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Today, the Roman Catholic Church released an “Apostolic Constitution” offering a way for some orthodox Anglicans to enter into a full communion relationship with the Roman Catholic Church while preserving some aspects of their Anglican heritage. This action recognizes how deeply broken the Anglican Communion has become as a result of the abandonment by some Anglican leaders of historic Christian teaching and discipline. Like the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church in North America – of which ANiC is a part – has also provided a means for those within North America to remain faithful Anglicans.
“We are encouraged to see the Archbishop of Canterbury working with the Vatican to accommodate these Anglicans,” said the Right Reverend Donald Harvey, moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada. “We urge him to do the same for us by joining with the Anglican Primates who have already officially recognized and endorsed the Anglican Church in North America.”
The Most Reverend Robert Duncan, Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America also responded, saying in part, “We… thank God for the partnership that orthodox Anglicans have long enjoyed with the Roman Catholic Church… While our historic differences over church governance, dogmas regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary and the nature of Holy Orders continue to be points of prayerful dialogue, we look forward to an ever deepening partnership with the Catholic Church throughout the world.” “While we can’t know the full significance of the Vatican’s move until we have fully reviewed and considered the content of their ‘Apostolic Constitution’,” adds Bishop Harvey, “the three questions I am most interested in seeing answered are:
1. “Will the Roman Catholic Church require Anglican priests who choose this option to be re-ordained?
2. “Will people who accept this invitation have to subscribe to Roman Catholic dogmas to which the Anglican Formularies are diametrically opposed – such as “Papal Infallibility”, the “Immaculate Conception” and Transubstantiation?
3. “Will Anglican priests – especially married ones – choosing to accept the Roman Catholic Church’s invitation have equal status with existing Roman Catholic clergy and will their ministry be interchangeable and welcomed in Roman Catholic parishes?”
After hearing the news today, an ANiC priest wrote Bishop Harvey: “As for me and my house, we will remain ever faithful to the authority and primacy of the Holy Scriptures and the Faith and Order of the undivided Catholic Church. I need not become a Roman Catholic to be a Catholic Christian. As an Anglican, I am a Catholic Christian.”
“A quote from the English reformer John Jewel (1522-1571) sums up where I believe we in ANiC stand,” says Bishop Harvey. “Jewel said: “We have returned to the Apostles and the old Catholic Fathers. We have planted no new religion but only preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the Apostles of Christ and other holy Fathers of the Primitive Church.””
Today, ANiC numbers 32 parishes with 3500 Canadians in church on an average Sunday. Members of the Anglican Network in Canada are committed to remaining faithful to Holy Scripture and established Anglican doctrine and to ensuring that orthodox Canadian Anglicans are able to remain in full communion with their Anglican brothers and sisters around the world.
ANiC is under the Episcopal authority of Bishop Donald Harvey and is a diocese in the Anglican Church in North America which unites over 100,000 faithful Anglicans from across this continent
As a Roman Catholic priest, here are my attempts at initial answers to Bishop Harvey’s three questions, based on Catholic teaching and quotes from the Note from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith here: http://212.77.1.245/news_services/bulletin/news/24513.php?index=24513&lang=it
1. “Will the Roman Catholic Church require Anglican priests who choose this option to be re-ordained?
The CDF note does speak of “ordination” of former Anglican clergy. I’ve heard speculation about the possibility of conditional ordination in particular cases, but one will have to wait for the text of the Apostolic Constitution to see.
2. “Will people who accept this invitation have to subscribe to Roman Catholic dogmas to which the Anglican Formularies are diametrically opposed – such as “Papal Infallibility”, the “Immaculate Conception” and Transubstantiation?
Yes. Those seeking full communion with the Catholic Church make a profession of faith that begins with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and then concludes as follows:
“With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.
I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.
Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.”
3. “Will Anglican priests – especially married ones – choosing to accept the Roman Catholic Church’s invitation have equal status with existing Roman Catholic clergy and will their ministry be interchangeable and welcomed in Roman Catholic parishes?”
On this issue, the CDF note gives the following initial details:
“The forthcoming Apostolic Constitution… 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.”
Fr. Terry
I as do other Anglicans I have spoken to believe only God’s Word is above question and no mortal, no matter his calling can claim infallibility. Add the Roman Church’s obsession with Mary and I see the two major issues that would prevent me from considering membership in the RC Church.
Personally I see this as an opportunity to exploit division in Anglicanism. Cardinal Ratzinger has been quite clear in the past about his view of, amongst others, Anglican Ordinations. If they are regarded as not valid then how can he view anyone from ++Rowan down as anything but men (and women) masquerading as priests. This is payback, four centuries late.
The Fox is in the Hen-House! BUT -there’s a new rooster in town
#2 I don’t disagree with you , Steve.