Nazareth near Sandringham: Christopher Howse commends Fr Michael Rear's "Walsingham, Pilgrims and Pilgrimages"



His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal William Levada (Prefect of the
Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), Mgr Keith Newton
and Bishop Alan Hopes (Auxiliary for the Diocese of Westminster and
Episcopal Delegate of the Bishops' Conference of England & Wales
for the Ordinariate), presenting a copy of Fr Michael Rear's
Walsingham, Pilgrims and Pilgrimages
Photo (c) Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

Writing in his regular Saturday column, Sacred Mysteries, in today's Daily Telegraph, Christopher Howse takes the journey from one national shrine at Westminster Abbey to another - England's Nazareth. He takes as his guide our President's new book, Walsingham, Pilgrims and Pilgrimages.
If you have not obtained your copy yet, it is available from St Paul's Bookshop by Westminster Cathedral (and other shops in the chain), or to order online, price £19-99. It is a mine of information, with many fascinating details on Walsingham's origins and history, many unfamiliar before Fr Michael's exhaustive researches. It is un-put-downable; a masterpiece.

We warmly congratulate our President on his magnificent and beautiful achievement, a copy of which was presented to Pope Benedict by Bishop Alan Hopes, Episcopal Delegate for the Ordinariate, on the recent visit of Mgr Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Sacred mysteries: Christopher Howse finds that the king who rebuilt Westminster Abbey had another favourite shrine, in Walsingham





Detail of a 14th-century pewter pilgrim badge depicting the Annunciation

Photo: MUSEUM OF LONDON / BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY


The man who rebuilt Westminster Abbey as we saw it on television yesterday, Henry III, had devotion to three places of pilgrimage: the shrine of St Edward the Confessor, whose coffin he helped carry in 1269 to its new resting place behind the high altar at Westminster; the tomb of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury; and the Holy House at Walsingham.

 

 

King Henry made a pilgrimage to Walsingham, in north Norfolk, not so far from Sandringham, at least 11 times during his long reign of 56 years. Walsingham, which is celebrating its 950th anniversary, is today the most ruinous of his three favoured destinations, yet it attracts large numbers of visitors. Each year, about 300,000 pilgrims visit the Anglican shrine, re-established in 1931, while 100,000 go to the Catholic shrine. This includes some 6,000 Tamils in July alone, half of whom are Hindu.

 

 

There is an uncomfortable feeling among the Christians at there being two separate shrines, yet the fact remains that the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church are not the same thing. It is notable that the personal ordinariate (the official association for Anglicans who wish to retain corporately some of their religious patrimony after becoming Roman Catholics) is dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham.

 

 

It is fair to say that the flavour of Walsingham's Anglican Shrine is very High Church. At the national pilgrimage at the end of May, Mass will be conducted outdoors, followed by a procession with an image of the Virgin Mary, and Benediction.

 

 

What is the notion behind the shrine at Walsingham? It is not focused on the Virgin Mary so much as on the Incarnation of Christ. This is seen through an unusual optic: the Holy House built as a replica of the house at Nazareth, where the angel announced to Mary that she was to be the mother of Jesus.

 

The house at Nazareth that was reputed to have been this very spot survived into the late 13th century. A pious legend has it that the house was then transported by angels to Loreto, on Italy's Adriatic coast. But Father Michael Rear in his new book Walsingham, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage (St Pauls Publishing, £19.99) favours the explanation that it was not angels but the Angeli family, related to Byzantine emperors, who transported the stones of the old house to be reassembled at Loreto.

 

 

The Holy House at Walsingham, by contrast, never claimed to be built from the stones of Nazareth. Indeed the reputed founder, Lady Richeldis, a noble widow, was instructed in a dream in 1061 to build a house of wood according to specified dimensions. The year 1061 puts the foundation in the reign of Henry III's hero Edward the Confessor. Some would date it to the 1130s. In any case, it was intended to be a setting for devotion to God Incarnate.

 

 

Walsingham became one of England's most popular pilgrim destinations. Pilgrims would wear badges – depicting the Annunciation, for example – to show that they had accomplished their end. Then, in 1538, the priory at Walsingham was suppressed, the shrine broken up and the precious offerings (such as the gold crown given by Henry III) carted away. By an irony, the appearance of the statue of the Virgin Mary and Child at the shrine is known only from the seal of the priory attached to the deed of surrender to Henry VIII.

 

 

The image is of the "Seat of Wisdom" type. The Virgin Mary is depicted on a throne with the Child on her knee. Jesus embodies Wisdom as described in the biblical book of Proverbs: "I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning before ever the world was."

 

 

The curtains depicted on the priory seal are taken to refer to the veil of the Temple, hiding the Ark of the Covenant, originally holding the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. These words of God have as their counterpart the Word of God in St John's Gospel: the Word made flesh.

Walsingham - Pilgrims and Pilgrimage: Review by David Chapman, Secretary of the League

The May 2011 issue of the Portal Magazine has just carried this review of Fr Michael Rear's book on Walsingham by our General Secretary:

 

This year we are celebrating 950 years since Richeldis’ vision which led to the establishment of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, so it is fitting that a major new work on the subject should be published now. That vision was of the Holy House in Nazareth, and it was in the Holy House in Loreto that Fr Michael Rear conceived the idea which became this book. 

Walsingham, however, is more than 950 years old. The early chapters of this book trace the development of the site as a pre-Christian religious place and then move on to the development of the importance of Nazareth and of the house in which Mary lived. That is the house which was moved by angels to Loreto - a whole story in itself! The triumphant development and growth of the Walsingham Pilgrimage, as it became better and better known and undertaken by royalty, nobility - and ordinary folk - through to the eventual destruction under Henry VIII, is meticulously and movingly chronicled. Although the Shrine was destroyed, the devotion was remembered through the dark days until, through the efforts of a very few people, beginning with Charlotte Boyd and Fr Alfred Hope Patten, the ancient devotion was awoken in the 20th century. The final chapter looks forward to 2061, the Millennial Anniversary, with the hope and prayer that by then the present situation of two shrines - Anglican and Catholic - will be no more and that they will be one again. 

Fr Michael Rear is uniquely qualified to be the author of this book. He has known and loved Walsingham since he was seven years old. He was Anglican Vicar of Walsingham and later, as a Catholic Priest, on the staff of the Shrine at the Slipper Chapel. But more than this, he is a historian who knows how to do his research - his references and reasons for everything he writes make it clear that he is not just peddling his own notions as some have done before him. But this is not a dry and dusty research project; his fluent and easy style make this a compelling read, and his commitment not just to the historical Walsingham but to the spiritual power and meaning of the Pilgrimage to the “Holy Land of Walsingham” shines through the pages. He has also chosen a whole host of illustrations, some in colour, others in monochrome, which are intelligently captioned and well reproduced. They range from the offerings left at the pre-Christian Mercury Shrine up to the beautiful etched windows which were very recently installed at the Chapel of Reconciliation and which grace the front cover of the book. Whether you know Walsingham well and have been a pilgrim for years (and I believe that virtually every priest and many of the lay people who are joining the Ordinariate are already Walsingham pilgrims!) or whether you have never made the journey to this very special corner of Norfolk, you cannot but be interested and captivated by this book. It will certainly be the definitive history of Walsingham for many years to come. But that sounds so dull - and dull this book certainly is not.

 Fr Michael Rear is President of the Catholic League.

 

Walsingham: Pilgrims and Pilgrimage is published by St Paul Publishing, London 2011; ISBN 978 0 85439 811 9; price £19.95.

First Ordinations of the Pastoral Clergy for the Ordinariate

The Revd David Skeoch, Bishop Alan Hopes,
the Revd Professor Allen Brent, Fr Christopher Back (MC)
(c) Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

At the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs, Cambridge, two distinguished clergy formerly from the Anglican tradition were ordained to the diaconate for the Catholic Church in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, by the Rt Revd Alan Hopes, Bishop of Cuncacestre and Auxiliary Bishop in the Diocese of Westminster, standing in for Bishop Michael Evans of East Anglia, at his express request, on behalf of the Ordinary, the Rt Revd Mgr Keith Newton, Prot.Ap.

First to be ordained was the Revd Professor Allen Brent, DD, former Professor of History at the James Cook University, Queensland, Australia and currently Senior Member of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. He is an internationally renowned scholar of Patristic theology and early Church history. He was born in the East End, baptised in the Church of England and was also once a member of the Baptist before serving for many years as an Anglican priest. He is also a liturgical and ecumenical scholar, making important contributions to the debates over the influence of Newman in the development of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century and the significance of the revised Roman rite drawing on the Hyppolytan apostolic tradition for Christian Unity. Dr Brent was supported at his ordination by his wife, Cathy. Following his ordination, he was invested in the stole and dalmatic with the help of Fr David Paul, parish priest of St Mary's Catholic Church in Ipswich, and the Revd Dr Michael Robson, Dean, Praelector and Director of Studies in Theology at St Edmund's College.

Second to be ordained was the Revd David Skeoch, a member of the League of long standing. A native of County Durham and graduate of the University of Oxford (Christ Church), for many years he was Chaplain to the Rt Hon and Rt Revd Graham Leonard while he was Anglican Bishop of Truro and then London, before serving for nearly two decades as Vicar of St Gabriel's, Warwick Square, in Pimlico, London. He was also an Honorary Canon of the Diocese of The Murray, Australia. Recently he moved to Suffolk and was received into the Catholic Church, following in the footsteps of Mgr Leonard, along with a small group of lay people he had been ministering to in Ipswich since retiring from St Gabriel's. Following his ordination, he was invested in the stole and dalmatic with the help of Canon Stuart Wilson, rector of St Mary's Church in Chelsea and an old friend from the time they once served together in the Anglican Diocese of London, and Fr Mark Woodruff, priest director of the League and Fr Skeoch's assistant curate at St Gabriel's in 1988-89. Fr Mark commented,

"This is one of the proudest days of my ministry as a Catholic priest. David is not only a fine preacher and excellent teacher, he is a devoted pastor and steadfast friend who has given his life to the service of Christ in the relentless hope of Catholic unity. All those years ago, David taught me how to say mass - properly! - and how it is that life is not to be denied but a gift of joy from God. To think that once again we are in communion and that, God willing, he is to be ordained the Catholic priest he always aspired to be because this was the calling he was certain of, is deeply gratifying. His integrity has not been without cost, but this is the strength of the great and much loved character he is."

The Liturgy of Ordination was a magnificent mutual infusion of the contemporary Catholic liturgical and musical patrimony of the highest quality with much loved elements from Anglican worship. The Catholic tradition was represented by a Kyrie from Plainsong Mass IX by Fr Richard Proulx osb, the Gospel Acclamation by Colin Mawby, and the Sanctus from St Anne's Mass by James MacMillan. The Anglican tradition was represented by the Gloria from the New English Mass II by David Hill, Chief Conductor of the BBC Singers and former Organist of Winchester Cathedral (and before that, Westminster Cathedral) and the Agnus Dei from the Missa Princeps Pacis by W.S. Lloyd Webber, the father of Julian and Lord Andrew, who was for many years Organist of the Temple Church in London.

Another pointer to a mutually enriching shared patrimony of worship was the hymns, two of which also bore the influence of the Christian East, doubtless in honour of Dr Brent's academic expertise. This joyful Eastertide was written by Dr George Woodward, the Anglican cleric who all but invented the modern Christmas carol and was tireless in his translation of continental classic hymnody and the treasures of the Latin and Greek liturgical traditions, imaginatively finding old and new tunes for them to be sung to in Anglican services. He wrote this hymn for Easter, sung to a Dutch Protestant tune, inspired by the poetry of St John of Damascus in the year after his young wife died - "my love ... hath sprung to live this morrow," is especially poignant. Come, ye faithful, raise the strain, translates St John Damascene's Asomen pantes laoi, from the Canon for St Thomas Sunday (that is, Low Sunday), by John Mason Neale, one of the greatest of all translators of Latin and Greek hymns and poetry into English, religious founder and defender of Christian doctrinal orthodoxy in the Anglican Church. Finally, Thine be the glory, risen conquering Son, sung to the stirring tune from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus, translates a hymn by the Swiss Reformed pastor, Edmond Budry. It was an English Baptist minister, Richard Hoyle, whose version of A toi la gloire, O Resusscité from between the World Wars subsequently caught the imagination and enthusiasm of other traditions of which it has now become an inseparable and very popular part.

As Episcopal Delegate of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, Bishop Alan has commended to the various Catholic diocesan bishops, who will be conferring ordination on the Ordinariate's candidates in the coming months, the use of a short rite of thanksgiving and prayer devised by his late eminence Cardinal Hume to mark the length of service and valued Christian ministry which serve as the formative foundations of the Catholic ministry of the new priests and deacons of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. This was first employed at the conditional ordination of Mgr Graham Leonard, former Anglican Bishop of London, as a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Westminster in 1994 and again at the ordination of a group of twelve former Anglican clergy in 1995. It did not form part of the prayer of ordination itself, but was set as an introductory invocation leading into the Litany of the Saints (although at the Cambridge ordinations Bishop Alan employed it as part of the rite of election of the candidates prior to his homily). It was not always used in other dioceses and after Cardinal Hume's death it was not used by his successor. But its provision was not time-limited and it was never abrogated and, as shown at Cambridge, remains available as an option to ordaining bishops as they judge the circumstances appropriate.

This highly significant act of prayer was more than a gesture. First, it was an appropriate recognition of the two candidates' long and efficacious service as ordained ministers in the Body of Christ, derived in some sense from the communion of the Catholic Church, in the terms expressed in Vatican II's Decree on Ecumenism. Secondly, it rooted the present life and development of the Ordinariate within the recent history of the wider Catholic Church in England, the foundations that were laid for the Ordinariate nearly 20 years before and which have now begun to come to fruition, and in a happy recognition of the experience and prior discipleship of brother clergy who have taken the same path to fullness of communion in the past.

Here is the form of prayer, with its preamble, as approved in 1994 by the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship in 1994 for use by a bishop ordaining someone who has previously served as an ordained minister in the Anglican Communion:

Oratio ad gratias agendas pro ministerio ab electo in Communione anglicana expleto [Prayer for giving thanks for the ministry of the candidate completed in the Anglican Communion]

Deinde omnes surgunt. Episcopus, deposita mitra, stans manibus iunctis versus ad electum dicit: [Then all rise. The bishop, having set down his mitre, standing with his hands joined and turned toward the candidate, says:]

N., the Holy Catholic Church recognizes that not a few of the sacred actions of the Christian religion as carried out in communities separated from her can truly engender a life of grace and can rightly be described as providing access to the community of salvation. And so we now pray.

Et omnes, per aliquod temporis spatium, silentio orant. Deinde, manus extensis, Episcopus orat dicens [And all pray in silence for a while. Then, with hands extended, the Bishop prays, saying]:

Almighty Father, we give you thanks for the X years of faithful ministry of your servant N. in the Anglican Communion [vel: in the Church of England], whose fruitfulness for salvation has been derived from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church.

As your servant has been received into full communion and now seeks to be ordained to the presbyterate* in the Catholic Church, we beseech you to bring to fruition that for which we now pray. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Populus acclamat [The people acclaims]: Amen.

*Bishop Alan substituted the word "diaconate" on this occasion.

Receiving the Ordinariate and its Members as a Particular Church: A New Reality within the Fullness of Communion

The South London Group of the Personal Ordinariate of
Our Lady of Walsingham with the Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton,
Fr Gregory Moore and Fr Mark Woodruff
(c) Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

After the six weeks of Lent, and a Eucharistic fast since withdrawing from the fellowship of the Anglican Church to realise the corporate reunion of its historic and honoured tradition in fullness of communion with the whole Catholic Church, the first groups who will form the founding personal parishes of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham were received during Holy Week 2011.
The League was represented at the reception of members of the first group, based in Kennington in

South London, which Fr Mark Woodruff, acting priest director, has been accompanying on its journey through Lent at their recent new spiritual home at St Wilfrid’s Catholic Church, Kennington, culminating after the great Palm Sunday mass with a simple and most moving Liturgy of First Reconciliation. On Monday in Holy Week, nearly 30 people were received alongside Fr Christopher Pearson their pastor, Mgr Keith Newton, the Ordinary, who then conferred on them the sacrament of Confirmation and Chrismation at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark. Canon James Cronin, dean of the Cathedral, made the group warmly welcome at a beautiful Sung Mass marked by hymns that Catholics and Anglicans have come to share alike as part of a mutual enrichment of their respective liturgical patrimonies. The other concelebrant was Fr Gregory Moore, parish priest of St Wilfrid’s, who stood as sponsor for most of the members of the group.

An interesting note of distinctively Anglican patrimony was the choice of tune for Blessed John Henry Newman’s great hymn, Praise to the Holiest in the height. At the priestly ordination of Mgrs Newton, Broadhurst and Burnham the tune by Sir Richard Runciman Terry, Billing, was chosen. Surely this noble tune, which Catholics love and sing with great conviction, is something of the Catholic patrimony that Anglicans might receive and likewise make their own, as they leave behind John Bacchus Dykes’ Gerontius (in which the tune only works for the first and last verses) and Richmond by Haweis and Webbe (who also arranged the beautiful harmony for Rockingham, the tune to When I survey the wondrous Cross), a workhorse of a tune that does duty for at least two other hymns. Instead, the tune chosen was Chorus Angelorum, written especially for the words by the influential Lakeland composer of the English classical song renaissance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Sir Arthur Somervell. The tune is used for a choral setting of Newman’s text in Somervell’s 1914 devotional oratorio, The Passion of Christ. (By happy historical providence, St George’s Cathedral was where Newman celebrated his first Catholic mass in England upon his return from Rome. The altar he used was, however, destroyed by enemy action during the Second World War.)

The same tune was used on Wednesday in Holy Week at the Mass of Reception at Newman House, the Catholic Chaplaincy to the Universities of London, for the Central London group. Fr Mark again represented the work of the League, having been invited to give a reflection on the wider Catholic Church’s reception of Anglican patrimony a few weeks earlier (this talk will be available in the next edtiion of The Messenger and online here shortly. But in the meantime a reflection from Austen Ivereigh writing on the America Magazine blog, including comments from Fr Mark, can be visited here. He has also written in Our Sunday Visitor for May, interviewing members of the group and, again, Fr Mark. See here.)  Fr Peter Wilson, senior Catholic chaplain, who has been welcoming the group to the Chaplaincy’s mass throughout Lent and contributing to their catechetical formation, received, confirmed and chrismated around 15 of the group. Also present was Fr Mark Elliott-Smith, their pastor, who had been reconciled earlier in the week and stood as sponsor for many of the candidates, along with Fr Roger Reader.

The Central London Group of the Personal Ordinariate of
Our Lady of Walsingham, with Fr Peter Wilson
(c) Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

During the week, which saw the reconciliation of almost 1,000 Christians within the fullness of communion of the Catholic Church, it was clear how much of the characterisation and even apprehension about the people who constitute these groups is wide of the mark. By and large, these were not stereotypical Anglo-Catholics or “ritualists”. There were “Prayer Book Catholics” and middle-of-the-road Anglicans too. They were of all ages from children and teenagers to a faithful old lady in her 90s. Reflecting the Church in the Britain of today, not least the Catholic Church they are now fully joining, they were of various ethnic and national backgrounds, black African, Caribbean, white and Asian. Some were whole families; there were married couples; individuals and bands of old church-going friends. Some were relatively new to the Christian Faith; there were young professionals, as well seasoned parishioners who had lived and worked and worshipped in the same communities all their lives. They were simply ordinary, orthodox, Catholic Christians, who had always been believing none other than the same faith as the Church and now had an opportunity to live and profess it in undivided Catholic unity. They seemed to be the types of people who, in any congregation, are the most generous of their time, energies and resources; and it is evident that these embryonic parishes are not newly convened isolated individuals, but coherent fellowships whose unity as an aspect of their life in the Body of Christ has already been forged and tested, and who already form manifestations of the reality of the Church.

This movement that has taken place in Holy Week 2011 is not simply “groups of Anglicans”, it truly is a particular church coming as one into full communion in the Catholic Church in union, around their ordinary, with the successor of Peter in the apostolic see of Rome.

Some Catholic Hopes for the Ordinariate: Fr Mark Woodruff

Fr Mark Woodruff, Fr Roger Reader and Fr Peter Wilson
at the Reception of the Central London Group of the
Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham
(c) The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

An edited version of the following article was commissioned for the April edition of The Portal Magazine, which the League supports financially.

We are seeing what the Ordinariate means for Anglicans – but what of Catholics?  I suspect most are unconcerned or unaware; many will be amenable or supportive. Yet criticism persists. My hope is it will allay suspicions and soon show that it will enrich us all. Meanwhile, it has been interesting to compare recent criticisms with those dismissed in the early 1990s.

“They are anti-women.” But, by confusing ministry with clerical ordination, few Christian churches have begun to explore the scope of the lay apostolate. I hope that, out of the close involvement and leadership of the laity in Anglican organisational, pastoral, evangelistic and liturgical life, the Ordinariates can reveal new dimensions to the active participation of lay people in the Catholic context, particularly that of women.

“They are disloyal to their own Church. They will bring their party divisions with them.” But Catholic Anglicans have not wanted to undermine their Church, but call it more deeply into the mystery of the Church as a whole. I hope the Ordinariates will add to Catholic awareness of Christians looking beyond the particular - and even separation - to the universal, a reality that has been hard won.

“They are only interested in liturgy.” I hope the Ordinariates will make the most of how their liturgical culture was formed – pastoral presence, a captivating presentation of the Gospel, theological teaching through hymns and sermons of substance, an adoring glimpse of the Kingdom in music and worship. Surely these instincts are Catholic and the Ordinariate will add to the Church’s resources for the re-evangelisation of culture.

“Who do they think they are, telling us about Englishness?”  Our Anglican and Catholic bishops are aware that their churches are not rivals, but speak to different parts of society. I hope the Ordinariate - with its Anglican sense of relationship with civil society, its rootedness in language and culture, and its long experience of Catholic Apologetics - will contribute something between what fellow Catholics and other Christians bring to the discourse between faith and society, of which the Pope spoke so powerfully in Westminster Hall.

 “They will set back ecumenical relations.” It depends on whether you just want relations, or unity on Christ’s, not earthly terms. In the daring imagination behind Anglicanorum Coetibus, for a fluid world one size no longer necessarily fits all. In England we have dioceses, religious orders, the Ukrainian exarchate, the Bishopric to the Forces and ethnic chaplaincy networks. In North America, India, Ukraine and the Middle East parallel jurisdictions are part of the norm. Canon Law also envisages special structures, where otherwise it may be difficult for people to fit in with the normal forms of the Catholic Church. Thus in the Ordinariates the Catholic Church is showing that its imaginative embrace of diversity, even complexity, is the measure of how universal it is.  It ought to be that there is nothing that is truly distinctive of Anglicanism or other traditions for which, in the unity of the apostolic faith, space with integrity cannot be made within the Universal Church that subsists in the Catholic Church. I hope the Ordinariates will be true to a profound ecumenical awareness.

“It’s a fast-track .” But the Ordinariate expressly delivers on 150 years of hopes for corporate reunion. Their clergy and faithful have been formed in a “beloved Sister” and lived a Catholic life, as they prayed for decades for the Churches to unite ecumenically. Now, reconciliation will indeed be personal, but that is no reason to dissipate Anglicans’ existing bonds of communion, already partially shared with the Catholic Church, or to deprive them of their pastors and fail to nurture their ecclesial life. A glory of the Catholic Church is that people can come from every nation, rite and culture and be in the full communion of the Body of Christ wherever they go. I hope that the Ordinariate will likewise signify the abundant possibilities of participating wholly in the community of apostolic faith we share.

“It’s a granny-flat for the Anglo-Catholic fantasy. And a dummy run for the Lefebvrists.” But it implements some remarkable developments in the way the Roman Catholic Church will operate. (A) Each Ordinariate has a mandatory governing council, responsible with the Ordinary for key decisions and involving clergy and lay people. (B) These synodal bodies, not the Nuncio, will recommend the names of successive Ordinaries. And (C) there is ongoing provision for the ordination of married men to the priesthood on a case by case basis.  Whether these are patterns to be followed by the Latin Church more generally, we can only wonder. But as the Ordinariates become a facet of our Catholic identity, I hope they inspire confidence that the long wisdom of other traditions can be embraced in a way that is also true to the Catholic Church.  

Fr Mark is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Westminster and currently acting director of the League.

Ordinariate Very Important to Pope Benedict

The Revd Ronald Crane, editor of The Portal,
Cardinal Levada and Mrs Jackie Ottaway

A priest at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is affirming that the newly established Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is "very important" to Benedict XVI. Prospective members of the Ordinariate, established for former Anglicans wishing to enter full communion with the Catholic Church, recently visited Rome and met with staff at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, including the prefect, Cardinal William Levada. Father Hermann Geissler, head of the dicastery's doctrinal office, gave an interview to The Portal, an independent review of the ordinariate, supported by a grant from the Catholic League.

Fr Geissler affirmed that "the ordinariate is very important to the Holy Father... In the area of ecumenism it strengthens the Catholic Church's approach in two ways. It promotes sincere dialogue with a Christian defense of life and the promotion of peace. The goal of the ecumenical movement is complete visible union with one Christ and with Peter in one Church. We must cooperate and grow together."

Father Geissler affirmed that the Pope is called to promote unity in the Church and world. "He is the chief shepherd, he cannot do otherwise." "Unity is built on two pillars, love and truth," the priest added.

He reported that 50-60 clergy and some 1,000 laity are already planning to join the ordinariate, and "every soul is precious." The priest added that there are also groups interested in following a similar model in the United States, Canada and Australia. He noted his dicastery is "watching events carefully" in Africa as well.

"We are not to give in to difficulties," Father Geissler said. "We are to be generous and welcoming."
He continued: "The issue is the whole question of unity and of mission. When God plants a beautiful tree, he cares for it."

The priest concluded: "We pray for you that the ordinariate goes well. Priests are already ordained.
"We must be faithful to unity. We will do all we can to help you together with the bishops of England and Wales. Be encouraged by the words of Jesus Christ, 'Seek first the Kingdom of God and everything else will be given you.' There will be suffering, but God will guide us."

More details of the interview were carried in the March edition of The Portal and a full transcript will be given in the next Messenger of the Catholic League, along with interviews with Bishop Alan Hopes and Mgr Keith Newton.

We are glad to acknowledge the summary above, drawn from the report by the Zenit news agency.

Anglican-Catholic Dialogue Opens New Phase: Focus on Communion

Zenit reports:

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) is opening a new phase of dialogue with a meeting scheduled for May 17-27. A communiqué from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity noted that this new phase of work was mandated by Benedict XVI and the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at their meeting in November 2009. The first meeting of the new phase of the commission will take place at the Monastery of Bose in northern Italy.

The communiqué noted that "the task of this third phase of ARCIC will be to consider fundamental questions regarding the 'Church as Communion -- Local and Universal,' and 'How in Communion the Local and Universal Church Comes to Discern Right Ethical Teaching.'" It added that "these interrelated topics emerged from the Common Declaration of the Pope and the archbishop of Canterbury."

The co-chairmen of this phase are Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England and Anglican Archbishop David Moxon of the New Zealand dioceses. The other Roman Catholic members of the ARCIC include: Auxiliary Bishop Arthur Kennedy of Boston; Paul Murray, professor of theology and religion at Durham University in England; Janet Smith, professor of moral theology and the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Issues at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan; Redemptorist Father Vimal Tirimanna, professor of systematic moral theology at Rome's Alphonsianum University; Benedictine Father Henry Wansbrough from Ampleforth Abbey, England; Sister Teresa Okure of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, from the Catholic Institute of West Africa, Nigeria; and Father Adelbert Denaux, former professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. The Anglican members include: Paula Gooder, canon theologian of Birmingham Cathedral, England; Bishop Christopher Hill of Guildford; Reverend Mark McIntosh, Van Mildert canon professor of divinity at the University of Durham, England; Bishop Nkosinathi Ndwandwe of Natal, Southern Africa; Area Bishop Linda Nicholls for the episcopal area of Trent-Durham in the Diocese of Toronto; Reverend Michael Poon from the Trinity Theological College in Singapore; Reverend Canon Nicholas Sagovsky, retiring canon theologian at Westminster Abbey, England; and Reverend Peter Sedgwick, principal and warden of St. Michael's College, Llandaff, Wales.
Reverend Charles Sherlock, former registrar of the Melbourne College of Divinity in Australia, will serve as a consultant to the ARCIC.

The Vatican communiqué noted that "the international membership of this new phase of ARCIC represents a wide range of cultural settings, and brings to the commission a variety of theological disciplines." The official work of dialogue, sponsored by the pontifical council as well as the Department for Unity, Faith and Order of the Anglican Communion, has taken place over the past 40 years.

We Are Still Far From That Unity for Which Christ Prayed: Papal Homily to Close Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Thanks to Zenit, here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI delivered today at the closing vespers of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, held at the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls. Today's feast of the Conversion of St. Paul brought the prayer week to a close.

Brothers and Sisters,

Following the example of Jesus, who on the eve of his Passion prayed to the Father for his disciples "that they may all be one" (John 17:21), Christians continue to invoke incessantly from God the gift of this unity. This request is made more intense during the Week of Prayer, which ends today, when the Churches and ecclesial Communities meditate and pray together for the unity of all Christians.

This year the theme offered for our meditation was proposed by the Christian communities of Jerusalem, to which I would like to express by heartfelt gratitude, accompanied by the assurance of affection and prayer either on my part or on that of the whole of the Church. The Christians of the Holy City invite us to renew and reinforce our commitment for the re-establishment of full unity meditating on the model of life of the first disciples of Christ gathered in Jerusalem: "They -- we read in the Acts of the Apostles (and we heard it now) -- devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42). This is the portrait of the early community, born in Jerusalem the same day of Pentecost, aroused by the preaching of the Apostle Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, addressed to all those who had arrived in the Holy City for the feast. A community not shut-in on itself, but, from its birth, catholic, universal, capable of embracing people of different languages and cultures, as the book of the Acts of the Apostles itself testifies. A community not founded on a pact among its members, or the simple sharing of a project or an ideal, but from profound communion with God, who revealed himself in his Son, from the encounter with Christ dead and resurrected.

In a brief summary, which ends the chapter that began with the account of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the Evangelist Luke presents synthetically the life of this first community: how many had heard the word preached by Peter and were baptized, listened to the Word of God, transmitted by the Apostles; were happily together, taking charge of the necessary services and sharing freely and generously their material goods; celebrated the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, his mystery of Death and Resurrection, in the Eucharist, repeating the gesture of the breaking of the bread; they continually praised and thanked the Lord, invoking his help in their difficulties. This description, however, is not simply a memory of the past, and even less the presentation of an example to imitate or of an ideal goal to reach. It is rather the affirmation of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit, uniting all in Christ, who is the principle of the unity of the Church and makes believers one. 

The teaching of the Apostles, fraternal communion, the breaking of the bread and prayer are the concrete ways of life of the first Christian community of Jerusalem gathered by the action of the Holy Spirit but at the same time they constitute the essential features of all Christian communities, of all times and all places. In other words, we can also say that they represent the essential dimensions of the unity of the visible Body of the Church.

We must be grateful because, in the course of the last decades, the ecumenical movement, "arising from the impulse of the grace of the Holy Spirit" ("Unitatis Redintegratio," No. 1), has taken significant steps forward, which have made it possible to attain encouraging convergence and consent on varied points, developing between the Churches and the ecclesial communities relations of mutual esteem and respect, as well as of concrete collaboration in face of the challenges of the contemporary world. We are well aware, however, that we are still far from that unity for which Christ prayed and which we find reflected in the portrait of the first community of Jerusalem. The unity to which Christ, through his Spirit, calls the Church is not realized only on the plane of organizational structures, but is configured, at a much more profound level, as expressed "in the confession of only one faith, in the common celebration of divine worship and in the fraternal concord of the family of God" (ibid., No. 2).

The search for the re-establishment of unity among divided Christians cannot therefore be reduced to a recognition of the reciprocal differences and to the obtaining of a peaceful coexistence: What we long for is that unity for which Christ himself prayed and which by its nature is manifested in the communion of the faith, of the sacraments, of the ministry. The path toward this unity must be seen as a moral imperative, response to a precise call of the Lord. Because of this, the temptation must be overcome to resignation and pessimism, which is lack of trust in the power of the Holy Spirit. Our duty is to continue passionately on the path towards this goal with a serious and rigorous dialogue to deepen the common theological, liturgical and spiritual patrimony; with reciprocal knowledge, with the ecumenical formation of the new generations and, above all, with conversion of heart and prayer. In fact, as Vatican Council II declared, the "holy intention to reconcile all Christians in the unity of the one Church of Christ, surpasses human forces and talents" and, because of this, our hope is placed first of all "in the prayer of Christ for the Church, in the Father's love for us and in the power of the Holy Spirit" (ibid., No. 24). 

On this path for the search of full visible unity among all Christians we are accompanied and sustained by the Apostle Paul, of whom today we celebrate solemnly the feast of his conversion. He, before the Risen One appeared to him on the road to Damascus saying to him: "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!" (Acts 9:5), was one of the most ferocious adversaries of the early Christian communities. The evangelist Luke describes Saul among those who approved the killing of Stephen, in the days when a violent persecution broke out against Christians of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 8:1). He left from the Holy City to extend the persecution of Christians to Syria and, after his conversion, he returned to be introduced to the Apostles of Barnabas, who made himself guarantor of the authenticity of his encounter with the Lord. From then on Paul was admitted not only as a member of the Church but also as preacher of the Gospel together with the other Apostles, having received, as them, the manifestation of the Risen Lord and the special call to be "chosen instrument" to carry his name before the Gentiles (cf. Acts 9:15).

In his long missionary journeys, Paul, journeying through different cities and regions, never forgot the bond of communion with the Church of Jerusalem. The collection in favor of Christians of that community, who, very soon, had need of being helped (cf. 1 Corinthians 16:1), occupied an important place in Paul's concerns, which he considered not only a work of charity, but the sign and the guarantee of the unity and the communion between the Churches founded by him and the early community of the Holy City, as sign of the one Church of Christ. 

In this climate of intense prayer, I wish to address my cordial greeting to all those present: to Cardinal Francesco Monterisi, archpriest of this Basilica, to Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, to the other cardinals and brothers in the episcopate and priesthood, to the abbot and to the Benedictine monks of this ancient community, to men and women religious, to the laity that represent the entire diocesan community of Rome. In a special way, I would like to greet the brothers and sisters of the other Churches and ecclesial communities represented here this evening. Among them, it is particularly gratifying to me to address my greeting to the members of the International Mixed Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Ancient Eastern Churches, whose meeting will take place here in Rome in the next few days. Let us entrust to the Lord the good outcome of your meeting, so that it can represent a step forward toward the much hoped for unity. 

Dear brothers and sisters, trusting in the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, we invoke, therefore, the gift of unity. United to Mary, who on the day of Pentecost was present in the Cenacle together with the Apostles, we turn to God source of every gift to have renewed for us today the miracle of Pentecost and, guided by the Holy Spirit, may all Christians re-establish full unity in Christ. Amen.

Benedict XVI: Praying for Christian Unity

Thanks to Zenit.org, here is the translation of the address Pope Benedict XVI gave on January 19th at the general audience in Paul VI Hall.

We are celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, in which all believers in Christ are invited to join in prayer to witness the profound bond that exists among them and to invoke the gift of full communion. Providential is the fact that prayer is placed at the center of the path to build unity: this reminds us, once again, that unity cannot be a simple product of human action; it is above all a gift of God, which entails growth in communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Vatican Council II states "[t]hese prayers in communion are, without a doubt, a very effective means to implore the grace of unity and constitute a genuine manifestation of the bonds with which Catholics remain united with the separated brethren: 'For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them' (Matthew18:20)" (Unitatis Redintegratio, No. 8). The path to visible unity among all Christians resides in prayer, because fundamentally we do not "build" unity, but it is "built" by God, it comes from Him, from the Trinitarian Mystery, from the unity of the Father with the Son in the dialogue of love which is the Holy Spirit and our ecumenical effort should be open to divine action, it must be a dail y invocation of God's help. The Church is His and not ours.

The theme chosen this year for the Week of Prayer makes reference to the experience of the early Christian community of Jerusalem, just as it is described in the Acts of the Apostles (we have heard the text): "And they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42). We must consider that already at the moment of Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended on persons of different language and culture: this means that the Church embraces from the beginning people of different origins and, yet, precisely from these differences the Spirit creates one body. Pentecost, as the beginning of the Church, marks the enlargement of God's Covenant with all creatures, with all peoples at all times, so that the whole of creation will walk towards its true objective: to be a place of unity and love.

In the passage quoted from the Acts of the Apostles, four characteristics define the early Christian community of Jerusalem as a place of unity and love, and St. Luke does not wish to describe only an event of the past. He offers it to us as model, as norm for the present Church, because these four characteristics must always constitute the life of the Church. The first characteristic is to be united in listening to the teachings of the Apostles, in fraternal communion, in the breaking of the bread and in prayer. As I already mentioned, these four elements are still today the pillars of the life of every Christian community and constitute just one solid foundation on which to base our search for the visible unity of the Church.

First of all we have listening to the teaching of the Apostles, that is, listening to the testimony that they give of the mission, life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. It is what Paul calls simply the "Gospel." The first Christians received the Gospel from the mouth of the Apostles, they were united to hear it and to proclaim it, since the Gospel, as Saint Paul affirms, "is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith" (Romans 1:16). Still today, the community of believers recognizes, in the reference to the teaching of the Apostles, their own norm of faith: every effort made for the building of unity between Christians passes through the deepening of fidelity to the depositum fidei which the Apostles transmit to us. Firmness in the faith is the basis of our communion, it is the basis of Christian unity.

The second element is fraternal communion. In the times of the early Christian community, as also in our days, this is the most tangible expression, above all for the outside world, of the unity among the disciples of the Lord. We read in the Acts of the Apostles -- we have heard it -- that the first Christians held everything in common and that those who had properties and goods sold them to distribute to the needy (cf. Acts 2:44-45). This communion of their goods has found, in the history of the Church, new forms of expression. One of these, in particular, is that of the fraternal relationship and friendship built between Christians of different confessions. The history of the ecumenical movement is marked by difficulties and uncertainties, but it is also a history of fraternity, of cooperation and of human and spiritual communion, which has changed in a significant way the relations between believers in the Lord Jesus: we are all committed to continue on this path. Hence, the second element is communion which is, first of all, communion with God through faith, but communion with God creates communion among ourselves and is translated necessarily into the concrete communion of which the Acts of the Apostles speak, that is, full communion. No one should be hungry in the Christian community, no one should be poor: it is a fundamental obligation. Communion with God, made flesh in fraterna l communion, is translated, concretely, in social effort, in Christian charity, in justice.

Third element. Essential also in the life of the early community of Jerusalem was the moment of the breaking of the bread, in which the Lord himself makes himself present with the only sacrifice of the Cross in his giving himself completely for the life of his friends: "This is my Body given in sacrifice for you ... this is the chalice of my Blood ... shed for you." "The Church lives from the Eucharist. This truth does not express only a daily experience of faith, but encloses in synthesis the nucleus of the mystery of the Church" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia, No. 1). Communion in Christ's sacrifice is the culmination of our union with God and therefore also represents the plenitude of the unity of the disciples of Christ, full communion. During this Week of Prayer for Unity the lament is particularly alive due to the impossibility of sha ring the same Eucharistic table, sign that we are still far from the realization of that unity for which Christ prayed. This painful experience, which confers a penitential dimension to our prayer, must become the motive for a still more generous effort, on the part of all, in order that, eliminating all the obstacles for full communion, the day will come in which it will be possible to gather around the table of the Lord, to break the Eucharistic bread together and all drink from the same chalice.

Finally, prayer, or as St. Luke says, "the prayers," is the fourth characteristic of the early Church of Jerusalem described in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. Prayer has always been the constant attitude of the disciples of Christ, what supports their daily lives in obedience to the will of God, as attested to us also by the words of the Apostle Paul, who writes to the Thessalonians in his first letter "rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in a ll circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; Ephesians 6:18). Christian prayer, participation in Jesus' prayer is par excellence a filial experience, as attested to us in the words of the Our Father, prayer of the family -- the "we" of the children of God, of the brothers and sisters -- that speaks to a common Father. To be in an attitude of prayer, hence, implies being open to fraternity. Only in the "we" can we say the Our Father. Let us open ourselves to fraternity which stems from being children of the one heavenly Father and hence disposed to forgiveness and reconciliation.

Dear brothers and sisters, as disciples of the Lord we have a common responsibility to the world, we must carry out a common service: as the first Christian community of Jerusalem, beginning from what we already share, we must give a strong witness, founded spiritually and supported by reason, of the only God who has revealed Himself and who speaks to us in Christ, to be bearers of a message that directs and illumines the path of the man of our time, often deprived of clear and valid points of reference. Hence, it is important to grow each day in mutual love, committing ourselves to overcome those barriers that still exist among Christians; to feel that a true interior unity exists among all those who follow the Lord; to collaborate as much as possible, working together on the questions that are still open; and above all, to be conscious that in this itinerary the Lord must assist us, he still has to help us much because, without Him, alone, without "abiding in Him," we can do nothing (cf. John 15:5).

Dear friends, once again it is in prayer where we find ourselves gathered -- particularly during this week -- together with all those who confess their faith in Jesus Christ, Son of God: let us persevere in it, let us be people of prayer, imploring from God the gift of u nity, so that his plan of salvation and reconciliation will be fulfilled in the whole world.

Speaking to English-speaking pilgrims, he said

During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, all the Lord's followers are asked to implore the gift of full communion. This year's theme -- "They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42) -- invites us to reflect on four pillars of unity found in the life of the early Church. The first is fidelity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed by the Apostles. The second is fraternal communion, a contemporary expression of which is seen in the growing ecumenical friendship among Christians. The third is the breaking of the bread; although the inability of separated Christians to share the same Eucharistic table is a reminder tha t we are still far from the unity which Christ wills for his disciples, it is also an incentive to greater efforts to remove every obstacle to that unity. Finally, prayer itself helps us realize that we are children of the one heavenly Father, called to forgiveness and reconciliation. During this Week, let us pray that all Christians will grow in fidelity to the Gospel, in fraternal unity and in missionary zeal, in order to draw all men and women into the saving unity of Christ's Church.

In 2011, the materials, prayers and worship for the Week of Prayer have been devised by the Christians of Jerusalem, from the Orthodox Church, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Latin Catholic Patriarchate, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, the Anglican Church and the Lutheran Church, not forgetting the Maronite, Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic and various Evangelical communities that also exist in the City and the Holy Land.

Follow this link to the website of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland for the UK & Eire versions of the resources.

The theme chosen for 2011 is: "One in the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer" (cf. Acts 2:42). The materials for the week of prayer and for the rest of 2011 have been jointly prepared by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches. Each day of the Week will have a different theme:

• 18 January: The Church in Jerusalem
• 19 January: Many Members in One Body
• 20 January: Devotion to the Apostles' Teaching Unites Us
• 21 January: Sharing, an Expression of Our Unity
• 22 January: Breaking the Bread in Hope
• 23 January: Empowered to Action in Prayer
• 24 January: Living in Resurrection Faith
• 25 January: Called for the Service of Reconciliation

As we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, 18 to 25 January, we give thanks to God for the vast contribution made by the Christians of Syriac and Arab ecclesial families to the formation of Christianity's tradition and to its future.

At this time, we also pray for the unity of all Christians with the Apostolic See of Rome, with a special focus on the forthcoming work of ARCIC III and the ongoing progress of Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue towards reconciliation and visisble unity. We pray too for the new Ordinariate of Our Lady Walsingham, that it may develop a rich and hopeful ecumenical charism, enriching the wider Catholic Church with the spiritual and ecclesial patrimony of the Anglican Church and its traditions, and equipping the Universal Church in full communion to be able to embrace Catholics and Anglicans in the unity of the apostolic faith. We also pray that Fr Keith Newton as he leads the Ordinariate will be blessed in his aim to use it as a means by which the Catholic Church in this country reaches out and works generously with the Church of England and the Church in Wales in the mission we share and in which Christ prays we be united.

And in the words of Father Paul Couturier, who reanimated the Week of Prayer in the 1930s and caused it to be the universal Church's celebration of faith, hope and love for visible unity and communion that we know today, we pray for the unity of all humanity in the charity and truth of Christ.

Retaining Anglican Traditions in the Roman Catholic Church: a General Model for Christian Ecumenism?

KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON
RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
18 January 2011

11.15am, Room 2E, Chesham Building, Strand Campus

Dr Peter Lüning

Johann-Adam-Möhler Institut für Ökumenik

Retaining Anglican Traditions in the Roman Catholic Church: Could this Serve as a General Model for Christian Ecumenism? A Critical Response

Animarum salus Ecclesiae suprema lex

A copy of the decree of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith erection the Personal Ordinariate can be downloaded here.

First Priests of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

As Archbishop Vincent Nichols remarked at the Mass of Ordination, this is what history looks like as it is being made. Fathers John Broadhurst, Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton, once bishops of the Church of England, were ordained to the order of presbyter and thus to the priesthood of the Catholic Church in Westminster Cathedral, to create a new configuration of the Church in England & Wales in its mission to serve the truth about Jesus Christ and the unity of his people.

At 10 am, the Cathedral was already half full. In the long corridor linking the Sacristy to the Clergy House and Archbishop's House, nearly 100 other priests and seminarians had begun to gather, some old friends and colleagues of the candidates, and just as many who were priests of Westminster, Portsmouth, Birmingham, Brentwood and other dioceses, as well as from religious orders, including Abbot Aidan Bellenger OSB of Downside, Fr Aidan Nichols OP and Fr Christopher Jamison OSB, appropriately the director of the National Office for Vocation. There were also over 20 seminarians from Allen Hall. Two days earlier they had saluted the newly ordained deacons with the song Ad Multos Annos, traditionally sung in recollection of those leaving the College at Douai, Allen Hall's ancestor, on their way back to England in penal times, to face danger and even martyrdom. To those who witnessed this moment on the preceding Thursday, it was a most moving sign of incorporation not only into the priestly ministry of the Catholic Church worldwide, but into everything that being a Roman Catholic priest has meant in the history and spiritual development of England's national and religious life. As the students sang Vivat!, deacons John, Andrew and Keith entered into, and were embraced by, a rich inheritance that is truly costly.

The great Liturgy (follow the link to see the Diocese of Westminster's photo record of the day) began at 1030 am with the Processional Hymn, Thy hand, O God has guided thy flock from age to age, by Edward Hayes Plumptre, the 19th century Anglican classical and scriptural scholar, Dean of Wells and biographer of the fellow hymnographer and Non-Juror, Bishop Thomas Ken. Phrase after phrase was apt: "Through many a scene of strife" ... "the faithful few fought bravely, to guard the nation's life" ... "And we, shall we be faithless ... not so, in God's deep counsels some better thing is stored". And so it proved to be. After the Introit Sacerdotes Dei and the Greeting, the Archbishop asked us to sit, remarking that even though there were so many people to greet there was a message even more welcome: thus he introduced the Message from Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, announcing the Decree erecting the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, under the protection of the Mother of God and the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman. (Here is the report from the Vatican Information Service.)

An interesting remark in the letter mentioned that Archbishop Nichols was representing Cardinal Levada, and thus not only acting as President of the Bishops' Conference and in the customary primatial role of the Archbishop of Westminster. Had the Cardinal been able to be present, it is he who would have presided at the ordinations in the name of the Apostolic See. For clearly the Ordinariate is not a department of the diocese of Westminster, nor a suffragan see, nor an initiative subject to the Bishops' Conference: it is directly subject to the Apostolic See of Rome. Of course, the new Ordinary is by virtue of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus a full member of the Bishops' Conference; and there to support and participate in the ordination of the first priests of the Ordinariate were Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, Bishop Thomas McMahon of Brentwood and Bishop Alan Hopes, Episcopal Delegate of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales for the Ordinariate. Present too were Mgr Vincent Brady from the Apostolic Nunciature and Mgr Marcus Stock, general secretary of the Bishops' Conference. From the outset the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is thus part of the the endeavour of the universal Church in the eyes of the Apostolic See and integral to the life and work of the Church in the local dioceses of England & Wales.

When the name of the Ordinariate was announced there was a gasp of delight and satisfaction. The news had started to emerge after the diaconal ordinations on the preceding Thursday. The three candidates had needed to swear two sets of oaths, the first to the Archbishop of Westminster, in whose diocese Bishop Alan Hopes was ordaining them as Episcopal Delegate and in the name of the Holy Father, and the second to the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. including, as John Broadhurst observed at the reception, the new Ordinary. Thus, when the Reverend Keith Newton's name was at last  publicly confirmed as the Ordinary on Saturday, there was further palpable pleasure and satisfaction.

After the Confession, the magnificent Choir of Westminster Cathedral sang the Kyrie and Gloria in Excelsis from Victoria's Missa O Magnum Mysterium. The Epistle was Ephesians 4.1-7, 11-13. There was no Gradual; and the Alleluia Tu es sacerdos preceded the Gospel from John 20.19-23.

When the Rite of Ordination began, the three men were called forward from the nave and came to stand before the Archbishop seated before the High Altar. The Ordinariate having no Vicar General or other official, it fell to the Episopal Delegate of the Bishops' Conference, Bishop Alan Hopes, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster and Titular Bishop of Cuncacestre (Chester-le-Street), to present the candidates for priesthood to the Archbishop. There was an insertion into the wording of Bishop Alan's presentation (in bold italics):

After inquiry among the people of Christ and upon recommendation of those concerned with their training and with the permission of the Holy See, I testify that they have been found worthy.

The text of the Archbishop's homily can be downloaded here. Or listen to it here.

After the promise of obedience to "your Ordinary" (also made by Keith Newton), there was no insertion in the rite of that introduction and prayer sanctioned by the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and used by Cardinal Hume to ordain former Anglican clergy in the 1990s. There had been some dismay expressed about this at the diaconal ordinations, but in fact Archbishop Nichols in his homily had warmly spoken of the contribution and and generous spirit of the Church of England in recognising the integrity of the three in their decision and onward journey, at the same time as recognising their distinguished ministry and episcopal service in the life of the Anglican Church. At the same time, he reaffirmed the Catholic Church's whole-hearted commitment to the visible unity of Christ's people in the hope that, according to the words of the Holy Father, the Ordinariate would serve this end in a "prophetic" way. Some of the priests afterwards discussed the omission of the prayer used previously to lead into the Litany of the Saints, but we felt that everything it had said was expressed far more fully by what Archbishop Nichols had said in his homily. We also felt, even those over whom that prayer had been said years before, that it was important at the ordination of the first priests of this almost radically new structure in the Church in this country that the three be ordained - and be seen to be ordained - according to the same rites of the Church as any other Roman Catholic priests - no more no less.

The three candidates for Catholic priesthood prostrated themselves and the Litany of the Saints was prayed. Someone said the congregation was mainly male. Perhaps it is that we have become a little used to not hearing so many men singing in Church, but the voices of women were no less strong and insistent at this solemn moment of prayer for three much loved pastors.

The solemn silence as first the Archbishop laid hands, almost visibly bringing down the Holy Spirit in his power upon Keith, then Andrew, then John, followed by Bishop Alan, Archbishop Longley, Bishop McMahon, and then the 100 priests was very long and moving. Nothing stirred; no one spoke; no mobile phones went off. If they did, no one noticed. One of the beautiful things about divine Liturgy is that it is full of moments, but in the fulness of time you lose track of time. After the Archbishop spoke the Prayer of Ordination, someone in the north of the nave loudly promoted a round of applause; but as we were in the middle of the Rite of Ordination few of the clergy joined in; and we proceeded with the investiture of the priestly stole and chasuble, conveyed up to the sanctuary by the three new priests's wives, Gill Newton, Judi Broadhurst and Cathy Burnham.

The hymn Veni Creator was interrupted for the Archbishop to anoint the newly invested priests and, when it was completed, it was the three nuns received alongside the three former bishops on New Year's Day who presented the gifts of the paten holding the bread and the chalice containing the wine mixed with water for the Archbishop to entrust to the three new priests in turn, as they all prepared to concelebrate the eucharistic sacrifice.

At this point, the Archbishop descended from before the High Altar and greeted each new priest with the Kiss of Peace. The other bishops followed suit and then the priests. Again there was silence and expectation as this proceeded, but now the atmosphere was more relaxed and the sense of prayer was of gladness and gratitude to God, something we priests as we exchanged the peace in turn with the new Fathers Keith, John and Andrew, our brothers in the service of the Body of Christ, were deeply aware of coming from the People.

For the Offertory chant, Charles Villiers Stanford's Beati quorum via integra est was sung, another admirable piece of the Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony now shared by the Catholic Church. Someone remarked that this motet was a tribute to the Oxford Movement and its appreciation of Latin Christianity, but Stanford was a convinced Church of Ireland Protestant and he had written the piece not for an Anglo-Catholic celebration but mindful of the Latin services of the Prayer Book in use in the university not of Oxford, but of Cambridge. It was published in 1905, 12 years after he had stepped down as Organist and Master of the Choristers at Trinity College, Cambridge, where for 19 years he revolutionised and just about re-invented choral singing in the liturgy of the Church of England.

The three new priests concelebrated with the Archbishop using the Roman Canon; the fourth concelebrant was Bishop Alan Hopes, Episcopal Delegate to the Ordinariate from the Bishops' Conference. The Sanctus was from Mass VIII, Missa de Angelis. Agnus Dei  was taken from the Missa O Magnum Mysterium by Tomas Luis da Victoria. The Communion Motet was Edward Elgar's Ave Verum Corpus, followed by the chant Ego vos elegi and the hymn - this time an English hymn from the Catholic spiritual patrimony - Henri F. Hémy's O Bread of Heaven.

Many of the priests asked to distibute the Holy Communion remarked afterwards that never in their experience had there been such a volume of people present, only a fraction of whom received the Sacrament. Fr Peter Geldard estimated afterwards that 90% of those who came to him asked for a blessing. Evidently a very large proportion of the 1500 present were Anglicans discerning their own personal journeys ahead.

Following the prayer after Communion, the Archbishop asked us to congratulate the new priests, having completed their ordination with the celebration of the Eucharist, and there was sustained and loud applause. After his pontifical blessing, the Archbishop went up to kiss the Altar and then immediately descended, removed his mitre and knelt before the three new priests to receive their first blessings as Catholic priests. This time the order was not alphabetical; Fr Keith as the new Ordinary went first.

Then the procession of the seminarians, the Metropolitan of the British Orthodox Church of the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria, Abba Seraphim as an ecumenical representative (and himself a former Anglican), followed by the deacons, priests and bishops left to Blessed John Henry Newman's Praise to the Holiest in the Height. Surely, the tune for this great hymn in the Anglican patrimony in full communion with the Catholic Church is now no longer Richmond, J.B. Dykes' Gerontius or Somervell's Chorus Angelorum, but definitively Billing by Richard Runciman Terry, Organist of Westminster Cathedral 1901-1924.

After the hymn, as the Procession was still making its way through the Cathedral to the Final Movement of Louis Vierne's First Organ Symphony, a deep cry of acclamation and cheering went up, the like of which I have never heard in Church before. Some thought it unseemly, but others saw it was the unbridled joy and hope of the people present. Afterwards, the Archbishop, who went to join the people in the Piazza outside, remarked upon how "jubilant" they were.

In the sacristy, the 100 priests awaited the return of their new brethren and there were several minutes of sustained applause. Bishop Alan, said "We bow to the Cross", then "Prosit", and it was done. Many of the servers, seminarians and clergy took turns to kneel before the new priests to receive their blessings, led by Bishop Alan and Archbishop Bernard.

In the reception in Archbishop's House, Archbishop Vincent once again warmly congratulated the three new Catholic priests and remarked on the historic and momentous excitement of the occasion. It was not only about three new priests God had given to his Church to do a new thing, but about the aspiration and joy of the people who were still gathered outside. In responding, Father Keith thanked Archbishop Nichols, Bishop Hopes and Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Someone asked, "Who was the Ordinary you swore obedience to?" "The Pope," said Fr Keith. And thus in paying tribute to the trust of the Holy Father in Frs Keith, John and Andrew, we all raised a glass in honour of Pope Benedict.

Ad Multos Annos - Vivat Pater Keith, Vivat Pater Ioannes, Vivat Pater Andreas.

After the Reception, Fr Geldard took me to the Library in Archbishop's House, to show me the chair in which he had sat opposite Cardinal Hume, two decades before, and with leaders of the League at the time opened up the question of a structure for Anglicans desiring to be Catholics to belong to the Catholic Church in a corporate structure for full communion. We felt deeply aware of how all the work and thinking then, the 500 or so priests who have been ordained in the Catholic Church from an Anglican background in the 1990s and since, the prayer and imagination of Cardinal Hume, the then Bishop Nichols and others at the time and others after - and the vigilance of the then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict - and its issue in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, had led to this great day.

Fr Mark Woodruff


Here is the Statement from Father Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

Here is the Statement of the Bishops' Conference of England & Wales

Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

Today it was officially announced that the dedication of the first Ordinariate to be established under the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus will be placed under the protection of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The title has been chosen on the direct initiative of the Apostolic See of Rome at the Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith.

In addition the patron of the Ordinariate will be Blessed John Henry Newman.

We warmly congratulate Father John Broadhurst, Father Andrew Burnham and Father Keith Newton on their ordination in the Catholic Church as priests and the Catholic League extends to Monsignor Newton not only our congratulations upon his appointment by the Holy Father as the Ordinary, it also offers the promise of our prayers for him and the Ordinariate, and our support and assistance in the work that lies ahead.

Prayer to Our Lady of Walsingham in thanksgiving for the foundation of the Ordinariate in England, the Dowry of Mary

O Mary, recall the solemn moment when Jesus, your divine Son, dying on the Cross, confided us to your maternal care.

You are ever our Mother; we desire ever to remain your devout children. Let us therefore feel the effects of your powerful intercession with Jesus Christ.

Make your Name again glorious in this place once renowned throughout our land by your visits, favours and many miracles.

Pray, O holy Mother of God, for the conversion of England, restoration of the sick, consolation for the afflicted, repentance of sinners, peace to the departed.

O blessed Mary, Mother of God,
Our Lady of Walsingham,
intercede for us.


V. Our Lady of Reconciliation
R. Pray for us.