By Anthony Barich
THE leader of Western Australia’s Catholic Anglicans is seeking to gauge and build on interest from both Anglicans and Catholics in the establishment of an Ordinariate for Anglicans seeking union with the Catholic Church.
Bishop Harry Entwistle, based at the Church of St Ninian and St Chad in Maylands, said he suspects there will be many Latin Rite Catholics who will want to join Catholic Anglicans occasionally for worship, but stressed “this is not a recruiting drive”. He simply seeks to gauge support and a contact list.
There may also be some Anglicans who joined the Catholic Church when the first female priests were ordained in the United States in the Church of England in 1974.
Efforts to establish an Ordinariate – a non-geographical diocese – have been hindered, Bishop Entwistle said, by “total misionformation” by both Anglican and Catholic bloggers who believe that Anglicans like himself are becoming Roman Catholics as opposed to Anglicans in union with the Catholic Church.
Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliot has been liaising with Catholic Anglicans on behalf of the Australian Catholic Bishops who respond to Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus (“Groups of Anglicans”), which was published in November 2009 along with specific norms governing the establishment and governance of “personal ordinariates,” structures similar to dioceses, for former Anglicans who become Catholic.
The Traditional Anglican Communion of Australia and the associated Church of the Torres Strait is expected to formally ask the Holy See for such an Ordinariate within the next fortnight.
Bishop Entwistle supports the statement made earlier this month by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which has handled negotiations with Catholic Anglicans leading up to Anglicanorum Coetibus, who said the goal of ecumenism is unity with the Catholic Church.
The TAC’s Bishops signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2007 and handed it to CDF officials. “Some believe the goal of ecumenism is intercommunion, but you can’t have intercommunion unless you have a shared belief,” Bishop Entwistle said.
“That’s why the Catechism is the basis upon which we have declared our faith.”
In a lengthy address delivered in Canada on 6 March, Cardinal Levada said the reception of communities of Anglicans into the Catholic Church is consistent with Anglican-Catholic ecumenical dialogue because “union with the Catholic Church is the goal of ecumenism.”
Tracing the history of Anglican-Catholic dialogue since the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Levada noted that Anglican decisions to ordain women and countenance homosexual activity were not consistent with earlier statements agreed to by Anglican and Catholic theologians.
“No wonder, then, that the ordination of a Bishop in a homosexual partnership in New Hampshire, with subsequent approval by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the United States in 2003, and the authorisation of rituals for the blessing of gay unions and marriages by the Anglican Church in Canada, have caused an enormous upheaval within the Anglican communion,” the Cardinal observed.
Cardinal Levada then compared the reception of Anglican communities into the Catholic Church to the addition of an instrument to an orchestra.
Professing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, these communities will play the same doctrinal notes, yet will enrich the orchestra with another sound, he said.
“Let me add right away that when I say enrichment I am referring not to any addition of essential elements of sanctification and truth to the Catholic Church,” Cardinal Levada said.
“Christ has endowed her with all the essential elements. I am referring to the addition of modes of expression of these essential elements, modes which enhance everyone’s appreciation of the inexhaustible treasures bestowed on the Church by her divine founder.
“Turning to the Anglican Communion, we can see the many elements that impel toward full unity: regard for the unifying role of the episcopate, an esteem for the sacramental life, a similar sense of Catholicity as a mark of the Church, and a vibrant missionary impulse, to name but a few.
“These are by no means absent from the Catholic Church, but the particular manner in which they are found in Anglicanism adds to the Catholic understanding of a common gift.
These considerations help us appreciate the Catholic Church’s insistence that there is no opposition between ecumenical action and the preparation of people for full reception into Catholic communion.
“Moreover, among the distinctive elements of Anglican heritage should be included the spiritual and intellectual gifts of the Oxford movement in the 19th century; the then-Anglican cleric Newman together with his fellow Tractarians have left a legacy that still enriches a common Catholic patrimony,” he added.
Bishop Entwistle likens their shared existence in the Catholic Church to “living in the granny-flat out the back” – “still part of the whole but living our own existence”.
“There is a group of Anglicans in Perth which has been praying and working for unity and which would now like to discover who their friends might be in the wider Anglican and Catholic communities,” he told The Record.
“Anglican Catholics would welcome contact with friends who are active or lapsed Anglicans who are considering converting to the Catholic Church, and those who are already Catholics and their friends who are interested in being informed about the progress of the establishment of this new initiative.
“Inclusion on the contact list comes with no expectation either now or in the future of any further action on the part of the enquirer.”
Catholic Anglicans can be contacted through enrolling on the website www.tradanglican.iinet.net.au or by phoning 0417 180 145, mailing to PO Box 457, North Perth, WA 6906 or emailing ninchad@iinet.net.au.