"The torments they endured were horrible": The Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales, 1535-1679

From Fr. Christopher George Phillips, the retired founding pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Church in San Antonio, Texas, a parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, comes this reflection on the May 4th feast of Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales:

The English Martyrs include 284 men and women who gave their lives during the 16th and 17th centuries. They were martyred simply because they remained steadfast in their Catholic faith. What had happened?

King Henry VIII had proclaimed himself supreme head of the Church in England, claiming for himself and his successors power over his subjects not only in civil matters, but also in all things spiritual. He took to himself a spiritual power that can belong only to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and Successor of St. Peter. The Catholics at that time wanted to be loyal subjects of the Crown, but their consciences could not allow them to grant the power of spiritual supremacy. It is as though, in the United States, the president and Congress took upon themselves the power to determine what we as Catholics believe, and how we worship. We could not allow Congress to pass laws that changed the Church’s teaching about the Mass, or what we believe about God. But this was what had happened in England and Wales. This was what led many people to face death courageously rather than act against their consciences and deny their Catholic faith.

Please read the rest there.

This Feast, honoring all the martyrs, canonized and beatified, is celebrated in the Anglican Ordinariate* and in the dioceses of England on May 4th, the date of the execution of the Protomartyrs in 1535 (Saints John Houghton, Augustine Webster, Robert Lawrence, Richard Reynolds, and Blessed John Haile); in the dioceses of Wales, their Feast, known as the Feast of Six Welsh Martyrs and [English] Companions, is celebrated on October 25th, the date that Pope Saint Paul VI canonized the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales in 1979.

*Please note that is celebrated as a Feast in the Anglican Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, but as a Memorial in the Ordinariates of the Chair of St. Peter in North American and of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia.

According to the Liturgical Calendar of England:

The English Men and Women martyred for the Catholic Faith 1535–1680 and beatified or canonised by the Holy See. On this day in 1535 there died at Tyburn three Carthusian monks, the first of many martyrs, Catholic and Protestant, of the English reformation. Of these martyrs, forty two [including Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, and the six Welsh Martyrs] have been canonised and a further two hundred and forty two declared blessed, but the number of those who died on the scaffold, perished in prison, or suffered harsh persecution for their faith in the course of a century and a half cannot now be reckoned. They came from every walk of life; there are among them rich and poor, married and single, women and men. They are remembered for the example they gave of constancy in their faith, and courage in the face of persecution.

The Six Welsh Martyrs, listed on the website of the Liturgical Calendar of Wales are: Saints John Jones, Philip Evans, John Lloyd, David Lewis, Richard Gwyn, and John Roberts. Saints Evans, Lloyd, Lewis, and Gwyn were executed in the throes of the Popish Plot in 1679.

Holy Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

St. John Henry Newman in Rome, 1846-1847

St. John Henry Newman's feast day is on October 9, the anniversary of his reception in to the Catholic Church by Blessed Dominic Barberi, the Passionist missionary to England. After his general Confession, reception, and first Holy Communion, he was Confirmed by Dr. Nicholas Wiseman, the Vicar Apostolic of the Midlands Region of England and Titular Bishop of Milopotamos (there weren't any Catholic dioceses in England yet) on November 1, All Saints Day. He took the Confirmation name of Mary. St. John Henry Mary Newman (like St. Anthony Mary Claret!).

Then he left Littlemore for Maryvale, Old Oscott at the invitation of Dr. Wiseman in 1846 on February 22; in September, he left England to study for the priesthood in Rome with one of his followers, Ambrose St. John. They spent five weeks in Milan and thus did not arrive in Rome until November.

Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, the first Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, writes for the Coming Home Network about Newman's experiences in Rome:

The Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the center of the Holy See’s missionary endeavors, received them and gave them rooms at the Collegio Propaganda near the Spanish Steps. There, Newman and St. John would become ordinary seminarians. But who was going to educate the most perspicacious theologian of his time? It is perhaps comforting to hear his friend St. John report that the lectures were boring and somewhat lacking as pedagogical models, and so Newman would often fall to sleep in class. (Thankfully this does not appear to have been held against Newman in the cause for sainthood!)

Newman was left largely to himself, to continue his brilliant studies of the Church Fathers. Rome’s theologians had some doubts about his recently-published Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Newman’s argument, that Catholic dogma was not, as it were, handed down from Mount Sinai but unfolded in a divinely-guided process of historical development in the life of the Church, was initially a very disconcerting idea for Catholic theologians hard-pressed to defend a tradition under siege from nearly every quarter. They naturally wondered about how sound this new convert really was.

So Newman, newly arrived from a different ecclesial world, was not well understood, and given his somewhat melancholic temperament, we are left with the distinct impression that his 1846-1847 academic year in Rome was certainly not about “making merry” over the return of a prodigal son of the Church (Lk 15:24). Newman, once the consummate insider of Anglican Oxford, is now an awkward and disoriented guest struggling to learn the customs of the house.

Regarding the Roman reception Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, I don't mean to contradict Monsignor Steenson, but I think he is reflecting Owen Chadwick's view of Newman and his Essay. C. Michael Shea offers a different view:

Newman’s Early Roman Catholic Legacy forces us to substantially revise the commonly received view that, on the issue of doctrinal development, Newman was an unheeded prophetic voice crying in a desiccated Roman wilderness.

Shea’s book corrects the mistaken impression that Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) fell upon deaf ears in the Catholic world, only to be rediscovered in the mid-twentieth century and then all but canonized at Vatican II. While Newman’s theology did indeed bear abundant twentieth-century fruit (see Ian Kerr’s [sic] 2014 book on the subject and Andrew Meszaro’s excellent article arguing that Dei verbum 8, via Yves Congar, has Newmanian roots), it bore fruit in his own day as well. What makes Shea’s book more than just an intriguing historical reappraisal is that he all but proves that Newman’s impact on the Jesuit Giovanni Perrone (1794–1876), the foremost theologian of the “Roman School” at midcentury (and a close advisor to Pope Pius IX), was an implicit but significant factor in the preparations for the promulgation of the dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in 1854. . . .

Shea’s thesis puts to the rest the persistent impression which arose from certain influential studies that Newman, while generally admired, was an unheeded prophet. In Shea’s convincing narrative, Owen Chadwick’s From Bossuet to Newman (1957) – while eminently readable like all of Chadwick’s work – shoulders a fair amount of the blame for this particular misappraisal. Chadwick contrasted a reigning Catholic “fixisme” which totally rejected doctrinal development (epitomized by the great Gallican, Bishop Bossuet) with the startling and new theory of Newman. According to Chadwick, Newman was considered – at least on this issue – as at best eccentric, and at worst doctrinally suspect. Shea shows that Chadwick far overestimated the impact and importance of the American convert Orestes Brownson’s polemic against Newman, and he contends that Chadwick misread the evidence regarding Newman’s encounters with Perrone, Pius IX, and others during Newman’s preparation for ordination in Rome. (One also wonders if Chadwick over-emphasized the incompatibility of the Gallican theological method with the idea of doctrinal development, since Shea points out that Henri Maret, one of the staunchest Gallican opponents of papal infallibility at Vatican I, actually affirmed development in his classic anti-infallibilist text).

Please read the rest of Shaun Blanchard's review of Shea's book in Faith & Culture: The Journal of the Augustine Institute.

The Catholic English Martyrs in England and the USA

I stated yesterday that the Feast of the English Martyrs is celebrated in the Dioceses of England, but the Memorial of the English Martyrs is celebrated in the United States by the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. St. Gregory the Great Ordinariate parish in Chestnut, Massachusetts provides these notes on today's Feast/Memorial:

A feast day not celebrated in the United States anywhere except the Ordinariate falls today, the fourth day of May; it honors those Catholics martyred for remaining true to the “old faith,” mostly during the century and a half following Henry VIII’s decision to split the English Church from its ancient submission to the See of Peter.

These men and women were called “Recusants” because they refused to attend the services of the new Anglican church; the name comes from the Latin verb “recusare” — to refuse or object. The laws under which they suffered began under Elizabeth I with a statute against “Popish recusants” in 1593; it and subsequent laws (levying many penalties, up to and including death) were finally repealed by Oliver Cromwell (of all people) in 1650: but his intention was the relief of “other” non-conformers, the Calvinist Puritans; during the Puritan Commonwealth Catholics and Anglicans were united through persecution by Government. The recusant laws, per se, were not reinstated with reestablishment of the monarchy in 1660; but legal persecution of English Catholics only came to an end with Catholic Emancipation — in 1829. . . .

Looking farther afield--the nearest Ordinariate Parish to me is in Kansas City, Missouri--I noted that the Men's Choir of Westminster Cathedral in London is singing one of the Masses composed by William Byrd and two of his motets at the evening (17:30) Mass to celebrate the Feast of the English Martyrs. Martin Baker has selected the Mass for Three Voices, Ne Irascaris Domine, and Civitas sancti tui.

Since William Byrd knew some of the of the Jesuit missionaries and certainly met St. Robert Southwell, singing his work at Mass today is most appropriate. As John Milsom wrote in the liner notes of the Westminster Cathedral Choir's 2014 recording of Byrd's Three Masses:

The Englishness of Byrd’s Masses must also be mentioned, for these settings do not sound remotely like the Masses of Lassus or Palestrina. This is partly because of the way they were made, partly because of the way they allude to their Tudor past. Unlike most other Catholic composers of his generation, Byrd composed his three Masses freely, without directly quoting any pre-existing music. Hence the contrast with Palestrina and Lassus: those two composers habitually based their Masses on models, such as a motet or a plainchant melody, so that the Mass becomes a commentary on that model. Byrd, in contrast, simply took the words of the Mass as they came to him, and savoured them intuitively, using whatever melodies came into his head. Sometimes he makes audible allusion to the musical styles of his Tudor past, for instance through the turn of a melodic phrase or the choice of a chord or a selection of texture. By doing so, he invoked the music of his boyhood—the truly Catholic music of the reigns of Henry VIII (died 1547), and of England’s last Catholic monarch, Queen Mary (reigned 1553–8), which coincided with the years when Byrd was a boy chorister. A nostalgia for the Tudor past therefore haunts these works, especially in the Mass for four voices, which was the first to be composed.

It is in fact possible to date the three Masses with reasonable precision. In 1589 and 1591, Byrd published two collections of motets—called by him ‘sacred songs’ (Cantiones sacrae)—that summed up his achievement to that date. Immediately after that, Byrd’s mind seems to have turned to the words of the Catholic Mass, and his three settings were published in quick succession between around 1592 and 1595. The precise years of publication are unknown, since the prints themselves have no title pages; they are simply slender pamphlets of sheet music, headed with the name ‘W. Byrd’. Careful detective work, however, shows that the Mass for four voices, which is the most intimate and intense of the settings, came first. It was followed a year later by the Mass for three voices, which is a smaller and tighter work, and then by the Mass for five voices, which is the most serene of the three. This five-voice Mass sets the tone for Byrd’s next and final project, the great cycle of Gradualia—settings of liturgical texts for the Catholic calendar from Advent to Trinity—which went to press in two volumes in 1605 and 1607.

The two motets are usually interpreted to refer to the situation of Catholics in England:

Ne irascaris Domine satis,
et ne ultra memineris iniquitatis nostrae.
Ecce respice populus tuus omnes nos.

Be not angry, O Lord,
and remember our iniquity no more.
Behold, we are all your people.

Civitas sancti tui facta est deserta.
Sion deserta facta est,
Jerusalem desolata est.

Your holy city has become a wilderness.
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem has been made desolate.

David Cashman offers this analysis:

Ne irascaris Domine is a five-part Latin motet by the Catholic English composer, William Byrd (1543-1623). It is one of three works known as the 'Jerusalem' motets (along with Tribulations civitatum and Vide Domine afflictionem nostram). Byrd wrote these motets in the 1580s as an act of protest against the Elizabethan Catholic persecutions. As his text, Byrd cunningly chooses here an irreproachable passage of scripture from Isaiah, telling of the Babylonian captivity.

Ne irascaris' general atmosphere of quiet contemplation coupled with solid polyphonic writing make this a deservedly well known work. Departing from his usual tradition, Byrd sets the appeal to God of Ne irascaris Domine polyphonically, continuing this writing throughout the work. Byrd uses minimal resources (in particular, the melody, which does not move out of the range of a fourth until the end of the work) to create a classic.

The second part of this work (from Civitas sancti) is well-known as the Anglican hymn Bow thine ear. Despite the structure being thus truncated, the skilled contrapoint and expressive writing of the original make this one of the gems of the Anglican hymn tradition.

Holy Venerable, Blessed, and Canonized Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!

Choral Evensong

From the Religion News Service, a story about how Choral Evensong is catching on in England, attracting people who otherwise don't attend Church of England services:

Evensong is a creation of the English Reformation, derived from monastic prayer traditions. Its liturgy is drawn from the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer, created by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1549. It usually lasts about 45 minutes and includes Scripture readings, psalms and the Nunc Dimittis (Song of Simeon) and Magnificat, both taken from the Gospel of Luke.

Some of the greatest choral music sung at evensong was written at the time of Queen Elizabeth I, soon after its liturgy was first designed, by composers such as Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. The works of other English composers, such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Richard Ayleward, Hubert Parry and Herbert Howells, are also frequently featured.

Of course, the BBC has been broadcasting Choral Evensong--or Catholic Vespers more recently--for years.

The Anglican Ordinariate prominently presents Choral Evensong as one of its primary examples of Anglican Patrimony brought with them to their unity with the Catholic Church.

The Religious News Service story concludes, however, with this sad note (get it?):

Then there’s the more practical reason to come to evensong. Cathedrals in England often charge high admission fees — about $25 in some cases — so some tourists opt instead for evensong, which is free.

A Hymn by One of the Knox Brothers

In this Marian month (dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the Church of St. James, Spanish Place in London posted a verse from a poem/hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, "Through the Streets of Heaven" on its Facebook page. The lyrics are by Wilfred Knox, one of the Knox brothers, which included Ronald Knox the Catholic convert, Dillwyn Knox the wartime code-breaker, and Edmund Knox, the editor of Punch--not to forget their sister, Winifred, the author and historian. Wilfred was a High Church Anglo-Catholic, while their father was a prominent Evangelical, Low Church Anglican bishop.

The Marylebone Ordinariate community posted some information about this hymn in the context of the Ordinariate's Anglican patrimony in 2012, complete with a video and lyrics:

In the video below [on their blog], you can hear the last verse and a half of this rare but beautiful hymn being sung upon the occasion of the Annual Dedication Festival of St Mary's Bourne St (we described the background to that service here). Typical of the 1920s Anglo-Catholicism in which context it was written, it is a hymn to the Virgin in a mixture of English and Latin. You will note from the video that this very much matches the Bourne St service, where a rite of Benediction is given in Latin, interspersed with English.

The video contains what might even be an example of reverse Anglican patrimony (let's face it, apart from the use of great Anglican hymn tunes for O Salutaris and Tantum Ergo, there isn't much outwardly Anglican about the shape of the ritual seen in the video), in that the prayer before Tantum Ergo is the Book of Common Prayer's General Thanksgiving. This is not something I ever recall happening in my Bourne St days, although it was certainly the usual practice in my time at Pusey House in the early 1990s.

Using this prayer during Benediction is something that has become a hallmark of practice in the Ordinariate, including at the Ordinariate's own Anniversary Evensong and Benediction at the beginning of this year. Since some of our Bourne St friends attended that event, and indeed some of them perhaps read regularly of what is going in the Ordinariate, it is intriguing but definitely very pleasing to see this influence, adding to the Catholic influence that gave rise to the form of service in the first place. After all, not only are we borrowing a Bourne St hymn and bringing it into the Catholic Church, we as former Anglicans have brought the classic Anglo-Catholic service of Solemn Evensong and Benediction into the Ordinariate . . .

Please read the rest there. I highly recommend Penelope Fitzgerald's group biography of her father and her uncles, The Knox Brothers.

Anglican Orders Redux

As this story from The Tablet recounts, a curia Cardinal is revisiting the issue of the validity of Anglican orders:

One of the Vatican’s top legal minds has opened the way for a revision of the Catholic position on Anglican orders by stressing they should not be written off as “invalid.”

In a recently published book, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, calls into question Pope Leo XIII’s 1896 papal bull that Anglican orders are “absolutely null and utterly void.”

“When someone is ordained in the Anglican Church and becomes a parish priest in a community, we cannot say that nothing has happened, that everything is ‘invalid’,” the cardinal says in volume of papers and discussions that took place in Rome as part of the “Malines Conversations,” an ecumenical forum.

“This about the life of a person and what he has given …these things are so very relevant!”

For decades Leo XIII’s remarks have proved to be one of the major stumbling blocks in Catholic-Anglican unity efforts, as it seemed to offer very little room for interpretation or revision.

But the cardinal, whose department is charged with interpreting and revising Church laws, argued the Church today has a “a very rigid understanding of validity and invalidity” which could be revised on the Anglican ordination question.

To put this into historical and current context, therefore, is this article from the Homiletic & Pastoral Review, which points out that Anglicans, at least in the Thirty-Nine Articles, deem Catholic orders invalid (sacramentally):

The preoccupation with the Catholic rejection of Anglican orders in the past century has been accompanied by forgetfulness regarding the equally strong Anglican rejection of Catholic orders. Yet, the recognition that Anglican orders are not Catholic ones is not just a Roman Catholic pronouncement; it is also Anglican doctrine. Long before Pope Leo XIII declared, in 1893, that Anglican orders were deficient from a Catholic perspective, Queen Elizabeth I, in 1570, declared the Catholic view of orders deficient from an Anglican perspective.

The central points of Anglican belief are stated in the Articles of Religion, which were articulated and revised over a period of several decades during the tumultuous 16th century. Although Catholic-minded Anglicans since the Oxford Movement of the 1830s have often questioned them, the Articles were clearly intended to be an authoritative statement of Anglican belief. Though today, they do not carry the same kind of juridical authority as Roman Catholic doctrine, originally they carried even more. Conformity to them among the clergy was originally enforced on pain of death. Until the 19th century, it was a requirement for civil office in England. They have been included in every edition of the Book of Common Prayer in Great Britain and North America up to the present day, and are routinely cited by participants in Anglican theological discourse as representing the mind of the church.

Initially intended to affirm Catholic teaching in the face of the Lutheran reform, in successive revisions, the Articles came to adopt Protestant, and even explicitly anti-Catholic, views. Beginning with six articles stating points of Catholic doctrine by King Henry VIII in 1536, they had been expanded to 42 articles incorporating Lutheran ideas by Henry’s Protestant-leaning son, Edward VI, by 1552. These were eventually pared to 39 articles in 1570—following a convocation and the excommunication of the Pope by Queen Elizabeth. As John Henry Newman observed following his famous, but failed, attempt to interpret the Articles in a Catholic sense, “{i}t is notorious that the Articles were drawn up by Protestants, and intended for the establishment of Protestantism.”

Article 25 states that Ordination is not a sacrament (does not confer Sacramental Grace) in the Church of England:

Those five commonly called Sacraments—that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction—are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures; but yet have not the like nature of Sacraments with Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer did not intend that ministers in the Church of England be like Catholic priests at all, because he did not believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist as Catholics do. Therefore, ministers in the Church of England did not have a sacramental sacrificial role:

. . .“Christ made no such difference between the priest and the layman that the priest should make oblation and sacrifice of Christ for the layman … but the difference between the priest and the layman in this matter is only in the ministration.” . . . .

The ministers of the Church of England were intended to be ministers of the Word, by speech in preaching, and by act in symbolic sacraments, and not priests of the true, substantive Body and Blood of Christ.

As a reminder, this is the Catholic teaching (from the Council of Trent) on priesthood:

Sacrifice and priesthood are, by the ordinance of God, in such wise conjoined, as that both have existed in every law. Whereas, therefore, in the New Testament, the Catholic Church has received, from the institution of Christ, the holy visible sacrifice of the Eucharist; it must needs also be confessed, that there is, in that Church, a new, visible, and external priesthood, into which the old has been translated. And the sacred Scriptures show, and the tradition of the Catholic Church has always taught, that this priesthood was instituted by the same Lord our Saviour, and that to the apostles, and their successors in the priesthood, was the power delivered of consecrating, offering, and administering His Body and Blood, as also of forgiving and of retaining sins. . . . 

Whereas, by the testimony of Scripture, by Apostolic tradition, and the unanimous consent of the Fathers, it is clear that grace is conferred by sacred ordination, which is performed by words and outward signs, no one ought to doubt that Order is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of holy Church. For the apostle says; I admonish thee that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love of sobriety.

The author, Father Donald Paul Sullins, is himself a former Anglican minister who became Catholic and was ordained under the Pastoral Provision issued by Pope St. John Paul II. He continues his article with a discussion of Anglican ministers becoming Catholic priests by sacramental ordination and states:

The Catholic Church today views the relation of Catholic to Protestant, not as the difference between wrong and right, but as between part and whole. It recognizes that many elements of genuine sanctity, doctrine, and orders are to be found in the separated churches of the Reformation, among whom, moreover, Anglicanism is held to have a special place. The bishops of England and Wales, in a joint statement, have made this explicit: “We would never suggest that those now seeking full communion with the Roman Catholic Church deny the value of their previous ministry. According to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, the liturgical actions of their ministry can most certainly engender a life of grace, for they come from Christ and lead back to him and belong by right to the one church of Christ.” 18

If one’s personal experience of grace in Anglican priestly ministry does not prove that the underlying orders are valid, it is equally true that a defect in the underlying orders does not nullify the experience of grace. . . . [Pope Leo XIII's document] Apostolicae Curae’s declaration of nullity of Anglican orders in no way denies the genuine grace and truth that is present in Anglican ordained ministry. The Catholic Church recognizes with joy and thanksgiving, and affirms the legitimacy of, the fruits of the Anglican priesthood.

Please read the rest there. It's also appropriate to recall Pope Leo's encouragement of Anglicans who wanted the fullness of the Christian faith to come home:

38. Hitherto perhaps, while striving after the perfection of Christian virtue, while devoutly searching the Scriptures, while redoubling their fervent prayers, they have yet listened in doubt and perplexity to the promptings of Christ who has long been speaking within their hearts. Now they see clearly whither He is graciously calling and bidding them come. Let them return to His one fold, and they will obtain both the blessings they seek and further aids to salvation; the dispensing of which He has committed to the Church, as the perpetual guardian and promoter of His redemption among the nations. Then will they 'draw waters with joy out of the fountains of the Saviour', that is, out of His wondrous sacraments; whereby the souls of the faithful are truly forgiven their sins and restored to the friendship of God, nourished and strengthened with the bread of heaven, and provided in abundance with the most powerful aids to the attainment of eternal life. To those who truly thirst after these blessings may 'the God of peace, the God of all consolation', grant them in overflowing measure, according to the greatness of His bounty.

39. Our appeal and Our hopes are directed in a special way to those who hold the office of ministers of religion in their respective communities. Their position gives them preeminence in learning and authority, and they assuredly have at heart the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Let them, then, be among the first to heed God's call and obey it with alacrity, thus giving a shining example to others. Great indeed will be the joy of Mother Church as she welcomes them, surrounding them with every mark of affection and solicitude, because of the difficulties which they have generously and courageously surmounted in order to return to her bosom. And how shall words describe the praise which such courage will earn for them in the assemblies of the faithful throughout the Catholic world, the hope and confidence it will give them before Christ’s judgement seat, the rewards that it will win for them in the kingdom of heaven! For Our part We shall continue by every means allowed to us to encourage their reconciliation with the Church, in which both individuals and whole communities, as We ardently hope, may find a model for their imitation. Meanwhile We beg and implore them all, through the bowels of the mercy of our God, to strive faithfully to follow in the open path of His truth and grace.

Why the Anglican Ordinariates Have Survived

For the National Catholic Register, Peter Jesserer Smith writes:

Benedict XVI gave a tremendous gift to the English-speaking world in 2009, when he finally realized a dream centuries in the making, and established a permanent canonical home for groups from the Anglican tradition seeking to enter the Catholic Church with the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.

Today, the Catholic Church has three Personal Ordinariates — informally known as the “Anglican Ordinariates” — that preserve the Anglican patrimony in their Catholic parishes, communities, and religious orders. These Personal Ordinariates have the only English form of the Roman Missal, promulgated by Pope Francis, called Divine Worship — an actual English form, not an English translation of the Latin Mass — written in traditional, poetic “Prayer Book” English. Each Personal Ordinariate covers a region of the globe (Oceania, the United Kingdom, and North America) and is headed by a bishop or ordinary who falls directly under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

But how did the Vatican determine the solution for corporate unification with the Catholic Church had to be this structure called a “Personal Ordinariate?”

The story behind that answer can be found in an illuminating theological address on the CDF by Bishop Steven Lopes, who was tapped by Pope Francis to lead the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter (covering the U.S. and Canada) in 2016.

Bishop Lopes delivered his March 28 address “Unity of Faith in a Diversity of Expression: The Work of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” to a gathering of students and professors of the Institut für Historische Theologie, Liturgiewissenschaft und Sakramententheologie at the University of Vienna. The bishop is not a convert from Anglicanism, but is a lifelong Catholic whose work with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over 10 years immersed him in the Anglican patrimony and the project of corporate reunification between groups of Anglicans and the Catholic Church.

Earlier attempts at this kind of structure within the Church had failed because responsibility for them was placed with the local dioceses. The structures were soon submerged in the local dioceses for several reasons. With the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith coordinating Ordinariate efforts, overseeing the implementation of the Divine Worship, and guaranteeing Ordinariate faithfulness to the fullness of Catholic teaching, the Ordinariates started off at least with a stable foundation.

The text of Bishop Steven Lopes's presentation is here. Note that he was once an official at the CDF. Just another reason to be grateful to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI!

The Ordinariate Attraction

Over at Aleteia, Deborah Gyapong, a freelance journalist in Canada, writes about the Divine Worship of the Anglican Ordinariate:

Our liturgy is a Catholic Mass in the language of Shakespeare. We pray using sacral language forms of “thee” and “thou.” Though fully approved by the relevant Vatican congregations, our Mass is touched by the Reformation through the use of some of Archbishop Cranmer’s gorgeous English translations of Latin collects, the inclusion of the Comfortable Words of Scripture following our Penitential Rite and the beautiful Prayer of Humble Access before Holy Communion. Our liturgy also incorporates elements of pre-Reformation English Catholicism in its use of Sarum collects and chants.

The rubrics are similar to those of the Traditional Latin Mass—it is a ballet of genuflection, usually prayed ad orientem, but it has many of the hallmarks of the reform of the liturgy called for in the Second Vatican Council: it’s in the vernacular and in addition to traditional chanted introits and graduals we sing hymns (robustly, often in four-part harmony!).

What Pope Benedict XVI made possible was for us to bring the heirlooms of English Catholicism and the underpinning of the civilization of the English-speaking world into their pride of place in the Catholic Church, from which they developed.

Read the rest there.

The Prayer of Humble Access before Holy Communion:

Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us. Amen.

The Comfortable Words are comforting words of forgiveness:

Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.
Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.
So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that
all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Hear also what St Paul saith.
This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Hear also what St John saith.
If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins.

I hope to go to Mass at Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church in Kansas City, the Ordinariate parish, yet this year during a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum exhibition of Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium:

Artist Janet Cardiff’s contemporary sound installation emits polyphonic choral music written in the mid-1500s by Thomas Tallis. Called “Achingly beautiful” by the New Yorker and “Transcendent” by the New York Times, Forty-Part Motet is an immersive experience not to be missed.

The installation consists of 40 speakers arranged in a large oval turned inward. Sung in Latin and a cappella by the Salisbury Cathedral Choir, one singer’s voice comes from each speaker. Visitors are invited to enter and move amongst the configuration of speakers to discover what the artist describes as “walking into a piece of music.” The first of its kind at the Nelson-Atkins, Forty-Part Motet is a new way for visitors to engage with contemporary art.

I wonder if they will have the exhibit in the Cloister at Nelson-Atkins?

Damian Thompson on Saving the English Ordinariate

In The Catholic Herald, Damian Thompson discusses the state of the Anglican Ordinariate and what needs to be done to save it:

When the Catholic Herald asked me to write this article, I wasn’t enthusiastic. Having noisily championed the Ordinariate from day one, I wasn’t keen to hear – yet again – its own faithful tell me that, well, it was a nice idea, but everyone hates us and even some of our own priests aren’t really on board.

Sure enough, that is exactly what I’ve been told and I’m now convinced that the Ordinariate in its present form will wither away.

But note the qualification: in its present form. Those 80 priests include visionaries who believe that the Ordinariate can reinvent itself.

By that, they mean that the fantasy of group conversions needs to be ditched. Also, Ordinariate priests and laity who never liked their unique Missal, Divine Worship, should slip quietly into the Catholic mainstream.

Only then will a smaller Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham enrich the whole Church with the radiant Divine Worship, revive moribund parishes and evangelise with the vigour of its Anglo-Catholic forebears. That sounds like wishful thinking – but the people who believe in it make a stronger practical case for this Ordinariate Mark II than anyone ever did for the launch model.

Citing the success of the Oratorians, he believes the key is Divine Worship, the liturgy of the Ordinariate:

Fr David Palmer, who runs the Nottingham Ordinariate group, thinks the answer is to “unchain” Divine Worship – that is, to allow any Catholic priest to say its Mass. “It has prayers at the foot of the altar, the option for a last Gospel. In many ways it offers the cross-fertilisation between old and new forms of the Roman Rite that Pope Benedict hoped for,” he argues.

Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, a cradle Catholic theologian, recently preached at an Ordinariate Mass. “I was struck by its nobility,” he says. “How refreshing to hear a translation of the Canon written by someone whose first language is English. If the Church is serious about ‘celebrating diversity’, then it should allow priests like me to say it.”

That won’t happen. A Mass that draws so heavily on medieval English piety represents the wrong sort of diversity for “go-ahead” bishops. Although they can’t ban diocesan priests celebrating in the Extraordinary Form, they can stop them using Divine Worship.

But they absolutely cannot stop Ordinariate priests from saying their own Mass, or cradle Catholics from attending it. And this is where the Ordinariate Mark II comes in.

Very soon, the network of Ordinariate communities will disintegrate like a piece of old lace. What will not disintegrate is the papal legislation setting up ordinariates in America and Australia as well as Britain.

If an Ordinariate priest in England is determined enough, he can find a way of taking charge of a parish and offering a Divine Worship Sunday Mass.

Read the rest there. Of course, there is also the old-fashioned Catholic way: prayer. The English Ordinariate is dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham and Blessed John Henry Newman is its heavenly patron. From the Ordinariate website:

O Mary, recall the solemn moment
when Jesus, your divine Son,
dying on the cross
confided us to your maternal care.

You are our Mother;
we desire ever to remain your devout children.

Let us therefore feel the effects
of your powerful intercession with Jesus Christ.

Make your name again glorious in this place,
once renowned throughout our land
by your visits, favours and many miracles.

Pray, O Holy Mother of God,
for the conversion of England,
restoration of the sick,
consolation for the afflicted,
repentance of sinners,
peace to the departed.

O Blessed Mary, Mother of God,
Our Lady of Walsingham,
intercede for us. Amen

The Anglican Ordinariate in the UK, Five Year Status Update

Joanna Bogle updates her readers in The Catholic World Report on the status of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham after celebrating its five year anniversary this January:

Sunday Masses, weekday lunchtime Masses, processions for special feasts, a lively First Communion class, an adult group meeting weekly for instruction ready for baptism and confirmation, a women’s group running a London-wide project teaching children the Lord’s Prayer through schools…it’s all thriving.

But is the ordinariate in London attracting many Anglicans, keen to come into full communion with the Catholic Church? Alas, not in any large numbers: tribal feelings and loyalties hold firm. I have spoken to so many worried Anglican friends who say things like: “The old C. of E. is simply disappearing”; “I don’t really approve of women bishops, but what can you do?”; “I feel alienated from my church and don’t really go much now.” But they don’t want to become Catholics, even if they warmly agree with the Church’s moral stance and want to know more about some of the issues (Mary, Eucharistic devotions, confession) on which they have questions. Their attitude is “Yes…but…oh, I don’t know…I’m Anglican. I can’t explain it. But…our family: we’ve just never been Catholic…” and the voice fades into a vague awkwardness. It is precisely these people that Pope Benedict hoped to help with the establishment of the ordinariate: Anglican patrimony, Anglican hymns, traditions, liturgy, Harvest Thanksgiving, Sunday School, flower arrangements…but is it working? Some clergy and laity who initially said they would join have kept postponing the decision; attachment to familiar buildings and to a sense of being part of an established way of things is strong.

However, ordinariate parishes are thriving. They attract all sorts of people: lapsed or semi-lapsed Catholics who through this have reconnected to the Church, people who love the music and the liturgical style, people who find the Mass times or church location convenient, former Anglicans who became Catholic some years ago and now feel particularly at home, young families who like the welcome and the sense of community. . . .

Read the rest there.

The First Ordinariate Chrism Mass with Its Bishop

Since the Anglican/Episcopalian Ordinariate in North America, named for The Chair of St. Peter, now has an ordained Bishop as its ordinary, he will celebrate the first Chrism Mass for the Ordinariate this Holy Week:

On March 17 at 7 pm, Bishop Steven J. Lopes, the recently ordained first bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, will come to Washington, D.C. to celebrate a historic Chrism Mass.

The Chrism Mass will be at St. Luke’s at Immaculate Conception Church, an Ordinariate parish in downtown Washington. This is a historic event because Bishop Lopes will be celebrating the very first Chrism Mass for the Ordinariate.

The Most Reverend Carlo Maria Viganò, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, will be in attendance. As the Holy Father’s personal representative to the U.S., Archbishop Viganò’s presence at the Ordinariate’s Chrism Mass is a powerful sign of the Holy See’s support and encouragement for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

A Chrism Mass is the Mass at which a bishop blesses the holy oils that will be used in his diocese throughout the year to baptize and confirm catechumens and for the sick. Since only a bishop can bless the holy oils, Ordinariate priests have until now obtained the oils used for anointing from the geographical dioceses in which they reside. During the Mass, the priests of the Ordinariate will renew their priestly promises, as well.

“It is an honor that Bishop Lopes has chosen to come to St. Luke’s for his first Chrism Mass, which is a landmark event in the life of the Ordinariate,” Father Mark Lewis, pastor of St. Luke’s, said.

A recent article in the U.K. Catholic Herald bore the headline, “Why You Should Attend A Chrism Mass at Least Once in Your Life.” The author was struck that many people, some as yet unborn, would be anointed with the oils blessed at that Mass. The Chrism Mass at St. Luke’s at Immaculate Conception will be additionally interesting because it will be the first Chrism Mass in the Catholic Church celebrated with Divine Worship: The Missal, the newly propagated Missal which blends language from the Anglican tradition with a fully Catholic Mass.

The Ordinaries of the Ordinariates in the U.K. and Australia are Monsignors, former Anglican ministers who are married and thus not eligible for the episcopate. In England, for example the Apostolic Nuncio, The Most Reverend Antonio Mennini, is the principal celebrant at the Chrism Mass, receiving the vows of obedience from the priests and deacons on behalf of the Pope.

More about St. Luke's at Immaculate Conception here.

The Third Monday of the Month: On the Son Rise Morning Show

This morning on the Son Rise Morning Show, Matt Swaim and I will discuss recent events in the Anglican Communion. I'll be on the air after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central break. You may listen live here.

I'm referring to the meeting of the 37 Primates of the Anglican Communion last week in Canterbury. The big announcement last week was that after agreeing to the agenda, the Primates addressed the issue that threatened to destroy the Anglican Communion by temporarily suspending the Episcopal Church in the USA from the Anglican Communion's official functions, while it is still part of the Anglican Communion:

The meeting started by agreeing the agenda. The first agreed item was to discuss an important point of contention among Anglicans worldwide: the recent change to the doctrine of marriage by The Episcopal Church in the USA.

Over the past week the unanimous decision of the Primates was to walk together, however painful this is, and despite our differences, as a deep expression of our unity in the body of Christ. We looked at what that meant in practical terms.

We received the recommendation of a working group of our members which took up the task of how our Anglican Communion of Churches might walk together and our unity be strengthened. Their work, consistent with previous statements of the Primates’ meetings, addressed what consequences follow for The Episcopal Church in relation to the Anglican Communion following its recent change of marriage doctrine. The recommendations in paragraphs 7 and 8 of the Addendum A below are:

“It is our unanimous desire to walk together. However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.

“We have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint a Task Group to maintain conversation among ourselves with the intention of restoration of relationship, the rebuilding of mutual trust, healing the legacy of hurt, recognising the extent of our commonality and exploring our deep differences, ensuring they are held between us in the love and grace of Christ.”

These recommendations were adopted by the majority of the Primates present.

It just cannot be coincidental that this statement was issued on the same day as the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady in Walsingham, which was followed by the organizing of an Anglican Ordinariate in the USA a year later. Nor can it be ignored that the Vatican had arranged for two great relics of England's Catholic past to be on display at Canterbury: the staff of Pope St. Gregory the Great and the bloodied vestment of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

Most commentators note that this is just puts off the harder decisions about marriage in the Anglican Communion, because the Episcopalians and other "liberals" are not going to change their teaching, while the more "conservative" Anglicans, from Africa for example, are not going to change theirs or allow the "liberals" to change Anglican teaching throughout the Communion. This semi-suspension just "kicks the can" down the road for another meeting to reconsider where the two sides are.

Tomorrow's Feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great

How appropriate that a church in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in the USA would be named for Pope St. Gregory the Great who sent St. Augustine of Canterbury to England! This church, in Stoneham, Massachusetts, is celebrating their third anniversary tomorrow with a Solemn High Mass in the Ordinariate, AKA Anglican Use. Continuing the appropriateness of this festivity, they have selected Palestrina's Missa Tu Es Petrus as the music for the Mass, and will also include William Byrd's setting of Tu Es Petrus.

Matthew 16:18-19:

Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram
Aedificabo Ecclesiam meam,
Et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam:
Et tibi dabo claves
Regni coelorum.
Quodcumque ligaveris super terram,
Erit ligatum et in coelis;
Et quodcumque solveris super terram
Erit solutum et in coelis.

Happy Anniversary!

What Catholics Lost Because of the English Reformation

I think that Devin Rose expresses these thoughts very well, after attending an Anglican Use Mass:

The Order of the Mass for the Anglican Ordinariate is what the English Mass should be: traditional, yet in the vernacular; accessible, yet reverent.

We’ve been to the Extraordinary Form (Latin) multiple times, and of course to the normal Ordinary Form (English) thousands of times, and the Ordinariate Mass captures the best of each Form in its own unique style.

What We Lost As English Catholics

In studying for many years the history of the Protestant Reformation, I have slowly realized the devastating loss that we as English-speaking Catholics have suffered due to King Henry VIII and the Anglican Protestant usurpation of Catholic England.

I know that sounds extreme, but it is the candid truth.

We should have had five hundred years of English Catholic music, culture, and life, but instead Catholics were hunted down and killed and the Church went underground there for a long time.

So Pope Emeritus Benedict showed great wisdom and brilliance in establishing the Anglican Ordinariate. He realized what we had lost, and he saw a way to retrieve some part of it, all while building a bridge to Anglicans (including Episcopalians) who have grown appalled at the fall of the Anglican Communion into unsalvagable heterodoxy.

He established the Ordinariate to include a reverent Mass, in English, of the Roman Rite, that also includes aspects of authentic Anglican patrimony. The result is a breath of fresh air: the accessibility of our English language with the reverence and tradition of the Extraordinary Form.

The only comment I would make is that Catholics in nineteenth century England, most of them converts from the Church of England, did work hard to revive the Catholic spirit of English literature through good translations of Latin hymns and prayers, and good original poems and hymn lyrics. I'm thinking of Blessed John Henry Newman, Father Frederick Faber, Father Edward Caswall--three Oratorians, and I'm sure there were others. Like Father Frederick Oakeley, who started out with Newman's community but then followed Cardinal Wiseman to Westminster. T.E. Muir describes this period in his book from Ashgate: Roman Catholic Church Music in England, 1791–1914: A Handmaid of the Liturgy? Perhaps here in the USA we did not receive the benefits of this revival, partially because of--as I have read and written about before--the Irish influence here. 

Read the rest there.

I wish that Pope Benedict XVI would have been able to live out the normal course of his pontificate instead of having to cut it short because he could not fulfill his obligations. His program of renewing the liturgy, saving it from banality and reviving the sense of reverence and mystery was developing in the Extraordinary Form, the Ordinary Form (new English translation, the "Benedictine" Altar arrangement, return to the use of the Propers of the Mass instead of hymns and songs), and the Anglican Use. What might have been: what might still be.

Keeping Up to Date with the Ordinariate in Kansas City

The Catholic Key has this story about the new Ordinariate community in the KC-St. Joe, MO diocese: Our Lady of Hope Society and its new home at Our Lady of Sorrows near Crown Center:

KANSAS CITY — It was a stunning question to open a homily, and one that had more than one answer.

“What in the world are we doing here?” Father Ernie Davis asked his congregation of Catholics who in 2008 came into full communion with Rome as one former Anglican community.

Yes, they were celebrating Mass for the first time in their new home, Our Lady of Sorrows Parish, adjacent to Crown Center.

Yes, though still small in number, they still dream big and of one day becoming a full parish in the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, an organizational structure established by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI for united Catholics from the Anglican, Episcopalian and Methodist traditions to celebrate unity while retaining their adapted prayers and liturgy.

In January this year the new society was approved by the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, according to this story.

My husband I attended Mass according to the Anglican Use at St. Therese the Little Flower several years ago, from which Our Lady of Hope is moving to Our Lady of Sorrows:

But make no mistake about it. They still love their first spiritual home at St. Therese Little Flower Church, 58th and Euclid, and they still intend to participate in the work that the small parish does for hundreds of poor and elderly in its parish boundaries.

“We think we can grow and keep connected to St. Therese, especially in the things they do for the people,” said Ann Straulman.

But Straulman said it was difficult for the community to grow at St. Therese Little Flower because the parish is not easy to find, nor its location easy to describe.

“Nobody knew where it was. We would invite people and say ‘58th and Euclid,’ and people would go blank,” she said.

Straulman is one of the more senior members of the Our Lady of Hope community, now officially a “mission” of the ordinariate, but still fully connected to the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

The pastor of their new church makes a nice point at the end of the article:

Then he remarked how appropriate that the Our Lady of Sorrows community and the Our Lady of Hope community unite in one church building, as he recalled Mary at the foot of the cross.

“Even in that sorrow, she had hope,” Father Pileggi said. “The two titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary are now joined together in one house.”

Pope Benedict Appreciates the Ordinariate's Appreciation

According to the Friends of the Ordinariate website, they've received a letter from Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI in response to a thank you letter they had written him:

The Chairman had written to Benedict XVI to express his gratitude for the gift of the Ordinariate. He had also sent the Pope Emeritus a brief history – translated into German – of the Ordinariate’s central church, Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory’s, Warwick Street (London, W1). This church is built on the site of a Bavarian embassy chapel, which was pillaged during the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots (1780).

In his letter, His Holiness asked Nicolas Ollivant to “convey my thanks to all [the Ordinariate’s] members”, before saying that he is “particularly glad that the former Bavarian Chapel has now become … [the] Ordinariate’s church, and serves such an important role in the whole Church of God.”

The site offers a translation of the letter, since it was written in German as was part of the message the Friends had sent Pope Benedict, and an image of the letter.

A Reminder and A Preview

Just a reminder that my series on Blessed John Henry Newman begins tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Spiritual Life Center in Wichita, Kansas. I'll be talking about Newman and Conversion:

• What is conversion?
• Newman's Conversion(s)
• Newman and His Converts: advice and guidance
• Newman and Conversion Today

And a preview: I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show Thursday morning, October 9, Newman's memorial in the dioceses of England and Wales. We'll discuss some of the same insights Newman offered prospective converts in the nineteenth century. I'm scheduled for 7:45 a.m. Eastern time/6:45 a.m. Central--the last segment on the EWTN portion of the show.

Book Review: Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony

I have submitted a review of this slender volume to the St. Austin Review (StAR) but I also promised I'd offer a review on my blog, so here are some comments about this brief, but very thorough, analysis of the Personal Ordinariate--only 82 pages! (Note that this is NOT what I submitted to StAR.)

Although there are only 82 pages in this book, it is filled with insights from Father Aidan Nichols, OP, and like many fine books, it leads the reader to other books, specifically two by the author: The Panther and the Hind and The Realm. It leads to those books directly, because Father Nichols mentions them in the text--but it could also leads to another book, Christendom Awake. Those three books precede this book precisely because in the last chapter of Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony, Nichols highlights the mission of the Anglican Ordinariate as being a great leader in the New Evangelization and in the goal of the conversion of England.

In the first chapter, Father Nichols places the founding of the Anglican Ordinariates in the context of the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England, proposing that it is the logical result of that tradition and those within it yearning for the true Church while finding their position in the Church of England untenable.

In the second chapter he examines Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's vision for true Christian unity and the role of beatiful and ordered liturgy, noting that four of the religious communities Benedict XVI focused on (The Society of Pope Pius X, a certain group of Lutherans, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Anglo-Catholic, High Church Anglicans) each place a high value on such liturgy.

In the penultimate chapter--the one which I found least helpful--Father Nichols looks at the decisions about the Anglican Use for the Personal Ordinariate. I found this chapter least helpful simply because it seemed inconclusive.

Finally, in the last chapter he presents his thesis that the Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony can answer the call he made in The Realm for the conversion of England. He believes that since these Catholics are more "native" to England they will be able to reach out to English culture more easily. He also notes that since these Catholics have not been involved in some of the confusions between left and right in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council they can reach out to disaffected Catholics more easily.

In summary, although the book is very short, it is comprehensive and instructive.

Marriage and Succession in the House of Windsor

Queen Elizabeth II is ready for her summer holiday at Balmoral and there were news reports last week that she hopes her grandson William's baby comes soon, because she's leaving per the schedule whether the baby had arrived or not (the Duchess of Cambridge is in labor as of Monday, July 22):

It seems Queen Elizabeth II is getting a bit impatient as she waits in a rare British heat wave for the birth of her third great-grandchild. The queen said Wednesday she hopes the former Kate Middleton gives birth soon. Asked by a schoolgirl at a public event whether she was hoping for a boy or a girl, the queen said, "I don't think I mind. I would very much like it to arrive. I'm going on holiday." The queen is shortly expected to begin her annual summer holiday in Scotland. Prince William and his wife are expecting the birth of their first child, who will be third in line to the throne. The baby is due in mid-July. William and Kate say they do not know the baby's gender.

There were also news reports last week that Queen Elizabeth II had signed the law passed by Parliament legalizing so-called same-sex marriage:

With little fanfare or controversy, Britain announced Wednesday that Queen Elizabeth II -- hardly a social radical -- had signed into law a bill legalizing same-sex marriages in England and Wales. . . . .

Official word that the queen had approved the bill drew cheers in the usually sedate House of Commons. [Has that reporter not seen the Prime Minister facing questions in the House of Commons? "Usually sedate"?]

Queen Elizabeth II may not be a social radical, but she has struck at the root of royal succession by approving such a law. She has also forecasted the continued decline of the Church of England as a leader of society. As the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Defender of the Faith, Queen Elizabeth II has indeed pulled the three legs of religious authority out from under the Church of England--Scripture, Tradition, and Reason (not that it wasn't already horribly wobbly).

Scripture and Tradition, and even The Book of Common Prayer, have always and everywhere defined marriage as between a man and a woman--so she has ignored that authority.

She cannot have thought this through--royal succession has always depended on the marital virtue of the man and woman procreating the heir (at least when they were procreating the heir) so that the legitimacy of the heir was certain and absolute. With so-called same sex marriage, that assurance is gone; since reason assures us that two men or two women cannot conceive a child according to nature. A royal same sex "married" couple producing an heir must resort to some form of surrogacy.

She might as well go on holiday--and stay there. Thank God, again, for the Anglican Ordinariate. Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us.

Aidan Nichols on the Anglican Ordinariate

Yesterday, I came home from work to find this book in my mail! I had requested a review copy from Gracewing and it has arrived--a lovely combination of subject, author, and even the cover photo. Father Aidan Nichols, OP is one of my favorite authors (I've read several of his books, including Catholic Thought since the Enlightenment. A Survey; G.K. Chesterton, Theologian; Rome and the Eastern Churches: A Study in Schism; The Panther and the Hind. A Theological History of Anglicanism; The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England; and Christendom Awake: On Re-energizing the Church in Culture.

And of course, you know of my abiding interest in the Anglican Ordinariate; so please watch this space for a review. According to the publisher:

When in 1993 Aidan Nichols revived the long-dormant idea of an Anglican Uniate Church, united with the See of Peter but not absorbed, the reaction of many was incredulity. The ideal of modern Ecumenism was, surely, the corporate reunification of entire Communions. This he roundly declared to be unrealistic, for the Protestant and Liberal elements in Anglican history (and Anglicanism's present reality) could never be digested by Roman stomachs. What was feasible was, rather, the reconciliation of a select body Catholic enough to be united, and Anglican enough not to be absorbed. Just over a dozen years later Pope Benedict XVI, responding to the petitions of various Anglican bishops, promulgated the Apostolic Constitution Apostolorum coetibus and the deed was done. The three 'Ordinariates' now established for 'Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony' in Britain, Australia and North America have been described as the first tangible fruit of Catholic Ecumenism. In this short book Nichols reflects on the historical, theological, and liturgical issues involved. He also shows the congruence of the new development with Benedict's wider thinking, and outlines a specific missionary vocation for reconciled Anglicans in England.

You might remember that early in Pope Francis' reign there was concern that he was not that supportive of the Anglican Ordinariate. A recent announcement alleviates that concern completely, as Damian Thompson reported in his blog:

Opponents of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, set up by Benedict XVI to allow ex-Anglicans to worship together with their own liturgy, were so excited when it was reported that Pope Francis, when Archbishop of Buenos Aires, wasn't keen on the initiative. But if that were ever the case, then he has changed his mind.

This week it emerged that Francis has widened the remit of the Ordinariates in Britain, America and Australia. Until now, only ex-Anglicans and their family members could join the new body. But, thanks to a new paragraph inserted into the Ordinariate's constitution by Francis, nominal Catholics who were baptised but not confirmed can join the structure. Indeed, the Holy Father wants the Ordinariates to go out and evangelise such people. Put bluntly, this suggests that English bishops who wanted to squash the body – and whose allies were rushing to get to the new Pope in order to brief against it – have been thwarted.
Here's the fine print, from the Ordinariate's website:

Pope Francis has approved a significant amendment to the Complementary Norms which govern the life of the Personal Ordinariates established under the auspices of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

On 31 May 2013, the Holy Father made a modification to Article 5 of the Norms, in order to make clear the contribution of the Personal Ordinariates in the work of the New Evangelisation.

This paragraph has been inserted into the Complementary Norms as Article 5 §2:

A person who has been baptised in the Catholic Church but who has not completed the Sacraments of Initiation, and subsequently returns to the faith and practice of the Church as a result of the evangelising mission of the Ordinariate, may be admitted to membership in the Ordinariate and receive the Sacrament of Confirmation or the Sacrament of the Eucharist or both.  

This confirms the place of the Personal Ordinariates within the mission of the wider Catholic Church, not simply as a jurisdiction for those from the Anglican tradition, but as a contributor to the urgent work of the New Evangelisation.
 
As noted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, enrolment into a Personal Ordinariate remains linked to an objective criterion of incomplete initiation (i.e. baptism, eucharist, or confirmation are lacking), meaning that Catholics may not become members of a Personal Ordinariate ‘for purely subjective motives or personal preference’.
 
So there you have it: a ringing affirmation of the Ordinariate's mission from a supposedly sceptical pontiff. Now what the new body needs is money and perhaps a little more courage to stick its head above the parapet. The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have so far declined to organise a nationwide second collection at Mass to help their new brethren. They should do so without delay.

It just makes sense that Pope Francis would "embrace" the Anglican Ordinariate, since it is a great means of evangelization, and that's the great theme of his pontificate, putting the "New Evangelization" promoted by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI into action!