AnglicansUnited.com

By Inma Álvarez

http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=zenit&id=29896

Zenit.org
July 15, 2010

After a bitter vote, the Church of England decided Monday that women can be consecrated as bishops. But the secretary of the Vatican’s unity council says ecumenical dialogue will continue as before.

The synodal decision must be put to a referendum within a year by another similar synod; nevertheless it is a vote that marks an important point within the history of the Church of England.

The vote was noteworthy in another regard: a conciliatory amendment proposed by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, Rowan Williams and John Sentamu, was rejected.

Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told ZENIT that the Anglican decision does represent an “enormous obstacle.” Nevertheless, he said, the effects of this vote must be kept in a proper perspective.

ZENIT: The Anglican synod of York approved the ordination of women bishops, a decision that is being imposed gradually in the whole Anglican Communion, against the conviction of the so-called traditionalist communities. This decision can be considered firm, although the final vote will not take place until 2012. Can this decision still change, or can one expect that it will be definitive?

Bishop Farrell: The synod just held in York is the synod of the Church of England and it has no authority outside of England, not even in Wales or Scotland. The Anglican Communion is made up of 38 independent provinces, of which England is one. Several provinces already have women bishops. The synod introduced legislation that would allow this in the Church of England. Undoubtedly the process will continue, because the majority wants this.

ZENIT: One of the great “defeats” of this synod was the rejection of the compromise proposed by the archbishops of Canterbury and York. After the vote, many analysts considered the communion between Anglicans broken. Is this so?

Bishop Farrell: The situation is very complex and even paradoxical. If the compromise had been accepted, one would be faced with a situation in which, for example, a parish or a group could reject the authority of a woman diocesan bishop and place itself under the authority of another male bishop.

Thus, that parish would not be in communion with the other parishes of its diocese. In a certain way it would be a structural schism, even if it isn’t called that. Now at this moment, that way of proceeding isn’t possible, and the parish only has the option to stay in communion with its own bishop or leave the Church of England. Speaking specifically, that would occasion the loss of members, but not a schism within the Church of England. Read more…

[Ed. Note:  Yes, even bishops and priests in the Church of England are talking to Rome.  Secret meetings at the Vatican?  Intentional poaching of Anglican clergy?  Maybe Dan Brown can write another pseudo-factual book on this one.  Cheryl M. Wetzel]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7664705/Anglican-bishops-in-secret-Vatican-summit.html

Leading traditionalist bishops in the Anglican Church have secretly told senior Vatican officials that they are ready to defect to Rome, taking clergy with them.

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Published: 9:00PM BST 01 May 2010

A group of Church of England bishops met last week with advisers of Pope Benedict XVI to set in motion steps that would allow priests to convert to Catholicism en masse Photo: AFP/GETTY

In a move likely to raise tensions between the two Churches, a group of Church of England bishops met last week with advisers of Pope Benedict XVI to set in motion steps that would allow priests to convert to Catholicism en masse.

They are set to resign their orders in opposition to the introduction of women bishops and to lead an exodus of Anglican clerics to the Catholic Church despite Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, urging them not to leave.

It would be the first time for nearly 20 years that large numbers of priests have crossed from the Church of England to Rome, and comes only weeks ahead of a crucial General Synod debate on making women bishops.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that bishops travelled to the Holy See last week to hold face to face discussions with senior members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most powerful of the Vatican’s departments.

The Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Rt Rev Keith Newton and the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, the bishops of Fulham, Richborough and Ebbsfleet respectively, are understood to have informed senior Catholic officials that Church of England clergy are keen to defect to Rome.

It is the first significant response to the Papal offer made last year, which opened the doors for Anglicans to convert while retaining key elements of their tradition.

The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, was unaware of the summit, which is likely to prove embarrassing to the Catholic Church ahead of the Pope’s visit to Britain later this year as it will rekindle fears that it is trying to poach Anglican clergy. Read more…

[Ed. Note The Anglican Church in America, the American branch of the Traditional Anglican Church of Australia,  have both indicated that they will join Rome as soon as the Ordinariates are established.   The ACA and TAC have been part of the "continuum" of Anglicanism in the USA since women's ordination passed the General Convention in 1976.  They are the first to join Rome as part of the Ordinariate world wide.  We will watch their experiences and report them here.  Cheryl M. Wetzel]

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=104776

Posted 26 April 2010 – 10:36 PM

Text of Joint ACA/Anglican Use Petition for USA Ordinariate

The Anglo-Catholic is finally able to publish the full text of the joint petition to the Holy See on behalf of the Anglican Church in America (the USA province of the Traditional Anglican Communion) and the parishes of the Anglican Use for the erection of a personal ordinariate in the United States of America which was adopted at the ACA HOB Meeting in Orlando, FL in March of this year.

* * *

The House of Bishops  of the  Anglican Church in America  & The Traditional Anglican Communion
2365 NW 162nd Lane, Clive, Iowa, 50325

3 March 2010

William Cardinal Levada, Prefect, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Vatican City

Your Eminence:

During this holy season, please allow us to express to you our gratitude for your positive response of 16 December 2009 to our request of October 2007 that a way may be found leading to full visible unity of traditional Anglicans with the Holy See.

The bishops of the Anglican Church in America are now meeting in Orlando, Florida, together with Father Christopher Phillips of the Pastoral Provision (“Anglican Use”), our TAC Primate, the Most Reverend John Hepworth, and Bishop John Broadhurst of Forward in Faith, United Kingdom.

We have all read and studied with care the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum cœtibus, with the Complementary Norms, and the accompanying commentary by the Rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

In response to your invitation to contact your Dicastery to begin the process therein contemplated, we respectfully propose the following:

* That the Apostolic Constitution be implemented as soon as possible in the United States of America
* We are establishing an interim Governing Council consisting of three priests from Pastoral Provision Parishes, and three priests (or bishops) from the Anglican Church in America, and we seek your endorsement of the same.
* That this acting Governing Council be given the task and authority to propose to the Holy Father a terna for appointment of the initial Ordinary.

It is our prayer that these proposals may be of some service in setting in train the process delineated in the most welcome and gracious response of the Holy Father to our aforesaid petition.

Yours sincerely in Christ,

+Louis W. Falk (Pres.)
+John Hepworth
+Juan Garcia Germain
+George Langberg
+Brian R. Marsh
+Wellborn R. Hudson, III
+Stephen Strawn

This is endorsed by the parishes of the Pastoral Provision.
The Rev. Christopher Phillips

+Louis Campese
+Daren K. Williams
+David L. Moyer

In response to the request of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (in the Holy See’s reply to the October 2007 Petition) that Anglican groups intending to proceed under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus indicate this desire in writing to that dicastery, the Australian province of the Traditional Anglican Communion, the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia, has petitioned the Holy See for the erection of a personal ordinariate for that country.  Read more…

[Ed. Note:  As the Roman Catholic invitation to Anglicans to join them gets a wider discussion, the pro's and con's seem to tumble on.  This is one such article.  Cheryl M. Wetzel]

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=93683

Anglican aspect of life in Ordinariate questioned

The following is an article in the Church Times of a synopsis of the recent Conference on Anglicanorum coetibus, held at Pusey House in Oxford.

by Bill Bowder
The Church Times

April 30, 2010

DOUBTS have been raised about whether former Church of England clerics would have distinctive “transferrable skills” to bring to the Roman Catholic Church, if they ceased to be part of the Anglican Communion.

At a meeting on Saturday at Pusey House in Oxford, the Revd Jonathan Baker SSC, Principal of Pusey House, said that a group was gathering to reflect on what was the “distinct tradition” within the Anglican Church, fostered since the Reforma­tion, which was “potentially capable of finding its way to enrich the life of the wider Catholic Church”.

Under the norms of Benedict XVI’s Anglicanorum Coetibus, clergy trained in seminaries in the pro­posed Ordinariate (News, 23 Octo­ber) would be tutored in “those aspects of Anglican patrimony that are of particular value” to the RC Church.

One speaker, Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge, and an Irish Roman Catholic, asked what “transferrable skills” Anglicans would bring. He said that what was distinctive was that they had been “shaped” by the Royal Supremacy, which had had a “moderating impact” on the differences in the Church of England between Catholics and Protestants.

“A fundamental part of the nature, identity, and patrimony of Anglicanism comes from the enforced co-existence of the Catholic dimension of Anglicanism within other more Protestant streams within an establishment,” Professor Duffy said. There would be “big problems imagining how it would retain its coherence and Anglican identity outside those constraints. . . Could choral evensong survive in a minority uniate Church . . . within Roman Catholicism?”   Read more…

[Ed. Note:  This is the Anglo-Catholic branch of the Church of England (COE), now in conversation with Rome.  Forward in Faith is the umbrella organization publishing this material.  Cheryl M. Wetzel]

http://www.friendsoftheordinariate.com/

Feb 22, 2010

Forward in Faith is happy to commend to its members a new initiative, Friends of the Ordinariate, which invites all who are interested in the possibilities raised by the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus to register their names and then receive occasional email updates as plans for the Ordinariate develop in the UK.

Friends of the Ordinariate

We are Anglicans in the UK who are members of  The Church of England  -  The Church in Wales
The Scottish Episcopal Church  -  The Church of Ireland and we invite you to join with us as Friends of the Ordinariate
in order to signify your interest in  the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.

By joining us you will not be committing yourself  to any course of action, present or future.

We are a group of concerned Anglicans  and we guarantee complete confidentiality and will not share your details with anyone else.

We may occasionally send you an email inviting you to visit this website for further news.

You are also free to unsubscribe and remove your details at any time.

To read the Apostolic Constitution and other documents  please click on the Documents button below.

[Ed. Note:  The documents have not been added to the website yet.  Once they are, you can find them at   http://www.friendsoftheordinariate.com/]