Benedict's Public Option
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced on October 20 that, in effect, parallel dioceses ("ordinariates") would be established in regions around the world for members of the Anglican Communion who wished to be in Communion with Rome. Each ordinariate would, normally, be governed by an Anglican clergyman and would use the traditional Anglican liturgy. Here is a bit of what the Congregation had to say:
Under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy.
The forthcoming Apostolic Constitution provides a reasonable and even necessary response to a world-wide phenomenon, by offering a single canonical model for the universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application. It provides for the ordination as Catholic priests of married former Anglican clergy. Historical and ecumenical reasons preclude the ordination of married men as bishops in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Constitution therefore stipulates that the Ordinary can be either a priest or an unmarried bishop. The seminarians in the Ordinariate are to be prepared alongside other Catholic seminarians, though the Ordinariate may establish a house of formation to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican patrimony. In this way, the Apostolic Constitution seeks to balance on the one hand the concern to preserve the worthy Anglican liturgical and spiritual patrimony and, on the other hand, the concern that these groups and their clergy will be integrated into the Catholic Church.
This announcement immediately sparked speculation that the Anglican Communion worldwide was about to dissolve into the Church of Rome, like East Germans in 1989 hopping over the Berlin Wall, leaving perhaps a few gay bishops and liturgical dancers squatting in deserted cathedrals until someone from the local municipality nails a notice on the red door declaring that the property-tax exemption has been revoked. Well, maybe not. For some time now, the big division within the Anglican churches has not been between the Anglo-Catholics and the Liberals, but between the Liberals and the Evangelicals. The latter tend to be theologically conservative, but not necessarily in a way that points to Rome. In some places, of course, the effect on the Anglican establishment could be dramatic; perhaps especially in England itself, where it is not impossible that a few bishops could cross the Tiber, even taking their dioceses with them.
As several people have pointed out, the new Apostolic Constitution (not yet published, by the way), fulfills the hope of John Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) for reconciliation with Rome in a way that preserves the Anglican charism. Had such a provision been made in his lifetime, it would have been one of the major events of 19th-century English history. However, as is often the case when tensions that had been part of the structure of the world are resolved, they are resolved when the outcome has become less consequential. The great religious issue in Britain today is not whether the country will be Catholic or Protestant, but whether it will be Christian or Muslim. The squabbles among the kaffirs have long been merely ridiculous.
The more interesting question is the effect of the Apostolic Constitution on the Catholic Church in the Anglophone world.
I can't say that I am much of a fan of The National Catholic Reporter, but their Vatican reporter, John Allen, is always worth reading. His coverage of this event raises questions that will provide church-politics junkies with many hours of innocent amusement. For instance:
The target audience, so to speak, for the new ordinariates is obviously Anglicans (and former Anglicans) wishing to become Catholic. Let's suppose, however, that once these structures are up and running, some current Catholics find they prefer the liturgical style in the Anglican ordinariate, and decide that they want to join -- not a completely improbable scenario, since "high church" Anglican liturgies have long held a strong appeal for some Catholics.
Once this new system is in place, I could not imagine not attending one of these Anglocat services, at least to see what it's like. I would be unlikely to become a regular, since I can hear Haydn at the the Latin Mass I usually attend, but the esthetic appeal of the Anglican service could have a strong pull for people who are used to the rather informal Novus Ordo liturgies that are found in most Catholic parishes. Might I suggest that it is no accident the new Apostolic Constitution is going to be issued at about the time that the Church issues its new English-language liturgy? The new liturgy features the use of traditional sacral English and more elaborate rubrics, just what High Church Anglicanism has been famous for. It is not a secret that one of the reasons Benedict restored the free use of the traditional Latin Mass was to allow that liturgy to exert a "gravitational attraction" on the way the vernacular liturgy is celebrated. With the Anglican initiative, perhaps, we see something of the same strategy.
It will not escape American readers that this is also what the "public option" provision of most versions of President Obama's healthcare initiative does: the new institution would be a showplace for best-practices that the institution's competitors ignore at their peril.
As for the married-clergy question, a more devious-minded man than I might suggest that Benedict would not be wholly averse to altering the practice of celibacy in the whole Latin Rite, provided that the reform was part of a conservative tendency. The Anglican Accession to the Catholic Church would certainly be that, if the graft takes.
* * *
We should resist the temptation to discover topical currency in whatever we happen to have been reading lately, but I cannot help noticing how this week's event chimes with parts of The Region of the Summer Stars, one of the poems by Charles Williams in the anthology I discussed last week. Now Williams was the highest of High Churchmen; in his fiction and other writings, the division between Rome and Canterbury is usually presented as a tragedy, eventually to be amended. Here is an excerpt from The Region of the Summer Stars, in which a pope of King Arthur's time prays for the survival of institutional Christendom:
The Pope prayed: 'O Blessed, confirm
nor thee in thine images only but thine images in thee.
Bestow now the double inseparable wonder,
the irrevocable union: set in each they term.
The formulae of glory are the food of intellectual love,
from the rose-gardens to the wardens of the divine science,
and so to the sacred Heart; the Flesh-taker
with the God-bearer, each the off-springing of other,
the Maker a sharer only and the making as much.
Let the chief of the images touch the Unimaged, and free
the Love that recovered Itself, nor only an image,
nor only all the images, but wholly Itself;
free It that we, solely the rich, may pray
send not, send not, the rich empty away.'
In the same anthology, C.S. Lewis renders these lines intelligible. Williams understood that the sacred usages that have been devised through history should not be confused with the divine itself, but he also said that we are perfectly right to ask God to adopt and defend the institutions that we have devised for His greater glory. Williams, and probably Lewis, would have embraced Benedict's Anglican project in that spirit.
* * *
You find the damnedest things on the Vatican's website. For instance, I learn that the President of Vatican City is His Eminence Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo. There is also a Secretary General.
* * *
Speaking of the Latin Mass, here is another example of my deeply hidden artistic talent in its service (click to enlarge):
My offer to add gargoyles was not met with enthusiasm.
