Archbishop of Canterbury Hints at Forthcoming Anglican-Catholic "Surprises"

Archbishop Welby: "no sacrifice too great to obey Christ’s call to unity"

Archbishop Welby with Pope Francis

(Vatican Radio) The head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, said he hopes to “produce a few surprises” with Pope Francis in terms of ecumenical relations between the two churches, but declined to disclose any details.

The archbishop made the comment in an interview with Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen at the 10^th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, currently underway in Busan, South Korea. 

Listen to the full interview:

He also reflected on the challenges and concessions that need to be made for the sake of Christian unity. The longer Christians “exist in different church communities around the world,” he said, “the more our different communities embed their own institutions and put down roots.”

“Perhaps we need to reimagine what it means to look like the church and to surrender some of the things that give us our sense of identity in the cause of Christ,” he said.

The churches need to be sure they are working on the important doctrinal and dogmatic differences between them “in the context of churches and ecclesial communities that say no sacrifice is too great to be obedient to the call of Christ that we may be one,” he said.

Beyond the Beatification of Cardinal Newman

Pope Benedict's trip to England is an outreach for reunion, too.

From The Wall Street Journal
By C. John McCloskey III

This month Pope Benedict XVI will travel to England for an unprecedented state visit to the United Kingdom, meeting with the Queen at Balmoral Castle and giving an address to Parliament. The occasion for this historic event, however, is not church or international politics—although political issues will doubtless be touched upon—but the beatification (the penultimate step towards sainthood) of John Henry Cardinal Newman.

Newman, whose long life spanned most of the 19th century, was perhaps the greatest religious figure of the last 200 years of British history. Converting from Anglicanism to Catholicism at the age of 44, he wrote cogently and beautifully under both religious affiliations, and was a lightning rod in the passionately argued religious controversies of his time, such as infallibility of the Pope or the legitimacy of Anglicanism as the state church.

Valuing his religious influences as a thinker and evangelizer of the highest caliber, Pope Benedict has made an exception of his thus-far universal practice of not participating in beatification ceremonies. Hence his trip to Great Britain.

En route to this honor were the standard ecclesial steps: the examination of Newman's life and writings; a declaration that he had lived a life of extraordinary virtue; and official approval by doctors and theologians of a miraculous cure after prayers that Newman would intercede with God on the sufferer's behalf.

The miracle in question holds special interest for Americans, being the recovery in 2001 from a debilitating back condition of the Massachusetts lawyer and deacon Jack Sullivan. His cure was a very modern "media miracle" provoked by a series on Newman on EWTN, Mother Angelica's Catholic broadcasting network. At the end of each episode, a prayer card for Newman was displayed on the screen. Mr. Sullivan prayed for the long-dead cardinal's intercession before God for a cure. The rest (following rigorous medical and ecclesial examination) is now history.

Although Newman was a devout and humble man of great personal warmth and sensitivity, it is difficult to think of him apart from his public career. The author of seminal books of theology and philosophy, such as "The Development of Doctrine" and "A Grammar of Assent," he also dashed off the greatest autobiography in English, "Apologia pro Vita Sua" (a media sensation in his time), in a matter of weeks after personal attacks on his honesty.

Newman's experience in helping found what is today the University College of Dublin inspired his extended argument for a classical liberal education, "The Idea of a University." He also wrote novels of religious conversion and hymns still sung in both Protestant and Catholic churches, such as "Lead, Kindly Light."

He also won early (and continuing) renown as a brilliant preacher. The atheist novelist George Eliot memorized the whole of one of them, "The Second Spring," and would recite it at the drop of a hat at private salons.

As a young and ardent Anglican priest, Newman and like-minded others originated the "Oxford Movement" in an attempt to revive the ancient doctrines and zeal for the "old religion" in an increasingly liberalizing Anglican Church. From the early 1830s up to his conversion to Catholicism in 1845, Newman battled the yielding spirit of Anglican toleration for indifferentism, which manifested itself in the belief that one religion was as good as another.

When his arguments were rejected by his Anglican superiors and he came to believe that his continued membership in the Church of England separated him from what he had now come to regard as the true Church, he converted to Catholicism and was ordained in Rome. Returning to England, he settled in Birmingham, where he founded the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, from which came the famous Brompton Oratory in London.

Newman died in 1890 popularly considered a saint. Over a century later, the Church is vindicating this judgment of the people of the U.K. and the whole English-speaking world. Pope Benedict's decision to preside over Newman's beatification reflects his love and respect for a fellow theologian whose work he has studied from his seminary days, and whose influence on the Second Vatican Council made him perhaps the most influential theologian on the council, even though it was meeting more than 70 years after his death.

Yet what is most intriguing about Benedict's upcoming visit to England is its ecumenical significance. Pope Benedict has established very cordial relationships with Orthodox patriarchs and bishops (a long-held ambition of his predecessor John Paul II as well). At the same time, he has made a remarkable and controversial offer to members of the Anglican Communion throughout the world to be received into the Church, singly or in whole congregations, bringing with them their liturgical traditions and even their pastors and bishops, if those clergymen were properly received into the Catholic Church.

If Pope Benedict's outreach meets with even limited success, perhaps tens of millions of fervent Evangelical and Pentecostal "Bible" Christians may want to reexamine more closely this ancient Church as the 500th anniversary of the Reformation draws near in 2017. The mutual momentum towards reunion may be irresistible.

Rev. McCloskey is a Church historian from Washington, D.C.

Pontiff to Permit Anglican Communities to Join Catholic Church En Masse

From Catholic World News

Pope Benedict is promulgating an apostolic constitution that will permit Anglican communities whose members wish to be received into the Catholic Church to do so as communities.

“In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” according to a note published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. “Under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy.”

"The forthcoming Apostolic Constitution provides a reasonable and even necessary response to a world-wide phenomenon, by offering a single canonical model for the universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application," the note continues. "It provides for the ordination as Catholic priests of married former Anglican clergy. Historical and ecumenical reasons preclude the ordination of married men as bishops in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Constitution therefore stipulates that the Ordinary can be either a priest or an unmarried bishop. The seminarians in the Ordinariate are to be prepared alongside other Catholic seminarians, though the Ordinariate may establish a house of formation to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican patrimony. In this way, the Apostolic Constitution seeks to balance on the one hand the concern to preserve the worthy Anglican liturgical and spiritual patrimony and, on the other hand, the concern that these groups and their clergy will be integrated into the Catholic Church."

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster and the primate of the Anglican Communion have issued a joint statement in response to the announcement.

CWN will offer additional coverage and analysis of this story later today.

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Pope announces plans for Anglicans to convert en masse (The Telegraph)
• Note Of The Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith About Personal Ordinariates For Anglicans Entering The Catholic Church
• Joint Statement By The Archbishop Of Westminster And The Archbishop Of Canterbury

C of E Bishop Will Lead Anglicans To Rome

From The Telegraph
By Damian Thompson

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, is to lead his fellow Anglo-Catholics from the Church of England into the Roman Catholic Church, the Catholic Herald will reveal this week.

Bishop Burnham, one of two "flying bishops" in the province of Canterbury, has made a statement asking Pope Benedict XVI and the English Catholic bishops for "magnanimous gestures" that will allow traditionalists to become Catholics en masse.

He is confident that this will happen, following talks in Rome with Cardinal Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Kasper, the Vatican's head of ecumenism. He was accompanied on his visit by the Rt Rev Keith Newton, Bishop of Richborough, the other Canterbury "flying bishop", who is expected to follow his example.

Bishop Burnham hopes that Rome will offer special arrangements whereby former Anglicans can stay worshipping in parishes under the guidance of a Catholic bishop. Most of these parishes already use the Roman liturgy, but there may be provision for Anglican prayers if churches request it.

Anglican priests who are already married will not be barred from ordination as priests, though Bishop Burnham would not be able to continue in episcopal orders, as he is married and there is an absolute bar on married bishops in the Roman and Orthodox Churches.

In his statement, Bishop Burnham explains why he is rejecting the code of practice offered to traditionalists by the General Synod last night.

"How could we trust a code of practice to deliver a workable ecclesiology if every suggestion we have made for our inclusion has been turned down flat?" he asks. "How could we trust a code of practice when those who are offering it include those who have done most to undermine and seek to revoke the code of practice in force for these last 14 years? ...

"What we must humbly ask for now is for magnanimous gestures from our Catholic friends, especially from the Holy Father, who well understands our longing for unity, and from the hierarchy of England and Wales. Most of all we ask for ways that allow us to bring our folk with us."

Day of Reckoning for Anglicans Amid Split Over Women Bishops

From The Times (UK)
By Ruth Gledhill

The Church of England will today be plunged into one of the fiercest debates in its 400-year history as traditionalists go head-to-head with liberals over women bishops. Church leaders will attempt to avert new splits with a compromise plan for “super bishops” to minister to traditionalists who oppose women bishops.

Liberals will fiercely resist the plan, which is being seen as an attempt to appease traditionalists in order to get women bishops consecrated.

Campaigners for women's ordination will respond with an all-or-nothing proposal to consecrate women that includes no safeguards or concessions at all for opponents.

More than 1,300 clergy have threatened to walk out if the Church goes ahead with approving the consecration of women bishops without statutory provision to safeguard the traditionalists' place in the Church.

Women and liberals insist that they would rather not have women bishops at all than have a new, extra-geographical diocese legally established as a safe haven for Anglo-Catholics.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu, are understood to favour a compromise that would avoid an exodus of the Church's Catholic wing, but they do not want the consecration of women jettisoned altogether because of the difficulties in appeasing both sides.

Dr Williams yesterday described the “agonies and complexities” facing the Church as it struggles with the issues of homosexual priests and women bishops. Preaching to members of the General Synod at York Minster, he said that, were Jesus present in the debate, he would be with every faction of the Church, including traditionalists.

“He will be with those in very different parts of the landscape who feel that things are closing in, that their position is under threat and their liberties are being taken away by those anxious and eager to enforce new ideologies in the name of Christ,” he said.

“He will be with those who feel that their liberty of questioning is under threat, he will be with gay clergy who wonder what their future is in a Church so anxious and tormented about this issue.”

His sermon, which left some worshippers close to tears, restored some faith in its mission as a Christian Church to a Synod meeting where the misery has been almost palpable, as different factions struggle to remain in communion with each other while staying true to their beliefs.

In a last-minute rescue attempt, a senior bishop will urge the Church's governing body to placate traditionalists by considering the appointment of three senior clerics to lead a “Church within a Church”. The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Right Rev John Packer, will propose an amendment that would allow the creation of complementary or “super bishops”. Traditionalist parishes would be allowed to opt into the care of the super bishops - as they can do now with flying bishops, who were set up when women were first ordained.

He is seeking a delay of eight months before the Church makes up its mind. His amendment will also allow the Church to fall back on straightforward legislation, with a code of practice, if the concept of super bishops cannot be made to work.

Dr Miranda Thelfall-Holmes, chaplain at Durham and representing the universities on the General Synod, will put down a rival amendment designed to remove altogether any protection for traditionalists and to have women consecrated by a simple measure or law allowing them to become bishops.

Christina Rees, of the lobby group Watch, which has campaigned for women bishops and who will speak in support of Dr Threlfall-Holmes's amendment, criticised Bishop Packer's proposal as unnecessary. She said: “We do not need further time. Synod is ready to make up its mind about how it wants to proceed. I am in favour of simple statutory arrangements to allow women to be bishops. Anything that muddles this and makes it more complex or changes the nature of what it means to be a bishop in the Church should be resisted.”

Under the compromise tabled by Bishop Packer, the new super bishops would have powers similar to flying bishops but with more authority. He said the proposal meant that the Church would not be divided. “The parishes that put themselves under the care of a complementary bishop would still be part of the local deanery and diocese and would continue to be funded through the diocese and to be in a structure of fellowship with their neighbours.”

The super bishops would care for traditionalist bishops and congregations in the same way flying bishops have done to date, but would also perform consecrations as well as ordinations and other pastoral duties for Anglo-Catholic parishes. This means that, in the eyes of Anglo-Catholics, the “apostolic” ministry would not be “tainted” by the hands of a woman. Traditionalists believe that the actions of Jesus in appointing 12 men as His disciples - as well as centuries of Church tradition - mean that women bishops go against Church order.

The move for a compromise came as a senior Roman Catholic priest cast doubt over claims of high-level consultations that are said to have taken place between Church of England bishops and Vatican officials in Rome. Monsignor Andrew Faley, ecumenical officer to the 22 Catholic bishops of England and Wales and the Catholic observer at the General Synod, said that no information had reached him or his bishops about such a meeting, although informal meetings took place regularly between bishops and lay members of both churches.

Bishops from both the Church of England's evangelical and Catholic wings are said to have held a secret meeting in Rome to discuss the Church's difficulties over women and gays. Up to six bishops, who have not been named, bypassed leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain to hold the consultation with officials from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican.