Yet Another Reason for Anglicanorum Coetibus

See… this is why we need Anglicanorum Coetibus:

Church shows its feminine face as dog collars go floral.

The decision to admit women to the priesthood was always expected to change the face of the Church of England forever.

There’s more here, that’s if you can bear to read it.

Where are the good folk from Bad Vestments when you need them most?!

BTW. African Praise, the company manufacturing the above monstrosities, is based right here in Cape Town. For the sake of full disclosure, I once ordered a biretta from them. I’m yet to wear it.

 

How the Ordinariate is Healing England’s Cultural Wounds

Four hundred years after the bitter conflicts of religion, the Church is posthumously reCatholicising Archbishop Cranmer and reclaiming him for our tradition.

The Catholic Herald:

Yesterday I was in a cathedral city in the south of England, and having time to spare, and because it was raining, I decided to visit the cathedral and stay for Evensong. I am, like so many in this country, familiar with Evensong; I find it both beautiful and alien at the same time. I both love it and hate it. I only go to Evensong to listen to it, never to take part.

Evensong’s beauties are the work of Coverdale and Cranmer, two men who led the revolt against the unity of the Church, and overthrew the great work of time, the historic faith of this country. Cranmer’s liturgical reforms were not reforms in any true sense, they were a wrecking of the monastic offices and their replacement with something superficially like yet utterly alien. The Cranmerian Prayer Book provoked rebellions in England, let us remember. The West Country rebels of 1549 protested that they found the Cranmerian service that replaced the Mass no more than “a Christmas game” . The Northern Rebels who entered Durham in 1569 tore up the Prayer Book and had the Mass celebrated in the Cathedral once more. In 1596 one of my collateral ancestors, the Blessed George Errington, was hanged, drawn and quartered at York, along with three others martyrs, because of his Catholic faith, a faith he and many others simply could not recognise in the Cranmerian Prayer Book.

Thus the experience of Cranmerian English leaves me feeling conflicted. I love it and I hate it, and I feel I ought to love it, as it is so beautiful, and because it has inspired so many of our great poets, not least among whom is T.S. Eliot.

That’s why I am profoundly pleased by something that happened earlier that day in London. I attended a meeting about the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, at which Mgr Burnham, the assistant to the Ordinary, told the assembled guests that a Customary is in preparation.  This is essentially what we might call an office book, with various readings drawn from the English spiritual tradition, such as Newman’s writings from his Anglican days; but it also draws on those fine psalms and prayers used by Cranmer, with some doctrinal alterations. Mgr Burnham also spoke of the growing popularity of Evensong and Benediction amidst Ordinariate congregations.

What this Customary will do, it seems to me, is posthumously reCatholicise Cranmer and reclaim him for our tradition; it will make the Cranmerian liturgy, which I find a cause of division and conflict, into something that will bring about unity. It will mean that from now on, I need not find Evensong alien. Perhaps Dr Cranmer himself would approve. I hope so! It certainly promotes the healing of a cultural and religious wound.

The Ordinariate, which I greatly welcome, is already enriching us in many ways. Long may it continue to grow and flourish.

 

Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham

Conchurl alerts us in a comment here on the anticipated Ordinariate’s interim approved texts:

The Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham will be be released on 30th June.

Per the description:

This is a daily prayer book for the Ordinariate – those former Anglicans who have recently become a distinct part of the Roman Church. In creating the Ordinariate, Pope Benedict recognised the treasures that Anglicans brought with them from their own tradition and this book is replete with the riches of Anglican patrimony. It contains material from the Anglican tradition, adapted according to the Roman rite including: * an order for morning, evening and night prayer throughout the year * an interim order of the Mass * spiritual readings for the Christian year * the minor offices * calendar and lectionary tables For use throughout the English speaking world, this unique volume will fill an immediate need. Eventually, an authorised version of the Mass for the Ordinariate will emerge from Rome, but that is many years away.

 

Archbishop John Hepworth: ‘We tend to associate Christian life with Methodism and wowserism’

Following some good news Down Under earlier this morning, some rather not so good news:

Junior priest Peter Slipper is just a wine-loving larrikin, says Archbishop John Hepworth.

Okay? But then he gives what passes for his assessment of what constitutes the Christian life in Australia.

PETER Slipper, junior priest, political turncoat and former parliamentary Speaker, is “not naughty” but a “classic larrikin” who likes a second bottle of red, according to the archbishop who ordained him.

John Hepworth ordained Slipper as a deacon (subordinate clergyman) in the Traditional Anglican Communion in 2003, before his elevation to a priest five years later.

Hepworth, a former priest in both the standard Anglican and Catholic folds, created a storm last year when he revealed that as a seminarian and junior cleric, he was subjected to repeated rapes by Catholic clergy.

The Archbishop has suspended Slipper from his dual roles as priest and chancellor or senior legal officer of the TAC, pending the outcome of the current claims against him. (Slipper, while denying all allegations, has also stood aside as Speaker on full pay of $323,750.)

But Hepworth’s instincts are to defend him.

“I’ve always said that Peter is not naughty, but the classic larrikin,” Hepworth says. “He likes a good night out and he certainly likes a second bottle of red. It’s just an interesting phenomenon in Australian life with the Christian who drinks and is happy and so on.

“We’re uncomfortable with devoutness, and we tend to associate Christian life not with the exuberance of say, European Catholicism and Mozart high mass. We associate it with Methodism and wowserism.

“He had wanted to be a priest, I think, from university days. And as a bishop, I thought, ‘Yes, he does have the makings of a priestly vocation’. What I saw was a depth of faith and a commitment to a devout life, beyond the average.”

If Slipper is cleared of his latest trials, Hepworth believes plans will continue for a life after politics as a fully functional priest.

Can I say two things… Or make that three:

1. If this is what it means to an Australian Christian, then I’m… Actually, no, scratch that thought…
2. Thank goodness there is a coming Ordinariate (!) - to sift such erroneous teachings, the people propagating them, and to stop the wild Ordaining of unqualified men.
3. It is not very hard to see (and understand) why the man making the above statements will be received back into the Catholic Church only as a layman.

‘Methodism’?! Good grief! What’s next?

 

Australian Ordinariate Formally Announced!

It’s official! The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has made the announcement. The Ordinariate in Australia, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, will be erected on 15th June 2012.

Under the patronage of St Augustine of Canterbury. Awesome!

Download the pdf. here.

HT:   Thanks to D and Mourad for pointing the above out.