Bridge Over the Tiber
by Fr. Roger Landry - October 30, 2009
Pope Benedict's decision to create a relatively easy and straightforward canonical pathway for Anglicans who share the Catholic faith to enter the Catholic Church is one of the most significant developments in favor of Church unity since the Protestant Reformation.
As American Cardinal William Levada, Pope Benedict's successor as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), pointed out in a declaration last Tuesday, this decision is a "reasonable and necessary response" to the "many requests" coming from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful throughout the world who "have declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine ministry as something Christ willed for the Church." These petitioners wanted, he said, to "express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion." They also hoped to do it preserving "those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith." Through a forthcoming Apostolic Constitution, Pope Benedict is magnanimously and generously responding to these holy aspirations.
The immediate reaction on the part of those Anglican leaders who had approached the Vatican requesting that such a pathway be developed was unrestrained joy. As Archbishop John Hepworth, primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, wrote on the day of the announcement. "We are profoundly moved by the generosity of this act of great goodness on the part of the Holy Father. He has dedicated his pontificate to the cause of unity. It more than matches the dreams we dared to include in our petition of two years ago. It more than matches our prayers."
The petition on the part of certain Anglican groups, and the response on the part of the Church, is significant for several reasons.
First, it is a sign on the part of the Anglican petitioners, and a recognition by Rome, that their hope to bring the entire Anglican communion back into union with Rome is not going to happen because of recent developments in worldwide Anglicanism. As a background statement provided by CDF succinctly pointed out, in the last two decades, "some Anglicans have abandoned the tradition of conferring Holy Orders only on men by calling women to the priesthood and the episcopacy" and "more recently, some segments of the Anglican Communion have departed from the common biblical teaching on human sexuality by the ordination of openly homosexual clergy and the blessing of homosexual partnerships." Such a radical departure from common Christian tradition and Scripture by some segments of the Anglican communion brought other Anglicans who still believe in the authority of Scripture and Tradition to a painful realization.
As Anglican Bishop John Broadhurst of Fulham, England, the chairman of Forward in Faith, an Anglo-Catholic network that represents about 1,000 Anglican priests, said, "Anglicanism has become a joke because it has singularly failed to deal with any of its contentious issues." It is "powerless to cope with the crises over gays and women bishops" and it "has been revealed to have no doctrine of its own. I personally think it has gone past the point of no return. The Anglican experiment is over." Fr. Ed Tomlinson, an Anglican priest in Tunbridge Wells, England, expressed his conclusion in even starker terms. "The ship of Anglicanism seems to be going down" and he's "grateful that a lifeboat has been sent." He sees the Barque of Peter as that lifeboat — as do many of his fellow Anglicans.
Catholics trying to understand just how many Anglicans may become Catholics as a result of these developments should first realize that the Anglican communion has long been divided or at least in tension in two different ways. The first division is between "high" and "low" church Anglicans, a distinction that goes back to the 17th century. Those in the high church generally stress their continuity with their Catholic roots; they emphasize a common liturgical and spiritual patrimony, tracing itself back to the early Church. Low church Anglicans, on the other hand, stress the Reformation origins of the Church of England, focusing on points of divergence with the Church prior to the 1530s; they often strip away Catholic elements of rites, ceremonies and devotions in favor of a more simplified, Protestant form of worship. The second division has often been referred to as one between "conservatives" and "liberals," but has developed more into a distinction between those who seek to remain faithful to the constant teaching and practice of the Church for the past 20 centuries and those who are seeking to transform Anglicanism into the Politically Correct Church of England. This division generally is seen on hot-button cultural issues like whether homosexual activity should be regarded as a sin or a sacrament or whether to ordain women or active gays as priests or bishops. Those who have approached the Vatican are primarily high church and are doctrinally conservative and it is anticipated that most of those who will take advantage of the Church's offer will come from these categories.
The new apostolic constitution is also significant because it is a real fruit of the ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans since the Second Vatican Council. As Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols and Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams stated last week in a joint declaration, the upcoming Apostolic Constitution is a recognition of the "substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition. Without the dialogues of the past forty years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion." This is a point that has escaped many in the secular media who have looked at the upcoming Apostolic Constitution as a testimony to a defeat, rather than a triumph, of ecumenism — as a declaration on the part of the Church of Rome that it's no longer interested in dialogue but only in "poaching" members of the Church of England. Such a charge not only misses the point of the Vatican's action, which was responding to an unsolicited request presented by leaders of Anglican groups, but also misses the point of ecumenism. The goal of ecumenical dialogue has never been merely to dialogue, but to journey together toward the truth God has revealed, to discover how much of the truth we share in common, and to seek with God's help the unity for which not Christ prayed but urged us to pray. This dialogue has enabled Catholics and Anglicans who accept the deposit of faith to grow closer together, making such a request on the part of Anglicans and a response on the part of the Church possible.
Lastly the upcoming Apostolic Constitution is significant because it sets forth a clear paradigm of how the Church may structure reconciliation with other Christian bodies that are not yet in full visible communion, such as the Society of St. Pius X and Eastern Orthodox Churches. As Cardinal Levada said in last Tuesday's press conference, by setting up personal ordinariates with leaders chosen from former Anglican clergy, the Catholic Church is demonstrating that she is not asking those who seek the restoration of full visible communion to abandon their authentic liturgical and spiritual patrimony. "It is the hope of the Holy Father Benedict XVI," Cardinal Levada stated, "that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this canonical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows." Other groups in dialogue with the Church should "find in this canonical structure" reasons for hope that their "precious" traditions will, too, be considered a "gift to be shared in the wider Church."
Next week we will tackle some of the questions and concerns that have been expressed in anticipation of the upcoming Apostolic Constitution.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
