Anglican Group Faces Uncertain Future as Ordinariates Begin

From VirtueOnline

By David W. Virtue

A personal ordinariate offered by Pope Benedict XVI for traditionalist Anglicans has divided the American branch of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) - the Anglican Church in America - causing an irreparable schism in that body of Anglo-Catholics.

The Traditional Anglican Communion was formed in 1991. Archbishop Louis Falk served as its first primate. He was succeeded in 2002 by Archbishop John Hepworth of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia. The TAC exists in Africa, Australia, the Torres Strait, Canada, Central and South America, England, Ireland, India, Pakistan, Japan and the United States. The vast majority of its members are in India and the Torres Strait.

The TAC is not recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury and is independent of the Anglican Communion. The TAC upholds the theological doctrines of the Affirmation of St. Louis (1977) with its members self-described as Anglo-Catholics in their theology and liturgical practice. Some parishes use the Anglican Missal in their liturgies. The TAC is guided by a college of bishops from across the communion and headed by an elected primate. TAC churches separated themselves from Anglicans principally over the ordination of women, liturgical revisions, the acceptance of homosexuality and the importance of tradition.

The Pope's offer to orthodox Anglicans, however, has produced unintended consequences.

U.S. Traditionalist Anglican Group Votes to Enter Catholic Church

From LifeSiteNews
By Patrick B. Craine

The Anglican Church in America (ACA), the U.S. branch of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), announced yesterday that they will seek communion with the Roman Catholic Church under new Vatican guidelines released in the fall.

The TAC and Forward in Faith are part of a movement of Anglicans seeking a more Biblical and traditional Christianity than what has come to be espoused within the Global Anglican Communion. They have reacted in particular against the Communion's decision to ordain women as priests and bishops, as well as the approval of homosexual activity, such as the ordination of practicing homosexuals and the blessing of homosexual unions.

The ACA's House of Bishops met this week in Orlando with the Primate of the TAC, Archbishop John Hepworth. They were also joined by representatives from Forward in Faith UK and from “Anglican Use” Catholic parishes, the latter who have already united with Rome under previous pastoral provisions.

“At this meeting, the decision was made formally to request the implementation of the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in the United States of America by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” a press release reads.

Anglicanorum coetibus was released in November, as promised by the Vatican in October. The Constitution provides for the mass entrance of groups of Anglicans through the creation of personal ordinariates that would allow them to preserve much of their Anglican tradition.

The Vatican constitution was a response, in particular, to a request from the ACA's umbrella group, the Traditional Anglican Communion, for such a means of corporate entrance into the Church.

The TAC branch in the UK, with approximately 20 parishes, was the first to accept the Vatican's offer, doing so within days of the Constitution's release. In the middle of February, the Australian branch of Forward in Faith, another traditionalist group of Anglicans, formally thanked the Vatican and called for the establishment of an ordinariate in Australia.

There are four ACA dioceses across the US, with approximately 100 parishes.

Conservative Anglican Group Moving Toward Union with Rome

From Catholic World News

Anglican Archbishop John Hepworth, the head of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), has reported substantial progress toward the goal of entering into communion with the Holy See. The Australian prelate reported that he would soon meet with officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and then with the Anglican bishops who have joined him in a petition to be accepted into the Catholic Church.

Under the terms of Pope Benedict’s apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, Archbishop Hepworth observed, Anglicans now have the opportunity to become Catholics while maintaining their identity. “The ball is in our court,” he said. “We asked for this and this is what we got.”

“This becoming Anglican Catholics, not Roman Catholics,” the archbishop continued. He noted that the Pope’s policy allowed for the Anglican bishops entering the Catholic Church to retain “those revered traditions of spirituality, liturgy, discipline and theology that constitute the cherished and centuries-old heritage of Angli­can communities throughout the world.”

Archbishop Hepworth recognized that some Anglicans object to the Vatican’s demand that all the bishops and priests of the TAC must be conditionally re-ordained, in light of the Catholic stand that Anglican orders are invalid. TAC members may contest that stand, Hepworth said, but should recognize that “we ourselves moved beyond the Anglican Communion in order to ensure the validity of sacramental life. Rome is now seeking the same assurance.”

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

• Ordinariate: the sceptics ‘are eating humble pie’ (Church Times)

First Group of "Traditionalist" Anglicans in Britain Votes to Enter Catholic Church

From LifeSiteNews
By Hilary White

In a move that is a surprise to no one, the UK branch of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), the largest of the groups that broke away from the mainstream Anglican Church over the ordination of woman and the latter's support for active homosexuality, has been the first to formally accept the offer of Pope Benedict to enter into communion with the Catholic Church en masse.

Although the TAC is not large, being made up of only 20 or so parishes, the vote by the group to accept the invitation is expected to be a strong symbolic blow to the mainstream Anglican Church in its motherland of Britain, where it has been a leader in the acceptance of woman clergy and homosexuality. It is widely acknowledged that the Vatican's decision to extend its hand to traditionalist Anglicans comes in response to repeated requests, made public last year, by the TAC.

In a surprise announcement on October 20, the Vatican said that a document was being prepared that would create "personal ordinariates" that will allow "traditionalist" Anglicans to come into the Catholic Church in groups while retaining their liturgical and pastoral traditions, including the possibility of a married clergy. William Cardinal Levada, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the move had come in response to many requests from Anglicans around the world, clergy, laity and bishops, who objected to the growing acceptance of homosexuality in Anglicanism, especially in North America and Britain.

The website of the TAC in the UK reported last week, "This Assembly, representing the Traditional Anglican Communion in Great Britain, offers its joyful thanks to Pope Benedict XVI for his forthcoming Apostolic Constitution allowing the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Holy See, and requests the Primate and College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion to take the steps necessary to implement this Constitution."

The leadership of the Traditional Anglican Community in Canada told LSN in an interview late last month that the life and family issues are a major factor in the attraction of the Catholic Church. Bishop Carl Reid of the Traditional Anglican Communion in Canada, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN), "When it comes to issues of morality, especially family and pro-life, our membership is very strongly on the same page as are Roman Catholics."

The pope's offer to Anglicans who adhere to traditionally Christian moral doctrine has infuriated the left in both the secular and religious worlds. Benedict XVI has been attacked most recently by former Catholic theologian and notorious opponent of Catholic moral teaching, Hans Kung, as well as innumerable journalists and editors who see the move as the Vatican turning back the ecclesial clock towards a pre-1960s traditional style. Kung accused Benedict, his former university colleague, of ecclesiastical "piracy" and said that the move undermines the decades-long work of "ecumenical dialogue."

John Allen, the leading American "liberal" Catholic journalist in Rome, gave a more sedate analysis, saying that the invitation to the Anglicans who are in agreement on the nature of truth, doctrine and biblical inerrancy, is indeed part of the pope's greater plan to combat the growing secularist "dictatorship of relativism" that the pontiff has warned is undermining the very structure of our civilization.

"Benedict XVI is opening the door to ... traditionalist Anglicans in part because whatever else they may be, they are among the Christians least prone to end up, in the memorable phrase of Jacques Maritain, 'kneeling before the world,' meaning sold out to secularism," Allen wrote in a column today.

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, an American priest-blogger with connections inside the Vatican, has commented that with this decision (one that was fought by many bishops in his own Church), the pope has earned the title, "Pope of unity."

The Anglicans who may take advantage of the new "canonical structure," Zhusldorf wrote, "are Christians who are separated from clear unity with the Church. Pope Benedict stresses the importance of his role as Pope as being one of promoting unity. It is not just that they a Christians who tend to agree with him. They are separated. He is trying to reintegrate them."

"If we are going to fight the dictatorship of relativism," Fr. Zuhlsdorf continued, "we need a strong Catholic identity. If we are going to evangelize, we need a strong Catholic identity. If we are going to engage in true ecumenism, we need a strong Catholic identity. Liturgy is the key component in his 'Marshall Plan' for the Church."

Dissident Anglicans Poised to Join Catholics

Disaffected Anglican priest Graeme Mitchell hopes and prays he will become a full member of the Catholic Church. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

From The Age (Australia)
By Barney Zwartz

NEARLY half a million dissident Anglicans are on the verge of rejoining the Catholic Church in a move their leader suggests may be the beginning of a flood to Rome of millions of Anglicans worldwide who oppose gay and female clergy.

Vatican officials are believed to have recommended to Pope Benedict XVI that he accept the Traditional Anglican Communion under a special category, and an announcement is expected in April.

West Australian Catholic newspaper The Record yesterday reported the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to recommend to the Pope that he create a "personal prelature" for the TAC, which leading Anglicans confirmed.

Reunion would be the most important advance in Catholic/Anglican relations since 1553, when "Bloody" Queen Mary briefly returned England to Catholicism. The mainstream Anglican Church is also holding discussions with the Vatican, but they are not close to union.

If the Pope agrees, the TAC, which has a large number of married bishops and priests, would answer to the Pope but keep their existing structure, clergy and some elements of Anglican identity. At present, the Catholic Church has only one personal prelature, the ultra-conservative Opus Dei.

The TAC's primate (global leader), Adelaide-based Archbishop John Hepworth, said yesterday: "We are quietly and optimistically waiting for an answer. All 60 bishops accept the role of the Pope, the Catholic catechism and the traditional claims of the church, and want to be part of it."

The TAC has more than 400,000 members in 41 countries, and is not in relationship with the mainstream Anglican Church. In Australia, it has about 1600 members.

Archbishop Hepworth said if the Pope approved, the TAC would be a beacon for Anglicans around the world dreaming of doctrinal stability and unity.

Representative of the disaffected Anglicans is Father Graeme Mitchell, who is hoping to join his fourth church, but says this time "I feel like I'm coming home".

Married with two children, Father Graeme began life as a Presbyterian, followed his mother to the Anglican Church, and in 1987 was one of the founders of the breakaway Anglo-Catholic Church of Australia.

This year, Father Graeme — parish priest at St Mary the Virgin in Caulfield South and registrar of the TAC diocese of Australia — hopes and prays he will join the half-million other former Anglicans as a full member of the Catholic Church.

His disillusionment with the Anglican Church began mounting in 1987, when the Melbourne synod made the Catholic sacrament of confirmation optional. "It seemed to me a betrayal of what I'd been brought up to in the Catholic faith," he says.

Anglican Traditionalists Wait For Vatican Ruling

From The Church of England Newspaper

AN ANNOUNCEMENT on the Vatican's relationship with the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) may be made following the July 16-Aug 3 Lambeth Conference, sources in Rome tell The Church of England Newspaper.

Leaders of TAC, home to over 400,000 Anglo-Catholics who have left the Episcopal and Anglican churches over the past thirty years, have been in talks with the Vatican over creating an Anglican-rite enclave under the authority of the Bishop of Rome.

While the curia under Pope John Paul II had opposed attempts to bring Anglicans en masse into the Roman Catholic fold, under Benedict XVI the Vatican appears to have adopted a different line. Anglicans wishing to be received into the Catholic Church are welcome to do so, as individuals, rather than as part of a larger ecclesial body. The talks between TAC and Vatican , however, have focused on allowing whole groups to enter the Catholic Church while maintaining their own orders and liturgy.

The National Catholic Register reported that "discussions at the Vatican on devising a possible structure for [TAC] to come into communion with Rome are understood to be nearing completion." It added that during their May 5 meeting, Archbishop Rowan Williams asked Benedict that "any potential announcement be delayed until after the Lambeth Conference."

However, a spokesman for Dr Williams told CEN the report was untrue. The TAC issue "didn't come up with the Pope," a press spokesman for the Archbishop said.

The Rt Rev David Moyer, former president of Forward in Faith USA and a Bishop in TAC, also declined to comment on the negotiations with Rome , stating only that "We in the TAC are on our knees for something positive to happen.We remain very hopeful."

The Bishop of Fort Worth, the Rt Rev Jack Iker -- who is currently in Rome on study leave -- told The Church of England Newspaper "conversations with TAC - and others-have taken place at high levels in the Vatican and that it is thought that the Pope is sympathetic to the dilemma of traditionalists in the Anglican way."

However, no formal dialogue exists between TAC and the Congregation for Promoting Christian Unity -- the Vatican agency tasked with ecumenical relations.

Speculation on a possible Anglican enclave within the Catholic Church comes amidst a tightening of views on women bishops within the Church of England. One traditionalist leader speculated that the House of Bishops' decision to go ahead with women bishops without providing safeguards for those opposed, may have been predicated on the calculation that the Catholic Church would resolve the women clergy issue for the Church of England.