Centenary - Priest Director's Address to the Annual General Meeting

No True Ecumenism without Unity with the Successor of Peter - No True Catholicism without the Unity of Christians

 

In 1900, four years after Apostolicae Curae dealt a blow to Anglican hopes for reunion with the Catholic Church, the vicar of Moreton-in-Marsh, Spencer Jones, preached a sermon at St Matthew’s, Westminster. England and the Holy See insisted that – nonetheless - there could be no lasting future for the mission to England of the two provinces of Canterbury and York, without restoring their unity with the Catholic Church, the rock whence they were hewn. Furthermore, an Anglican vision of Catholicity cannot exclude, but inescapably relies on, the communion of all Christians with the Apostolic See at Rome. To this end, in 1908, together with Paul Wattson (an American friar whose Episcopalian Franciscan community would shortly afterwards enter full communion with the Catholic Church and, as the Society of the Atonement, continues its work towards unity to this day), Jones co-founded the Church Unity Octave, fore-runner of the present Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, promoting this very objective. After the 1910 Edinburgh Mission Conference (an attempt to coordinate Anglican, Protestant and Reformed efforts in overseas mission, often seen as the founding moment of the modern ecumenical movement), a small group led by the Revd Henry Joy Fynes Clinton, later the long-serving rector of St Magnus the Martyr by London Bridge, founded the Catholic League. Its aim was to maintain the driving principle of recovering communion with the Successor of Peter and to seek the corporate reunion of the Church of England and the Apostolic See of Rome.

The meeting that formally established the League took place 100 years ago today, on July 2nd 1913 at St Mark’s, Bush Hill Park in Enfield. On July 5th at St Mary’s, Corringham in Essex, it was publicly inaugurated with the enrolment of the first members. Although never large in numbers, the “Papalist” agenda it set has been widespread, even mainstream. Thus could Archbishop Randall Davidson lend support to fellow Anglicans (mostly mainstream Prayer Book Catholics) as they conducted the unofficial Malines Conversations with Cardinal Mercier in Belgium. The Conversations’ most famous idea, coming from Dom Lambert Beauduin - “united, not absorbed” - continues to animate Anglican aspirations for unity with the Catholic Church.

It was the League that made the first organised pilgrimage to the restored Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. The Shrine was founded by Fr Fynes Clinton’s friend and collaborator, Alfred Hope Patten, on firmly Papalist principles, to be a place and a body that insistently pointed to Catholic unity in faith, devotion and communion – as the famous “Rock of Offence”, the foundation stone of the Holy House, showed in recording the episcopate of the local Anglican Bishop of Norwich and the reigning Roman Pontiff of the day. This foundational vision of Catholic communion is one that urgently needs to be re-captured, if Walsingham, with its several denominational places of pilgrimage, is to be true to its aspiration to be not just ecumenically cordial, but a driving force through the prayers of the Mother of God to reintegrate the unity of the One Body of her Son. The League has constantly been ready to help, according to its means, so that at Walsingham, perhaps more than anywhere else in the Church-world we know, the prayer “that they all may be one”, “one flock with one shepherd”, can be manifest.

The Catholic League throughout has also promoted the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, now an official part of so many of the Churches. It was Fr Fynes Clinton – a successful missionary for Catholic faith and living practice as an effective parish priest - who invited to England the Week’s re-creator, Fr Paul Couturier of the Catholic primatial archdiocese of Lyon, to see the Anglican Church on home ground, especially those Papalist Catholic building blocks that offered some projection, even some portent, of the potential if reunion could come to pass. He took Couturier to see a number of the Anglican religious communities, showing living proof of union in the Church’s spirit and mind that Couturier had been saying was the sure path to union in the Church’s body. These close links with the Anglican papalist communities (notably Nashdom Abbey) - links that understood the religious life as a means towards realising corporate reunion – animated and incarnated the direction and objectives of the League, and the way it was able to present simply and clearly its cause for the necessity of the Papacy. Outstanding among those links is Dom Gregory Dix of Nashdom, the most influential of all English-speaking liturgical scholars, and the most penetrating of apologists for the Church’s need for what we would now call the Petrine ministry, or a universal pastorate. Together with the future Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, he convened the group of “Anglicans of the Catholic school” whose landmark report in 1947, Catholicity, set the stage for renewed Anglican hope for post-war reconciliation led by the churches of Europe and, at the heart of that, unity with the Catholic Church. The Bishop of Ripon, John Moorman, no “Romaniser” but a convinced Papalist, was appointed official Anglican observer at Vatican II; and soon Archbishop Ramsey would make the first official visit by an Anglican Primate to Pope Paul VI. The story is well known, but bears repeating, of how the Papal Curia was gathered to greet him in the Apostolic Palace, which contains a fresco depicting Archbishop William Warham (Archbishop of Canterbury 1503-1532), and drew astonished breath when Archbishop Michael Ramsey arrived dressed in exactly the same way – the standard “walking out” attire of the sixteenth century English Catholic hierarchy: rochet, chimere and square-cap. Still worn by the Anglican episcopate, it caused the Cardinals to see that a rupture of four centuries’ permanence might be repaired as if it were yesterday.

As the Catholic League promoted the unity of Anglican Catholics around the pastoral, theological and liturgical renewal of Vatican II, it also recognised the Council’s ecumenical potential for achieving its long cherished object of the reunion of all Christians in communion with Apostolic See of Rome, especially in light of the Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio. Accordingly, it has supported the Anglican Centre in Rome, as well as the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, now in its third phase of dialogue.

The visit of Blessed Pope John II to Britain in 1982, including the encounter with Archbishop Robert Runcie in united prayer and blessing at Canterbury, encouraged the League to renew its call to Catholic unity in One Step More, by the current President, Michael Rear, who is present with us today. Although subsequent events marked steps away from the unity that looked imminent in 1982, the League, by now a society open more widely to all who believe in Catholic ecumenism, has continued to promote Catholic teaching and spirituality wherever opportunity presented itself, towards the Church’s unity in communion with the successor of Peter for all Christians. Efforts led by members of the League in the late 1980s and early 1990s towards the realisation of a form of “corporate reunion, united not absorbed” came to nothing at the time, but in 2009 the seeds grew and bore fruit. With the Church of England’s decision that its episcopate would no longer maintain identity with the Catholic and Orthodox episcopate, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity’s Cardinal Kasper declared the previous endeavour towards unity based on re-convergence to be “definitively” concluded, and the recognition of orders no longer possible. Thus, having exhausted all other options for the corporate reunion of the Anglican Church, Pope Benedict XVI resolved to create at least one manifestation of how the rich tradition and historic mission of Anglican Christianity might achieve fullness of communion with the Catholic Church as “a treasure to be shared.”

As in 2009 the Catholic League approached its centenary, it recognised in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus a tangible fulfilment of its founding witness to corporate reunion. Yet, at the same time as its direct support for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, it persists, too, in the unfinished work of 1913, the unity of the Catholic Church and the “Church of England entire”, as well as the communion of all Christians with the Apostolic See of Rome. After all, we are all united in a bond of loving our Anglican life, formation, memory and heritage. Moreover, a good number of our members are devoted members of the Church of England in good conscience and are no less devoted to help it rediscover its essential unity with the Catholic Church in fullness of communion with Peter. This may seem impossible at the moment; as earlier visions of reunion and ecumenism pass away; but it is the Catholic League’s unwavering faith that unity not only will come, but must come, because the Lord willed that we may be one, “so that the world may believe.”

Since our last Annual General Meeting in 2012, your officers have continued to meet and work towards the realisation of our much loved Catholic League’s unswerving fidelity to the wholeness of Christian Unity, pursuing which is the only ecumenism that will bring about the unity of the Church in the apostolic faith.

In March 2013 the League, the first body to have made an organised pilgrimage to the restored Shrine, made its Centenary Pilgrimage to Walsingham, led by Archdeacon Luke Miller, talking about the unanimity in the spirit of the Anglican Father Congreve SSJE and the Catholic doctor of the Church, St Thérèse of Lisieux. We were able to celebrate mass in thanksgiving and for the repose of the soul of our founders in the Fynes Clinton Chantry, very close to the Holy House. We arrived just following the election of Pope Francis and were able to devote our thoughts and prayers to his new Petrine ministry of bringing about and binding the unity of the churches, among which Rome presides in love.

We heard shortly afterwards that the Anglican leader in Argentina, Archbishop Gregory Venables - a close friend of Pope Francis’ when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aries - had remarked that the new pope had told him that the Ordinariates had not been necessary and that he wanted to see the unity of the Catholic Church and the Anglican communion as a whole. I am going to surprise you – for a moment - by saying that I agree with him. By that I mean that the corporate reunion of the two is the League’s founding vision; and also that, if the Anglican Communion had been the Church it was, when Bishop John Moorman represented it at Vatican II and Archbishop Michael Ramsey visited Pope Paul VI - setting up the Anglican Centre in Rome and establishing the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, on the principle of convergence in an ever deeper appreciation of our shared apostolic faith in the Risen Christ (something that Pope Paul attributed to our “communion of origins” to which both needed to return more completely) - then of course there would be no need for Ordinariates. Perhaps the Anglican Church in South America maintains the apostolic faith and perhaps its orthodoxy is why Pope Francis has felt such a warm and close bond to it. Elsewhere, however, the sad fact is that the Anglican world has steadily led itself away from those communions of origin and of apostolic faith and order. It reminds me that Blessed Pope John Paul II is said to have upbraided some Lutheran theologians once, at the height of the ultimately successful discussions to achieve an agreement on the question of Justification by Faith (one of the great causes for division at the Reformation), saying, “If you were really Lutherans, we could have been united now”. Something similar applies in this land – “If Anglicans were really Anglicans”, indeed there may not have been the need for Ordinariates and we could indeed all have been one. How right our President Fr Michael Rear was in 1982 – indeed it did look as though all it would take was “one step more”.

Thirty years on, the League’s prophetical call to Anglicanism to be orthodox and apostolic, and to place itself at the service of the gospel and our nation by finding its fulfilment in communion with the whole of the Catholic Church, has been answered in a way that we did not expect, our having almost given up on praying for it as unrealistic.   Yet here the Ordinariate is finding its way to bring a part of English religious culture, through a living body in the Church, to be part of the life and culture of all the Catholic Church. We support it without hesitation because, even though its appearance symbolises in some way a failure of the larger hope for an entirety of communion for all Anglicans and all Catholics, nonetheless it is a tangible materialisation of another tradition expressing what is distinctive and precious about it, not in separation but through perfected communion. It gives to us other Catholics an appreciation and greater understanding of the significant Anglican tradition and its riches as something now planted within our own Church. It ought to be a symbol that unity is possible when difference is embraced and diversity stimulates the creation of unity and indeed extends the Catholic Church’s very universality. It ought also to make us better in reaching out in respect and fraternity towards another community with which we desire to be one but with which there remains much more work to undo obstacles so that, as Metropolitan Kallistos puts it, we are found faithful when the Lord comes at last to bestow the miracle of unity. We are delighted that His Excellency the Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton, is with us today with some of his clergy and people. We warmly congratulate them on what has been achieved so far and know it will be successful and a blessing to all our Churches.

So, even though we find ourselves in a very changed setting for Catholic-Anglican unity from when we had such high hopes in 1982, we press on. Just as we wish to see the Ordinariate reach its highest potential for Christian Unity, not just for itself but for all who hold the apostolic faith, we are no less resolutely committed to support Anglican-Catholic unity in all forms, not least in the sphere of official engagement. We have been particularly concerned to maintain our longstanding support for the Anglican Centre in Rome, whose sentiments to us in our Centenary have been warmer than ever. Our recent grant enables it to serve the promotion of the long-standing ARCIC dialogue. It is interesting to note that a leading English Anglican member of ARCIC III, the evangelical theologian Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, has said that but for the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, and its appreciation of Anglican Patrimony, ARCIC may never have thought to reflect on what it is that the Anglican Communion is offering to the Catholic Church in their common quest for Church reintegration, and, for that matter, what it is contributing to bringing about the unity of all Christians. Thus are Anglicans constructively now engaging with this question that was once used to pour no little scorn on the Ordinariate’s entire basis – “What is this ‘Anglican Patrimony’?” The answer is – and I am so proud that it was the League that was the first to prophesy this from the outset in 2009, even before the Ordinariate was established and received its first members – as the peerless Fr Jack Hackett once observed, “That would be an ecumenical matter”.

During the year we have made several other grants of great significance in terms of the object of the League to promote the Catholic spiritual life towards the recovery of unity. One, to the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham, will enhance the Marian Library in St Augustine’s, which we hope will be a resource and blessing to pilgrims from all Churches to England’s Nazareth. Another is to Corpus Christi Church, Maiden Lane, in central London, a Catholic Church which is being restored as the National Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament. In line with an old tradition of the League’s, we are giving a splendid historic Monstrance that beautifully matches the art and architecture of the building. It will be used for an enhanced programme of sustained adoration and Benediction. Even though we Christians are divided at the point of receiving Holy Communion, nonetheless we can be united in devotion, honour and worship for our One Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

 

 

Mark Woodruff, Golden Square Rectory Hall

Catholic Church of the Assumption & St Gregory, Warwick Street, Soho, London

 

 

Centenary of the Catholic League - Annual General Meeting

On July 2nd 2013 at four o'clock, around 30 members of the Catholic League gathered at the rectory of the Catholic Church of the Assumption and St Gregory, Golden Square, for the 100th Annual General Meeting since the formal foundation at the Anglican parish Church of St Mark, Bush Hill Park in Enfield the same day in 1913.

The League had been formed to press for the future course of Anglicans towards a wholehearted embrace of the Catholic faith, leading to the recovery of corporate reunion the two provinces of Canterbury and York with the rock whence they were hewn, the Latin Catholic Church of the West in communion with its primate, the Bishop of Rome, and the Universal Catholic Church of Christ of East and West, a no less vital cause close to the heart of the co-founder, Fr Herny Joy Fynes Clinton.

100 years on, the meeting took place in the presence of His Excellency Mgr Keith Newton, Prot Ap, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, established early in 2010 to allow for the corporate reunion of members of the Church of England desiring to be Catholics in full communion and retaining aspects of their historic and providential canonical, liturgical and spiritual patrimony.

Also among those present were Fr Dominic Pyle-Bridges, who had been present at the 50th, 60th and 75th anniversaries; Mr David Chapman, secretary general of the League, who had been crucifer at the the 60th anniversary and present at the 75th too; and the President, Fr Michael Rear.

At the Meeting, the following were elected and confirmed as the officers of the League:

• Fr Mark Woodruff (Roman Catholic), Priest Director
• Mr David Chapman, General Secretary
• Mr Cyril Wood, Treasurer
• Mrs Mary Bacon
• Fr Graeme Rowlands (Church of England), Superior and Priest Director of the Sodality of the Precious Blood
• Fr Chris Stephenson (Anglican), Membership Secretary and Priest Director of the Apostleship of Prayer

The Priest Director's address is given in the subsequent post. After the AGM, a celebration tea with champagne was served, at which the health of the Ordinary, the Holy Father Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was toasted.

Following the tea, the First Centenary Lecture was given, by Fr John Hunwicke, on Dom Gregory Dix and the Necessity of the Papacy. At 7pm a Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving, a votive for the Unity of Christians, was offered by the Mgr Newton, concelebrated by the Priest Director and the President, with the rector of the Church, Fr Mark Eliot-Smith. It was the first occasion in England on which the newly authorised Eucharistic rite for the Ordinariates was celebrated. It was a special honour for the League to take part, as Fr Mark put it, in a new Catholic mass rite where you did not have to learn the new words (being the time honoured texts of the historic Anglican Prayer Book rite), and to hear the glories of the English Choral tradition sung at mass in the Catholic Church in full communion. The preacher was the president, Fr Michael Rear.

After Mass, a reception for 80 people was held in the Church. The following Saturday, an Anglican mass of thanksgiving and prayer for Christian Unity to mark the Centenary of the Inauguration was celebrated at the Parish Church of St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, which for decades has been one of the League's spiritual homes.

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Francis: “Christians cannot be anti-Semitic” - Vatican Insider

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Pope calls for Christian Unity during general audience

Pope calls for Christian Unity during general audience Dear Brothers and Sisters, Today I will focus on another expression, with which Vatican Council II indicates the nature of the Church: that of the body; the Council says that the Church is the Body of Christ (cf. Lumen gentium, 7). I would like to start from a text of the Acts of the Apostles that we know well: the conversion of Saul, who will later take the name of Paul, one of the greatest evangelizers (cf. Acts 9:4-5). Saul is a persecutor of Christians, but while he is travelling along the road that leads to the city of Damascus, suddenly a light surrounds him, he falls to the ground and hears a voice telling him "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?". He asks: "Who art you, Lord?", and the voice answers: "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting" (vv. 3-5). The experience of St. Paul tells us how deep is the union between us Christians and Christ himself. When Jesus ascended into heaven he did not leave us orphans, but with the gift of the Holy Spirit the union with him has become even more intense. The Second Vatican Council States that Jesus "By communicating His Spirit, Christ made His brothers, called together from all nations, mystically the components of His own Body» (Dogmatic Const. Lumen Gentium, 7). The image of the body helps us understand this deep connection between the Church and Christ, that St. Paul develops especially in the First Letter to the Corinthians (cf. ch. 12). Above all, the body brings to mind a living reality. The Church is not a care association, or a cultural or political one, but is a living body, which walks and acts in history. And this body has a head, Jesus, who guides, nourishes and sustains it. This is a point that I would like to emphasize: if you separate the head from the rest of the body, the whole person cannot survive. So it is in the Church: we need to stay connected to Jesus in an increasingly intense way. But not only that: as in a body, it is important for the lifeblood to pass through it, so we must allow Jesus to operate in us, must allow his Word to guide us, his Eucharistic presence to nourish us, animate us, we must allow his love to give strength to our loving our neighbour. And this, always! Always! Dear brothers and sisters, let us remain united to Jesus, let us trust him, let us orient our lives according to his Gospel, nourishing ourselves with daily prayer, listening to the Word of God and participation in the Sacraments. And here I come to a second aspect of the Church as Body of Christ. St. Paul says that as the limbs of the human body, though different and many, form one body, so we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body (cf. 1 Cor 12:12-13). In the Church therefore, there is a variety, a diversity of tasks and functions; there is not flat uniformity, but the wealth of gifts that the Holy Spirit distributes. However, there is communion and unity: all are in relation with each other and all combine to form a single vital body, deeply attached to Christ. Let us remember well: being part of the Church means being united to Christ and receiving from Him the divine life that makes us live as Christians, it means remaining united to the Pope and the bishops who are instruments of unity and communion, and it also means learning to overcome personal favouritisms and divisions, to understand each other better, to harmonise the variety and wealth of each one; in a word, to better love God and the people near us, in the family, in the parish, in the associations. In order to live, body and limbs must be united! Unity is superior to the conflicts, always! Conflicts, if they’re not resolved well, separate us from one another, separate us from God. Conflict can help us grow, but it can also divide us. Let’s not take the path of division, of fights among ourselves! All united, all united with our differences, but united, always: this is Jesus’ path. Unity is superior to conflicts. Unity is a grace that we must ask from the Lord, so that He may free us from the temptations of division, of struggles among us, of selfishness, of gossip. How much harm gossiping does, how much! Never gossip about the others, never! How much damage comes to the Church from divisions between Christians, from being biased, from petty self-interests! The divisions among us, but also the divisions among the communities: Evangelical Christians, Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, why are we divided? We must seek to bring unity. I will tell you something: today, before leaving the house, I spent forty minutes, more or less, half an hour, with an Evangelical pastor and we prayed together, and sought unity. But we must pray among ourselves as Catholics and also with the other Christians, pray that the Lord may give us unity, unity among us. But how can we achieve unity among Christians if we Catholics are unable to achieve it among ourselves? To have it in our family? How many families fight and are divided! Seek unity, the unity that makes the Church. Unity comes from Jesus Christ. He sends us the Holy Spirit to create unity. Dear brothers and sisters, let us ask God: help us to be members of the Body of the Church always deeply united to Christ; help us not to cause the Body of the Church to suffer with our conflicts, our divisions, our selfishness; help us to be living limbs linked to each other by a single force, that of love, which the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts (cf. Rom 5:5). Dear Brothers and Sisters: In our catechesis on the Creed, today we consider the Church as the Body of Christ. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, received in Baptism, we are mystically united to the Lord as members of one body, of which he is the head. The image of the mystical body makes us realize the importance of strengthening our union with Christ through daily prayer, the study of God’s word and participation in the sacraments. Saint Paul tells the Corinthians that the Body of Christ, while one, is made up of a variety of members. Within the communion of the Church, and in union with the Pope and Bishops, each of us has a part to play, a gift to share, a service to offer, for building up the Body of Christ in love. Let us ask the Lord to help us reject every form of divisiveness and conflict in our families, parishes and local Churches. At the same time, let us ask for the grace to open our hearts to others, to promote unity and to live in harmony as members of the one Body of Christ, inspired by the gift of love which the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts. (c) Libreria Editrice Vaticana - acknowledged with gratitude

Pope Francis proposes a multipolar vision of Christianity - Vatican Insider

Pope Francis proposes a multipolar vision of Christianity - Vatican Insider

Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby - Photo Gallery

Pope Francis and the Primate of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, meet for the first time-FOTOGALLERY- LASTAMPA.it

Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury have very friendly and successful first meeting - Vatican Insider

Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury have very friendly and successful first meeting - Vatican Insider

Pope Francis holds first meeting with the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby

Pope Francis holds first meeting with the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby Pope Francis' Address to Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury VATICAN CITY, June 14, 2013 (www.Zenit.org) - Here is the text of the Holy Father’s address to His Grace Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of the Anglican Communion, along with his delegation. Your Grace, Dear Friends, On the happy occasion of our first meeting, I make my own the words of Pope Paul VI, when he addressed Archbishop Michael Ramsey during his historic visit in 1966: “Your steps have not brought you to a foreign dwelling ... we are pleased to open the doors to you, and with the doors, our heart, pleased and honoured as we are ... to welcome you ‘not as a guest or a stranger, but as a fellow citizen of the Saints and the Family of God’” (cf. Eph 2:19-20). I know that during Your Grace’s installation in Canterbury Cathedral you remembered in prayer the new Bishop of Rome. I am deeply grateful to you – and since we began our respective ministries within days of each other, I think we will always have a particular reason to support one another in prayer. The history of relations between the Church of England and the Catholic Church is long and complex, and not without pain. Recent decades, however, have been marked by a journey of rapprochement and fraternity, and for this we give heartfelt thanks to God. This journey has been brought about both via theological dialogue, through the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, and via the growth of cordial relations at every level through shared daily lives in a spirit of profound mutual respect and sincere cooperation. In this regard, I am very pleased to welcome alongside you Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster. These firm bonds of friendship have enabled us to remain on course even when difficulties have arisen in our theological dialogue that were greater than we could have foreseen at the start of our journey. I am grateful, too, for the sincere efforts the Church of England has made to understand the reasons that led my Predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to provide a canonical structure able to respond to the wishes of those groups of Anglicans who have asked to be received collectively into the Catholic Church: I am sure this will enable the spiritual, liturgical and pastoral traditions that form the Anglican patrimony to be better known and appreciated in the Catholic world. Today’s meeting is an opportunity to remind ourselves that the search for unity among Christians is prompted not by practical considerations, but by the will of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who made us his brothers and sisters, children of the One Father. Hence the prayer that we make today is of fundamental importance. This prayer gives a fresh impulse to our daily efforts to grow towards unity, which are concretely expressed in our cooperation in various areas of daily life. Particularly important among these is our witness to the reference to God and the promotion of Christian values in a world that seems at times to call into question some of the foundations of society, such as respect for the sacredness of human life or the importance of the institution of the family built on marriage, a value that you yourself have had occasion to recall recently. Then there is the effort to achieve greater social justice, to build an economic system that is at the service of man and promotes the common good. Among our tasks as witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor, so that they are not abandoned to the laws of an economy that seems at times to treat people as mere consumers. I know that Your Grace is especially sensitive to all these questions, in which we share many ideas, and I am also aware of your commitment to foster reconciliation and resolution of conflicts between nations. In this regard, together with Archbishop Nichols, you have urged the authorities to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict such as would guarantee the security of the entire population, including the minorities, not least among whom are the ancient local Christian communities. As you yourself have observed, we Christians bring peace and grace as a treasure to be offered to the world, but these gifts can bear fruit only when Christians live and work together in harmony. This makes it easier to contribute to building relations of respect and peaceful coexistence with those who belong to other religious traditions, and with non-believers. The unity we so earnestly long for is a gift that comes from above and it is rooted in our communion of love with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As Christ himself promised, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20). Let us travel the path towards unity, fraternally united in charity and with Jesus Christ as our constant point of reference. In our worship of Jesus Christ we will find the foundation and raison d’être of our journey. May the merciful Father hear and grant the prayers that we make to him together. Let us place all our hope in him who “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Eph 3:20). Archbishop Justin Welby's Address to Pope Francis Here is the text of the address given by His Grace Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of the Anglican Communion, during his visit to Pope Francis at the Vatican Apostolic Palace today. Your Holiness, Dear Friends: I am full of love and gratitude to be here. In the last few days we have been remembering the death of Blessed Pope John XXIII in the midst of the Second Vatican Council. At the Requiem said at Lambeth Palace fifty years ago this weekend by Archbishop Michael Ramsey, my much-loved predecessor said of him: ‘Pope John has shown us again the power of being, by being a man who touches human hearts with charity. So there has come to many a new longing for the unity of all Christians, and a new knowledge that however long the road may be, charity already makes all the difference to it.’ Having for many years found inspiration in the great corpus of Catholic social teaching, and worked on its implications with Catholic groups; having spent retreats in new orders of the Church in France, and being accompanied by the Prior of another new order; I do indeed feel that I am (in the words of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Michael) coming to a place where I can feel myself at home.Your Holiness, we are called by the Holy Spirit of God, through our fraternal love, to continue the work that has been the precious gift to popes and archbishops of Canterbury for these past fifty years, and of which this famous ring is the enduring token. I pray that the nearness of our two inaugurations may serve the reconciliation of the world and the Church. As you have stressed, we must promote the fruits of our dialogue; and, with our fellow bishops, we must give expression to our unity in faith through prayer and evangelisation. It is only as the world sees Christians growing visibly in unity that it will accept through us the divine message of peace and reconciliation. However, the journey is testing and we cannot be unaware that differences exist about how we bring the Christian faith to bear on the challenges thrown up by modern society. But our ‘goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey’ (Benedict XVI, Spe salvi 1), and we can trust in the prayer of Christ, ‘ut omnes unum sint’ (Jn 17.21). A firm foundation of friendship will enable us to be hopeful in speaking to one another about those differences, to bear one another’s burdens, and to be open to sharing the discernment of a way forward that is faithful to the mind of Christ pressed upon us as disciples. That way forward must reflect the self-giving love of Christ, our bearing of his Cross, and our dying to ourselves so as to live with Christ, which will show itself in hospitality and love for the poor. We must love those who seek to oppose us, and love above all those tossed aside—even whole nations—by the present crises around the world. Also, even as we speak, our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer terribly from violence, oppression and war, from bad government and unjust economic systems. If we are not their advocates in the name of Christ, who will be? Your Holiness, dear brother, I assure you of the love, respect and prayer of the bishops, clergy and people of the Anglican Communion.

UPCOMING VISIT OF ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO POPE: Vatican Information Service

Vis: Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 10 June 2013 (VIS) – In a press release today, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity states that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will be in Rome to visit Pope Francis on Friday, 14 June.

“This brief visit”, reads the release, “is of particular interest since it is the first meeting of the Archbishop and the Pope since their inaugurations, which took place at about the same time, just over two months ago.”

“This visit is an opportunity for the Archbishop and Pope Francis to review the present state of relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Communion. In particular, the interest shown by Archbishop Welby in global justice and the ethical regulation of financial markets so that they do not oppress men and women, is echoed in the constant teaching of the Holy Father. Ever since his experience as an executive in an oil company, Archbishop Welby has placed great emphasis on reconciliation, and has continued to press for the resolution of conflicts within the Church and society. This also evokes Pope Francis’ own call to build bridges between people of every nation, so that they may be seen not as rivals and threats, but as brothers and sisters.”

“Anglicans and Catholics also must work together to provide clear moral guidance to society and Archbishop Justin has collaborated closely with the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, to safeguard marriage and other Christian values in society. It is a sign of their close relations that Archbishop Nichols will accompany the Archbishop of Canterbury on this visit.”

“Following the audience, and brief speeches, there will be a short service of mid-day prayer presided over by the Holy Father and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Earlier in the day, at the Archbishop’s own request, he will visit the Excavations beneath St Peter’s Basilica to pray at the tomb of St Peter, as his predecessor Archbishop Rowan Williams did on his first visit to Rome. He has also asked particularly for a time of prayer before the tomb of Blessed John Paul II. Following this, Archbishop Welby will call upon Cardinal Koch at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, to renew the acquaintance made at the time of the Archbishop’s inauguration at Canterbury, and to learn about the workings of the Pontifical Council.”

Pope to meet with Archbishop of Canterbury. Discussion will include poverty, economy and environment

Pope to meet with Archbishop of Canterbury. Discussion will include poverty, economy and environment

Interview with Archbishop Moxon of the Anglican Centre in Rome:

Archbishop Welby's Visit to Pope Francis: Prayer of the Seamless Robe

As Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury prepares to visit Pope Francis in Rome, here is the Pilgrim Prayer of those visiting Trier to pray before the Holy Robe - regarded as the seamless robe that the Lord wore to his Crucifixion over which the soldiers cast lots:

"Jesus Christ, Saviour and Redeemer, have mercy on us and all the world. Be mindful of Your Church and bring together what is divided. Amen."

Catholic League - CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

Centenary Festa 2013

100 Years of Catholic Ecumenism : 100 Years towards Anglican-Roman Catholic Unity

 

The President, Priest Director and Trustees invite you to join them in giving thanks for one hundred years of the Catholic League’s witness for the Church’s unity in Christ

 

Tuesday, July 2^nd2013 – Foundation Day

Church of the Assumption, 12 Warwick Street, London W1B 5NB

5 pm Afternoon Tea & Reception (preceded by AGM at 4-15 pm)

6 pm First Centenary Festival Lecture: Gregory Dix and the Necessity of the Papacy

The Revd John Hunwicke: Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

 

7 pm: Solemn Sung Mass (Roman Catholic)

The Rt Revd Mgr Keith Newton, Celebrant

(Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham)

Preacher: The Revd Michael Rear, President of the Catholic League

 

 Saturday, July 6^th 2013 – Inauguration Day

Church of St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, EC3R 6DN

12 noon: Solemn Sung Mass (Anglican)

The Revd Philip Warner, Celebrant

(Rector, in succession to the Founder, the Revd Henry Fynes Clinton)

Preacher: The Revd Canon Dr Robin Ward, Principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford

1-15 pm Lunch Reception

 

2-30 pm Second Centenary Festal Lecture: The Quest for Unity – 100 Years of the Catholic League

Judge Michael Yelton, the Anglo-Catholic History Society

 

RSVP the Members’ Secretary  centenary@unitas.org.uk

Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols and the Archbishop of Canterbury: Appeal for Peace in Syria

"Our prayers also go with the ancient communities of our Christian brothers and sisters in Syria"

Since the very first days of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, we have prayed as we watched in horror and sorrow the escalating violence that has rent this country apart. We have grieved with all Syrians – with the families of each and every human life lost and with all communities whose neighbourhoods and livelihoods have suffered from escalating and pervasive violence. And today, our prayers also go with the ancient communities of our Christian brothers and sisters in Syria.

The kidnapping this week of two Metropolitan bishops of Aleppo, Mar Gregorios Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Paul Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the killing of their driver while they were carrying out a humanitarian mission, is another telling sign of the terrible circumstances that continue to engulf all Syrians.

We unreservedly support these Christian communities, rooted in and attached to the biblical lands, despite the many hardships. We respond to the call from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, and the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East, urging churches worldwide to remain steadfast in the face of challenging realities and to bear witness to their faith in the power of love in this world. We both continue to pray for a political solution to this tragic conflict that would stem the terrible violence and also empower all Syrians with their fundamental and inalienable freedoms. We also call for urgent humanitarian aid to reach all who are suffering. We pray that Syria can recapture its tradition of tolerance, rooted in faith and respect for faiths living side by side.

+ Justin Welby
+ Vincent Nichols

Book Review by Fr John Hunwicke: The Anglican Papalist: a personal portrait of Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton

Fr Fynes Clinton, prime mover in the foundation of the League, was not only a seminal thinker in formulating the Anglican Papalism position, but also the development of the entire course of Anglican Ecumenism in relation to the Orthodox Churches, as well as the Catholic Church. The Very Revd Archimandrite John Salter, has written his long anticipated biography. Fr John Hunwicke writes this review for the Catholic League.

The Anglican Papalist: a personal portrait of Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton

by A.T. John Salter ; available from and published by the Anglo-Catholic History Society
ISBN 978-0-9560565-2-8
£20.00
Pbk; 194pages.

 

Fr John Salter’s book delivers precisely what it claims to provide; a personal account of the priest who was for half a century the dominant figure in the Papalist movement within Anglicanism, and Founder of the Catholic League. It is not a work merely of scholarship ... not a half-baked spin-off from a DPhil thesis; you will search in vain for the detailed footnotes of a youthful scholar covering his back. Far more - for, in compensation, you will find yourself personally immersed in a period and in a person both known intimately to the author. 

Anglican Papalists are often written up very engagingly and with due tribute to their eccentricities – as a body of people who appeared to pretend that they were Roman Catholics and whose deep sense of obedience to authority led them to disobey every maxim of the ecclesial body which paid them (perhaps unjustly, I have felt that this is the picture which emerges from the writings of Michael Yelton). Salter does not make this mistake. He perceives the deeply doctrinal significance of Fynes-Clinton’s life, and brings out what is creatively unusual in his witness. FC, for example, believed strongly that the See of Rome is the divinely appointed centre of unity; and that the decrees of the [first] Vatican Council are normative. But this in no way diminished his affection for the Orthodox East. Commonly, anti-papal Anglicans use Orthodoxy as a convenient weapon with which to attack the Papacy, while ultramontanes regard Orthodox as schismatics or worse. FC admired the Orthodox and secured their affection (and honours) by his unceasing hard work, especially for the troubled Serbian Church. But his ‘Romanism’ brought him into conflict with Canon J.A. Douglas and Mr Athelstan Riley and led to his removal from leadership in an Anglican-Orthodox society of which he had himself been one of the founders. FC instinctively realised the truth later to be expressed in the CDF document Communionis notio (1993): that, although ‘wounded’ by their separation from Rome, the Eastern Churches are true ‘particular churches’. He even planned for Hagia Sophia to be recovered from the Turks and handed over to the Orthodox rather than to Eastern Christians in communion with Rome! The little Orthodox chapel in the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham is an initiative of FC, just a few feet from the foundation stone of the Holy House, with its ‘papalist’ inscription (full text in Salter) which so infuriated the Bishop of Norwich. FC’s balanced stance, so obviously right to our way of thinking, represented in the inter-war years a rare combination.

 

Of very considerable importance – and relevance to our own times – is a document which Salter prints in full. Towards the end of 1932, in anticipation of the anniversary of the Catholic Revival, FC and Fr Robert Corbould composed a manifesto to which hundreds of papalist clergy subscribed. “In the modern Anglo-catholic movement much of the enthusiasm over the observance of the centenary cloaks a marked departure from the original Oxford principles ...” The authors describe the creeping influence of Modernism in matters Christological; the growth of Relativism (“mutual toleration of opposed teaching”).They disclaim the popular misconception that Catholic identity is assured “by revival of ceremony”. Firmly, they “reprobate the toleration and even positive support by certain Anglo-Catholics of the immoral sanction of artificial contraception given by many bishops at Lambeth”. Here are the authentic tones of S Pius X (Pascendi Dominici gregis) and the affirmation of Christian sexual mores by Pius XI (Casti conubii) and Paul VI (Humanae vitae). This manifesto anticipates by sixty years the current distinction between real Catholicism, resolutely counter-cultural, and the flaccid conformities of ‘Affirming Catholicism’. Inevitably, it concludes that “the real and essential goal is reunion with the Apostolic See of Rome ... the existence of the Church of England as a body separate de facto from the rest of the Catholic Church is only tolerable when it is regarded as a temporary evil”.

 

Salter’s book is to be unambiguously commended. By its pages you will live through the days when exiled East European royalty enlivened the social life of London, and you will be reminded by the heroic figure of St Elizabeth of the New Martyrs of the Communist Yoke of Russia, alias Her Imperial Highness Grand Princess Elizaveta, that Ruritania was not entirely a land of fopperies. You will meet the mysterious, little-known figure of the Jesuit bishop Michel d’Herbigny, who flutters through the period sabotaging ecumenism, playing off Greeks against Rumanians and Serbs against Russians and Catholics against Orthodox; who attempted unsuccessfully to infiltrate and sabotage the Malines Conversations. You may get some surprises: did you know that the Holy See was lobbying the British Government to stop Russia liberating Constantinople from the Turk and handing over Anatolia to Orthodox Hellenes? You will be shocked, I suspect, to know that Paul VI returned to the Turkish government the Ottoman flag captured at Lepanto. As our own day watches the Christian populations of Iraq and Syria being killed or driven into exile by a Western-encouraged ‘Arab Spring’, you may feel some sympathy with FC’s rhetoric about “the black trail of the Turk ... so hateful to the Englishman sickened with the massacres of Christians in these last years”. We who have been told so little about the realities of the ‘Kosovo’ problem, or the ‘enormity’ (FC’s word) of the Zionist appropriation of Palestine, may gain a more rounded understanding of how so many current problems arise from this little known yet comparatively recent period of history.

 

Should mainstream schools give up their endless courses about Nazi Germany and adopt Salter as the text-book for a new course enabling the kiddies to understand the world they are actually living in? No ... it would be too topical and too raw ... ‘Hitler’ is as safely irrelevant a syllabus as the Wars of the Roses.

My brother Andrew - Fr Mark Woodruff's article in The Tablet - The new Pope Francis and the Churches of the East

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/163991

When Benedict XVI resigned, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople expressed more than surprise. There was clearly dismay that their “excellent cooperation”, which had overseen the re-engagement of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in dialogue in 2007, after an impasse lasting seven years, might not fulfil its promise because of a “brief papacy”. The Roman pontiff is still regarded as the first of the patriarchs by Orthodoxy, even if Pope Benedict dropped his title “Patriarch of the West” in 2006 as defunct, standing in the way of realistic ecumenism. So why should a pope retire when urgent labours are in hand and their fruits within reach? “With his wisdom and experience he could have provided much more to the Church and the world”.

The Ecumenical Patriarch is regarded as primus inter pares by many, but not all, of the world’s Orthodox Churches. He is second only in the Universal Church to the Bishop of Rome, but he is not an opposite number, having no immediate jurisdiction beyond his small community in Turkey and parts of north-east Greece, although his general responsibility for Orthodox in diaspora affords him considerable influence. For wider leadership he relies as much on persuasion, prestige and moral authority as canon law. With painstaking plans for a Pan-Orthodox Council making progress, and an abiding sense of affinity between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as both are dispersed alongside each other in every corner of the globe, Bartholomew invested much hope in Benedict’s papacy for mutual support and cooperation in the contemporary setting. Concerned for all Orthodox in diaspora, the continued growth of Christianity in Europe and the very survival of the Churches in their Eastern lands of origin, their joint efforts at solidarity and even communion appeared at risk with the prospect of a new leader.

Thus a statement from the Patriarchate explained Bartholomew’s decision to attend Pope Francis’ inauguration personally: the need for “a profoundly bold step ... that could have lasting significance”. It is the first time the Bishop of Constantinople has attended the inauguration of the Bishop of Rome ever, let alone since the great schism of 1054. Yet the Patriarch has already visited Rome a number of times since Pope Benedict’s visit to Istanbul in 2006. He was the only ecumenical leader invited to make a speech at the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of Vatican II and there have been annual visits between Rome and Constantinople on the feasts of their apostles for decades. But this latest visit was different: “after such a long division … authentic reunion will require courage, leadership and humility. Given Pope Francis' well-documented work for social justice and his insistence that globalization is detrimental to the poor … the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic traditions have a renewed opportunity to work collectively on issues of mutual concern… But such work requires a first step and it would appear as though Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is willing to take such a step.” In one of those seemingly informal but resonant gestures that we are beginning to expect from Francis, the response was immediate and commensurate. The successor of Peter greeted the successor of the other Galilean fisherman as “my brother Andrew”.

Another dimension was revealed in a press interview within hours of Francis’ election by Patriarch Sviatoslav, Major-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, by far the largest of the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome, which shares the same origins in Kiev as the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as the same Byzantine Rite and tradition as the Church of Constantinople itself. He revealed that the young Jorge Maria Borgoglio frequently attended the Ukrainian Divine Liturgy served by Fr Stepan Chmil, a great mentor to him: “The Holy Father knows not only of our Church, but also our liturgy, our rites, and our spirituality.” Furthermore, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis was Ordinary for Eastern Catholics. In 2009 Sviatoslav arrived as the auxiliary bishop for the Ukrainian Catholic eparchy in Argentina and tells how his first steps in episcopal ministry were under the Cardinal’s watchful care. They have an even closer bond now, because a year later Sviatoslav was called upon to succeed his revered mentor Lubomyr Cardinal Husar, who retired like Pope Benedict has done. At the age of 41, his election boldly charts a new course for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in service of society and the unity of Churches at home and abroad for decades to come. Pope Francis will be looking East to a dynamic former protégé for inspiration as he charts his own new course.

Whether it concerns a renewed partnership with the historic Eastern Catholic Churches, or forging new bonds hopefully leading to communion with the Orthodox, the model for Pope Francis’s understanding of the Christian East, unlike his predecessors, is not European. They envisaged the re-composition of the old Christendom around the reference points of the Mediterranean. But in world Christianity, Borgoglio has seen that the East is now right across the West, just as the West has suffused the lands of the East and is likewise worldwide. To talk of our respective territories is, as Benedict realised, increasingly beside the point. Anthony O’Mahony, director of the Centre for Eastern Christianity at Heythrop College, estimates that there are now over 4 million Eastern Christians, Catholic and Orthodox across Western Europe.  But the weight of the diaspora seems to be shifting from Europe and North America to the emerging powers in the global south, notably Australia and Latin America. Here these old Churches are young and confident, able both to sustain their tradition as they also become indigenous and move beyond being simply ethnic chaplaincies. They can thus play strong roles alongside others in the work of evangelisation, spiritual renewal, ecumenical engagement and wider social development. This is what Pope Francis is used to and how he will approach the inheritors of Byzantium across Europe too, Catholic and Orthodox alike.

So, what of the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest of all? Moscow regards itself as Third Rome and the decisive player in the future of the Orthodox Church as a whole. It believes an alliance with the Catholic Church in “the struggle for the soul of Europe” is critical, but finds the universal primacy of the Roman see difficult to contemplate. It sent its Head of External Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, who did his doctorate in the West at Oxford and is regarded as a likely successor to Patriarch Kirill. The message from Moscow present and future was clear: Pope Francis was firmly addressed as “primate of the Roman Catholic Church” and as Kirill’s peer. Despite progress in Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, which is seeking an agreed view on the Roman primacy in the first millennium as a basis for recovering communion, it feels out of place to the Russian Church, whose consciousness largely relates to the second, during which it has grown considerably, with little awareness of the need for a universal primacy. Its present size, resources and world diaspora mean that it is no longer local but a fact of life to come to terms with, not just for the Catholic Church but other Orthodox jurisdictions too. Importantly, Russia’s activity in the Middle East reanimates an Imperial role as protector of all Orthodox. Given that peace and stability for that region and its Christians will loom as large for Francis as for Benedict, because they directly affect the wellbeing of Europe, the significance of the Moscow patriarchate has to be faced.

Pope Francis’ intention to trust and work with the “local Church” resonates with many Orthodox. They have long been looking for signs that the collegiality set forth at Vatican II will turn into reality. They have noted how he has called himself not supreme pontiff or pope, but Bishop of Rome. They will be looking to see how the primate of the Church “presiding in love” at Rome, will treat the Eastern Catholic Churches: as subsets of the global Roman Catholic organisation, or as honoured Churches, firmly rooted in their local homeland, yet now living side by side with Latin Catholicism’s own diaspora in the emerging societies of the south and throughout the world. It will reveal how the new Pope envisages the restoration of communion between Catholics and Orthodox, since West and East must rely on each other for the future. The Orthodox will be hoping that indeed Pope Francis, Brother Peter to Brother Andrew, “knows our Church”.

Fr Mark Woodruff is a Westminster priest and Vice-Chairman of the Society of St John Chrysostom, which promotes Catholic-Orthodox relations and the unity of the Churches of East and West.

Pope Francis and retired Pope Benedict greet Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury at the time of his election and enthronement

POPE FRANCIS' MESSAGE FOR ENTHRONEMENT OF ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Vatican City, 21 March 2013 (VIS) – Pope Francis has sent a message to the Most Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, on the occasion of his enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral in London, UK, this past Thursday. Archbishop Welby is the 105 Archbishop of Canterbury and the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. “The pastoral ministry,” writes Francis, “is a call to walk in fidelity to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Please be assured of my prayers as you take up your new responsibilities, and I ask you to pray for me as I respond to the new call that the Lord has addressed to me.” “I look forward to meeting you in the near future, and to continuing the warm fraternal relations that our predecessors enjoyed.”

4 FEBRUARY: POPE BENEDICT XVI CONGRATULATED MOST REVEREND WELBY ON HIS ELECTION AS ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY Vatican City, 21 March 2013 (VIS) – Today was made public the message that Benedict XVI wrote this past 4 February to the Most Reverend Justin Welby on the occasion of his election as Archbishop of Canterbury.   The Pope wrote that the archbishop was taking up his office “at a time when the Christian faith is being called into question in many parts of the Western world by those who claim that religion is a private matter, with no contribution to offer to public debate. Ministers of the Gospel today have to respond to a widespread deafness to the music of faith, and a general weariness that shuns the demands of discipleship. Yet the hunger for God, even if unrecognised, is ever-present in our society, and the preacher's task, as a messenger of hope, is to speak the truth with love, shedding the light of Christ into the darkness of people's lives. May your apostolate yield a rich harvest and may it open the eyes and ears of many to the life-giving message of the Gospel.” Benedict XVI concluded with the prayer that “the Lord grant you strength and wisdom” in whatever challenges the new archbishop may encounter and asking that “the Holy Spirit guide you in all that you undertake in his name.”

Homily by the Priest Director, Fr Mark Woodruff, at a Mass in Westminster to pray for Pope Francis

If I were to seek my own glory that would be no glory at all
21 March 2013 – Thursday of the Fifth Week in Lent

Fr Mark Woodruff writes:

Our new Holy Father has tagged himself with some luminous markers in his first week in office. His baptismal patron is St George, the soldier-saint chosen as the patron of the Crusades against Islam’s occupancy of the Holy Places; yet for his pontifical name he chose St Francis, who went to speak of the love of Christ to Sultan Malik al-Kamil in Egypt, so as to bring the Crusades to a peaceful end.


Quite apparently chosen by the Conclave to lead the Church in both institutional and spiritual renewal (and to those who were expecting a Vatican placeman this is reminiscent of the emergence of John XXIII from the midst of the Pian Church), the Jesuit might have been expected to look to the patronage of Ignatius of Loyola for reform or Aloysius Gonzaga for purity of life and purpose – and we have known neither a Pope Ignatius nor a Pope Louis before. Instead he lighted upon Francis, “the richest of poor men”, inspired by a fellow Cardinal, we are told, not to forget the poor who are the Church in his native Latin America.


Immediately, however, clever commentators thought he must have more in mind the great Jesuit missionary of Japan, St Francis Xavier, on whose evangelical sanctity and evangelistic labours the Catholic Church in the Far East was built, just at the time a Church apprehensive of true renewal was losing its northern flocks to the Reformation in the West. There could also have been the less than worthy Pope Alexander VI’s grandson, St Francis Borgia, who gave up his dukedom to enter the Society of Jesus, starting out as a cook and waiter at table, until he became a second founder of the Jesuits, consolidating its novitiates and setting up what was to become the Gregorian University. Another remarkable Francis was not a Jesuit, but an Oratorian, the beloved Francis de Sales, the beauty of whose preaching of the love of God, simplicity of life and purity of discipleship won many who had been excited into the ferment of Calvin’s Reform back to the unity of the Church. Although the city of Geneva of which he was bishop was lost to him, his proclamation and living of the gospel was truly the new evangelisation of its day. But all of these saints are named after St Francis of Assisi and modelled themselves on him. Likewise it is to the humble, innocent Poverello whom the Lord commanded to rebuild his Church - the person in whom perhaps more than anyone else Jesus Christ has come again - that our new Holy Father has turned for a pattern in living, inspiration in endeavour and protection in prayer. We have already heard from him that the greatest power in the Church is service; that the Church is a Church of the poor; and that its duty is to protect those whom worldly society rejects and resents, along with the creation God has given to sustain us all alike.


Another one of those luminous markers was the acceptance of a ring once belonging to Pope Paul VI as his own Fisherman’s Ring. After many years, in which the painstaking faithfulness and leadership during an ear of the greatest social changes of such a beautiful and holy soul as Pope Paul have been questioned and even despised, it is a blessing to the Church that Pope Francis has signified the hermeneutic of continuity between his new pontificate and that of the wise, bold popes of the great Second Vatican Council. So the great tradition goes on and the Church brings riches from its treasury both old and new.


Yet another marker is his insistence that he is from the first successor to Peter not with grand titles such as Supreme Pontiff or Universal Pastor but as bishop of the local Church of Rome. Thus he has honoured the remarkable Petrine ministry and teaching office of his predecessor not by reference to him as “the Pope Emeritus”, but as “our retired bishop”. In this he echoes Pope Benedict’s call as successor of the apostle Peter, that Britain heard in Westminster Abbey, to give a convincing account of the hope that lies within us, not by a facile accommodation to the spirit of the age but an ever deeper unity in the apostolic faith in Jesus Christ truly risen from the dead. It is worth noting here that it was the witness to Jesus’ resurrection and the purity of teaching conserved by the Church at Rome, in direct continuity from the apostles Peter and Paul, that caused it to be seen by all, in the words of St Ignatius of Antioch, as “the church that presides in love”. Its prime role in speaking for the whole Church and resolving the authenticity of its teaching was thus respected for a millennium in both East and West. In our own day, Pope Francis is well aware that the Eastern Churches’ diaspora is now everywhere in the West; just as the Latin West is diffused throughout the world of the Christian East too. His apparent expectation that the local Church of Rome will be trusting the Churches locally to respond to the needs of humanity for the gospel by the lights of where and who they are, whether that is Rome or Istanbul, Buenos Aires or Lusaka, Kiev or Beijing, seems to take into account the realities of how the People of God belong in the communion of the Body of Christ, the need for the Churches to act and live in collegial concert, and the urgency of mutual union among Christians for the sake of realising the blessings in the Sermon on the Mount, “on earth as it is in heaven”. Thanks to the openness of his immediate predecessor to the Orthodox Church, which enabled some notable progress in the joint Orthodox-Catholic theological dialogue, the ground has been prepared for a Patriarch of Constantinople to witness for the first time the inauguration of the local bishop of the Church which presides in love. And the real power-wielder in Orthodoxy, the confident and globally expanding but also “local” Russian Orthodox Church, was significantly represented in Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, a likely successor to Patriarch Kirill someday, who studied for his doctorate here in the West in England. The Moscow Patriarchate has long advocated an alliance from Latin West and Russian East in concert across Europe, for recalling it to the faith that once civilised it by bringing it to Christ. In rooting the Roman bishop’s wider ministry, authority and witness in the faith, needs and experience of the City and culture where he is set – serving as its own apostle of the gospel, rather than primarily ruler of the global church - Pope Francis strikes a chord with Orthodox Churches that have a strong sense of their local purpose, and challenges those which are tempted to rival the Roman curia for binding communion to central control, rather than a presidency in love. Perhaps Pope Francis will prove to be as radical for Christian Unity as his predecessor was in ending the existential papacy, so that the primacy of episcopal office might succeed him.


Perhaps the Pope’s most luminous marker is to share the concerns of the poor. Of course it is true to say that the poor are not necessarily poor because of the rich and the rich are not necessarily rich because of their abuse of the poor. The causes are as complex as the solutions are unpalatable to those with the power to deliver them. But poverty is not just economic and social. It is spiritual too. The Holy Father seems to be referring to another great saint of his Church of Rome, the 3rd century deacon, St Lawrence. When commanded by the prefect of Rome to hand over the wealth of the Church, Lawrence distributed it to the poor and told him that the poor, the disabled, the blind and the suffering were the true treasures of the Church. Sealing his own death sentence, he said that in them “the Church is truly rich, far richer than your emperor”.


All these markers point to a new course to the Church’s life for sure. In every image that Pope Francis has conjured up, and every holy person whose name he seems to have invoked, he puts us in mind of the Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “If I were to seek my own glory that would be no glory at all.” Instead, the Jesuit like the Master seeks “the greater glory of God”; and, according to his own motto, is deeply aware that the Master has chosen him not because he has some gifts or characteristics that the Lord could now find useful, but miserando atque eligendo purely out of having mercy upon him.

Habemus Papam

May God bless and keep Pope Francis ad multos annos

May he also bless and keep Archbishop Justin of Canterbury.

"May they all be one" !