Posted on 12/27/2005 11:51:50 AM PST by jecIIny
Major Anglican Group Prepares for Full Communion With Rome
by Edward Pentin, Register Correspondent National Catholic Register December 24, 2005
VATICAN CITY - As the Anglican Communion threatens to break up, one large group of Anglicans is blazing a trail to Rome, and another could follow suit.
The Traditional Anglican Communion, an autonomous group of 400,000 clergy and laity separate from the Anglican Communion, has drawn up detailed plans on how to come into full communion with the Holy See.
After 12 years of consultations, both internally and informally with the Vatican, the group - with the help of a Catholic layman - is preparing a "Pastoral Plan" asking the Vatican for an "Anglican Rite Church" that would preserve their Anglican heritage while allowing them to be "visibly united" with Rome.
The Traditional Anglican Communion's worldwide primate, Archbishop John Hepworth, hopes the group's College of Bishops will approve the plan at a possible Rome Synod in February 2006.
The church's members are so far reported to be unanimous in their desire for full communion. If formally agreed, the proposal would then be presented to Vatican officials.
If Rome approves, the Traditional Anglican Communion, a worldwide ecclesial body based in Australia, could become the largest Anglican assembly to return to the Church since the Reformation.
In a statement released earlier this year, Archbishop Hepworth, a former Catholic priest, said the denomination had "no doctrinal differences with Rome" that impeded full communion. "My broad vision is to see the end of the Reformation of the 16th century," he said.
The denominations has pursued unity with Rome since the Anglican started ordaining women as priests, a move that, Archbishop Hepworth says, was the "ultimate of schismatic acts" and irrevocably "fractured" the 1966 Common Declaration between Rome and Canterbury.
The historic agreement made between Pope VI and then-Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey, obliged both communions to work towards unity through serious dialogue.
Vatican Caution
During recent informal talks, Vatican officials advised TAC to grow in numbers, become better known by forming friendships with local Catholic clergy and laity, and build structures through which they can dialogue with other churches. We've now done that," Archbishop Hepworth said. "By next year's synod, our conscience will have brought us to a certain point - it will then be for the Holy See to decide what to do."
Meanwhile, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have warned the Church of England that going ahead with women bishops risks destabilizing both the Church of England and the whole Anglican Communion, in a report the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales referred to "tremendous and intolerable ecclesiological risk" involved in ordaining women bishops.
The Church of England is considering whether to allow women to become bishops, with a debate expected at its general synod in February.
Ordaining women as bishops is particularly contentious for those opposed to women priests as they would be unable to recognize or accept the authority of all priests, male or female, who were ordained by female bishops.
For Forward in Faith, a worldwide association of Anglican who remain part of the Anglican Communion but are unable to accept the female ordinations, the situation is somewhat different than that of the Traditional Anglican Communion.
They remain committed to being Anglicans, so communion with Rome "is not on the agenda," according to Stephen Parkinson, director of Forward in Faith in the United Kingdom. However, the group is sympathetic to the Traditional Anglican Communion and is likely to move closer to that denomination's position if women are ordained bishops in England and Wales.
Currently, Forward in Faith-UK is negotiating with the Church of England for a "structural solution" that would enable its members to belong to a separate province within the Anglican Communion should the church decide to consecrate women as bishops.
But greater independence for Forward in Faith members might open the way for the group to move unilaterally towards Rome. "We could then pursue our own agenda," said Parkinson. "Ecumenism could then become an imperative for us."
Not if But When?
The Vatican is monitoring the current problems besetting the Anglican Communion. Not only do the communion's member churches have divisions over ordaining women as bishops, but Anglicans continue to be torn apart by the consecration in 2003 of Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire.
At a Church of England synod in London in November, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, was strongly criticized by nearly half the church's presiding archbishops over the issue of homosexual clergy.
In the same week, the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, announced that he was aligning the country's 17 million Anglican with the breakaway United States Episcopal churches. His church has already severed constitutional ties with the Church of England over Robinson's consecration.
For Anglicans like Archbishop Hepworth and Parkinson, it is a question of not if by when the Anglican Communion will fracture. But even if they're right, the Vatican is not inclined to work out precise plans for receiving large groups of Anglicans. Each case is likely to be different, which precludes forward planning.
The Vatican is, however, understood to be urging those groups wishing to come into communion with it to demonstrate they are comfortable with Church teaching, and that they aren't motivated soley by disillusionment with the Anglican Communion.
The two departments responsible for group conversions, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, are keeping a low profile for now.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has been focusing on issues that unite the churches and urging Anglicans to strengthen the bonds that unify the communion, particularly those surround the Anglican Communion's traditional teaching on human sexuality.
In the meantime, both Rome and the estranged Anglicans are waiting to see what the Anglican hierarchy does and how national Anglican churches and individual Anglicans respond.
"If many come over to Rome at the same time, then they're still all treated as individual conversions," said Dominican Father Charles Morerod, a member of the Anglican/Catholic International Commission. "But it is different if a whole province wants to come into communion."
Religion News Service contributed to this report. Edward Pentin writes from Rome
This is a duplicate - old news. Run a search before posting. Otherwise, welcome to Free Republic.
Presumably the first of many Anglican groups and individuals who will migrate to Rome.
Presumably this means former ROMAN Catholic priest?
If so, it should be noted that, according to the terms of the current Pastoral Provision governing the reception of former Anglicans/Episcopalians into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, former Roman Catholic priests are not eligible to be included in its prescriptions.
I hope an Anglican Rite using the Anglican/Knott missal is established. It would give a great deal of competition to the current liturgical/theological establishment to the Roman Catholic church in the US, and it would give many long suffering Catholics along with theologically orthodox Epsicopalins who have 2nd thoughts about conversion to the Catholic church because of the way mass is often celebrated an option.
That said, I do see potential problems in it that if it allows married priests(again I dont have a theological problem with this practice), it would create more pressure to adopt this practice for the Roman rite, also there is a potential problem is many Catholic men who want to be married priests, such as certain "deacons" may switch rites and be ordained priests, and would be used as a backdoor method to ordain married latin rite men as priests.
Actually this Hepworth guy has addressed this issue by saying that since there is a hindrance to having married Bishops he would resign if that's what it took to achieve Communion.
I don't know what options would be available if he wanted to remain in Ministry considering his status.....I suppose a dispensation would be possible (though I would suspect improbable) to restore his faculties.
Odds are, they'd "grandfather in" in all currently married priests -- as they often do with individual Anglican priests who convert -- but require celibacy of all future ordainees.
Methinks that if a married Catholic priesthood were allowed in the USA (not as a "one time exception" but as a permanent institution), there would be a massive move to it by the Catholic rank and file, and a lot more Tiber-swimming Protestants as well. But Rome, for whatever reasons, doesn't want this, and since it's their church, not mine, it's their decision and their business.
As I said, I have no theological problem with married priests, but I do not think it is a prudent move at the time. For one, Catholic parishes do not typically give 10%+ of their income in the collection plate, and if married priests were the norm, there would be issues in how a priest would riase a family on such an income. My guess is that such a priest would have to get a regular job during the week, and he would not be avilable for emergency situations or to consul the parishoners during the week. It is one thing to be a pastor to maybe 100 members of a chapel, it is quite another if a parish has 1000+.
What I would consider even more disturbing is if many of the Permanent Deacons become priests. While there are many excellent Permanent Deacons, many are very liberal/modernistic in their outlook, and if these men become priests, the process of weeding out modernist clergy in the Catholic church would be severely set back.
"also there is a potential problem is many Catholic men who want to be married priests, such as certain "deacons" may switch rites and be ordained priests, and would be used as a backdoor method to ordain married latin rite men as priests."
They could do this now of course if those who felt so-inclined were prepared to learn an Arabic or Slavic language and spend a few years living in one of these countries.
I just guess that their "call" to the priesthood isn't quite that strong! ;)
Lets just say that it is not Deacons such as yourself who I am worried about becoming priests, you would make an excellent priest. That said there are other "Deacons" out there that I would be worried about becoming priests. Such "deacons" would be a disaster.
Thank you for your vote of confidence! ;)
However deacons such as myself are happy to serve the Lord as His deacons and support the celibate (non-homosexual) priesthood.
I have grave suspicions about all these married men and women who feel "called" to the priesthood. The genuine "call" when it comes, comes from God and the Church. I do not believe that God would waste His time "calling" people to a putative vocation which is not possible to fulfil within the terms with which He has established His Church.
This "call" which many "feel" can only lead to frustration, disillusionment and distraction from the true task at hand. There is only one being who can possibly benefit from people being distracted by this false call, and I strongly suspect that he is the origin of it.
But based on some personal involvement at the time the Pastoral Provision was set up [and guess to WHOSE office the paperwork was sent in those days?], I can tell you that the Holy See was particularly determined that two things NOT happen:
1) that Roman Catholic priests who had broken - or who had been dispensed from - their commitment to celibacy NOT be readmitted to priestly ministry as married men (remember that if there were any change in the general discipline of a celibate clergy, we would surely follow the Eastern canonical prescription requiring marriage BEFORE diaconal ordination);
2) that married Roman Catholic laymen not see in whatever body was established within the Latin rite of the Catholic Church (and notice that Use, not Rite was settled upon, the previous English "Sarum Rite" having been, properly speaking a Use not a Rite) a path to a married priesthood.
Given whose office handled the determination at the time, I cannot imagine that either of those strictures would be relaxed.
In this case, having married clergy is a 500-year-old custom, and if it helps bring good people into the Catholic Church, so be it.
So be it, indeed.
But if Archbishop Hepworth is, as the article claims, an ex-Roman Catholic priest, it is NOT going to be.
At least not for him.
At least that's my guess.
That's the point I was trying to make.
Surely you can appreciate the difference between receiving life-long Anglican/Episcopal priests who had never made a perpetual commitment to celibacy and ex-Roman Catholic priests who had.
Also, at the time of the first receptions via the Pastoral Provision, absolute - not conditional - ordination to diaconate and priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church were required of the Anglicans / Episcopalians being received. At least the ones I'm familiar with. Which was Rome's way of saying that Apostolicae Curae is still in effect (which not all Anglicans/Episcopalians are happy about).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.