Responses Varied as Vatican Offers Plan Details

Posted on: November 10, 2009

Since Oct. 20, when the Vatican announced its plan to welcome Anglicans into its fold, most responses have followed this pattern: Anglicans most directly affected by the plan have expressed gratitude. Others have used the occasion to criticize their fellow Anglicans or the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican has now released the full text of Pope Benedict XVI’s constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, which explains in detail how Anglicans will be welcomed into the Roman Catholic Church.

The constitution includes these details:

• “A Personal Ordinariate is entrusted to the pastoral care of an Ordinary appointed by the Roman Pontiff.

• “Those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfill the requisites established by canon law and are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders … Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy.

• “The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff … for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case-by-case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.”

One of the warmest responses to the plan has come from the Rt. Rev. John Fulham, chairman of Forward in Faith–United Kingdom.

“Today all the accompanying papers have been published and they are extremely impressive,” Bishop Fulham said in a statement on Nov. 9. “What Rome has done is offer exactly what the Church of England has refused. … For some of us I suspect our bluff is called! This is both an exciting and dangerous time for Christianity in this country.”

The Global Anglican Future Conference/Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans primates council praised the Vatican’s plan briefly in a statement issued by its chairman, the Most Rev. Peter Akinola, Primate of the Church of Nigeria.

“We believe that this offer is a gracious one and reflects the same commitment to the historic apostolic faith, moral teaching and global mission that we proclaimed in the Jerusalem Declaration on the Global Anglican Future and for this we are profoundly grateful,” the primates said.

“We are, however, grieved that the current crisis within our beloved Anglican Communion has made necessary such an unprecedented offer. It represents a grave indictment of the Instruments of Communion, whose very purpose is to strengthen and protect our unity in obedience to our Lord’s clear command,” the primates added. “Their failure to fully address the abandonment of biblical faith and practice by the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada has now brought shame to the name of Christ and seriously impedes the cause of the gospel.”

Church Society, an organization within the Church of England that describes itself as “For Church, Bible and Nation,” did not bother itself with even brief praise for the Vatican’s plan.

“While acknowledging the correct stand taken by Anglo-Catholics against theological liberalism (the features of which do not represent true, biblical Anglicanism), it should also be noted that the true doctrine of the Church of England does not embrace any of the teachings or practices which characterize the Church of Rome,” the group said. “For instance, the Church of Rome is fundamentally flawed in its claims about its own nature and authority and in its teaching about the means of salvation.”

The Rt. Rev. John Hepworth of the Traditional Anglican Communion offered specific praise for Pope Benedict XVI.

“He has dedicated his pontificate to the cause of unity,” he said.

He then praised the pope’s proposal: “It more than matches the dreams we dared to include in our petition of two years ago. It more than matches our prayers. In those two years [since petitioning the Vatican], we have become very conscious of the prayers of our friends in the Catholic Church. Perhaps their prayers dared to ask even more than ours.”

This article comes from The Living Church Foundation
http://www.livingchurch.org/

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