By Anthony Barich
FREEMASON membership, divorce and re-marriage have emerged as potential stumbling blocks for Anglicans seeking to enter the Catholic Church via an Ordinariate.
Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott, the Holy See’s delegate for the Anglican Ordinariate in Australia, said at an Ordinariate festival in Melbourne on 11 June that divorced and remarried Anglicans should seek Catholic Canon Law advice before they try to enter the Church.
Addressing a “delicate but unavoidable issue”, the prelate urged Ordinariate-bound Anglicans who have remarried after divorce “to take your situation to a diocesan marriage tribunal so that your reconciliation in the Ordinariate will in no way be impeded next year”.
“Even if you received an Anglican permission to re-marry, this will need to be evaluated carefully to see if this conforms to Catholic requirements,” Bishop Elliott, a former Anglican, said. “However, I have been assured that Catholic Canon Law is followed in the Traditional Anglican Communion, which should facilitate matters for members of the TAC when they approach a tribunal.”
Regarding membership of a Masonic lodge, the prelate said that, “in spite of what you might hear from time to time, Catholics are not permitted to be Freemasons”.
“Men seeking to enter the Ordinariate will need to resign from the Lodge. This raises the spiritual challenge, whether commitment to Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour and membership of His Church takes priority in your life,” he said.
In November 2009, Pope Benedict XVI announced his decision to erect personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans who wanted to enter into full communion with Rome while preserving liturgical and other elements of their Anglican heritage, including a certain amount of governing by consensus.
Bishop Elliott also revealed that he expects an Ordinariate to be established in Australia by 2012 – the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. “Those being reconciled in an Ordinariate are beneficiaries of the Council’s ecumenical vision, commitment and mandate. Let us never forget that,” he said.
Bishop Elliott also revealed that an international commission, including himself, has been preparing an “Ordinariate liturgy”, subject to the approbation of the Holy See, which draws on the Anglican patrimony and Catholic traditions.The Ordinariates can also use both forms of the Roman Rite, but he added that the liturgy of the Anglican Use parishes in the United States is one model for developing a “use” for the Ordinariates.
He said the Ordinariate’s liturgy will contribute to the “spiritual renewal of liturgy that has quietly emerged in recent years” – “the fruit of the Eucharistic project of Blessed Pope John Paul II and the liturgical wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI”.
“The liturgy should embody those transcendentals that inform what is best in Christian civilisation, that is, whatever is good, true and beautiful. I am sure that the liturgies of the Ordinariates will always represent these transcendentals,” he said.
Anglicans seeking full communion with the Church must apply in writing via application forms that will be issued later this year. They then make a Profession of Faith and receive the Sacraments of Christian Initiation – Confirmation and the Eucharist, he said.
They are then to be registered as members. He said the rule of faith for the Ordinariate is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Bishop Elliott also urged Catholics to take a concrete role in supporting Anglicans seeking full communion with the Church, telling them not to see the Personal Ordinariate as “merely an interesting enterprise or a historical event to observe”.
Anglicans seeking full communion will need Confirmation sponsors – people to “enter into a spiritual relationship” with them and to encourage, guide and counsel, he added. “I hope that (Catholics) will want to be part of it, at this stage, in the sense of walking with Anglican men and women who are making so many sacrifices on their pilgrimage to unity with the See of Peter,” he said.
Anglican clergy seeking ministry in the Ordinariate are finding priest mentors among Catholic priests, he said, while the Australian Confraternity of Catholic Clergy has invited some Anglican clergy to take part in its annual conference 20-24 June at Corpus Christi College in Melbourne.
Anglicans seeking communion with the Church are currently undergoing formation involving “intense” study of the Catechism, and also recommended a catechetical course produced by The Evangelium Project founded by Fr Marcus Holden from Ramsgate, England. Bishop Elliott also recommended The Creed – the first volume of Sydney-based Opus Dei priest and The Record columnist Fr John Flader’s Tour of the Catechism – for catechesis purposes.