This week, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) of the Catholic Church announced that an upcoming Apostolic Constitution will streamline and clarify processes for Anglicans to become Catholic, reflecting a broader trend towards cultural and liturgical diversity in the Catholic Church that, because it is both orthodox and organic, will help make the Church relevant in an increasingly globalized, cosmopolitan world.
Under the “Personal Ordinariates” that will be introduced with the Constitution, ex-Anglican clergy will provide pastoral care for groups of traditionalist converts to Catholicism, who will maintain their own liturgical practices so long as they do not conflict with universal Catholic doctrine. This means that Anglican priests and seminarians who convert will be permitted to remain in the clergy even if they are married, that the Book of Common Prayer will be used at Masses for the converts, and that other Anglican flourishes will continue to be central in the worships lives of the new Catholics.
The Church does not generally allow former Protestants to retain any of their old liturgical practices upon converting, but Cardinal William Levada noted “the importance of Anglican traditions of spirituality and worship for (converts’) faith journey” in the CDF statement announcing the Constitution.
Levada explicitly noted that this liturgical flexibility reflects a broader emphasis of the Church on cultural diversity in the context of unity in faith:
Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows… Our communion is therefore strengthened by such legitimate diversity, and so we are happy that these men and women bring with them their particular contributions to our common life of faith.
Pope Benedict XVI summed up the Church’s interest in a legitimate, intellectually-serious form of cultural diversity this summer in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, when he warned readers:
Let it not be forgotten that the increased commercialization of cultural exchange today leads to a twofold danger. First, one may observe a cultural eclecticism that is often assumed uncritically: cultures are simply placed alongside one another and viewed as substantially equivalent and interchangeable. This easily yields to a relativism that does not serve true intercultural dialogue . . . with no true integration. Secondly, the opposite danger exists, that of cultural leveling… In this way one loses sight of the profound significance of the culture of different nations, of the traditions of the various peoples, by which the individual defines himself in relation to life’s fundamental questions.
The Catholic Church under Benedict has emphasized the need for cultural exchange based on intellectual integration and the search for truth about human existence and its facets, as well as a healthy respect for the myriad ways that humanity has responded to them historically in particular cultures. By allowing Anglicans to bring their liturgy into the Church, Benedict is encouraging different forms of cultural expression as part of a common search for the truly holy life in obedience to God. In order to do this, he is establishing Personal Ordinariates for the Anglicans, in what canon law expert Ed Peters says is “another sign of the inevitable trend away from purely territorial jurisdictional units in the Roman Church and toward greater use of personal jurisdiction.”
This idea of Personal Ordinariates, that would encompass different social groupings and cultural tendencies into the life of the Church, has the potential to play an increasing role in Catholicism in this increasingly global era. This is not to suggest that all is now permissible liturgically speaking, but that the Church is big enough and open enough to welcome the broad variety of human cultures that have sprung up throughout history into its worship.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Francis X. Rocca emphasizes the necessity of “organic development” in determining what is and is not to be sanctioned within Catholic liturgy. Favorably quoting a theologian who refers to the Pope as a “liturgical pluralist,” Rocca goes on to say that Benedict is “leading his church forward in the spirit of its oldest traditions.” I would only add that Benedict is leading the Church forward into the era of globalized humanity by positioning the Church as strong in faith, flexible in expression.
This position matters because no one else seems to be able to be both as fully as the Catholic Church. National churches like the Church of England and other mainline Protestant denominations are losing ground in a world where nationality and culture are becoming increasingly flexible in the lives of most people. Without a united English culture either in England or in the former colonies, the lack of Anglican doctrinal clarity matters. In a world where few people stay still throughout the course of their careers, there is little reason to join a denomination solely for the sake of cultural identification. Doctrine is necessary, and churches that sought to define themselves largely by ethnicity, heritage, or geography are finding that out the hard way.
Rt. Rev. John Broadhurst, Bishop of Fulham and one of two bishops assigned by the Anglican Communion to provide pastoral care for traditionalist Anglicans worldwide, noted as much in an interview with London’s Daily Telegraph this week, arguing that “Anglicanism has become a joke because it has singularly failed to deal with any of its contentious issues. . . . I believed in the Church I joined, but it has been revealed to have no doctrine of its own. . . . The Anglican experiment is over.”
If the bishop is right and the Anglican experiment is over, then every national church within Protestantism may soon face a similar fate. That would open up a considerable amount of room for the one church that is both big enough to encompass many different cultural heritages around the world and old enough to stand by its authorities and doctrines.
“Catholic,” after all, means “universal,” and a Catholic Church that continues to emphasize its globe-spanning culture and its timeless beliefs is well-poised to be the face of twenty-first century Christianity in the West, even in countries that went Protestant half a millennium ago. The decision of the Church this week to establish Personal Ordinariates to give Anglican converts flexibility in their liturgy is just the latest step towards reaffirming that Catholic orthodoxy is ready for whatever the world may bring.
October 26th, 2009 | 12:40 pm
Personal Ordinariates (assuming they work the way most people seem to expect), are truly important, since as the Eastern Orthodox point out, it’s important to separate “Tradition” (What God defines) from “tradition” (what culture defines). Changes to “tradition” may be encouraged to remove artificial barriers to worship. Changes to “Tradition” is heresy. Knowing where to draw the line isn’t always clear.
For instance, from my understanding, the Eastern Orthodox are more likely to view liturgy “Tradition”, so Personal Ordinariates would likely be seen as favouring “tradition” over “Tradition” just to be popular instead of pleasing God. Yes there are Western Rite Churches but they’re closer to the original style Latin masses and seem (at least from my reading) to be regardless as less pure than the Byzantine liturgy.
From the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) point of view, the Eastern Orthodox Church (EOC) value Mary to lowly. Mary, although looked up to, has no doctrines associated with her in the EOC. Not so in the RCC. Similarly, in the RCC, the Rosary contains five “Hail Mary”s for every “Our Father” and “Glory to God” and is ended off with a “Hail Holy Mary”. In the EOC, the Prayer Rope (equivalent of the Rosary) focuses on “The Jesus Prayer”, but it’s perfectly acceptable to occationally pray to Mary or the saints or to pray for departed relatives. What is “Tradition” and what is “tradition”?
Even reading the Church Fathers isn’t always helpful. Since some things are particular for the time and place and conditions. For instance, since the saints were very much alive in the early church, asking for the saints to pray for us is little different than the Protestant practice of asking for someone to pray for you. But is prayer for intercession from dead saints “Tradition” or “tradition”? It’s not at all clear to me since there are clear and repeated Biblical admonitions not to contact the dead, and its not at all clear the state of the dead and our relations to them from scripture. (e.g. Do the dead hear us? Can the dead hear millions of people praying to them at a time and be able to pray so quickly so as not to not have their workload pile grow exponentially? When you die, do you simply appear at the last judgement since God is outside of time, and thus your prayers don’t reach the dead until the end of history?).
October 26th, 2009 | 1:51 pm
Yes, Mr. Devins, God is outside time, but sees and hears all of time, and also acts in history. If the dead go straight to the Final Judgement, those who then pass to the realm of God will experience the Beatific Vision, seeing and hearing as God hears, so they would be able to see the actions of history and hear prayers addressed to them from history, just as God can.
October 26th, 2009 | 2:25 pm
Yes, Mr. Wheatley but is prayers to the dead “tradition” or “Tradition”?
Yes both scripture and Tradition say we will be transformed and be in communion with God. But nowhere in scripture or “Tradition” does it say that the Beatific Vision involves making us physically unlimited, thus able to handle the bandwidth necessary to handle prayers or outside of time thus able to handle prayers in history or able to here the prayers of the living. I believe in prayers *for* the dead, since God is outside of time and thus my prayers can affect the past and I don’t think we’ll stop praying for each other even after the final judgment. I also believe that Molinism is the way God’s complete sovereignty and our unquestionable free will are compatible. But even though both these interpretations can be found in the history of the church and are compatible with Tradition, neither are “Tradition”. The true answer has not been revealed to us so they may well be “the tradition of men”.
October 26th, 2009 | 2:32 pm
Mr. Devins,
I appreciate your distinction between tradition and Tradition. It is an important distinction to make. You point out that tradition may some times be a barrier to God in Tradition. I agree, but would also suggest that tradition can draw us more deeply into Tradition.
All the best,
AML
October 26th, 2009 | 8:00 pm
A View from Outside.
As an Orthodox Rabbi in good standing, I am definitely only capable of an “outside” view of Pope Benedict’s announcement of an Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans who wish to enter into communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
Nonetheless, I am curious as to how “insiders” might view my observations.
1. A major, unfulfilled hope of the late Pope John Paul II, may he rest in peace, was to bring the Church to the point of “breathing with both lungs”, namely reunifying the Western Church (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church) with the full range of Eastern Orthodox Churches (and not just the Uniate Churches).
2. Pope Benedict continues to have this as a goal, but in the meantime, to employ the same image, he may well have taken a decisive step to rebuilding detached lobes into the Western lung.
3. Bringing noticeable numbers of Anglicans back, with the bulk of their liturgical inheritance intact, adds a heritage that was valuable and that was lost. (By the way, anyone who thinks that it would have been better for Rome to work with a cohesive Anglican Communion must surely realize that at this time “cohesive” and “Anglican Communion” are contradictory terms.)
4. Who might be next? How about theologically conservative Lutherans, long a hope of the late Father Richard Neuhaus, may he rest in peace.
5. It strikes me that the Anglican initiative, and perhaps a Lutheran one as well, have a better short-range chance of success that the return of the Society of Saint Pius X. Forget Bishop Williamson, who was a true red herring. He needs a padded cell rather than a talking to. The real problem is that the Society has reasoned and principled objections to Vatican II on many fronts (especially religious freedom, ecumenism, and leaving behind an institutional, rather than personal, anti-Semitism), and it’s hard to see how they can climb down from those objections and return to accept Rome’s and the Council’s authority.
6. The first book written by Benedict that I ever read was “Truth and Tolerance”. Then I read “Salt of the Earth” and “G-d and the World”. From the trio, I learned one thing over all: whether as Pope Benedict or as Cardinal Ratzinger, this is a man who thinks big, very big. Benedict may well see the Apostolic Constitution for the Anglicans as a key step in rebuilding what he regards as a properly Christian Culture in Europe, North America, and Australia-and bringing one to Africa and Asia. See Ross Douthat at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/opinion/26douthat.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Rabbi Chaim Frazer
October 26th, 2009 | 8:23 pm
[...] the rest here: Personal Ordinariates, Universal Faith » First Thoughts | A First … Posted in Jesus Will Answer | Tags: been-revealed, exact-kind, important-distinction, [...]
October 26th, 2009 | 9:15 pm
I have yet to reach an opinion on the RC side of this event, but as an Episcopalian in a [o]rthodox parish, this is a real *blow* to the faithful in the Anglican communion and a real boon to the schismatics. This poses a real risk: that one important constituency in global Anglicanism–Anglo-Catholics–might flee to Rome, just when the evangelicals, charismatics, and other [o]rthodox believers need them the most.
October 26th, 2009 | 10:57 pm
We explore the latent response of religion and philosophy to the global economic arena at http://www.therationale.com
We read Pope Benedict’s new economic encyclical more than once and wanted to review it but it will take time to digest all the elements to review it in a proper fashion. We found ourselves reacting to it as someone coming from the business, corporate world and from the factory floor. ( We worked at four different factories while going to college. ) See http://tapsearch.com/pope-benedict-economic-encyclical
October 30th, 2009 | 8:33 pm
Why am I not surprised that it is an orthodox Rabbi who has written so clearly on this development? It has been plain to Episcopalians for years now that there is no Anglican Communion with whom Rome can negotiate or “dialogue” or even accept or reject an offer of unity. By necessity and ability this pope is, indeed, creative and bold in his thinking in the promotion of orthodoxy. Bishop Broadhurst’s comment also cut through the fog of anxieties and territorialism — the Anglican experiment is over. Liturgically, one could make the arguement that it is the Roman Catholic Church that is reclaiming tradition and solemnity in worship with its invitation to adherents to the Book of Common Prayer. At a Tridentine mass during Lent, I was struck by the similarity of the Roman Missal’s English translation of the Latin to the language of my father’s 1945 edition of the BCP. Just as Cecil Sharpe came to America to rediscover England’s folk song traditions in the hills and hollers of Appalachia, so to with Rome’s travel’s to her English cousins in Britain, Canada, America, Australia et al. Finally, the announcement that His Holiness will visit Britain next year could not be more timely or urgent — for British Catholics and orthodox Anglicans, but for England, Scotland and Wales as well. This is a troubled society that has never needed the Church more. I remain excited (although prayerfully anxious) about this venture. Even if I’m reluctant to suggest to our parish music director that he include “Jerusalem” in his hymnal repertoire. Still and all, we must not cease from mental fight…
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