First wave of 200 to join ordinariate
Sam Adams
A CHURCH of England bishop says he expects the first wave of Anglicans leaving their communion to join the Catholic Church’s new ordinariate to be about 200 strong. Bishop Andrew Burnham, an Anglo- Catholic who is also expected to join the new ordinariate, told The Tablet that around 24 separate groups would initially join the new structure created by Pope Benedict XVI last year to help disaffected Anglicans become Catholics en masse while retaining some of their own traditions.
Anglicans wishing to join the ordinariate had been asked by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales to inform their Church of England bishops by the end of October. Bishop Peter Elliott, a former Anglican who is overseeing the ordinariate process in America, said that the model for how ordi-
nariates are set up across the world will follow what initially happens in Britain. (See Church in the World, page 33.)
Bishop Burnham is one of three senior tra- ditionalist Anglican clerics expected to join the ordinariate, although so far only one, Bishop John Broadhurst, has publicly said he will. “I am basing my prediction on the response we’ve had to the idea in my area [in the west of England] and supposing it is the same elsewhere,” Bishop Burnham said. According to Bishop Elliott, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has approved programmes of prepa- ration for clergy and laity wishing to join the ordinariate. Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the CDF, was in London this week although it is understood that he did not meet with the traditionalist Anglican bishops during the visit. The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has said that it plans for the new ordinariate to start in January.
New group opposes Anglican covenant
AN INTERNATIONAL coalition has been formed to oppose plans for a new covenant designed to unite the worldwide Anglican Communion, writes Sam Adams. Liberal clergy and laity including two English groups – Inclusive Church and Modern Church – have joined forces to resist the proposed Anglican Covenant, which would unify decision-making among the 38 provinces worldwide. The “No Anglican Covenant Coalition” claims the plan, which is due to be considered by the General Synod in London later this month, will lead to what is described as unwar- ranted interference in the internal affairs of individual Anglican Churches. The coalition claims the covenant would narrow the accept- able range of belief and practice and prevent further development of Anglican thought. Meanwhile, new figures released by the Church of England show that the number of
■Plans for a £40-million scheme to build a Tesco store and 93 affordable homes on land owned by a community of Anglican nuns in Whitby, Yorkshire, collapsed this week when the developers withdrew their appeal against the council’s rejection of the proposal, writes Nigel Burnham. The development – which would also have included a 340-space car park, a petrol
Anglican parishes requesting pastoral over- sight from bishops who will not ordain women priests has risen by nearly a quarter in 10 years. The statistics show that more than 360 parishes are now overseen by bishops who do not consecrate female clergy – an increase of just under 23 per cent since 2000. The split was highlighted this week by the Bishop of Lewes, Wallace Benn, who during an address to the conservative Anglican Reform group compared plans to ordain women bishops in the Church of England to the threat posed by Nazi Germany in January 1939.
Plans for an Anglican covenant were first
put forward in 2004 as a way of addressing divisions within the Anglican Communion over issues concerning homosexuality and the role of women. Supporters believe the covenant would play a key role in keeping the Anglican Communion together.
filling station and care facilities for the elderly – would have been built under a deal with the Sisters of the Order of the Holy Paraclete, who live nearby in St Hilda’s Priory, Sneaton Castle. The nuns want to sell the land in order to build a new, smaller home because their current one – which looks out across the harbour to the ruins of Whitby Abbey, where St Hilda founded a
38 | THE TABLET | 6 November 2010
monastery in 657 – is too big for their needs, and too costly to run. But the proposals provoked widespread opposition in the town and a 3,700-signature petition. Earlier this year, the
Prioress of St Hilda’s, Sr Dorothy Stella, said part of the proceeds of the sale would have gone to the order’s work in Africa and university bursaries for Whitby students.
FROM THE ARCHIVE 50 YEARS AGO
Dr Fisher [Archbishop of Canterbury], when he calls on Pope John XXIII at the beginning of next month, will of course be the most important representative of a separated communion in the West to do so, but he will by no means be the first. Dr Mervyn Stockwood [the Anglican Bishop of Southwark] in the Evening Standard on Tuesday wrote of his own audience, and referred to that of another Anglican clergyman from London … Pastor Roger Schuetz, the Swiss founder and prior of a Protestant monastic com- munity in France [Taizé], was received in an audience not long ago … The commu- nity at Taizé, was founded in 1944 and has 45 members. The Catholic Bishop of Dijon, Monsignor Sembel, in whose diocese it is situated, some time ago gave the commu- nity permission to recite their office in a Catholic church … The Tablet, 5 November 1960
100 YEARS AGO
The Timeshas published a letter from Miss Maud Petre, in which … she states her complaint and grievance against the action of the Catholic ecclesiastical authorities in her diocese … Miss Petre has been asked by her bishop to subscribe to the recent judgements of the Holy See pronounced against the errors of Modernism … It is only when she has fulfilled this require- ment, that he can feel justified in admitting her to Holy Communion … She is the daughter of one of those historic Catholic families of the land that have suffered much for the faith and merited well of the Church … All things taken together, she is about the last person whom the Catholic authorities could have any possible interest or inclination in … subjecting to any special or invidious severity of discipline … She is no doubt right when she says that she is little disposed to public life and action. But she does herself an injustice if by that she means that she is unknown to the public. On the contrary, she is fairly well known … as one who had warmly espoused the cause of Modernism, who is credited with having done not a little for its encouragement and furtherance … Miss Petre acted publicly as an abetter and pro- moter of the Modernist cause … and therein she placed herself publicly in a sys- tem which has been solemnly condemned by the Holy See … It is certainly no pleasure to dwell upon these facts, nor have we wish to rehearse in these columns what we deplore, but when Miss Petre appeals to the non-Catholic press, and brings a charge of hateful tyranny against our bishops, it is but fair to our readers that the position should be stated as it really exists … The Tablet, 5 November 1910
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