Thinking Anglicans

some group responses to Vatican

Updated again Thursday morning

The Anglican Church in North America has posted this press release from Archbishop Robert Duncan.

CANA has this response from Bishop Martyn Minns Vatican Move Recognizes Reality of Anglican Divide.

Bishop Jack Iker in Fort Worth has Response to Vatican announcement of “personal ordinariates” for Anglicans available here.

Reform in the UK has Reform Initial Response To ‘Apostolic Constitution’ Announcement.

Affirming Catholicism has issued this:

Affirming Catholicism shares the desire of all Christians, and especially Catholic Christians, for the full and visible unity of the Church of Jesus Christ. We also value our Anglican tradition as one which has its own distinctive contribution to make to the life of the whole Church, a gift of the Spirit which is an important part of the richness of God’s work in the world.

We recognise that Pope Benedict’s announcement may be of great comfort to some who combine deep attachment to Anglican patterns of worship with acceptance of the claims of the Roman Catholic Church as regards doctrine and church order. We affirm, though, that there is an authentically Catholic tradition within Anglicanism which seeks unity through a process of mutual learning. In such a process, each church will have something to give and to receive at every level of its life.

It is for that unity that we continue to pray.

The Bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough have this statement.

The Society of the Holy Cross has issued a statement, see here, or in the comments below.

The Traditional Anglican Communion, which is probably the main beneficiary of this development, has issued this statement.

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Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
15 years ago

If Jack Iker joins any organization where he can’t continue to parade around as a bishop, I’ll eat my hat.

Leonardo Ricardo
15 years ago

Thanks but NO THANKS (of course the more separating and demolishing anyone can do to CoE while strengthening Gafconning Anglicanism is most welcome…all praise to Akinola, Jensen, Duncan and Orombi and the rest of you ALL be diminished sinners at The Body of Christ or be saved)!

John B. Chilton
15 years ago

Your hat is safe with Jack.

JPM
JPM
15 years ago

Lapin, I was thinking the same thing–there is no way on earth that Iker would ever be a mere priest again.

David C
David C
15 years ago

So much for ringing endorsements of the Vatican’s move! What I read between the lines are a fear that parts of their membership will make the move and weaken their own groups and also a discomfort with giving up elements of their Protestant identity. They sound even more caught off guard than AB Williams.

Also, not sure how Bp Martyn Minns reads an endorsement of the formation of CANA into the Vatican’s statement.

David C
David C
15 years ago

And of course the fact that none of the ACNA bishops would be able to go with their flocks as bishops!

Counterlight
15 years ago

The news stopped the presses worldwide yesterday.

I remain underwhelmed.

Neil
Neil
15 years ago

I just LOVE Counterlight’s scorn. It is surely big news – though only time will tell. I guess the birth of Christ was underwhelming for most people? Time will tell…

Spirit of Vatican II
15 years ago

These bishops are clearly rather wrong-footed. They try to find ammunition for their cause. One of them cannot help saying that Anglicans disagree with Rome about the Blessed Virgin — ignoring the work of ARCIC on this.

EPfizH
EPfizH
15 years ago

“Also, not sure how Bp Martyn Minns reads an endorsement of the formation of CANA into the Vatican’s statement.” I was flat-out amazed! Truly special even for Minns. Did he discuss his thoughts with his ACNA prelate before sharing them with the world, and did he discuss them with Rome before he decided what Rome meant? And most important, did he discuss them with +Duncan? The commments registered from many of the leadership of ACNA if nothing else, prove that ACNA is not as unified an organization as it might have portrayed itself to b. +Duncan may have quite a… Read more »

Bill Barker
Bill Barker
15 years ago

Ha Ha, say what you want, the once mighty TEC and Anglican Communion no longer get to decide who is a real Anglican in the United States anymore. The ball game has changed. Anglicans can be genuinely Anglican as a part of Rome, the Anglican Church in North American, the Continuing Church,etc. No more using the flippant term group to degrade Anglcian/Episcopalians that are no longer in communin with TEC/CofE. Oh, how the mighty have now fallen. If only TEC hadn’t been so arrogant, and willing to seek flexible ways of mainting communion, it’s membership and finances would not be… Read more »

Ed Tomlinson
15 years ago

Rather calls AffCaff’s bluff. Stealing our clothes and language was a clever move but surely everyone knows affirming liberalism would be a more honest title? At Westcott there were members joining who had never seen a chassy in Their life but merely wanted to affirm pro women and gay agendas.

Amy
Amy
15 years ago

That is a bold move but beware of the Catholic Church. Some say the papacy is the antichrist. They changed the ten commandments which is the Law of God, the Pope claims to be a god, they have killed innocent people for centuries like the Spanish Inquisition and supporting the Nazis, and the priests have molested a lot of children. That is not Christian, that is evil hiding behind religion. Why do they have so many followers?!! People really need to open their eyes.

MJ
MJ
15 years ago

A statement from the SSC (Society of the Holy Cross) has been issued: http://onetimothyfour.blogspot.com/2009/10/statement-by-master-of-society-of-holy.html Statement by the Master of the Society of the Holy Cross (England & Scotland) on the Vatican statement concerning welcoming Anglicans into the Catholic Church The Society of the Holy Cross has always had as one of its fundamental purposes to “further the Catholic Faith” and also to strive earnestly for reunion with the Holy See. It therefore welcomes warmly the recent statement by the Vatican and looks forward to receiving the full text of the Apostolic Constitution when it is finally issued by the Holy… Read more »

Marshall Scott
15 years ago

Bill Barker: God go with you when you go. I hope you find happiness and the presence of Christ.

I don’t know, though, that I would call a Uniate Anglican Catholic body somehow more Anglican than Canterbury than I would call the Ukrainian Catholic Church more Orthodox than the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This will be a Roman body, if not a Latin body; with a Roman rite and structure, if not the Latin Rite and structure. That may or may not be a bad thing, but I can’t think I would call it authentically an Anglican thing.

john
john
15 years ago

Cheap jibe, Ed. When I survey the liturgical photos of you and Fr T E Jones and those of Fr Simon Tibbs or Fr Mark (of Via Integra), I discern an ecclesiastical and theological statement which is essentially the same (and which, as it happens, I do not share). These crude polarities have to go.

BillyD
15 years ago

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet: “This is not a time for sudden decisions or general public discussion.” No, clearly this is a time for more behind-the-scenes scheming. Anything but a public discussion! Bill Barker: “Keep your beloved TEC group, I’m heading to the real Church, the see of Peter, the Catholic Church where I get to be a true Anglican Catholic.” Well, you could have done this years ago, since the Anglican Use pastoral provision has been in place in the US since 1980. If you *really* think that it’s up to Rome to decide who is and who is not… Read more »

Jonathan Clark
Jonathan Clark
15 years ago

Calls our (AffCath’s) bluff? How, exactly? Surely it’s the Anglo-Papalists’ bluff that’s been called? If they really want Anglicanism with the Pope, now they can have it. We’ve always been clear that we didn’t think the Catholic tradition was defined by Roman Catholicism – as of course are many Anglican Catholics who oppose women’s ordination. And if you had to be a Catholic from birth in order to qualify, that’s Newman and Manning out for a start.

Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

“Keep your beloved TEC group, I’m heading to the real Church, the see of Peter, the Catholic Church where I get to be a true Anglican Catholic. – Bill Barker, on Wednesday – Bill, I wonder if you know the importance of what you are articulating here? When you say, in one breath, that you acknowledge the See of Peter as the the true ‘Catholic Church’, you are already cencelling out your endorsement of what it might be to accept what you see as getting to be a ‘true Anglican Catholic’. What you seem to have completely missed out on… Read more »

Tobias Haller
15 years ago

I am not at all surprised to see the affirmation from the SSC. This is, to some extent, what they’ve always said they wanted. I will wait to see how many of its membership in England and the US (where a few still remain) will follow through on corporate reunion.

MarkBrunson
15 years ago

The sleazy, greasy triumphalism from two Tiber swimmers confirm that this Catholic move is far from a triumph, far from acceptable to most right-minded people.

It’s simply a scam, to break the spirit of those seeking to do God’s Will for them.

JCF
JCF
15 years ago

I agree MarkB and, as similarly w/ Amy’s facile anti-Catholicism, makes me ever-so-thankful for the blessed Via Media. I don’t want to be a Popoid *or* a Calvinist, thank you very much!

Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

“Many of its members (SHC) have been active in the Synodical process towards ordaining women as bishops, so that at least a breathing-space could be created for those who in all conscience cannot accept this doctrinal innovation.”
– Kit Dunley, SHC –

I thought SHC members would have been moving in the opposite direction. Have you got this right?

Rod
Rod
15 years ago

Cheap, Ed, and rather childish.

MarkBrunson
15 years ago

You know, JCF, that has been bothering me, too. Amy is more forthright about it, but there’s been this underlying, “Ohoho! The Catholic Church is getting what’s coming to it with *this* group!” There’s an underlying snideness toward the RCC that I really, frankly, can’t understand. I’m glad the RCC is there for those people who need to find God in that way. I don’t like this pope and think that he is not only mistaken, but profoundly and wilfully mistaken on many points and forcing the RCC to take its shape around his misapprehension, but that’s the nature of… Read more »

Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
15 years ago

“…the steady move away from the central teaching of the catholic church…”

I’d like to see Kit Dunkley expand on what he means by this. Male only ordination and anti-homosexual attitudes are part of the “central teaching” of the catholic church? Gee–and here I always thought the central teaching of the catholic church was entirely contained in the Nicene Creed.

toby forward
15 years ago

I really can’t take anyone seriously who calls a chasuble a ‘chassy’, and thinks that wearing one, is what makes a priest a catholic. Please.

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
15 years ago

“There’s an underlying snideness toward the RCC that I really, frankly, can’t understand.”

Where is it you live, again?

Ford Elms
Ford Elms
15 years ago

Bill Barker, that must have felt GREAT!!!! I know it used to when I was doing it in the early 80s. Of course, in those days there was no Internet, no blogs, and liberals didn’t conveniently present themselves to be yelled at, so I had to do it in the car where the only people it affected were the ones stopped next to a raving lunatic stopped at a stoplight yelling at no-one ! I can only imagine how liberating it must be to get to yell at people like this FOR REAL!!! I’d have paid a lot for the… Read more »

MJ
MJ
15 years ago

The North American branch of the Society of Catholic Priests has issued a statement:
http://www.thescp.org/documents/VaticanAnnouncementPressRelease.pdf

Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

“..anglo-catholics have found the openness of the Anglican tradition, allowing for a wide range of views and different approaches, to reflect the realities of life in the Body of Christ as it is lived out in history and the world. For many within the catholic tradition, recent changes are a natural extension of our understanding of the evolution of tradition within the life of the Church. The catholic tradition has never been about simply safeguarding narrowly explicit interpretations of scripture but about engaging the contributions and experience of all the members of the Body of Christ in the life of… Read more »

MarkBrunson
15 years ago

In a house, Ford. 🙂 If you are asking how I could not comprehend the snideness, read what I wrote again. I think Josef Ratzinger is a clown. He’s a completely self-absorbed little twit with about as much good intention as your average dark lord who’d bring back burning at the stake if he could get away with it (and probably could in Nigeria and Uganda, from the look of it). But that’s Ratzinger. He’ll die and there’ll be a new pope, and with it a new RCC. It’s built in to their system, regardless of claims of changelessness. The… Read more »

JPM
JPM
15 years ago

You know, if the Pentecostals decide to offer some kind of Anglican Rite, Bob Duncan could lose the other half of his church.

Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
15 years ago

“…the steady move away from the central teaching of the catholic church…”

I’d like to see Kit Dunkley expand on what he means by this. Male only ordination and anti-homosexual attitudes are part of the “central teaching” of the catholic church? Gee–and here I always thought the central teaching of the catholic church was entirely contained in the Nicene Creed.

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