Prophetic Gesture? First Priests of the Anglican Ordinariate to be Ordained

The desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit.

Is it possible the creative - yet faithful - model emerging from the Anglican Ordinariate provides a framework which could be offered to other communities seeking to come home? Could we be living in the millennium of communion which followed the millennium of division? As the world continues to splinter, the New World of the Church may be moving toward the very unity for which Jesus Christ prayed. That would be prophetic.

P>LONDON, England (Catholic Online) - Toward the end of his historic visit to the United Kingdom where he presided over the beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman, an Anglican convert who prayed for the reunion of the Anglican communion with Rome, Pope Benedict XVI  gathered with all of the Bishops. At the end of the address he spoke these words:

"I asked you to be generous in implementing the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. This should be seen as a prophetic gesture that can contribute positively to the developing relations between Anglicans and Catholics. It helps us to set our sights on the ultimate goal of all ecumenical activity: the restoration of full ecclesial communion in the context of which the mutual exchange of gifts from our respective spiritual patrimonies serves as an enrichment to us all. Let us continue to pray and work unceasingly in order to hasten the joyful day when that goal can be accomplished."

On January 13, 2010, three former Anglican Bishops John Broadhurst, Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton, who were received into the full communion of the Catholic Church on the Feast of the Mother of God, January 1, 2010,will be ordained as Catholic Deacons. Two days later, they will be ordained to the Catholic Priesthood by Archbishop Nichols. They will be specifically set aside to serve the Anglican Ordinariate in the United Kingdom. This first of numerous Ordinariates around the world will be erected by a formal decree from the Holy See this week. The Holy See will also announce the first "Ordinary" to oversee this first Ordinariate. 

Archbishop Nichols issued this statement on January 11, 2010: "On Saturday 15 January 2011, it will be my privilege to ordain John Broadhurst, Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton to priesthood in the Catholic Church. This ceremony will take place in Westminster Cathedral. On or before this date, I expect the Holy See to announce the establishment of the first Ordinariate for groups of former Anglicans and their clergy who seek full communion in the Catholic Church. The three men ordained on Saturday will be the first priests of this Ordinariate.

"This is a unique moment and the Catholic community in England and Wales is privileged to be playing its part in this historic development in the life of the Universal Church. We offer a warm welcome to these three former bishops of the Church of England. We welcome those who wish to join them in full communion with the Pope in the visible unity of the Catholic Church. We recognize the journey they are making with its painful departures and its uncertainties. We salute their depth of searching prayer and the desire which leads them to seek to live within the community of the Catholic Church under the ministry of the Bishop of Rome. This is the faith we share.

"We are deeply grateful for the depth of the relationship which exists here between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. This firm, positive and on-going relationship is the context for Saturday's important initiative. We are grateful, too, for the sensitive leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He graciously acknowledges the integrity of those seeking to join the Ordinariate and has assured them of his prayers. This is the noble spirit of true ecumenism between the followers of Christ.

"Pope Benedict has made clear his own intentions: that the Ordinariate can serve the wider cause of visible unity between our two churches by demonstrating in practice the extent to which we have so much to give to each other in our common service of the Lord. With this in mind he describes this step as 'a prophetic gesture.' With great trust in the Lord, we look forward to Saturday, to the new phase of Church life it brings and we ask God's blessing on its future development."

Fr. Marcus Stock, the General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, released a clear and well written primer on the operation of the Ordinariates which has simple answers to most of the questions I have heard in my work of  covering this subject for all these months. It can be read in full here. Pope Benedict's use of the expression "prophetic gesture" was no accident. Its' reiteration by Archbishop Nichols only underscores its importance. This IS a prophetic gesture. Pope Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity. It was no accident that the seed of the healing began in the land of John Henry Cardinal Newman. He prayed for this day. It is no accident that the Pope of Christian unity raised him to the altars just months ago. It was another prophetic act.

To be Catholic is to enter into the prayer of Jesus for the Unity of His Church. (John 17) In Pope Benedict XVI's first Papal message he signaled his  commitment to this unity: "Nourished and sustained by the Eucharist, Catholics cannot but feel encouraged to strive for the full unity for which Christ expressed so ardent a hope in the Upper Room. The Successor of Peter knows that he must make himself especially responsible for his Divine Master's supreme aspiration. Indeed, he is entrusted with the task of strengthening his brethren (cf. Lk 22: 32). With full awareness, therefore, at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome which Peter bathed in his blood, Peter's current Successor takes on as his primary task the duty to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers. This is his ambition, his impelling duty."

Benedict XVI has placed the commitment to the full communion of the Church at the forefront of his Papacy. This is evident in his love, respect and repeated overtures toward our Orthodox brethren, whom we recognize as a Church and whose priesthood and Sacraments we also recognize. However, this love is also evident in his outreach to the separated Christians of the Reformation communities of the West, beginning with the members of the Anglican community seeking a place within the full communion of the Catholic Church.

Into a world that is fractured, divided, wounded, filled with "sides" and "camps" at enmity with one another, the Church is called to proclaim, by both word and deed, the unifying love of a living God. The heart of the "Gospel" is the message that in and through Jesus Christ, authentic unity with God - and through Him, in the Spirit, with one another- is not only possible but is the plan of God for the entire human race. The Church is the way. It was not the Lord's plan that she be divided. It is His Plan that she be restored to full communion.

Let us take our lead from the clear teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. These paragraphs are in the section entitled "Wounds to Unity": "[I]n this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame." The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism - do not occur without human sin: Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.

"However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."

"Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth" are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements." Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity."

"Christ bestowed unity on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe, subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope that it will continue to increase until the end of time." Christ always gives his Church the gift of unity, but the Church must always pray and work to maintain, reinforce, and perfect the unity that Christ wills for her. This is why Jesus himself prayed at the hour of his Passion, and does not cease praying to his Father, for the unity of his disciples: "That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, . . . so that the world may know that you have sent me." The desire to recover the unity of all Christians is a gift of Christ and a call of the Holy Spirit." (CCC 817 - 820)

The leaders of the World Lutheran Federation recently invited Pope Benedict XVI to be involved in preparations for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017. The Lutheran Church in the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI, often called "High Church" because of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, struggles to defend Christian Orthodoxy in a Christian community being torn apart by some who reject classical Christian teaching. Their plight is not unlike the Anglicans seeking a home in the Barque of Peter.

Is it possible that the kind of creative - yet faithful - model emerging from the Anglican Ordinariate has a framework which could be offered to other communities seeking to come home? Could we be living in the millennium of communion which followed the millennium of division? As the world continues to splinter, the new World of the Church may be moving toward the very unity for which Jesus Christ prayed. Now, that would indeed be prophetic.

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