This is a question that has been addressed in various ways
to the Torbay Mission, after they began fundraising to buy a former Methodist chapel
in Torbay. I would like to respond to this question and offer my own thoughts as an
aid to understanding.
Just recently, I was at a study weekend and met there an
American lady who asked how the Ordinariate was doing in this country. I
explained that quite a number of Catholics had expressed their concern that we
were buying property. She said that she thought that was strange. In her home
town within one square mile are four catholic churches: an Eastern-rite
Catholic church, a church run by Franciscans, a Church known as the Irish
Church, and another known as the Italian Church. She said everyone understands
we are in full communion with each other yet have different cultural
expressions of our Catholicism, and even have a separate rite (as in the case
of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church). In a way this is what the Ordinariate
Church in Torbay will be; a different cultural expression of Catholicism, that
will compliment not conflict with the existing provision.
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| Eastern Rite Catholic Bishops |
I suggest that the Ordinariate needs to run churches in
order to be able to fulfil its mandate and calling. This has already happened
in the Archdiocese of Westminster and the Archdiocese of Southwark where parish
churches have been handed over to the pastoral care of the Ordinariate. So the
Ordinariate provides clergy and serves the local Catholics in their own
distinctive manner. This has added to the diversity of what the Catholic Church
offers the faithful.
The Ordinariate was established as a way of responding to
the teaching of Vatican II in its documents on the Church and Ecumenism (Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio respectively). It is also a logical
development of the work of dialogue (especially ARCIC). Amongst other things, in
Lumen Gentium the Vatican II fathers
addressed the issue of the status of bodies of Christians outside the full
communion of the Catholic Church. The Council affirmed the three bonds of
communion in the Church, namely the shared faith (guaranteed by the
magisterium), the shared sacraments, and, the participation in the hierarchy of the
Church (not least being in full Communion with the Successor of Peter). Separated
Christian churches are Christian bodies that only partially share in those things.
The Vatican II fathers recognised that separated Christians did have good
things of grace and holiness in their lives as Christians. They also endorsed a
form of ecumenism which would help our Christian brothers and sisters to grow
in understanding Catholic truth, the fullness of which could only be found
in the Catholic Church.
Building on the teaching of Vatican II, the official
dialogue with Anglicans began with ARCIC. Over the years ARCIC met to discuss
various matters of faith to try to find common ground and to understand more
clearly our differences.
Significantly in their Common Declaration of 2 October 1989,
Pope St John Paul II and Archbishop Robert Runcie, added a further dimension
when they stated in a common declaration:
Against the background of human disunity the
arduous journey to Christian unity must be pursued with determination and
vigour, whatever obstacles are perceived to block the path. We here solemnly
recommit ourselves and those we represent to the restoration of visible unity
and full ecclesial communion in the confidence that to seek anything less would
be to betray our Lord's intention for the unity of his people. …The ecumenical
journey is not only about the removal of obstacles but also about the sharing of
gifts.
Ever since the reformation, individual Anglicans had sought
to be restored to “visible unity and full ecclesial communion”. Perhaps in
England one of the most well-known was Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman? But
for some time groups of Anglicans have been petitioning the Holy Father for corporate
reunion; to be united not as individuals but as a body. Not obviously the whole
of the Church of England, but groups of Anglican clergy (including bishops) and
their people. This is something the American Catholic Bishops responded
favourably to in the 1990s with their Anglican use parishes (it has to be said
that the English Bishops resisted this idea preferring that Anglicans be
received individually). However Anglicans continued to petition the Holy Father
for corporate reunion rather than individual reconciliation. As one former
Anglican Bishop (now a monsignor) put it, “We asked for something Catholic
(i.e. corporate reunion) and we had been only offered a Protestant answer
(individual reunion)!” Eventually the Holy Father could no longer ignore the
requests and he (Pope Benedict XVI) tasked the CDF with finding a way of
responding positively. So after much secret discussions (with a number of Anglican bishops) the Apostolic
Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus,
was published that enabled a new type of unit (known as a particular church) within the church where Anglican
clergy and their people could come into the full communion of the Catholic
Church, and yet retain their identity as groups.
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| Pope Benedict with Her Majesty during his Apostolic visit to England & Scotland |
This retaining of their identity within the Ordinariate
would enable members to respond to what Pope St John Paul II and Archbishop Runcie
had expressed in their common declaration: “The ecumenical journey is not only
about the removal of obstacles but also about the sharing of gifts.” The
sharing of gifts now became a realistic possibility with the creation of the
Ordinariates. It was now possible for Anglicans to become Catholic and to hold
on to traditions that were compatible with Catholic magisterial teaching. These
could include liturgical patrimony, pastoral practices, attitudes to mission,
spiritual tradition etc. Not only could they find a home in the Catholic Church
but from there they could be shared with their other Catholic brothers and
sisters. This would be something to enrich the Catholic Church.
So you might begin to see how the Ordinariates are a
fulfilment of the teaching of Vatican II without denying the errors of
Protestantism declared in the Council of Trent. In the creation of the
Ordinariates, mother Church has enabled groups of separated brethren to find a
familiar home within the Catholic Church. She has called the Ordinariates to
become a home from home for Anglicans who seek full communion. Of course she does
this without compromising the three bonds of communion (faith, sacraments and
communion with the Pope). Mother Church also gives more to Anglicans
becoming Catholic, than they are able to bring with themselves, for she gives
them the fullness of the grace available, the illumination of magisterial
teaching and the communion of a truly universal Church. However the
Ordinariates have a vision and a mission, and it is this that really requires
them to be able to have distinctive church communities.
So when in Torbay the Methodists decided to sell off one of their
chapels an opportunity arose. The market value was extremely reasonable and with the chapel came
great facilities. The Torbay Ordinariate Mission saw in this opportunity a
chance to be able to live out Anglicanorum
Coetibus, the teaching of Vatican II on the church and ecumenism, and the
various teachings and declarations by popes and Archbishops of Canterbury.
I would suggest therefore that local Catholics need not feel
threatened or upset that Anglicans, who have become Catholic in the Ordinariate, have sought to fulfil their calling through the conversion of a Methodist
Chapel into a Catholic Church of the Ordinariate.
This new Church will not be in competition with the Catholic
Diocese but complimenting it through offering distinctive liturgy, a different
approach to living as a Christian community and being a place where Anglicans
can find a home from home. And in no way should anyone think that the
Ordinariate is suggesting that all Catholics should be doing it this way, but simply
there is room enough for a different and distinctive expression of Catholicism that
is faithful to the magisterium of the Church, makes available the sacramental
life of grace for all Catholics, and which is undoubtedly in full communion
with the Holy Father.
As the Papal Nuncio reminded us at the Ordinariate’s Chrism
Mass (2015), communion is a significant part of what the Ordinariate is about, and communion is the first stage of mission. We must grow in unity
which is a gift of Christ and His prayer of Maundy Thursday. As Christ said at Easter, “As the
Father sent me, so I send you”. Mission begins in the relationship between
Christ and His Father, the communion of the Trinity. In the Trinity there is
diversity of Persons within the complete unity of being, so also in the Church,
there is legitimate diversity of expression within the unity of the Church, a
unity of faith, sacraments and hierarchy.
Please then pray for the Ordinariate and support us in
whatever way you can. We, clergy and people of the Ordinariate, have faith in
this new way of doing ecumenism and the vision of Pope Benedict, and seek to fulfil
it alongside our brothers and sisters in the Catholic dioceses of England and
Wales. We delight to assist the dioceses of England and Wales in whatever way we can be helpful, but we also have a particular calling within the New Evangelisation, as part of the conversion of England under the name of Our Lady of Walsingham and under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman.
Jesu mercy; Mary pray.
Fr Ian Hellyer
Pastor of the Buckfast Ordinariate Mission
