My little library consists of
The Vatican now has the Apostolic Constitution providing for personal ordinariates for anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church online.
From the introductory press release:
The Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus which is published today introduces a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, which will allow the above mentioned groups to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. At the same time, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is publishing a set of Complementary Norms which will guide the implementation of this provision.
This Apostolic Constitution opens a new avenue for the promotion of Christian unity while, at the same time, granting legitimate diversity in the expression of our common faith. It represents not an initiative on the part of the Holy See, but a generous response from the Holy Father to the legitimate aspirations of these Anglican groups. The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue, which continues to be a priority for the Catholic Church.
And from the document proper:
In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately. The Apostolic See has responded favorably to such petitions. Indeed, the successor of Peter, mandated by the Lord Jesus to guarantee the unity of the episcopate and to preside over and safeguard the universal communion of all the Churches, could not fail to make available the means necessary to bring this holy desire to realization.
The Church, a people gathered into the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, was instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, as “a sacrament – a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all people.” Every division among the baptized in Jesus Christ wounds that which the Church is and that for which the Church exists; in fact, “such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching the Gospel to every creature.” Precisely for this reason, before shedding his blood for the salvation of the world, the Lord Jesus prayed to the Father for the unity of his disciples.
It is the Holy Spirit, the principle of unity, which establishes the Church as a communion. He is the principle of the unity of the faithful in the teaching of the Apostles, in the breaking of the bread and in prayer. The Church, however, analogous to the mystery of the Incarnate Word, is not only an invisible spiritual communion, but is also visible; in fact, “the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, the visible society and the spiritual community, the earthly Church and the Church endowed with heavenly riches, are not to be thought of as two realities. On the contrary, they form one complex reality formed from a two-fold element, human and divine.” The communion of the baptized in the teaching of the Apostles and in the breaking of the eucharistic bread is visibly manifested in the bonds of the profession of the faith in its entirety, of the celebration of all of the sacraments instituted by Christ, and of the governance of the College of Bishops united with its head, the Roman Pontiff.
This single Church of Christ, which we profess in the Creed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic “subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside her visible confines. Since these are gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity.” . . .
The Sub Tuum blog is following this topic closely (as are many other blogs, of course).
It will be interesting to see the extent to which this will prompt various Anglican groups to think carefully about the nature of the Church and various ecclesial bodies.
The ecclesiological principles concisely stated in the first four paragraphs provide, precisely because of their brevity, a useful basis for discussion with Anglicans of various persuasions, I would hope. Given the complexity, both theological and historical, of any such discussion it is useful to have a concise starting point.
Even for groups for which this document has no direct relevance, e.g. evangelical Anglican groups such as the AMiA, thinking carefully about ecclesiology is important for their own internal issues.
Also, as Damian Thompson notes:
Another notable feature of the Constitution: it makes provision for what are effectively new orders within the Ordinariate structure: “The Ordinary, with the approval of the Holy See, can erect new Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, with the right to call their members to Holy Orders, according to the norms of canon law.” So the Pope clearly envisages the Ordinariate as a living and growing entity within the Catholic Church worldwide, not just England and Wales.
GP Taylor, bestselling author and an Anglican priest, has an interesting post in the Yorkshire Post. Interesting both in its content and its perspective, given Graham Taylor’s background.
An excerpt:
. . .To me it showed how the Church of England had sunk into a liberal pit that was no earthly use and offered no hope, no love and no grace. It was going through the motions of faith and was largely irrelevant to the people it once thought it served.
In all my years as a Christian and as a priest, I never thought I would ever contemplate leaving the good old C of E and becoming a Catholic. My former Bishop told me that it was the best boat to fish from. “Think of it, Graham,” he said in his neat office. “All those people – baptisms, weddings, funerals. People in need, people in joy and a chance to share the love of God with them.”
They were powerful words and helped me through my time as a priest in Whitby and beyond as I held the hands of parents who had lost their children and those who wanted some kind of hope and future. “Preach Grace, love and everlasting life and the people will come to you,” the Bishop said as he waved me off to my new parish. He was right, they did. But how things have changed.
. . .In this rising and damaging age of secularism, this country needs a strong moral compass to be a guide through some very troubled waters. The politicians are not the answer as we have seen with their morally bankrupt attitude to expenses.
I, for one, see a need for the Church to again be prophetic to the nation and not be afraid to stand up for what it believes. Heartbreakingly, I am no longer sure the Church of England can do this. . . .
From an article at the New Liturgical Movement on Vatican Singing Norms:
“The liturgy is celebrated in the Latin language, according to the Roman Rite. Gregorian chant has first place. The guest choir is expected to chant the Ordinary of Holy Mass in alternation with the Musical Chapel of the Basilica.”
Further:
“The guest choir may sing: at the Entrance procession until the moment when the celebrant reaches the altar (the Gregorian Introit is sung by the Musical Chapel of the Basilica), at the preparation of the gifts and relative offertory, at Communion, after the Gregorian antiphon has been sung, and at the end of Mass, after the Blessing. The program of music must follow the Liturgy of the day and will be agreed upon with and approved by the Choirmaster.”
And what should the choir sing? It is not complicated:
Sundays of Advent: Missa XVII Credo IV
Sundays of Christmas: Missa IX Credo IV
Sundays of Lent: Missa XVII Credo IV
Sundays of Easter: Missa I Credo III
Sundays of Ordinary Time: Missa XI Credo I
Feasts of Ordinary Time: Missa VIII Credo III
Feasts of the B.V. Mary: Missa IX Credo IV
Feasts of the Apostles: Missa IV Credo III
By the way, the norms are not so much new (Vatican document from 2006), rather newly enforced and advocated (e.g. CMAA posting the norms at the Vatican’s request).
Neat to see the Madeleine Choir School in Salt Lake City, Utah mentioned. The Cathedral of the Madeleine has beautiful art and music.
It seems to me that the orthodoxy and unity of the Eastern Orthodox churches is preserved, to a large extent, by not putting them to the test. Not calling an ecumenical council nor issuing a comprehensive catechism, for example, make it easier to ignore lack of real unity.
An excellent article in the American Orthodox Institute’s Observer brings this to mind. Speaking of Metropolitan Bartholomais of Chalcedon’s troublingly unorthodox views, John Couretas writes:
…But who will defend the defenseless if the Church does not? If a clear teaching on the sanctity of life and, more importantly, actualizing that teaching in our witness to American society, is dismissed as morally “rigid,” then we are simply lost as a Church.
This is not merely an interesting philosophical or theological problem. The Phanar’s moral failure on witnessing to life issues has a concrete effect on the lives our our faithful and especially our youth in the largest Orthodox Church in America. The youth have been cut adrift. The “spiritual leader of 250 million Orthodox Christians” is telling our youth that the Orthodox Church “refrains” from clear teachings on social and moral questions. And little wonder that so many Orthodox Christian young people have absolutely no idea what the Church’s teachings are on marriage, sexuality, abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cells and other important life issues. . . .
The entire article (linked above) is well worth reading, both for sanctity of life issues and also for reflecting on how this example relates to issues of ecclesiology in general.
I read that
If the story of Jesus Christ isn’t literally true, then Christianity is a fraud that promotes “a positively wicked doctrine,” conservative writer Christopher Hitchens told Fox & Friends Monday morning.
Hitchens, an avowed atheist whose 2007 book God is Not Great attempts to divorce conservatism from religious teachings…
Or as Saint Paul more eloquently put it:
1 Corinthians 15:14 if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.
From the home page of St Elias Maronite Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic parish in Roanoke, Virginia:
The Maronite Church professes the same faith and beliefs of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It also administers the seven sacraments instituted by Christ, and obeys all the rules and ordinances issued by our Holy Father the Pope, the successor of Saint Peter in the Vatican.
The only difference between the Maronite Church and the Roman Church is in the Divine Liturgy.
The Maronite Liturgy is partly derived from the Judaic tradition of St. James the Apostle, “brother of the Lord”, and first bishop of Jerusalem, expressing the spirit of Eastern monasticism. Incense is used during the Liturgy to signify that our prayers go heavenward to God as the sweet-smelling smoke of incense rises up. The Sign of Peace is taken from the Altar which represents Christ, and is passed to the congregation in a very dignified and quiet way. This Rite is the only one in which the Words of Consecration are traditionally chanted in Aramaic, the same language our Lord spoke at the First Mass of the Last Supper. During the Consecration the Chalice is raised by the priest and tilted in the form of a cross (the four corners of the world) indicating the universality of the Redemption through the Blood of Christ. Before communion, the priest touches the Holy Mysteries (Eucharist) and blesses the people signifying that the remission of sins is bestowed upon us through the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Communion is received by the faithful in the mouth, after the priest dips the Host in the Chalice : THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST.
Moreover, the Maronites cultivate profound adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, seeing in the Holy Eucharist the Risen Christ who send to us the Sanctifying Spirit. They are also deeply devoted to Mary, the Mother of the Light, hailing her strength and fidelity in the title of “Cedar of Lebanon”.
Way cool to have a prophet of Israel as patron saint.
Fr Zuhlsdorf has a post on Pope Benedict XVI being the Pope of Christian unity.
. . .
Pope Benedict has been struggling against forces within his own fold to achieve Christian unity.His is decidedly not the unity that liberals (Richard McBrien, Gerald O’Collins) have in mind when they think of Christian unity, with its watered-down version of Roman primacy, liturgy, catechesis, sexual ethics and church discipline. In other words, a Christian unity without a Christian identity (christian with a small ‘c’).
No, Benedict’s unity is real unity, true unity that costs something, that stretches people, but that does not compromise what is essential to the Church.
This is not Rahner’s “world church” where anything and anyone goes. It is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Christ Jesus.
Benedict’s true ecumenism is consonant with everything we are as a Church.
People are going to be stretched, but absolutely nothing essential will be given away. . . .
[see end of posting for updates]
From Damian Thompson’s blog:
The Vatican has announced that Pope Benedict is setting up special provision for Anglicans, including married clergy, who want to convert to Rome together, preserving aspects of Anglican liturgy. They will be given their own pastoral supervision, according to this press release from the Vatican:
“In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony.”
More on this very important story later. But this is clearly a historic gesture by Pope Benedict . . .
From theVatican:
NOTE OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH ABOUT PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
With the preparation of an Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is responding to the 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.
In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, 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 forthcoming Apostolic Constitution provides a reasonable and even necessary response to a world-wide phenomenon, by offering a single canonical model for the universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application. It provides for the ordination as Catholic priests of married former Anglican clergy. Historical and ecumenical reasons preclude the ordination of married men as bishops in both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Constitution therefore stipulates that the Ordinary can be either a priest or an unmarried bishop. The seminarians in the Ordinariate are to be prepared alongside other Catholic seminarians, though the Ordinariate may establish a house of formation to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican patrimony. In this way, the Apostolic Constitution seeks to balance on the one hand the concern to preserve the worthy Anglican liturgical and spiritual patrimony and, on the other hand, the concern that these groups and their clergy will be integrated into the Catholic Church.
Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which has prepared this provision, said: “We have been trying to meet the requests for full communion that have come to us from Anglicans in different parts of the world in recent years in a uniform and equitable way. With this proposal the Church wants to respond to the legitimate aspirations of these Anglican groups for full and visible unity with the Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter.”
These Personal Ordinariates will be formed, as needed, in consultation with local Conferences of Bishops, and their structure will be similar in some ways to that of the Military Ordinariates which have been established in most countries to provide pastoral care for the members of the armed forces and their dependents throughout the world. “Those Anglicans who have approached the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. At the same time, they have told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality and worship for their faith journey,” Cardinal Levada said.
The provision of this new structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue, which continues to be a priority for the Catholic Church, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. “The initiative has come from a number of different groups of Anglicans,” Cardinal Levada went on to say: “They 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.”According to Levada: “It is the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this canonical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows. Moreover, the many diverse traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the principle articulated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: ‘There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (4:5). Our communion is therefore strengthened by such legitimate diversity, and so we are happy that these men and women bring with them their particular contributions to our common life of faith.”
Background information
Since the sixteenth century, when King Henry VIII declared the Church in England independent of Papal Authority, the Church of England has created its own doctrinal confessions, liturgical books, and pastoral practices, often incorporating ideas from the Reformation on the European continent. The expansion of the British Empire, together with Anglican missionary work, eventually gave rise to a world-wide Anglican Communion.
Throughout the more than 450 years of its history the question of the reunification of Anglicans and Catholics has never been far from mind. In the mid-nineteenth century the Oxford Movement (in England) saw a rekindling of interest in the Catholic aspects of Anglicanism. In the early twentieth century Cardinal Mercier of Belgium entered into well publicized conversations with Anglicans to explore the possibility of union with the Catholic Church under the banner of an Anglicanism “reunited but not absorbed”.
At the Second Vatican Council hope for union was further nourished when the Decree on Ecumenism (n. 13), referring to communions separated from the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation, stated that: “Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions in part continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place.”
Since the Council, Anglican-Roman Catholic relations have created a much improved climate of mutual understanding and cooperation. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) produced a series of doctrinal statements over the years in the hope of creating the basis for full and visible unity. For many in both communions, the ARCIC statements provided a vehicle in which a common expression of faith could be recognized. It is in this framework that this new provision should be seen.
In the years since the Council, some Anglicans have abandoned the tradition of conferring Holy Orders only on men by calling women to the priesthood and the episcopacy. More recently, some segments of the Anglican Communion have departed from the common biblical teaching on human sexuality—already clearly stated in the ARCIC document “Life in Christ”—by the ordination of openly homosexual clergy and the blessing of homosexual partnerships. At the same time, as the Anglican Communion faces these new and difficult challenges, the Catholic Church remains fully committed to continuing ecumenical engagement with the Anglican Communion, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.
In the meantime, many individual Anglicans have entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. Sometimes there have been groups of Anglicans who have entered while preserving some “corporate” structure. Examples of this include, the Anglican diocese of Amritsar in India, and some individual parishes in the United States which maintained an Anglican identity when entering the Catholic Church under a “pastoral provision” adopted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope John Paul II in 1982. In these cases, the Catholic Church has frequently dispensed from the requirement of celibacy to allow those married Anglican clergy who desire to continue ministerial service as Catholic priests to be ordained in the Catholic Church.
In the light of these developments, the Personal Ordinariates established by the Apostolic Constitution can be seen as another step toward the realization the aspiration for full, visible union in the Church of Christ, one of the principal goals of the ecumenical movement.
And, from London, in a joint response:
JOINT STATEMENT
BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER
AND THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYToday’s announcement of the Apostolic Constitution is a response by Pope Benedict XVI to a number of requests over the past few years to the Holy See from groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and are willing to declare that they share a common Catholic faith and accept the Petrine ministry as willed by Christ for his Church.
Pope Benedict XVI has approved, within the Apostolic Constitution, a canonical structure that provides for Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of distinctive Anglican spiritual patrimony.
The announcement of this Apostolic Constitution brings to an end a period of uncertainty for such groups who have nurtured hopes of new ways of embracing unity with the Catholic Church. It will now be up to those who have made requests to the Holy See to respond to the Apostolic Constitution.
The Apostolic Constitution is further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition. Without the dialogues of the past forty years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
The on-going official dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion provides the basis for our continuing cooperation. The Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM) agreements make clear the path we will follow together.
With God’s grace and prayer we are determined that our on-going mutual commitment and consultation on these and other matters should continue to be strengthened. Locally, in the spirit of IARCCUM, we look forward to building on the pattern of shared meetings between the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales and the Church of England’s House of Bishops with a focus on our common mission. Joint days of reflection and prayer were begun in Leeds in 2006 and continued in Lambeth in 2008, and further meetings are in preparation. This close cooperation will continue as we grow together in unity and mission, in witness to the Gospel in our country, and in the Church at large.
London, 20 October 2009
+ Vincent Gerard Nichols + Rowan Williams
[update 21 Oct 2009] The most astute Anglican internal response, so far, to the Vatican’s action that I have read comes from Kendall Harmon (comments at link interesting too) who concludes:
It represents a sense that only an external action will have any benefit to Anglicanism going forward. Let us not kid ourselves. Rome put a lot into ecumencial conversations with Anglicans because they believed that more internal mechanisms and persuasions were possible. Now, in their judgment, they are not. They don’t see a future of greater Anglican unity; they see one of greater Anglican splintering. At this level, it represents a shout which one wonders if any Anglicans will hear.
(Kendall S. Harmon was born in 1960 in Illinois. He is a priest of the Episcopal Church USA and Canon Theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. He has also served as a General Convention deputy. Harmon is editor of The Anglican Digest, and his writings have appeared in The Living Church, The Church Times, the Church of England Newspaper, Episcopal Life, and other periodicals. He received the degree D. Phil. from Oxford University for his doctorate on aspects of the doctrine of Hell.)
[Update 2 Nov 2009] A mature response, on Stand Firm in Faith, by Matt Kennedy.
A post in a thread on Michael Spencer’s Internet Monk blog:
Becky writes:
Jeff: “More experienced, mature Christians who should be teaching the young about and sharing with them their great Christian heritage are instead asked to ‘get with it’ or ‘get out.’”
Imonk: “I’m watching a father bring his 5 year old (?) to mass, take his hand and dip it in the water, make the cross for him, then take him to his seat and show him how to genuflect. … I am especially impressed with how a small child and an 80 year old man are functioning within the same world of thought, ritual and understanding. … I see evangelicals doing less and less that will hold anyone in the faith into their 80s. If I were 80, I wouldn’t go near 99% of evangelical churches.”
I’ve noticed that much of the discussion along these lines in this thread has tended towards the “yes, it is tragic, without older people in the congregation we are losing the wisdom of the sages of the faith” line of thought. And I would agree that is certainly true. But I wonder if it is only half the tragedy of the picture that contains very few elderly (and even somewhat younger than outright elderly).
I wonder if the other half of that picture is that the grandpa whose brain’s speech center has been ravaged by stroke can still teach his 5 year old grandson to make the sign of the cross and genuflect. (I’m having trouble coming up with anything non-verbal in my own protestant tradition.) The grandma suffering from Alzheimer’s still has the light go on when the hymn she learned as a child is sung. The aging man crotchety from arthritis pain or the aging woman fragile with osteoporosis or the person being consumed with cancer – who really aren’t able or suitable to pal around with the youth, or teach the kid’s classes, or even help stack the chairs or take up the offering anymore – can be in the midst of the congregation, seen and heard singing the Doxology in a way that can only come out of intense struggle with the meaning of the same words over and over in the midst of long term pain and hardship.
Of course, all of the above is a form of the older teaching the younger, too. But I doubt it is the first image of “teaching the younger” that comes to mind even to those younger folk sympathetic to the idea of older folk having a role in a congregation. And, in the current situation that iMonk describes for the elderly within evangelicalism, I also suspect that the loss is not just the younger missing out on the wisdom of the older. There is also the effect on the elderly who feel rejected for uselessness or who lose contact with younger people.
With my mostly non-liturgical protestant background, I struggled to come up with the examples I gave above. Is it easier for those of you with long-term liturgical formation to come up with examples of continued meaningful participation by the elderly that you have seen in real life? Or am I just seeing greener grass on the other side of the fence in hoping there could possibly be contributing place for me in the midst of some congregation somewhere if (when?) I end up a non-sagely, non-productive, frail, and/or mentally diminished elderly (or even not so elderly) person at some point in life? From my middle-aged vantage point, I’m not seeing a happy path forward at the present time.
prompts me to wonder: Is the “sanctity of life from conception until natural death” believed if not modeled in the life of our congregation or parish?
Recently I came across an orthodox Catholic article on the Virgin Birth of our Lord.
It reminded me of my shock, several years ago when I was taking courses at an evangelical seminary, to read Wolfhart Pannenberg’s skepticism about the Virgin Birth (in his Jesus: God and Man) and, even more, for that opinion to not seem to bother my professors at all.
Just another example that confirmed my view that one should not consider oneself a “Nicene Christian” unless agreement on everything in the Nicene Creed trumped disagreement about anything outside the Creed and hence that there was little justification in anyone in some protestant denomination claiming to be a Nicene Christian as a way of glossing over ecclesial divisions.
And that leads me to the general topic of Church and, in particular, an excerpt from
How Did the Catholic Church Get Her Name?
http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/churb3.htm
by Kenneth D. Whitehead
The Creed which we recite on Sundays and holy days speaks of one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. As everybody knows, however, the Church referred to in this Creed is more commonly called just the Catholic Church. It is not, by the way, properly called the Roman Catholic Church, but simply the Catholic Church.
The term Roman Catholic is not used by the Church herself; it is a relatively modern term, and one, moreover, that is confined largely to the English language. The English-speaking bishops at the First Vatican Council in 1870, in fact, conducted a vigorous and successful campaign to insure that the term Roman Catholic was nowhere included in any of the Council’s official documents about the Church herself, and the term was not included.
Similarly, nowhere in the 16 documents of the Second Vatican Council will you find the term Roman Catholic. Pope Paul VI signed all the documents of the Second Vatican Council as “I, Paul. Bishop of the Catholic Church.” Simply that — Catholic Church. There are references to the Roman curia, the Roman missal, the Roman rite, etc., but when the adjective Roman is applied to the Church herself, it refers to the Diocese of Rome!
Cardinals, for example, are called cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, but that designation means that when they are named to be cardinals they have thereby become honorary clergy of the Holy Father’s home diocese, the Diocese of Rome. Each cardinal is given a titular church in Rome, and when the cardinals participate in the election of a new pope, they are participating in a process that in ancient times was carried out by the clergy of the Diocese of Rome.
Although the Diocese of Rome is central to the Catholic Church, this does not mean that the Roman rite, or, as is sometimes said, the Latin rite, is co-terminus with the Church as a whole; that would mean neglecting the Byzantine, Chaldean, Maronite or other Oriental rites which are all very much part of the Catholic Church today, as in the past.
In our day, much greater emphasis has been given to these “non-Roman” rites of the Catholic Church. The Second Vatican Council devoted a special document, Orientalium Ecclesiarum (Decree on Eastern Catholic Churches), to the Eastern rites which belong to the Catholic Church, and the new Catechism of the Catholic Church similarly gives considerable attention to the distinctive traditions and spirituality of these Eastern rites.
So the proper name for the universal Church is not the Roman Catholic Church. Far from it. That term caught on mostly in English-speaking countries; it was promoted mostly by Anglicans, supporters of the “branch theory” of the Church, namely, that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the creed was supposed to consist of three major branches, the Anglican, the Orthodox and the so-called Roman Catholic. It was to avoid that kind of interpretation that the English-speaking bishops at Vatican I succeeded in warning the Church away from ever using the term officially herself: It too easily could be misunderstood.
Today in an era of widespread dissent in the Church, and of equally widespread confusion regarding what authentic Catholic identity is supposed to consist of, many loyal Catholics have recently taken to using the term Roman Catholic in order to affirm their understanding that the Catholic Church of the Sunday creed is the same Church that is united with the Vicar of Christ in Rome, the Pope. This understanding of theirs is correct, but such Catholics should nevertheless beware of using the term, not only because of its dubious origins in Anglican circles intending to suggest that there just might be some other Catholic Church around somewhere besides the Roman one: but also because it often still is used today to suggest that the Roman Catholic Church is something other and lesser than the Catholic Church of the creed. It is commonly used by some dissenting theologians, for example, who appear to be attempting to categorize the Roman Catholic Church as just another contemporary “Christian denomination”—not the body that is identical with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the creed.
“But what about the Eastern Orthodox Churches,” you may ask. Good question. However, with what expression of Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology would one interact? In order to not put words in another’s mouth, having a specific text with which to interact would be essential in my opinion and while there are some online references, I’ve not yet found a useful way to address the issues.
My little library lists
for which my current preference is:
Also, Dom Alcuin Reid’s book The Organic Development of the Liturgy now has, as a preface, Ratzinger’s book review, from which I quote:
At the end of his book, the author enumerates some principles for proper reform: this should keep being open to development, and continuity with the Tradition, in a proper balance; it includes awareness of an objective liturgical tradition, and therefore takes care to ensure a substantial continuity. The author then agrees with the Catechism of the Catholic Church in emphasizing that “even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the Liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith and with religious respect for the mystery of the Liturgy”. (CCC No. 1125, p. 258) As subsidiary criteria we then encounter the legitimacy of local traditions and the concern for pastoral effectiveness.
Criteria for Liturgical Renewal
From my own personal point of view I should like to give further particular emphasis to some of the criteria for liturgical renewal thus briefly indicated. I will begin with those last two main criteria.
It seems to me most important that the Catechism, in mentioning the limitation of the powers of the supreme authority in the Church with regard to reform, recalls to mind what is the essence of the primacy as outlined by the First and Second Vatican Councils: The pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law, but is the guardian of the authentic Tradition, and thereby the premier guarantor of obedience. He cannot do as he likes, and is thereby able to oppose those people who for their part want to do what has come into their head. His rule is not that of arbitrary power, but that of obedience in faith. That is why, with respect to the Liturgy, he has the task of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the old ones on the junk-pile. The “rite”, that form of celebration and prayer which has ripened in the faith and the life of the Church, is a condensed form of living tradition in which the sphere which uses that rite expresses the whole of its faith and its prayer, and thus at the same time the fellowship of generations one with another becomes something we can experience, fellowship with the people who pray before us and after us. Thus the rite is something of benefit which is given to the Church, a living form of paradosis — the handing-on of tradition.
It is important, in this connection, to interpret the “substantial continuity” correctly. The author expressly warns us against the wrong path up which we might be led by a neo-scholastic sacramental theology which is disconnected from the living form of the Liturgy. On that basis, people might reduce the “substance” to the material and form of the sacrament, and say: Bread and wine are the material of the sacrament, the words of institution are its form. Only these two things are really necessary, everything else is changeable.
At this point Modernists and Traditionalists are in agreement: As long as the material gifts are there, and the words of institution are spoken, then everything else is freely disposable. Many priests today, unfortunately, act in accordance with this motto; and the theories of many liturgists are unfortunately moving in the same direction. They want to overcome the limits of the rite, as being something fixed and immovable, and construct the products of their fantasy, which are supposedly “pastoral”, around this remnant, this core which has been spared, and which is thus either relegated to the realm of magic, or loses any meaning whatever. The Liturgical Movement had in fact been attempting to overcome this reductionism, the product of an abstract sacramental theology, and to teach us to understand the Liturgy as a living network of tradition which had taken concrete form, which cannot be torn apart into little pieces, but has to be seen and experienced as a living whole. Anyone like myself, who was moved by this perception in the time of the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council, can only stand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very things they were concerned for.
 | A Free Spirit on All Salvation Comes Through… |
 | Seraphim on Orthodox Belief |
 | nonjuror on Orthodox Belief |
| Fr John Zuhlsdorf on… on Fr John Zuhlsdorf on Wors… | |
 | Dan Young on George Orwell review |
