An Anglican Permanent Deacon

Today I attended the Ordination as an Anglican Permanent Deacon of my good friend John Hanks, who is also, I believe, a regular reader of this blog. The Ordination was conducted by the Bishop of Ebbsfleet in that great symbol of Tractarian faith and practive in Oxford, the church of St Barnabas in Jericho.

The interior of St Barnabas.
Built by Thomas Combe and designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, it was opened in 1869

Image: dailyinfo.co.uk

John is to serve as Deacon there and at St Thomas the Martyr - where I was once Churchwarden. In fact there were three of us former Wardens from St Thomas' who are now Catholics in the sizeable congregation , as well as the former priest-in-charge, Fr Hunwicke.

 

The liturgy was dignified and very much in the Catholic tradition and reminded us past Wardens of our own heritage as former Anglo-Catholics. It made me at least reflect on how similar both communities are, and encouraged me to pray that we shall all soon be one in faith and unity.

 

Following the service there was a splendid buffet reception at Worcester College and the chance to meet up with old friends from Pusey House and St Stephen's House here in Oxford and also from the Anglo-Catholic parishes in Reading. The approaching General Synod vote on women bishops was one topic which hung in the air and added some spice to the discussions.

 

A happy day and I send John my good wishes and prayers.

Fr Burnham's First Mass

The first Mass celebrated by Fr Andrew Burnham following his ordination as a Catholic priest tomorrow will be at the Oxford Oratory this Sunday at 1pm. The preacher will be Fr Aidan Nichols OP. This would be a good occasion upon which to welcome Fr Andrew and to show support for the Ordinariate and its members.

Incidentally I see that the article on Fr Burnham's on Wikipedia has already been updated. You can read it here.

Please keep him and his fellow ordinands in your prayers.

Anglican Bishops and the Ordinariate

I have just received this statement from the Friends of the Ordinariate:

Like many in the catholic tradition of Anglicanism, we have followed the dialogue between Anglicans and Catholics, the ARCIC process, with prayer and longing. We have been dismayed, over the last thirty years, to see Anglicans and Catholics move further apart on some of the issues of the day, and particularly we have been distressed by developments in Faith and Order in Anglicanism which we believe to be incompatible with the historic vocation of Anglicanism and the tradition of the Church for nearly two thousand years.

The Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum cœtibus, given in Rome on 4th November 2009, was a response to Anglicans seeking unity with the Holy See. With the Ordinariates, canonical structures are being established through which we will bring our own experience of Christian discipleship into full communion with the Catholic Church throughout the world and throughout the ages. This is both a generous response to various approaches to the Holy See for help and a bold, new ecumenical instrument in the search for the unity of Christians, the unity for which Christ himself prayed before his Passion and Death. It is a unity, we believe, which is possible only in eucharistic communion with the successor of St Peter.

As bishops, we have even-handedly cared for those who have shared our understanding and those who have taken a different view. We have now reached the point, however, where we must formally declare our position and invite others who share it to join us on our journey. We shall be ceasing, therefore, from public episcopal ministry forthwith, resigning from our pastoral responsibilities in the Church of England with effect from 31st December 2010, and seeking to join an Ordinariate once one is created.

We remain very grateful for all that the Church of England has meant for us and given to us all these years and we hope to maintain close and warm relationships, praying and working together for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

We are deeply appreciative of the support we have received at this difficult time from a whole variety of people: archbishops and bishops, clergy and laity, Anglican and Catholics, those who agree with our views and those who passionately disagree, those who have encouraged us in this step and those who have urged us not to take this step.

The Right Revd Andrew Burnham

The Right Revd Keith Newton

The Right Revd John Broadhurst

The Right Revd Edwin Barnes

The Right Revd David Silk

Robert Macneil

Administrator
www.friendsoftheordinariate.com

Anglican ructions - what would St Wilfrid say?

My friend and neighbour Fr Hunwicke is in fine fulminatory form on his blog about the proposed Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda. You can read his post here.

He is not alone in his views - nothing surprising in that - and Bishop Edwin Barnes, Ancient Richborough, has had some good posts on the relevance of the `Sacred Synod' and related matters. The main points can be read in sequence here,here,and here. I am very pleased to see his citation of the work of the Bishop of Ebbsfleet.

Chichester Cathedral - photograph by St Wilfrid's Bognor Regis

I too have doubts as to there being a very positive response to the Society from St Hilda, and certainly not from St Wilfrid, who was, let's face it, a Romaniser. To invoke his aid in the cause of a society that is " well, sort of, but not really, well, no, really, not actually Roman" is an insult to him and his entire career and also to historical scholarship. If the Synod of Whitby is to be used as a precedent let it be cited for what it decided - the unity of the practice English church with that of Latin Christendom, and all that implied about ecclesial unity. Indeed St Wilfrid might well consider the Ordinariates a bit dubious, but would see their essential commitment to unity. This new, misnamed, society looks more like the Celtic party who insisted on their calendar calculations and practices - Non-Jurors or Old Believers of the seventh century - who left the synod of Whitby unreconciled.

Image from St Wilfrid's Catholic Primary School, Ripon

St Wilfrid and St Hilda pray for the Catholic faith in England.