Posted on 11/05/2009 3:16:23 PM PST by mgstarr
The Traditional Anglican Communion’s province in Great Britain has become the first to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans.
All its members voted unanimously to come into communion with Rome under the terms of the new provision, which allows them to retain their Anglican patrimony.
An undated statement on the province’s website reads:
“That this Assembly, representing the Traditional Anglican Communion in Great Britain, offers its joyful thanks to Pope Benedict XVI for his forthcoming Apostolic Constitution allowing the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Holy See, and requests the Primate and College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion to take the steps necessary to implement this Constitution.”
A statement from Bishop David Moyer of the Traditional Anglican Communion reads:
“The well-attended Assembly was a grace-filled gathering where all in attendance became aware of the movement of the Holy Spirit. The bishops, priests, ordinands, and lay representatives were brought to a place of “being in full accord and of one mind,” as St. Paul prayed for the Church in Philippi.
“The questions and concerns that were expressed in regard to what had been read and heard about the forthcoming Apostolic Constitution were addressed by Archbishop John Hepworth. Bishop Mercer and myself.
“The Resolutions unanimously passed by the Assembly were carefully written and clearly reflect TTAC’s corporate desire and intention. All present realized that the requirement for the days ahead is patience, charity, and openness to the Holy Spirit.”
Significantly, this vote took place in the birthplace of the Anglican Communion, and its members voted in favor despite the Apostolic Constitution having not yet been published.
Recently, the Traditional Anglican Communion has been looking at establishing a mother house in England, possibly a former monastery which hasn’t witnessed the ordination of a Catholic priest since the Reformation.
This is not Canterbury, but organized Anglicans who are sick of the Church of England’s leadership, which is roughly equivalent, though perhaps not quite so dissolute, as the US Episcopal church. At least, that’s my guess.
Bishop Mercer doesn't bring attention on himself but he has been (imho) the driving force of this behind the scenes for years. A holy man if ever I've met one.
Accepting the AC sight unseen. Pretty cool. Look for this same news from other TAC provinces as they meet in special synods to consider this.
Wonderful news. Welcome home!
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This is great. Good to see Catholicism and Protestantism reaching out to each other like this. I always felt the split with Rome to be good for at the time, but not forever.
It will be interesting to watch this develop and see how many congregations in America and England and the rest of the english speaking world end up coming over. A real coup would be if the Africans considered this route.
Welcome, welcome my brother and sisters in Christ!
Good, good, good, good. Very exciting. I hope the Anglicans bring all their splendid liturgical music with them.
**Traditional Anglican Communion’s province in Great Britain has become the first to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans.**
BTTT!
That is very unlikely, as the African Anglicans are more to the Evangelical end of the spectrum (the Anglican world has many splits and distinctions, and one of the major ones is between the "high church" or Anglo-Catholic crowd, who are very Roman Catholic in their practice and theology, and the "low church" or Evangelical group, who are more towards the Protestant end of things.) The TAC is frankly High Church.
The African churches are extremely orthodox and conservative, but have little in common with the Catholic Church.
Here's what we sang for the Orthodox Patriarch (none of these are us, I hasten to add):
We also sang the modern setting of the Litany of the Saints, which I loathe as Not Good Music, but the Orthodox folks wanted it (with the Greek saints' names substituted). Not a good example of Catholic music at all.
What's really interesting is that the good Anglican liturgical music is Catholic. We simply preserved it through the interregnum while the Catholics were going through their post-VCII Pop phase.
Oh, snap!
I agree with the response in post 13.
Blessed be God in His scholae an in His choirs. :o)
It's not just the music, it's the sense of poetry in the language. Today Psalm 100 was part of Morning Prayer. Here's the translation from the breviary:
Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing for joy.
Know that he, the Lord, is God.
He made us, we belong to him,we are his people, the sheep of his flock.
Go within his gates, giving thanks.
Enter his courts with songs of praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name.
Indeed, how good is the Lord, eternal his merciful love.
He is faithful from age to age.
Now here's the same psalm from Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer:
O BE joyful in the LORD, all ye lands,
Serve the LORD with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.
Be ye sure that the LORD he is God;
It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving,
And into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name.
For the LORD is gracious, his mercy is everlasting;
And his truth endureth from generation to generation.
Which of these makes a more joyful sound unto the Lord?
Got that exactly right, my friend.
Blessed be the Lord in his gifts, and holy in all his works, who lives and reigns with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and forever. Amen.
I can NOT find the Christopher Tye setting of "Sing Unto the Lord Ye That Are His Saints" on YouTube or anywhere else. It's in the Oxford 16th C. Anthem Book . . . we're singing it Sunday and it's GORGEOUS. Plus of course it is a tremendous pleasure to SING it . . .
Give me 'formal equivalence' every time . . . . plus we have the benefit of the brilliant, manly, and majestic words of Archbishop Cranmer. He may have been mistaken on some theological points, but his translation will certainly be counted to him as righteousness.
Well in that case I wonder just how many churches will be brought over. It may be that there will be perhaps only a few dozen in the United States. They’d be as tiny as the Greek Catholics (or Old Catholics for that matter!).
I'm all for killing the fatted calf.
I have no argument there, it will be awkward to administer though. I wonder if the pontiff intends to assign one new bishop to tend to all of North America and if so where he will be based out of? My understanding is that there will be a relatively large number of these parishes in Texas.
We shall see ... the paperwork hasn’t even been released yet. Perhaps the folks in the Vatican are trying to find out how big the response is likely to be, before carving in stone exactly how it will be administered.
I note that even before this matter has take final form, these guys are already signing up. That takes guts; my hat’s off to ‘em.
My former ECUSA diocese, Atlanta, is traditionally very "low" in practice, even at the Cathedral. There were only 2-3 "high" parishes; one is now defunct and another is heading that way, and the third decided to keep the Roman style in liturgy and go whole hog for homosexual priests and unions and all the rest of the politically correct mess. So those of us who crossed the Tiber did so on our own homemade rafts; we are already gone and there is little if any prospect of ANY remaining ECUSA church changing.
It is quite another story in traditionally "high" dioceses -- Quincy IL for one, Fort Worth TX for another. A bunch of parishes in Texas already joined under the former Anglican Use Rite provisions; how many more may join them is unknown.
But where you have a traditionally "high" diocese and parishes, but they did not move under the AU, I think you'll see some movement if it hasn't begun to happen already.
I still think the KJV is the best:
Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.
Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
But it's also worth noting that the KJV changed VERY little of Cranmer!
There's a reason that the Anglicans continued to use Cranmer's translation of the Psalms even after the KJV became the Authorized Version . . . they're better for reciting and singing!
Our local ultramontane Anglican parish used the 1928 prayerbook, with a local re-translation of the Latin Sarum Rite for the Consecration to bring it back to the Catholic pattern. Unfortunately, the folks who did the AU rite stuffed in the N.O. language, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. I think I've said before that they needed a good Latinist (like, say, Fr. Zuhlsdorf) and a couple of specialists in 17th century English lit to prepare a "slavishly accurate" translation that would also mesh properly with the rest of the Rite.
Am I understanding this correctly, that these Anglican parishes who join will be part of the larger Church? Will I be able to attend mass and take communion there?
I love my priest and my parish, but once in a while the music is just too much. The flatness of the liturgy is also noticeable, especially when the Psalms are sung with something that sounds like show tunes.
Correct. The details haven’t been completely ironed out, but this will be a Rite like the Maronite or Eastern Catholic — you’ll be able to attend to fulfill your Sunday obligation, sacraments will be valid, and all, just like the Anglican Use Rite churches in Texas.
Too bad they didn’t have someone like Msgr, Ronald Knox. He would have relished the task.
Part of the problem is that modern composers are so atonal. One reason why they have copied show biz music. Of course, no one can sing anyway. Music is not taught in the schools, and they don’t even sing in the beerhalls anymore. They just sit and listen to others.
Yep, Msgr. Knox would have had a good time with a new translation. His area of expertise was not English Lit., though, he could have enlisted his neighbor C.S. Lewis for that job.
He would have done well enough: his psalms sing!
I just got tipped to this on the web -- our choir sang last week at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral for the Patriarch of Constantinople, and somebody put the WHOLE service up on YouTube.
It's a HUGE file - Orthodox Ecumenical Prayer Service
Our choir starts singing around 15:30 in. We sound a little rough as conditions were less than optimal, we were scrunched into a corner of the choir loft and of course nervous as all get out because it seemed like a hundred Orthodox clergy were there and we felt like we were upholding the honor of the Western Branch Office . . . . And we were way under strength because the service began at 5 o'clock and most folks couldn't get off work (some of us had to sneak away!) But it doesn't sound bad, and we settled in by the end of the chant. The Victoria "Ave Maria" does sound quite good, if I do say so myself.
He would have been SO much better than what they have now, he’s in another category altogether! I would want a 17th c. specialist on board, though, just to make sure that the language was consistent between 1662 and 1962!
One of the things I don’t know how to explain is that some music just sounds informal and non-sacred. Part of it is the rhythm, part of it is the melody.
For example, we have two versions of the Gloria that we sing.
One is sacred sounding, but the other is a chirpy melody with a syncopated beat. The second one just is awful, but I don’t know how to explain why.
It’s very frustrating.
BXVI does a good job in his essay on "Music and the Liturgy" -
On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (populus). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. "Rock", on the other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit's sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments. (The Spirit of the Liturgy, pp 147-8)
The African churches are extremely orthodox and conservative, AND THEREFORE HAVE MUCH IN COMMON with the Catholic Church.
But they have very little in common with the Catholic Church in terms of liturgy and praxis, and they have major, major differences in terms of theology.
And that is what will prevent them from responding to this invitation.
Ping back to post 39. Somebody posted the Orthodox service on YouTube. The Orthodox choir (and their schola in particular) sound very very good, but I think we upheld the musical honor of the Western Church pretty well.
Will check it out later tonite! Don-o and I were shape note singing today at Black Mountain, NC (Christian Harmony.) We’ll be at Sycamore Shoals, Elizabethton TN, singing out hearts out tomorrow. Upholding the honor of the Western Branch Office, Appalachian Rite! :oD
I’m thinking of the African groups who are reaching out to the conservative Episkies here in the US. Interesting to watch. Interesting times we live in.
Right. And something similar can be said about African-American Christianity,where an extreme fideism prevails. Emotion, even cultlike feeling dominates, and so it is really hard to argument, because discursive reasoning has so little place in it. I think it pervades the whole culture, which is highly anti-intellectual. Not unique to blacks, of course; because they share many attitudes with the so-called Southern rednecks. I think Tom Sowell has a book called “Black Rednecks “ that advances this thesis.
As long as it doesn't involve timber rattlers, I'm all for it! < g >
I think we talked about shape note singing before. Haven't been to a sing in years, but still have all my books. Sacred Harp is the book most of the sings around here use (W. GA E. AL)
And for that matter I know plenty of rednecks who revere "book learnin'" even if they don't have much. They're proud of their cousin or nephew who went to college and see it as a steppingstone to a better life.
I haven't read Sowell's book but have seen it discussed (here, where else?) I'd have to read it before I knew if I agreed or disagreed.
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