For the Record: Fr Peter Geldard on the Ordinariate in 2010

What is the Ordinariate? – Origins and Opportunities

Fr Peter Geldard, Catholic Chaplain of the University of Kent

This address began as a talk to the Catholic League’s annual pilgrimage for Catholic Christian Unity at the Beguinage in Bruges, Belgium, in September 2010 (see left). A shorter version was delivered at St Agnes’ Church, Kennington, on Saturday, 11 December 2010, and this at St John’s Church, Sevenoaks, on Wednesday, 15 December 2010.

I don’t know if many of you do remember me from the past, when I was the National Secretary of the Church Union. But if what I say could be of use to you, it is not only in the sense that I have been involved in the Ordinariate in the last six to nine months, but also that in some ways (when I tell you my life story briefly) you will see that I have been involved in it for perhaps the last thirty or forty years.


First of all, I am going to say just two things that, as it were, I am not going to say - but will refer to. The first is that I do not believe it is right or possible for me here to persuade you, or try to encourage you, to make a decision in your own lives that may not be appropriate, or may not be timely. Important spiritual decisions are always acts of faith and it is one of the mysteries of God that He gives that gift of faith to people at different times and in different ways. There are in each one of us on our pilgrimages the Nicodemus, as well as the St Paul. So it is very important that none of us get into a judgmental situation, let alone a rhetorical argument (whether within ourselves or with regard to other people), where the position you find yourself in demands that you must make a certain decision right here and now, or that you should have made it five years ago, or that you should be making it in a fortnight’s time. I say again, it is one of the mysteries of God that for different people at different stages they come to different conclusions.


We have seen that in our Church life’s history, particularly in England over the last 200 years, for some people there comes “a bridge too far”, or “a straw that breaks the camel’s back”; and sometimes it may seem almost insignificant in terms of the weight it carries. For John Henry Newman, you may remember, the great founder of the Oxford Movement, it was the Jerusalem bishopric. We may find it rather obscure today to think that that debate in 1841 about who should or should not be bishop in Jerusalem – an English Anglican, or a Prussian Lutheran and whether they were interchangeable - was the crucial issue; but for Newman it was the final moment. For Cardinal Manning, of course, it was the Gorham Judgement, the judgement of the Privy Council that overturned the Bishop of Exeter’s and the Court of Arches’ rulings that it was contrary to Church of England teaching to insist that baptismal regeneration (of infants particularly) was conditional upon a personal profession of faith – and this permitted a vicar to be appointed on the authority of the secular power without regard to episcopal authority. Different crises have confronted other people right up to the present day. After the Second World War there were some who found the Church of South India scheme too much, in that it provided for the gradual assimilation of Anglican, Methodist, Congregationalist and Presbyterian ministries in one united Protestant Church with a threefold ministry, by means of mutual recognition regardless of whether ministers were ordained by a bishop. For me, it happened when I had been for 20 years on General Synod, on 11 November 1992 at 5 o’clock – I remember it well –and the decision was made by the Church of England unilaterally to ordain women to the priesthood by a majority in the House of Laity of one vote. For me that was the bridge too far. But the crucial thing is, and I hope I have kept my word in this, that I have never judged anybody who came to a different conclusion, or who thinks differently at any given moment.


Part of my work, particularly in dealing with students from all over the world (I deal with about 18,000 students at the University of Kent), is to respond every year to the many students who come to me asking if they could be reconciled with the Catholic Church, some from Anglican backgrounds, some from other very committed backgrounds and some from none at all. I learnt very quickly that you never say, “Well, it depends on where were you last week, or what your position was the week before.” You simply just say, “The door is open; you’re welcome; come in”. In this way, I want to say something even more positive as well, and that is that all that has gone before is usually God-given. So one of the crucial things I always want to emphasise - and I hope this has been prominent in your thoughts and discussions - is that there is to be no denial of the past. The past and what God has done in it is something that he is building on, making it into something better and bigger. There is no question of you denying the Anglican sacraments you have received or the baptism you possess – all these things are God-given. And it is that grace that we build on: it is a going forward, not a looking back.


So that is the first point I want to be borne in mind, so we do not need to come back to it again. The second point to register, but that I do not want us to labour, is that I am not going to seek to convince you that it is the fulfilment of the Catholic life that we should be in communion with the successor of Peter. That I take as a sine qua non, something which, in the end, all of us believe is central. When I joined the Church of England - I came from a non-Church background as a young lad of 17 and a half, having grown up at Bexhill near Hastings, and I went to a church called All Saints, Sidley - almost within a matter of days of coming into that community I believed that the fulfilment of Catholicity was to be found in communion with the successor of Peter. I recognised it, staring at me in the face, in Scripture. In the little I knew then and have studied since of the Early Fathers, it stands out and it keeps being repeated. I also saw it being emphasised time and time again by scholars within the Church of England. I remember reading that great book by Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, The Gospel of the Catholic Church, written in 1936 and now too often forgotten, in which he makes that fundamental point that the unity of the Church and the wholeness of the Church are inseparable from the apostolic order and mission of the Church, by means of which it proclaims the Gospel and we live and bear witness as Christ’s disciples in the world. Thus he speaks not just of bishops and their role in the Church but of the one episcopate, the successor to the apostles, the organ of unity and continuity (p.220, 2nd edition, Longmans, 1956), which it is impossible to consider apart from its primate (p.228). He quotes the paper about the Papacy by Canon B. J. Kidd, Warden of Keble College, Oxford, at the Malines Conversations: “without communion with him there is no prospect of a reunited Christendom” (p.228). And he challenges a certain Anglican tendency to present the episcopate as just something that contributes to the bene esse of the Church, rather than what constitutes its esse (p.219). To Ramsey, this “one episcopate” of the universal Church, in which the Bishop of Rome is integral to its ever growing organic wholeness as the Body of Christ (p.220), is thus not just there for its benefit or wellbeing, it is of its very essence.


So, even though I knew that the Church of England led by the Archbishop of Canterbury was not united with the Catholic Church led by the Pope, I had that profound awareness of this one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of which the Church to which I belonged was clearly part, and by which God was able to work in us and and give us his grace, despite our divisions. I knew that in my life in the Church of England, first as layman and then as a priest, I was not in communion with the Pope, whose role and ministry is vital to the Catholic faith in which I believed and proclaimed; but yet I believed that God had his reasons and a purpose for me in the Catholic movement in the Church of England. Providentially and mysteriously he had put me in All Saints, Sidley, and he put me in the Church of England as he put you in the Church of England, because I believe categorically - and most of my life has been fighting for this - that our job was thus to do whatever we could to reconcile the whole body. As Catholic Anglicans, we were not saying that Catholicism was preferable to Anglicanism, we were not denying our Anglican sacramental life, and we were not denying our history. In fact we were attesting to the opposite. The great affirmation of the Oxford Movement, the Tractarian Movement, and the Anglo-Catholic Movement was, of course, to challenge the Church of England to recover her true catholicity, in her worship, her spirituality and in her history. And so the witness of Catholic Anglicans was not asking her to deny anything, but to affirm something that we believed was there but due to historical accident had sadly disappeared from view.


This is how I became heavily involved in working for unity within in the wider Christian Church and predominantly, of course, with the Roman Catholic Church. That was my aim and my ambition. I saw that the Catholic Church was the larger part of Christendom and that we Anglicans were western, but we broke away from it at the Reformation. So it was the duty of those Anglicans who realised this to try if we can to reconcile Christendom and heal our breach. Thus historically our job was to work within the Church of England to try to achieve that by every means - by getting the Lambeth Conference to pass resolutions in 1920 affirming this; and by encouraging the Church of England to become involved in closer relations and dialogue with Rome, notably through the theological dialogue of ARCIC, the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission. All that was to the good; all that was so hopeful for the cause of Christian Unity. One of the great joys I had when for ten years I was National Secretary of the Church Union was travelling all over the world, speaking, promoting and encouraging the ARCIC process, particularly in places where the bilateral discussions were being held - Australia, Japan, Korea, South Africa, the United States, a whole variety of places. I urged the case for ARCIC to come to fruition.


To cut a long story short, all this came of course to a climax in my life when, you remember, Pope John Paul II came to Canterbury in 1982. The stole he wore that day was one that I had presented to him personally a year earlier on behalf of the Catholic Societies of the Church of England. The greatest joy was when he came into Canterbury Cathedral with Archbishop Runcie and they stood in front of the throne of St Augustine. You may remember those historic words: “The successor of St Gregory greets the successor of St Augustine”. It appeared that there truly was a genuine chance that corporate reunion – as we referred to it – was a possibility within my lifetime. It is for that reason that I continued to labour within the Church of England. But then we fast-forward a little bit, only ten years, and that ideal, that hope, shattered. That was, of course, on that Wednesday afternoon in 1992, when I saw what came to be referred to as “an insuperable barrier” placed squarely in the path of the possibility of reunion. At that moment, whereas for the bulk of my life up until that point I believed that I was part of the wider Catholic Church, and the Church of England was part of the wider Catholic Church but contained within it (of course) people who emphasised Protestantism, in simple terms the circle turned. I realised that corporately the Church of England had become a Protestant Church, in which some people were desperately trying to be Catholic.


And so that, for me, was a dilemma. It was a dilemma which resulted, as some of you may know, in myself and six others being involved in very detailed negotiations with Cardinal Hume and other Catholic bishops of the time towards some kind of scheme of corporate reunion for Anglicans who desired it. These are now names that will be familiar to you – there was Bishop Cormac Murphy O’Connor of Arundel and Brighton , as he was then and successor to Cardinal Hume as he became; there was Cardinal Hume’s assistant, someone called Bishop Vincent Nicholls, who has now succeeded them both as Archbishop of Westminster; there was Bishop Allan Clark of East Anglia, who had been chairman of ARCIC; and there were one or two other ecumenical officers, such as Fr Michael Seed SA and Fr Anthony Nye SJ. On the other side there was the Bishop of London, Dr Graham Leonard, myself and a few other priests, including Fr Brooke Lunn and Fr Michael Woodgate. I always say teasingly as I wrote in an article at the time, “I suppose in military terms we were rather heavily out-gunned!” But the reality was that we were there to negotiate the possibility of reconciliation. It happened, because of one of those quirks of history, that I had written an article in the Catholic Herald, a Roman Catholic newspaper, published on exactly the same day that the Bishop of London had written an article in the London Times. I described how I had become an orphan, how I believed that what the Church of England had done had destroyed something which to me was very precious; and that I was now seeking a new mother. Graham Leonard, using slightly different language, said he recognised the time had come for us to make our journey to the Catholic Church, that we were to come as supplicants and it was our job, perhaps, now never to talk in terms of demands respect for our position ever again. In the course of those discussions, of which books and articles have been written, with more and more coming out on the web occasionally, it was known that I was particularly involved in presenting details of something that was called the Pastoral Provision, which had already been set up in the United States. This was a unique arrangement, whereby individual Anglican parishes (or Episcopalian as they are known in the United States) might be reconciled with the Catholic Church, retain their own particular liturgy and, with their own particular ethos, remain as what were called pastoral parishes in something of their own right. They would come under the local Catholic bishop of the diocese in which they were situated and thus integrate with it, but at the same time they were to be allowed to retain all that they could of the past. Now admittedly in America such parishes have had the great advantage in many cases of already owning their building and being used to paying their own pastor. So if you made a decision to change allegiance, you could do so almost lock stock and barrel and the only cost involved in material terms was painting a different sign outside the door. For the most part, parishes carried on almost seamlessly - one week Anglican and Catholic the next.


I had been to the States many times and I had found out all the details they had about how this had worked. I presented everything to Cardinal Hume and the other Catholic participants at our meetings in England. I remember many weeks of discussing it. But one of the problems at that period of history - and many of you will know this because it came out afterwards - was that Rome insisted on unanimous approval from the Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country before a like scheme could be implemented here. Anything less than unanimous approval meant that things could not happen. No such unanimity was possible, so the result was that that concept of corporate identity among groups being reconciled could not in the end come to pass in England. Perhaps on the Day of Judgement we shall see the whole plan laid out and realise how the hand of God was at work in this. Whether, in fact, seeds were sown then that have borne fruit in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and the prospect of an Ordinariate that are now before us, I leave for history to decide. I remember the sixteen boxes of great big folders I had and, rather than see the waste of all my efforts, I said to Cardinal Hume that I hoped he could do something with all this work. He rather sweetly said he would post it all to Rome. Being still a young man, I was concerned about the cost of the postage and he said, “Peter, have you ever heard of the diplomatic bag?” So all this went off to Rome and whether or not this had any influence I don’t know. But what I do know is that, during my time as General Secretary of the Church Union, three times I met John Paul II and three times I met his assistant, someone called Cardinal Ratzinger. On something of shorthand terms, I once had a conversation of about twenty minutes with him and the concept of corporate reunion was something we talked about. So possibly seeds were indeed sown.


Ironically in the birthplace of Anglicanism, with no hope of a Pastoral Provision in England for Christians of Anglican tradition owing to the opposition of English Catholic bishops of the time, there was no possibility of a structure to maintain or care for groups or parishes with their own identity. The only way open to Anglicans to become Catholics, individually or in groups, was what we called Individual Submission or Individual Conversion. I had finished in London at the Church Union and I was then serving as priest of a church in Davington in Faversham which is part of the Canterbury diocese, a sweet lovely medieval church which was actually attached to a house. This caused a lot of confusion because my name is Geldard, but the owner of the house was someone called Bob Geldof, so there were many times when our names got confused in the newspapers. It also got confused in the telephone bill and once I opened mine and saw that I had spent something like £8,000 on calls, before I realised that it was his bill and not mine. Surprisingly, the cheques never came the other way! Anyway, there I was at Davington in Faversham, and from 1992 I thought it right to spend two years with my people praying, reflecting and deciding what was right. For the situation which I faced then - and it may be one that many of you face now - was that “you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t”. If you act immediately, you are accused of being impetuous; if you delay and you think and you reflect, you are accused of being opportunist. In the end I felt it was right that we explore all the possibilities. We got speakers in to talk about what was then called “The Roman Option”; we got speakers from Orthodoxy; there were people begging me to create what we could almost call a Continuing Church, virtually a Congregationalist church; and of course there were others who said that, if we were part of the Church of England, then we must accept the decisions made. And we wrestled with all that.


After two years, I felt it was right that I declared my hand. But not knowing it fully, although I sensed it, I knew there were others in the parish that had been thinking the same as me. When I announced my decision, 34 others in the parish made the same decision - all the church officers and the whole parish council. Thus 35 of us were received into the local Roman Catholic church in Faversham. Then, in ways that I still do not fully understand, I waited to see what the outcome those discussions with Cardinal Hume would be. At the time I resigned, the possibility of a married man like me being ordained had never been talked about, let alone put into practice; and so I resigned and there was that long period of silence and worry and concern. After that, as far as the way that the Catholic Church often works, so the saying is, “the rest is mystery”. Suddenly the phone went and basically they said, “We’re going to ordain you and we’re going to make you the Catholic Chaplain of the University of Kent just down the road, so you can stay in the same house.” I have enjoyed that work that God has made possible and given to me for the last sixteen years.


And during those years it has been interesting to recall the many conversations with others who have wondered, as I had done, about what is right for them. All that wondering changed, I believe, last November in 2009, when out of the blue came this booklet, which I am sure you are familiar with, called Anglicanorum Coetibus. If you have not yet read it, do not worry. If you have already read it and it is not all that clear, do not worry either. In a sense it is like the telephone directory – there’s no point in just reading a document like that and thinking you will get all the answers. It is not a narrative, nor is it the story or the explanation. It is “legalese” and it is job is to describe the administration of the Ordinariate once it is created. Mysteriously, perhaps, it does not tell the story behind how the Ordinariate should be created or what its “patrimony” may look like, because this is a constitutional document to provide for all time for the creation of a number of different possible Ordinariates, whereas the creation of each actual Ordinariate which it provides for will be over in a whisker when it happens. And so we are in that interim period where the creation of the Ordinariate lies ahead; and once the Ordinariate in England is up and running, it will be run according to this booklet. It is like when I always say to my students, as I try to help them when they struggle with their exams and their essays: “In the last resort, don’t read the book, look at the picture!” And so, if anyone asks what Anglicanorum Coetibus is all about, I say, “Look at the picture.” And this is crucial. It is not a picture of an individual “swimming the Tiber”, it is a picture of a bridge. What has changed - and of course it is the initiative of Pope Benedict that has caused this change to happen worldwide and particularly here in England – is that there is now a bridge that makes it possible for groups of people with their pastors to move and be reconciled, staying together, maintaining their patrimony and their heritage and all that they love, but fully incorporated with the wider Catholic Church.


This is so radical and so phenomenal that most people have still not got their heads round it. They can say what it isn’t, but they find it very difficult to say what it is. It is not a so-called “uniate” church, one of the historic Eastern Churches in union with the see of Rome, and yet it seems like a “uniate” church because of its own liturgical provisions and “patrimony”. It is not a bi-ritual church in the sense that it does not have a separate liturgy, yet at the same time it can have its own distinctive liturgical characteristics as well use the liturgy of the Western Church – which for many, of course, is the one they are using at the moment. It is not a specialist body for clergy like Opus Dei, although it does have an Ordinary who is going to be in charge of it in his own right, and the Ordinary will not be in Rome like a major religious superior, but in England close to his pastoral charges and as an integral part of the Church here. And so the whole thing in one sense is very confusing, yet in another very exciting. Above all, what it is - and I use these words carefully – is what I believe all of us, me in my lifetime and the generations who followed the Oxford Movement during the last 150 years have been desirous for. What we worked and longed for these long years has come about.


The greatest hope I had as an Anglican was for ARCIC to succeed. So one of the questions you have to ask is, “If we were all in earnest at ARCIC, and Rome claims it was in earnest in ARCIC, what would have been the result if ARCIC had come to an achievement within six months? What would have been the practical outcome?” The practical outcome would, of course, have been a corporate reunion of the whole. But the possibility of that in my lifetime I saw fading; and those who have known the Church of England since 1992, know that it has faded even further. But what has happened through the Apostolic Constitution is that Pope Benedict has revived the hope and offered the chance of corporate reunion along the lines that ARCIC might have achieved for all those right around the world who are desirous to have it. To use an analogy that others have used, he has sent a boat to pick us up, he has sent us a boat with extraordinary qualities, which will be our own. It is flying an ex-Anglican flag; it is being captained by an ex-Anglican Ordinary; and all the crew will be ex-Anglican. The hymns it sings, the ethos it has will be ex-Anglican. It has all the designs we could want and yet some people are saying there is one fault; and that is, if you go down into the engine-room, although the engine itself is ex-Anglican, you will see a little brass plate that says this boat was designed on the advice of ex-Anglicans, it was built by a man in Rome. Well, if that is the only fault that some people can find with it, it is like criticising someone for making the present you asked for. For it is in fact an offer which I believe we need to respond to as generously as it has been given.


It is also a challenge which all of us have got to reflect upon. You cannot blame it for not answering questions and addressing considerations over which it has no control. To look at one burning question at the moment, for instance, It cannot be blamed because it cannot categorically say, “You can have this building, bricks and mortar, lock stock and barrel”, because it does not own this or that building, or have any say over what belongs to the Church of England. I believe there are solutions to such questions with good will, perhaps an ecumenical Church Sharing Agreement, of which there are many examples in England already among different local denominations, to enable an Anglican parish and an Ordinariate Catholic parish to sustain their use of a cherished place together. But I beg you not to be locked into thinking too much of how you can take properties with you. Property is a liability. The pilgrim church must always travel light. Even so, there are possibilities in certain cases for people to be able to continue to use the buildings they know, because economic circumstances may tend to make that practical, even attractive, where it is difficult for an Anglican or an Ordinariate group to maintain the use of a church on their own. You do not need relations between Catholics and Anglicans determined and complicated when it comes to property. But with good will something may be possible.


The question I cannot answer is, “What is it going to be like in six months time?” What I can say is that the speed at which things are now happening is quite phenomenal. I stand judged if I get it wrong, but I believe that three of those bishops who have resigned will be ordained as priests by the end of January. I believe three or more will be ordained about a month later. I believe that groups will be starting to be reconciled at the beginning of Lent; they will be allowed to retain their pastor and they will stay working and worshipping together. There will be no question of taking the pastor away, as it was in my case, saying “Right, you go off to seminary for a year or two”. No; as I say rather teasingly, they will be resprayed very quickly in about ten weeks, they will be ordained, and they will continue their pastoral life, alongside any additional studies following on after that - exactly what happened in the Pastoral Provision in the United States and that we recommended for England as far back as 1992.


That is a phenomenal breakthrough. It is a great change of mindset for the Roman Catholic Church to commit itself to, and I cannot emphasise that to you strongly enough. But it has come about because of somebody with the exceptional qualities and insight that belong to Pope Benedict. He understands Anglicanism. He is a scholar of Newman, a lover of Newman and he is committed to Newman’s objectives Newman for the Church, for its people, and for Christianity in England.


I leave you with two quotations. The first is from Victor Hugo (Histoire d’un Crime, 1852/1877, end of chapter 10):

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

And then those words of Brutus from Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3:

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
omitted, all the voyage of their life 
is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat
and we must take the current when it serves,
or lose our ventures.

God bless you.

Study Paper III - The Sacraments and the Ordinariate

Today we post the last of the three Study Papers by Prebendary Brooke Lunn to assist deeper consideration of the issues raised by the Apostolic Constitution and its Norms, addressed in his Appreciation of Anglicanorum Coetibus, in which he identifies the provisions for an Ordinariate as satisfying the objectives of the historic Anglican Papalist movement for a form of corporate reunion.

Study Paper I - Towards an English Ordinariate is an aid to those considering whether to form or join a "group of Anglicans" that could constitute part of an Ordinariate. It also examines the key and distinctive characteristics of the developing Ordinariate in terms of patrimony, Catholic Christian unity and the integrity of the proclamation of the gospel in the setting of English - or, for that matter, any other - society.

Study Paper II - Anglican Patrimony explores in great depth the social, ecclesiological, theological, cultural and religious identifying mark of a distinctively Anglican-ethos Catholic particular church, as well as its liturgical heritage.

Study Paper III - The Sacraments and the Ordinariate makes a noteworthy case for a greater identity and recognition between the classic Anglican theological position and the teaching of the Catholic Church than usually thought. It locates conscience as a means to mutual respect. This is fertile ground for ecumenical growth towards visible unity; and, taking the Church of England and the Catholic Church at their word, makes a bold proposal for how the Ordinariate, the wider Catholic Church and the Anglican Church can come closer together around what Pope Paul VI saw as Anglicans' and Catholics' communion of origins: in this case, a shared Anglican patrimony and sacramental understamding.

Fr Lunn notes that, after a century of theological rupture, the Restoration Prayer Book of 1662 supplants the Reformed theology, that denied the ex opere operato nature of sacraments, with a reasserted agreement in the Anglican formularies with the teaching of the Catholic Church - "right form, right matter, right intention, right minister, right candidate, indelible character". He goes on to note, however, the prevalence of an alternative Anglican divinity, which has been damaging to Anglican-Catholic reunion, namely the belief that sacraments (including Order, notable episcopacy) are of the bene esse of the Church, rather than of its esse - you might say of benefit to it, rather than integral to its very being. One could add that a similar redefinition has occured with regard to the use of the word "Catholic" in ecumenical dialogue, wherever its use by different people rests unnoticed on different meanings and assumptions. For instance, one meaning is "comprehending the range of diverse beliefs and forms"; the other means "integrating all in the one binding truth".   Fr Lunn therefore calls for the reassertion of the common understanding about sacraments held by Anglicans and Catholics in their respective magisterial teaching authority, in order to clarify the massive misunderstanding about terms and teaching that has blighted ecumenical progress towards unity between the Catholic Church and "the Church of England entire".

He argues that, if the two do indeed hold different sacramental theologies, then questions of  mutual recognition and validity surely do not matter. It is only because the sacramental theology in both is  fundamentally the same that it matters to Anglicans that their sacraments according to their formularies are valid by Catholic criteria; it also matters to Catholics that the Catholic Church has formed a judgment that they do not, after all, meet those same criteria. How to overcome this impasse? Fr Lunn believes that a step forward can be made, not through the unrealistic dream that one position or the other can be made to prevail, but through each recognising that the other's position is conscientious. Thus Anglican interlocutors are unlocked from the point of grievance and disputation over validity according to the Roman Catholic judgment, and Catholic interlocutors need not be constrained to regard Anglican sacramentality solely in adverse terms: without resiling from its settled judgment, it is at least possible to recognise freely that the Anglican judgment is different, and that the Anglican conviction is to be respected as conscientious.

Fr Lunn sees this recognition of each other's conscientious position as an important step towards the "regularization of Sacraments" on the road to corporate reunion within an Ordinariate. The ecumenical resonance would be strong and positive. Respect for conscience and integrity does no harm to the different convictions, teaching and practice of the other, at the same time as it recognises that basic principles and faith are actually held in common.

He then cites for study purposes a formula, suggested in 1994, that does justice to both conscientious positions. It sought to place the ordination of a former Anglican priest into the sacerdotal presyterate of the Catholic Church in context. In practice and in principle, no Anglican cleric in the last half century has been asked to go against their conscience and deny their original Christian faith and ordination. Cardinal Hume addressed this problem for Anglican consciences at the time by saying that the doubt was not nowadays about validity, but invalidity. But still, he said, the Church and its faithful require absolute certainty. And so the Church requested Anglican clergy, who it recognises as "ordained in some sense" (even fully valid for Anglican purposes - and was that not some recognition of the Anglican conscientious position?), to seek and accept ordination without conditionality and beyond doubt in the Catholic Church. Indeed Cardinal Hume was responsible for obtaining the agreement of the Congregation for Divine Worship for a form of prayer to be inserted into the rite of ordination of former Anglican clergy, to articulate the reality of what was going on (the ordination of the ordained) liturgically. The prayer (which has been used widely at the Ordinariate ordinations) recognises 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", recognises and thanks God for the number of years of the candidate's previous ministry in the Anglican Communion "whose fruitfulness for salvation has been derived from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church", and prays that it be brought  to fruition in the full ommunion and presbyterate of the Catholic Church. These wordings, which reflect the terms and teaching of the Decree on Ecumenism from the Second Vatican Council, demonstrate a great deal of respect for conscientious conviction and also a recognition of Anglican sacramentality by the very act of the Catholic Church's receiving it.

Readers of this Study Paper may also refer to Study Paper I, section V, in which Fr Lunn proposes practical terms for the Church of England and the Catholic Church to take each other at their respective words and follow their ecumenical pledge not to do apart what can be done together. With regard to the Ordinariate and its Anglican patrimony shared with the Church of England, should it not in due course mean that (other than in the celebration of the sacraments) Ordinariate clergy could receive, like Free Church pastors and ministers, an authorisation to officiate. If Anglicans and Catholics are committed ecumenically to the mutual exchange of gifts, it is a principle of Catholic Church life that members of its Ordinariates do not turn their back on those with whom they share the Anglican tradition, but come to the fore in mutual friendship, pastoral collaboration, cultural links and bonds as close fellow Christians. It will have to be in the end that Anglicans receive a warm and honoured welcome when they come to a Catholic Church belonging to the Ordinariate, and there sense a deep sense of affinity and spiritual ecumenism. By the same token, just as Anglican regulations in England provide a place for fellow Christians from other Churches in its systems (PCC members, ecumenical canons, church-sharing agreements and local ecumenical partnerships), it ought to be that members of the Ordinariate also play their part in this generous ecumenical space. The Ordinariate's Anglican identity and heritage thus serve not as points of rivalry and rupture, but as the very means by which Catholic and Anglican closeness on the road to visible unity in the same apostolic faith can be strengthened.

Read or download Study Paper III: the Sacraments and the Ordinariate here.

Study Paper II - Anglican Patrimony, by Fr Brooke Lunn

Today we publish Fr Brooke Lunn's second Study Paper to assist exploration of his Appreciation of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

This is already an historic document, since it is a reworking for the present circumstances of An Inlook into Anglican Identity, a study guide Fr Lunn developed early in the period from 1987 to 1990 as the leaders of the Catholic League set up a Committee for Corporate Reunion, to explore the feasibility and basis of corporate reunion. "Anglican identity" was thus the term being used at the time of the first formal plan for a scheme in the late 1980s and just into the 1990s, before the phrase "Anglican patrimony" entered into the currency. To those who say that the Apostolic Constitution was rushed in its conception and had no precedents, once again we demonstrate evidence of important foundational work two decades ago, itself resting on more than a century of repeated efforts, contacts and approaches, which are now bearing fruit as they are realised in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and further afield.

The original Inlook was printed in its entirety in our August 2010 Special Edition of The Messenger, a substantial collection of 200 pages of documentation and analysis entitled, Anglicans and Catholics in Communion: Patrimony, Unity and Mission. This remains available for free distribution and if you would like a copy, please email us here and we will send you a copy while stocks last. All we ask is a small donation to the Newman Fund to support the Ordinariate.

After a searching discussion among members of the League, using the Inlook, a "Congregation of the English Mission" was established as an embryonic body that could in due course petition the Catholic authorities for a "group of Anglicans" requesting a corporate reunion, marked with a distinctive Anglican identity and outlook, and committed to the union of all Christians for the sake of, and vital to, the effective and convincing mission of the one Church to the nation. Sounds familiar?

In this pioneering work, Father Lunn was a leading figure. The proposed model for corporate reunion looked to Canon 372 and also to concrete examplars such as the relatively new exceptional structure of the Personal Prelature (designed and implemented for Opus Dei) and the Pastoral Provision in the USA. A series of meetings took place with Cardinal Basil Hume OSB, Archbishop of Westminster, and his advisers Fr Anthony Nys SJ and Fr Michael Seed SA. There were also informal explorations with the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (whose prefect at the time was Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI - evidently Anglicanorum Coetibus was long forming in his mind) and the Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the United Kingdom at the time, Archbishop Pablo Puente Buces. These plans could not be advanced at the time - the Personal Prelature because it provided only for a clerical body, and a Pastoral Provision because the Bishops of England & Wales were "of one mind that, in our particular circumstances, such alternatives would serve to increase the multiplicity of Church identities in an unhelpful and confusing manner". Their full November 1993 statement eventually rejecting the Congregation for the English Mission's proposal, and addressing the forthcoming likely transfer of hundreds of clergy to the Catholic Church and untold numbers of laity on an individual basis alone, can be read here. Who knows what could have been?

There were several parish groups received on an individual-cum-corporate basis, mainly in the Diocese of Westminster - notably at Enfield Lock (St Peter & St Paul) and St Pancras (Holy Cross, Cromer Street). But these relied on church-sharing by a small Catholic congregation with a continuing but diminished Anglican parish congregation; and relations, despite considerable efforts at good will locally, proved difficult, not least as their former pastors were not available to lead the nascent Catholic communities, their having been moved on to other parish postings in anticipation of ordination and incardination in the diocese. While obviously there was disappointment on the part of many that a Pastoral Provision for Anglicans seeking full communion, with some kind of distinctive ecclesial reality of its own, could  not at that time be integrated into the Catholic Church in England and Wales, many clergy and faithful were undeterred. It is estimated by Fr John Broadhurst that in England over the 10 years from 1994 (the period of financial and housing support allocated by the Anglican authorities for those in conscience taking up what was essentiallly a voluntary redundancy or early retirement scheme) and in the period since, 500 Anglican clergy became Catholics, with large unrecorded numbers of lay faithful. The effect of this influx of Anglican background, patrimony and contribution to the life of the Catholic Church in England and Wales remains uncalculated but deserves thorough research. Certainly, it was something of an answer to prayer - even if an unexpected one - for vocations to the priesthood, during a period when across the Western world the numbers being ordained was seriously contracting.

As in Fr Lunn's first Study Paper, Towards an English Ordinariate, the focus is taken beyond the immediate identity markers of Liturgy and Tradition, to a thorough treatment of origins and the Anglican theological paradigm of Scripture, Tradition and Reason, to an appraisal of  the purpose and truthfulness of a Via Media (and the integrity of how that is practised), to considering the role of the laity in Anglican church life, and on to such factors as the relationship of Church and State, how size of congregation affects identity and mission, and the importance of folk religion and culture for what our now termed the "evangelisation of culture" and the "struggle for the soul of Europe".

Fr Lunn has thoroughly revised his original Study Paper to take account of the opportunities offered by Anglicanorum Coetibus and development of the new Ordinariate. It is also a masterly introduction to the thinking of Newman as it relates to the fields he covered.

Read or download Fr Brooke Lunn's Study Paper II - Anglican Patrimony here.

We will post the final Study Paper - Sacraments and the Ordinariate - on 5th July.

Study Paper I - Towards an English Ordinariate, by Fr Brooke Lunn

Following the posting from Prebendary Brooke Lunn, our past Priest Director's remarkable Appreciation of Anglicanorum Coetibus, in which he judges that the Apostolic Constitution's provisions satisfy the aspirations of the historic and influential Anglican Papalist tradition and its objectives for "corporate reunion", we now post the first of his three accompanying Study Papers.

Study Paper I: Towards an English Ordinariate was drafted in the period following the issue of Anglicanorum Coetibus in late 2009 and into 2010. It was circulated privately to assist Anglicans discerning the significance and provisions of the Apostolic Constitution and proposed a "proto-Ordinariate", an informal association of individuals and groups exploring possibilities, who could serve as the basis of a more defined movement out of which the Ordinariate itself could be formed.

Above all, Fr Lunn focuses on the Constitution's four significant factors:

1. The creativity of the Apostolic See in accepting the once maligned, but ecumenically influential, Anglican Papalist narrative of "corporate reunion", locating the Catholic space for its terms in Ad Gentes 20 and Canon 372;
2. It is a breakthrough solution to Christian disunity, providing the means for respecting the Church life of other Christians and integrating it with the Catholic Church in a way that has been impossible at any other time since the sixteenth century (not least because of the shortcomings of the procedures of merely individual reconciliation);
3. It provides for a genuinely mutual reception of gifts and ecclesial life, fully in accord with the Decree on Ecumenism's principle of spiritual ecumenism, also known nowadays as receptive ecumenical learning - thus the Ordinariate can and must offer the tradition and the key elements of the patrimony of the "Church of England entire", not just isolated portions;
4. How the members of the Ordinariate can contribute to the closer sharing of ecclesial life and mission among the Pilgrim People of God, across the divisions within the Church, in order to meet the needs and justified expectation of the people of England for a "common, shared, united witness and proclamation of the Gospel by all the Christians in this land", "united not absorbed". The same could be true of an Ordinariate in other lands.

While some of Study Paper I serves the enquiries and explorations of those beginning to consider the possibility of joining an Ordinariate, it also has a great deal to say about the positive formation and development of an Ordinariate once established, as it takes shape and maps its way ahead on sound and carefully thought through principles. This is above all what Fr Lunn is seeking to facilitate. To his mind, the Ordinariate and its patrimony are fundamentally concerned with the integration of the whole of Christ's Church according to the prayer and will of Christ - "that they may be one, so that the world may believe." Indeed he strongly articulates the encouragement of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI on his Apostolic Visit to Great Britain in September 2010, as he addressed the Ecumenical Evening Prayer at Westminster, to find unity in none other than the apostolic faith, in order to give before the world a convincing account of the hope in the Risen Jesus Christ that lies within us.

Read and download Fr Brooke Lunn's Study Paper I: Towards an English Ordinariate here.

Tomorrow we will post Study Paper II: Anglican Patrimony

An Appreciation of Anglicanorum Coetibus: by an Anglican Papalist

Fr Brooke Kingsmill-Lunn has been the most penetrating of commentators from the Anglican Papalist perspective in England for decades. First as the editor of The Messenger of the Catholic League and until 2007 as its Priest Director, he has offered a consistent critique of the state of the Church of England, the Catholic Church in England & Wales and the relations between them from the position of an Anglican who supports the papacy and who desires and works for the reunion of the "Church of England entire" with the Roman Apostolic See. Now retired after a distinguished parish ministry in inner north London, his pastoral priesthood in the Church of England has been devoted to the corporate reunion of the whole Church, for the sake of a society which needs not only Christians to be united but also that there be one Church under one Shepherd with a unified mission and proclamation. In this he continues the apostolate of one of the greatest Anglican Papalists of the mid-twentieth century, Fr Henry Joy Fynes Clinton, rector of the Parish Church of St Magnus the Martyr, Lower Thames Street, London, from 1921 to 1959, who encouraged Fr Brooke's own vocation to the priesthood and his unwavering commitment as an Anglican to the papacy and to the principle that intrinsic to the two provinces of the Church of England, and of the other provinces in communion with it, was their corporate reunion with the Rock from whence they were hewn.

After so many hopeful signs during Fr Fynes' time - from the Malines Conversations to the visits of the Abbé Paul Couturier - and so many fruits since - from the Archbishop of Canterbury's visits to Rome first by Dr Fisher and then by Dr Michael Ramsey, Vatican II and the Decree on Ecumenism, the substantial agreements of ARCIC I, and the Pastoral Visit of Pope John Paul II to Britain and his joint blessing with Archbishop Runcie in Canterbury Cathedral in 1982 - the possibility of some kind of corporate reconciliation the age of ecumenism looked realistic. But new directions within the life and ministry of the constituent churches of the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England, culminating in the Lambeth Conference of 2008 and the vote of the General Synod of the same year to proceed with the ordination of women to the Anglican episcopate, have meant that, however advanced the theological agreement and however deep the ecumenical respect and friendship, the old trajectory of Anglican-Catholic dialogue towards reunification on the grounds of an essential similarity deriving from the common apostolic faith and tradition was definitively barred.

In these circumstances, efforts towards uncovering a new pathway towards visible unity in the apostolic faith have been initiated on a new footing, and ARCIC III is testament to this. But what of  those Anglicans who support the papacy, who believe the Anglican Church still needs the papacy and who still maintain that the Catholic Church still needs the Anglican tradition for the sake of its fuller and more effective mission to society?

In his An Appreciation of Anglicanorum Coetibus, Father Lunn examines how its provisions largely satisfy the objectives of Anglican Papalists in the new reality (and may well have satisfied the objectives of Fr Fynes Clinton), how its large vision gives continuing scope for an ongoing engagement with the fuller Anglican tradition, not simply a detached part that could risk turning its back on the Church in which it was formed, and also how a coming together of the Catholic Church with all that is of value in Anglican heritage, not only honours and protects it but overcomes disunity that is so great a stumbling block to the proclamation and acceptance of the Gospel.

Download or read An Appreciation of Anglicanorum Coetibus: By an Anglican Papalist here.

Tomorrow we publish Fr Lunn's accompanying Study Paper I: Towards an English Ordinariate, followed on Monday by Study Paper II: Anglican Patrimony and next Study Paper III: Sacraments & The Ordinariate.

Annual General Meeting

The League's Annual General Meeting took place on Thursday 30 June 2011 at St Silas' Church, Kentish Town, London. Fr Graeme Rowlands celebrated an Anglican Mass in honour of the First Martyrs of Rome and spoke of the abiding central importance of nothing less than the visible reunion of the Church for which the martyrs had given their lives, as the only true objective of those who seek unity on the foundation of the faith of the Apostles.

Trustees serving on the Executive are elected on a rolling basis each year. Alongside Fr Mark Woodruff (Priest Director), David Chapman (General Secretary), Fr Christopher Stephenson (Membership Secretary) and Fr Graeme Rowlands (co-opted annually ex officio as Priest Director of the Sodality of the Precious Blood, which is historically associated with the League as a fraternity of celibate clerics for deepening priestly life, ministry, spiirtuality and fellowship), Cyril Wood was re-elected as Treasurer and Mrs Mary Bacon and the Revd James Bradley were elected as trustees.

Fr Christopher Stephenson's appointment as Priest Director of the Apostleship of Prayer was ratified. He is currently pastor of the Scarborough parish mission of the Traditional Anglican Church in Britain.

Tributes were paid to Miss Mary Lamb, our long serving trustee who died in December 2010, and to Canon Colin Tolworthy who has retired after a nearly ten years of invaluably steady support and wisdom on the former Council and the present Executive.

Here is the Report on the League's work in 2010 by the Priest Director:

The Catholic League’s objects are to promote fellowship among Catholics; the reunion of all Christians with the Apostolic See of Rome; the spread of the Catholic Faith; and deepening the Spiritual life. It was founded in 1913 and is registered under the Charities Act 1993, Charity Registration No. 232443.

It is an association of members, governed by the Trustees who meet on a regular basis. The Trustees are drawn from among the members. The Constitution, as revised in 1999 and again in 2008, also provides for a President (Fr Michael Rear), who acts as Visitor to ensure that the Trustees apply the rules and assets are applied in accordance with the objects of the League. There are no paid employees of the Charity.

Contacts and collaboration were fostered throughout the year with other organisations working for Christian Unity, such as the Anglican Centre in Rome, the Ecumenical Marian Pilgrimage Trust, the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Society for Ecumenical Studies, the Society of St John Chrysostom, the Sodality of the Precious Blood and, through Fr Mark Wooduff, the national ecumenical instruments, including Churches Together in England.

The two journals published by the League continue – The Messenger containing substantial articles and the Newsletter containing news, notifications and intercession lists. A Special Edition of the Messenger (April-August 2010), Anglicans and Catholics in Communion: Patrimony, Unity and Mission, carried detailed analysis and comment on the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, its implications and prospects. A second impression was required in December, owing to its extensive distribution and sustained  demand for its documentation. The League has also substantially supported the creation of The Portal, an informative online magazine for members of the Ordinariate and all those interested in knowing more about its development and impact.

In the autumn, the League also transformed its website on the lines of a blog, in order to keep track of fast moving developments and meet the need for swift comment and news. It also serves, as before, as a general ecumenical resource. It can be found at www.unitas.org.uk.

At the Annual General Meeting in June 2010, members gave their unanimous support to the trustees’ view that the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and the prospect of the foundation of an Ordinariate in England as a form of corporate reunion for Anglicans with the Catholic Church represented in large part the culmination of the League's objectives. Trustees also signalled their intention to work in support of Christian Unity between the Anglican and the Catholic Churches in the new situation in light of this, not least through encouragement to members who, at least for the moment, remain members of the Church of England at the same time as promoting the League's overall objects.

It soon became clear that the Ordinariate would be established at some point early in 2011, but that it would need considerable support and resources. Accordingly, the trustees called an Extraordinary General Meeting of members to confirm the policy they had previously endorsed, and to seek express approval to use the League’s resources to assist the foundation and work of the Ordinariate. Bishop Alan Hopes, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Westminster and Episcopal Delegate of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales for the Implementation of the Apostolic Constitution, was invited to address an Extraordinary General Meeting of the members, which took place in October, to explain his understanding of the way ahead for an historic development for Catholics and Anglicans (and their unity), and to lay out any particular needs. This was the first time that a Catholic bishop had addressed a meeting of the members of the League in its history.

The proposal to confirm support for the policy and the use of the League's assets and resources was approved unanimously and consequently the executive of trustees awarded a substantial grant of £65,000 to establish the office of the new Ordinary and the central operational services of the Ordinariate in an initial two years (£5,000 towards set up in 2010, and £30,000 in each of 2010 and 2011 towards operational costs).

The Executive also agreed to respond to a request to set up a dedicated fund to receive donations for the proposed Ordinariate until its own financial systems are in place, so that there are resources to help it and its groups from the outset. This means that the Ordinariate can also benefit from the Catholic League’s charitable status and receive donations attracting Gift Aid. The fund is known as the Newman Fund and, for the duration of the need for the facility, all donations and Gift Aid will be restricted to the work of the Ordinariate.

Sadly, at the close of the year we said farewell to our much loved and longstanding trustee, Mary Lamb, who died in December. Mary’s company as a fellow pilgrim to Walsingham and Bruges, and her shrewd insight as a trustee will be sorely missed. May she rest in peace.

In August, the Executive co-opted Mary Bacon to strengthen the number and capacity of the trustees. Mary had previously served for many years on the Council and Standing Committee and it is excellent to welcome her back.

During the year, the following grants were approved:

• £65,000 over two years (£35,000 in 2010, £30,000 in 2011) to the establishment and operation of the Ordinary’s office
• £400 to Pusey House to defray the costs of conferences on the Ordinariate
• £5,000 towards The Portal online magazine
• £1,000 to the Ecumenical Marian Pilgrimage Trust’s 2011 biennial event

According to the longer term vision set out by the trustees and endorsed by members, the Catholic League will be actively supporting the establishment of the Ordinariate in 2011, as well as continue to represent the objectives of its members - whether Catholic, Anglican or belonging to any other church communion. In the light of Pope Benedict’s impressive and inspiring visit to Great Britain in September 2010, and the Beatification of Blessed John Henry Newman, we will continue to support efforts towards the visible unity of the Anglican and Catholic Churches. A second Special Edition of the Messenger is planned once the Ordinariate is more firmly established, to build on the previous edition’s work of documentation and analysis.

We are also planning to commission a thoroughly researched history of the League and its work from 1913 to 2013, the Centenary, and a series of lectures and events to mark achievements on the way to visible unity and to encourage the way ahead.

A Walsingham Pilgrimage Hymn

Fr Mark Woodruff writes:

In 1990, Fr Peter Lyness, now of the Catholic Diocese of Westminster but at the time Assistant Administrator of the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, remarked to me that it was a shame that at Walsingham, unlike at Lourdes, Fatima and otherplaces of pilgrimage, the Shrine had not developed its own body of hymns and liturgical music. He thought it was a pity that, despite the words of the present Anglican Walsingham Pilgrimage Hymn being so treasured by generations of pilgrims, the tune was none other than the Lourdes tune. He suggested I have a go at writing a tune for Walsingham.

I took the tune I had written back to Walsingham along with some verses I had written as an additional resource (based on the first three verses of the nineteenth century hymn by Jeremiah Cumming) - an alternative or companion to the other much loved verses. I presented it, with Father Lyness' encouragement, to the then Adminisrator, the late Fr Roy Fellowes who subsequently served as a Catholic priest in the diocese of Lancaster in retirement. "That's no use," he said. "Pilgrims come here and they like the hymn they know already." So pretty much ever after that it remained in my drawer.

In 1994, however, it was recorded by the Choir of the University of London Chaplaincy of Christ the King, Gordon Square, for a cassette, Ladye of Walsingham, commissioned for a short run of 50 tapes by Pilgrim Tapes Ltd (now Pilgrim CDs and Tapes). I have never once received any royalties from or given permission for the sale of further tapes, let alone its transfer to CD, despite representations. Nor is my work as author and composer acknowledged. It is very disappointing that a business which presents itself as a Christian enterprise has resolutely resisted for 17 years the rights and dues of  a copyright holder.

In the mid 1990s, partly to remedy this, copies of the hymn and music were made available at low cost through the old Christian Literature Association bookshop at Faith House in Tufton Street, managed at the time by Mr David Chapman, who is now Manager of St Paul's Bookshop by Westminster Cathedral (a not-for-profit charitable enterprise of the priests and brothers of the Society of St Paul - proceeds go to the Society's work to promote the gospel through contemporary means of communication). When stocks were exhausted, I did not replenish them; but I gather that since that time the text and tune have continued to circulate and even featured at Catholic celebrations in honour of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Given the growing interest in the Catholic community in Walsingham as our National Shrine of Our Lady in its 950th year, with a particular emphasis on healing, life and reconciliation, I am making the updated hymn and its tune generaly available free of charge.

I make no claims for the quality of the verse beyond saying that it seems to have been useful in the past and may still be of service. In case this is so, it is now dedicated especially to the priests and people of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Download A Walsingham Pilgrimage Hymn here (pdf file)

Bruges Pilgrimage 8-12 September 2011

Annual Pilgrimage for the Unity of Christ's Church

For over 25 years, the Catholic League has arranged a late summer pilgrimage to Bruges. It has always been a strong support in our objectives to promote the reconciliation of all Christians with the Apostolic See of Rome. Last year, led by Fr Peter Geldard, we reflected on the huge significance of Anglicanorum Coetibus in answering our prayer of nearly a century for "corporate reunion". We examined the great figure of Cardinal Newman on the eve of his beatification during the forthcoming visit of the Holy Father.

This year we will be giving thanks for the Beatification, the success of Pope Benedict's apostolic visit and the foundatoin of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. It will be, as always, an ecumenical pilgrimage, continuing to hope and pray for the union of Christians and especially the reconciliation of the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Chuch.

All members of the League, members of the Ordinariate and others are most welcome to join us.

We will be staying with the Benedictine Daughters of the Church in their Priory of the Vineyard at the Begijnhof, or Beguinage, noted for their execution of the current Latin Liturgy of the Hours in Gregorian chant. We will arrive on the Patronal Festival, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, under her title of Our Lady of the Vineyard. We will also be making a pilgrimage to the weekly Solemn Mass at the Basilica of the Holy Blood and venerating the relic. There will also be a celebration of the Melkite Greek Caholic Divine Liturgy.

The speaker this year is Fr Hugh Allan o. praem, Prior, St Philip's Priory, Chelmsford.

Pilgrims are responsible for their own travel arrangements adn insurance. The cost of the pleasant but basic accommodation, including meals, in the Beguinage guesthouse is confirmed at 210 euros for four nights full board.

Further details in the Flyer can be downloaded here.
A booking form can be downloaded here.

Antistes Noster

Una cum famulo tuo Papa nostro Benedicto et Antistite nostro "N."

These words in the Roman Canon signify the communion of the local Roman diocesan Church with its bishop and, in other dioceses and particular manifestations of the Church, the communion of the local diocese or particular Church with its head and, in turn, his communion with and under the Bishop of Rome as Pope - primate of the entire Church of the Latin rite and universal pastor serving the whole Church of Christ.

In the translation of the Canon we are about to use, this is translated as "together with your servant N. our Pope and N. our Bishop". A footnote adds "Mention may be made here of the Coadjutor Bishop, or Auxiliary Bishops, as noted in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 149."


An interesting question has kept arising at each of the receptions and ordinations in the Ordinariate. A great deal of effort has been put into establishing that the Ordinariates under the provisions  of Anglicanorum Coetibus are, like the non-territorial Military Ordinariates, not agencies of the local dioceses but a particular Churches in their own right. In England, North America and Australia this puts them on a par with the semi-non-territorial Eparchies and Exarchates that are the local particular churches for Christians belonging to Eastern Catholic Churches. They are also akin to territorial abbeys, not standing within a local Catholic diocese but on their own as "circumscriptions" of the Church in their own right, led by an Abbot nullius, that is an Abbot whose abbey and territory belongs to no one else. Normally, the Ordinariate will be led by a bishop, but not necessarily. A priest who cannot be ordained bishop on the grounds of his marriage may also be chosen by the Pope to lead an Ordinariate.


This is the case in England with Mgr Keith Newton. He needs to request bishops from the local dioceses to confer the sacrament of order in the Ordinariate. If he were a bishop he would not have needed to invite the diocesans and auxiliaries of many of the English Catholic dioceses in which his clergy live to ordain them. But as he is a priest, and especially as the Ordinariate needs to use the churches of the dioceses for the services of its embyonic parishes, and of their principal churches for ordinations, when you go to a Catholic service of the Ordinariate taking place in a diocesan church or Cathedral, who is commemorated after the Pope?

The Westminster, Southwark and East Anglia position has been clear - the ordinations take place in the local diocese whose own bishop has been asked to ordain clergy for the Ordinariate operating within his territory and who, in so far as they will be functioning in and working with the local diocesan clergy, will from time to time come under his jurisdiction - like, for instance, ordained members of religious institutes (such as monastic orders). But is this not to misunderstand the terms of Anglicanorum Coetibus, which indicate that wherever the Ordinariate functions within the territory of the Bishops' Conference to which it belongs then, like the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Exarchate, it is its own church, not a subset of the local diocese. For sure, these are uncharted ecclesiological waters, despite the theoretical provisions of Canon Law and Ad Gentes on which Anglicanorum Coetibus is predicated. And certainly the byword is mutual support, good relations and close future working in common. But are the ordinations of the Ordinariate's clergy taking place in the Ordinariate, or in the local diocese under the tutelage of its Bishop?

The approach in other dioceses has been different. At Brentwood Bishop McMahon and at Birmingham Archbishop Longley commemorated, as the pontifical directs, "me your unworthy servant", followed by "Keith our Ordinary". This seemed happily to locate the ordinations in the communion of the Ordinariate as the particular Church concerned in its own right, at the same time as locating the Ordinariate, as the Apostolic Constitution intended, in immediate communion with the territorial Catholic diocese in which it is manifested here and there. In other words, this signifies not the dependance of the Ordinariate on the local Catholic diocese but their mutual and full communion.

Whichever practice is followed, it has to be said that in most of the cases so far it is clear that the Ordinations are for and within the Ordinariate, that functioning in a Church of another diocese does not detract from this because of this perfect communion, and that the Bishop of the Diocese where Ordinariate groups have clergy ordained to serve them is ordaining them at the request of and on behalf of the Ordinary.

But how is this communion relationship and the ecclesial reality of the Ordinariate vis-à-vis the surrounding diocese to be expressed liturgically and ecclesiologically?


Part of the problem has arisen because we translate the term for the Heads of our local, particular church as "bishop". In nearly every instance this is uncontroversial. But antistes means, for most practical Catholic purposes, "bishop", but not exclusively. It is the native Latin word for the position that a bishop holds in the Church, episcopus being a loan-word from Greek, in which it means overseer and from which the word for bishop in most languages is derived. But antistes is already a sacral term, coming from the orders of priests in Roman and Etruscan cults of the gods to describe the chief priest who stands to the fore of the body in which he performs the primary religious functions. Indeed it means that one who "stands before" (ante, not anti ("against")). The classic Latin Roman rite never adopted the Greek term, but kept to the Latin term invested with a whole culture's religious significance. It means therefore "leading" priest, or high priest, or chief priest. Clearly this encompasses the meaning and role of the bishop, even though "bishop" does not completely correspond with the hinterland of meaning to antistes.

In an interesting quirk of history, in the Swiss reformed churches at Zurich and Basel the leaders eschewed episcopal polity and thus rejected the term episcopus for their leader, it being too closely linked with Catholicism and the Pope. From 1525 the church at Zurich used the term antistes as an honorary title for their leader, Huldrych Zwingli. Not long after this, antistes or Vorsteher became an elected position, that of head of churches with synodal governance. Thus the antistes was an ordained minister elected by the city government and assigned the pastorship of one of the main churches. He was the principal representative of the local church, presided at its synod, and decided on the ordination of new ministers through exercising the responsbility of conducting theological examination. The position did not enjoy independent authority and jurisdiction (which were vested in the synods),  but it could be used to exercise great influence nonetheless. In the nineteeenth century the office of antistes was replaced by the more contemporary and official-sounding "president".


But does the presence of antistes in the Roman Canon permit a commemoration of the leader of a particular Church, like the Ordinariates, who is not a bishop? Possibly; and there is precedent. At the Byzantine Exarchic Monastery of Basilian Monks at Grottaferrata near Rome, the abbot, or archimandrite, is Fr Emiliano Fabbricatore, who is not a bishop. (In fact he is described as Exarch-Ordinary.) During the anaphora of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, he is commemorated thus (the monastery's own transliteration):

En pròtis mnìsthiti, Kyrie, tu panaghiotàtou Patròs imòn Benediktou Papa Romis, ke tou panosiotàtou Archimandrìtou imòn Emilianou ...

Among the first, remember, Lord, our most holy Father Benedict, Pope of Rome, and our most reverend archimandrite Emiliano

This is in place of the commemoration of the local bishop - because there isn't one. If, however, a bishop is present, he is indeed commemorated in the monastery out of honour (as sevasmiotàtou Episkòpou - honoured or venerable Bishop), prior (according to Church order) the priestly abbot.

Surely then, given that antistes does not need to be restricted to "bishop", which does not fully translate it, chosen as it was in preference to episcopus, it is possible to commemorate a priest who is not a bishop in the Latin eucharistic prayers with some weighty precedent from another tradition in the Church, and translate it interpretatively for practical purposes by saying in the Ordinariate and its liturgical functions, "Keith our Ordinary," just as we also render it in the dioceses as "John", or "David our Bishop".

Norwich Ordinations to the Presbyterate of the Ordinariate: Patrimonial Reflections

Wednesday 14th June at St John's Cathedral, Norwich, saw the priestly ordinations of Father David Skeoch and Father Allen Brent. The two new priests of the Catholic Church were the first ordained to the pastoral clergy of the Ordinariate since the ordinations of the former Anglican bishops. We reported on this event in Cambridge in April, along with the candidates' interesting stories of their personal pilgrimages to this point.

This time, as Fr Skeoch (who leads a small pastoral group of lay Ordinariate faithful in the Ipswich area) and Fr Brent (who will continue to focus on his academic and patristic theological work, not least at the Augustinianum, the Pontifical Lateran University, in Rome) will be assisting and working closely with priests in the parishes of the East Anglia diocese where they live, the ordination took place in the diocesan Cathedral. Most sadly, the bishop himself, Bishop Michael Evans is seriously ill with terminal cancer and so Bishop Alan Hopes, the Bishops' Conference's Episcopal Delegate for the Ordinariate, was invited to administer the sacrament of Order in his stead.

The Entrance Hymn was Praise to the Holiest, sung to Billing, the tune familiar to Catholics thanks to its official imposition by the approval of the Hierarchy of the Westminster Hymnal in 1912. We have commented extensively on this tune and the history of its alternatives in our report on the Aysleford diaconal ordinations here.

As is the custom at St John's Cathedral, extensive use was made of cantor-led responsorial music. While this remains appropriate on such occasions as pilgrimages or in parishes where musical resources and proficiency are not fully developed, this is understandable. On this occasion, a "through"-setting of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin or English would have been within the capacity of the clergy and faithful present (indeed this the case for the Agnus Dei, which was sung in Latin to simple Gregorian chant).

An important piece of Anglican patrimony that the Ordinariate can offer to the wider Catholic community is the confidence to sing the psalms through. A congregational response to a cantored verse is not an obligatory format - the response is to foster "active participation", but this can equally be achieved by the congregation being led in the singing of the whole text, whether in full, or perhaps antiphonally, or as a dialogue of the psalm verses between cantor and people. The words and the music of responses do not always prove weighty enough to invite the participation of the people anyway, so perhaps there is a case, after 40 years of using the present Lectionary to develop the participation of the people in the singing of the Gradual Psalm in the vernacular - we do not always have to rely on hymns for this, or leave the psalms as, effectively in so many parishes, a spoken exchange not dissimilar from a reading. The psalm should always be sung and Anglicans have a track record and knowledge base of how to achieve this through many centuries. (We will leave aside the question of the Gradual Psalm in the Anglican rite, which Cranmer abolished because it was at this point in the Sarum rite that the eucharistic oblations were prepared and transferred to the altar, laden with the heavy symbolism of sacrifice that he was anxious to undermine.)

Mgr Keith Newton, Ordinary, presented his candidates for the priesthood to Bishop Alan, who then preached this homily. The Prayer of Thanksgiving for previous Anglican ministry was not offered, because it had already been used at the candidates entry to the Catholic clergy when they were ordained deacons at the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs, Cambridge (see our report here). During the Litany of the Saints, Our Lady was invoked as Mother of God, Seat of Wisdom and Lady of Walsingham; and, alongside the local saints like St Edmund, King and Martyr, and St Felix, Apostle of the East Angles, there were some interesting invocations reflecting the interests of the two candidates. St Lazarus recalls Fr Skeoch's membership of the Order of St Lazarus, an old order of chivalry under the Protection of His Beatitude Maximus V Laham, Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. For some time the order has been open to ecumenical members and this is how Fr David has belonged to it and served as an Anglican chaplain within it. It is part of the story of his journey into the Catholic Church's fullness of communion. St David of Scotland is, of course, Fr Skeoch's own patron saint. Fr Allen's scholarly interests and patrons were represented by the Latin Fathers, St Augustine and St Cyprian, St Ignatius of Antioch and, of course, Blessed John Henry Newman. Fr Brent's Christian name, Allen, could be a Celtic name meaning "Rock". In Cornwal there is a St Allen's Church, but this saint was not invoked under this name. Perhaps, however, it can be identified with Cephas, St Peter the Apostle (invoked alongside St Paul), the Rock on which the Lord builds his church and with whose successor the two new priests now serve in the Catholic Church's full communion. An interesting invocation, passing almost unremarked, was of Saint Maria Goretti, an early twentieth-century girl of 11, living near Nettuno on the coast south of Rome. She died as a result of a strangling and stabbing attack (11 times) from a 20 year old neighbour whose attempts at rape she resisted, crying out that they were a mortal sin and not what God wanted. Maria could not be saved and died looking forward to being united with the Mother of God and her Son in heaven. She forgve her attacked (who according to the lights of the time was a minor and was sentenced to life in prison). Years later, thanks to the patient and redemptive ministry of the local bishop, Msgr Giovanni Blandini, and unsettling visions of the martyr in his dreams, he came to repentance and attended her canonisation in 1950. He ended his days as a Capuchin lay brother. Pope Pius XII referred to her as the St Agnes of the twentieth century, a Virgin Martyr for our times. Her resting place and shrine is in the crypt of the Basilica of Saint Mary of Graces in Nettuno. The image of Our Lady of Nettuno, St Mary of Graces, is the medieval image of Our Lady of Ipswich, second in popularity to Our Lady of Walsingham. It was rescued  thanks to sailors at the destruction of the shrines under Henry VIII and came to Naples, whence it later arrived at Nettuno. The association of the image with Our Lady of Grace is the same in Nettuno as it had been in Ipswich. It shows the Mother of God, seated on a throne attending to the Christchild on her lap, an image closely related, too, to the representation of Our Lady enthroned and enthroning her Divine Son as "Seat of Wisdom", a title under which she had been invoked at the beginning of the Litany. In recent years, the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Ipswich has been revived at the medieval Anglican Church of St Mary Elms. Since 1987, with the Catholic faithful at St Pancras Church, there has been an ecumenical guild of Our Lady of Ipswich, praying for Christian Unity, which was instrumental in restoring a Shrine and setting up a new image in 2002.

Very strangely, during the Laying on of Hands by the bishop and the priests, which is directed to take place in silence, the organist improvised at length. This solemn moment of prayer and expectancy is almost the most deeply moving point, immediately prior to the prayer of consecration to priesthood, in the entire ordination rite. But, sadly, there is an assumption in some avenues of the Church music world that all gaps and liturgical actions have to be covered up with sound. But, just as a hymn would have been inappropriate at this moment and a choir anthem a distraction - there is a reason why the rite enjoins silence - the organ accompaniment was, doubtelss inadvertently, obtrusive. Not knowing how long the imposition of hands would last, there was no chance that the music could be structured, although there were occasional quotations from Veni Creator. So this was neither a composed organ voluntary, nor a designed and crafted extemporisation. Clearly the organist was doing as instructed, but with no idea of how long to play, there was no chance that the music could take form. A judiciously selected collection of pieces that can come to the rescue when there are unexpected hiatus is usually better than "organ filler" for any significant length of time, but allowing the lturgy to subside into silence as it prepares to embark on its next course is usually best, especially where silence is integral to it.

Regrettably, the clergy and faithful were not supplied with the words of Veni Creator during the investiture with the chasuble and stole, and so this was delivered by the fine cantor, Chris Duarte, who is director of music.

The Hymn in place of the Offertory chant at the Presentation of the Gifts was We pray thee, heavenly Father, upon which we have commented exhaustively here. We need only add that, according to Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, with the publication of the English Hymnal in 1906, the author, Stuckey Coles, actually issued re-written words for verses 2-4 that he had devised for a confirmation classy at Wantage and which had been published in Hymns Ancient & Modern. The new verses, celebrating "the Catholic oblation" were obviously written when at Pusey House he felt able to much bolder in articulating explicit Catholic teaching.

During the Canon Bishop Alan commemorated "Michael our bishop", not mentioning Keith Newton as Ordinary; so, even though this question of who is commemorated in an Ordinariate litrugy taking place in the church (including the principal church) of another diocese is not settled, it seemed to reinforce the sense that the ordinations were being seen locally as an East Anglia diocesan event.

At Holy Communion the Hymn was apparently chosen by Fr Skeoch (doubtless matching the selection of Newman's Praise to the Holiest, apt for the expertise of Fr Brent): O Bread of heaven, beneath this veil. It was written in Italian by St Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696-1787), founder of the Redemptorists and Bishop of Sant'Agata dei Goti in the Kingdom of Naples. His Italian verses appear to have come to England through the 1830 publication in Turin of his Canzoncine Spirituali, a copy of which found its way to the London Oratory library. Translations of many of these hymns, written to excite the piety of ordinary people, especially the urban poor, were edited in a collection by Charles Coffin in 1863, Fr Edmund Vaughan (1827-1908, also a Redemptorist) supplying many of the verses, including this one, from the 1830 book in Italian. Vaughan as a translator suits St Alphonsus' hymns, as both were concerned with mission to ordinary people and especially the poor, and popular, direct, devotional preaching. This is why the hymn remais to this day one of the most popular and heartfelt Catholic eucharistic hymns. By 1912 its popularity was such that it was firmly included in the Hierarchy's only authorised collection, the Westminster Hymnal, to a tune by Henri Friedrich Hémy (1818-88), a native of Newcastler and son of a German military bandsman who came to England with the Duke of Buccleugh in 1797. He was a celebrated musician in the North East and became Professor of Music at Ushaw College, near Durham. He wrote a number of tunes for Catholic hymns, including Stella for Hail, Queen of Heaven, the ocean's star and this one, Tynemouth, for O Bread of heaven. Later Richard Terry, musical editor of the Westminster Hymnal, wrote new harmonies for Hémy's tune and this is the version in wide usage today.

At the end of the Mass, Bishop Alan, as he always does, thanked everyone who had taken part and made repeated the warm welcome he had made to the Ordinary at the beginning. Thereupon the Cathedral Dean, Fr James Walsh, went to the lectern to express the warm appreciation of the diocese to Bishop Alan for stepping in to confer the ordinations in Bishop Michael Evans' stead, whose greetings he conveyed to all assembled. He congratulated the new priest ordained to serve within the diocese, but made no mention of the Ordinariate, and there was no reference or welcome to the Ordinary. Mgr Newton then went to the lectern and thanked the Dean for the Cathdral's generosity, but went on to point out that the ordinations were to the priesthood of the Ordinariate, and that "the way it works" was that he as Ordinary had invited Bishop Alan to ordain, not the Diocese of East Anglia. That point gently and well made and hopefully understood in a warm spirit, he went on to pledge, as he had on previous occasions (especially in his excellent homily at Birmingham), the vocation of the Ordinariate as established under the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus to work hand in hand with the local dioceses, support their life and witness, and for its clergy to be brothers and close collaborators with their priests.

The final hymn was the increasingly popular hymn to Our Lady of Walsingham, Joy to thee, Queen within thine ancient dowry, to Herny Smart's appealing Victorian tune, Pilgrims. The hymn's provenance is hardly known. Any intelligence on its origins is eagerly sought.

Two particularly gratifying pieces of Anglican heritage now cherished in the Catholic Church, and signs of all our hopes for Church Unity and the reconciliation of all Christians, were the pectoral  crosses worn by Bishop Holes and the Ordinary. Mgr Newton wore the pectoral cross in the shape of the badge of the Society of the Holy Cross, an Anglican priestly confraternity in which he had been a leading figure and which had presented with it on his episcopal ordination in the Church of England for the see of Richborough. Bishop Alan Hopes wore the pectoral cross that had belonged to Mgr Graham Leonard as Anglican Bishop of London, prior to his retirement and ordination (sub conditione) as a Catholic priest.

Birmingham Ordinations to the Presbyterate: Strengthening of the Brethren and Some Patrimonial Reflections

At Pentecost on behalf of the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Archbishop Bernard Longley ordained eight new priests, many of whom were serving embryonic parish groups represented in St Chad's Cathedral in strength. As we have observed before, this congregation was not, as the stereotype of some commentators has it, ageing traditionalists obsessed with the minutiae of fussy liturgy, but honest to goodness ordinary church going people, such as you find in every parish in the land, the integrity of whose faith and discipleship had posed before them a vocation to enter into the fulness of Catholic communion, a call to which they had gladly responded. Here were people of different races and backgrounds, different ages and professions. These are the committed believers whose testimony before the world and in the Church is vital to the re-evangelisation of our society and its culture, and the wider struggle for the soul of Europe upon which Pope Benedict has focussed the mind of the Church so strongly, notably through the creation of a Catholic ordinariate for Christians of the invaluable Anglican tradition in all its variety and richness.

Mgr Newton and Archbishop Longley were joined by Bishop Mark Jabalé OSB, retired bishop of Menevia and sometime Abbot of Belmot, along with 30 other priests, many of whom were supporters from the clergy of the archdiocese of Birmingham. These included Mgr Canon John Moran, Vicar General of the Birmingham archdiocese, Mgr Andrew Burnham of the Ordinariate, and Canon Gerry Breen, Dean of the Cathedral. The League was represented by Fr Mark Woodruff (Director). Serving alongside Birmingham deacons during the Liturgy was one of the Ordinariate's two "transitional" deacons, the Revd Daniel Lloyd. The first two new Catholic priests to be ordained were old friends of the League through Fr Mark. Fr Richard Smith and Fr Mark have made a retreat or pilgrimage to Belgium almost every year in the last 20 in the hope of Catholic Christian Unity, at first to the Abbey of St Andrew at Zevenkerken near Bruges, and more recently to the Beguinage in Bruges on the Catholic League's annual pilgrimage for Christian Unity. In 2010 Fr Richard celebrated his Golden Jubilee in the priesthood of the Church of England, throughout which he has lived, served and witnessed to the Catholic Faith. This included several years as a missionary in Guyana and long service as a representative of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, founded in 1701 and Anglicanism's longest established overseas mission agency. As vicar of Eye, Suffolk, he succeeded Canon Donald Rea, who had been chairman of the Anglican Confraternity of Unity, founded in 1926 "to restore union with the Holy See (like the League), and who had been befriended by Pope John XXIII. The remarkable story is that in June 1959 the Pope noticed that the Anglican Canon, in a private audience, was carrying a Latin Roman Breviary. He told the priest who was interpreting for them, "That book of his looks a bit old. Mine is not so new. but it's newer than his. I will give it to him." Next day the four volumes of the Pope's breviary arrived, with the markers where the Pope had finished his office on the feast of the Sacred Heart, and containing his family memorial cards, including one for his father. On the cover of the black volumes were the arms of the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice.

Writing in Reunion, the Confraternity's journal, Canon Rea quoted Pope John on the delicate subject of church unity (thanks to this report in Time Magazine online). "In working for reunion," Pope John had said, "it is necessary (1) to be very meek and humble, (2) to be patient and know how to wait God's hour, and (3) to insist on positive arguments, leaving aside for the moment those elements on which we differ, and to avoid discussions that may offend against the virtue of charity."

Father Richard ensured that the volumes were safely deposited at the Lambeth Palace Library as a testimony of the work of Anglo-Papalists to bring about Catholic-Anglican unity from the beginning of the modern ecumenical age, and also of the desire in the Pope for reconciliation between Christians.

It was a special joy for Fr Mark, too, to be present at the ordination of Fr John Pitchford, who until 1991 was his predecessor as vicar of St Peter's, Grange Park, Winchmore Hill in north London. St Peter's has the distinction of being the only Church whose construction was authorised and completed during the Second World War. It was made out of materials from bombed out churches and was intended as a morale-booster, set as the church at the heart of a new garden-suburban development on the outskirts of the metropolis. Many of the furnishings came from bombed, demolished or disused churches too - the font from St Catherine Coleman in the city, a lectern from St Peter's Eaton Square's vicarage chapel, pews from St Stephen's Bow. During Fr Mark's tenure, the ornate tabernacle depicting the pelican in her piety from St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate, bombed by the IRA, was installed in a fitting new home in the centre of the sanctuary at St Peter's, for ever after to point to the Church's faith in the eucharist. Fr Pitchford is an author in the service of the Church. To navigate the labyrinth of regulations and to promote good practice in parish administration, he wrote for Anglican lay people An ABC for the PCC. In 1991 he brought out Daily with God, a personal prayer book for Anglicans and Roman Catholics, to enhance with additional resources for personal and corporate devotion the provisions of both churches' Litrugy of the Hours.

We also wish the other priests who were ordained every good wish and offer our prayers for this new chapter in their ministry: Fr John Lungley, Fr Paul Burch, Fr Christopher Marshall, Fr Matthew Pittam, Fr David Mawson, and Fr Paul Berrett.

The Entrance Hymn was Love of the Father, Love of God the Son, a hymn to the Holy Spirit from the 12th century (Amor Patris et Filii), mediated to the Church of this age and the hymnody of the vernacular liturgy by the poet Robert Bridges OM, Poet Laureate from 1913, the only physician to hold this distinction. His poems are noted for the power that comes from their economy of expression. At Oxford he was a friend of Gerard Manley Hopkins and it is thanks to Bridges, who saw to the posthumous publication of the Jesuit's work, that Hopkins' fame as a poet grew in public and critical estimation. Bridges' own verse was admired by composers, especialy Gustav Holst, Sir Hubert Parry, and Gerard Finzi. His numerous hymns and translations were issued in the Yattendon Hymnal of 1899, named after his retreat in retirement to Berkshire. Among his verses are many still in use today: the German Passiontide chorale (now through the Bach harmonisation of its tune), Ah, holy Jesu, how hast thou offended?, All my hope on God is founded (a translation of Luther's great Reformation hymn, Ein' Feste Burg), O gladsome light (Phos Hilaron from Byzantine vespers), and O sacred Head, sore wounded (another German hymn, famed for its tune, the so-called Passion Chorale). He also translated Latin Catholic hymns, such Office hymns and those of Charles Coffin. His work comes at a period when a number of scholarly English Christians had been raiding the treasuries of all the Christian traditions to re-create them for the adornment of English worship, not least the Church of England's Prayer Book Liturgy. Bridges thus stands among John Mason Neale, George Ratcliffe Woodward (father of the modern Christmas carol), Sir Henry Baker, John Brownlie (a Free Church of Scotland translator of Greek hymns), the Revd John Chandler (Anglican translator of Latin hymns, such as On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry), Percy Dearmer (Anglican priest-liturgist and main editor of the English Hymnal), Thomas Alexander Lacey (a hard-working Anglo-Catholic vicar-cum-journalist-cum-open-air-preacher, who translated office and Eastern hymns for the English Hymnal), Athelstan Riley (more office hymns, although he is better known for his own Ye watchers and ye holy ones) and Catherine Winkworth (the translator of hundreds of German chorales, the most famous being Now thank we all our God and Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation). Some of these hymns will be known to Catholics in different translations, but it is all the more important that the Ordinariate maintains the versions it has received from the Anglican tradition, partly for their own sake and partly because this rich store of hymns from all parts of Christendom and the history of worship is itself testament to an otherwise hidden facet to Anglican patrimony, the creativity of its acquisitiveness as it worked to enhance worship with "the beauty of holiness".

The tune of Love of the Father is Song 22 by Orlando Gibbons, gentleman and then organist of the Chapel Royal (also a secular court musician) under James I in the early 17th century. He is thus a successor of Tallis and Byrd, but at some distance, and an Anglican Protestant. But he does develop the form and tradition of the English anthem set on its way by Tallis, especially its development into the verse anthem form. Song 22 comes from the Hymnes and Songs of the Church of 1623 and is the tune for the metrical version of the Prayer of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38). This pure piece of Anglican patrimony has already been absorbed in the English worship of the Catholic Church (see The Catholic Hymnbook of 1998).

By the same token, Victoria's Missa O Quam Gloriosam has been a regular feature in Anglican cathedrals, other large churches with choirs and college choir repertoires for several generations. Tomas Luis da Victoria was born in the province of Avila, Castile in 1548 and sent by Philip II to be cantor of the Collegium Germanicum founded by St Ignatius of Loyola in Rome. It may well be that he studied under Palestrina and he counts as one of the three great Catholic composers of the Counter-Reformation, alongside Palestrina and the Franco-Fleming from Mons, Orlande de Lassus. Not only was his music thus forged in the context of the Catholic Church reforming itself partly in response to the challenges of the Reformation, it also stands in a musical process of development that would later come to influence, through Andrea and Giovanni Gabrielli, the Protestant composers Hans Leo Hassler, Heinrich Schütz and thus the great musical theologian of Lutheranism, John Sebastian Bach. Again, we see how entwined the Anglican and Catholic liturgical and musical patrimonies truly are; as Pope Paul VI remarked of Anglicans and Catholics, they share a "communion of origins".

The Golden Sequence for Pentecost, Veni Sancte Spiritus, was sung in Latin to its beautiful Gregorian melody. Sadly we did not have the words, although it would have been well within the capability of many present to render it faithfully.

After the Ordinary presented his candidates to the Archbishop for Election, it fell to Mgr Newton to preach. The text is available on the Ordinariate Portal. Towards the end, he paid tribute to the support of the Archbishop, the clergy and people of the archdiocese and pledged the support of the Ordinariate clergy to the diocese in return. After all, the Ordinariate is not supposed to be a separate church in its own right, but a church in its own right that works with and lends strength to the other churches. As very much a papal initiative for responding to a special phenomenon in Britain, it especially realises the successor of Peter's duty to "strengthen the brethren", not least because as it has received so much strength and support already from the existing Catholic community in the country.

The Prayer of Thanksgiving for previous Anglican ministry was not offered, having already been made at the diaconal ordinations at Oscott College the previous Monday. During the Laying on of Hands by all the priests present and the Ordination Prayer itself, the deep sense of silence and expectancy among the faithful made a great impression. For the Promise of Obedience, the Anointing and the Presentation of the Eucharistic Gifts and Vessels, each candidate had to ascend the seven fairly steep steps to the archbishop's stool. This challenge was firmly overcome by even the more elderly priests, although it was clear the Cathedral had been reordered without thought to the details of the rite of ordination, or kneeling for confirmation or Holy Communion. For the laying on of hands and the Ordination prayer, as we have observed before, the candidates were missing an essential element of Anglican patrimony: the hassock.

The hymn Veni Creator Spiritus was sung in its entirety in Latin during the investiture with the chasuble, thus immediaely and aptly prior to the anointing. Again, no text was furnished, so those who had not mastered the memory of the classical text were unable to join in.

At the Offertory, the excellent choir sang Confirma hoc, Deus, Byrd's setting of the Offertory chant of the day from Book II of the Gradualia of 1607:

God, strengthen what you have wrought in us. For the sake of your Temple that is in Jerusalem, kings shall offer gifts to you, alleluia.

It was gratifying to see a part of England's native Catholic patrimony, created for singing at clandestine Masses in penal times in England at some risk, sung at exactly its own place in the Liturgy. Now these pieces by Byrd and Tallis are shared by English Catholics and Anglicans, especially through the magnificent Anglican choral tradition in its cathedrals.

During the Eucharistic Prayer, Victoria was retired in order for all to sing Sanctus viii De Angelis. This was once thought to be a relatively modern composition, owing to its tuneful appeal in what sounds like a modern major key and some dissimilarities from other Gregorian masses. Some of the features of the De Angelis mass indicate a close resemblance to Jewish liturgical music, notably a Shema Yisrael from a Jewish community in South Arabia - Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God. Blessed be the Name of the glory of his kingdom for ever. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, etc., from Deuteronomy 6, that forms the centrepiece of the daily morning and evening services in teh Synagogue. The eminent lay Catholic liturgist and musicologist, Professor Laszlo Dobszay, has written compellingly of the sharing of musical cultures in the Mediterranean and near East, so it is not impossible that elements of the Missa de Angelis represent a long and healthy tradition of borrowing of musical forms and patrimony across the known world, possibly indicating too a time of closer encounter and exchange between Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Most significantly, in the Canon the Archbishop commemorated "Keith our Ordinary" as well as "me your unworthy servant", thereby recognising that while the ordinations were taking place in the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Birmingham at the hands of its Archbishop, nonetheless they were actually taking place in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, a particular church in its own right, albeit without physical churches of its own for the moment.

At Holy Communion, the choir sang Factus est repente, part of the Communion antiphon for the Feast of Pentecost and part of the Offertory, set to music by Gregor Aichinger (1564-1628), a priest from the Bavarian city of Regensburg who went to study music in Rome for two years from 1599, possibly under those who had themselves been students of Paletrina. Among them could have numbers Francesco Soriano (master of the Capella Giuliana at St Peter's) or Giorgino Bernardino Narnini (master of the choir of San Luigi dei Francesi). As such, he just about stands in that tradition of the Roman School, its influence in Venice and also into Germany that actually pervaded that musical assumptions in the litrugical culture of both Catholics and Protestants (see above):

Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. God, confirm what you have wrought in us, from your holy Temple that is in Jerusalem.

This was followed by Come down, O love divine by Bianco da Siena (who died in 1434), translated by Richard Frederick Littledale. Littledale was a fellow priest and collaborator with John Mason Neale in the translation of Greek and Latin hymns and liturgical prayers, and a four-volume commentary on the psalms. He had been a scholar (i.e. fellow) of Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1888 brought out A Short History of the Council of Trent, which is complimentary of the role of the Jesuits in the implementation of many of the positive reforms it ordained. Thus Littledale represents that strong and long-standing element within Anglo-Catholic scholarly circles of past ages that oriented itself not so much Romewards as placed the Church of England within the swim of the wider Church and its life and history. These are important foundations for Anglo-Catholicism, but also for Anglican-Catholic efforts during the last two centuries towards the recovery of unity through an awareness of the communio of the whole Body of Christ, the Church. What they created and left behind is thus a determining factor in the nature and ongoing relevance of an Anglican patrimony, both within Anglicanism and in the communion of the Catholic Church. Bianco da Siena was a poet and mystic, a disciple of Blessed Giovanni Colombini, founder of the Gesuati, a Sienese order said to resemble the Franciscans in their original days, having an intense devotion to the Name of Jesus (it decayed and was evntually suppressed by Pope Clement IX in 1668). The tune is the perfectly crafted Down Ampney, specially written by Ralph Vaughan Williams, musical editor of the English Hymnal in 1906, to fit the deeply moving words, which are in such an uncommon metre for hymns that few tunes existed to match it and none available really worked. Down Ampney, however, has formed an indissoluble marriage with the words in almost all English-speaking worship traditions. It is named after a village in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire that was Vaughan Williams' birthplace. The son of its vicar, Vaughan Williams was immersed in the musical and religious language of his origins; but despite his masterwork of the English Hymnal's music (and many other pieces of sacred and religious music), perhaps shaped by his enduringly dark experience from the Great War (there is often an air of menace or darkness behind the music of this supposedly "quintessentially English", pastoral composer) his attitude to religion was as "an atheist ... who drifted into a cheerful agnosticism", according to his second wife, Ursula. This is a difficult part of the English hymn tradition to form part of the Ordinariate's patrimony (besides, it is already a part of the musical culture of the Catholic Church), because it matters that sacred music expressed the faith of the composer. Of course, anything can be sanctified and drawn into God's service - after all, the music of this tune has affected and moved generations of  Christians at their confirmation, at Pentecost, at ordinations. But perhaps it is not so far from what the Ordinariate is supposed to be about when we recall that Vaughan Williams and his beautiful and outstanding body of music came to see the Christian religion not as a set of propositions but as some kind of reliable journey. Indeed in his The Pilgrim's Progress he renamed John Bunyan's hero from Christian to Pilgrim. This is a perspective that it is well to bear in mind if we are about the re-evangelisation of culture and the struggle for the soul of Europe.

The end of Mass was characterised by three glorious elements. First, the Archbishop invited us not to leave the Cathedral before we had venerated the relics of Blessed John Henry Newman in the Old Baptistery and returned thanks for the Ordinations, which he saw very much as part of the witness to the Catholic faith he had given bearing fruit in the present age. Secondary relics, including a zucchetto and a book, admittedly; but close proximity to heaven, if one truly believes in what the Incarnation and the Resurrection truly mean. Secondly, we left the altar to the stirring hymn, We have a gospel to proclaim, by Edward Joseph Burns, born in 1938 and a Anglican priest serving in the diocese of Blackburn, written in response to its bishop's call to mission after the fourfold pattern of Christ's incarnation, passion, resurrection and ascension. The tune, Fulda, is by William Gardiner (1770-1853), a composer who has the distinction of being the first person to introduce the performance of music by Beethoven to England in his native city of Leicester in 1793. A copy of Beethoven's Violin Trio in E flat (Opus 3) was among the possessions of the refugee Abbé Döbler, chaplain of the Elector of Cologne (the archbishop, whose see was really linked to membership of the Bavarian Wittlesbach royal family), who had been taken under the wing of Mrs Frances Bowater, the daughter of the Earl of Faversham, and who befriended Gardiner. Döbler and Gardiner joined together in the first English performance of the piece that year at Bowater House. In 1808 Gardiner published Sacred Melodies, a collection of tunes drawn from the music of German composers (Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn) that he set to hymns and metrical psalms as sung in chapel choirs. He thought Fulda was by Beethoven, but the tune has not been discovered in his oeuvre and is probably by Gardiner himself. The story of this tune makes it probably one of the more eccentric pieces of English worship patrimony, but it is very fine nonetheless. Third, as the procession drew near to the opened West Door, we heard the fine peal of eight bells from the Cathedral bell tower. Some cleric once wrote, in the newsletter of the Association for Latin Liturgy, that change-ringing was intrinsically Protestant because prior to this uniquely English tradition emerging after the breach with Rome, Catholic bells had been hung in a different way, swung in a different method and thus struck at a different angle. The resulting kind of sound was held thus to be "more Catholic". This kind of rot has no place in Catholic apology, but is surprisingly prevalent in different ways among all traditionalists who have no understanding that tradition of its nature develops. It is not beyond the bounds of possiblity that, had England remained in communion with the See of Rome, change-ringing would have grown up in the towers of churches across the land anyway. All the same, it is nothing other than a sheer delight that this characteristically English and joyous custom took hold in the Catholic Church long ago - there is a fair number of towers in Catholic Churches in England that boast a peal of bells for ringing the changes. The full eight bells have been at St Chad's since Easter 1877 and the only sadness in hearing them ring this Pentecost was that, because of a whole day of driving rain, it was impossible for the congregation to spill out onto the large pavement to glory in the praise they were offering.

Is the Ordinariate for You? An Ecumenical Response

In March, the Anglican Association published the pamphlet, Is the Ordinariate for You? Some considerations for thoughtful Anglicans about the Ordinariate Proposals contained in and offered by "Anglicanorum Coetibus".

It represents a missed opportunity to make a positive case for Anglicanism and especialy the Church of England - its belief, polity and patrimony - in the reality of a new situation which has utterly pervaded its life and direction from now on. Thankfully at ARCIC III, Anglicans and Catholics together, mandated by their respective authorities, are addressing these questions as, 50 or so years on, the dialogue towards unity has run so deep, that the true natures of our Chuches' respective identities and different theological perspectives and beliefs are at last revealed. As Cardinal Kasper once observed, echoing the Decree on Ecumenism, now that we see more clearly where the other stands, and express more profoundly and clearly where we ourselves stand, the dialogue towards unity can begin again in earnest.

Sadly, given these immense and hopeful opportunities for reconciliation in visible unity - and common life and collaboration in the meantime -, Is the Ordinariate for You? has nothing to offer for the task in hand. Instead it is an exercise in presenting Catholicism and Anglicanism as rivals with competing claims. And in failing to make a positive case for Anglicanism, especially the assertion of an orthodox Classic Anglican theological position and a survey of its distinctive historic, religious, theological and litrugical patrimony, it can only define its Anglicanism in terms of the Catholicism it is rejecting.

This is fundamentally a Protestant starting point, but not one that members of the Free Churches and many Anglican Evangelicals now in the end share, ever since the age of ecumenism dawned. If this essay is the presentation by proud, confessing Anglicans that their Church is the best of all, then it falls short and deprives the other Churches ecumenically of a potentially valuable reflection. Instead, if it is the assertion of an old Anglican High Church conviction that the Anglican Church is "Catholic but Reformed", it makes no other case than that it is actually "Reformed but with Catholic features". Yet this sense of contrast and confrontation is not the spirit into which the Catholic Church enters into dialogue with the Anglican Communion in the present age, as both seek to enter more deeply into the mystery of the Church where they are (as the Pope once said of ecumenical work) and thus their deeper unity in Christ.

The integrity of Anglican church life and belief as they have now developed deserve a better Apologetic in the field of ecumenical encounter and dialogue than can be taken from the Anglican Association. Here is the Catholic League's Ecumenical Response.