Anglicans eager for U.S. Ordinariate

From the Catholic Key:

KANSAS CITY — Like children waiting for Christmas, the establishment of a “personal diocese” in the United States under provisions of a 2009 Vatican constitution can’t come soon enough for Anglicans seeking full communion with Rome while retaining their Anglican traditions, prayers and liturgies.

But the waiting is also a time for the Holy Spirit to work on hearts, according to the keynote speakers at the “Becoming One” Conference Feb. 25-26, held at St. Therese Little Flower Parish, where an Anglican Use Mass is celebrated weekly.

Some 80 people, nearly half of them rectors of Anglican worship communities, attended the conference to discuss what the “ordinariate” — or special governing structure for Anglican Use Catholics in communion with Rome — might be when, not if, it is established under the 2009 Vatican document, Anglicanorum Coetibus.

And they came from Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri.

At the conclusion of the conference, Kansas City-Bishop Robert W. Finn promised to pray “always for that great unity.”

“We know that a vital part of the mission of Pope Benedict XVI is to work and pray for the unity of all believers,” Bishop Finn said.

“Since it is the Holy Father’s mission, it is our mission as well,” he said. “We want to be united with you. We want to do all we can to make this invitation of the Holy Father be extended here. Now we pray to the Holy Spirit that the full unfolding of God’s plan may take place.”

The conference explored what the Anglican Use ordinariate might be as it gathers diverse communities of Anglicans together, in communion with Rome.

“It will be what you bring in,” said Father Christopher Phillips, pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Parish in San Antonio, Texas, in his Feb. 26 keynote.

“There is going to be a much deeper understanding of our Anglican patrimony (traditions) because it will be experienced in the fullness of communion with the Holy See,” Father Phillips said. “You are not leaving anything of importance behind. You are bringing everything of importance with you.”

Traditional Anglican Bishop David Moyer of Rosemont, Pa., who is working with an ad hoc committee headed by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., to establish the Anglican Use ordinariate in the United States, said that now is the time “to put our hands to the plow and follow where the Holy Spirit is leading.”

Bishop Moyer was among the Traditional Anglican Communion bishops who petitioned Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 for full, corporate reception into the Roman Catholic Church, while retaining their Anglican worship and traditions.

That request was answered in November 2009 with the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, which not only invited the Anglicans to bring their traditions with them, but encouraged them for the enrichment of the entire church.

Bishop Moyer recalled reading his copy with his wife, Rita, as soon as it arrived, both of them pausing to weep.

“It was more than an answer to the petition and to the countless prayers that had been uttered,” he said.

“To this day, I remain in a state of awe, wonder and thanksgiving for this incredibly creative, caring and visionary gift from the Holy Father,” Bishop Moyer said.