U.S. Ordinariate announced: The Church of England Newspaper, November 25, 2011 p 7. November 30, 2011
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ordinariate, Church of England Newspaper, The Episcopal Church.trackback
Msgr Keith Newton
The Vatican has set 1 January 2012 as the start date for the Anglican Ordinariate in the United States. The announcement was made by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington on 15 November 2011 during the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) fall plenary meeting in Baltimore.
The creation of the American ordinariate follows the formation of the first personal ordinariate, Our Lady of Walsingham, established on 15 Jan 2011 for England and Wales. Led by the former Church of England Bishop of Richborough, Monsignor Keith Newton, it has approximately 1000 members in 42 congregations. Plans for ordinariates for Canada and Australia are also underway.
Created in response to requests from Anglicans seeking union with the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Ordinariate was formed in November 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI following the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus. While Anglicans had always been welcomed as individual converts to Roman Catholicism, the Anglican Ordinariate provided a way for groups of Anglicans to enter in “corporate reunion” with Rome.
Members of the ordinariates would be Roman Catholic, but would retain elements of their Anglican liturgy and heritage. They would be overseen by an ordinary appointed by the Vatican who would have a role akin to that of a bishop.
Two American Anglican congregations have already been received into the new ordinariate. In September an independent congregation in Fort Worth, Texas joined followed last month by the members of St Luke’s Episcopal Church in Bladensburg, Maryland.
The ordinariate differs from the pastoral provision established by Pope John Paul II in 1980. Under the pastoral provision, individual Episcopal priests, including those who were married, could be re-ordained to serve as Catholic priests for dioceses in the United States. It also allowed three “Anglican Use” parishes to become Catholic parishes within existing dioceses.
Members of the ordinariate will not be received into existing Catholic dioceses, but will join the new entity that preserves their Anglican liturgical traditions.
In a statement released with the announcement, the USCCB stated the Roman Catholic Church recognized multiple groups in the United States as being Anglican. It stated that “parishes that are part of the Episcopal Church belong to the worldwide Anglican Communion, under the spiritual direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury in England. Thus, they are both Episcopalian and Anglican.”
“However, other Christians in the United States identify themselves as Anglican, but are not part of the Anglican Communion. These Christians therefore are Anglican, but not Episcopalian,” the USCCB said.
The Catholic statement the Episcopal Church was under the spiritual authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury is not one that would be accepted by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The U.S. Episcopal leader has long argued her church had a unique polity that gave Canterbury no authority over its doctrine or discipline.
