Common sense from Bishop Edwin on Ordination

From "The Anglo-Catholic Blog"

Some Anglican priests see the need for Ordination before being accepted as a priest in the Ordinariate as a stumbling block. Perhaps in reality it is a great gift. To begin with, it requires humility from us; and that is a good place to start. We are not saying “Everything we have done in the Anglican Church is worthless”; far from it, at Ordinations of former Anglican Priests the Catholic Bishop seems always to be at pains to value what has gone before. Undoubtedly our ministries have been blessed; but they have been incomplete.

In that our priesthood was not in union with the priesthood of the whole Church it was defective. All the arguments about Archbishop Parker’s orders or whether the ‘Dutch touch’ has altered the case set out in Apostolicae Curae is beside the point. Holy Orders are about more than the validity or otherwise of an individual priest’s ordination. The plain fact is, we are part of a College of Priests, in our turn connected to a Bishop who is part of a College of Bishops. Surely that is part of what is being expressed when Bishops gather round to lay their hands on the head of the man they are Consecrating, and a Bishop is joined by other priests in the laying on of hands at the Ordination of Priests. It is also there in an induction, when the Bishop says “Receive the Cure of Souls, which is both mine and yours”. Ever since the first ordinations of women to the priesthood, that collegiality has been fractured. We are in impaired communion. The Eames Commission Report foresaw this, the Lambeth Conference endorsed it, and in England the Act of Synod made it seem respectable.

Yet I have had a Cathedral Dean in a fury that I did not receive Communion at an Ordination. He did not say this to my face, indeed he smiled and passed the time of day; and then he published his outburst in the Press. Were we a coherent church, his anger would have been very understandable, though not his failure to face me in person. But our priestly college is incoherent, fractured. We do not all recognise every priest as a member of the college, and the moment there are women bishops – not far over the horizon in England - neither shall we be able to see any collegiality among the Bishops.

It is this, more than what happened in the past, which invalidates all our Orders in the Church of England. The mere fact that I might have Catholic opinions does not alter the facts. Of course, the Lord is very good; the Spirit blows where he chooses, and is not restricted to the Sacraments. But if the Sacraments are available, we should use them. It pains me to say this, but at present the Sacraments as administered in the Church of England seem to me to be of at best dubious authenticity – and so of dubious value.

At an induction this week I heard the Bishop saying once again “The Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”. Would that it were still true!

(+Edwin Barnes)

Day of Prayer - 22 February

DAY OF PRAYER

On Monday 22nd February 2010, the feast of the Chair of St Peter, the Anglican bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough have asked their parishes to undertake a day of prayerful discernment for the future of Anglo-Catholics, especially in the light of Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. The Bishop of Fulham encouraged his parishes too.

Archbishop of York on "Second Class" Ordinariates

Archbishop Sentamu: "If people genuinely realise that they want to be Roman Catholic, they should convert properly, and go through catechesis and be made proper Catholics. This kind of creation [the Apostolic Constitution] -- well, all I can say is, we wish them every blessing and may the Lord encourage them. But as far as I am concerned, if I was really, genuinely wanting to convert, I wouldn't go into an ordinariate. I would actually go into catechesis and become a truly converted Roman Catholic and be accepted."

William Crawley: "So those Anglicans who take advantage of the Apostolic Constitution, you're saying, would not be 'proper Catholcis'?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "Well, I mean, I'd be very surprised --"

William Crawley: "What would they be if they are not 'proper Catholics'?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "They would be what they are: an ordinariate of the Vatican."

William Crawley: "Anglican Émigrés?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "(Laughter) Well, if I was a Roman Catholic bishop and I had this group within my diocese being looked after by an ordinariate whose reference was back to the Vatican, I'd have to ask a number of questions."

Ordinariates - United in communion but not absorbed

Bishop Peter Elliot, who is in charge of setting up the Anglican Ordinariate in Australia, has made this encouraging comment on Ordinariates:

The Pastor of the nations is reaching out to give you a special place within the Catholic Church. United in communion, but not absorbed – that sums up the unique and privileged status former Anglicans will enjoy in their Ordinariates.


Catholics in full communion with the Successor of St Peter, you will be gathered in distinctive communities that preserve elements of Anglican worship, spirituality and culture that are compatible with Catholic faith and morals. Each Ordinariate will be an autonomous structure, like a diocese, but something between a Personal Prelature (as in Opus Dei, purely spiritual jurisdiction), or a Military Ordinariate (for the Armed Forces). In some ways, the Ordinariate will even be similar to a Rite (the Eastern Catholic Churches). You will enjoy your own liturgical “use” as Catholics of the Roman Rite. At the same time your Ordinaries, bishops or priests, will work alongside diocesan bishops of the Roman Rite and find their place within the Episcopal Conference in each nation or region.