Anglican Choir to Sing for the Pope

The Westminster Abbey choir will join the Sistine Chapel Choir in Rome this week:

Westminster Abbey choir is to make history this week by singing at the Vatican just under two years after performing for Pope Benedict XVI on his visit to Britain.

The 20 boys and 12 adult singers will become the first to join forces with the Pope’s personal choir, the Sistine Chapel Choir.

The two choirs will sing at First Vespers in the Papal basilica of San Paulo Fuori Le Mura – St Paul Outside The Walls – on Thursday and at the Papal Mass in the Vatican Basilica of St Peter’s the following morning, on the feast day of St Peter and St Paul.

The Cappella Musicale Pontificia “Sistina” was founded more than 500 years ago and is made up of 20 men and around 35 boys.

The trip to Rome by Westminster Abbey choir comes after its singers performed for the Pope at an evening prayer service in the abbey attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams during the Pontiff’s visit to England and Scotland in 2010.

The invitation to the Anglican choir – the first time another choir has joined forces with the Sistine Chapel Choir in its history – has been viewed as a “highly significant” ecumenical gesture.

The Pope, an accomplished pianist and a keen classical music fan, is said to have asked that the music reflects the “Christian vocation” of the singers and encourages the “mutual exchange of gifts” between the two traditions.

The choirs will combine to sing music from the Roman tradition by Palestrina and Perosi. The abbey choir will sing music from the English choral repertory, including some from the English-language tradition at the beginning and end of of each liturgy.

The singers will also give a public recital in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, and a festal evensong in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. They will then travel to the Benedictine monastery at Montecassino to sing Vespers and Mass with the monastic community at the burial place of St Benedict.

The Dean of Westminster, The Very Rev Dr John Hall said: “This visit, a fruit of the Pope’s visit to Westminster Abbey in 2010, will both celebrate the riches of the liturgical tradition we hold in common and also, we pray, be a powerful symbol to the wider world of movement on the long ecumenical journey towards full visible unity.”

 

Traditional Anglican Communion Congregation Becomes Catholic

Dcn Greg Kandra on his fantastic (in other words read: highly recommended) blog, The Deacon’s Bench (yes, again) has the news:

Great news from my home state (h/t to Fr. Scott Hurd):

The sign outside Christ the King Church is currently blank, still a work in progress. Like all things at the tranquil, leafy site of this Hampton church, it’s in a state of transition.

“White-out doesn’t work on these signs,” Father Edward Meeks said with a laugh.

Father Meeks, like a third of his congregation, grew up Catholic. And this weekend, Meeks and his congregants will return to the church. Meeks will be ordained by Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl in a ceremony at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington. Then, in a Sunday morning mass, his congregation will be received into the Catholic church.

Meeks, 64, is the fourth Anglican priest in Maryland to be ordained in the Catholic church since a 2009 directive by Pope Benedict XVI established the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter to receive Anglican churches that wished to transition to Catholicism but still keep some Anglican traditions.

The most important allowance is that priests who move from the Anglican to Catholic church can still be married, per special dispensation from the Vatican. Meeks has been married for 41 years to wife Jan, who serves as his secretary.

The pope’s 2009 move and the actions since then have been in the works for more than three decades, since Pope John Paul II began allowing Anglican parishes into the church. Thirty former Episcopal priests are scheduled for ordination this summer nationwide, and 30 more are set for next year.

Meeks began the process as quickly as he could. Last April, Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, a liaison to the ordinariate, asked interested Anglican priests to submit detailed dossiers, including resumes, his baptismal certificate and his marriage certificate.

In January, Meeks was given the green light to head to St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston for a weekend retreat then came home for 13 weeks of training “to kind of round out our catholic theology to address those issues of Catholic formation that might be lacking,” he said.

Meeks was raised Catholic, but left the church in the 1970s, a period he called “a time of great conflict and turmoil in the church.” About a third of his congregation, he said, was also raised Catholic.

“I wrongly concluded that the church was starting to lose its way. I realize now that’s impossible,” he said. “The holy spirit is always in the church.”

Of the 140 people in Meeks’ congregation, only about 10, he said, have not yet opted to join him in the move.

The Anglican church has faced some splits in the last several years over social issues, including the election of the first gay bishop in 2003. However, Meeks said Christ the King’s move was based merely out of a desire for apostolic authority.

“We have always been on what I would call a kind of catholic trajectory. By that I mean that our theology, our doctrine, our liturgy have all had a decidedly Catholic flavor,” he said, adding that his church has been “seeking for a long time a way to be in full unity with the Catholic church.”

The move, he said, “is a very important step in regards of undoing some of the damage of the Reformation.”

Read the rest.

Christ the King Church has a smart-looking website here.

I must also quickly make mention here of a most thoughtful (and kind) comment made yesterday by Bishop Louis Campese (in case you missed it) on this blog regarding Fr Ed Meeks’s ordination:

Praise God and how proud I am, as one of my former priests, Fr. Meeks, was ordained , today… Fr. Meeks is one of the most humble, honest and loyal priests I have had the privilege of having in my diocese… He was and still is an awesome priest, father and friend…PAX + Bishop Louis Campese

 

The Pastoral Provision Still in Operation

I’ve often heard it mistakenly said that the Ordinariate will somehow surpass the Pastoral Provision (of 1980). This is not so. They are two different routes. Whereas the former is aimed primarily at ‘groups’, the latter was established chiefly to meet the requests of individual Episcopal (Anglican) clergy who sought to enter into full Communion with the Catholic Church. Where laity chose to follow such a priest, a local ‘Anglican-use’ community could be established; but more often than not, a priest would simply be incardinated into a local Catholic diocese.  In the USA, since 1983, more than 100 men have been ordained for priestly ministry in Catholic dioceses, while only three (that I know of) personal parishes have been established.

The Pastoral Provision, under Bishop Kevin W. Vann, actually has a rather nicely revamped website whch you can look at over here. It well makes the point:

Even with the establishment of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, the Pastoral Provision remains available for individuals and married former Episcopalian priests to become Catholic priests in a diocese.

I was reminded of the above when I read ‘Maine’s newest Catholic priest is the son of an Episcopal priest’ over on The Deacon’s Bench earlier:

He’s also married with children, and took a remarkable path into the Church and the priesthood.

Details:

When David Affleck was ordained earlier this month as Maine’s newest Roman Catholic priest, his wife, Katherine, sat in the pews at Portland’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Wait, what?

A Catholic priest who’s married? With children? That can’t be right.

Except it is.

Affleck, 62, of York, is a former Episcopal priest who took advantage of a 1980 papal provision that allows him and others like him to become priests in the Catholic Church.

Only a handful of such ordinations take place in the U.S. each year. In Maine, it’s happened just three times in 32 years, and Affleck is the only current convert. One died, and the other has left the church.

“It is indeed rare for a pastoral provision to be sought and granted,” Bishop Richard Malone said in a statement. “The Church takes a great deal of time and energy to know that the man in question is truly being called to the priesthood and completely understands the responsibilities and ministry within the Catholic Church.”

The trend, however small, is less a reflection of relaxed requirements of the Catholic Church and more a sign that fewer men are joining the priesthood, said Monsignor Michael Henchal, a Catholic priest in Maine for nearly 40 years. Aside from Affleck, only one other priest has been ordained this year. There are now more retired priests in Maine (86) than active priests (69). Affleck is needed.

That’s not to diminish his resume. He has a master’s degree, a doctorate and more than 15 years of priesthood under his collar. When parishioners of St. Raphael in Kittery, St. Christopher in York or Our Lady of Peace in Berwick see Affleck at the front of their church, reading Scripture and offering Communion, they see a man of distinction and conviction.

Some may not even realize he hasn’t taken the vow of celibacy that traditional Catholic priests must take.

“People have been very welcoming, they have been accepting,” he said during an interview last week at his modest parish office in Kittery. “If there are people who are bothered by this, they haven’t said so.”

Mitch Picard of York is a parishioner at St. Christopher and the current chairman of the parish council. He said he hasn’t heard from any parishioners who have objected to Affleck’s ordination or his background.

“It almost went unnoticed because he was a deacon for a year,” Picard said. “Now, he just has a different role at the altar.”

Affleck’s journey from the Episcopal Church to the Catholic Church is nuanced, but he speaks of it thoughtfully.

Read on to find what happened.

The Pastoral Provision route is both longer and harder, or so it would seem. The sponsorship of a local Catholic diocesan Bishop (rather than approaching the Ordinary) must be sought. Evaluation and formation is rigorous and stringent, culminating in written and oral examinations. The informative Pastoral Provision Manual entitled: ‘Into Full Communion’, which can be downloaded (pdf.) here, has further details.

Fr Christopher Phillips, who is (most) knowledgeable and has firsthand experience with the issues at play here, has written on this subject before:

… Speculation about the continuation of the Pastoral Provision office under the able leadership of Bishop Vann, running parallel to the Ordinariate under the leadership (also able, we hope) of an Ordinary, has led to guessing as to the reason why this will be.  Some commenters on this blog have concluded, after hearing Cardinal Wuerl, that the Ordinariate will be only for those clergy who enter with a group of laity; whereas the Pastoral Provision will be for those solitary clergy who come with no community.  Respectfully, I would assert that is not the case.  The divide is not to be determined by whether there is a parish or community entering with a cleric.

Anglicanorum coetibus makes it clear that Anglican patrimony is the definitive reason for an Ordinariate to come into being.  Pope Benedict XVI stated that there is a three-fold objective when it comes to this patrimony: that it is to be preserved, that it is to be nurtured, and that it is to be shared with the wider Church.  This is what should determine the path for an incoming Anglican clergyman.  If a man is dedicated to the ideals outlined in the Apostolic Constitution, the Ordinariate is the place for him; if he is not especially interested in our Anglican patrimony, proceeding through the Pastoral Provision into diocesan ministry would be more appropriate.

One path is not better than the other.  They simply are different, and are intended to accommodate people’s different spiritual journeys.  The same is true for the laity – there are some who find that their best spiritual home is in the local diocesan parish, while others find strength and sustenance in a spirituality which reflects our patrimony.

Even at the beginning of the Pastoral Provision, these two paths were evident.  A majority of the Pastoral Provision priests have carried on fruitful ministries in diocesan parishes and chaplaincies, with no reference whatsoever to the Anglican Use.  Others of us felt called by God to establish parishes and communities in which we could do what the Ordinariates are now coming into existence to do.

Just because a priest has an Anglican background, doesn’t mean his place is necessarily in the Ordinariate – in fact, I remember a former Episcopal priest who had entered into full communion with the Church just before I did, who said (referring to the fact that we were bringing a separate liturgy with us), “They should give up those things, and become real Catholics.”  I hope that attitude is a thing of the past, but it indicates that the Ordinariate wouldn’t be the best place for that particular priest.

The Holy Father is giving us an opportunity to use our liturgy, our devotional life, and our particularly Anglican approach to the Faith, as a tool for evangelism and a means of helping to bring about Christian unity.  To fulfill that mandate, the Ordinariate needs clerical leadership which is committed to the vision outlined in Anglicanorum coetibus.  It takes more than simply coming from an Anglican background.  It requires a commitment to the raison d’être of the Ordinariate.

While the Pastoral Provision for former Episcopalians is limited to the United States, there are former Anglican clergy who have become married Catholic priests in other countries too.

 

I Don’t Think I Would Do This…

Actually, scratch that, I’d never do this:

Source

He must be Orthodox… or something…

 

Former Charismatic Episcopal Bishop Ordained for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter

Yes, again, HT to Stephen Cavanaugh:

Former Charismatic Episcopal bishop Randy Sly is ordained on June 23rd to the Catholic priesthood by Arlington, Virginia Bishop Paul S. Loverde at Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church in Potomac Falls, Maryland. Father Sly is Associate Editor for Catholic Online (www.catholic.org) and CEO for the Catholic Online Virginia Edition – North. Father Sly was ordained for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.