On October 20, 2009, the Holy See announced the creation of a personal juridical figure to welcome into the Catholic Church the faithful coming from Anglicanism where they could preserve their liturgical, pastoral and spiritual traditions: the Personal Ordinariates. And on January 15, 2011, the first Personal Ordinariate was erected, under the name of Our Lady of Walshinghamin England.
The fifth anniversary of this event, the approval of a new Missal for the use of the personal ordinariates and the decision of the Holy See to appoint a new ordinary for the personal ordinariate of The Chair of Saint Peter in the United States, who will be ordained a bishop, once again put these ecclesial realities in the spotlight.
Origins of Personal Ordinariates
Although the first Personal Ordinariate was erected in England because of the significance that this country has in the Anglican tradition, the origin of the Personal Ordinariate is to be found in the United States.
The introduction by vote of changes in doctrine, liturgy and moral teaching opened a rift in the Anglican Communion that grew over the years. The first important step in this rupture took place at the Lambeth Conference - a meeting organized every 10 years since 1897 by the Archbishopric of Canterbury for all the bishops of the Anglican Communion - held in 1930, which introduced in Resolution 15 as morally acceptable the use of contraceptive methods in exceptional cases, which the same Conference had declared morally illicit in 1908 (Resolution 47). This caused some groups to begin to consider a rapprochement with Rome.
The approach began to take practical shape in 1976, when the Episcopal (Anglican) Church in the United States approved the admission of women to the presbyteral ministry, and as a result, two groups of Episcopalian faithful petitioned the Holy See and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in April 1977 to be received into the Catholic Church in a "corporate" form, in a personal structure in which they could maintain Anglican liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions.
In 1980, with the positive opinion of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and once the possible creation of a new ritual church or a structure of personal jurisdiction had been ruled out, a Pastoral Provision which provided for the creation of personal Catholic parishes in agreement with the bishop of each diocese, which would preserve and live the Anglican traditions approved by the Holy See. It also allowed married Anglican pastors to be ordained as Catholic priests, exceptionally dispensing from the law of celibacy and after a rigorous process. Likewise, in 1986 the Book of Divine Worshipa liturgical book which contained part of the Book of Common Prayer Anglican and the four Eucharistic Prayers of the Roman Missal: it was called the Anglican UseThis name is no longer used. Between 1981 and 2012, 103 priests were ordained in accordance with the Pastoral Provisiontwelve of them celibate. In 2008, the total number of faithful belonging to parishes governed by the Pastoral Provision was about 1,960, grouped into three personal parishes and five parishes of societies o congregations.
From 1996 to 2006, various groups of Anglicans or members of the faithful who have Pastoral Provision Finally, in January 2012, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter was established, into which these and other groups have been integrated. At present (according to the Pontifical Yearbook 2015) that Ordinariate has 25 pastoral centers, 40 priests and about 6,000 lay people. The smaller number of priests is due to the fact that many of those who were ordained under the Pastoral Provision are already incardinated in a diocese and carry out their pastoral work there.
Developments in England
By then, however, a Personal Ordinariate already existed in England. Indeed, when on November 11, 1992, the Synod of the Anglican Church of England also voted narrowly in favor of admitting women to the priestly ministry, some groups of Anglicans in England began to aspire to be received corporately into the Catholic Church. From December 1992 to mid-1993, several meetings between Catholics and Anglicans were held at the home of Cardinal Hume, led by Hume himself and by Graham Leonard, the Anglican bishop of London and a very prominent figure at the time. These groups requested the Catholic Church to create a juridical figure of the type of a personal prelature or a personal diocese, with Hume himself as prelate or, at least, a personal diocese. Pastoral Provision They requested to maintain Anglican pastoral, liturgical and spiritual traditions, as approved by the Holy See. They requested to maintain the Anglican pastoral, liturgical and spiritual traditions approved by the Holy See.
Finally, on April 26, 1993, the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales considered it preferable that the reception of those wishing to be received into the Catholic Church be done on an individual basis through Catholic parishes; and in the case of Anglican ministers wishing to be ordained Catholic priests, the matter would be studied on a case-by-case basis, following a procedure approved in July 1995 under the name of Statutes for the Admission of Married Former Anglican Clergy men in to the Catholic Church, approved by John Paul II on June 2, 1995. In making them public, Cardinal Hume explained in a pastoral letter that the Holy Father "has asked that we be generous, that the permission to ordain married men is an exception and will be granted personally by the Holy Father and finally, that the measure does not mean a change in the law of celibacy which is more necessary than ever."
Although the sources are not precise and there are no official data, from 1992 to 2007, 580 former Anglican ministers from the Church of England have been ordained Catholic priests, of whom 120 are married. Another 150 were received as laymen, five went to the Orthodox Church and another seven went to other Anglican groups.
In the meantime, the Church of England approved in 1993 the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod, which created a unique juridical figure of a personal nature that could be used by Anglican parishes that, after a vote, refused to admit women to ministry and to remain under the jurisdiction of a bishop who participated in the ordination of a woman or accepted her into ministry in his diocese. These were the so-called Provincial Episcopal VisitorsThe parishes were given the task of attending to these parishes pastorally and sacramentally, although juridically and territorially they depended on the diocesan bishop. This structure contributed to the fact that many parishes that had seriously considered the possibility of being received into the Catholic Church opted not to do so and to accept this regime., faced with the prospect of not being able to remain united. This formula also contributed to the birth of the personal ordinariates: in fact, of the first five Anglican bishops to be ordained priests in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, three had been Provincial Episcopal Visitors, and many of the parishes that then remained in the Church of England under this figure are now part of the Personal Ordinariate.
Subsequently, due to the doctrinal changes that continued to occur in the Anglican Communion and in anticipation of the possible admission of women to the episcopate, from 2005 until 2009 there were conversations and requests to the Holy See by groups of Anglicans. The first request came in 2005 from the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), which unified Anglo-Catholic groups around the world, especially in Australia and Nigeria. There were also contacts with Forward in FaithThe first three Anglican bishops to be ordained as Catholic priests were John Broadhurst, Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton, the first three Anglican bishops to be ordained as Catholic priests to implement the Personal Ordinariate in England. Conversations also took place from October 2008 through November 2009 between another group of Anglicans (consisting of bishops and ministers from England) and members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which included discussion of the concrete and final content of Anglicanorum Coetibus, the disposition with which Benedict XVI created the figure of the Personal Ordinariates in 2009.
The first result was the creation of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England on January 15, 2011.
Five Years of Our Lady of Walsingham
In the five years since its creation, the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has grown little by little. The Pontifical Yearbook 2015 mentions that some 3,500 lay people and 86 priests are part of it.
The Ordinariate has 60 communities in England and four in Scotland (with 40 pastoral centers, according to the Yearbook). Some are very active; others, because of the distance, can only meet once a month, and during the week they go to the nearest diocesan parish. Ordinariate sources point out that, in general, they are well received and receive help in the diocesan parishes, and that the attention received by the faithful when they cannot go to an Ordinariate parish is proof of the harmony with the dioceses.
But numbers are not the criterion for measuring the work of the Ordinariate in these five years, since it is necessary to look rather at the work that is being developed in each parish, in each group. The number of people received into the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate could be likened to a small but constant trickle. On the other hand, it is necessary to emphasize the influence on Anglicanism in general, and the weight that what is done or promoted from the Ordinariate of England has on the other Ordinariates: this is the case of the approval of the new Missal for the use of the Ordinariates, which we will deal with in a moment.
As Bishop Keith Newton, its Ordinary, points out, the mission of the Ordinariate is the new evangelization and unity of the Church, and it is a bridge through which many people can be received into the Catholic Church. On a quarterly basis, the clergy of the Ordinariate participate in formation sessions; the topics addressed so far have been very varied: from questions of Moral Theology or Patrology, to the topics discussed at the recent Synod on the Family. With a certain regularity, the so-called Ordinariate FestivalThe latter included several sessions on liturgy and the new evangelization.
On the other hand, the Ordinariate has set up several commissions to prepare for the fifth anniversary and to study how to bring about an interior conversion of the faithful on the occasion of the fifth anniversary.s Mercy, and how they can reach more people with the apostolic and witnessing work of the Ordinariate. Supported by a document entitled Growing up Growing outAs a result, each Ordinariate group studies how to grow, reviews its relationship with the diocesan bishop and plans how to reach out to more people. In recent years, the Ordinariate in England has acquired two church properties; and two Anglican religious communities have been received as part of the Ordinariate: an interesting fact, given the influence of the Anglican monastic tradition, which often looks to the Catholic Church in liturgical and spiritual dimensions.
New Missal for Ordinariates
A recent milestone has been the approval by the Holy See of the document The Divine WorshipThe liturgical provision for the celebration of Holy Mass and the other sacraments in the Personal Ordinariates. It expresses and preserves for Catholic worship the dignified Anglican liturgical patrimony; as the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter points out, the manner of celebrating Holy Mass which it indicates "is both distinctively and traditionally Anglican in its character, its linguistic register, and its structure."Jeffrey Steenson (formerly an Anglican bishop) emphasizes that he welcomes the fact that he welcomes "that part which nurtured the Catholic faith in the Anglican tradition and which fostered aspirations toward ecclesial unity.".
The name of Divine Worship and not that of Anglican use to emphasize the unity with the Roman rite, of which it is an expression; therefore, on the cover of the Missal we read "according to the Roman rite". Includes a Directory of Rubrics with instructions for those parts where it diverges from the Roman Missal.
Priests of the Ordinariate are recommended to celebrate ordinarily according to this missal, both within and outside the parishes of the Ordinariate. But not every priest may celebrate according to it, although he may concelebrate in a ceremony where the missal is used, and in cases of necessity or urgency the diocesan pastor is requested to do so for groups of the Ordinariate who request it. And any faithful Catholic may attend Mass celebrated according to this missal.
The most noticeable difference with the Roman Missal is that The Divine Worship does not include a period called "Ordinary Time". The period between the celebration of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday is called "Time after Epiphany". (Epiphanytide)There is another time called "Pre-Lent". (Pre-lent) which begins on the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday. After Easter, the Sundays in Ordinary Time are collectively called TrinitytideThe penitential rite takes place after the prayer of the faithful. Other notable characteristics are: the penitential rite takes place after the prayer of the faithful; there are two formulas for the offertory: that of the Roman Missal and the traditional one of the Anglican Missal; only two Eucharistic Prayers are included: the Roman Canon and the Eucharistic Prayer II.
For the time being, the readings used are the versions of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, taken over by many Anglican parishes after the Second Vatican Council. The Communion rite follows the same structure as in the Roman Missal, with three additions from the Anglican tradition: in the breaking of the bread, the priest sings or recites the traditional hymn Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, with the response of the people; after the fraction, the priest and the communicants recite the prayer together. Prayer of humble Access; and at the conclusion of the distribution of Communion, the priest and the people give thanksgiving with another prayer from the Anglican tradition: Almighty and everliving God.
New ordinary bishop
At the end of November, the Holy See appointed a new Ordinary in the United States for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, at the request of the Ordinariate itself. After a vote in the Governing Council and the presentation of a list of three candidates to the Holy See, the Pope chose Msgr. Steven Joseph Lopes, a 40-year-old priest and official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The appointment has attracted attention for two reasons. Firstly, he does not come from Anglicanism, although he is well acquainted with both the Anglican reality and the Personal Ordinariates, since he was a member of the Commission on Anglicanism. Anglicanae Traditiones, who oversees and coordinates the Ordinariates in liturgical and pastoral matters. And secondly, because he will be ordained bishop on February 2, 2016, which is significant. His ordination title will be the personal Ordinariate, and not an extinct diocese, as is done in other cases; thus, although the office of Ordinary already had episcopal faculties, now he will also be able to ordain priests (there are authors who understand that it is a vicar with episcopal faculties).
Ordinariates elsewhere
The Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross is also growing, Our Lady of The Southern Cross, in Australia, which today has 14 priests and about 2,000 lay people (in 2013 there were 7 priests and 300 lay people), with eleven communities in Australia and one recently created in Japan.
Although only five years have passed since the erection of the first personal Ordinariate for the faithful coming from Anglicanism, as Bishop Steven Lopes pointed out shortly after his appointment as Ordinary, "we are about to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that 500 years from now this idea of Benedict and Francis will be seen as the beginning of the closing of the breach of division in the Church.".
