Infocatolica: Interview with Fr Edwin Barnes

The Spanish-language site Infocatolica carries an interview with Fr Edwin Barnes. It is available in Spanish here. A translation follows below:

– Fr. Barnes, when I interviewed you two years ago, you were an Anglican bishop. Now you are a Catholic priest. Are you happy with the change?

Yes, very happy indeed. No regrets.

– Has your relationship with God, with Our Lady, with the saints changed in any way?

I hope it has deepened, but that is not for me to judge

– Have you felt welcome in the Roman Catholic Church? Any bad experiences?

Thoroughly welcome; and no bad experiences at all.

– Have you received/are you receiving any training as a Catholic priest?

Yes, I attended an initial three-month course with weekly sessions at Allen Hall Seminary in Chelsea. Now, as a former Anglican bishop, I am not required to continue attending, but I do so on a monthly basis and intend to continue for the next two years. I am also receiving great help and support from local priests in developing a certain ‘Romanitas’.

– What are your current tasks in the Ordinariate? Do the priests of the Ordinariate work only with their Anglo-Catholic parishioners or do you also help at diocesan parishes?

I have temporary responsibility for an Ordinariate Group which meets twice each week in Bournemouth, in a Catholic Parish Church. I also assist in our local Catholic parish – I have said Mass there three times this week, and have also heard confessions. Besides this I join with other priests in the Pastoral Area and in the last two weeks have been present at two liturgies of reconciliation, hearing confessions. I have also spoken to groups of priests about the Ordinariate and have joined CCC (the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy).

– Have you petitioned the Holy See to be able to use mitre and crozier, as is your privilege as a former Anglican bishop?

No, nor shall I. I am simply a priest of the Ordinariate and am happy to remain so.

– How many priests and laymen are there now in Our Lady of Walsingham’s Ordinariate? Any religious men or women? And how many groups/parishes?

There are some hundred priests and around a thousand lay members, though this number is growing all the time. We have as yet no parishes established, but around fifty Groups either already formed or in formation. There are three women religious who are living in community in East London. Two male religious who came into the Church at the same time as us have joined an established Order. I understand there are likely to be others.

– I understand that the ‘second wave’ of the English Ordinariate will be received this Easter. Will it be as numerous as the first one?

There are, I think, about twenty men waiting to be ordained this summer. Many of them will bring groups of laity with them, though I do not know what numbers are involved. The Church of England is currently making decisions about attempting to ordain women as bishops. If and when  this happens there are likely to be further Anglicans seeking to join the Ordinariate. Certainly there are more Anglican clergy considering their future.

– Has the English Ordinariate received or is it planning to receive any members from the TTAC or other continuing churches?

A Bishop of the Church of England who has led a TAC group is to be ordained later this month. I believe there may be four or five priests who are likely to be ordained after appropriate training. I know of one local TAC congregation most of whose members – about twenty – are to be received this year. They are receiving instruction from a Priest of the Ordinariate (among others).

– Are you planning to acquire your own churches, as the American Ordinariate, or will you continue to share the buildings with the dioceses?

At present we expect to continue sharing buildings, though in a few cases Ordinariate priests have been put in charge of existing parishes, and their Groups of Former Anglicans have joined them there.

– In your opinion, what are the main obstacles in the way of the English Ordinariate?

The English have a great attachment to buildings; the beautiful ancient parish churches, all in the hands of the Church of England since the Reformation, are the biggest single obstacle to the growth of the Ordinariate.

– Any special intention you would like our Spanish readers to pray for?

Pray, please, for the Church of England, many of whose members are in turmoil at present – not least because of Government decisions to undermine the sacramental nature of Marriage and extend it to those in same-sex partnerships; and that the members of the Ordinariate may be humble and welcoming towards those who feel rejected by the Church of England, but who are hesitant to commit themselves to the Catholic Church. Pray, too, that we may find the financial resources to train new priests, and support those, especially young priests with families, who have given up a great deal to join the Ordinariate.

Thank you for your interest in this great experiment which the Holy Father has enabled us to undertake.

Catholic Herald: All former Anglicans can join ordinariate, says bishop

From the Catholic Herald:

An English bishop has confirmed that Anglicans who were received into the Catholic Church years ago can join the personal ordinariate created by Benedict XVI last year.

The Pope established the world’s first personal ordinariate for groups of former Anglicans that wished to enter into full communion with Rome in January 2011. There was discussion at the time about whether Anglicans received before 2011 could also join the structure under the terms of Anglicanorum coetibus, the apostolic constitution describing the nature of personal ordinariates.

Writing in the January 2012 issue of The Newman, the journal of the Newman Association, Bishop Alan Hopes clarified that the ordinariate was open to all former Anglicans.

The bishop, who serves as an auxiliary in Westminster diocese and as episcopal delegate to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, wrote: “The personal ordinariate is for former Anglicans – but Anglicans who converted some years ago can, if they so wish, say that they would like to become members of the ordinariate. There is that dual possibility.

“The decision-making body is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They are the people who will be the final arbiters in any question that might arise. There are points in the constitution [Anglicanorum coetibus] that will have to be fleshed out.”

The bishop, a former Anglican who was received into the Catholic Church in 1994, said that the long-term future of the ordinariate was unclear.

“As for the future, it may be God’s will that it should be the present structure, but maybe in 50 years’ time the ordinariate will become fully integrated into the Catholic Church. Who knows? We must wait and see,” he wrote.

Mgr Mark Langham on the Week of Prayer and the Ordinariate

Philippa Hitchen (Vatican Radio) speaks to Mgr Mark Langham from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, about the 2012 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Audio).  Here are Mgr Langham’s comments regarding the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, in the context of a wider conversation about this year’s Week of Prayer:

PH: Looking at a different aspect, a different question, we have the Ordinariate from England marking its first anniversary this month, don’t we, and making a pilgrimage to Rome, I believe.

ML: That’s right.  They’re coming out particularly as an act of thanksgiving for their first very fruitful year of existence, and the head of the English Ordinariate – we now have to make that distinction because there’s an American Ordinariate – the head of the English Ordinariate, Monsignor Keith Newton, is leading members of the Ordinariate to give thanks for the many blessings that they have received, but also – I feel it’s important to say – that they have bestowed on the rest of the Church as well.

They’re largely following their own schedule [during the pilgrimage], but I am going to meet with them and welcome them.  I know Mgr Newton very well and have kept in touch with him, but of course our office, formally, does not have dealings with the Ordinariate because ecumenism and the Ordinariate are separate issues, though of course they’re interrelated and have a bearing upon each other.

Fr Jeffrey Steenson: Leave all that anger behind

Douglas LeBlanc from the Living Church Foundation speaks to Fr Jeffrey Steenson, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter:

If the Ordinariate in the United States is a Vatican effort to poach disgruntled Anglicans, Sunday-golfing ex-Anglicans or never-were Anglicans, its newly appointed leader has not received that memo.

In fact, says the Rev. Jeffrey N. Steenson, Anglican does not appear in the new body’s formal name, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, because members will make no pretense of remaining Anglicans. And anyone who wants to enter the Ordinariate because of anger toward Anglicanism rather than a desire for deeper communion with the Roman Catholic Church probably ought to wait.

Steenson, who was bishop of the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of the Rio Grande from 2004 to 2007, will be invested as the first Ordinary of the Ordinariate during a Mass at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Houston, Feb. 12.

Vatican Radio interviews Fr Jeffrey Steenson

Fr Steenson is interviewed here.

Joan Lewis (EWTN) interviews Fr Christopher Pearson

Fr Christopher Pearson, Pastor of the London (South) Group, was interviewed recently by Joan Lewis, the Rome Bureau Chief of EWTN – the podcast is currently available here..

Telegraph: Hundreds more Church of England defections expected

Martin Beckford writes for the Daily Telegraph:

Hundreds more disaffected Anglicans will cross over to the Roman Catholic Church this year as the Church of England prepares to take another important step towards the ordination of women bishops.

Guardian: The Catholic priest with nine children

Fr Ian Hellyer from the Buckfast Ordinariate Group was recently interviewed in the Guardian:

Father Ian Hellyer is a Roman Catholic priest – but far from being celibate, he’s a father. Not just to a couple of children, either: in true Roman Catholic fashion, Father Ian has lots of them – nine, in fact, ranging from 18-year-old Clare to seven-month-old Rose – taking in Teresa (17), Angela (15), Martha (11), John (nine), Luke (seven), Simeon (four) and Gregory (two) in between.

SCO: Cardinal Wuerl on Ordinariate developments

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington and Episcopal Delegate of the USCCB for the implementation of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, recently spoke to the Scottish Catholic Observer regarding the erection of Personal Ordinariates for those from the Anglican tradition:

[…]

Cardinal Wuerl was interested to discover that the Scottish hierarchy welcomed the first Scottish Episcopal Church clergy conversion under the personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham earlier this year when Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley ordained Fr Len Black at St Mary’s, Greenock. As Vatican delegate for the US ordinariate, he has been watching developments in the UK with great interest and he is confident that the establishment of the US ordinariate is imminent this autumn.

John Allen interviews Fr Mark Woodruff

John Allen interviews the Priest Director of the Catholic League, Fr Mark Woodruff, about the Ordinariate at the National Catholic Reporter:

While I was in London recently, I had the chance to speak with several people about the new “Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham,” a structure provided for by Pope Benedict XVI two years ago to welcome groups of Anglican clergy and laity into the Catholic fold, which is now a going concern in the U.K.

The ordinariate currently numbers roughly 900 laity and 60 clergy, including some newly minted Catholic priests who had already retired from Anglican ministry at 70.

One of the more interesting conversations came with Fr. Mark Woodruff, a former Anglican who entered the Catholic church long before the ordinariate, but who has served as an advisor for some of its groups. A veteran ecumenist and a deeply thoughtful soul, Woodruff sketched some of the promise, and the challenges, facing the new venture.

Woodruff not only took the time to answer my questions in person, but he also fleshed out his thinking in e-mail correspondence. The following are excerpts from our exchange.