September 21, 2012 4 Comments
An ACCA Ad Clerum written by the Chancellor, Sandra McColl, has kindly been passed on to me. I share it as a news item:
You can read it in pdf. here.
TAC Priest in South Africa.
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News Headlines
I feel that the tone of the Chancellor’s “Ad Clerum” letter is just a tad contrived. After all this can hardly have been unexpected. After all, Fr[Mr] Owen Buckton has been listed as the Ordinariate contact for Rockhampton on the Australian Ordinariate web site for some days.
I am personally happy with Sandra’s Ad Clerum , lets not worry about small details. As a former Priest Collegue of Fr Owen Buckton I thank him too for all the work he has done in the ACCA/TAC, not only Parish Ministry I am talking about , but also for his contribution as producer and editor of the TAC Messenger , with his skills as a former journalist and his webdesign skills.
He has been under enormous pressure , and I wish him God;s blessing in his future Ministry in Rockhampton. My prayers go with Fr.Michael Pope as he sets out in his new appointment.
Revd.Fr.Ed Bakker OPR
Bendigo
Australia
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Four other priests were ordained for the OLW Ordinariate yesterday, two in Bournemouth and two in the North. One of the ordinands in Bournemouth was from the once TAC parish of St Agatha’s in Portsea, now part of the Portsmouth and Isle of Wight Ordinariate Group.
The homilist at the Ordination Mass was was Mgr Edwin Barnes (qoundam Principal of St Stephen’s House and former Anglican Bishop of Richborough). This is what he said:-
Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham
under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman
Homily of Monsignor Edwin Barnes
for the ordination of Brian Copus and John Maunder
to the Sacred Priesthood
Saturday 22 September 2012
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.
These words are not unfamiliar to you, John, or to you Brian; you have read them many times, and they were almost certainly said for you on another occasion, the day you were set apart within another ecclesial body. You heard them, and like me you believed that we were being ordained in a part of the Universal Church; indeed, as an Anglican, Brian, you will often have assented when being inducted or licensed to a cure of souls. The Church of England, said the bishop, is part of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and you would have said you believed that was true.
Gradually, though, we have become less convinced. Perhaps it was true for our part of the Anglican Communion where we were serving – but our neighbours down the road had a quite different idea of what constituted a church. Could it be that they were right and we were misguided? That the reformation was not the disaster which we thought it was, but the great renewal which it claimed to be? It is as though we were polar bears on some great ice-floe, and now the temperature was changing and we were threatened with nowhere to bring up our young in safety. Perhaps the bishop who ordained us held the opinions that we held; but many did not, and do not, and we began to worry that the faith could not just be a matter of opinion.
For many of us, the problem was one of authority. Who was the one who was sending us on the Lord’s behalf? Where did his authority come from? Above all, when there were disagreements within the Church, who made the final decisions? President Truman I believe it was, had a notice on his desk which read “The Buck Stops Here”. But our experience was of the buck being passed, rather than stopped. So the response by Pope Benedict to appeals from clergy and people in all parts of the Anglican Communion – especially those parts which the Anglican Communion was reluctant to recognise – came as a mighty relief.
This is not the time to recall how Anglicanorum Coetibus was received – or resisted.
Enough to say that many of us here today embraced its provisions with huge enthusiasm. Here was a bishop, a chief pastor, the pastor of pastors, who understood our needs. Like the father of the prodigal son, he met us more than half-way. Today, as these priests receive the chasuble, perhaps we can see the image of that father in the gospel who said “put the best robe on him”. There is nothing mean or half-hearted about the Holy Father’s reception of former Anglicans; and that generosity of spirit has been copied across the Catholic world. Wherever we go as members of the Ordinariate we are finding a welcome; not always complete understanding, but a welcome. We are very new, and people will take time to work us out. But already they are glad we’re here.
When they join our little groups in worship, they do not complain at our idiosyncrasies; instead they say things like “I enjoyed the hymns today” or “It’s good to have the Angelus again”. We are not trying to score points, or show how much better we think we are than those who have been Catholics for many years. Instead we know we have a great deal to learn, and our priests especially are on a long road of instruction – a course which we all welcome because it gradually may make us better priests. Many of the priests here today will be at Allen Hall on Tuesday, on the next part of their journey of instruction.
Today John and Brian, you are denying nothing of your past. The Holy Father himself has said how he recognises and affirms your previous ministry. What you are receiving is a fulfilment, a completion, of a ministry which even at its best was always limited.
There is a little document which indicates how things are now different. When as a
priest you travel abroad, perhaps on holiday or visiting friends, you may carry with you a celebret, a little document which authorises you to say Mass in the Catholic church wherever you may be. As an Anglican I have conducted worship in Copenhagen in Florence and in Malta, on each occasion substituting for an Anglican chaplain. Particularly in Italy and in Malta, it was apparent what a small affair our church was. Then last February some of us went on pilgrimage to Rome; and the whole experience was different from anything we had experienced before. For you Brian, in particular, it was memorable, for you and Bärbel were received into the Church in the very place which had been John Henry Newman’s titular church as a Cardinal. We said Mass in Santa Maria Maggiore and even in Saint Peter’s itself – and there before the Confessio we sang ‘Praise to the Holiest’.
So today is a completion; for the group from St Agatha’s, Portsea (how Fr Dolling must be rejoicing) and the group from Southbourne. It is not just that you now have another Catholic priest in your midst; you yourselves are a part of that sending which Fr John and Fr Brian are being given. As the Father sent Jesus, so the Lord sends us, priests and people. Our former church was right in this: the Church is always intended to be Apostolic. That means it believes what the Apostles believed, teaches what the Apostles taught. More still, it knows itself to be “apostled” that is to say, sent out. In the coming years the Holy Father expects great things from us, and we must not disappoint him. Our way of life, above all our worship, must commend us to others, especially to our Anglican friends and neighbours. By every means, whether a single baited line or a great embracing net, we are to fish for men and women. We have no choice in the matter: we are sent, and dare not disobey.”
It struck me that what Mgr Barnes said to the ordinands in Bournemouth also apply to those embarking on the same journey of faith elsewhere.