Benny throws open the gates of Rome to Anglicans

[Donagh]

From what I can gather from this, the Vatican has finally given up previous ecumenical moves to settle Church differences in favour of welcoming Anglicans (and their priests) into the Catholic Church. Once there they will be able to retain their own 'Anglican ehtos' a bit like the Eastern rite churches that are currently in communion with Rome - a church within a church if you like. It's actually a fairly revolutionary move by the Pope, on a par with the freeing of the Tridentine Mass with his 'Motu Proprio' a few years ago. He is welcoming the traditionalists back on the one hand and now what could be described as the liberals on the other. Some estimate there are about half a million mostly English Anglicans ready to move straight over into the Catholic Church. Needless to say the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (and presumably the English Queen) is not very happy -- the letter he has sent to his bishops is below the story below. Can't see too many northern CofI moving over but will probably be quite a few in the south.


Vatican welcome to Anglicans boldest move since Reformation
The Vatican on Tuesday opened the way for Anglican communities to switch allegiance en masse. Hundreds of thousands of Anglicans angry over the church's liberal stance on women and gays may convert.

Vatican City - The Vatican launched an historic initiative Tuesday to make it easier for disgruntled Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic Church. The church said the move was not a swipe at the Anglicans but it could nevertheless result in hundreds of thousands of churchgoers unhappy with openly gay and female clerics defecting to Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI gave his approval to a new framework to bring back into the fold Anglicans who oppose their church's liberal stance on gay marriage and the ordination of women priests and gay bishops while allowing them to retain some of their separate religious traditions.

The move comes nearly 500 years after Henry VIII's desire for a divorce led him to break with Rome and proclaim himself as the head of the newly formed Church of England in 1534. The framework is the Vatican's most sweeping gesture toward any schismatic church since the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century and the Thirty Years' War that followed it in the 17th century. That war ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which acknowledged the right of monarchs rather than the Vatican to determine their national faiths, prompting Pope Innocent X to declare the document "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time."

Over the centuries, relations between the various Christian faiths have improved and both Anglican and Catholic leaders were at pains on Tuesday to say that warming relations between the two churches will not be affected by the new plan. But both churches have been struggling to retain adherents in recent years, particularly in the developed world, with poorer countries their only growth spots.

Individual Anglicans have long been free to convert to Catholicism, as former British prime minister Tony Blair did after leaving office in 2007. But the so-called Apostolic Constitution will enable entire Anglican communities to transfer their allegiance en masse.

The pope was responding to "numerous requests to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in various parts of the world who want to enter into full and visible communion" with the Catholic Church, Cardinal William Joseph Levada told a news conference. He is the American head of the Vatican's doctrinal body.

Vatican officials declined to say how many of the world's 77 million Anglicans might take the opportunity to convert to Catholicism.

Anglican conservatives

The Traditional Anglican Communion, a vocal group of 400,000 conservatives who split from the Anglican Communion in 1991, are expected to move towards Rome.

"We have had requests from large groups, in the hundreds," said Cardinal Levada. "If I had to say a number of bishops, I would say it's in the twenties or thirties."

His American colleague, Archbishop Joseph Di Noia, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said after the press conference that he believed the number of bishops ready to convert was closer to 50.

They would come from the United States, Australia, and the island nations of the Pacific, he said.

Cardinal Levada was asked whether the Vatican's new policy weakened the Anglican Church's standing.

"I would not dare to make a comment on that. After the long years of the British Empire, and the work of Anglican missionaries, the Anglican Communion is a diverse and very varied worldwide communion."

Under the new constitution, married Anglican priests will be allowed to enter the Catholic Church but will not be ordained as bishops.

Will African Anglicans move?

The initiative was in response to years of lobbying by Anglicans who had become disenchanted with Anglican liberalism, a dissatisfaction which reached a crisis point in 2004 when the Episcopal Church in the United States ordained the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

That move and other liberal shifts, such as a Canadian diocese's willingness to bless same-sex unions, have been fiercely opposed by more conservative Anglicans, particularly in Africa.

The new framework was announced simultaneously in Rome and in London, where the head of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, said he did not see the Vatican move as "an act of aggression." (Read a Monitor profile of the archbishop here.)

Neither was it a vote of no confidence in the Anglican Church, he said, but a sign of maturity and understanding between the two faiths.

But Vatican commentators described it as a blow to the Anglican Communion. "For people who harbor the vision of Anglican unity, this will be a great disappointment," said Vatican analyst Francis X Rocca, of the Religion News Service.

"But it may also help to let off steam within the Anglican Church. If disaffected traditionalists leave, then they will lower the tensions over issues like gay marriage and women clergy."

Vatican expert John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter wrote in a blog post that while the opening by the Vatican had long been rumored, some Catholics feared "potentially negative repercussions in relations with the Anglican Communion – whose leadership might see it as 'poaching.'"



Rowan Williams letter:

The Vatican has announced today that PopeBenedict XVI has approved an 'Apostolic Constitution' (a formal papal decree) which will make some provision for groups of Anglicans (whether strictly members of continuing Anglican bodies or currently members of the Communion) who wish to be received into communion with the See of Rome in such a way that they can retain aspects of Anglican liturgical and spiritual tradition.

I am sorry that there has been no opportunity to alert you earlier to this;  I was informed of the planned announcement at a very late stage, and we await the text of the Apostolic Constitution itself and its code of practice in the coming weeks. But I thought I should let you know the main points of the response I am making in our local English context– in full consultation with Roman Catholic bishops in England and Wales – in the hope of avoiding any confusion or misrepresentation.

[slow corner back]

Whilst they may affect some or many anglicans in England or Ireland it wil have a much greater affect in Africa where the Anglicans there were threatening to split away from the overall church over the issue of ( openly ) Gay priests and bishops. Numbers of potential converts in Africa much higher than in England or Ireland.
On a side note I may be mistaken but I thought that when the woman priests issue came to the fore in the anglican church a large number of anglicans including some married vicars crossed over to the catholic church.
Coincidentally I have been to a number of Anglican services, mainly funerals and weddings and found the differences to Catholic services to be very minor. If given a choice between a tridentine mass and an anglican service I would go for the anglican one.

[Donagh]

Whilst they may affect some or many anglicans in England or Ireland it wil have a much greater affect in Africa where the Anglicans there were threatening to split away from the overall church over the issue of ( openly ) Gay priests and bishops. Numbers of potential converts in Africa much higher than in England or Ireland.
On a side note I may be mistaken but I thought that when the woman priests issue came to the fore in the anglican church a large number of anglicans including some married vicars crossed over to the catholic church.
Coincidentally I have been to a number of Anglican services, mainly funerals and weddings and found the differences to Catholic services to be very minor. If given a choice between a tridentine mass and an anglican service I would go for the anglican one.

I think some individual married Anglican priests did move across but this could see whole congregations come across en mass.

Anglicans also have a number of different services including a High Mass with a Tridentine style liturgy. In fact I work with a Sri Lankan Anglican who goes regulary to the Catholic Tridentine Mass.

[slow corner back]

I wont be at any tridentine mass, anglican or catholic

[Donagh]

I wont be at any tridentine mass, anglican or catholic

Not even for a wedding or funeral?

[IolarCoisCuain]

I think this is great news. There were a lot of prayers said in this country for the conversion of Heathen England. Nice to know they're kicking in at last. The race is not always to the swift ... 

[IolarCoisCuain]

I wont be at any tridentine mass, anglican or catholic

JS Bach thought enough of the tridentine mass to write music for one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2uppzm7dPE

All the more remarkable when you consider he was Luthern himself. But each to his own, of course.

Leonard Bernstein wrote a mass too, but it's not as impressive as Bach's. Of course, that would have been post Vatican II, so maybe he didn't have as much to work with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFtEdx6j3x4

[Donagh]

Not forgetting our own Sean O'Riada. I think 'Ag Criost an Siol' comes from his Mass.

[ardmhachaabu]

I wont be at any tridentine mass, anglican or catholic

I am puzzled

Can I ask why?

[Tony Baloney]

Although the Anglican Church is liberal, surely the fundamentals of any reformed church, such as opposition to transubstantiation, idolatry, Marian worship etc. outweigh issues with woman and gay priests?

[ardmhachaabu]

I can't speak for Anglicans Tony so I could well be wrong on this however, I am led to believe that the issues of women priests and gay priests are what caused the schism in the Anglican Church.  In regard to Marian worship etc, you are spot on.  As far as I see, the details that have come out would lead to Anglicans being able to retain these values under the banner of the entire Catholic Church under these new arrangements.  Anglican services are very similar to the Catholic Mass, they even have a form of communion.

I should also add, the Anglicans were Catholics before that Henry VIII character, they are just coming back into the fold now 

[Tony Baloney]

I can't speak for Anglicans Tony so I could well be wrong on this however, I am led to believe that the issues of women priests and gay priests are what caused the schism in the Anglican Church.  In regard to Marian worship etc, you are spot on.  As far as I see, the details that have come out would lead to Anglicans being able to retain these values under the banner of the entire Catholic Church under these new arrangements.  Anglican services are very similar to the Catholic Mass, they even have a form of communion.

I should also add, the Anglicans were Catholics before that Henry VIII character, they are just coming back into the fold now 

I've been to a few CofI services and they weren't far off what I'd be used to. A Free P in our class at Queen's used to call a CofI fella "half a hun"!

[Pangurban]

Interesting story this with many complex ramifications, so its probably better to say nothing till we hear more. However one immediate question which springs to mind is why the same courtesy was refused to Orthodox congregations who wished for closer communion with Rome while retaining their religious and cultural traditions, which are perfectly in accord with catholicism

[deiseach]

I'm a regular with Mrs d at Christ Church in Waterford and the standard communion service is deliberately based on the RC mass. She's always stumbling over the Nicene Creed whereas I know it off by heart.

I wonder whether this move will be counterproductive. Sections of the Anglican communion were already moving towards Rome and actions like this are likely to bring up previously dormant feelings of tribalism.

[Farrandeelin]

The Nicene creed is the long one isn't it. It's the Apostles Creed that's shorter or am I worng?