20 October 2009
Anglicans Who Hanker for Union with Rome
now have something to work with: check it out. Can the Lutherans continue to stand apart from the Holy See calling her errant children home? We can if we understand the weight of this posting by Nathan. As Nathan so often does, he simply cuts straight through to the heart of the matter.
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14 comments:
There's a Catholic parish in Texas that uses the modified Anglican rite:
http://www.atonementonline.com/
The rest of the Roman parishes can continue to use Oregon Catholic Press, Marty Haugen and the St. Louis Jesuits.
Christine
There is an Anglican-Use parish near us in Boston, as well. We went to Mass there a few years back; it was an odd experience.
It was a beautiful Anglo-Catholic solemn high Mass, with everything that I remember and love from my Anglo-Catholic upbringing: the chanting, the vestments, the incense, the bells, the intense Eucharistic devotion, the works. I nearly cried out of love for everything we never get in our almost a-liturgical Lutheran parish.
But there in the middle of it was the liturgical commemoration of "Benedict our Pope," and it was like a discordant note in an otherwise beautiful symphony. As much as I respect and admire Benedict XVI, he is not "our Pope." To accept him as "our Pope" is to accept the claims of universal jurisdiction and indefectibility for his office. As much as I love traditional Western liturgy, that is too high a price to pay.
If Benedict were content to be Patriarch of the West (as Scott describes him) rather than universal Pope, it would be a different story. I attended a very similar Mass at Incarnation, Detroit; but the commemoration of Ignatius IV didn't have the jarring effect on me that the commemoration of Benedict did.
The Holy See's calling to come home is a bit of Siren's song.
I was in Augsburg right after Benedict's election and after a couple of Weizenbier I wanted to go home too.
But with a sober head, and eyes open to the abuses of Rome, the comfort one sees there when intoxicated on aesthetics is sorely lacking the true comfort of Christ for us.
I think one time Uwe Siemon-Netto predicted that Benedict would create also a Lutheran province of the Roman church.
People would flock to it.
I too would be tempted.
But Christ's divine mercy is always watered down, even when viewed through the eyes of RC saints who wrote on Divine Mercy and trusted in Jesus alone.
Scott,
I certainly have given thought to that. But the difficulty is that Rome is STILL wrong about what was wrong. Her theology fails precisely at the care of souls, for it cannot give to the soul the certainty that God would give it in the word: "These things are written that you MAY KNOW THAT YOU HAVE ETERNAL LIFE."
And as for Luther being wrong about what was right - well, remember that unlike many of the Reformers, the Lutherans held to baptism, the keys, eucharist, a divinely mandated ministry, and retained the overwhelming majority of the liturgical heritage they'd received. Luther rejected only what in the deposit contradicted the Sacred Scriptures.
But Christ's divine mercy is always watered down, even when viewed through the eyes of RC saints who wrote on Divine Mercy and trusted in Jesus alone.
Right you are, Jon. I have a deep personal fondness for Benedict. We both hail from beautiful Bavaria. We both love cats. I could no doubt sit down with him and enjoy some of that delicious German pastry that all civilized Germans serve at afternoon coffee before dinner is prepared.
But that's as far as it goes. The idea of a "Lutheran" province is utterly inconceivable to me. Lutherans and Anglicans, especially Anglo-Catholics, have some profound doctrinal differences as regards Rome.
I didn't realize it at the time, the shift was subtle, but in the ten years I was Catholic I almost lost the centrality of Christ and the authority of the Scriptures.
Christine
Scott,
You wrote, "Now you can have a wife, traditional Western liturgy, Apostolic succession, and be reunited with the Patriarch of the West." Out of curiosity, which of those would you say Anglicans have without appealing to the Pope for (re)admittance under the requirements of this Apostolic Constitution?
Always a possibility, Scott, but most Lutherans that I know have a pretty strong dislike for Anglicanism and its tradition of theological equivocation on the matter of the Holy Eucharist.
Scott,
I meant (and should have stated it more clearly), which of those four things do Anglicans currently have, and which of the four would they gain from joining with Rome?
Your answer is interesting. Definitely Anglican clergy can have wives. And definitely the Anglican Church (at least in England) has liturgical form (even though you say "maybe"). I have an Anglican friend who spent a term studying in Rome who reports that the Roman Catholics there can't understand why some Anglicans use the Roman Rite when the Church of England's current rites of Holy Communion (or the Mass) are non-objectionable to any standard of Roman Catholic liturgical form. Indeed.
Your conclusion that Anglicans don't have apostolic succession without returning to Rome is interesting. Seapius Officio deserves a read. The first paragraph is absolutely excellent, in such an English way. As an American, I would parphrase it as follows: "What a joy it is for bishops to find an occassion in order to write to another, fellow, bishop. Hence, our response, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, to you, the Bishop Rome, for saying that we aren't actually clergy or the church." Classic!
This is an interesting move, but really only does two things: it extends the current pastoral provision/Anglican Use to the whole world rather than just the US, and it provides for a structure of administration. Beyond that, it still has the same strikes against it as the current Anglican Use, in that it is primarily a "one generation" program as only convert priests will be allowed to be married and reordained as Roman Catholic priests. After that, the standard Latin Rite (Of which the Anglican Use is a part) discipline of clerical celibacy will rule with all the problems that come along with it.
Additionally, the RCC has not demonstrated any great acumen in liturgics recently, and the Book of Divine Worship used by the Anglican Use butchers the tradition IMO. You can read the detailed response of one traditional Anglican priest here, which is pretty interesting. I have a feeling that he speaks for many more people than the Anglo-papalists:
http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2009/10/thanks-but-no-thanks.html
Pr Weedon,
You say most Lutherans you know dislike Anglicanism's equivocation over the Eucharist. The Anglo-Catholics being approached here would all hold to a catholic understanding of the Eucharist and would not entertain Calvinist or symbolic notions of it. But I would like to think the biggest obstacle to authentic Lutherans jumping on board, or agreeing to a Lutheran 'province', should be the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae. I am not aware that Rome's position today on justification has really changed at all since Trent.
Stephen
Thanks for that fascinating link, Jody.
Stephen, see my linking Nathan's thoughts in the second part of the original posting.
Pr Weedon, Sorry I missed that link... I agree, it's very well put.
According to the 1896 Papal Bull Apostolicae Curae, Anglican Orders are "absolutely null and entirely void".
I would think that many otherwise agreeable Anglo-Catholic priests would have trouble with the requirement that they will need to be re-ordained to continue their ministry, and to the idea that their sacaraments are invalid.
I doubt the requrement for re-ordination would change. If I were an Anglican priest, that for me would be a major reason not to convert, even if they graciously allowed me to keep my wife.
It would be an admission that my entire ministry has been a sham, that I am merely a layman who has been simulating a priest, and that all my sacramental acts(except baptism) have been invalid.
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