Vatican Takeover
On 20 October 2009, at press conferences in Rome and London, an announcement was made of the Pope’s intention to issue an Apostolic Constitution (a high-level decree, like that of the Roman Emperors). It was to establish “Personal Ordinariates [bishoprics independent of regular dioceses], which will allow former Anglicans to enter full Communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. Under the terms of the Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy”.
The Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (successor to the Inquisition), from which the previous quotation is taken claims that this action is in response to “many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion”. These Anglicans “have declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine ministry as something Christ willed for the Church. For them, the time has come to express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion”. The Note sees Ordinariates as “another step toward the realisation of the aspiration for full, visible union in the Church of Christ, one of the principal goals of the ecumenical movement”.
In July 2008 it was reported that three Anglican bishops had been engaged in secret conversations with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They wished anonymity, the talks being of such “a sensitive and potentially explosive nature”. A bishop said, “The internal pressure of the Anglican communion has pushed us apart and we’re committed to greater unity with Rome. There can be no future for Christianity in Europe without Rome.” This proposed Apostolic Constitution is the Vatican’s response.
The practical implication is that ministers and congregations of the Anglican Communion would be received into the Roman Church and function very much as they did before, with a previously-Anglican “priest” or bishop supervising them, rather than a bishop of a Roman diocese. Former Anglican “clergy” will be ordained, as the validity of their Anglican ordination is not recognised; future seminarians from these Ordinariates will be trained in Roman Catholic seminaries; only those Anglican traditions “consistent with the Catholic faith”, and regarded as simply matters of “cultural diversity”, will be preserved.
Taylor Marshall, a former Anglican priest teaching philosophy at the University of Dallas, clarifies what this means: “The liturgies found in the Book of Common Prayer and subsequent editions reveal a careful blend of medieval Catholic piety mixed with subtle Protestantism. . . . Cardinal Ratzinger heavily oversaw the production of the Book of Divine Worship – the approved set of liturgies for Anglican convert parishes. Protestant elements were expunged (for example, Thomas Cranmer’s consecration prayer), and good elements were retained. The Book of Divine Worship is a ‘sanitised’ version of the Book of Common Prayer, and I suspect that future revisions will be even more traditional in their formulas.”
This development demonstrates the unchanged ambition and subtlety of the Vatican. While continuing to engage in official ecumenical dialogues with the leaders of nominally-Protestant churches and encouraging international political and economic umbrella organisations which reduce national sovereignty, the Vatican works away at the grass roots, undermining ecclesiastical and political institutions which stand in the way of its objectives.
Benedict claims Romanism to be “the Church of Christ”. He is committed to the dogmas of the Council of Trent and the practices of medieval Romanism (such as plenary indulgences and parading the miracle-working bones of a dead woman around the world). He aims to recover the ground lost at the Reformation in England. He kept the Archbishop of Canterbury, his own Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and his own English RC bishops in the dark about his plans as long as possible. The Pope is aiming at further embarrassment of the established body in England professedly adhering to the Reformed faith; but he also allegedly sees the influx of many Anglicans, who would be more Roman and reactionary than many of his own clergy and people, as strengthening his endeavours to resist religious and moral liberalising tendencies in English Romanism.
Also highlighted is the low state of the Church of England. Regarded by our Scottish Reformers as only half-reformed to begin with (largely because of admitting traditions and practices assumed to be not contrary to Scripture rather than what has Scriptural authority), it is estimated that at least 1000 of her 12 000 clergy have seriously considered becoming Roman Catholics – about 500 of them ready to act on the Pope’s proposal once it is fully revealed and implemented. Many of the remainder are also Anglo-Catholics, many are liberal in their theology and practice, and some admit to being agnostics or even atheists. The Evangelical party embraces a wide spectrum, no doubt including godly men, faithful to the doctrine they have professed, but the generality are not noted for contending for the faith.
An Evangelical spokesman has bemoaned the possible departure of High Churchmen to Rome as depriving Evangelicals of allies within the Church.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, trying to keep together all the varieties within his broad Church, presides over its potential demise as the Established Church in England, and with it the Establishment of the Protestant religion, even if in the less than fully-Reformed terms of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Although obviously discomfited by the Pope’s announcement, and playing second fiddle to the Roman Archbishop of Westminster at their joint press conference, Archbishop Williams joined with Archbishop Nichols in claiming for their ecumenical relations: “This close co-operation will continue as we grow together in unity and mission, in witness to the gospel in our country and in the Church at large”. On the personal level he said, “It would not occur to me to see this as an act of aggression or a statement of no confidence, precisely because the routine relationships that we enjoy as Churches will continue”.
It seems that nothing less than gracious Divine intervention can preserve our United Kingdom from becoming a European Province cut adrift from its Protestant heritage, with Romanism its dominant religion. HMC