Rocco Palmo: US Ordinariate to include Canada

From Whispers in the Loggia:

While the Vatican’s announcement of the launch of the US’ Anglican Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter takes top line today, a key codicil of the news has freshly presented itself.

Over recent weeks, reports from Canada have indicated that the country’s number of Anglican entrants “do not warrant” the establishment of a separate national jurisdiction.

Accordingly, while a New Year’s Day letter from Bishop Douglas Crosby of Hamilton obtained by Whispers notes the Ontario diocese’s reception today of a “small group” of former Anglicans into full Catholic communion, the text goes on to say that, “in due time,” the received group will “become part of the Personal Ordinariate that is being erected in the United States.”

In other words, the Chair won’t end at the 49th Parallel.

News from Calgary

Today, the Revd Lee Kenyon, his family and parish will be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in anticipation of a Personal Ordinariate in Canada:

Dear brethren in Christ,

At a Special Meeting of Parishioners on 21 November 2010, the Solemnity of Christ the King, some 90% of parishioners present voted to accept “unreservedly and with humility and gratitude, the invitation of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church through the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus”. Only two parishioners voted against this motion. The motion instructed the Churchwardens to begin negotiations with the Anglican Diocese of Calgary to transfer the parish, and its property, to an Ordinariate, when established.

Archbishop Collins on the Ordinariate in Canada

With thanks to the Anglo-Catholic for alerting us to this interesting introduction to the DVD with the complete addresses of the Anglicanorum coetibus conference in Toronto in March 2011. The DVD can be ordered here.

 

Bishop Kevin Vann preaches at Anglican Use Conference

The Bishop of Fort Worth, Bishop Kevin Vann, preached at a Solemn Mass during the recent Anglican Use Conference in Arlington, Texas. His homily is reproduced here from his blog:

Welcome again, all of you, to Fort Worth. If I might digress briefly, I would like to reflect a bit on our Cathedral. It is a House of God, like some of our older Churches in the center of our city, which still shines forth with art in their windows, statues, communion rails and even votive candles…which have never been taken out or moved or subject to any kind of iconoclasm. A place where the vocabulary of those who come to worship, still includes “Hail Mary Full of Grace” or “Bless me Father for I have sinned” or even entrance songs that are the entrance antiphons of the Sacramentary which are sung. The words of the Angelus are heard daily as well as during the Mass and later on the words of Sanctus, Sanctus, which at times still ring forth, as part of the full, conscious participation in the Liturgy envisioned by Sacrosanctum Concilium of the Second Vatican Council. And, not only here, but also in parishes throughout the Diocese. In fact, Diocesan celebrations at St. Patrick’s will even echo Vietnamese, Latin, Spanish and other languages at times.

Bishop Peter Elliott: A Catholic welcome for Anglicans – the Ordinariate in the Living Church

Bishop Peter Elliott, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne and Episcopal Delegate of the Australian Bishops’ Conference for the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, gave this address at an Ordinariate Information Day at the Basilica of Our Lady of Victories, Camberwell, Melbourne, Victoria, on June 11, 2011. It is reproduced here from the Anglo-Catholic blog:

On this Vigil of Pentecost 2011 we have much to celebrate. The establishment of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham within the Catholic Church in England has been accompanied by warm welcomes. The same pattern will soon unfold in the United States, Canada and Australia. The generous offer of Pope Benedict XVI is taking concrete visible form. The offer itself is a welcome from the Successor of St Peter, and his welcome is generating much good will in the Church.

It is significant that we meet at the Basilica of Our Lady of Victories, Camberwell, one of Australia’s finest parish churches, combining Romanesque and Renaissance styles. This domed stone church was built in 1914 by a man of vision and imagination, Father George Robinson, himself a former Anglican. On the eve of the Great War he appealed across Australia to raise a national shrine in the Melbourne suburbs in honour of the Patroness of Australia, Our Lady Help of Christians, also known as Our Lady of Victories.

This Marian title recalls a critical moment in history, the sea battle of Lepanto, 1571, depicted in the glowing colours of the West window of this minor basilica. We see Pope Saint Pius V leading the people of Rome in fervent prayer, that through the intercession of Mary Help of Christians victory would be granted and Europe would be spared. Today we may entrust our enterprise to Our Lady’s help.

Joan Lewis (EWTN): Interview with Cardinal Donald Wuerl on the Ordinariate

Joan Lewis of EWTN interviewed the Archbishop of Washington and Episcopal Delegate to the USCCB for the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, about the development and establishment of a Personal Ordinariate in the United States. The audio of the interview can be found here. A transcript of the interview is found below:

JL: Today I continue my conversation with Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, who was in Rome in May for the ceremony in which he took possession of his titular church of St Peter’s in Chains. We talked about the possibility of an Ordinariate in the United States, the new seminary in D.C., and the joys and challenges of being a Cardinal and Archbishop of a major diocese.

I’d love right now to turn to another subject that actually is dear to both of us – the Ordinariate. That’s the new structure in the Church for welcoming numbers of Anglicans – faithful bishops, priests – into the Catholic Church. We’re not talking a single layperson who wanted to become Catholic – they would go through the normal procedure. But so many people have been asking for years – certainly in the UK – to be welcomed into the Church because they felt that the Anglican Communion was moving pretty far away from its’ Christian and, really, Catholic origins: we won’t go through the history of Henry VIII or everything, but…

Statement from TAC Primate

Statement from TAC Primate, John Hepworth

I am grateful that Archbishop Collins has published a statement clarifying the implementation of Anglicanorum Coetibus in Canada.

My letter to Bishop Peter Elliott was a private communication on the eve of his current trip to Rome. Besides being the Delegate for Australia, Bishop Elliott has been requested by Cardinal Levada to liaise with me on Ordinariate implementation concerns of the Traditional Anglican Communion,

Statement from Archbishop Thomas Collins

Archbishop Thomas Collins, Episcopal Delegate for the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus in Canada, has made the following statement:

With regard to the public discussion concerning the process for the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus in Canada, I would like to make the following statement:

Canada is a vast country, and widely scattered across it are small groups of Anglicans who have expressed an interest in entering full communion with the Catholic Church through the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus.  As Delegate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution, I have asked certain priests in different regions of Canada to serve as “mentor priests”, to work with these small groups of Anglicans in their geographical area. These mentor priests have been asked as their first task to visit the communities, to get to know them, to respond to any questions, and to get a sense of the number of people who are interested.

Rocco Palmo comments on Ordinariates

Taken from a longer piece on Rocco Palmo’s blog, Whispers in the Loggia:

With the first ordinariate already established in England, and the groundwork well in progress for similar jurisdictions in Canada and Australia, the venture’s Stateside edition promises to be a unique and especially intense enterprise given both the country’s (and, indeed, the communities’) geographic spread, a fairly think “alphabet soup” of the various Continuing Anglican groups involved, and a facet particular to American Catholicism: the long-standing presence of Anglican Use priests and faithful, who crossed the Tiber long ago, but have been able to maintain an adapted version of the Book of Common Prayer for their worship, which was approved by the US bench and confirmed by the Holy See in 1983 for rites in the States alone.

Fr Scott Hurd comments on US Ordinariate progress

Many readers will have been following the news regarding the process to establish Personal Ordinariates in the United States and Canada. This note from Fr Scott Hurd (himself a former Anglican who trained at St Stephen’s House, Oxford), seeks to clarify some concerns. Fr Hurd is assisting Cardinal Wuerl and the USCCB with the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum coetibus, in the United States. It is reproduced here from the Anglo-Catholic blog.

Dear Friends-

Much speculation has been made, here and elsewhere, to the effect that the implementation of an Ordinariate in the US is happening slowly, or that somehow the US bishops are seeking to delay or prevent an Ordinariate from being established in the first place. It might be good for everyone to reflect on the possibility that it is Rome who is responsible for the timetable of the unfolding of events here in the US, and that the USCCB and the CDF are operating in complete collaboration on this.

In the meantine, I would encourage everyone to watch Cardinal Wuerl’s major report on US developments at the June USCCB General Assembly in Seattle.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Scott Hurd
USCCB Liaison for the Implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus