Regular posts on this website are being suspended

When you have read this post, please go to the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog and add it to your favourites/bookmarks.

Now that the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog and the Society’s website are fully up and running, the regular update of this site is being suspended. You will find all the material you otherwise expected here (and much more!) on the new blog. This site will be maintained as an archive.

Already we have two authors on the new blog (Deborah Gyapong and myself, David Murphy) and we are in the process of recruiting many more, who will provide us with a rich variety of posts from multiple perspectives.

It may interest you to read some of the most impoortant parts of our blog policy:

• All ACS blog authors are members of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society.
• Original articles, reblogged items and comment on the blog should deal with subjects which concern the Anglican patrimony, the Anglican tradition in the Catholic Church, the Ordinariates, the Pastoral Provision, ecumenism with Anglican churches, and related matters. We are not a forum for more general Catholic topics if they do not have an obvious Anglican connection.
• Blog posts should be supportive of the Ordinariates and Pastoral Provision communities and have a positive, constructive tenor. Criticism can be made wisely (and sparingly) but always with a constructive undertone.
• Readers’ comments will be enabled. These will however be vetted first and must comply with the above criteria before being approved. Comments will not be allowed to degenerate into an argument between commenters.

We hope you enjoy the new blog and encourage you to join the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society yourself and support our work to promote the Anglican patrimony in the Catholic Church. You will find a membership form on our website.

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May 1st, 2017 – deadline for “Shared Treasure” IV.5

By now you may have had a chance to read the first two issues of the journal of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society, Shared Treasure. If not, they can both be accessed from this website: the link to the first issue can be found in the side bar at the right and the second issue was posted below on March 8th.

By the way, you might find the numbering of these two issues (Volume IV, Numbers 3 and 4) a little confusing, but it was decided to continue the numbering from the former journal, Anglican Embers. All editions of both journals can be found in the archive on the AC Society’s website ( http://www.acsociety.org ).

We hope you will agree that the journal is providing an important service to the Ordinariates and Pastoral Provision communities. Already a number of articles have been promised for the next issue, which will appear at Whitsun Embertide. However, if you yourself are interested in doing some serious or scholarly writing on the Anglican patrimony or related themes, you are very welcome to do so.

The deadline for submitting articles for Shared Treasure IV.5 is May 1st, 2017.

And don’t forget to become a member of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society in order to have immediate access to future issues of the journal and to support the work of the ACS through your subscriptions and donations (for example, the more revenue we have, the more complimentary print copies of the journal we can send out to interested partners, or seminaries, colleges and universities – Catholic and Anglican). The membership form and a means of payment via PayPal or US Dollar check/cheque can be found on the Society’s website (see above).

From the Four Quarters – Lent 2017

Click here to read the second issue of the newsletter of the Benet Biscop Chapter of Anglican Tradition Benedictine Oblates attached to St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville.

Walsingham Association at Most Precious Blood

(from the UK Ordinariate website)

The branch of the Walsingham Association, based at Most Precious Blood Church at The Borough, London Bridge (www.preciousblood.org.uk ) is now flourishing.

Members meet on the first Saturday of each month for Mass followed by an update on Walsingham news, refreshments, and discussion, finishing with the Angelus. With the Spring arriving, a Rosary Walk will be added. All are welcome to join the group for the first of these Rosary Walks, and the blessing of the small statue of Our Lady of Walsingham which will be carried to its place in a local garden: Saturday April 1st, 10 am, Mass at Most Precious Blood Church (nearest tube: Borough or London Bridge).

The group has noted that the date is April 1st, and are happy to be “holy fools” launching a Rosary initiative on that day!

(To join the Walsingham Association or to find local branches, click here to acceed to the Association’s website.)

Monsignor Barnes – Welcome to the Ordinariate

(from Mgr. Edwin Barnes’ blog)

Mgr Andrew Burnham (in the Catholic Herald) had some very helpful comments about Philip North and the options before him, There was one sentence, though, that worries me. He suggests that an Anglican Priest seeking to join the Catholic Church has two routes, If he comes with a group of Anglicans he might join the Ordinariate, but otherwise he must use the Diocesan route.

Now certainly ‘Anglicanorum Coetibus‘ begins by being concerned with groups approaching the Holy See; but it is not and cannot be interpreted as applying only to group submissions. If it were, then the whole Ordinariate project would have no future – yet it was not set up by Pope Benedict as just a temporary measure. Priests die, and there must be replacements for them. Slowly the Ordinariate might produce its own ordinands. Before then, individual priests (or bishops) seeking union with the See of Peter should look first to the Ordinariate. Just as any lay person with Anglican previous can seek to join the Ordinariate, so can any Anglican minister. There will be no certainty of Catholic Ordination until he has first become a Catholic. Then if he wants to be ordained into the Catholic prieshood he should first approach the Ordinary. In some cases there might not be an obvious opening for him in the Ordinariate, and he will be advised to seek help from a Catholic diocesan bishop. But there are and must surely continue to be many opportunities and needs for new priests within the Ordinariate. Some existing groups are struggling simply because their pastor is single-handed, and has many other responsibilities besides his Ordinariate group.

Not all Anglican clergy wanting to become Catholic priests have any hope, realistically, of bringing a congregation with them. There are chaplains to schools, hospitals and other institutions where such group submissions are impossible. There are parishes where at best only a handful of lay people might agree with their Vicar on this issue. The important thing is that the Ordinariates must become ever more approachable and flexible, always opening doors to those outside the Catholic Church – and to some inside it, too.

Monsignor Andrew Burnham writes in the Catholic Herald on Philip North’s withdrawal as Bishop of Sheffield

The CofE’s trajectory is now obvious. Orthodox believers – you’d be very welcome here
by Mgr Andrew Burnham, Catholic Herald, 11 March 2017

Bishops take part in the laying on of hands as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, presides over the consecration of Rachel Treweek as Bishop of Gloucester in 2015 (Getty)

When the Crown nominated Philip North to be Anglican Bishop of Sheffield, such was the campaign in the press and in social media that he has now withdrawn his acceptance of the post. (cf. this article in The Guardian  and Bishop North’s statement – Ed)

His nomination was the second test of the Church of England’s Five Guiding Principles for Mutual Flourishing, enabling those who take different positions on the admission of women as bishops, priests, and deacons to live alongside one another. The first test had been the appointment in 2015 of Rachel Treweek as Bishop of Gloucester. She was fast-tracked to take a seat in the House of Lords. Memorably, she rejected the first version of her writ of summons which referred to her as a “right reverend father in God”, thus neatly underlining the rejection by the Church of England of patriarchy.

When the fuss dies down, I think traditional Anglo-Catholics like Philip North really should come home to Rome. They would be very welcome and, though there are battles here too, it is very possible to get on with mission and ministry without fighting gender wars.

I left the Church of England when, in 2008, it became clear what the inexorable trajectory had become. Wherever it leads, it doesn’t lead to orthodoxy and will always be shipwrecked on the rocks of secular liberalism and cultural Marxism. Secular liberalism rejects the Church’s notion of the complementarity of the sexes – male and female having separate and distinct roles within the economy of salvation – and cultural Marxism would do away entirely with the biblical teaching on marriage and the family. Both liberalism and Marxism reject the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.

North had stayed on in the Church of England, at the time of the establishing of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011, giving as his reason the strategic role of the Church of England in the mission to the English. It is true that the Church of England is tactically well-placed for mission but, to succeed, it has to preach the Gospel. If pastors like Philip North are not permitted to take a leading role in the thrust of the Church’s mission, they should come over and find a natural place in the Catholic Church.

There are two very clear routes into the Catholic priesthood. One – the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham – is for pastors who bring groups of people with them. The other is the diocesan priesthood. Both contexts offer abundant opportunity for mission and ministry. Needless to say, a man of the calibre of Philip North would bring enormous energy to the Church.

As a former bishop in the Church of England, responsible for congregations in the West and South West, I am delighted that many good priests and some very courageous lay people made the journey with me in 2011. Plenty more stopped behind, hoping for more favourable conditions. It is clear that these can never be available. It is also clear that the task of the Church of England, having made the decision about women’s ministry, is to focus its energy not on making space for minorities to flourish in its structures – that battle is lost – but on working in the vineyard.

Monsignor Barnes writes on Anglo-Catholic Bishop Philip North

(from Mgr. Barnes’ blog)

An Honoured Place

What possible right does a Roman Catholic priest of the Ordinariate have to make any comment on events over the fence in the Church of England? I think I have two pretty good reasons for writing just now; first, because I was there when the Church of England said that catholic Anglicans held and would continue to hold an honoured place within it. That was one of the reasons I felt it right back in 1995 to try to make that promise a reality, and accepted the post of Bishop of Richborough. Then we were told that the Church of England could not determine finally what was right concerning women’s ordination. We were in a time of discernment, until all the Churches, Eastern and Western, came to a common mind. Today the inability or unwillingness of the Church of England to allow an Anglican with doubts about the rightness of women’s ordination to become a diocesan bishop seems to be a breach of those promises, one more nail in the Anglo-Catholic coffin.

That would be reason enough for me to express an opinion; but there is another reason I presume to write now. When Philip North trained for the ministry at St Stephen’s House, I was its Principal. In his year the academic achievements of that small college were outstanding. Of a handful of candidates who entered for degrees in Oxford University’s Honours School of Theology, four were awarded Firsts. One of them is Philip North. There are few Bishops, Anglican or Catholic, with a more impressive academic grounding. There are even fewer with Philip’s generous pastoral heart.

As he withdraws from the post of Bishop of Sheffield, to which he was recently nominated, I simply want to express my sadness for Philip, and for the Church of England. It is no joy to any Christians when fellow Christians are hurt – when one member suffers, every member suffers. If the Church of England is diminished by the activities of a so called ‘liberal’ group, intent on driving out any who disagree with them, then all the Churches are wounded too. Worse still, it is a wound in the Body of Christ Himself.

Then pray for the Church of England, and for Bishop Philip. He wants a place where he can minister to the poor and the neglected for whom he has an especial care. Pray that he may find that place. Pray for the women in ministry in the Church of England, many of whom have tried to support and encourage Philip, and have valued his pastoral care – even while others have refused his ministry. Pray too for the whole Church of God, all baptized Christians, for a spirit of penitence and reconciliation in this holy season of Lent