Coalition for Marriage Petition

The Coalition for Marriage is an umbrella group of individuals and organisations in the UK that support traditional marriage and oppose any plans to redefine it. The Coalition has organised an online petition in support of marriage. It reads:

I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it.

Ther are over 14,500 signatures so far.

Sign the petition here.

TAC - Pastoral letter from Archbishop Hepworth

 

I find this almost incredible!!!!!!!!!!

PASTORAL LETTER

Archbishop Hepworth

In recent months, a deep division has been created in the Traditional Anglican Communion. Bishops and Vicars General have threatened others with expulsion. Clergy and laity have been bullied and threatened. A minority of the bishops plan to meet shortly in South Africa with the openly published agenda of expelling all those who are at the various stages of discernment of the offer of the “fullness of Catholic Communion” contained in the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Benedict XVI.

This bullying reached new levels with the publication of letters from Canon Gray in England and Bishop Marsh in the United States, cancelling arrangements into which they entered that created a tolerant environment during this process. In the past few days, these events among others have greatly concerned me:

• A priest of many years standing in the United States who is licensed to the Patrimony (created to protect those discerning their future in the light of the Ordinariate) has been refused permission to conduct the funeral of a long-standing friend because “he has applied to become a Roman Catholic”.

• Father Brian Gill, a founding member of the TAC and our leader for many sacrificial years in England, who has been on holiday, wrote “On arrival back I found the disgusting circular letter from Fr. Ian Gray in which he wrote: Those of you who have submitted personal dossiers and may now wish to reconsider your position to return to the TTAC/TAC should do so by contacting me directly in writing by February 3rd 2012. “

• Bishop Marsh of the United States has circulated a letter to clergy who have been transferred to Bishops Moyer and Campese assuming that neither they nor their bishops still belong to the TAC.

• Bishop Garcia of Puerto Rico has been told by Bishop Marsh that he is no longer considered a member of the TAC because of his positive attitude to the Ordinariates.

• Meanwhile, it has emerged that Bishop Marsh is a high-ranking member of a virulently anti-catholic Lodge of Freemasons, and claims to have successfully influenced Roman Catholic authorities to reject the TAC and its bishops as a credible ecclesial communion.

• Obviously in collusion, several Bishops and Vicars General are moving to attempt the illegal and uncanonical expulsion of their fellow bishops and clergy who are considering the Ordinariates on the grounds that they are “seeking to become Roman Catholic”. In so doing, they effectively remove themselves from our Communion

Neither I nor those under attack can any longer allow this conduct to continue unchallenged.

Anglicanism has always aspired to tolerance. Even the persecution of Catholics in England was balanced by tolerance and respect in missionary regions. Anglo-Catholics and Evangelical Anglicans sustained a mutual respect and restraint in spite of vigorously asserting their positions. Opponents found this a weakness. Those of us who experienced it found it a strength.

Whether the destructive forces of the past fifty years have ended the possibility of tolerance in the wider Anglican world is a matter for prayer now and the judgement of history in the future. We seek the truth that is in Christ Jesus, knowing that we must live in the moment of time in which we have been created. For us that is a fractured church, a turmoil of conflicting theology, and the power of resurgent hostile creeds. Science has created new boundaries of sinfulness that test us – power over life, the abundant access to information and entertainment, the global competition for the necessities of life, and the battles between scientific leaders and the idea of God. It is not an easy time to be a good Christian.

I make clear the basis of conflicts within our own Communion:

• Continuing Churches have a long history. Some have been glorious, others are better forgotten. They can never be permanent. They must continue to relate to the Church from which they withdrew, to influence it for good, to make clear the reasons for their withdrawal “into the desert”. To permanently split from the Church is schism. To go into the desert to heal the Church is heroic.

• There is only one Church, one Body of Christ, one Vine. Every ecclesial group must be able to show evidence of its oneness with the Body of Christ, the Church. As soon as a group becomes permanently and comfortably alone, unacknowledged by any other part of the Church, believing itself to be the only perfect form of Christianity, and accepts and even welcomes that isolation, it has slipped into the schism of the sect.

• There is only one truth given once and for all by Christ. The Church seeks to expound that truth in every age and to apply it to problems that are new, and to those things that have been challenges in every age. It is not what the individual thinks; it is what the Church teaches. The great ecumenical conversations of the past century acknowledged this fact and sought to define both the teaching authority of the Church and the truth that is taught.

• The past century has been a time of massive expansion of human conflict and of the instruments that undergird human conflict. The permanent expansion of the instruments of conflict has created a world that is tolerant of conflict and human destruction. Anglican Churches have adopted too readily the destruction of human dignity in all its manifestations – family, livelihood, vocation, community – to achieve ideological victory. The far more difficult pathway of tolerance and love has been lost.

• The Apostolic Letter of the Pope to Anglicans has reignited dormant bigotry and anti-Catholicism, has forced people (even bishops) to examine the true nature of their faith and to assess the importance of the Catholic teachings that they cannot accept.

The present attempts to expel those who are working (often with exquisite difficulties) to test a vocation to fuse Anglican heritage with Catholic Communion, newly available and still in infancy, is not to be tolerated.

The minority of our leaders (Bishops and Vicars General) who intend to meet in South Africa have announced their intention to expel and depose others in our Communion, actions we have not experienced for many years, but which have been a tragic hallmark of Continuing Anglicanism. They intend to change the Concordat that has ordered our common life from the beginning, abandoning the requirement to submit changes to the clergy and laity in the Synods of our Provinces. And they propose to interfere in the affairs of member Provinces, creating spiritual, canonical and legal havoc that will only have one result – the diminution of our apostolate and the betrayal of those who have trusted us.

Even more significantly, they propose for the first time in our common life to expound doctrine according to their personal beliefs, abandoning the tests of common faith whether Anglican or Catholic. I note that the two leaders of this minority in the United States have never attended a meeting of the College of Bishops and have never experienced our corporate life.

The majority remain loyal to the ideals that have sustained us to this point. They remain true to their oaths and promises on doctrine and discipline. They are determined to protect their people and minister to them as they make decisions and undergo processes that cannot be hurried any more than outcomes can be foreseen.

These bishops and senior clergy, in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Torres Strait, Australia, Africa and India are determined to continue their ministry, to respect the ecclesial bonds that exist between them, to sustain their Christian friendship even as some of them succeed (with their clergy and people) in being pioneers of Ordinariates that will grow, if they are of God. They intend to deepen their bonds that are already solid with the mutual support of decades of working together. They reject in advance any attempts to interfere with their jurisdiction, their ministries and the people committed to their care. They too will shortly meet to celebrate their bonds of Christian commitment, and will take steps to protect their ecclesial identity.

The basis of that collegial identity will be:

• The Concordat of the Traditional Anglican Communion which, with its disciplined commitment to good order, has served us well.

• New structures to enable close bonds of friendship, scholarship and spiritual support between those who have joined an Ordinariate and those who aspire to join.

• A commitment to foster and develop the Anglican tradition within the doctrinal framework of Catholic teaching, as set forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the doctrinal standard of the Ordinariates.

• A commitment to each of the processes that have been established to heal the schism between Canterbury and Rome.

• A commitment to the theological education of laity and clergy as a primary preparation for reconciliation between the churches.

Each of us has had moments of deep frustration and disappointment with the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution. There are very valuable lessons to be learned for the ecumenical future of the Church. It faces a world that will only become more hostile.

In the meantime, the loyal majority of TAC bishops wish to assure the Roman Catholic authorities with whom they are working of our collegial respect for the Holy Father, our belief in the teachings contained within the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that is one of the foundations of Anglicanorum Coetibus, and therefore our reaffirmation of the Portsmouth Petition to the Holy Father.

+John Hepworth

Primate

Source: http://catholicusanglicanus.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/pastoral-letter-from-archbishop-hepwort

Fr Steenson's Installation Homily: The Chair of St. Peter and Christian Unity

“Behold how good and joyful a thing it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Ps. 133:1).  With all our hearts, let us thank Pope Benedict XVI for this beautiful gift, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, and let us pray that it may further the goal of Catholic unity.  When Cardinal Wuerl told me that the Holy Father would establish the Ordinariate under this name, I truly rejoiced, for it goes to the heart of what our mission should be.  And it helps us to understand why our Lord entrusted His Church to St. Peter in the first place.
So much ink has been spilled over the interpretation of these words of our Gospel, which Jesus spoke to Peter in Caesarea Philippi – “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church” (Mt. 16:18).  Of course, for Catholics, the authoritative interpretation was provided at the First Vatican Council.  But we must honestly acknowledge that Christians have read this text in different ways.  Even amongst the church fathers there was not unanimity over what “On this Rock” means precisely.  The great Augustine himself said that the reader must choose – Does this Rock signify Christ or Peter?  (Retract. 1.20).  But Augustine quite properly would not have thought this a matter of either/or.  For Peter brings everything to Christ.  The trajectory is clear.  We are Christ’s and Christ is God’s (I Cor. 3:23).  I am grateful that, over the course of my ministry, the teachings of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have been so clear on this point – the Church exists to bring souls to Christ.  But, as our text plainly affirms, Jesus has invested Peter with a ministry of fundamental importance.  And he does so by employing three verbs in the future tense – I will build my church … the gates of hell will not prevail against it … I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.  When Jesus speaks in the future tense, he draws all things to himself; we know then that this commission does not end with the historical Peter.  The whole life of the Church on earth until the end of time is anticipated in this moment.
In this context, listen to St. Anselm, the 37th Archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps the greatest theologian ever to grace England’s green and pleasant land:  “This power was committed specially to Peter, that we might therefore be invited to unity.  Christ therefore appointed him the head of the Apostles, that the Church might have one principal Vicar of Christ, to whom the different members of the Church should have recourse, if ever they should have dissentions among them.  But if there were many heads in the Church, the bond of unity would be broken” (Cat. Aur. Mt. 16:19).
The first time we find Matthew 16:18 specifically applied to Peter’s successors, the Bishops of Rome, came amidst a controversy between Pope Stephen and Cyprian of Carthage in the middle of the third century.  At the risk of sounding pedantic, I hope that you will permit me to speak briefly to this, because it is very relevant to the Ordinariate.  In the Anglican tradition, the church fathers are held in high esteem; here is where we were taught to find our bearings on theological questions.
The third century popes are heroes to me, because they were courageous pastors who sought to restore those brethren who had broken or fallen away to the full communion of the Catholic Church.  At a time when many bishops were very severe and uncompromising about the purity of the Church, God gave us popes who understood that welcoming back the wandering and the fallen is of the very essence of the ministry that Jesus gave to the Apostles.  In the letters of St. Cyprian there is a remarkable and revealing correspondence from St. Firmilian of Caesarea about Pope Stephen (Ep. 75, ca. 255) – Can you believe it, Cyprian?  Stephen actually thinks that he sits on the chair of Peter as he orders us to accept the baptism of these separated groups!  He actually wants us to regard these people as Christians!
I think this is the important context in which to understand what Pope Benedict is saying to us in Anglicanorum coetibus.  Some will argue that the Catholic Church makes Christian unity a difficult thing to achieve.  Look at what is being asked of those who are considering the Ordinariate! – Anglicans have not only to be received but even confirmed, and their clergy ordained in the absolute form.  Is this not asking them to begin all over again?  Certainly not!  From Zephyrinus to Callistus to Cornelius to Stephen – these third century popes, most of whom laid down their lives as martyrs, who governed the Church at a time when it seemed as though the gates of hell really might prevail, threatening to destroy her essential unity – the Catholic Church simply asked that the bonds of charity be restored sacramentally by invoking the presence of the Holy Spirit.  These are brothers and sisters, returning home.
The first principle of the Ordinariate is then about Christian unity.  St. Basil the Great, the Church’s greatest ecumenist, literally expended his life on the work of building bridges between orthodox brethren who shared a common faith, but who had become separated from one another in a Church badly fragmented by heresy and controversy.  He taught that the work of Christian unity requires deliberate and ceaseless effort.  Like an old coat which is always being torn and is difficult to mend, the unity of the Church must never be taken for granted but requires great diligence and courage from her leaders (Bas. Ep.113).  St. Basil often talked with yearning about the archaia agape, the ancient love of the apostolic community, so rarely seen in the Church of his day.  This love, he taught, is a visible sign that the Holy Spirit is indeed present and active, and it is absolutely essential for the health of the Church.  I can’t think of a better illustration for this homily than Bernini’s great sculpture of the Chair of St. Peter in the apse of St. Peter’s Basilica:  Peter’s chair is upheld by the great fathers of the Church; and, hovering over it all, the luminous alabaster dove, the Holy Spirit, bathing everything in the radiance of God’s love. 
There is so much to be celebrated about the patrimony of Anglicanism, its liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral traditions, which the Catholic Church welcomes as a treasure to be shared.  But let us be clear about our first principles.  So many people during the 477 years that Anglicans have been separated from Rome have prayed fervently and made great sacrifices for this day to come.  In obedience and trust they embraced whole-heartedly all that Jesus’ prayer for the unity of his disciples requires (Jn. 17:21).  It is surely no coincidence that this reconciliation should come at the very time Pope Benedict has put the new evangelization at the top of the Church’s agenda.  To be converted and conformed to the image of Christ means that his Church will be transformed and renewed through and through.  I so much appreciate how our Chancellor, Dr. Margaret Chalmers, puts it:  “Our patrimony is people.”  We thus open our hearts, in humility and love, to all Christians divided by culture and circumstance and misunderstanding.  We extend our hand in friendship to all who seek the Truth.  These are our companions along the way.  We begin with a strong faith that God has given us Peter, his hand firmly on the tiller, returning us to Jesus, “the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls” (I Pet. 2:25).

– Fr. Jeffrey Steenson

New Pocket Card for Catholics in England and Wales

The Catholic Church in England and Wales plans to distribute one million “faith cards” to every parish in the country in a bid to help all baptized Catholics to know, live and share their faith.
“We all carry a variety of cards in our purses and wallets which reflect something of our identity and the things that are important to us,” explained Bishop Kieran Conry, Chairman of the Bishops’ Department for Evangelization and Catechesis.
“The faith card for Catholics aims to offer a daily reminder of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We can’t summarize the whole of our faith in bullet points, but we hope that the card simply inspires people to do, read and learn more.”
The new document is the size of a credit card. On one side it lists six things that a Catholic is called to do: “Share with others the joy of knowing Jesus Christ, Pray, Celebrate the sacraments regularly, Love my neighbor as myself, Use the gifts that I’ve been given wisely, and Forgive as I have been forgiven.”
There is also a space for the owner to sign their name, with the additional request that “in the event of an emergency please contact a Catholic priest.”
On the reverse side is a quote from the 19th-century English cleric Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, taken from his 1848 “Meditations on Christian Doctrine.” In it Cardinal Newman explains that “God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.”
Bishop Conry explained that the card is “also designed to give Catholics confidence to share their faith – often people need help knowing what to say. Faith is a not a private matter.”
The Catholic Church in England and Wales hopes that the card will help prepare the way for the Pope Benedict’s Year of Faith, which begins in October 2012. The Pope hopes the year will spur a “new evangelization” of those traditionally Christian countries which are currently experiencing the rise of radical secularism.
“Carrying a faith card takes courage, it signals to others, every time you use your wallet or purse, that you believe in God, that your life has a purpose, that you are trying to love and serve your neighbor,” explained Bishop Conry.
“We hope that Catholics will use it to witness to their faith. If someone asks a question about Catholicism, a starting point could be to show the card and to take it from there.”
The cards are free and will be distributed to 24 dioceses, including the Bishopric of the Forces and the new Anglican Ordinariate, during February and March.