By Anthony Barich
National Reporter
The Anglican Forward in Faith Australia movement has passed a motion in an extraordinary general meeting in Melbourne to commit itself to seek “by every means” the establishment of an Anglican Ordinariate in the Catholic Church in Australia.
Forward in Faith is a breakaway group formed in 1992 as a coalition of some Anglo-Catholic societies in the Church of England and elsewhere opposed to the ordination of women. It is present in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
FIFA national chairman Bishop David Robarts, the former Anglican Dean of St George’s Cathedral in Perth, Western Australia, said in a statement on 13 February – the day of the meeting – that “FIFA receives with great gratitude the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus of Pope Benedict XVI and directs the National Council to foster by every means the establishing of an Ordinariate in Australia”.
The meeting also gave notice as to the establishing of Friends of the Australian Ordinariate and invited FIFA members and other interested persons for expressions of interest, but noted that this does not commit them to joining the Ordinariate.
The Vatican published Pope Benedict’s apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus ("Groups of Anglicans") on 9 November last year, along with specific norms governing the establishment and governance of "personal ordinariates," structures similar to dioceses, for former Anglicans who become Catholic.
Bishop Harry Entwistle, a member of the FIFA executive management committee who was until this year its vice chairman, told The Record on 18 February that until recently FIFA’s purpose was to secure adequate provision for guaranteed sacramental life within the Anglican Church in Australia.
“This has not been provided so they’re now committing themselves to the main objective they’ve always had – seeking communion with the Holy See,” said Bishop Entwistle, a Bishop of the Traditional Anglican Communion, a breakaway group that claims 400,000 members worldwide.
Bishop Robarts, who is also Bishop of TAC’s Southern Region in Australia, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph on 16 February that FIFA members felt excluded by the Anglican Church in Australia which had not provided them with a Bishop to champion their views on the ordination of homosexual and women Bishops.
“In Australia, we have tried for a quarter of a decade to get some form of episcopal oversight but we have failed. We’re not really wanted any more, our conscience is not being respected,” Bishop Robarts, 77, told The Daily Telegraph.
Bishop Entwistle, 69 and married with two children in their 30s, told The Record that FIFA also committed itself to working alongside TAC and those FIFA members who are still within the Anglican Church of Australia, while also supporting those members of FIFA who at this stage feel unable to move into the Catholic Church.
A concordat exists between FIF International – which has up to 200 members in Australia – which allows TAC members to receive Communion in FIF churches.
Bishop Entwistle also clarified a misconception that Bishop Peter Elliott – the Roman Catholic Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop appointed as the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s (ACBC) liaison with disaffected Anglicans who seek communion with the Holy See – would automatically be appointed head of the Anglo-Catholic Ordinariate in Australia. Bishop Entwistle said he thought that Bishop Elliott is “highly unlikely” to head the Australian Ordinariate once it is established. Anglicanorum Coetibus, he said, specifically states that normally the head of the Ordinariate would be someone from one of the Anglican groups that petitioned the Holy See for full corporate and sacramental communion – either an unmarried Bishop or a married or unmarried priest. This all but rules out Bishop Elliott, he added.
The head of the Ordinariate will be appointed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and will become a member of the ACBC.