By Anthony Barich
TRADITIONALIST Anglicans who are staying in the Anglican Church rather than take up the Pope’s offer are wasting their time and spiritual energy clinging to a dangerous illusion, the Holy See’s delegate for the Australian Ordinariate said.
Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott, a former Anglican, urged Anglicans at a 26 February festival introducing the Ordinariate in Australia at Como Catholic parish in Perth to take up the Pope’s offer of “peace”.
“I would caution people who still claim to be Anglo-Catholics and yet are holding back,” he told The Record during the festival.
“I’d say ‘when are you going to face realities’, because there’s no place for classical Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican communion any more.”
Following a formal request for full communion made by the leaders of the Traditional Anglican Communion in 2007 where several of their Bishops signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church to show their fidelity and seriousness, Pope Benedict XVI issued his apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009 to allow the group reception of disaffected Anglo-Catholics into the Catholic Church.
People coming into the Ordinariate are the “last fruits” of the Oxford Movement started in 1833 by the likes of Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman to restore Catholic identity in their Church. But he warned that times have changed and events have taken a “new and confronting turn”.
“These realities seem to be lost on some Anglo-Catholics who are tempted to make a desperate last stand by just staying where they are,” he told the festival which drew over 100 people, including the Catholic Archbishop of Perth Barry Hickey and his Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton in a strong show of support for the formation of the new non-geographical diocese.
“Permit me to suggest that it is a waste of time and spiritual energy to cling to such a dangerous illusion. Valuing the Catholic Faith should not be confused with polemics. Let me quietly invite you to lay down weapons of controversies that are now pointless, to set aside endless intrigues which led nowhere, to walk away from futile conflicts which cannot build up the Body of Christ in charity. Accept the invitation of the Vicar of Christ on earth.
“The gentle man who reaches out to you in (Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 apostolic constitution allowing the group reception of disaffected Anglo-Catholics into the Catholic Church) Anglicanorum coetibus has no ulterior motives.
“His apostolic offer is clear. There is no deception here. He calls you to peace.”
The prelate also dismissed suggestions that the Pope’s offer would hinder ecumenism. Rather, it has kick-started it, he said.
“Recently it has been announced that the ARCIC (Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission) process will continue. Anyone tempted to add ‘in spite of the papal offer of the Ordinariate’ should reflect whether in fact it is the papal offer that has kick-started ARCIC once more,” he said.
“With reference to these ongoing conversations, I would argue, as I have said elsewhere, that, far from damaging ecumenism, the Ordinariates will provide a lively stimulus for better relations between Anglicans and Catholics. In this regard, let us pray that the forthcoming ARCIC discussions on the Church as communion and Christian ethics will go well.”
Bishop Elliott added that the ARCIC conversations and the fruit of these conversations in the documents will also be honoured in the new Ordinariates.
Australian Anglo-Catholics hope to establish their Ordinariate by Pentecost, by which time up to 60 Anglican clergy from Australia and the Torres Strait hope to have been ordained Catholic priests.