Fr Mark Woodruff, Vice-Chairman, writes in Chrysostom for Pascha 2010, about the Ordinariates to be set up in the Roman Catholic Church for Christians of Anglican background and patrimony
Western
Uniatism?
When Anglicanorum
Coetibus was announced, there was immediate and misleading comment that
here was the revived policy of Uniatism; here, after everything that had been
promised, was the counter-productive old strategy of the “ecumenism of return”.
Or, as Professor Eamon Duffy says of Pius XI’s Encyclical on Religious Unity - Mortalium Animos - that articulated it in 1928, “Come on in, with
your hands up!” The Roman Catholic Church, it is claimed, is proselytising
Anglicans like the Orthodox of yesteryear.
Thus writes Dr Timothy Bradshaw, Tutor in Doctrine at Regent’s Park College,
Oxford, in The Times of 21 October
2009:
Rome’s move looks like a
Western version of the Eastern Orthodox groups that accepted the primacy of
Rome, the largest being the Ukrainian. The so-called Uniate churches keep their
liturgical local custom and practice, as the Anglican body would be allowed to
do under the new offer.
As an Anglican Evangelical member of the
Anglican-Orthodox Theological Commission, he ought to know that this will not
do, unless it is an expression of an old aspiration for affinity with
Orthodoxy, because this serves an Anglican apologetic that it too is historic,
legitimate and apostolic, but non-Papal.
First, however, Anglicanorum
Coetibus is not the poaching exercise that controversialists, who scent
Papal Aggression in a characteristically old-fashioned English way, imagine.
The provision comes as a response by the Apostolic See to formal, repeated and
insistent requests from Anglican bishops and bodies for admission to full
Catholic communion, by means of the inclusion of a distinctively Anglican
church and liturgical life. It bears repeating that these requests have come
from Christians of the Anglican tradition from all round the world and this
includes the Church of England.
Secondly, it is clear that the provision of the
ordinariates lies within the Latin rite, of which the Anglican liturgical and
ecclesiastical patrimony is a version, or “use”. Like the military ordinariates
on which they are modelled, they will be non-territorial (i.e. personal)
dioceses of the Latin rite. They will not constitute a self-governing (sui juris) Church to be distinguished by
rite. The point of Anglicanorum coetibus
is to provide for a structure that integrates the ordinariates with other Roman
Catholic dioceses, both locally and at the universal level, by means of
juridical dependency on the Apostolic See of Rome. So the liturgical comparison
of Anglican ordinariates with Catholic Churches of Eastern Rite is inaccurate.
Third, the 21 Eastern Catholic Churches - specifically those of Byzantine Rite,
such as the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, or the Melkite Greek-Catholic
Church - are not properly seen as the result of proselytism away from
Orthodoxy. They see themselves as Orthodox Churches which historically never
lost communion with the Roman See, or recovered and retained it, even at great
cost. Both the Ukrainian and Melkite Churches, furthermore, have a strong
record of efforts towards reconciliation with their Orthodox neighbours. In
Ukraine, for instance, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was highly regarded by
members of the Russian Orthodox faithful for his practical solidarity and aid
during its dark hours after the Russian Revolution. And the Patriarchates of
Antioch - Melkite and Greek Orthodox - are renowned for their progressive
efforts towards imaginative reconciliation. So, again, the misrepresentation of
the complex history of Catholic-Orthodox relations and of the real
circumstances concerning Eastern Catholic Churches is a very inexact comparison
for the forthcoming provisions of Anglicanorum
Coetibus and their implementation in practice.
Professor Nicholas Lash, writing in The Tablet of the 14th November 2009,
makes this very clear too:
It has been suggested that
the new structures, established by the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, ... should be
considered as analogous to those of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Aidan
Nichols OP proposed something along these lines in 1993, in The Panther and the Hind and, in 2006,
in an article in New Blackfriars
entitled: “Anglican Uniatism: A Personal
View”. I would make two comments on this. The first concerns the need not
to speak of “Uniates”. The schism between Western and Eastern Christianity was
not so much a single event as a lengthy process of mutual alienation,
culminating in the formal breaking of relations between the patriarchate of
Constantinople (drawing the four other, far less powerful, eastern
patriarchates in its wake) and the papacy. Over time, many Eastern Churches (of
more than 20 types or families) were reconciled into full communion with the
Holy See. Their Orthodox brethren, seeing this as betrayal, coined the highly
pejorative term “Uniate” to describe them. It is a term that Eastern Catholics
therefore find offensive. (And, of course, the term is not only offensive but
inaccurate when applied to those Churches, such as the Maronites, which never
broke off communion with Rome.) Many British Catholics seem unaware of this,
perhaps because there are so few Eastern Catholics in this country to complain
...
In the second place, the analogy simply does not stand up. Each of the Eastern
Catholic Churches is, precisely, a Church: a distinct, episcopally and
presbyterally structured body with its own identity, history and character. The
proposed ordinariates, however, are not Churches, but groups of disaffected
Anglican lay people.
We will come back to the last sentence. Next, here
is the account of an interview in L’Osservatore
Romano of the 15th November with Cardinal Kasper, President of the
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, by the commentator, Sandro
Magister:
Cardinal Kasper was in
Cyprus because the island was hosting, from October 16-23, the second round
(after the first in Ravenna in 2007) of theological dialogue between Catholics
and Orthodox on how to understand papal primacy … The news that the Catholic
Church is ready to incorporate groups coming from Anglicanism also put the
Orthodox on alert. Their fear is that a "Uniate" Church of the
Anglican rite will be established and added to the "Uniate" Churches
of the various Eastern rites … Kasper says in the interview:
"In Cyprus, in order to avoid misunderstandings, I immediately told our
Orthodox counterparts that this is not a matter of proselytism or a new
Uniatism. ... Uniatism is an historical phenomenon involving the Eastern
Churches, while the Anglicans are from the Latin tradition. The Balamand
Document of 1993 is still valid, according to which this is a phenomenon of the
past that took place in unrepeatable circumstances. It is not a method for the
present or the future. The Orthodox were mainly interested in understanding the
nature of the personal ordinariates for the Anglicans, and I clarified that
this is not a matter of a Church sui
iuris, and therefore there will not be the head of a Church, but an
ordinary with delegated powers."
In simpler terms: while a "Uniate" Church has its own structured
hierarchy, with a patriarch and territorial dioceses, none of this will apply
to the former Anglican "personal ordinariates", which will provide
pastoral care for the faithful but without their own ecclesiastical territory,
a little bit like the military ordinariates.
Ordinariates:
“There are Unknown Knowns and there are known Unknowns”
Elsewhere Professor Lash observes that the structure
of “personal ordinariates” is unknown in the Catholic Church. Of course, as one
of the great standard-bearers for the achievements and reform of the Second
Vatican Council, he rightly points to the teaching of Lumen Gentium, the 1964 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, that
the Catholic Church is both composed of and found in the local, particular
churches of the People of God in every place, the diocese led by its bishop in
communion with his brother bishops, all of whom together are in communion with
and under the bishop of Rome as successor in the ministry of St Peter (and, as
St Irenaeus pointed out, St Paul).
But that is not quite the whole story. The Catholic
Church is manifest not only at the local, territorial level, but also at the
metropolitan and universal levels. Canon law and long custom provide for
variations on the basic theme of the diocese.
The most obvious is the existence of religious
orders and monasteries. Except for diocesan institutes, the governance of a
religious order and the arrangements for its sacramental, liturgical and
apostolic life are in the hands of the superior or abbot, not the bishop of the
diocese. Indeed, many religious institutes operate across diocesan,
metropolitan and national boundaries; and the jurisdiction of the superiors is
in this sense non-territorial. It relates instead to the competent dicastery of
the Apostolic See, namely the Congregation for Religious. That said, in the
care of parishes, setting up a house in a diocese and in regulating relations
within the diocese, it is the bishop who is the competent authority. But not
always. There are no examples in the United Kingdom, but there are also such
rare persons as “abbots nullius”.
They lead a territorial abbey “belonging to no one”, not sited in the territory
of diocese, and they also possess jurisdiction over the surrounding land.
Historically they were in remote or mission areas. Famous examples are Monte
Cassino in Italy and Einsiedeln in Switzerland. These ordinaries are not
(necessarily) bishops. While these situations are clearly exceptional, they show
two things: first, it is legitimate within the organisation of the Catholic
Church for it to exist other than in a territorial diocese led by a bishop; and
secondly, where this is the case, they depend not on the metropolitan
archbishop or the national conference of bishops, but the Church’s supreme
authority vested at the universal level in the pope.
Another variation is the non-territorial dioceses
for the armed forces, which are also termed ordinariates. Interestingly, these
were known from their foundation in 1953 as vicariates, like deaneries or
administrations led by clerics whose power was delegated by other bishops or
directly by the pope, although they were led by a bishop. In Pope John Paul
II’s 1986 Apostolic Constitution Spirituali
Militum Curae, they were established as dioceses in their own right, led by
a bishop possessing ordinary, proper and immediate power. Operating as a
vicariate, with the necessary powers delegated for reasons of practicality by
the bishops of dioceses across a country, and sanctioned by the Apostolic See,
they might be manageable in one national territory - but what was the status of
personnel posted on active service abroad? What was the Vicar’s jurisdiction
and how far did it run; did the faculties of the priests extend across the
designated boundaries; and which bishop had responsibility for overseeing the
faithful’s sacramental life – Christian initiation, reconciliation and marriage
– the Vicar, the bishop of one’s home diocese, or the bishop of the diocese in
which one was posted? The Code of Canon Law of 1983 did not specify and simply
allowed for there to be separate rules to govern the provisions for the
military. The solution was found three years later in 1986 - the structures
providing for the military were made into “ordinariates”. They were described
as corresponding to dioceses and constituting “particular churches”. In the
United Kingdom the term “ordinariate” is not used and “bishopric” is preferred;
but canonically it is an ordinariate. Unlike any other diocese, this “Bishopric
of the Forces” is not aligned along geographical boundaries, but encompasses
anywhere in the world that United Kingdom military personnel are serving or
deployed. Note that it is not exclusively related to the Bishops’ Conference of
England and Wales, or Scotland or Ireland. Its status as a diocese does not
relate to diocesan, or metropolitan or “national conference” territories; hence
the necessity for defining its relationship as a particular church to rest with
the Apostolic See at the universal level.
Unprecedented?
- Ukraine
There are further precedents from history. Although
these concern Eastern Catholic Churches, the interest in terms of the present
discussion is not in their internal workings, or their integrity as Churches
distinct from the Roman Catholic Church, but the management of overlapping
jurisdiction with territorial Western dioceses of the Latin Church.
First, Ukraine. I am indebted to the Revd Dr
Athanasius McVay of the Eparchy of Edmonton, Canada, for much of this
perspective (an eparchy in the Byzantine Churches is the same as a diocese). The present day Ukrainian
Greek-Catholic Church is the direct descendant of the Kyivan metropolitanate,
out of which also grew what is now known as the local autocephalous Russian
Orthodox Church. Russian Orthodoxy acknowledges its source in the baptism of
Vladimir and the Rus people of Kiev in 988. With the later rise of Muscovy and,
later still, Russia itself, the government of the Church followed the shift of
the political centre east to Moscow. But the historic Byzantine church of the
Rus people (from whom comes our word Ruthenian) - in Galicia, in what is now
western Ukraine, parts of Belarus, parts of old Poland and old Lithuania -
retained their strong sense of ancient identity. It held to its “communion of
origin” (a phrase of Pope Paul VI about Catholic and Anglican relations that
can be apt in other contexts). At the time of Prince Vladimir’s baptism there
had been no Great Schism. The Byzantine Churches of Constantinople and Kiev had
been in full communion with the Church of Rome in the Latin West. After the
estrangement of Rome and Constantinople became final in 1054, states and rulers
in eastern Europe changed over the centuries and allegiances were fluid. But
Muscovy was in the orbit of Constantinople, while its fellow Byzantines to the
west related to neighbouring Latin Catholics. And even when they came under the
rule of Polish or Lithuanian Catholic princes and were incorporated into their
states, it is important to note that the local “Greek” Byzantine dioceses and
hierarchies predate the establishment of Latin Catholic dioceses.
When present-day Western Ukraine was conquered by
Poland in the fourteenth century, some “Greek” bishops were turned out and
their sees were occupied by Latins (e.g. in Lviv, Przemysl, Chelm). Yet, under the Polish crown, the Metropolitan
of Kyiv was recognised as the head of his autonomous Church. When the communion
of this historic Kyivan Church with the Apostolic See of Rome was recognised
and restored at the Union of Brest in 1595, his authority and privileges were
confirmed. This also protected him from the claims of the newly established
patriarchate in Moscow. But with the division of most of the Polish
territory between the Habsburg monarchy to the south and Russia to the north
and east, the “Greek” Catholics of what is now Eastern Ukraine and Belarus were
compelled to submit to the Russian Orthodox Church. To serve the Greek-Catholic
rump in Eastern Galicia (now Western Ukraine), the civil power asked the Kyivan
Metropolitan to appoint an Orthodox bishop as a vicar for the “Greeks”,
technically under the Latin Archbishop of Lviv-Halych (the city from which the
name “Galicia” comes). This arrangement was made into the Greek-Catholic
metropolitan see of Lviv under Latin Catholic Austria-Hungary. But, despite its
seniority as the original Church of the territory, the metropolitan’s
privileges were greatly reduced. All
that remained was "an ecclesiastical province", and he was treated no
differently from any other Latin rite metropolitan archbishop. By the early
twentieth century, the Roman Curia had more or less forgotten that the great
Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky was really the primate of an historic,
autonomous Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. It was not until 1963 that
Lviv was raised to the status of a “major archbishopric”, in view of
Metropolitan Cardinal Slipyj's calls for a patriarchate at the second session
of the Second Vatican Council. Recently Archbishop Cardinal Lubomyr Husar
transferred his see from Lviv back to Kyiv (where there are also several rival
Orthodox metropolitans). To this day, the Roman Catholic bishops of Ukraine and
the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic bishops have hierarchies in exactly the same
territory, relating to the same see cities. They are in full ecclesial
communion. This long and complex story is important when considering how the
principle that Catholic ecclesiology is exclusively territorial – that there is
one bishop in one church in one place – actually works out in the realities of
history and the way in which people belong to the Catholic Church. It is an
exceptional history; but it demonstrates that it can be legitimate for two
ordinaries to bear responsibility for the Catholic faithful in churches
covering the same territory. Indeed, in this case, it was the supreme power of
the Apostolic See of Rome which, progressively throughout the twentieth
century, confirmed the rights and integrity of the Eastern Churches, recognised
their inherent right to exist sui juris
and established the norms to protect their independence from encroachment in
their own territories by the Latin Catholic hierarchy.
Unprecedented?
- Canada
Secondly, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic diaspora in
Canada (I am again indebted to Dr McVay). The first Ukrainian Catholic bishop
for North America, Soter Ortynsky, like the “Greek” vicar for the Latin
Archbishop of Lviv-Halych, was just an ordaining bishop. He was named
apostolic visitor in 1907. “Apostolic” indicates that he was appointed by
mandate of the Apostolic See, another indication of the proper role of the
universal primate in addressing concerns which transcend the resources and
capacity of the local diocese, or province, or autonomous “ritual” church
(whether Latin or Byzantine), or patriarchal territory. But as a visitor he had
no “ordinary” authority, and was reliant on the support of the Latin bishops in
whose territorial dioceses he was active. Some cooperated and others would not.
As he had no real authority over the clergy he was supposed to be responsible
for, the “apostolic visitor” arrangement did not work. Furthermore, there was
sustained pressure from the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy on the
Greek-Catholic faithful to conform to the Latin rite and its sacramental
discipline. The result was that many, despite the weight of history,
“apostatised”; in other words they abandoned the long cherished communion with
Rome, for which so much had been sacrificed, as they felt rejected and
constrained to become Orthodox.
After sustained lobbying from Sheptytsky and local
missionaries, the Latin hierarchy finally relented. Arrangements were made
for the necessary jurisdiction in Canada from July 1912, with an Ordinariate
led by Bishop Nykyta Budka (followed in 1913 by the conversion of Ortynsky’s
visitorship to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholics in the United States likewise into
an ordinariate). The Canadian ordinariate was later renamed an Apostolic
Exarchate – note once more the term “apostolic”, indicating the competence of the
supreme authority and the proper role of the pope in overseeing the arrangement
for a personal (i.e. non-territorial) ordinariate operating across Latin
Catholic dioceses. In 1948, it was divided into three apostolic exarchates
(there are now five). In 1956 the
exarchates, based on the model of a personal ordinariate, were raised to the
status of eparchies – territorial dioceses in their own right, parallel, as in
Ukraine, with Latin Catholic dioceses. A similar process occurred in the United
States.
Unprecedented?
- Italy
Third, the Albanian Church of southern Italy. An
important fresh look at evidence by Anthony O’Mahoney, director of the new
Centre for Eastern Christianity at Heythrop College, recounts the fascinating
history of Greek and Albanian Christians in the former territories of the
Byzantine empire in southern Italy. From antiquity the region was known as
Magna Graecia, Great Greece. Thus it lay within the orbit of the patriarchate
of Constantinople. Some of the basilicas and cathedrals of Sicily, Calabria,
Puglia and Basilicata betray as much. Indeed Southern Italian Byzantine
influences can be traced almost as far as Rome. But with the contraction of the
Eastern Roman empire, the loss of Sicily to Arab Muslims and then the passing
of much of southern Italy to Norman rule, Constantinople ceded its primatial
role in the region to Rome. The pope confided pastoral care and jurisdiction
for the Greek Christians of the south to the Metropolitan at Ohrid, now a town
in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, but then the capital of the huge
empire of Bulgaria. Until 1767 the see of Ohrid was at the head of an
autocephalous Byzantine-rite Church whose relations with both Rome and
Constantinople waxed and waned through the centuries. This did not extend to a
complete breach of communion with either of them, despite Rome’s long breach
with Constantinople. The arrangement whereby Ohrid exercised vicarious care for
the Greek Christians and, later, Albanian Byzantine refugees from the Ottomans
within its primatial territory persisted some time even beyond the Council of
Trent.
In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV revised the Instruction,
issued by Clement VIII for the guidance of Latin-rite bishops with
Greek-Catholics in their dioceses, that had been drawn up following the 1595
Union of Brest. He provided a canonical framework to regulate the church life
of the Italo-Greeks and the Italo-Albanians on something of a proper footing,
albeit within the territories of the Latin dioceses in which they lived.
Schools and seminaries were also founded.
But for ordinations they relied on visiting “ordaining bishops”, acting
as vicars of the Latin bishops, or on sending candidates to a Byzantine
Catholic bishop in Rome or elsewhere.
In 1919 the Italo-Albanians of Calabria on mainland
Italy were given their own bishop, with the foundation of the eparchy of
Lungro, composed of several enclaves within Latin dioceses. It is a territorial
diocese with 29 parishes, two of which are of the Latin rite. In this case, the
Roman Catholics are subject to the jurisdiction of an Eastern Catholic bishop,
a reversal of the historical case of the Ukrainian Catholics in Lviv-Halych and
North America. When needed, a nearby Latin-rite bishop, acting as vicar of the
Eparch of Lungro, can be asked to “fly” in; Latin rite priests can be loaned or
transferred from elsewhere. But in practice, the Byzantine clergy can function
bi-ritually. By the same token, the Eparch of Lungro can provide for the needs
of the Italo-Albanian faithful living outside the enclaves of the eparchy in
the surrounding Latin rite dioceses vicariously.
In 1937 the eparchy of Piana degli Albanesi
(formerly dei Greci) was established for the Italo-Albanians of Sicily. This is
likewise a territorial diocese composed of enclaves within Latin-rite dioceses.
Some of its 15 parishes are of the Latin rite and are subject, as in the
eparchy of Lungro, to the jurisdiction of the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church.
As with Lungro, there is a wider “personal” (i.e. non-territorial) remit for Byzantine
Catholic faithful further afield; indeed there is a Co-Cathedral for the
eparchy outside its territory, situated in Palermo. Also in 1937 the
Byzantine-rite Basilian monastery of Grottaferrata, just south of Rome, the
last of hundreds of such Italo-Greek monasteries that flourished across
southern Italy in the Middle Ages, was given the status of territorial abbey,
separated from the jurisdiction of the local Latin rite diocese of
Tusculum-Frascati. It was founded in 1004 by St Nilus from Calabria, who had
journeyed north to St Benedict’s Monte Cassino in search of greater seclusion
for himself and his monks and, after a period in Rome, retreated to
Grottaferrata in the Alban Hills to the south. The abbot is an exarch, an
“abbot nullius”, holding within his
abbey’s territory the position of ordinary. The community is, however, no
longer composed of Italo-Greeks, or even Italo-Albanians. Nowadays it draws
members from the Ukrainian Church and other Byzantine Catholic Churches.
Nevertheless, it forms part of the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church, which is not
Roman Catholic but a distinct Church sui
juris in full communion with the Apostolic See of Rome.
Having only two dioceses, however, the
Italo-Albanian Church is not able to form a self-governing Church under a
primate or metropolitan of its own, notwithstanding the affiliation of
Grottaferrata whose abbot is an ordinary and also, by custom, a bishop. At the
moment, the Italo-Albanian Church is directly subject to the Apostolic See and,
for practical purposes, the eparchies are closely linked the local Latin
metropolitan provinces across which their enclaves are distributed. But it is believed that in due course a third
bishopric for the Eastern Catholics in the rest of Italy will be founded. This
will enable one of the eparchies to become a metropolitan see and the
Italo-Albanian Church to become a “metropolia” and self-ruling with its own
primate, without the need for direct dependence on the Apostolic See. Already in 2004 there has been an intereparchial
synod of the three “circumscriptions”. If this turns out to be the case, the
third bishopric may be “personal” (that is, non-territorial), having
responsibility for the Italo-Albanian Catholics further north on the mainland
and possibly, in practice, for other Byzantine Catholics of various diaspora
(although much of the historic Italo-Greek community to be found in the ports
and large cities, such as Naples, long ago gravitated to Orthodoxy), thus
overlapping like an ordinariate with the territorial Latin dioceses. Again note
that, because provisions for the historic Italo-Albanian Catholics transcend
the boundaries of individual Latin dioceses and even ecclesiastical provinces,
the competence to make them lies with the pope, both as primate of the Church
of Italy and as universal primate bearing the supreme authority when it comes
to relations between the particular churches of the Catholic Church.
Authentic Ecclesiology in a Latin Context
So there exist abundant contemporary and historical
examples of particular churches and ordinariates which do not exactly fit the
normative template for Catholic ecclesiology of the local territorial diocese
in the West. The ordinariates for Anglicans are thus neither unknown nor
unprecedented. Moreover, the role of the pope in their establishment and
governance is not the violation of the prerogatives of the local ordinary, as
some allege, but the legitimate exercise of primatial and universal authority
proper to the Apostolic See. Indeed, this is the only competent authority for
ensuring that particular local, cultural, spiritual, social, liturgical and
historical conditions are met and at the same time duly accommodated in a way
that works in the interests of the Church as a whole. Thus were resolved the
challenges facing the former structure for military vicariates, and the
obstacles to the life of Eastern Catholics in diaspora, faced with Latin
territorial bishops believing that their jurisdiction must prevail exclusively.
It is worth noting here that, at the meeting of the
Eastern Catholic patriarchs with Pope Benedict in September 2009 at
Castelgandalfo, the Melkite Patriarch Gregorios III of Antioch raised the
problem of their jurisdiction in the diaspora and their responsibility for
their faithful outside their patriarchal territories in the Latin West, for
which the pope is directly responsible. Pope Benedict in response stressed the
importance of maintaining the relationship of the people with the Church of
their original territory to which they belong, even when they are in the Latin
West. After all, Latin Christians are to be found in the territories of the
Eastern Churches while remaining attached to the Roman Catholic Church. Pope
Benedict’s constructive development for solving the problem of jurisdiction when
primacies and hierarchies overlap was warmly welcomed by the other patriarchs
and archbishops.
As we have observed, however, the Anglican
ordinariates will not form a church sui
juris like the Eastern Catholics. But the same potential problems of jurisdiction
and the due freedom of the ordinaries to exercise power are addressed in Anglicanorum Coetibus. Hence the need
for an Apostolic Constitution – so that they are not thrown back on merely
local and provisional arrangements, but can rely on regulations that apply
throughout the Church. Thus the norms provide for the need for good relations,
consultation and co-ordination with the existing Catholic hierarchy from the
outset.
In England there is a relevant case in point – the
Polish chaplaincies. Unlike other national and ethnic chaplaincies, because of
history and specially agreed custom, the Polish Catholic Mission does not come
under the direct jurisdiction of the bishops of England and Wales, despite
being staffed with Latin Catholic priests. The parishes it runs are formally
situated within the English dioceses, but their clergy are governed by a
vicar-delegate nominated by the Primate of Poland and technically appointed by
the president of the Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales. In 2007, Cardinal
Cormac Murphy O’Connor, sensing that the Polish Catholics were not integrating
and risked dividing the Catholic Church in this country along ethnic lines,
attempted to address this anomaly afresh. Such was the indignation among Poles
in England and in the Church in Poland that the status quo ante was left undisturbed. This is perhaps a small
factor in English Catholic anxiety over a multiplication of jurisdictions, as
suspicion of Anglicans bringing division and resistance to integration has been
expressed vocally.
Analysis from
the Church of England
In an eirenic response to Anglicanorum Coetibus, the distinguished ecumenist Bishop
Christopher Hill of Guildford, as chairman of the Church of England’s Council
for Christian Unity, has contrasted the military ordinariates with the
ordinariates for former Anglicans. A
military ordinariate is juridically comparable to a diocese. This means that in
law its ordinary, the bishop, possesses “ordinary, proper and immediate power …
for the exercise of his pastoral function” (Canon 381.1). Under the terms of Anglicanorum Coetibus, however, Bishop
Hill observes that the ordinary’s power is “qualified”: it is vicarious and it
is personal (§ V). But this fails to note that the military ordinary also has
delegated power. Not being suffragan to a provincial primate, and relating to
several bishops’ conferences, and being directly dependent upon the Apostolic
See, he requires the power of the Church at the level of the universal primate
to be entrusted to him in a vicarious capacity, so that he can exercise his
ministry among the clergy and faithful who belong to him across both national
and ecclesiastical borders in the territory of other bishops with ordinary
power. Far from qualifying his power as an ordinary (as if, contrary to the
teaching of Lumen Gentium §27,
bishops are merely “vicars of the Roman Pontiff”), it adds confirmation and
protection to it. He thus both has ordinary jurisdiction as of right and
benefits from delegated jurisdiction proper to the needs of the situation.
Bishop Hill also identifies in the “personal” (i.e.
non-territorial) character of the ordinariates for Anglicans a further
difference from the military ordinariates on which they are supposed to be
based. The military ordinariates are part of the normal structure of the Church
in the lands in which they are established. They serve a very defined purpose
and, by and large, do not impinge upon
the regular life and experience of parishes and dioceses. They relate to each
of the dicasteries in Rome according to their competencies in the normal way,
not least the Congregation for Bishops, as in other dioceses. An ordinariate
for former Anglicans, however, relates primarily to the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, and it is in this
that Bishop Hill perceives that the “personal” status renders it
different from an ordinariate which is “juridically comparable to a diocese”.
Yet the historic role of the Congregation is to maintain the integrity of the
faith. As the senior Congregation, it is not surprising that it is charged with
ensuring that Christians coming into full communion with the Catholic from
another confession are genuinely and perfectly integrated. Thus it oversees
their “growing into communion” and it is in a position to co-ordinate the
related work of other dicasteries in support of the newly established
ordinariates. Just as the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity is
responsible for relations with Christians who are not Catholics, so the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is responsible for relations with
those groups of Christians who have become Catholics in their deepening union
with the See of Peter:
the duty proper to the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is to promote and safeguard the
doctrine on the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world: for this reason
everything which in any way touches such matter falls within its competence
(John Paul II’s 1988 Apostolic Constitution, Pastor Bonus §48)
With the passage of time, normal responsibility for
dealings with the ordinariates may no longer need the co-ordinating oversight
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. Thus it will pass to the other
dicasteries in their respective spheres, just like the military ordinariates.
Creative and Complementary
Catholicity
Returning to the significance of the term
“personal”, in the Code of Canon Law there is mention of personal prelatures
(Canons 294-297), which are organisations of secular clergy for pastoral or
missionary purposes (in fact there is only one so far – Opus Dei), and personal parishes (Canon 518) established by reason
of rite, nationality, language for the faithful of a certain area, or on some
other basis. There are no references to “personal dioceses” or “personal
ordinariates”, for the simple reason that they had not yet been envisaged, at
least in those terms. The operational conditions for military vicariates
required the creation of military ordinariates, which are both personal and
relate to the home territory of the faithful who are members of the forces.
Similarly, the ordinariates designed to accommodate the “objective reality” of
“Anglican patrimony”, are personal in that they are not a portion of the people
of God distinguished according to the territory in which they live, and yet
they are established within, and in relation to, the territory of an
established Bishops’ Conference. So the word “personal” signifies no subtle
difference in the way in which an ordinariate of whatever kind might operate.
Each available example, whether it is specified or not, is in some way
personal.
The Code, nevertheless, did indeed foresee something
of the sort. Canon 372 notes:
§1. As a rule, that portion of the people of God which constitutes a
diocese or other particular Church is to have a defined territory, so that it
comprises all the faithful who live in that territory.
§2. If, however, in the judgment of the supreme authority in the
Church, after consultation with the Episcopal Conferences concerned, it is
thought to be helpful, there may be established in a given territory particular
Churches distinguished by the rite of the faithful or by some other quality.
This seems to fit the bill of Anglican ordinariates
perfectly. Note once more the role proper to the Apostolic See in establishing
the legitimate arrangements for something that does not quite fit the normal
ecclesiological template, yet which will actually serve the larger purposes of
the Catholic Church as a whole. More particularly, far from being contrary to
the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, this accords with the foresight of
the same Council’s 1965 Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church, Ad Gentes §20, that there may need to be
creative, special arrangements to enable people to belong to the Catholic
Church who may not otherwise find a way to do so:
If it happens that in
certain regions there is a group of people which is impeded from accepting the
Catholic faith because they cannot adapt themselves to the particular guise in
which the Church presents itself in that place, then it is desirable that this
situation should be specially catered for, until all Christians can gather
together in one community.
Perhaps indeed the provisions of Anglicanorum Coetibus may prove
ultimately to be provisional. As the Catholic League’s historic work on its
“proto-pro-Ordinariate”, the Congregation of the English Mission, showed in its
early 1990s Inlook into Anglican Identity,
the only purpose of maintaining separate co-existence following corporate
reunion of Anglicans with the Catholic Church that adds up is to serve mutual
enrichment, collaboration and complementary aptitude for evangelisation - and,
ultimately, perfect integration in the charity and peace of Christ, in the name
of the unity of all humanity.
So was Professor Lash right to say, “The proposed
ordinariates … are not Churches, but groups of disaffected Anglican lay
people”? It has to be admitted that they are not the norm. But they can
complement the norm. They are a genuine “portion of the people of God” within the
communion of the Universal Church, established like all particular churches by
the authority of the Successor of Peter, juridically comparable to a diocese,
served by their own clergy and led by a legitimate ordinary not unlike any
other ordinary. They meet the relevant conciliar and canonical criteria.
Furthermore, they are supported by weighty historical and contemporary
precedent.
And in respect of the disaffection from Anglicanism
that people may allegedly be tempted to import to the Catholic Church, this is
exactly why the responsibility for the ordinariates, in which they will both
corporately and individually discover the “wondrous harmony” of the Catholic
faith (Pope John Paul II on the Catechism of the Catholic Church), is vested at
the outset in the Congregation charged to “maintain and defend the integrity of
the faith” and the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.
23
April 2010
Fr
Mark Woodruff is Secretary of the Society for Ecumenical Studies and Vice
Chairman of the Society of St John Chrysostom. This article from The Messenger
of the Catholic League for Spring 2010 is reproduced here with kind permission.
Bishop Andreas Abouna of Baghdad has died in Erbil, aged 67 having suffered from kidney failure. The bishop, who had served as priest in charge of Chaldean Catholics in Ealing, west London, for more than a decade, died on Tuesday morning in the city of Erbil in Kurdish northern Iraq. He was buried in St Joseph’s Cathedral, Ankawa, near Erbil, later the same day after a funeral presided over by Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly, reports the Catholic Herald.
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