Anglican Converts Send Easter Message of Hope for New Springtime in the Church

The call to unity is being answered

The initial number may not be huge but the message they are sending is significant. The healing of an ancient wound may have begun. They are answering our Lord's prayer that we may be one as He and His Father are one.

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Around 900 Anglicans, including 61 clergy, from England and Wales became Catholics this Easter in response to the invitation from Pope Benedict through what is commonly being called the Anglican Ordinariate.

While this number is not staggering, it is a sign of things to come and the flowering of unity that has long been desired by many on both sides of the Anglican-Catholic chasm. Soon we will also receive word of a second wave - the Anglican Ordinariate in North America.

Monsignor Andrew Burnham is one of the three Anglican bishops ordained as a Catholic priest in January. Zenit.org quoted him from a message delivered during the reception of 20 new converts at the Oxford Oratory. He stated, "Every time we hear a set of national statistics, even the statistics for rare diseases, the numbers seem to be in the 1,000s and tens of thousands. What significance have 20 or 30, 60, 900 or 1000?"

Zenit went on to report that Monsignor Burnham warned of a "dangerous" scenario that the "groups of incoming Anglicans will simply melt into the crowd," and that the "Pope's imaginative and prophetic gesture in 'Anglicanorum C˝tibus' will have come to nothing."

"But, there is a much more exciting scenario which could unfold," he continued. "And here we need to go back to the first Easter. Even smaller numbers than now were involved.

"By the end of the Last Supper the disciples were down to eleven. By the time Jesus died on the cross there were only two there - Our Blessed Lady and John the Beloved Disciple. At the Garden of Resurrection there were ones and twos."

"From those small beginnings," he affirmed. "Christianity moved from being a small suspiciously-Galilean, rather unfashionable Jewish sect to becoming the official religion of the known world. And not entirely successfully at first."

"I pray that groups of former Anglicans, as here in Oxford, may grow and flourish within the fertile soil of the Catholic Church," the monsignor stated, adding that the growth of the Church lies in "the contribution of each one of us."

This is the clarion call for evangelization. The invitation can continue to be offered through the new Catholic faithful to those who are still "on a journey" toward their Catholic roots.

No doubt, the third wave of restoration will come as a continuing unfolding of invitation to Anglicans as well as those from other traditions.

It was less than thirty years ago when Evangelical leaders from a variety of confessions gathered for what was entitled "The Chicago Call" - the trumpet sounded for many to return to historic Christianity. Over the years since many from the Evangelical-Protestant world have begun to move to a more catholic understanding of Christ and His Church.

The journey of the Christian faithful is not unlike the Children of Israel leaving Egypt for God's land of promise. The long train of the twelve tribes had some parts in freedom while others were still crossing the dry seabed and others were still moving out of captivity.

So while many denominations have turned away from a more orthodox faith - with many parts of the Anglican tradition leading the way - pilgrims are on the move toward the heart of the Church.

This Easter perhaps we are seeing the trickle that may one day be a flood.

The breech in fellowship between Anglicans and Catholics, of course, goes back centuries, particularly to the actions of King Henry VIII in setting up a separated church. Since that time there have been warm and earnest attempts over the years for strengthened ecumenical relations.

In March of 1966, Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey issued a joint statement that led to the official establishment of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) in 1967.

The statement affirmed "Their desire that all those Christians who belong to these two Communions may be animated by these same sentiments of respect esteem and fraternal love, and in order to help these develop to the full, they intend to inaugurate between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion a serious dialogue which, founded on the gospels and on the ancient common traditions, may lead to that unity in truth, for which Christ prayed".

The statement actually began with this opening sentence. "After 400 years of separation between the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, official representatives from both have taken the first step towards restoring full unity".

The Malta Report, issued in 1967 outlined the strategy that would be undertaken for ARCIC with two preliminary phases.

The first phase of work, completed in 1981, covered three topics: The Eucharist, Ministry and Authority.

The second phase covered a wider range of topics including: Salvation and the Church, published in 1986; The Church as Communion, 1991; Life in Christ: Morals, Communion and the Church, 1993; The Gift of Authority, 1999. The final report, published in 2005, addressed Our Blessed Mother, entitled "Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ."

A preparatory commission for a third phase of ARCIC met in London in October 2007.

The Anglican world is in a much different state than it was in 1967. The actually unity envisioned by Archbishop Ramsay and the Holy Father cannot take place organizationally. Yet, it can still happen organically through those who have chosen to accept the invitation.

William Johnstone, a former Anglican priest who now works with the St Barnabas Society, wrote in the Catholic Herald UK about the great wound for the two churches as well as potential healing that began in the embers of ARCIC and could come fully aflame in the Anglican Ordinariate.

"The warped genius of Henry VIII in implementing his plan of secession was to rebrand the Catholic faith as un-English. Those who adhered to the old faith were disloyal. This attitude has remained deeply embedded in the English psyche.

"The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham could provide a solution to this historical wound. There are significant numbers of Christians who are doctrinally Catholic but culturally Anglican. Many of these cultural elements have their roots in the pre-Reformation English Church. A mechanism is now available for people to enter into full communion with Rome while retaining something of this heritage as well as their group identity.

"This is not going to be a soft option. The conversion required is real and individual. But there is no reason why an identity rooted in a legitimate English tradition cannot be maintained.

"The real gift of the Ordinariate will be the restoration of communion to those groups that seek it. Many Anglicans have hungered for this for years. Such people will be coming home - restored to the rock from which they were hewn. An authentically Catholic existence is not possible without communion with Peter. This was the Achilles' heel of the Oxford Movement and in their hearts most Anglo-Catholics knew it. The treasures that were nurtured outside the Catholic Church can now find their true fulfillment from within. These gifts will be purified and transformed by grace."

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Randy Sly is the Associate Editor of Catholic Online and the CEO/Associate Publisher for the Northern Virginia Local Edition of Catholic Online (http://virginia.catholic.org). He is a former Archbishop of the Charismatic Episcopal Church who laid aside that ministry to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church.

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