Hey folks, I’ve been struggling with my computer ever since the VERY nasty virus it caught sometime in the last two weeks, but I just had to take some time to write about today’s important develop: the creation of a new canonical structure in the Roman Catholic Church to welcome Anglicans who wish to become Catholics but who also wish to retain an Anglican spirituality. I thought I’d offer my two cents.
While the media are treating this like a bolt out of the blue, in fact this is a response to a request made by the Traditional Anglican Communion in October 2007, i.e. two years ago! In short, they declared that they wanted to become Catholics, but that they also wanted to retain the classic Anglican approach to worship and prayer.
Frankly, I don’t see how the Pope could have refused this request. After all, we can’t very well refuse to accept people into full communion with the Church if they publicly profess the same faith.
Of course, the Pope could have said “Come on in, just leave your Anglican traditions at the door.” But what kind of a statement would that be regarding the value of traditional Anglican spirituality and worship? Contrary to what many believe, the Catholic Church is not a global monolith of one-size-fits-all spirituality, nor should it be. There are already many (albeit smaller) communities of Catholics operating under a special pastoral provision that preserves their spiritual heritage. The grand Tradition of the Church is not negotiable, but the specific traditions of time and place and culture are (within reasonable limits). To have refused to allow these believers to come into full communion with the Catholic Church on the basis of their specific traditions would have been both hypocritical (because we already welcome it) and unjust (because those traditions are not a barrier to faith and good morals).
So what are we left with? The Pope simply had to find a way to welcome these folks and at the same time preserve good order in the Roman Catholic Church, while also not destroying our ecumenical relationship with those Anglicans who choose to remain part of the Anglican Communion. Hence this new apostolic constitution, announced today. The Pope is going to allow the creation of “Personal Ordinariates”, a kind of special diocese for those Anglicans wishing to come into full communion with Rome while preserving their Anglican heritage.
The leeway given to the Ordinariates is actually quite large. For example, their priests and bishops can be reordained as Catholic priests, even if married. If unmarried, they can be reordained as bishops! They can establish seminaries for the training of future leaders. They can publish liturgical books consistent with their Anglican heritage. It is true that they are being asked to do these things in a way that is harmonious with existing Roman Catholic institutions (e.g. their seminarians should do some study alongside “regular” seminarians, their liturgical books will need to go through the same revision process that all others go through, etc.), but that strikes me as normal as part of being members of a larger Church family.
Of course, this comes at a time when the Anglican Communion is experiencing tremendous internal turmoil. It may look to some like this is a cynical attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to tempt disaffected Anglicans to “swim the Tiber”, but in fact it is not. Like I wrote earlier, this is primarily a response to the Traditional Anglican Communion (who apparently are quite happy about the whole thing), although I hear other parallel inquiries were also being made. This decision by the Pope, therefore, settles all these parallel cases in one fell swoop, this preserving that good order I mentioned before.
I commend Archbishop Rowan Williams for appearing at a joint press conference to announce this new pastoral approach being taken by Rome. I imagine that there are many faithful members of the Anglican Communion who will not be happy at this turn of events, but take heart. First of all, the Traditional Anglican Communion had left you folks a long time ago, so you aren’t really “losing” anybody. Next, you have an important Papal declaration of the genuine validity of the Anglican Christian heritage — this heritage is not merely being tolerated, it is being welcomed in a way that will allow it to flourish, and this within the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church.
English spirituality has always emphasized the importance of following one’s conscience; Anglicans themselves have a well-known tradition of inclusiveness (even if we can debate what the limits of that inclusiveness should be). The Pope’s decision, announced today, is about allowing people to live according to their conscience in a way that is inclusive of their spiritual heritage. In a sense, then, this Apostolic Constitution is actually a testament to the best of the English tradition.