By Eric Martin
What could be more ordinary than wanting to reconnect with one’s roots, examining the past to reconstruct a modern identity in today’s transient world? For Monsignor Carl Reid, Australia’s new Ordinary of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, the lessons of history lend themselves to a Catholic identity – one that humbly seeks reconciliation with the Mother Church of Rome.
The Anglican Church was born in 1534, when the English Parliament, through the Act of Supremacy (1534), declared King Henry VIII to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England to fulfil the “English desire to be independent from continental Europe religiously and politically”.
Though this new branch of the Church stayed faithful to Catholic doctrine to begin with, during the period of the English Reformation it was thoroughly “Anglicised” by King Edward VI: redefining itself as a Protestant Church, in rejection of Rome and the authority of the Pope.
Now, some 500 years later, at a time when faith seems in decline, Rome’s lost children have started to return, rediscovering their roots as they seek reconciliation through the rites of the Ordinariate, the vehicle by which those of Anglican (and other protestant) heritage can be received into full communion with the Catholic Church and its rich traditions.
“In the 1960s and 70s, especially in America, the Anglican bodies decided to completely do away with the fundamental understanding of the nature of Sacraments as being gifts from God with objective realities, and rather, decided that they are open to democratic vote – that our understanding and reception of the Sacraments is determined by our own perceptions rather than that which is handed down to us through tradition,” Mgr Reid explained.
“That was the point at which I decided to ‘pull the chain’ to get off the bus.”
In 1977, Mgr Reid (a Canadian) attended the historic Congress of St Louis (in the USA) which was attended by some 2000 people, where a desire was clearly articulated (in a document called The Affirmation of St Louis) to seek union with other bodies that hold to the Catholic and Orthodox faith.
“In the years that followed it became apparent that our rapprochement had to be with Rome, we originated from Rome: we did not have any of the ethnic sensibilities which belong to what the Eastern Churches have become,” Mgr Reid explained.
“There were so many other people, like the 2000 people who attended St Louis, and many others who showed up when we went back to our respective cities around North America, who initially asked, ‘Is there some way that we can preserve classical Anglicanism either by encouraging Canterbury to have it come back, or would we end up taking those worthy parts of that Patrimony with us wherever we went?”
“It was quickly clear that there were a great number of people who really believed that we had a heritage and traditions that were important to save and preserve.”
Thus, the focus became a simple request to provide Anglicans a corporate means of achieving communion with the Holy See of Rome as Catholics, in a manner that continued many important aspects of their spiritual and liturgical patrimony whilst humbly conforming to the Catechism of the Church.
In addition to the necessity for former Anglican clergy who sought the Catholic priesthood to undergo formation and be ordained absolutely, Mgr Reid explains their role, and that of the lay people, very clearly by looking at the issue of doctrinal compatibility from the point of view of the Pope and the Church in Rome.
“When you look at the entire history of Anglicanism from 1534 right through until the present, and you consider that you are talking to this very tiny segment of Anglo-Papalists, on one end, compared to the broad church in the middle, with the extreme Puritans and Calvinists on the other end: that is what Anglicanism has looked like for many centuries,” he said.
“If you were to ask a typical Anglican what he or she believed, they would not give you the same answer in terms of things like the Sacraments.
As such, one of the most important roles of the Ordinariate is the effective Catechesis of lay people, whose baptisms are accepted but still need to undergo the process of Confirmation to ensure the theological validity of their faith.
In fact, the understanding that Christian baptism under any denomination is accepted by the Catholic Church has broadened the mission of the Ordinariate in recent years, with their mandate expanded to include the repatriation of Christians from other denominations with the Roman See.
“Pope Francis did a wonderful thing about a year ago, he completely opened up the playing field so that any baptised person who was a non-Catholic, can now come into the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate” the Mgr explained.
However, Mgr Carl reports that there is still much work to be done in gaining universal acceptance from other Catholics for the members of the Ordinariate.
“Some feel we are still Anglican, not helped by the persistent and quite incorrect reference to us as ‘the Anglican Ordinariate,’ Mgr Reid explained.
“But we are not Anglican (or protestant), we are fully Catholic.”