Posted on 02/07/2010 12:01:41 PM PST by NYer
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, says those Anglicans who respond to Pope Benedict's invitation to join the Catholic Church under the provisions of the new Apostolic Constitution, would not be "proper Catholics". You can listen to the interview in full on this week's Sunday Sequence (Sunday, from 8.30am).
In the same interview, Dr Sentamu also called for the banning of the British National Party and says he is "surprised that Parliament doesn't want to do it." He also says he has "every hope" that [Robert] Mugabe will be gone very soon."
Here's part of the exchange I had with Dr Sentamu on this week's Sunday Sequence:
Archbishop Sentamu: "If people genuinely realise that they want to be Roman Catholic, they should convert properly, and go through catechesis and be made proper Catholics. This kind of creation [the Apostolic Constitution] -- well, all I can say is, we wish them every blessing and may the Lord encourage them. But as far as I am concerned, if I was really, genuinely wanting to convert, I wouldn't go into an Ordinariate. I would actually go into catechesis and become a truly converted Roman Catholic and be accepted."
William Crawley: "So those Anglicans who take advantage of the Apostolic Constitution, you're saying, would not be 'proper Catholics'?"
Archbishop Sentamu: "Well, I mean, I'd be very surprised --"
William Crawley: "What would they be if they are not 'proper Catholics'?"
Archbishop Sentamu: "They would be what they are: an Ordinariate of the Vatican."
William Crawley: "Anglican Émigrés?"
Archbishop Sentamu: "(Laughter) Well, if I was a Roman Catholic bishop and I had this group within my diocese being looked after by an Ordinariate whose reference was back to the Vatican, I'd have to ask a number of questions."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
He is right about Mugabe, anyhow.
I have “every hope,” too, but I’ve been practicing Cuban cooking for four years now, and Fidel Castro still hasn’t died, so we haven’t had the massive “Fidelito es Muerto!” bash the neighborhood is waiting for.
“Hope” is an iffy thing.
AnAmericanMother:
Outstanding post and there are millions of Catholics who are glad you are now in full communion with Rome and all of the Catholic CHurch.
But the fundamental problem is that everyone outside insists on thinking that the Anglican Church is a church, when actually it was formed as a political solution to a political problem, containing at least three separate churches and perhaps as many as five.
We just jumped the gun a little, I think the High Church Anglicans on the whole will be good Catholics and an asset to the Church. After all, some pretty good Catholics have swum the Tiber . . . John Cardinal Newman for one.
:)I found out 2 weeks ago my friend will be ordained in June in USA.WOOOHOOOO
As a Lutheran, I don’t have much of a dog in this fight except for maybe a home for the refuges of the ELCA who won’t go LCMS for anything.
But going strictly by the old canons, this is problematic at best. Not that some of those have been followed for a thousand years or so.
Why wouldn’t they be ‘proper Catholics’?
You write that the reporter has a degree from “Princeton.” For the sake of others, that’s a degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, not to be confused with Princeton University.
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But at least he's not a fellow alum.
Welcome! You folks are a great asset at a time when so many “Catholics” want us to emulate the church from which you fled. I agree that any Episcopalian (other than marriage converts) who would be so inclined as to convert to Catholicism would likely require very little catechetical instruction.
The same would certainly be true of “Anglo-Catholics” in England who already saw themselves as essentially a branch of Catholicism. Generations came and went hoping and praying that the C of E would return to communion with Rome. Unfortunately, the rest had no such intention, and instead embraced every modernist fad to come along. If that’s the path which Anglicans choose, they ought not to whine when some leap from that sinking ship and reach out for the Barque of Peter.
I applaud the creation of this ordinariate. I don’t see how such Catholics will be any less “proper Catholics” than those who attend Maronite, Ruthenian, or Ukrainian parishes. Aren’t the Eastern Catholic Churches independent of the local Latin bishop? If the Archbishop of Philadelphia can sleep at night knowing that there are Eastern parishes with his geographical jurisdiction, I think the Archbishop of Westminster will be able to manage while knowing that there are Anglican Ordinariate parishes out there which are not under his pastoral jurisdiction.
And there are nearly as many (1.5 million) Muslims in the UK...
I got that from his Wikipedia page. I’ll have to check his blog for a laugh!
I must say he seems ruder than C.S. Lewis, who was a Belfast Church-of-Ireland man.
Perhaps His Grace's view is colored by the long-running controversy over the "flying bishops" . . . ?
The U.S. has had an "Anglican Use Rite" for some time -- they don't have their own bishops but use most of the old Book of Common Prayer (with amendations to correct some Edwardian excesses). There's not enough critical mass (pun intended) in our old ECUSA diocese to start an AU parish -- this is traditionally a "low" diocese with only a couple of "high" parishes -- but in Texas where for some reason there is a cluster of AU parishes it seems to have worked fine and caused little if any problems with the local bishop.
I think the Archbishop is saying that if someone wants to be Catholic, then they should be Catholic all they way.
We have had for many years Anglicans who pretend to be Catholics (the “more Catholic than the Pope” types). Now we will have Catholics who pretend to be Anglicans (they were the vestments and use the a modified BCP, but they believe all that Rome teaches, even those things Anglicanism rejects).
Perhaps recent events are showing that there were all along yearning rather than pretending.
For many that may be true. But it must be ascertained if that yearning was for Catholic style or Catholic substance. Things such as Roman vestments, incense and bells would fall under the style category. Doctrines such as Purgatory, Papal Infallibility and the full breadth of Rome’s Mariology would fall under the substance category. Just because one wants the style does not mean they want the substance.
Many in the Church of England oppose female bishops, gay marriage and other distasteful innovations. They also don’t accept the above mentioned Roman doctrines. The choice then comes down to which is more distasteful: the troubles in the CoE or the questionable (in their minds) teachings of Rome.
So we corrected our mistake and become Catholics.
I don't see the problem here.
I miss Cranmer's prayerbook and Coverdale's psalter . . . but we sing a surprising number of English anthems with those lovely old words.
Plus, of course, the Episcopalians had abandoned Cranmer and Coverdale anyhow for a translation that is JUST as bad as the old ICEL translation (in fact they are suspiciously similar). The Church is now correcting the translation, while the Episcopalians are moving in the wrong direction (in that as in so many other things).
So I am content.
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