Anglicans

Benedict and the Anglican Use

October 23, 2009 in Anglicans, Celibacy, Vatican 3 Comments Tags: Anglicans, Benedict

The Pope’s decision to allow the setting up of an ordinariate for Anglicans who wish to become Catholic is a generous experiment. It would not be a separate “church” like the Eastern Churches, which are self-governing churches of apostolic origin in communion with Rome. As far as I kow, no pope has ever claimed the ability to establish a “church” is this sense.

The structure that the pope is contemplating is more like that of the military ordinariate. The bishop is appointed by the pope, and has spiritual authority over military personnel and their families. The ordinariate has its own priests and seminarians and manages its own affairs.

The difference with the Anglicans’ is that they would have their own liturgical books, approved by Rome, and many of the clergy will initially be married. It is unclear (and perhaps Rome has not decided) whether married men will continue to be ordained for this ordinariate.

There are already formerly-Anglican priests who converted and now function as Catholic priests. And of course Eastern Catholic churches have a married clergy, and have begun ordaining married men not just in their home territories but also in North America. If a married Catholic in the Western Church feels he has a vocation to the priesthood, all he has to do is transfer to an Eastern Church, enculturate in that church, and ask that Church to test his call for a vocation. I have not noticed any mass movement in that direction.

I doubt that the new Anglican ordinariate will have any significant effect in North America. I devoutly wish that there were such an Anglican-use church in the places I live. The standard of music in Catholic churches ranges from the mediocre to the truly abominable, and the translations grate on the ear of anyone who has studied English literature.

The long-term significance of the move is that it may provide a model for reintegrating Protestant Churches within the Catholic Church. It may also be a test as to whether it is worthwhile modifying the discipline of clerical celibacy in the West. From my limited contacts in higher ecclesiastical circles (my name is poison to most bishops) I sense that there is a willingness even among the most orthodox to reconsider the discipline of clerical celibacy.

But a married clergy is hardly a panacea to the problems of sexual abuse and shortage of clergy, and brings with it a whole raft of problems. I have spoken to wives of ministers, and I have seen the toll that their husband’s ministry takes on them and their children.

However, whatever happens, Benedict’s gesture is generous, and I hope it bears much fruit.

…and the Poor Have the Gospel Preached to Them

January 4, 2008 in Uncategorized No Comments Tags: Anglicans, Bible, Fernando Suarez, miracles, Philip Jenkins, Third World

Philip Jenkins, in his books The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South and The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, has argued that the future of Christianity is in the Third World. For the people of that world, the Bible is not an ancient book to be demythologized and reinterpreted, but fits exactly with how they experience a world: ruled by demons and illness and oppressors, from which the power of God can deliver them. The Filipino priest Fernando Suarez said that when he was a teenager he discovered that when he prayed for people they were healed (gracias to New Oxford Review). In Canada, he was called to the hospital for a dying woman.

A Canadian woman declared dead eight hours earlier, her organs ready to be harvested and donated, suddenly opened her eyes after Filipino priest Fr. Fernando Suarez prayed over her.

In his ministry, Suarez has a quiet approach:

Suarez goes about it gently, in his own soothing way, touching, praying over people, pleading for healing. And because he wants everything centered in the Eucharist, he always begins with a Holy Mass.

According to witnesses, things happen when Suarez prays:

Businessman Greg Monteclaro of Couples for Christ-Gawad Kalinga has seen it all. “Except the raising of the dead,” he says. “But the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk — all that is told in the Bible — I have seen it happen.”

“All that is told in the Bible” – seems to hold much more sway in the Third World than in the First World. Perhaps this helps explain the vehemence of the objections coming from the Third World Anglicans, especially Africans, towards the Episcopal Church which seems to set aside the authority – and therefore the power – of the Bible.