From the English Catholic

Some analysis and looking ahead by Fr. Chadwick:

Indeed, we are entering a new era in which we will all be able simply to be Catholics with our ethnical and cultural characteristics. We will have entered ordinariates as groups, and we will continue to know our fellow Catholics as those we have known for years. The human element is vital. If Rome goofs up on this, we would only be able to say that the leopard never changes its spots. However, there has been a profound change in the Roman Catholic institution since the election of Benedict XVI, and this change was already prepared by his long years as Prefect of the CDF!

I do find it regrettable that the TAC was not brought into the discussions between the Forward in Faith bishops and Rome in the spring of 2008, since Bishop John Broadhurst was with the TAC in Portsmouth in October 2007, and I greatly enjoyed his company. He was fully involved in our own in-house talks, and we listened to his advice and the fruit of his long pastoral experience. I do think that the two ships are at last slowly responding to their helms.

Rome essentially responded to two main requests from significant Anglican groups, each subdivided into smaller diocesan and parish units. It also transpired that the Apostolic Constitution just as well answered the requests of smaller groups of laity and clergy, as well as a large number of individual converts to the Catholic Church, some of whom would be interested in recovering their former cultural and ethnical identity. Without the TAC, Rome would never have given a response, and without Forward in Faith, the response would have taken much longer.

Things haven’t always been so. I have a long memory, and if that fails me, my hard disk and backup files have an even longer memory. Last March, I was very concerned about how we in the TAC were accused of wanting some kind of monopoly and told to “modify our expectations”, whilst a certain retired prelate of the Church of England wrote sneering comments about the TAC in England to the extent of suggesting we were behaving like vagante groups! They, including the blog moderator who booted me out of his list of contributors a month ago, seemed to want to airbrush the TAC out of everything (which is the signal being sent out by their diocese going it alone towards an ordinariate — independently of the rest of the TAC). This is our show, because we are Establishment, and we are in the club! Why do we need a church in a certain English city when there is a perfectly good Forward in Faith parish just five minutes down the road? It probably did not occur to the good Bishop that we have different liturgical customs, and do not wish to be in communion with a Church that ordains women, to the priesthood and in a few years also to the Episcopate. I pray that there has been a change of heart over the last few months, because this is a matter of trust. If we are betrayed – by anyone – the entire ordinariate project will fail and souls will be lost.

It is high time we got talking to each other and recognising each other mutually. Our Bishops have been talking to each other throughout, Archbishop Hepworth with Bishop Broadhurst, and many others. Lies are told to say the contrary, but I trust my Archbishop.

Another lesson that will be learned is that the ordinariates are not only for Americans like the older Anglican Use community. Surely, there will be an Ordinariate in the USA, and it will consist of the Anglican Use community, remnants from the ACA and whatever other groups there are. It looks to me as though the English Ordinariate will be very small, and will not have the appearance of an Establishment Church. There will be ex-Forward in Faith communities and ex-TTAC communities worshipping together in the makeshift chapels we are used to, or perhaps at different times if we are using different rites within what Rome is going to allow (revised Anglican Use, modern Roman and old Roman).

Let us forgive each others sins, faults of good judgement, and if we have committed serious sins of calumny and detraction, reparation must be made. We must make this effort for the sake of unity in accordance with Christ’s will.