Nippon Kirisuto Seikoukai

Perhaps someone would be able to answer the following question, received from a reader after an appeal by Fr J.P.Y. on the blog today?

… could you give us any information about the Nippon Kirisuto Seikoukai? Are there any plan to join the Australian Ordinariate for instance?

Japan.

I suspect the Ordinary of the Australian Ordinariate, the Very Rev Harry Entwistle, however would be the best person to ask (and answer). Zenit (Jan 2011):

The new ordinariate will include a group of former Anglicans in Japan who are led by a retired prelate.

Or perhaps Fr Lawrence Wheeler, come to think of it?

So was the Nippon Kirisuto Seikoukai not once (or still) part of the The Traditional Anglican Communion in Japan?

Well, I had to go back into the mouldy archives (also 2011) of (the now defunct) The Anglo-Catholic blog to jolt the memory. (Go down to the comments section.) But still, I’m none the wiser… 

An Irish Ordinariate?

The Australian Ordinariate folk seems to know something the rest of us don’t. On their official website:

If you follow the link however, it leads back to the Personal  Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, which is, of course, in the USA (okay, Mrs Gyapong, Canada too).

I Googled the ‘Irish Ordinariate’ and only really came up with a blog exploring the idea, which hasn’t posted anything since middle 2011.

Even the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham (closest) doesn’t list a group or an exploration group in Ireland.

But then again, Ireland has never been a bastion of Anglo-Catholicism now has it?

Perhaps it’s but a mistake by the webmaster down-under? Or as I said, something only the Aussies are aware of at the moment?

UPDATE I:  After the above post, they have updated the tab to read ‘Irish Ordinariate -Discussion’ which takes the reader to a blog run by a one ‘Fr O’. Wonder how many ‘Fr O’s’ there are in Ireland… Can’t be too many…

UPDATE II:  Fr O with Little by little.

 

Ordination of Fr Gordon Barnier

At the St Monica’s Cathedral Cairns (last week).  I was sent and asked to share a media link that covers the Ordination. There are pictures and you can listen to the service as well.

To do so, go here.

A mp3 of the service is here (to save, right click).

Fr Gordon Barnier to be Ordained in Australian Ordinariate

Fr Gordon Barnier is the former Vicar General of the Church of Torres Strait (TAC).

On the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross website:

Gordon Barnier of the Church of the Torres Strait will be ordained to serve in the Ordinariate of OLSC. He will be ordained deacon , probably in St Francis Xavier’s Church, West Cairns at 7-00 pm on Wednesday 24th April and ordained priest in St Monica’s Cathedral at 7-00 pm on Friday April 26th. Both ordinations will be conducted by the Most Rev James Foley, Bishop of Cairns.

[HT:  Psallite Sapienter]

UPDATE:  Photos and recording of the Ordination service here.

All this while the Anglican ambassador to the Vatican, Australian Canon David Richardson, a former dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, recently held that the Australian Ordinariate will ‘not last more than 20 years’.

You can read about that one in The Canberra Times.

 

Anglican Ordinariate Secure

Leaders of the Anglican Ordinariate urged patience and restraint in light of statements by the Bishop of Argentina that Pope Francis did not favor the creation of a home for Anglicans in the Catholic Church.

George Conger reports:

In a note released after the election of Pope Francis on 13 March 2013, the Bishop of Argentina and former primate of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, the Most Rev. Gregory Venables, said Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was, in his experience, “consistently humble and wise, outstandingly gifted yet a common man” who had been a friend to Anglicans in Argentina.

Bishop Venables said Cardinal Bergoglio “called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the church needs us as Anglicans.”

He later clarified his statement noting the cardinal’s comments were more an affirmation of Anglicanism than criticism of the Ordinariate.

The report from Bishop Venables sparked controversy in the British press and speculation Francis might adopt the different tone than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. A spokesman for the English Ordinariate denied any change was in the offing telling the Telegraph the comments were Bishop Venables’ not the Pope’s.

Following the resignation of Pope Benedict last month, Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, Ordinary of the Chair of St. Peter, said: “We members of the Ordinariate are in a particular way the spiritual children of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.  Throughout his years as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and especially as Pope, the reconciliation of Anglicans to the Catholic Church has been one of his principal tasks.”

He noted that “when Pope Benedict issued the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in November 2009, he laid a permanent foundation for the Ordinariate, to be the means to reconcile Anglican groups to the Catholic Church and that this Anglican patrimony might be shared with the Catholic Church.  While the Ordinariate has been a special intention of Pope Benedict, it is now firmly established in the Catholic Church and will continue to serve as an instrument for Christian unity.”

Msgr. Steenson said the transition between Popes “should not greatly impact the work of the Ordinariate.  We should probably expect that the ordinations of our candidates could be delayed slightly, as the Pope must approve these petitions.”

Following the publication of Bishop Venables’ remarks Msgr. Steenson said he had received a number of inquiries from those “who are concerned about what our new Pope’s attitude may be toward the Ordinariates, occasioned by an anecdotal report from an Anglican bishop in Argentina.”

He reaffirmed the “real permanence and stability” of the Ordinariate within the Catholic Church, and added “but it is even more important to remember what it means to be Catholic, to have the full assurance that faith brings. Christ the Good Shepherd entrusted the governance of the Church to St. Peter and his successors. To be in communion with Peter brings a confidence we never knew as Anglicans. Pope Francis understands the pilgrim character of our communities and will be a wise and caring pastor to us,” Msgr. Steenson said.

 

Catholic Church Using Anglican Converts To Serve Parishes

In the Huffington Post (with a video report there too).

Facing a priest shortage, the Catholic Church in the United States has started turning to former Anglican leaders to fill empty parishes.

The number of Roman Catholic priests in the U.S. has dropped by about 20,000 since 1975, while the number of Catholics has increased by 17 million, CBS reports.

The shortage was stretching thin the abilities of Catholic priests, and the Catholic Church was “supersizing” as it tried to accommodate more Catholics at a dwindling number of parishes, according to a 2011 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate for the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership project.

Allowing converted Anglican priests to join the church was seen as a way to solve this shortage problem.

In an announcement that helped make this solution effective, former Pope Benedict XVI issued an edict in 2009 that created a “new structure to welcome some disenchanted Anglicans into the Roman Catholic fold,” Time notes.

At a Vatican news conference in October of that year, Cardinal William J. Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said Anglicans who wished to convert would now be able “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” The New York Times reports.

This new structure paved the way for former Anglican priests like Mark Lewis to join the Roman Catholic Church.

Lewis, who is married with two children, told CBS News that “It was like God was opening up the door for us to truly become members of the church.”

However, in a 2012 article discussing married Catholic priests in the U.S., the New York Times noted that “the married priest problem” may raise interesting questions for the faithful. (Married priests were banned by the First Lateran Council in 1123, but married converts have been allowed since 1980.)

The Times wrote:

First, are they doing as good a job as other priests? If the church has decided that celibacy confers certain gifts on priests, does it follow that married priests are worse at serving their congregations? Second, wouldn’t celibate priests be a little resentful of colleagues who get to serve the church and have sex too? And third, if the married priests are doing a good job and not provoking envy, why keep the celibacy rule for priests in general?

Still, many of the Anglicans priests — and in some cases whole congregations — who have chosen to convert to Catholicism report the transition has been relatively smooth.

Lewis, who leads St. Luke’s now-Catholic parish in Bladensburg, Md., told PBS that ultimately, converting to Catholicism filled a hole they perceived in the Episcopal Church’s theology.

“We left the Episcopal Church not because we were running away from the issues of the Episcopal Church,” Lewis said. “We left the Episcopal Church because we were running to the Catholic Church … The theology of Rome, the authority of Rome, the unity in the Holy See and in the bishops: that was appealing to us.”

 

 

Fr Carl Reid’s Ordinariate Ordination

Fr Carl Reid is a former TAC Bishop. Deborah Gyapong has the post with plenty of photos.

She also has the notes of the homily by Msgr Jeffrey Steenson here.

 

No Ordinary Year for the US Ordinariate

2012 was full of milestones for the new ordinariate, and 2013 will feature more,  including a February visit by Archbishop Gerhard Müller, prefect of the  Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

National Catholic Register:

Washington — When Father Scott Hurd, vicar general of the Personal  Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter — a home in the Catholic Church for  former Episcopalians and Anglicans — reflects back on 2012, he points to a  period of rapid and exciting growth marking its first year of existence.

On New Year’s Day 2012, Pope Benedict XVI erected the ordinariate, which  allows former Anglicans to retain certain treasured traditions within the  Catholic Church. It was created in accord with Anglicanorum  Coetibus, the Pope’s apostolic constitution permitting former Anglicans  to come into the Church corporately instead of as individuals.

On the same day, the Holy Father named Msgr.  Jeffrey Steenson, a married Catholic priest and the former Episcopal bishop  of the Episcopal Diocese of Rio Grande, as the first ordinary.

Newspapers have since featured stories of former Episcopal churches being  received into the Catholic Church as groups in beautiful Masses that included  Vatican-approved prayers that they had long cherished from the Anglican Book of  Common Prayer, a landmark of the English language.

“The joy and blessing of all these people being received into the Church is  at the end of the day what this is all about — it is about unity in Christ,” Father Hurd told the Register.

Father Hurd is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington who has a  three-year appointment to serve as vicar general to the ordinariate.

The ordinariate recently received an especially high-profile former  Episcopal priest, Larry Gipson, former dean of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of  the Advent in Birmingham, Ala., and also former rector of the 8,000-strong St.  Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, where former President George H. W. Bush  and his wife, Barbara, were among his parishioners.

The former Episcopal rector, who holds a master’s degree in divinity from  Yale University, hopes to become a Catholic priest.

Three Ordinariates

The Chair of St. Peter is one of three ordinariates for former  Anglicans.

The Personal Ordinariate of Our  Lady of Walsingham, under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman, one of  the great English converts, was established in the United Kingdom in 2011. (A  group of Anglican  nuns just joined the Church in the Walsingham Ordinariate). The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the  Southern Cross, under the patronage of St. Augustine of Canterbury, was  established in Australia in June.

The Chair of St. Peter also administers a newly created ordinariate deanery  in Canada, which  Rome approved in December. Msgr. Steenson appointed Father Lee Kenyon, a  former Church of England priest who brought his entire Anglican parish into the  Catholic Church in 2011, as dean of Canada’s new Deanery of St. John the  Baptist.

“It has been an amazing year,” said Susan White of Arlington, Va., a former  Episcopalian who is active in the ordinariate. “Every time I turn around, there  is news of more folks, clergy and lay, swimming the Tiber, their carefully  preserved Anglican treasures tied to their backs to offer to Rome. We are so  blessed to be able to bring our riches with us.”

Eric Wilson, a former Episcopalian who is now a communicant of St. Luke’s  Catholic Church in Bladensburg, Md., echoed that sense of gratitude: “It’s been  a tremendous blessing this year to experience firsthand Pope Benedict’s vision  for Christian unity being lived out on a daily basis.”

St. Luke’s parishioners entered the Catholic Church last summer, after an  intense period of discernment.

“Whether it’s the many holy priests we’ve seen ordained or the hundreds of  converts growing in the faith, the ordinariate’s success has exceeded all  expectations — a sure sign that the Lord is at work,” Wilson said.

The Year Ahead

Looking forward, Father Hurd added, “To a certain degree, next year will be  more of the same. There are communities in transition, and some still in  discernment [as to whether to become Catholic and part of the ordinariate], and  we have a second wave of clergy aspirants who are starting the process.”

As of late December, the ordinariate included 1,600 laypeople, 28 priests and  36 communities. There are 69 additional applications from men who hope to become  Catholic priests of the ordinariate.

Deacon Ken Bolin, 38, a West Point graduate and military chaplain who has  served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is among those candidates who have already  completed their priestly formation and expect to be ordained as Catholic priests  through the ordinariate this March.

“The ordinariate is a great answer to Christ’s prayer that we should all be  one,” said Deacon Bolin, a transitional deacon, who holds the rank of major in  the U.S. Army.

Currently stationed in Anchorage, Alaska, he hopes to be ordained in March.  He is especially excited that he has been granted permission to be the priest  who performs the rites of initiation when his wife, Sharon, and their three  children are welcomed into the Church.

The ordinariate makes it possible for married former Episcopal and Anglican  clergymen such as Deacon Bolin to become Catholic priests. But, eventually, the  ordinariate will have a celibate priesthood.

The ordinariate — which is something new in the history of the Catholic  Church — also devoted 2012 to establishing legal and organizational policies to  build a foundation for future growth. It will soon have income from parish  assessments similar to diocesan assessments. “

Now that we have reached this point, we will be on a firmer financial  footing,” Father Hurd predicted.

Diocesan Generosity

Father Hurd stressed that the generosity of Catholic dioceses and  ordinariate staff members — many of whom work without pay — has made the  ordinariate possible. He expressed gratitude to the U.S. bishops for their  financial and spiritual support.

While some ordinariate priests, such as Father Mark Lewis of St. Luke’s  Catholic Church in Bladensburg, Md., who is renowned for his preaching and the  high caliber of music at his church, are able to function full time as clergy,  others mostly rely on income generated from work in Catholic institutions such  as schools or diocesan offices.

“Anyone who puts forth an application to become an ordinariate priest must  have an adequate source of income to take care of his family,” said Father  Hurd.

While the ordinariate has spent a lot of energy on establishing a secure  foundation, it has been buoyed by many promising developments. Recently, it  received an anonymous donation of land to build its first chancery. The donor  spent $5 million to purchase five acres adjacent to the ordinariate’s principal  church, Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston.

The ordinariate is seeking additional donors for construction of the  chancery. It currently operates out of a small office at St. Mary’s Seminary in  Houston, where Msgr. Steenson teaches theology, with most of its small staff  scattered around the United States. Father Hurd said that quite a few members of  the staff have donated their time free of charge.

The ordinariate is planning a pilgrimage to Rome for priests and families in  February. “We will set out to discover the apostolic foundations of the Church  of Rome, to participate in the wonderful tradition of Lenten stational Masses  organized by the Pontifical North American College and to meet some of the  architects of the ordinariates,” Msgr. Steenson reported in an online “update  from the ordinary.”

He also expressed the hope that the pilgrimage to Rome would include an  opportunity to thank the “Successor of St. Peter himself for the gift of Anglicanorum Coetibus.”

Archbishop Müller’s Visit

A symposium on the ordinariate is planned for February at St. Mary’s  Seminary in Houston, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, who played an  essential role in establishing and supporting the ordinariate, and Archbishop Gerhard Müller, the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and  secretary to the Anglicanae Traditiones commission, will be featured  speakers.

“The three ordinariates operate under the aegis of the Congregation for the  Doctrine of the Faith,” explained Father Hurd, “and for Archbishop Müller to  make his first U.S. visit as head to the symposium is not only a great honor for  us, but also a vote of confidence for the great things that have happened over  the last year.”

Ordinariate Pilgrim

Ordinariate Pilgrim is a quiet blog I that came across for the first time today, by Scott Anderson.

On February 2nd 2012 I was received into the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. I was 62 years of age and had been ordained in the Church of England for 37 years. I have the privilege to live at the moment the life of a Catholic layman, dividing my time between England and France. This means that I have three spiritual homes: the London (South) Ordinariate group provides me with Sunday worship, the friendship of fellow Ordinariate pilgrims, and a growing sense of mission within the parish of the Most Precious Blood at Borough; then for the daily Mass the Jesuit Parish of the Sacred Heart, Wimbledon with its huge and lively congregation, musical tradition and great preaching; and finally the parish of Notre Dame des Etangs in Picardy, where I have found a welcome, singing with the choir, occasionally playing the organ, and generally improving my french!

With many other former Anglicans I give thanks for the very direct welcome that Pope Benedict XVI has given to us, by setting up the Ordinariates. It is always good to feel wanted, in any aspect of life, and not least in the Church…

Visit it here.

HT: Ordinariate Expats

 

Bishop Brian Marsh on Portsmouth Petition, the Apostolic Constitution and the Ordinariates

I find myself linking to Fr Anthony Chadwick for the third time today (previous posts here and here). In this post, he questions Bishop Brian Marsh of the Anglican Church in America (TAC) as follows re. the Portsmouth Petition:

It would be very useful for me to be able to publish a testimony in retrospect about what the TAC bishops understood when they (I think you were not among them at the time) when they went up and signed the books and the letter.

The good Bishop replied and emphasised that he is giving his personal reflection, and others may take issue with him.

Well, this is his response, which I simply repost here without comment.

Thank you for your good email; I am pleased that you are attempting to discuss the issues of the Portsmouth Petition, the Apostolic Constitution and the Ordinariates in a reasoned manner. A full understanding of this aspect of the church’s history will need the gift of time. Until then, however, we can – and should – offer our provisional understandings of the events that have unfolded since the Portsmouth Petition of 2007, just over five years ago. I would emphasize that this is a personal reflection and represents my own views on the matter. Many of these thoughts have been published elsewhere.

Portsmouth Petition. Although I was not present at the signing of the Portsmouth Petition, Bishops Langberg and Williams signed for the ACA. The text of the petition was not publicized until months later. I did not know of the contents of that petition until it was delivered orally by Archbishop Falk at a meeting of several ACA bishops in 2008. That meeting was held in Fort Worth. Also present were bishops Iker and Wantland of The Episcopal Church. Upon hearing the text, it was my impression that the petition sought “organic unity” with the Roman Catholic Church on a corporate basis. Indeed, that is what I and others had been led to believe was in fact on the table. Archbishop Hepworth had encouraged the belief that the Traditional Anglican Communion would remain intact and that the various national churches would maintain their corporate identities.

The Portsmouth Petition was just that – a petition. To suggest that it was a contract of any kind would be to misrepresent the intent of the document. The Portsmouth Petition was a request on the part of some members of the College of Bishops, a request for a means whereby the TAC might enter into unity with the RC Church.

The fact that members of the TAC College of Bishops signed the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church has caused many to believe that the bishops present were ready to enter the Church of Rome. This is not the case. The signing of the Roman Catholic Catechism as the most complete statement of the catholic faith was simply a statement of fact. The subsequent statement that the bishops aspired to teach that catechism in no way implied their full acceptance of the catechism nor their intent or desire to become members of the Roman Catholic Church. While there were undoubtedly some bishops present who wished to do just that, the simple signing of the catechism does not imply their wish to become Roman Catholics.

Apostolic Constitution. The issuance of Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009 was greeted initially with great rejoicing on the part of many within the TAC. It seemed that our dream of organic unity would be realized. Indeed, Archbishop Hepworth declared that it was a direct response to the Portsmouth Petition and that the TAC should move immediately to accept it. He lobbied extensively for the acceptance of the Apostolic Constitution.

While there are many threads in this part of the story, it became clear to several of us that the Apostolic Constitution did not offer the kind of organic union we had hoped for. Indeed, the Apostolic Constitution offered individual conversion. The corporate integrity of the TAC would not be a consideration. This was not what the Portsmouth petition had requested in its perhaps naive request for corporate unity.

The College of Bishops of the TAC needed to discuss and debate the matter of the Apostolic Constitution. As the highest legislative body of the TAC, such discussion and debate would be required before the AC could be acted upon. Archbishop Hepworth did not immediately call such a meeting. When he did plan a meeting for 2011, he abruptly cancelled it. Finally, in February, 2012, a majority of members of the College of Bishops met in Johannesburg South Africa. By unanimous vote, the TAC College of Bishops rejected the Apostolic Constitution. A petition had been sent to Rome. Rome responded. The response was not accepted.

Ordinariates. Ordinariates were established in the UK in 2011. On January 1, 2012, an Ordinariate was established in the United States. A few hundred “former Anglicans” have entered the Ordinariate established here, along with some former Episcopalians.

The Anglican Church in America has continued as an orthodox Anglican body. It has developed strong relationships with other continuing church jurisdictions and has entered into an agreement of reconciliation with the Anglican Province of America.

Although individuals are welcome to seek membership in the Ordinariates, until now few have chosen to do so. We certainly wish those who have entered Ordinariates godspeed! We pray that they will be happy with the choices they have made. We believe God has called us to labor in another part of the vineyard and we will attempt to do so as best we can.

Again, please know that this is a personal reflection. Others may well take issue with what I have written.

+Brian Marsh