The Anglican Patrimony in Catholic Communion

The Gift of the Ordinariates

Tracey Rowland

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780567700247
• eBook ISBN: 9780567700155
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Anglicanorum Coetibus, Tracey Rowland gathers together leading voices to examine the issue of the Anglican Patrimony and its relevance for Christians today. The Anglicanorum Coetibus is the 2009 papal decree which established the Anglican Ordinariate within the Catholic Church, and this volume examines the longstanding effects of this cultural decree. Rowland introduces different aspects of the culture of Anglicanism, explains the concept of an Ordinariate within the context of ecumenical theory, and examines aspects of Anglican liturgical theology and pastoral life.

1

Five hundred years after St John Fisher: Pope Benedict’s initiatives regarding the Anglican Communion

William Cardinal Levada

Introduction

Of the fifty or so English cardinals, only one was a martyr: St John Fisher. I am honoured to be invited to give this St John Fisher Visitor Lecture to this assembly sponsored by Newman House at Queen’s University in Kingston. I am reminded of the prayer with which our Holy Father imposed the cardinal’s biretta or hat on my head some four years ago this month: ‘Receive this red biretta as a sign of the dignity of the Cardinalate, by which you must be strong – even to the shedding of your blood – in working for the increase of the Christian faith, for the peace and tranquility of the People of God, and for the freedom and progress of the Holy Roman Church.’

As a way of celebrating these five hundred years since the time of St John Fisher’s saintly and intrepid life, which brought him the martyr’s crown, and of celebrating as well this year’s promised beatification of the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, whose search for the fullness of truth led him to Rome without requiring that he abandon the spiritual heritage that had nurtured him in the Anglican Communion, I entitled my presentation today ‘Five hundred years after St John Fisher: Pope Benedict’s initiatives regarding the Anglican Communion’.

Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission and the Catechism of the Catholic Church

The recent Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, establishing personal Ordinariates for groups of Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church, was not created in a vacuum. For many Anglicans, the possibility opened by this initiative has seemed to be a logical development of the official dialogues between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church during the forty-five-year period since the end of the Second Vatican Council. Any discussion of Pope Benedict’s initiatives regarding Anglicans might therefore begin with a glance at this important history.

Just a few years after the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the first Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (commonly referred to by a shorthand term ‘ARCIC’) was established in 1969, with a mandate to produce agreed statements on three issues: Eucharistic Doctrine, Ministry and Ordination and Authority in the Church. One notes immediately that these questions moved from areas of greater supposed agreement (Eucharist) to that of greater challenge, such as authority, which included discussions about papal primacy and infallibility.

The commission worked rapidly to produce its agreed statements: on Eucharist in 1971, on Ministry and Ordination in 1973 and on Authority in the Church in 1976. With the further clarifications on various points that were needed, ARCIC I prepared its responses, called ‘Elucidations’ (published in 1979 and 1981), and produced a second agreed statement, Authority in the Church II, in 1981.

The work of ARCIC I was thus completed, and received a largely favourable judgement both within the Anglican Communion and from the Catholic authorities. The Holy See would later approve the agreed statements on Eucharist and ministry, with their Elucidations. The ARCIC statements on Authority in the Church stated that full agreement on certain issues (e.g. Papal primacy and infallibility) had not yet been achieved, and recommended that these issues be addressed by a new ARCIC.

The only outstanding question on Ministry and Ordination remained that of the ordination of women, an issue that was new: I note here that the ARCIC I statement on ministry was published in 1973, and only in 1976 did the first ordination of a woman priest occur in the Episcopal Church in the United States. In spite of the request of the Holy See for further elucidation on this question, the commission maintained that its mandate to examine the classical teaching on ministry and orders had been accomplished and asked that the question of the ordination of women be remanded for consideration by its successor commission. Until now, this question has not yet been examined by ARCIC.

As a result of the work of ARCIC I, hopes ran high in ecumenical circles. Many Anglicans and Catholics saw in the agreed statements a path leading to the recognition of a common expression of their own faith. Such has been the testimony of the Anglican members of the working group with whom the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) consulted in the preparation of Anglicanorum coetibus, who see Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution as one of the fruits of the ARCIC agreed statements.

For many Anglicans, however, the question of women’s ordination remains a source of tension and disagreement, particularly in the Church of England, where more than three hundred parishes have refused the ministry of bishops who ordain women, and for whom alternative episcopal oversight in the form of ‘flying bishops’ (suffragans to the Archbishop of Canterbury) have provided supplemental ministry. The decisions of the recent Synod of the Church of England to permit the ordination of women bishops, and the refusal to authorize continued alternative episcopal oversight, have made the problem for this minority of Anglicans even more acute.

For its part, the Catholic Church has clearly articulated its position on the ordination of women. In 1975 Pope Paul VI issued a formal appeal to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Donald Coggan, to avoid taking a step which would have a serious negative impact on ecumenical relations. In October 1976, the CDF issued its declaration Inter insigniores, stating that the Church does not consider herself authorized to ordain women, not on account of sociocultural reasons but rather because of the ‘unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church, universal in the East and in the West’, which must be ‘considered to conform to God’s plan for his Church’. This position was reiterated in 1992 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,¹ and again in 1994 with the Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio sacerdotalis. In October 1995, the CDF issued a Response affirming that the doctrine stating the Church has no power to confer sacred orders on women is definitive tenenda and thus is to be considered part of the infallible ordinary and universal Magisterium.

For Catholics, the issue of the reservation of priestly ordination to men is not merely a matter of praxis or discipline but is rather doctrinal in nature and touches the heart of the doctrine of the Eucharist itself and the sacramental nature or ‘constitution’ of the Church. It is, therefore, a question which cannot be relegated to the periphery of ecumenical conversations, but needs to be engaged directly in honesty and charity by dialogue partners who desire Christian unity which, by its very nature, is Eucharistic. Cardinal Walter Kasper, current president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, addressed this very point in an intervention given in June 2006, to the House of Bishops of the Church of England during its discussions on the ordination of women to the episcopate. In his talk he affirmed:

Because the episcopal office is a ministry of unity, the decision you face would immediately impact on the question of the unity of the Church and with it the goal of ecumenical dialogue. It would be a decision against the common goal we have until now pursued in our dialogue: full ecclesial communion, which cannot exist without full communion in the episcopal office.

Returning to the ARCIC process, in 1983 ARCIC II was established by the authorities of both communions, with a new group of representative theologians from each side. A list of the agreed statements produced by ARCIC II can provide an idea of the broadened scope of the Commission’s mandate: Salvation and the Church (1987), Church as Communion (1991), Life in Christ: Morals, Communion and the Church (1994), The Gift of Authority: Authority in the Church III (1999) and Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ (2005). These documents, although rich in content, have not received the widespread attention of the statements of ARCIC I, nor, as far as I know, have they been submitted for evaluation by the ‘authorities’ of the two communions, as were the previous statements.

A more general analysis of the work of ARCIC II would go beyond the scope of this talk, not to mention the time available. But there is one statement – Life in Christ: Morals, Communion and the Church – that addresses the question of homosexuality, which has in the past decade become another Church-dividing issue within the Anglican Communion (and potentially between the two communions) and, thus, also touches our topic, since it motivated the need seen by some Anglicans to request the possibility of corporate union with the Catholic Church to which Anglicanorum coetibus is a response.

In Life in Christ, we read the following conclusions offered by the commission members as a statement of doctrinal agreement between Catholics and Anglicans on the question of homosexuality:

(no. 87) Both our Communions affirm the importance and significance of human friendship and affection among men and women, whether married or single. Both affirm that all persons, including those of homosexual orientation, are made in the divine image and share the full dignity of human creatureliness. Both affirm that a faithful and lifelong marriage between a man and a woman provides the normative context for a fully sexual relationship. Both appeal to Scripture and the natural order as the sources of their teaching on this issue. Both reject, therefore, the claim, sometimes made, that homosexual relationships and married relationships are morally equivalent, and equally capable of expressing the right ordering and use of the sexual drive. Such ordering and use, we believe, are an essential aspect of life in Christ.

The Anglican and Catholic members of ARCIC II in 1994 proposed this as a correct common formulation of the moral doctrine accepted by both communions. No wonder, then, that the ordination of a bishop in a homosexual partnership in New Hampshire, with subsequent approval by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (USA) in 2003, and the authorization of rituals for the blessing of gay unions and marriages by the Anglican Church in Canada have caused an enormous upheaval within the Anglican Communion.

The fundamental issue here, as many have noted, is the question of authority. This may be briefly summed up in the following two points: Does the revelation of God, in Jesus Christ and in Scripture, intend to let us know God’s will in a way that requires our obedience (i.e. the imitation of Christ, the Ten Commandments)? Has God in Christ left his Church, founded on the Apostles, an authority by which it can assure that we know the correct meaning of the revelation amid sometimes varying human interpretations (i.e. the sensus fidei, the ecumenical councils, the Magisterium of the Pope and Bishops)?

Notwithstanding the tensions created, not only within the Anglican Communion but also for ecumenical relations with the Catholic Church, by the above-mentioned issues of women’s ordination and homosexuality, last November – on the occasion of the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to the Holy Father – Pope Benedict XVI approved the establishment of ARCIC III, which has for its mandate to continue the bilateral dialogue (with the theme ‘Church as Communion: Local and Universal’, including the discernment of ethical questions on these two levels and the i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Dedication Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Five hundred years after St John Fisher: Pope Benedict’s initiatives regarding the Anglican Communion
• 2 The Anglican patrimony in Anglicanorum coetibus and the Complementary Norms
• 3 The worship of God in the beauty of holiness: A presentation of Divine Worship
• 4 The evangelizing mission of the Ordinariate
• 5 The virtue of religion: The irreducible essence of the Anglican patrimony
• 6 Seedtime: St John Henry Newman, personal influence and the evangelizing mission of the Ordinariates
• 7 The spirit of Anglicanorum coetibus: Beauty in the development of Anglican patrimony
• 8 A rich heritage of sanctity: The cultural impact of pre-Reformation English and Welsh saints
• 9 Service in perfect freedom: The precious gift of the Caroline Divines
• 10 The place of the Monarchy in Anglican culture
• 11 A personal reflection on Our Lady of Eton and the place of Marian devotion in English culture
• Appendix: Benedict XVI – Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Copyright Page