Ordinariate Pilgrim

Many of you will have seen already this statement from our Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton, and it deserves the widest support from Catholics and Anglicans.  After the unwise remarks of Lord Carey and Archbishop Tutu, it is a relief to see Christian and other faith leaders united in their opposition to this sad and terrible Bill.

The Assisted Dying Bill

The Assisted Dying Bill has its Second Reading in the House of Lords on Friday 18 July. If it became law it would make incitement to suicide routine in our society, thereby putting pressure on the most vulnerable to see themselves as a burden to society. The Church’s teaching is clear: that human life, from conception to natural death, is a gift from God. Christ calls us to offer those facing serious illness care and hope, not despair and killing. The emergence of the hospice movement, which has enabled great progress in palliative care, is one of the fruits of this Christian calling common to Catholics, Anglicans and other Christians. The Assisted Dying Bill is a rejection of this Christian inheritance, and instead promotes what Pope St John Paul II called a ‘culture of death’.

Information on lobbying Peers can be found here:
www.catholicchurch.org.uk/Home/Featured/Assisted-Dying-Bill/Contact-a-Peer

This conflict against the culture of death is first of all a spiritual one, and therefore I invite members of the Ordinariate and others to dedicate some time today (Thursday) or tomorrow (Friday) to pray – if possible before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament – for the upholding of the sanctity of human life.

Previous generations were unafraid to face death

We don’t need to look in a dictionary for definitions of words which surround the end of life. ‘Death’ means coming to the end of your life, when your heart stops beating, and your brain ceases to function. ‘Killing’ means the death of a man or woman, brought about by another person, as for example in a war. ‘Murder’ means the deliberate killing of one human being by another. ‘Suicide’ means people ending their lives deliberately. What, then, the situation where a doctor provides and administers lethal drugs to another, who wishes to end his or her own life? Is this ‘assisted dying’?

No, it is not. It is a form of ‘killing’; it is stretching the language even to call it ‘assisted suicide’. The Bill before the House of Lords has hi-jacked the phrase ‘assisted dying’, which has its own very proper meaning.

As a priest I have often over the years been asked to assist people who are dying, usually with family and friends. Prayer, confession, anointing – all have been part of the ‘assisting’ of dying. Reminiscence and memory, the saying of thankyou’s – but above all the presence of other people with the one who is dying, these things belong within the phrase ‘assisted dying’. Certainly, the provision of medical care, to ease pain while maintaining consciousness wherever possible, is vital. The amazing strides over the years by the Hospice Movement should banish all thoughts of pursuing this pernicious Bill. We should be ashamed of what we are doing; we need to pour money and expertise into the support of perhaps the most vulnerable people in our society – the dying – but above all our time, our love and our care.

Seminarians

At a clergy meeting I attended recently (nearly all the priests about my age) there was some concern expressed about the younger generation of seminarians. It seemed, some felt, that they were more conservative, in theology, dress and liturgy than ever our generation had been.

But one priest pointed out, wisely, I thought, that each generation reacted against the previous one, to some extent. He asked us to remember that, as curates, we had enjoyed shocking the older parish priests, by our wholesale embrace of Vatican II. We could hardly be surprised if the next generation enjoyed needling us a bit.

I’ve tried to reflect on the monthly meeting I have with a group of young Catholics involved in some particular pastoral work. They are bright, deeply committed, and devout. They would prefer me to celebrate the Extraordinary Form, and at the moment I am only confident enough to do the Ordinary Form in latin. Given my Anglican background, and the fact that Vatican II was in the full flood of implementation just as I started training, it is hardly surprising that I don’t feel particularly at ease with the old Mass. But I think I understand where they are coming from.

The way of worship for some young people

My generation grew up in a culture which was still largely Christian in its attitudes and behaviour.  In the state Grammar School I attended there were in my own year, and the years above and below, young men who were going to train for the priesthood. Most of my friends would be married in church, and many of them went to Mass or a service at Christmas and Easter. Divorce was unusual among our parents, abortion unknown, and suicide was at worst a crime, at best a failure by family and friends.

For the generation now entering their 20’s, to hold Catholic beliefs about suicide, abortion, marriage, human sexuality and gender roles render any young Catholic open to curiosity, ridicule and even hostility. The Church of the 1960’s was confident of its need to be open to a changing society: it expected a generous response to its many changes and reforms from the society around it. We were disappointed.

Many young Catholics are now pessimistic about the state of 21st century European culture, and therefore seek from their faith a confident proclamation of salvation from sin through God’s grace. They need peer and group support; they want a clear Catholic identity; in liturgy and devotion they look for something which lifts them above the mundane and the everyday. Are they so different from the young people we now venerate as saints and martyrs at the time of the Reformation, and in the great missionary evangelisation of the nineteenth century?  It should not surprise us to learn that the most dramatic renewal and growth among young people is happening with those who are part of the Charismatic Movement, and those who gather around the Extraordinary Form of Mass. They may seem polls apart – but they are not.

Young witnesses to Christ: the Martyrs of Uganda

I’m grateful to Monsignor Andrew Burnham for the following comment on my last post, which I publish with his permission.

”   On each side of the dialogue there has been a conventional interpretation of the ARCIC process which goes something like this.  From the Catholic point of view, Anglicans have not been able to articulate a clear Anglican position on essential doctrinal points and, despite warnings, have created further difficulties by proceeding to ordain women to the priesthood and episcopate.  From the Anglican point of view, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has constantly asked for fresh elucidations in a way that undermines the consensual ARCIC method.  Both viewpoints would agree probably that ARCIC I showed a brilliance and verve that has not been sustained subsequently.  That is partly because of the outstanding individuals involved at that point and partly because of the prevailing culture.  These were days of convergence – for example the movement towards the unification and integration of Europe – and contrast with so-called post-modern tendencies to divergence and disintegration.

There had been great excitement over convergence.  The World Council of Churches’ document, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Lima Peru 1982, had articulated a consensus that felt very Anglican and that document, together with ARCIC I, seemed to suggest to a divided Christianity that all the churches had to do was to accept something like the breadth and tolerance of Anglicanism.   The liturgy and witness of the Taizé Community seemed to bear this out.  This, of course, was the Anglican view.  From a Catholic perspective, all that was needed, it seemed, was for Anglicans to become a bit more consistent and unified in their thinking.  The Free Church perspective was that Anglicans and Scandinavians needed to break free of Erastianism.  For about a decade, all of this seemed conceivable and even possible.

In the Anglican-Catholic dialogue, the warning shots remembered are the Holy See’s demand for elucidations and the correspondence exchanged at the highest level on the subject of women’s ordination.  Less often remembered, but no less important in my view, was the polite roar of the Open Letter to the Anglican Episcopate published by Grove Books, Colin Buchanan’s lair, in 1988.  Leading Evangelicals expressed their misgivings about the conclusions of ARCIC I and by 1988 Evangelicalism was becoming steadily ascendant in English Anglicanism.  This fresh proof that Anglicans would not be able finally to gather round an ARCIC consensus, despite the assurances of the Lambeth Conference 1988, was probably the motive force behind the content of the much-delayed Catholic Response to ARCIC in 1991.  That response was seen at the time as ungenerous but nowadays seems to have been accurate and finely judged.

I have yet to meet any Catholic-minded Anglican who, since 1991, has regarded ARCIC as a reliable vehicle to bring about the unity of Anglicans and Catholics and, since the ordination of women priests in 1994, those minded to seek unity with the Catholic Church have pursued this either as individuals or, more recently, in response to Anglicanorum coetibus 2009.

In 1994 there were many Anglicans, longing for union with Rome, who were unable to proceed to entering the full communion of the Catholic Church.  Some were fearful about their future material circumstances.  Others were conscious of their responsibilities to family, parish, and community.   Most were reassured by the promises of the Church of England that ‘traditionalists’ would continue to have an honoured place.  The ‘flying bishop’ ecclesiola seemed worth a try, especially if it maintained and developed an ecumenical momentum.  Unsurprisingly, with the erection of the Ordinariates in 2011, there have been those who have stayed and those who have gone.  Charity requires that neither speaks ill of the other or their motives.  What is inescapable, however, is the fact that the Ordinariates have been born out of the ARCIC process and represent a fresh initiative in ecumenical dialogue and theology, even if this is yet to be recognised and realised by many Anglicans and Catholics.

The ARCIC process, set up following the meeting of Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in 1966, produced an optimism about church unity which was to last a quarter of a century.  Looking back, to quote Wordsworth ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven!’

Mgr Andrew Burnham   “

I want to be clear what I was and was not saying in my last post. A (kind) friend remarked that it was a bit like the writings of  a former Archbishop of Canterbury – sounded good, rather long, and in the end you were not really sure what it all meant!

First, let me emphasise that no one pattern can be appropriate for every Ordinariate Group (I speak of the UK). How the Group organises itself must depend on its circumstances, its numbers and it resources. But the decisions about this must be based on the Group’s Mission, to live the Catholic life, to tell the Good News of Jesus Christ, and to grow by drawing others to faith. Although the worship of the Group will be a key to its life, it is not the reason for the Group existing. We know from our previous life that Anglo-Catholics could be obsessive and reactionary about liturgy: there is no place for that now. We did not become Catholics to worry about maniples!

Church Growth theory suggests to me three modes of operation, all of which are valid in different circumstances.

(1) THE INTERNAL PLANT … where with the encouragement and support of the Catholic Parish Priest the Group takes responsibility to renew an existing Sunday Mass, or to start a new one – with the express purpose of drawing back the lapsed and converting those who do not believe. The worship will be simple, engaging, and beautiful. The preaching will be carefully planned, thoughtful, provoking – and evangelistic in style. The Group will be the core of the congregation, active in the welcome of newcomers, enthusiastic and attentive in worship.

(2) PLANTING INTO AN EXISTING PARISH … where with the agreement of the local Bishop and the Ordinary a Group with its Pastor re-locates to an existing Parish where the numbers are down and the congregation struggling. Already in some Dioceses of the UK we are seeing this model working well. Although there is a hard work to be done initially balancing the needs of the Parishioners and the Group, growth happens quite quickly. The distinctiveness of the Ordinariate is maintained  in all sorts of ways, even though for Sunday worship it is likely that the Ordinary Form of Mass will be used.

(3) THE EXTERNAL PLANT … which I was attempting to describe in my last post. Here the group moves into a School Hall or other similar building, away from the Parish Church. I am clear that this needs considerable resources, not least a determination on the part of all the Group to focus on growth, welcoming new people, and nurture in Catholic life and faith. This was the reason for my title, in that any Group (or Pastor) which is not so focussed, but concerned rather with preservation of itself, becomes a Rest Home, not a Mission Station. And people go into Rest Homes in order to die!

Father Basil Jellicoe and his celebrity helpers

My father grew up in a middle-class family in Plymouth in the 1930’s. One experience of this era as a child clearly remained with him all his life. His nurse, taking him for his afternoon walk, had asked my grandmother if she could call on her family. My father recalls stopping at the house, but instead of going to the front door, as he expected, they went down the steps to the basement: in fact it was little more than a cellar. In these two semi-underground rooms lived a large family, and their conditions were typical of hundreds of thousands of families at this time.

Roy Hatterley’s immensely readable book ‘Borrowed Time – the Story of Britain between the Wars’ contains a sympathetic picture of one Anglo-Catholic priest who tackled the housing problem in his own parish: his name was Basil Jellicoe.

In 1921 Basil Jellicoe was sent to Somers Town, a parish close to Euston Station in London. He quickly found the slums. They had, he believed, been ‘produced by selfishness, stupidity and sin and only Love Incarnate can put it right. The slums produce something much more terrible than mere discomfiture and discontent. They produce a kind of horrible excommunication, a fiendish plan by the Powers of Evil to keep people from the happiness for which God made them.’

Jellicoe founded the St Pancras Housing Improvement Society, and used his society connections to raise the money to buy eight properties which were then renovated and rented to families. In 1926 more houses were bought up for improvement and fifty-two new flats were built. Jellicoe was something of a showman, and knew how to use the press and media for publicity for his work. There is fascinating newsreel footage of the ‘Solemn Dynamiting of Sydney Street’, complete with immense papier-mache models of cockroaches and bedbugs. Another shows the blessing of the new flats with Bishop Winnington-Ingram liberally splashing everything in sight with holy water! The Society rarely had enough money, and borrowed and built in faith again and again.

It is true that the work received considerable approval, and gave practical expression to Lloyd George’s promise of ‘homes for heroes’ made in the aftermath of the First World War. But the promise was only partially fulfilled, the house-building boom benefited the middle classes disproportionately, and the slums remained largely untouched. In any case, by the 1930’s austerity as the answer to the worldwide slump in trade had become the government’s first priority. Jellicoe was faced with a deeper challenge for many still believed that the poor were “feckless” and that the answer to their condition was to be found in hard work and a more entrepreneurial spirit! Better housing was one of those “benefits” which other people had to pay for: surely better to let the market create wealth which would then trickle down and be of benefit to the lower levels of society.

Nearly a hundred years later there are many echoes of the problems faced by Fr Jellicoe, although outwardly much has changed. The government took over, as it did in many areas of social welfare, after the Second World War, and there was massive re-planning of the housing stock. But the wholesale removal of people to new estates, and especially into the tower blocks of high-rise flats, was a mixed blessing. There was an arrogance on the part of the planners, but there was also a determination by local councils to meet the desperate need for homes in the post-war period. But no-one doubted that the Government was the biggest player in the provision of housing, and that this would be (and should be) rented housing.

Both of these principles were challenged by the Conservative government of the 1980’s under Margaret Thatcher. The ‘property owning democracy’ linked two concepts in people’s minds (thought it is difficult now to see why renting property cannot also be part of democracy) and then added a third factor: which was to have dire effects thirty years later. For this third factor was the notion that property is an ‘investment’ rather than a ‘commodity’. In other words when you buy a house you ‘invest’ your money, and expect, when you sell your house that you will sell it for more than you paid. This is not the case when you buy a car, for example, for it ‘depreciates’ as you use it. For a couple of decades a generation of home-owners were able to buy and sell, making money as they did so, and thus ‘improving’ their lives. Those with some money were now able to buy their council houses, as local councils lost control over the homes which had themselves been built with tax-payers money a generation before! But the net effect was to decrease dramatically the number of homes available to the poorer (and therefore renting) sector of society, as well as concentrating those homes which were still available in the more run-down estates. Thus the downward spiral of these areas became ever more rapid. Unemployment, the break up of the family, the loss of the common currency of ‘respectability’ among the working class, and the problems which became associated with immigration, all added to this toxic mix.

With the recent recession and yet another house-price crisis it might have been expected that the UK would have learnt its lesson. Not a bit of it! House-price inflation is now up to 30% in London, Vince Cable expresses concern, and Lloyds Bank is restricting mortgages in the capital. Underneath all this is a crisis of principle. It is this which the Church must ‘speak out’ on. The Catholic Church has said much on the Common Good, and it is able to speak without the pressure of the middle-class establishment which has too often in recent years set the agenda for our National Church. Here too is something for the Ordinariate in the UK to get its teeth into. It is beginning to find its feet, its liturgy is pretty well settled and can be left to bed in. It has priests and people ‘on the ground’ so to speak, as well as people with good brains and analytical minds. In uniting over social policy, and especially housing, it will ‘punch above its weight’ and be a true challenge to the Church and to society – true to the legacy of a great Anglo-Catholic priest, Fr Basil Jellicoe.