Posted on 09/27/2005 12:38:03 PM PDT by gbcdoj
PORTLAND (Sept. 24, 2005)--The Traditional Anglican Communion is a small step closer to reestablishing unity with the Roman Catholic Church after a separation of five centuries.
Leaders of the Anglican Church in America, one of the 44 national churches in the conservative body, were in Portland this week considering a plan to begin formal conversations with the Roman Catholic Church about establishing intercommunion.
"It is a quest of being a single Eucharistic community," said Archbishop John Hepworth, the spiritual head of the Traditional Anglican Communion. "It would mean Roman Catholic people could receive communion in our churches and we could receive it in theirs."
(Excerpt) Read more at virtueonline.org ...
The answer is no. Traditional Anglicans split with the Church of England in the 1970's when that group endorsed abortion, women's ordination, etc., etc. Many former Anglicans/Episcopalians have joined the Catholic Church but many others want to keep some Anglican rites. I think it would be fine for the Catholic Church to have an Anglican rite.
The ANGLICAN CHURCH IN AMERICA (ACA) is among the largest of several "Continuing Churches" which emerged from the AFFIRMATION OF ST. LOUIS and the 1977 gathering of faithful Anglicans which produced that document. ...
THE ACA IS NOT PART OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH USA OR THE CANTERBURY-BASED ANGLICAN COMMUNION
They aren't.
Thanks to both of you.
I'm a Methodist and our forebear was an Anglican priest. His conservatism would have had him reject today's Canterbury, but I don't think he'd have gone with Rome. But it's a different era now. Who knows?
Read their beliefs before you accuse them of non-Christian/non-Catholic beliefs:
http://www.acahome.org/submenu/document.htm
"We express also our faith in Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist."
I think you will find that they are quite orthodox and not in need of much conversion. I would welcome them home.
"First they NEED to CONVERT to Catholicism totally !
Conversion,conversion ,conversion...a word almost forgotten..BUT nevertheless NECESSARY for Salvation!"
How do you define conversion to Catholicism? I would think that coming into the universal Catholic church either as individuals or as a new sui iuris church would meet the definition of conversion.
As long as they submit to the Pope as the Church's final earthly authority then I welcome them back home to Rome.
I, too, was a Methodist until the 1980's. After an intermediate stop with the Evangelicals (of the Dallas Theological Seminary & C.I. Scofield, variety), the Holy Ghost dragged me to Rome in 1989. I found the Anglican Usage a few years later, and can gladly say it is really home for me.
As some may know, when the Pastoral Provision was first issued in the early 1980's (at the urging of a number of Episcopalian clergy, and coming in the wake of the ECUSA's ordination of women, and BCP revision, in the late 1970's), it was cautiously worded to suggest, at least, that it was for ex-Anglicans only. Since any Catholic can satisfy his or her Sunday and holy day obligations at liturgy in any Catholic rite, there were always other Catholics coming to liturgy at the AU parishes (which are "personal parishes" canonically), and it rather soon developed that these folks aggregated themslves to the parishes on a permanent basis (as I did). This now is understood and at least acquiesced in by the local ordinaries. It only makes sense, really, as a pastoral adjustment for the good of the faithful, and the bishops in the major cities, anyway (Houston, San Antonio and Arlington, TX) come to the AU parishes for blessings, confirmations, consecrations of new buildings, etc. knowing what is going on.
All that said, every now and then there is some remark from some apparently ill-informed clerical source to the effect that the AU parishes are only for ex-Anglicans. So when I hear that (once every other year or so), I revert back to exactly what you were saying: as a former Methodist, my founder was an Anglican priest, and even if Methodism later became separated from the C of E (perhaps due to Calvinistic influences?), I should "qualify" for the AU as a former quasi-Anglican.
Somehow I don't worry too much about these kinds of restrictive readings of the Pastoral provision now, however, especially when I see our own (duly approved) liturgy book, the Book of Divine Worship, on prominent display at such bastions of Catholic conservatism as the "Ancora" bookstore in Rome, outside of St Peter's (where Card. Ratzinger used to shop), and the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC.
I understand that a major source of orders in the TAC is the Polish National Catholic Church, which the Catholic Chruch recognizes as having valid orders through the Old Catholic Church of Utrecht.
Where do you worship?
Are you ordained....were you as a Methodist ordained?
Thanks for your various posts. They cleared a lot of stuff up.
One more question, does this mean that they now agree with the positions that originally caused the creation of the Anglican church and the dogmas that have been formally proclaimed since then? Or are they expecting to negotiate on something or other?
I worship at Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Church, in Houston. You can see what out new church looks like (complete with the only altar rail blessed by the archbishop during his tenure here, I'm told), at http://www.walsingham-church.org/.
I am just a layman, although I do have to pitch in for duties as "clerk" as the parish calls it (apparently a renewal of an old English church post which was probably a cleric originally but now for us is a layman who assists in distribution of Holy Communion--our priest is getting on in years and needs the help, he says).
Incidentally, if you have not already done so, you might wish to pay a visit to the Walsingham, England site, at: www.walsingham.org.uk
from which you can link up to both the Roman Catholic shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham (which is the English national Marian shrine), and the Anglican shrine (one of the focal points of Anglo-Catolicism in England, and thus the segway to Rome for some). Both are well worth visiting. I understand that there is a Methodist presence in Walsingham as well, reflecting John Wesley's own appreciation for the shrine (which had been destroyed, of course, by the time he got there to lament the fact, but has now been revived in Anglican, RC and even Orthodox, shrine locations).
All the best.
I was there just a year ago. See FR thread: A Religious Pilgrimage to England
The Traditional Anglican Communion rejects the heresies of Cranmer and Henry VIII.
They are the ones seeking communion with Rome, having actively requested this. They recognize the Pope as the Supreme Pastor of the Church and accept all the dogmas and teachigns of the Roman Church.
The negotiations are over their being granted a position as a sui juris Church like the Ukranians or Chaldeans or Malabars, instead of being swallowed up by the Latin Rite, and what if anything must be done with their orders (and thus also with any confirmations they may or may not have performed and confessions they may or may not have absolved).
If an acceptable structure can be worked out, it would not at all be surprising to see the Forward in Faith groups of the ECUSA and Anglican Church, and certain Anglican Churches in Africa (specifically Nigeria), from also coming to communion.
This is good news indeed!
Thanks for all your help in sifting this through.
Very good, and also very edifying. I have been to the Brompton Oratory but have not made it up to Walsingham--yet.
As an update on the info in the thread about Our Lady of Walsingham church in Houston, the interior decoration continues apace, with some of the stained glass windows on the sides being completed. Coadjutor Archbishop Daniel DiNardo (who I expect to be at least as good as Bp Olmstead in Phoenix when he takes over) came for the dedication of our new organ, at solemn evensong, early this year. He happily sang all the prayers and preached a magnificent homily, saying that the Liturgy is the living stream of love coming to us from the Holy Trinity.
You are all invited to come for Mass there (or Tuesday exposition and evening prayer with benediction, in the Holy House). The 10:30 a.m. Mass is the High Mass with the bells, smells, Anglican Chant, English traditional hymns, etc. (about 1 1/2 hours in length). Or you can catch me and "Aunt Raven" at the 8:15 a.m. low mass with latin chant; she warbles gregorian chant as if she were back in the convent, so I call it the conventual mass; I serve as "clerk" about half the time.
I wonder if somthing can be worked out that they could be allowed to be a liturgical use within the Roman Rite, but having their own bishops(not quite a rite, but somthing similar to the PAA that some suggested should be used for the Tridentine mass)
I live in Chicago, but a good friend of mine, who passed away a few years ago, used to take me to Our Lady of Walsingham for Sunday Mass whenever I visited him and his family in Houston.
Do you remember him? His name was Richard Johnson.
They broke from the Church of Jesus Christ in the year,1534,and took Henry the Vlll for their head- now if they CONVERT back to following Christ and come back into His Church all is possible ,BUT one cannot semi-belong to Rome...it is all or no go!
Who founded their Church -not Jesus- ...see details in;
THE ONE TRUE CHURCH,by Fr. Arnold Damen,S.J. (mind you this little priest alone was responsible for tweleve THOUSAND conversions to Catholism and more in his life time! Oh that we had a few priests out there like him today.
"As long as they submit to the Pope as the Church's final earthly authority then I welcome them back home to Rome."
Accepting the Pope as the final authority is part and parcel of being a sui iuris church. But as a sui iuris church, they will not be "Roman Catholic." They'll be Anglican Catholic in the same way that eastern Catholics are Maronite Catholic or Melkite Catholic, etc.
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