Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth

For a number of reasons which I am not going to rehearse here (but which are, I hope, abundantly clear if you know me at all, or care to surf around upstream from this post), I am not a candidate for the provisions set forth in the new Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. But I am certainly a sympathetic observer. So I first want to say some positive things about this overture from Rome, because it is itself, in my view, a positive thing. Then I want to offer some observations that will be more—what’s the word?—challenging, because, as good as it is, it could still be a whole lot better.

Why am I a “sympathetic observer”? First, because I have a lot of friends and colleagues for whom this is an option that they are looking at very, very seriously. Their decision will affect my relationship with them, so it will affect my life. Second, because I am committed with all my being to the visible unity of Christ’s Church, and I am persuaded that the See of Rome has been given a charism by the Holy Spirit to be the focal point and guardian of that unity. (I am not, obviously, persuaded that submission to Rome is essential, in an absolute sense, to ecclesial validity or even ecclesial fullness, or else I would have swum the Tiber long ago.) So any initiative that is configured toward manifesting a higher degree of visible unity is of interest to me. Third, there is a part of me that is envious of my friends for whom it is a live option. I share their joy (even as I will be grief-stricken when we can no longer share the Eucharist at the same altar). I want it to work for them.

In several respects, the details of the Constitution (and its supporting documents) exhibit a degree of pastoral sensitivity on the part of Pope Benedict that is almost breathtaking. While it is not surprising that there will be no allowance for married bishops, Ordinaries who are former Anglican bishops will be bishops in all but name. It appears that permission will be readily granted for them to wear the “insignia” of episcopal office, which presumably will include miters, rings, and pectoral crosses. The only part of their former job description they won’t be able to take with them is actually ordaining. It is also noteworthy that provision is made for items of governance that are more conciliar than is customary in mainstream Latin Rite dioceses, including what American Episcopalians would recognize as a sort of “Standing Committee,” a body of priests within an Ordinariate whose responsibility it is to act as a check on the Ordinary’s exercise of authority.

There are, of course, some questions and some ironies. Precisely what liturgical materials will be authorized for use? In the Anglican Use, heretofore limited to America, there is a volume that is clearly modeled on the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It even has forms in “Rite One” and “Rite Two” language. But even within the Catholic “wing” of Anglicanism, there is a dizzying degree of liturgical diversity. American Anglo-Catholics tilt in the direction (though not exclusively, by any means) of pre-Vatican II ceremonial (i.e. Tridentine), using Elizabethan-era language. Their British counterparts, on the other hand, tilt very strongly (but again, not exclusively) in the direction of essentially emulating contemporary Latin Rite ritual and ceremonial, to the point of using the Novus Ordo word for word rather than any officially authorized Anglican liturgy. (One might plausibly inquire, then, precisely what part of the “Anglican patrimony” they will be bringing with them across the river.) This is a much wider range of practice than is currently possible within the mainstream Latin Rite. I would have to assume that Vatican officials are aware of this, and it will be interesting to see how they ride herd on what can only be described as the “messiness” of Anglo-Catholic liturgical praxis.

As the news of the new Apostolic Constitution broke a couple of weeks ago, speculation was rife that it signified the victory of one section of the Vatican bureaucracy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), headed by Cardinal William Levada, over another, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, headed by Cardinal Walter Kasper, in an ongoing internal tug of war. The scuttlebutt was that Pope Benedict, whose previous job was Levada’s at CDF, reached a point where he no longer held out hope for achieving ecumenical rapprochement with Anglicans via the “front door” strategy of official bilateral and multilateral negotiations, concluding that “Anglicanism” is too amorphous to speak with a united voice, and is therefore not a viable ecumenical partner. At the same time, there are (ostensibly) whole communities of Anglicans ready to batter the gates of Rome for admission. Better to make a deal with them and achieve some tangible results than rely on painstaking negotiations with official Anglican bodies that have borne some significant fruit over the years, but which are constantly—and, it appears, hopelessly—undermined by the behavior of one Anglican province or another.

If there is any truth to this scenario, it is difficult to fault the Holy Father. He is passionate about visible unity and is eager for results. He is, after all, in the twilight of his life. But it is worth raising the question, and meaning not a micron of disrespect: Was even this bold stroke too timid? Is Rome perhaps even now squandering an opportunity for a truly game-changing move? One that would stretch, but not undermine, the disciplinary tradition of the Latin Rite?

What are the “liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion” that Anglicanorum Coetibus is intended to help preserve? Is it Cranmerian liturgical draftsmanship? Choral Evensong? Hymns with soaring treble descants? (Or, some have joked, hymns where all the verses actually get sung.) Sarum blue vestments for Advent? If we’re talking about these elements, or others like them, that’s something that I’m sure will be appreciated by those who opt in to the personal ordinariate scheme. But all that does is peel off a stratum of Anglicanism made up of people who are attached to such things and who also are already yearning to be in communion with Rome, to the point where they can no longer stand not to be.

But it’s a move that leaves a lot of unplayed cards on the table, because there are many more—many times more, actually—Anglicans who are very pre-disposed to fall in behind Benedict’s inspiring (and inspired) leadership in striking back at the forces of secularism. There are even some prominent Anglican evangelical voices in this particular chorus, which is really quite astonishing. Even though I write as an Anglo-Catholic, I realize that the “patrimony of Anglicanism” includes the evangelical stream, and I am loathe to make the move into the bosom of Rome without some, at least, of my evangelical brethren (realizing that the most resolute Protestants will likely never come along). Is comprehensiveness a necessary evil that worked for Elizabeth, but no longer serves us well? Perhaps. But it also may be a gem, something we as Anglicans can bring with us, if we are allowed to, as we hold ourselves to a higher degree of accountability to the wider Catholic Church in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome.

Another facet of that gem is a 450 year tradition of a married priesthood (and episcopate) that, on balance, has served us well, fostering a dynamic in the relationship between pastor and people that has a tendency to be health-giving. This does not denigrate the benefits that have derived from the charism of celibacy within the Latin Rite. It does suggest something different, something additional, an element of comprehensiveness. Yet another facet is a tradition of intellectual spaciousness that, to be sure, carries attendant risks, but which is demonstrably an effective force for the sanctification of the faithful by the renewal of their minds. It may not be consonant in every detail with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but, in dialogue with (tethered to?) that valuable document, could represent a channel of divine grace. Another facet of the gem represents the “saints” peculiar to Anglicanism—Hooker, Donne, Herbert, Simeon, the Wesleys, Keble, Underhill, Eliot, Lewis, and others. There would be no need, I suspect, for any of them to be canonized in the technical sense. But for those spiritually formed in Anglicanism, there would need to be some provision for bringing these folks along posthumously. They have been used by God to shape us, and we cannot deny them.

What I, in my fantasies, would like to see—I may as well come out and say it—is a true Anglican Rite Church, alongside the Maronites, Melkites, Ukranians, etc., an Anglican Uniatism. In such a church, the gem that is the Anglican tradition could be allowed to shine in all its comprehensive glory, not just temporarily and partially, but indefinitely, until the Spirit works to bring all the strands of Christianity into fruitful unity. This would include permanent permission to retain a married priesthood. Yet, this church would be anchored firmly to deferential communion with the Roman Pontiff exercising his Petrine ministry of fostering unity among all the faithful in Christ, and thus be protected from evolving in ways that compromise the integrity of the faith. Now, I understand the technical reasoning behind the decision not to move in such a direction, that Anglicanism is a spinoff from the Latin Rite that needs to be reunited with its parent, and not, properly speaking, an ancient church with a patriarchate of its own. That is a completely coherent response. But it is also a failure of imagination, and possibly a deficit in the cardinal virtue of fortitude. The potential harvest of Christian unity is incredibly rich at this moment. But reaping that harvest demands not just a bold stroke like Anglicanorum Coetibus. It demands a leap of faith.

Your Holiness, carpe diem!

Adventures in Ecclesiology, Part III: The Visibility of the Church

From time to time I run across a book, or a TV “infomercial, suggesting that the health of one particular organ or organ system within the human body is the key to overall physical health (nine times out of ten, it’s the colon). Patients present with a disparate range of symptoms, and providers attempt to diagnose and treat according the the symptoms, but, say these books and infomercials, they invariably get it wrong unless they first address the health of … the colon (or whatever).

If we were to apply this mental model to Christian theology, what would be the “colon”? It is at least quite arguable that this key place in the system would be held by ecclesiology. The “presenting problem” may be soteriology (how God saves us) or christology (the person and work of Christ) or pneumatology (the Holy Spirit) or some moral issue (can you think of any off-hand?!) or even hermeneutics (methodology of scriptural interpretation), but the underlying issue may actually be rooted in ecclesiology (theology of the Church). Divergent ecclesiological assumptions lead to divergent conclusions in those other areas, and no conflict in those areas can be effectively resolved without addressing the parties’ underlying ecclesiologies.

One case in point: Some years ago I served on the board of a (Christian) faith-based organization the mission of which was to channel the energy and resources of the Christian community toward attacking the root causes of the multitude of social ills that beset the city I lived in (the usual list: poverty, gangs, drugs, and violence, all feeding off one another). We discussed having a sort of “pastors’ summit” at a nearby facility in order to promote bonding and collegiality among the clergy leaders of the city. This board was dominated by free-church evangelicals—people with big hearts and a tremendous dedication to and love for Jesus, people whom I held in the highest esteem. One of them brought up the idea of having a “communion service” as a capstone to the retreat, an idea that got several immediate “Amens.” It fell to me to suggest that this wouldn’t necessarily be such a great idea. For me, and for others whom we were hoping to include in this event (namely, some of our Roman Catholic colleagues), what for some was a no-brainer was highly problematic. And although very concrete issues of eucharistic theology and liturgical form were at the front of the queue by way of explanation, the real issue was one of ecclesiology: What does the Eucharist and the way the Eucharist is celebrated “say” about the community that celebrates it—namely, the Church—and vice versa?

I am once again going to indulge in a sweeping generalization, cognizant more than ever of the attendant risk in doing so, but confident that the good to be attained thereby justifies the risk. So bear with me.

To some extent, it is possible to sort Christian communities along a continuum, with High Church/Catholic at one end and Low Church/Evangelical at the other. Apropos of the (crude) dichotomy I posited in Part II from last week, the Low Church position is one in which the individual Christian believer is (ontologically if not chronologically) “prior” to the Church. This view makes a sharp distinction between the Church per se and its institutional manifestation. The Church as such is an inherently “invisible” entity. It is comprised of all those who have made a conscious and voluntary faith commitment to Christ—“received Christ as their Savior,” as many might put it. The membership of the Church, then, is a number known only to God, for only God can accurately read the human heart. When individuals have made such a commitment, it is to be expected that they will seek out one another’s company for purposes of common worship, instruction, mutual encouragement, and shared mission. In doing so, they will create institutional structures, both tangible (buildings and bank accounts) and intangible (leadership positions, governing boards, etc.). The word “church” will often be associated with these structures in various ways. But that connection is only incidental. The Church (the invisible Body of Christ the membership of which is known only to God) should never be confused or identified with its institutional manifestation, which is temporal and passing. By this way of thinking, it is not only theoretically possible, but virtually mandatory to make a distinction between a believer’s relationship with Christ and his or her relationship with the Church.

By contrast, a High Church (Catholic) position holds that the Church is in every way (both chronologically and ontologically) “prior” to her individual members. She is an eminently “visible” entity, the “body of which Christ is the head and all baptized persons are members” (from the Catechism of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer), thus having an objective measure for discerning membership. If the number is known only to God, it’s not because only God can read the human heart, but because human engineers haven’t invented the right data storage and retrieval system yet! This is a thoroughly organic ecclesiology. The best analogue is not social--the voluntary association, or the corporation—but biological, i.e. the family, clan, tribe. In this framework, it is not so simple to divorce the Church qua institution from the Church qua “mystical Body of Christ.” They may not be precisely one and the same, but they are so interwoven and grown around each other that it is functionally impossible to pull them apart without doing damage.

Both ends of the ecclesiological spectrum, and all points in between, speak of the Church as the “body of Christ.” This is, after all, a pre-eminent New Testament (Pauline) metaphor. It cannot be casually overlooked. But I don’t think it’s misleading to say that an Evangelical will tend to use the expression more as an instructive figure of speech, whereas a Catholic will tend to embrace it as a dynamic reality. If Christ is the head and all baptized persons are members, then to make a sharp distinction between relationship to Christ and relationship to the Church is to risk decapitating the Church! There is no connection to the Head without a connection to the Body. How one behaves toward the Body is how one behaves toward the Head. Loyalty to Christ cannot be prior to loyalty to the Church; they are one and the same. Along similar lines, a dynamic understanding of how Christ is “embodied” in the Church precludes make too sharp a distinction between some abstract ideal of the Church and the Church’s actual (and quite messy and flawed) institutional infrastructure. It is precisely this infrastructure—with is canons and constitutions and covenants, to say nothing of bylaws and Letters of Agreement and everything else--that mediates (incarnates?) the presence of ministry of Christ in his corpus mysticum.

So the next time you’re observing or participating in debate, whether rancorous or civil, within the community of Christians, try digging a little deeper than whatever the presenting issue might be, and ask yourself, “What are the ecclesiological assumptions that each side is making? How do these assumptions, even if unspoken, actually drive the debate?”

Loving the Saints

This essay was written for, and now appears in, the November 1 issue of The Living Church.

I don’t know precisely where “All Saints” ranks on the list of most-popular names for Episcopal churches, but I suspect it’s near the top. Anglicans tend to look on All Saints’ Day with a considerable degree of affection, and W.W. How’s text “For All the Saints” (set to Ralph Vaughan Williams’ tune Sine Nomine) is widely popular. Most congregations avail themselves of the rubrical permission to observe this principal feast on the Sunday following, so it is adorned with whatever embellishments local custom assigns to festival occasions.

Beyond that, however, I think it’s safe to say that the saints don’t have a particularly prominent place in popular piety among a great many Episcopalians and other Anglicans. This is no doubt partly attributable simply to indifference and lax catechesis, and partly to an innate reactivity —inbred among Christians influenced by the Reformation tradition—against what some perceive as excess devotion to the saints among our Roman Catholic cousins (“praying to” particular saints depending on the nature of the petition).

In any case, we are spiritually — and, I would dare say, theologically — impoverished as a result. This was brought home to me pointedly in a recent conversation I had with a longtime friend and former colleague, an Episcopal priest who has now become Eastern Orthodox. It was fallout from the recent unpleasantness within Anglicanism that set him on this path — I have never known anyone with as much of an “Anglican soul” as this man — but he has embraced the ethos of his new church family with discipline and enthusiasm. He worships in a parish under the patronage of St. Nicholas of Myra. He told me he has pondered the question of what he would miss most from his short time in Orthodoxy if for some reason he were to return to Anglicanism. (He doesn’t anticipate doing so; this is a spiritual exercise.)

His response? “I would miss Nicholas.”

My friend went on to tell me how the icon of a parish’s patron saint is always placed in the same prominent position in the ikonostasis, the row of icons that screens the altar area in an Orthodox church. From worshiping in that space, receiving Holy Communion week by week under the gaze, as it were, of St. Nicholas, he knows himself to have developed a relationship with the saint. Nicholas is more than just an interesting historical personage to him, more than a hero of the faith whose example is worthy of emulation. He is each of those things, of course, but he is also much more: Nicholas is a member of the family. My friend went on to say unashamedly, “I love Nicholas.”

I have had similar moments of spiritual insight. When I was a seminarian in the mid-to-late ’80s, I often practiced preaching in the graveyard. Though I never got a response from anyone in the “congregation,” I did over time feel like I “got to know” many of them, one of whom was Jackson Kemper, the great missionary bishop who is featured prominently elsewhere in this issue. For more than 30 years now, I have been privileged to worship in communities — as a lay person, a seminarian, and a priest — where the celebration of the Easter Vigil includes chanting the Litany of the Saints en route to the baptismal font. We are, after all, at that moment on the verge of making a new Christian, about as radically presumptuous an act as could be imagined. We need all the help we can get! So we invoke the prayers of the entire Christian family, not only across space, but across time as well. No matter how many breathing human beings are present in the room, I never fail to sense the additional palpable presence of many more than can be seen, joining their prayers with ours as we once again witness the miracle of new birth by water and the Holy Spirit.

What I feel on the way to the font, what I felt preaching in the graveyard at Nashotah House, what my Orthodox friend feels when he’s in the company of St Nicholas, is nothing other than the truth of what we all profess whenever we proclaim our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed. These are experiences of the communion (koinonia) of saints. Do we not sometimes gloss over this article of the creed? Yet, of all that we say at that point in the liturgy, these words may be the ones that have the most immediate practical impact on our lives. Both “communion” and “fellowship” can render the Greek word koinonia, but neither one is quite up to the task. Koinonia implies a relationship several degrees deeper and more intimate. It implies a relationship not just of admiration from a distance, but of love up close. How much richer and more satisfying our spiritual experience is when we broaden our horizon to experience the saints not only as heroes worthy of our study and imitation, but as family members whom we include in the circle of our love.

All holy men and women of God, pray for us.

On the "Patrimony" of Anglicanism

Brother Stephen is a (Roman Catholic) Trappist monk who is a former Anglican (of the Anglo-Catholic stripe). I posted this link to my Facebook network, but it is, I believe worthy of wider circulation. He writes with what strikes me an uncanny perception of the ingredients than comprise the Anglican ethos ("patrimony," to use the jargon of last week announcement from Rome), and of the spiritual and mental moves that lie in front of Anglicans who may be tempted to respond affirmatively to the "personal ordinariate" schema. I am not myself so tempted, but I'm sympathetic, and I can understand its attractions to those who are.

In 2005, during my first and thus far only visit to England, I did attend Evensong at All Saints', Margaret Street, which made Brother Stephen's observations particularly poignant for me.

Adventures in Ecclesiology, Part II: The Priority of the Church

Systematic Theology is the discipline of taking that which Christians believe and teach (or, in any case, that which any given systematic theologian thinks Christians should believe and teach) and organizing that material into a coherent whole, a “system.” Pick up most any Systematic Theology textbook, and the first chapter is likely to be about God, generically speaking, or, perhaps, about the basis for human knowledge of God—religious epistemology, revelation, or the like. From there, the “system” might proceed to the specifically Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and then, perhaps, to the person and work of Christ, or maybe to Christian anthropology—the nature of Man, the Fall, the character of sin, redemption, and grace. The concluding chapter is likely to be on eschatology—Last Things, how the story ends. Somewhere in the middle, and probably closer to the end than to the beginning, there will be a chapter on ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church (and, depending on the theological perspective of the author, something on the sacraments).

It all seems reasonable enough. There are a great many puzzle pieces that need to be in place before one can make sense of the Church. This methodology has sometimes been styled “theology from above.” It is a deductive exercise, in that it starts with truths that are over-arching and all-encompassing—i.e. truths about God—and reasons downward to matters that are specific and localized, matters like the Church. But it seems worthwhile to pose the question, What if one were to attempt a systematic theology, as it were, “from below”? What if one were to do theology in a manner that philosophers might call “phenomenological,” beginning with the concrete and specific and reasoning from there to the general and all-encompassing? From such a perspective, Chapter I in a Systematic Theology textbook would probably concern itself with the Church.

If you are a Christian (a plausible presumption for the readership of this blog), how did you first hear about Jesus? Was it at your grandmother’s knee? From a Sunday School teacher? A pastor? A friend or neighbor? A radio or TV ministry? From picking up a Gideon bible in a hotel room? In any of these cases, it was some manifestation of the Church that introduced you to Christ. Unless the risen Jesus appeared to you personally as he did to Saul on the Damascus Road, you have the Church to thank for your Christian faith. So from the standpoint of the actual lives of actual Christians, the Church is not an afterthought, a derivation from some more foundational principles. It is our point of connection to the gospel, the indispensable medium in which and through which we have a relationship with Christ.

(I’m about to make some wide sweeping generalizations, which can cause trouble if they’re stretched beyond their usefulness in making a critical point. I’ll try to do my part in avoiding that trap; you’ll have to do yours as well.)

With apologies to chickens and eggs everywhere: Which came first, the Church or the Believer? I believe there is a correct theological answer to this question, and that such theological priority is rooted in and demonstrated by the phenomenological priority asserted above. It’s kind of hip these days among some believers to describe themselves as “Christ-followers” rather than “Christians.” This reflects a certain frustration with the institutional obtuseness of the Church, but in the end, it’s a bogus distinction, a red herring. Every “Christ-follower” first met Jesus through the ministry of the Church. Even Saul/Paul was commanded to seek out the Church in Damascus in order to be relieved of his blindness and be baptized. Even the apostles did not know Jesus apart from the community of their colleagues. There is no such thing as free-lance Christianity. By being connected to the Head, one is unavoidably connected to the Body. (More about that in subsequent posts in this series.)

What I am attempting to enunciate here is a Catholic ecclesiology, which consistently asserts that the Church is in every way (phenomenologically, theologically, and ontologically) prior to the Believer. This notion swims decidedly upstream against a powerful current of American individualism, with roots going back to colonial times, combined with post-modern intellectual relativism and libertinism—a stream that provides congenial lodging for an essentially Protestant ecclesiology. In Protestant ecclesiology, the Believer is prior to the Church. When an individual encounters Christ, that person immediately looks around for others who have had a similar encounter, and forms community with them for purposes of common worship, mutual support and encouragement, and united witness and mission. In this view, “church” is simply a collective noun for an aggregation of believers. The Believer is prior to the Church—theologically and ontologically, at any rate, if not phenomenologically.

In practice, this gets pretty mixed up. There are doubtless many thousands of Christians who are members of ecclesial bodies the ecclesiological moorings of which are solidly Catholic (Roman, Anglican, Orthodox) but whose personal mental model of the Church (even though they may not have the technical vocabulary to articulate it as such) is clearly Protestant (especially if they happen to be Americans). And there are doubtless many thousands of Christians who are members of ecclesial bodies the formal ecclesiology of which is squarely in the free-church congregationalist evangelical tradition, but who have intuitively constructed a personal mental model of the Church that is quite communitarian, in fact, quite Catholic.

This theological dissonance is, I suspect, largely subliminal. Most Christians who hold ecclesiological pre-suppositions that are at odds with the ‘DNA’ of their own church are not aware of the disconnect. Yet, if one were to take any given church conflict, and peel back all the underlying rhetoric and substantive argument, that very disconnect would in many cases lie at the bottom of the pile.

I suppose it goes without saying that I am an advocate of the Catholic position, as I have described it. It is not only undeniably true phenomenologically, but if we take seriously the Pauline “body” metaphor, it is manifestly true theologically (more on that to come). Of course, I hold in esteem my fellow-believers from ecclesial traditions that take the opposite point of view. What would perhaps be most helpful all around is if, in our discussions of other matters, we could be more consciously aware of our underlying ecclesiological assumptions. I suppose I would probably also find it helpful if people spoke and acted in ways that are coherent with the formal ecclesiology of the churches of which they are actually members.

Still to come: Part III: The Visibility of the Church, and Part IV: The Unity of the Church.

Check Out My Parish's Redesigned Website

We've just gone live with St Anne's Website 3.0 (it now appears among my links on the sidebar). I can't take any credit for it; it's the work of my multi-talented Assistant, the Revd Craig Uffman, who has labored heroically. Do take a look. I think you will find that it is visually attractive, intuitively functional, and exceptionally well-loaded with content. I'm proud to have it as the showcase window for St Anne's.

A New Bridge Across the Tiber?

I feel almost obligated to say something about a “breaking” Anglican story, if for no other reason than that it has shown up on the CNN crawler (and other secular media sources), necessitating a measure of spin control, since secular news outlets invariably get church-related stories really, really wrong, either in the headlines, or in the details, or both. (This, of course, leads me to wonder what else they get wrong in areas where I have no particular expertise or inside knowledge, but that’s another story.)

The Vatican has announced an arrangement by which Anglican Christians may enter into full communion with the Bishop of Rome (aka the Pope), and do so in groups that maintain their collective identity (like parishes and dioceses). They would then be allowed to continue liturgical and spiritual practices that are identifiably Anglican (such as using texts from the Prayer Book and music from familiar hymnals). Moreover, their clergy could become Roman Catholic priests, and, if married, remain so as they continue to pastor their congregations.

The technical name (and a hugely awkward one, I must say) for the new sort of jurisdiction is “personal ordinariate.” An “ordinary” is a cleric who has a sort of authority that is usually associated with the office of Diocesan Bishop, but may also be held by a Dean (of a seminary) or an Abbott (of a monastery). The personal ordinariates under this plan would be defined by and accountable to each (national, in most cases) Bishops’ Conference. The ordinaries themselves may, in fact, be bishops (though not former Anglicans, apparently) but will in most cases, at least in the near term, be priests (i.e. former Anglicans, probably married) who have the administrative authority and responsibility of a bishop without the sacramental peculiars—ironically, ordinaries who cannot ordain.

The media are treating this announcement as something new—indeed, something shockingly new. The truth is—it isn’t. From early in the papacy of John Paul II, there has been something called the Pastoral Provision in effect that allows married Anglican clergy, after undergoing mutual discernment and screening, to be ordained as Roman priests. There has also been something called the Anglican Use, which permits congregations of former Anglicans to remain stylistically Anglican while jurisdictionally Roman Catholic. There are a handful (well, maybe two hands-full) of Anglican Use parishes in the U.S., and have been for a number of years.

What is different about this new initiative? Two things, mainly: First, it applies worldwide, whereas the Pastoral Provision and Anglican Use were confined to the United States. So the most dramatic impact will no doubt be in England, where there are thousands of laity and hundreds of clergy who have been chomping at the bit for something like this. It comes at a particularly sensitive time politically, as the leadership of the Church of England has been trying to find a way to move forward with consecrating women bishops and still hang on to its Catholic wing, which is more numerous percentage-wise than it is in the Episcopal Church. Will the personal ordinariate arrangement siphon off Anglo-Catholics (who pretty much already worship according to the Roman Rite in toto), and not only make it politically easier to have women bishops but also radically shift the delicate balance-of-power in the church? Time will tell.

Second, the new arrangement takes something that has been tentative and somewhat fluid and gives it the character of something that is effectively permanent. It takes an anomaly and institutionalizes it. There is even talk of personal ordinariates (presumably, groups thereof) operating their own seminaries. One of the implications is that Anglicanesque (for lack of a better term) parishes would be in the local Latin Rite (i.e. mainstream Roman Catholic) dioceses in which they are geographically located, but only partially of them. The diocesan bishop’s authority will not extend to anything that pertains to the distinctively Anglican character of these congregations. Such matters would come under the purview of the “personal ordinary.”

There are, of course, some unanswered questions. So far, I’ve only seen second-hand reports and announcements, not any official documents that spell out the details, and we know who lives in the details. For instance, are married priests a one-generation “grandfathered-in” deal, or are we looking at an enduring element of an ecclesiastical sub-culture being created? Will the personal ordinaries be permitted to arrange the ordination of married men who have never been Anglican priests? If the answer to either of these questions is affirmative, then what we are witnessing is the de facto creation of an Anglican Rite within the Catholic Church (despite all Vatican protestations to the contrary) alongside the Melkite (Greek), Maronite (Lebanese) and other Uniate churches. And what effect is this all likely to have on the many, many Latin Rite priests who would dearly love to be married (or married laicized priests who would love to resume their ministry)?

Speaking personally, does this get my attention? Yes, it does, in the same way that a man whose generally happy marriage is going through a rough patch might have his attention arrested by an attractive potential alternative. I believe the See of Rome to be God’s gift for the unity of Christ’s Church, and it would give me great joy to die at a ripe old age in full sacramental fellowship with the church founded by Peter and Paul. It is a prospect dear to my heart. From the day the Bishop of Los Angeles laid hands on me in Confirmation in 1975, I have considered myself, as an Anglican, fully a Catholic, no hyphens or qualifiers. Since the eve of St Thomas’ Day 1989 I have known myself to be a Catholic priest, a Catholic priest who has said Mass well over two thousand times, and has pronounced God’s absolution on dozens of penitent sinners. And it is precisely because I know these things about myself and my ministry that, with some measure of sadness, I do not foresee myself serving under a personal ordinary in an Anglicanesque parish. To do so would require me to say—not in so many words, perhaps, but with devastating clarity nonetheless—that I have never been a priest, that all the Eucharists over which I have presided have been make-believe, and that my absolutions have been mere aspirational hopes. I could never say those things and live with my conscience.

There will doubtless be much more to say on these matters as events unfold.