Pope Benedict XVI has approved a structure for admitting large groups of Anglicans wishing to come into communion with the Catholic Church
Vatican City, Oct 20, 2009 / 05:11 am (CNA).- In a Vatican press conference today, Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, announced that an Apostolic Constitution has been prepared in response to “many requests” from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful wanting to enter into full communion with the Church.
The Apostolic Constitution, which Cardinal Levada said “provides a reasonable and even necessary response to a world-wide phenomenon”, will be a “single canonical model for the universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application.”
The new canonical structure will allow former Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Church while “preserving elements of distinctive Anglican spiritual patrimony,” said Cardinal Levada. He added that it will allow married former Anglican clergy to be ordained however, in common with Catholic and Orthodox Churches, married clergy will not be allowed to be ordained bishops.
These ‘Personal Ordinariates’ will be formed, “as needed, in consultation with local Conferences of Bishops, and their structure will be similar in some ways to that of the Military Ordinariates which have been established in most countries to provide pastoral care for members of the armed forces and their dependents throughout the world”, the cardinal prefect said.
He added: “The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue which continues to be a priority for the Catholic Church, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for Promotion of Christian Unity.”
One large group of breakaway Anglicans which has been requesting a formal structure to be corporately received into the Catholic Church has been the Traditional Anglican Communion, made up of an estimated 400,000 members worldwide.
Cardinal Levada explained that this initiative “has come from a number of different groups of Anglicans.” He went on to say: “They have declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine ministry as something Christ willed for the Church. For them the time has come to express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion.”
Cardinal Levada added: “It is the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this canonical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unit of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows. Moreover, the many diverse traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: ‘There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, former under-secretary at the CDF until recently who helped draft the new structure, said: “We’ve been praying for unity for 40 years. Prayers are being answered in ways we did not anticipate and the Holy See cannot not respond to this movement of the Holy Spirit for those who wish communion and whose tradition is to be valued.”
He said there has been a “tremendous shift” in the ecumenical movement and “these possibilities weren’t seen as they are now”. He rejected accusations that the new Anglicans be described as dissenters. “Rather they are assenting to the movement of the Holy Spirit to be in union with Peter, with the Catholic Church,” he said.
Technical details still need to be worked out, and these Personal Ordinariates may vary in their final form, Archbishop DiNoia said. Full details of the Apostolic Constitution will be released in a few weeks but today’s press conference went ahead today because it had been planned sometime ago.
Cardinal Levada said 20-30 bishops have made requests, but more details will be given at a later date. Members of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity were consulted and although they were invited to attend today’s press conference, no representatives were able to attend.
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Tags: Church Life
October 20th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
More prejudice against women. Let’s see: some Anglicans protest against the ordination of women and appeal to Rome for acceptance. Rome creates an opening that allows disgruntled, anti-women, former Anglicans to “enter into full communion with the church”. Without the issue of ordination of women, neither of these parties would be even remotely interested in the other; they are bound only by their belief that women are somehow not qualified to the work of God on earth.
The church even hypocritically alters it’s own “personnel policy” by accepting married anglicans to become part of the all male, “celibate” clergy. The inconsistency is as troubling as the misogyny.
It seems the church is beginning to feel a little boxed in by the issue of who is qualified to become a priest and who is not. They are slowly giving ground on celibacy issue, and rightfully so. In time, if it isn’t too late, it will also be forced to accept women as priests also. If the church is good at anything, it is good at surviving – when the ordination of women becomes an issue of survival – and it will – women will be ordained.
To think God would have a preference of gender among our species to do His work is absurd. The Church is trying to give the impression it is being welcoming and ecumenical by opening its’ doors to this group. On the contrary, the church looks small minded and desperate by supporting a group opposed to women who are called by God to serve Him