For anyone who might be wondering what happened to the Anglican parish of St James in Darlington which was said to be interested in Pope Benedict`s offer of an Ordinariate to Anglicans unable to stay in the Church of England you can now find out directly as they have their own website. You can find it here. They are still on their way into full communion with the Holy See!
4 comments:
I wonder if we weren't being too optimistic when the Pope made his very generous offer? On reflection, we should have been more cautious, and we should, for a moment, have tried to see things from the point of view of Anglican clergy and their congregations.
The main difficulty was that Anglican priests of the Forward in Faith and Anglo-Catholic persuasions already accepted every aspect of Catholic theology, and many of them also used, on a daily basis, the Roman Missal (novus ordo).
Whilst we, in our "holier than thou" attitude could carp about them not being "real priests", the important point is that THEY believed themselves to be ordained priests. They had managed to combine the Roman Missal with the BCP services such as Evensong, in a manner which they saw as being part of a tradition reaching back to the Oxford Movement of the mid-19th century.
Many parishes in this part of the world have a tradition of Anglo-Catholicism demonstrated by liturgical practices which would, frankly, put many (most?) Catholic parishes well into the shade.
As far as the laity goes, then they will be looking for a lead from their priest, and if the lead is not there, then they will remain, quite happily, where they are. The vast majority of Anglican parishioners are very like ours - they are not theologians, and they are frankly not interested in the nuances of theology. What is more, they are content to worship in their parish church, in an atmosphere with which they are familiar and comfortable.
The Church of England has always prided itself on its tolerance of diversity, and whatever the General Synod decides on women priests, women bishops, gay marriage etc, that will not affect what goes on in St Silas on the Wold.
Finally, is everything in the Catholic Church so rivettingly attractive to Anglo-Catholics that it would persuade significant numbers of clergy to abandon their livelihood for a leap into the dark?
If any of these Anglicans had ever been remotely interested in joining the Catholic church they could easily have done this at any time by converting properly.
EM
Rejoining the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate IS "converting properly" and I warmly welcome the fact that Our Lord's prayer "that they may all be one" is being heard and achieved.
However, I am beginning to have some reservations on whether the newly ordained priests of the Ordinariate should be given charge of existing Catholic parishes. They seem, to me, to be blindingly ignorant of certain Catholic practices, while honestly believing that they are actually practising them!
I so agree with the comment made by Em if Anglican Priests were so anxious to convert to Catholocism why wait until their boat in the Anglican church was rocked. EFpastor emeritus is right to worry newly ordained priests of the Ordinariate should be given charge of Catholic parishes it will be so difficult to accept jumping from the Anglican faith to leaping immediately into leading a Catholic Parish.
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