They knew that they must be prepared to lose friends and fellow-helpers, and to lose them sometimes unexpectedly and suddenly, as the wont was so often at this time. Above all, they knew that they had a new form of antagonism to reckon with, harder than any they had yet encountered. It had the peculiar sad bitterness which belongs to civil war, when men's foes are they of their own households--the bitterness arising out of interrupted intimacy and affection. Neither side could be held blameless; the charge from the one of betrayal and desertion was answered by the charge from the other of insincerity and faithlessness to conscience, and by natural but not always very fair attempts to proselytise; and undoubtedly, the English Church, and those who adhered to it, had, for some years after 1845, to hear from the lips of old friends the most cruel and merciless invectives which knowledge of her weak points, wit, argumentative power, eloquence, and the triumphant exultation at once of deliverance and superiority could frame. It was such writing and such preaching as had certainly never been seen on the Roman side before, at least in England. Whether it was adapted to its professed purpose may perhaps be doubted; but the men who went certainly lost none of their vigour as controversialists or their culture as scholars. Not to speak of Mr. Newman, such men as Mr. Oakeley, Mr. Ward, Mr. Faber, and Mr. Dalgairns more than fulfilled in the great world of London their reputation at Oxford. This was all in prospect before the eyes of those who had elected to cast in their lot with the English Church. It was not an encouraging position. The old enthusiastic sanguineness had been effectually quenched. Their Liberal critics and their Liberal friends have hardly yet ceased to remind them how sorry a figure they cut in the eyes of men of the world, and in the eyes of men of bold and effective thinking. The "poor Puseyites" are spoken of in tones half of pity and half of sneer. Their part seemed played out. There seemed nothing more to make them of importance. They had not succeeded in Catholicising the English Church; they had not even shaken it by a wide secession. Henceforth they were only marked men. All that could be said for them was, that at the worst, they did not lose heart. They had not forgotten the lessons of their earlier time.

Read it here from R. W. Church

If persecution implies a state of war in which one side is stronger, and the other weaker, it is hardly a paradox to say that. (1) no one has a right to complain of persecution as such, apart from odious accompaniments, any more than of superior numbers or hard blows in battle; and (2) that every one has a right to take advantage and make the most of being persecuted, by appeals to sympathy and the principle of doing as you would be done by. No one likes to be accused of persecution, and few people like to give up the claim to use it, if necessary. But no one can help observing in the course of events the strange way in which, in almost all cases, the "wheel comes full circle."--Chi la fa, l'aspetti are some of the expressions of Greek awe and Italian shrewdness representing the experience of the world on this subject, on a large scale and a small. Protestants and Catholics, Churchmen and Nonconformists, have all in their turn made full proof of what seems like a law of action and reaction. Except in cases beyond debate, cases where no justification is possible, the note of failure is upon this mode of repression. Providence, by the visible Nemesis which it seems always to bring round, by the regularity with which it has enforced the rule that infliction and suffering are bound together and in time duly change places, seems certainly and clearly to have declared against it. It may be that no innovating party has a right to complain of persecution; but the question is not for them. It is for those who have the power, and who are tempted to think that .they have the call, to persecute. It is for them to consider whether it is right, or wise, or useful for their cause; whether it is agreeable to what seems the leading of Providence to have recourse to it.

Read it all here.

The Master (Canon Martin Warner) said in his announcement that "The Guardians are delighted that Bishop Lindsay has agreed to accept the post of Priest Administrator. He is a wise and experienced pastor whose enthusiasm as a Christian communicator is profound and infectious. Under his leadership we are confident that Walsingham will continue to play a vital role in our church and nation."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams commented: "I am delighted about the appointment of Bishop Lindsay to the Shrine at Walsingham. He has exceptional gifts as a pastor, a teacher and a human being and all who come to the Shrine - not least the young - will be very well cared for. I send my prayers and good wishes for him in this next stage of his ministry."

The Story can be found at the Shrine web site.

Biretta tip to Thinking Anglicans for the letter.

Dear colleagues,

We share the shock and disappointment you must be feeling following the recent debate and decision of the General Synod on provision for those opposed to the ordination of women to the episcopate in the Church of England.

The Lambeth Conference has given us good opportunities to meet together to talk and support one another. We want to share with you the experience that through our time together we have discovered a new sense of unity among us as bishops, and indeed our need of one another. In conversation we have become increasingly aware of the many priests and deacons, as well as other faithful, who are looking to us for a lead at the moment. It is particularly to you, the 1,400 clergy who signed the open letter to the Archbishops, that we are writing, but we hope you will share this letter, as we shall, with others, both clergy and parish members, who share our concerns.

We write to assure you that we understand the difficulties we are all facing in the light of the instruction by General Synod to the Legislative Drafting Group (“The Manchester Groupâ€) to prepare legislation with only a statutory code of practice for those unable for reasons of theological conviction to recognise or accept the ordination of women to the episcopate in the absence of wider Catholic consensus.

We identify with your difficult and painful feelings because they are ours too.

It is now clear that the majority in this General Synod, and probably in the Church of England at large, believes it is right to admit women to the episcopate. If that is so, it is vital for the most catholic of reasons that there must be no qualifications or restrictions to their ministry. That means however that proper ecclesial provision must be made for those who cannot accept this innovation.

A code of practice in any form cannot deliver such ecclesial provision, and we want the Manchester Group and the House of Bishops to be in no doubt about the seriousness of the situation. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that the General Synod vote was merely an instruction to the Legislative Drafting Group, and it is by no means clear that the House of Laity would support legislation whose inevitable consequence would be the exclusion of substantial numbers of faithful Anglicans from the Church of England. The patterns of voting in the General Synod, not least on the amendment proposed by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds (seeking to keep open the option of “statutory transfer of specified responsibilitiesâ€), may also give the House of Bishops pause for thought, and everyone should remember that the House of Bishops has determined that it wishes to remain “in the driving seat†in this process. We shall be encouraging the House of Bishops to recognise that proper ecclesial provision would enable the Church of England both to honour the wish of the majority for women to be admitted to the episcopate and also create a space in which the theological convictions of others are respected in fact as well as in words. In this way both groups would have the opportunity to flourish in as high a degree of fellowship as possible while the “open process of reception†continues.

This is a complex situation and we acknowledge that people and groups will react differently. Different decisions should be respected and supported, including that of those who have come to believe that fidelity to the faith we have received means that they can no longer remain within the communion of the Church of England. As bishops, however, we want to say that this is not a necessary conclusion. We are being encouraged by friends in the other historic churches to continue to struggle for the catholic identity of the Church of England. The legislative and synodical process will be long and we have time to reflect and pray before any final decisions are taken.

Many matters will become clearer during the next few months - critical moments will be the House of Bishops meetings in October and December and the General Synod in February 2009. We are not saying, “We are bishops, trust usâ€, but we are assuring you that we are doing what we can to ensure that the Church of England at the very least honours the solemn assurances of an honoured and permanent place given by undertakings it made in the early 1990s. We are also determined to remain faithful to the ARCIC vision of full visible unity which has been an Anglican commitment for forty years and is the context in which we have consistently understood our Anglican ecclesiology.

At the same time as we are feeling bewilderment and disappointment, others in the Church of England are rejoicing. However hard it is, it is essential that we behave with grace and charity towards everyone. We are faced with apparently irreconcilable differences in matters of faith and order, and it is important to try to conduct all conversations and debates in a spirit of generosity even when church-dividing issues are at stake.

Remember too that some speeches in the General Synod and reactions since have shown that there are many people, including bishops, who do not agree with us about women bishops but do not want to see the marginalisation or exclusion of our contribution from the ongoing life of the Church of England. We hope that everyone will remain in close touch with their own bishops. This is both for the sake of catholic principle and so that they are aware of your determination to continue to strive for Gospel truth and unity in the Church of England.

We want you to know that we are committed to praying for each other and for you. We want to thank you for your faithfulness in difficult days and invite anyone who wants to speak or write to any of us to do so.

In one of his meditations, the great John Henry Newman reminds himself of his calling, “I have a part in a great work. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good.†Twice Newman consoles himself in the same meditation with the words, “He knows what he is about … Still, he knows what he is about.â€

Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

Your friends and fellow servants in Christ,
The Rt Revs John Hind (Bishop of Chichester),
Nicholas Reade (Bishop of Blackburn),
Geoffrey Rowell (Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe),
John Broadhurst (Bishop of Fulham),
Andrew Burnham (Bishop of Ebbsfleet),
John Ford (Bishop of Plymouth),
John Goddard (Bishop of Burnley),
Martyn Jarrett (Bishop of Beverley),
Robert Ladds (Bishop of Whitby),
Keith Newton (Bishop of Richborough),
Paul Richardson (Assistant Bishop of Newcastle),
Tony Robinson (Bishop of Pontefract),
Lindsay Urwin (Bishop of Horsham),
Peter Wheatley (Bishop of Edmonton)

There is a story on this letter in the Church Times today.

One interesting bit in the story is the following: