Posted on 10/23/2009 9:36:25 AM PDT by marshmallow
Was Pope Benedict XVI inspired by Cardinal John Henry Newman, whom it is hoped he will beatify in England next year, when he suddenly threw open the gates of Rome to disaffected Anglicans on Tuesday morning?
The official website for Newmans Cause hinted as much when it greeted the announcement with a reminder of Newmans support for a proposal to establish an Anglican Uniate Church for converts, similar to that provided for Byzantine-rite Catholics. The plan was conceived by Ambrose Phillips de Lisle and Newman rightly guessed that it would be unworkable. But if it could be made to work, he said, he was all in favour. As he wrote to de Lisle in 1876:
Nothing will rejoice me more than to find that the Holy See considers it safe and promising to sanction some such plan as the Pamphlet suggests. I give my best prayers, such as they are, that some means of drawing to us so many good people, who are now shivering at our gates, may be discovered.
And now it has been, thanks to Pope Benedict, who I hope will name his great scheme after Newman. I am sure the Pope is familiar with the reference to shivering at the gates, which William Oddie quotes in his book The Roman Option, an account of the English bishops failure to meet Anglican pastoral needs in the early 1990s. The then Cardinal Ratzinger is believed to have read the book, which reads as a dreadful reproach to a hierarchy which determinedly set up obstacles to Anglican corporate reunion.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
His “...daring scheme?”
Wow.
It's not just England. These requests are coming mostly from ex-Anglicans from all over the English speaking world. Australia has played a large role in this movement.
They're basically interested in how they can (re)join the Catholic Church in visible communion with the Pope ... and still hang on to their Anglican liturgical culture.
Correct on both points.
I think the BH0 worshiping Episcopalians are part of the reason these conservative Anglicans want to cross the river.
These requests for visible communion with Rome have been going on for many years now, long before BHO took office.
The BH0 worship is just a symptom of the deeper doctrinal problems ... the same folks gushed over Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, etc. in their time.
You're a lucky man ...
Had the good fortune to visit Trinidad and Tobago for the holidays. GREAT food.
Even the TT stuff available on Long Island is pretty damn good.
But my mother-in-law, bless her heart, makes a fabulous curry. I have to bring my own beer though.
OK, Pal, I’ll have to grant you that you’ve had reasons to go to parishes all over the Archdiocese. I still say the Archdiocese of LA is probably infested with illegal-lovin truth and justice types, but I am in NO WAY finding it on a par with or anything but far superior to the piskie pretenders.
And kudos on being KofC. The Cardinal said mass at my little Anglican Use chapel and our KofC guys were there with their swords, sashes, and swashbuckler hats. It was a most impressive site. Rilly.
A hopelessly simplistic explanation. You can't understand the context of his actions unless you take into account the wars of succession that had plagued England for a couple of centuries prior to Henry VII's accession to the throne.
A major underlying issue in the divorce drama was Henry's (and England's) need for the queen to produce a male heir.
That takes nothing away from Henry's other faults, but you can't just ignore what had gone before.
I know. I find his position arrogant and conceited. This isn’t even about him. He has a happy flock, a good worship space, and a dynamic outreach program. He has one of the most successful parishes in TEC. It is so good that even though I left and became Catholic, I’ve returned, for a time, because I can’t find that spirit in my new church home.
I appreciate him taking a stand, but I think the issues here are so much greater than “unholy poaching” that it makes him seem rather small.
Pssst... Peter was a cottontail.
If it weren’t for the need for diplomatic relations with Spain, would there have been a problem with Henry putting a bastard prince on the throne?
She was the widow of Henry's brother, and the marriage required a Papal Bull (granted under pressure) to allow the marriage to take place at all. To then ask for an annulment.... well, that was a bit much for Rome.
Anyway ... one might speculate that Henry would not have married Catherine on his own; perhaps a male heir would have resulted from some different marriage, and the whole divorce thing might have been avoided.
Not a Bull, just a fairly standard dispensation. I doubt there was any real pressure required, either.
Queen Katherine went to her grave denying that her marriage to Prince Arthur was ever consummated, which (canonically speaking) rendered the dispensation moot.
That's not how the history went, though. It was a big deal at the time.
Source?
After a little reading, it appears that the dispensation was granted twice, once in a letter and once in a formal Bull (unusual for something so routine). I don’t see much evidence of “pressure” being needed to grant the bull per se, but only to grant it before Queen Isabella died.
Well, it’s a bit doubtful isn’t it? Isn’t that what makes the story so compelling? HE was the one that was shooting blanks, but it was the women who got the axe. I realize it was more complicated than that and that he did have two sons, btw.
Perhaps a trade can be worked out.
BTTT!
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