Anglo-Catholicism within the Church of England is dispersing like a cloud of incense rolling down the nave. Those Anglicans who have decided to take advantage of Pope Benedict XVI’s historic offer of special privileges within the Roman Catholic Church are already constructing a network of Ordinariate communities that will bear fruit in new Catholic parishes.
Crucially, they are led by two “flying” Anglican bishops, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet and the Rt Rev Keith Newton of Richborough.
Meanwhile, Anglo-Catholics who don’t feel ready to make the move yet, or perhaps at all, have muddied the waters with the creation of a body called the Society of Saint Wilfrid and Saint Hilda (SSWSH) whose role is unclear, to say the least.
Depending on who you listen to, it’s either a group of traditionalists who want to stay in the Church of England, playing the role of Japanese jungle fighters who don’t know the war is over, or a holding body for people who will join the Ordinariate eventually but need more time to prepare.
[Update: I see from the thread below that SSWSH has already been christened "The Society of St Hinge and St Bracket".]
As Anna Arco of the Catholic Herald revealed on Friday, the Ordinariate could exist in embryo by the beginning of next year. In the words of Bishop Burnham: “It is expected that the first groups will be small congregations, energetically committed to mission and evangelism and serving the neighbourhood in which they are set.”
Over on Fr Ed Tomlinson’s blog, Burnham has some sharp observations on the subject of the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda. He asks why a new body should succeed in preserving the future sacramental integrity of Anglo-Catholics inside the C of E when Forward in Faith has received nothing but rebuffs from the General Synod.
Good question.
The mission statement of SSWSH describes itself as “a new Society for bishops, clergy, religious and laity [founded] in order to provide a place within the Church of England where catholics can worship and minister with integrity without accepting innovations that further distance the Church of England from the greater churches of the East and West.”
Some Anglo-Catholics are trying to present SSWSH as a “safe haven” for Anglicans who need time to plan the far-reaching adjustments to their lives required by the Ordinariate. But doesn’t Forward in Faith already perform that function? It sounds to me like an organisation for conservative Anglo-Catholics who don’t accept the authority of the Pope. That’s a perfectly respectable position to take, but let’s make two things clear.
First, any Anglo-Catholic parish that decides to stay in the Church of England has effectively de-Romanised itself. It should take down its pictures of Benedict XVI and stop inserting the name of the Pontiff before the prayers for its bishop. You can’t recognise the primacy of the See of Peter and then say “no thanks” when the Pope goes out on a limb – and he has – to welcome you into full communion with him.
Second, Anglo-Catholics are of course entitled to fight to preserve their sacramental order as Anglicans rather than as Roman Catholics. They are the heirs of Pusey and Keble. But the notion that the Church of England will grant them “a place … where they can minister with integrity” without compromising that sacramental order is fantasy. How many more times does the Synod have to tell them that they won’t be allowed to reject the authority of women bishops and priests before the message sinks in?
Ask yourself this question: how can a seminaran who believes that women cannot be priests now put himself forward for ordination in the Church of England in good conscience? The answer is that he can’t do so without performing the most peculiar theological acrobatics. And, indeed, very few seminarians will go down this route – as the C of E is well aware.
Anglo-Catholicism as we used to understand it – that is, as a fully functioning part of the Church of England that rejects the ordination of women – may not be dead, but it is terminally ill.
Its adherents can stay where they are and resign themselves to extinction.
They can soften their beliefs, in which case a very warm welcome awaits from “Affirming Catholicism” and its Kim Philbys.
They can reconstruct their communities as a “continuing Anglican Church”. They can convert to Rome, either individually, like Blessed John Henry Newman, or as part of an Ordinariate whose primary purpose – as Bishop Burnham emphasises – is to evangelise.
But, as the bishop also makes clear, the Ordinariate will recognise the Petrine ministry as it is currently (and will always be) exercised.
Anglo-Catholics who have a “different understanding” of papal primacy have a number of options open to them, including the mysterious SSWSH – but none of them is the Roman one.
SIC: TC/UK
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