Thursday 7 June 2012

I'm sorry, but this is profoundly irritating

Does anyone else find it somewhat disappointing that when some (thankfully, by no means all) of our friends and former 'colleagues' find a new ecclesial home they begin to refer to 'Anglican ministers' or 'vicars' instead of the terms they would once unfailingly have used to describe those in Anglican orders? It becomes even less explicable when they are part of a body which makes an entirely convincing claim to be able to offer a secure and lasting place for orthodox Anglican patrimony and the only guaranteed safe haven for the Anglo-Catholic tradition.
I understand the precedents; didn't Bl John Henry Newman use precisely this kind of terminology? Yet this is not the nineteenth century; the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus go out of their way to recognise the displaced catholicity of many in the Anglican Communion, not to mention the undoubted progress that had been made towards reconciliation before 'the dedicated followers of fashion' threw additional roadblocks in its path.
Before anyone comments, I'm fully aware of the  statements of the Catholic Church on the subject of Anglican orders from Apostolicae Curae onwards. I'm also aware that because of Anglican innovations (the historical irony is painful - so much for 'the constant Tradition of the primitive church' in Bramhall's phrase) the subject will never now be re-examined. Yet those who were once in Anglican orders know better than any that, even if they now have reasonable doubts about the form or intention of their erstwhile ordinations, they were originally ordained as 'deacons' or 'priests', not 'ministers' or 'vicars.'
I say this extremely reluctantly and without any wish to be confrontational or to seem in any way whatsoever 'anti-Ordinariate', just to point out that the minority who express themselves in this way are in danger of provoking unnecessary antagonism among those who wish them and Pope Benedict's initiative only well. If someone so sympathetic to the Ordinariates can have this reaction, what must be its effect on those who are more undecided?
Of course, it may be said (by some it is often said) that the truth is meant to hurt, and that an uncompromising expression of the ecclesial realities may prove a spur to immediate action, yet the first impression given to those on the receiving end is one of a calculated rudeness and discourtesy, and perhaps to sense in those concerned to dole out this 'speaking of the truth in love' more of an overriding desire to find acceptance in their new home rather than any more pressing evangelistic motive towards those they have left, hopefully temporarily, behind.
I would guess that most Anglo-Catholics (for want of a better term) who remain pro tem in Anglican structures are concerned less about the possible defects of Anglican ordinations than about the contemporary and - because of its loss of even a claim to apostolicity in holy order - irrevocable apostasy of a Communion which seemed to be on a path of  theological convergence both with Rome and Orthodoxy.
But the last word on this should probably go to St Francis de Sales, not an unsuccessful evangelist in the heartland of Calvinism itself, who remarked that you can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with ten barrels of vinegar.

14 comments:

  1. Sadly, I could not agree with you more. I find it rather pathetic.

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  2. Perhaps there could also be a lot more charity shown by the Catholics who remain for the present in the Anglican Church. You know - the ones who talk about traitors, who cut them off (very applicable unfortunately to Forward in Faith) and go out of their way to be hurtful. For those who are members of SSC and Catholic League whose very beings are for union with the Holy See - what are you playing at?

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  3. Yes, I wholeheartedly agree - there should be charity and forbearance on both sides.In terms of the time scales: we need to be patient - this is an expressedly open-ended process and will take time to work itself out.

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  4. I should add that there is a profound sense of paralysis, unreality and indecision as Anglican Catholics ponder their options. Not everyone is in a position to up sticks and leave, but attacking or denigrating those with whom we are in agreement on all the important issues which face the Church is not the way forward.

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  5. Father, I so agree with your blog. I have been thoroughly disheartened by the attitude of some folk who a few months ago were Anglican priests and are now Ordinariate priests. There seems to be a certain arrogance which I find very distatseful from a few of the Ordinariate but thankfully not all. There seems to be a complete lack of understanding that not all of us can just up sticks and go no matter how much we support the Ordinariate. Amongst the group I co-ordinate some of the laity have serious doubts as much as they hate the current trends in the CofE. These doubts are not helped by the attitude of some(buy I stress not all) Ordinariate priests.

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    1. Why if you agree do you post this as it does seem to be a few that worry you (I wonder what number that is, one two?)
      If you really are leading a group to explore then find the positives and forget the negatives.
      After all Father you are very unhappy with the way your church is moving on many many issues. Stop fighting or is the fight better than the cause?

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    2. "Stop fighting or is the fight better than the cause?" I'm not going to put words into Fr Mervyn's mouth, but you are sadly mistaken if you believe that the battle against theological liberalism and relativism is a battle which is being fought just within Anglicanism. Could it be said perhaps that it is important even to fight to the bitter end - at whatever cost - for Catholicism in the Anglican setting so as to help protect the Faith in its wider context, including that of the Ordinariate itself?

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  6. On our little blog, we generally try to steer clear of this potential controversy. It would be too easy to fall into the trap of giving unintended offence to one group or another.

    Anyone who has joined the Catholic Church naturally wants to draw some kind of line between where they were and where they are, and no doubt we don't always express that as appropriately as we might. For any times when the Marylebone blog has erred in this way, I gladly apologise. You are absolutely correct that it is unhelpful to seem to rejoice in phrases like Anglican minister.

    Any such line drawing must be done in a way that will not cause offence, and even more importantly, in a way that will not put people off following on what we perceive to be (and I admit that I do) the right path. There is no call to deny anyone's Anglican past, in fact we are called to give great thanks for it, for it brought us to where we now are. None of this is to to say that in the future, the CofE isn't giving itself many more problems in this context (and much more grist to the mill of anyone who wishes to say "Anglican ministers"), but we are not required to talk about that, instead we are talking about our shared history, our shared Patrimony of course, as past and present Anglo-Catholics.

    Having overheard people who are still Anglicans feeling that the use of unhelpful terminology was, of itself, a reason not to join the Ordinariate, we put this article up on our blog a month or two ago.

    http://maryleboneordinariate.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/dont-misunderstand.html

    I hope it clarifies the point, frankly but without giving offence, being the same point that you made: Rome is bending over backwards to show how much it values the Anglo-Catholic tradition, and is offering a home for those whose Anglo-Catholicism is now forced to inhabit increasingly stony ground.

    If any brutally frank wording is called for, it would be in the context of where the CofE is going (and there I think you and I, and Fr Jennings above, would agree), not of where the CofE has historically stood. Some people confuse the two, and this confusion is at the heart of the issue.

    Please, no-one should be put off by unfortunate wording. The arguments about joining the Ordinariate are about a call to unity, about the Catholic faith: they are not about whether some people use terminology that could be improved.

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  7. I entirely agree with you that the real point at issue is that the Anglican Communion no longer stands where it historically did - hence my point about the irony of Anglican innovations now standing in the way of any further substantive progress towards unity between Canterbury & Rome (or indeed, Constantinople)
    However, we all need to be careful to keep the doors of friendship open and the bridges to unity unblocked. A too-aggressive repudiation of one's former tradition (not that you and the vast majority of others are guilty of that) simply raises additional barriers before those who are still struggling to make sense of their present ecclesial predicament and cannot at present see their way to joining the Ordinariate. But the same strictures apply equally, of course, to those Anglo-Catholics who remain Anglican and are tempted to make ridiculous (and inaccurate) comments about desertion and worse.

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  8. We should not that the official site of the ordinariate of OLW, referring to Anglican Priests on some of its groups pages uses the term: "Fr. X (Anglican)".
    And yet the term "minister" is the term found in the rubrics of the BCP...

    + PAX et BONUM

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    1. Yes, indeed, it does - where the officiant could be in any of the three orders of ministry. The preface to the Ordinal of the 1662 Prayer Book says this:

      "IT is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Which offices were evermore had in such reverend estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same; and also by publick Prayer, with Imposition of Hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful authority. And therefore, to the intent that these Orders may be continued, and reverently used and esteemed, in the Church of England; No man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in the Church of England, or suffered to execute any of the said functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following, or hath had formerly Episcopal Consecration or Ordination..."

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  9. I have to say I understand both sides of the argument in relation to this issue and to be frank I believe the phenomenon of which you speak is unhelpful. Speaking as a cradle Catholic, thus not having a dog in the fight so to speak, I have (while still fully accepting, and indeed agreeing with, Apostolicae Curae) a benign agnosticism with regards to certain strains of Anglican orders. The best exposition on the subject that I have ever read was a series of blog posts by Fr Hunwicke (whom I have never referred to as other than Father, up until his diaconal ordination two weeks ago) back in 2010 on the subjects of the requirement for valid transmission of Holy Orders and Apostolicae Curae.

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  10. I'm afraid that chickens are now coming home to roost! Anglican Orders are fine and perfectly valid within the Anglican Communion.
    Ordination into the Ordinariate requires validation of those orders so that Catholics everywhere know that the sacraments they celebrate are valid and licit in the Catholic context. Sorry, Father (Anglican), but you can't change the rules. if you want to be a 'Catholic' priest, as opposed to an Anglican 'priest' you have to accept the discipline and rules of the Catholic Church.

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    1. Yes, the chickens have been well and truly ensconced in the chicken coop and fast asleep for a while on this one.
      If you read what I have said consistently here and elsewhere on this blog carefully you would realise that I wasn't for one moment questioning the need for Catholic ordination for those who are called to exercise priestly ministry in communion with the See of Peter - and for the reasons you give: my post was only questioning the terminology a small minority of those so ordained were employing to describe their former brethren. Let's not make this minor dispute about matters of courtesy into anything more substantial.

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