Ordinariate Pilgrim

Rose Macaulay

Soon after my aunt introduced me to Anglo-Catholicism she showed me its humour. I remember gales of laughter coming from her bedroom as she sat up reading ‘The Towers of Trebizond’ by Rose McCaulay. The book begins with the immortal lines ” ‘Take my camel dear’, said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass”, and continues with the antics of Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg holding a Corpus Christi Procession in the gardens at Istanbul. It was many years before I returned to read the novel in full, and realised that underneath this ridiculous humour lay a profound and moving examination of human behaviour, moral decisions, and the bitter tragedy of sudden death. Rose McCaulay wrote her novel from within the world of 1950’s Anglo-Catholicism which she embraced as a result of the influence of Fr Johnson, a Cowley Father (Society of St John the Evangelist). She was writing to a society which understood her allusions and her jokes: much of what she writes about would be incomprehensible now in a society which does not know or care about its Christian history: indeed, rather resents any suggestion that it should know or care!

The humour of the Anglo-Catholics is often witty, irreverent, and mocking of authority. It is the humour of a minority, and often a persecuted minority. It has sometimes been private, disapproved of as trivialising serious belief, but part of being ‘in-the-know’ – a sign of belonging. But will it survive – should it survive – the move of the Anglo-Catholics into the Communion of the wider Church? And is it still a weapon in the armoury of those who continue in the Anglican Communion is their struggle against liberalism and protestantism?

Anglo-Catholic humour was often used as a weapon. The stories of Archdeacon Armitage Shanks who appeared in ‘New Directions’ (the magazine of the campaigning organisation, ‘Forward in Faith’) in the 1990’s were a way of undermining the liberal agenda in the Church of England. They were not always popular, even among the supporters of Forward in Faith: Anglo-Catholic humour has been accused of ‘lacking in seriousness’. Oddly, they were sometimes seen as part of the ‘oppression’ of women – who by that time had won the vote, were being ordained and were claiming overwhelming support in the parishes. But  it takes time for a minority to stop behaving like one: and to realise that they must now appreciate humour being used against them. It also greatly amused the creator of Archdeacon Armitage Shanks that not everyone realised that he was a spoof!

The juxtaposition of great seriousness and outrageous humour has been a feature of Anglo-Catholicism. Those who trained for the priesthood with the Kelham Fathers will remember five services in the chapel seven days a week, washing up after meals, the Greater Silence every night, shovelling coal for the furnaces, and compulsory football. They will also remember the Mid-Lent Review, the student who was packed into a laundry basket and put behind the High Altar just before Compline (and had to stay there until everyone had gone to bed) and that bizarre card which described the Chapel vacuum cleaner as ‘Fido’ who had to be taken out regularly to ‘do his business’. Yet even as I write this I know that it must sound like a cross between a prison and an old-fashioned public school. Humour changes and what one generation finds funny another finds boring, silly or even dangerous. Yet this humour was, I think, part of the way that the whole Community coped with a disciplined way of life, with the business of a hundred men living under the same roof, and living with all the struggles and emotions of the single state.

The self-deprecating humour of the Anglo-Catholics was another coping mechanism: deeply serious about the things of God, about the Church and sacraments and prayer – and yet often wildly irreverent about their daily life. The stories are legion: the vicar of a west-end church with a magnificent hanging pyx who remarked to a prospective curate, ‘In this church the Lord lives in a lift’; or the Marian Procession where the statue, dressed in cope, crown and earings was carried past a draughty alley between the houses: and seeing in one’s imagination the servers rushing to recover clothes and jewellery as they were blown down the street. Fr Colin Stephenson’s book, ‘Merrily on High’ contains a life-time of such stories. He has been accused of trivialising the Movement, and if his book were the only history of those days, then there might be some force in the accusation. But we need to balance the nonsense against the devotion, self-discipline, spirituality and hard work of many priests and countless numbers of lay people; and to recognise that the laughter balanced the tears and heart-ache: the froth on the surface with the depths beneath.

The nearest I have come to this humour in English (Roman) Catholic circles is found in the novels of Neil Boyd (Peter de Rosa) ‘Bless me Father’.  The television series of the same name, starring Arthur Lowe, is not as funny. Many of the situations could only be familiar to Catholics – and now only to those who remember the Church before the Second Vatican Council. The story I recall is of the poor curate coming down in the morning to discover that his trendy university chaplain friend has celebrated the Mass with his students on the dining room table with a loaf of bread. In those days the Blessed Sacrament was treated with almost fanatical reverence, and in the story we are confronted with the young priest who puts on a stole and uses the vacuum cleaner to gather up what he believes to be the Body of Christ. Remembering his seminary training for the disposal of the Eucharistic species, he then buries the vacuum cleaner in the garden – and brazens it out with the housekeeper who is puzzled by its disappearance from the Presbytery. Of course, this rather risky joke is relieved when, a week later, he receives a thank-you note from the chaplain, explaining that they had a quick breakfast in the diningroom, left early (apologies for the mess we left) and celebrated Mass when they arrived at the pilgrimage church which was their destination.

What place, then, if any, has the tradition of humour now that Anglo-Catholics have entered the fullness of communion? (Is there something here about growing up because we have grown into?) First, there is something peculiarly English about laughing at oneself. It is a tradition which must not be allowed to die. Secular humour  claims to be ‘cutting edge’, but this too often means that it is crudely pornographic, needlessly rude to the vulnerable, and yet desperately politically correct. Anglo-Catholic humour was often subversive: and where Christianity is pompous, boring and ignorant it needs to be subverted. Remember Jesus and his wonderful image of the man struggling round with the plank in his eye! The absurd (and bitter) discussions on some internet sites about the length of a maniple fringe need to be subverted – and so does the dreary pontificating of some of the liberals too.

Peter Berger in his book ‘A Rumour of Angels’ suggested humour as one of the pointers to the existence of God. Can anyone imagine heaven without laughter? We are not talking just about a smile, but the laughter of freedom which belongs to the children of God, who rejoice and exult when there is no more crying and pain, when death and fear and sorrow are swallowed up by Life – then we shall laugh for the sheer joy of knowing as we are known.

In August I wrote a post suggesting that the use of language to hide rather than to communicate was growing. This morning’s ‘Today’ programme on Radio reinforces my point.

Without a trace of irony, the presenter Evan Davis introduced an item on ‘post-fertilisation contraception’, which, he suggested, might be used for up to two weeks after ‘fertilisation’. The discussion which followed concerned the difficulties faced by scientists, the reaction of the press, and the need for ‘public debate’ at an early stage if such discoveries are to be communicated.

What a curious term is ‘post-fertilisation contraception’. The word ‘contraception’ has always been used to mean the prevention of conception. Once conception has taken place we use the word ‘abortion’. The use of ‘fertilisation’ too, is significant. It has a clinical feel; we remember it being used of plants in biology class. ‘Conception’ is what happens in humans when a woman conceives a child. It is the word Christians use of Mary every time they recite the Angelus: ‘And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.’

So what if Evan Davis had described this new technique in the words we normally use: ‘post-conception abortion’. Yes, it sounds and feels very different, doesn’t it. And immediately I hear the objection that he was trying not to pre-empt the moral discussion. In which case let us continue the debate about abortion, about the moral basis for a practice against which Christians have always stood firm. By all means let us force the question, ‘Why two weeks – why not a month, or six months or ….’

It is simply not true that all moral questions nowadays are open: we frequently use words and phrases which express society’s moral disapproval. What once we called ‘risky jokes’ we now call ‘racist language’.  ‘Office banter’ is now ‘unacceptable sexism’. Packets of cigarettes  bear the slogan ‘Smoking kills’: when the scientific evidence is that ‘Smoking kills some people’.

I am not hopeful about such a ‘public debate’ over this new scientific discovery. It sounds too easy and convenient as a way of getting rid of an ‘unwanted little problem’ for people to resist. Will anyone have the courage to sell them as ‘Home Abortion Kits’? I doubt it.

The annual trip to London was much looked forward to by us teenage servers. It was organised by the Guild of the Servants of the Sanctuary, and involved servers, wives, children and several clergy piling into a coach and heading off to the capital. I suspect that the wives went off shopping and sightseeing (a trip to London was still quite an event even in the 1960’s) while we servers went to the annual Easter Saturday (the Saturday after Easter, of course) High Mass at St Augustine, Queen’s Gate. I freely admit that it was very bad for me, as for several of my teenage compatriots, and our Vicar must have dreaded our return. For it was here that we saw the latest (as we imagined) London fashions in liturgy: lace albs (the celebrant’s lifted by the deacon and subdeacon as they went up the altar steps) communion from the tabernacle, birettas and servers with the tiniest cottas trimmed with crocheted lace. Mercifully, the Vicar took no notice of the servers’ pleas to ‘do things properly, Father’ , for the worship of the Anglo-Catholic parishes in the provinces was already overtaking that in London. The once great shrines were  falling behind as the movement for the Parish Mass took hold of Anglo-Catholicism, and became, perhaps, its most lasting liturgical achievement. Indeed, I would want to argue that it is one of the most important contributions which the Ordinariate brings to the renewal of  Sunday worship of the Catholic Church.

Peter Anson, in ‘Fashions in Church Furnishings’ points to a curious anomaly. The ‘Back to Baroque’ Movement in the 1920’s, which transformed a number of English parish churches into quite passable replicas of their French and Belgian counterparts, was happening at the same time as the Liturgical Movement was gaining ground in the Catholic Church on the Continent. I had (before I culled my library on retirement) the privately published memoirs of Fr Merritt, who had been Vicar of a parish in West London before the Second World War. He writes of his great achievement by his third Easter there, when there were something like 750 communions at the 6am, 7am and 8 am Masses, but only one (himself as the celebrant ) at the High Mass at 11 am. Yet at precisely this time, liturgical scholars were pointing to the Eucharistic doctrine and practice of the early centuries, and asking whether a return to the Sunday gathering of the whole congregation, with general communion, was both possible and desirable.

The Movement had found inspiration in the immense shift in Catholic devotion under Pope St Pius X. Remarkably he had overturned the practice of centuries, by which many Catholics only went to Communion at Easter. Frequent, even daily, communion became in the 20th century, common again.  Then, during the Second World War, Pope Pius XII realised that many Catholics were unable to go to Communion because of war-time conditions. So he relaxed the fasting rules and permitted Evening Masses.

The Christian altar

The growth of the Parish Mass movement in the C of E was coming from a very different direction. After the break with Rome in the 16th century, Archbishop Cranmer produced an English Prayer Book. As he revised it in 1549 and 1552 its theology reflected the Archbishop’s own move away from orthodox belief about the Eucharist towards ever more extreme Protestant views.  However, it would appear that he envisaged his Communion service as central to Sunday morning, for it is the only service at which a Sermon is ordered. In an attempt to get the laity to go to Communion more frequently, he outlawed non-communicating attendance. But the laity refused to budge, with the unforseen result that the clergy were unable to proceed with the Communion Service, ending it after what we now call the Liturgy of the Word. The established pattern of worship thus became Morning Prayer, the Litany and Ante-Communion. Four times a year (but more often in town parishes) the Vicar then led the more devout into the chancel and there proceeded with the second half of the Communion Service.

The Oxford Movement (or Catholic Revival) beginning in 1833 led to the rapid introduction of weekly (and even daily) celebrations of the Eucharist. A Sunday celebration at 8 am became the norm. At first this was followed by Morning Prayer, usually sung by the choir at around 11 am and Evening Prayer later in the day. With the second generation of the Revival, often known as the ‘Ritualists’ a Sung or Choral celebration displaced Morning Prayer. Strict notions of preparation and fasting from midnight made the reception of Communion at the Sung Celebration difficult. Protestant anger was aroused by these ‘non-communicating’ services, since it was obvious that the people came to adore the Eucharist rather than to communicate!  Two patterns of Sunday morning worship in the Church of England developed. Country parishes of a more moderate churchmanship, and eventually even the Evangelicals, adopted a weekly early Communion, followed by Morning Prayer at around 11 am. As the Catholic Revival grew in its ascendancy more and more churches introduced a Sung celebration with Morning Prayer said earlier.

All of this is in marked contrast to the pattern in the (Roman) Catholic parishes of England. The mainly urban, working class parishes had huge numbers to pack into far fewer church buildings. Not having the Established Church’s inherited money, it relied on large but unpretentious buildings being full five, six or more times on Sunday. High Mass with its ministers and elaborate ceremonial was virtually unknown. The 11 am Mass might have a small choir to sing two or three well-known hymns.  Put crudely the  emphasis might be characterised as  ‘hearing Mass’ rather than ‘making my Communion’.

Two Anglican Religious were responsible for giving the intellectual and theological rationale for the Parish Mass: Dom Gregory Dix OSB in The Shape of the Liturgy, and Fr Gabriel Hebert SSM in The Parish Communion. The books helped to drive forward the growing desire to restore the Sunday Eucharist to the central position on Sunday, and to ensure that priest, ministers and people participated appropriately, but fully and intelligently – as they believed, had the Christians of the first centuries. Anglicans were rather freer than Catholics to experiment liturgically, as they already had a vernacular liturgy. The Anglo-Catholics had pushed the recovery of something rather more like the order of the primitive Eucharist, in the face of conservative Protestant clinging to the Prayer Book rite. From the 1950’s onwards more and more Church of England parishes were to introduce the Parish Eucharist as the main service, usually at 9 or 9.30 am so as to allow people to come fasting. Indeed, breakfast was often provided afterwards and enabled the congregation further to develop that sense of Christian community which they had celebrated in their worship.

eventually, even the Evangelicals began to move with some introducing the Parish Communion while retaining Morning Prayer at the sacred hour of 11 am. But this change was not to last, and as their ascendancy grew (and Catholic influence waned) so their innate suspicion of the Eucharist (and of the sacramental principle as a whole) led them into ‘Family Worship’ which bore little resemblance either to the practice of the early Church, or to the classic formularies of Anglican worship.

Much of what the Liturgical Movement had pioneered was triumphantly acclaimed in the reforms which followed from the Vatican Council. Many Anglicans believed that with the Mass now celebrated in the language of the people, with altars looking rather more like tables and less like sideboards, and with vestments modelled on the cloak left by St Paul at Troas (at least in the minds of some of the very creative liturgists) the Anglican reform had now been vindicated. But Anglo-Catholics began to suspect that the enthusiasm of many liberal Anglicans was only skin-deep. Behind the Parish Communion lay a very hazy grasp of what the Eucharist actually was. Indeed, in one parish magazine the Vicar wrote. ‘The Communion Service is really very simple: we eat bread and drink wine while we think about Jesus.’ There is rather more to it than that, I think! Increasingly lay people (and one suspects, the clergy too) came to Mass unprepared either spiritually (through prayer) and physically (through any sort of fast). The practise of Confession which had grown among Anglicans from the 19th century was dying out, and many presented themselves for Communion on a pretty haphazard basis. Expressions like ‘taking the bread and wine’ became commonplace as referring to receiving Holy Communion. With the discipline of the C of E collapsing as the state liberalised, and with sharing agreements with denominations who had no priesthood and no doctrine of the Real Presence or Eucharistic Sacrifice being voted through General Synod, it was hardly surprising that the Anglo-Catholics found it impossible to hold the line.

There were those who put it all down to the day the vicar abolished the non-communicating High Mass at 11, and introduced the ‘coffee-table’ in the nave. They ignored the simple fact that for nigh on a thousand years the laity had participated vigorously in the Mass and that a strong community discipline had co-existed with frequent and regular Communion. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the discipline of ‘ex-communication’ could be effective unless people went often to Communion!

At its best – and it was often very good – the Anglo-Catholic Parish Mass was a wonderful expression of the worship of the Church. The church building may well have been sensitively re-ordered and the Blessed Sacrament given a prominent position on the old High Altar, while not confusing the celebration at the new liturgical Altar. The various ministries of the Mass were defined and ordered, with lay people, both men and women, reading and leading well-composed Intercessions. Preaching took on a new importance, and a well-crafted Homily was vital. The music was carefully chosen with continuing use of ‘strong’ hymns from the centuries; the Mass texts were usually sung by all the people, to the traditional music of Merbecke or (new words) Dom Gregory Murray. Teams of servers carried cross and candles and incense was almost always used on Sundays. The Offertory Procession became a focus of lay involvement and Communion was usually given from the bread and wine consecrated at that Mass. Increasingly baptisms were administered during the Parish Mass, with anointings and other blessings given. At the end of Mass many of the congregation would stay for further fellowship over refreshments. The Sunday worship in many Anglo-Catholic parishes was a worthy and devout offering, joyful, involving, instructive – and evangelising in the way that it spoke to occasionals and visitors and drew them into the life of the Parish Church.

In recent years this ‘norm’ of worship has fallen away in the C of E. I have already mentioned the unease of Evangelicals (too much attention paid to American Protestantism) with the Eucharist; for the liberal Establishment the panic over numbers, combined with an over-emphasis on ‘accessibility’ leading to some  wild experiments and much rather empty and unsatisfying worship.

Now that mainstream Anglo-Catholicism has passed, in its earlier stage in the 1990’s, and more recently through the Ordinariate, back into Communion with the Holy See, it is my  hope that we shall see the tradition of the Parish Mass becoming an accepted part of Catholic life. I believe it has the power to make Sunday worship come alive. Catholics from Africa and the Caribbean are often envious of their Pentecostal friends, and rather starved by their half-hour said Mass on Saturday evening. The Parish Mass tradition goes some way to meeting their needs. (And those who once worshipped in a black majority Anglo-Catholic congregation will know what a powerful and spiritual experience it often was).

Among Anglicans there used to be a saying, ‘The Lord’s Service, for the Lord’s People, on the Lord’s Day’:   the Sunday Mass, celebrated by Catholic Christians, as their duty and their joy.

In  the late 1960’s, early 70’s, Renewal in the Holy Spirit arrived among us in the UK.  It had come from the United States, and not from the Pentecostals (and certainly not from the liberals) but from Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians.  For all sorts of reasons it hardly touched English Anglo-Catholics but was taken up enthusiastically by Evangelicals.  I still believe it would have brought new life to a struggling movement.

The recent death of Fr Ivan Clutterbuck, Organising Secretary of the Church Union during the same period, reminds me of his call for the catechesis and formation of the laity.  Again, it went largely unheeded, but was taken up by the Evangelicals through things like Alpha which has become a worldwide phenomenon.  In September I hope to meet an Alpha group in Abbeville, close to where I live in France, and run by the Catholic parish.

Here is what Fr Clutterbuck tried to do in his own words:

Since the 60’s at least there has been a great cry from the laity. We want sound teaching:and this has been answered by an outbreak of study courses.  Provided these steer clear of liberal ideas, this is excellent.  We are realising at last that the present malaise of the Church can be laid at the door of irresponsible speculation which has all but removed the Jesus of the Gospel from our eyes…  Provided too, that we do not end up with another round of discussion groups.  What is needed is teaching with authority… When the course is over, what then?  How shall we employ our instructed pupils for there is nothing more frustrating than getting qualitified and then finding there is no employment?…  It is here that a movement called the Lay Apostolate may come to our aid.  It began in the First Great War in Belgium where a Catholic parish priest, Fr. Cardin, saw his most promising young men being lost to atheism in the factories.  So he formed them into groups of Young Christian Worker (Jocists) and trained them to go on the attack against unbelief.  This movement spread to France and then to other countries.  It was developed in different ways but always the object was the same: sound teaching and mission.  It operated on the edge of the main church and brought many back to faith.  Twenty-five years ago, the Church Union adapted this strategy for use in parishes round the country and there was considerable support – over sixty cells were formed.  Programmes for study were made available in a still difficult situation.  Priests began to see the value of having lay people, men and women, who could share some of his duties with him.  So they were trained for a ministry which had always been theirs but which had been lost over the centuries.  The lay apostolate is based firmly within a parish and the parish priest is in charge.  In this way the danger of wrong teaching from outside is eliminated.  The priest uses his lay ‘apostles’ according to the local situation.  So it is clear that he must be prepared to share his priesthood as far as Catholic teaching allows.  The slogan for the lay apostolate has been from the beginning “The Growth of the Church” (Croissance de l’Eglise in France) and growth is measured by increase of numbers at the Sunday Mass.

Blessed John Henry Newman wrote:

I think certainly that the teaching Church is more happy when she has enthusiastic partisans about her … than when she cuts off the faithful from the study of her divine doctrines and the sympathy of her divine contemplations, and she requires from them an inplicit faith in her word, which in the educated classes will terminate in indifference, and in the poorer in superstition.  (In consulting the faithful in matters of doctrine)

I have argued that the immediate future of the Ordinariate in the UK lies in the presence of motivated laity – formerly Anglican, now in Communion with the Catholic Church – within the structures of the Church in England and Wales. There are those, I know, who fear absorption and the loss of the identity of the Ordinariate.  My own slogan, for what it is worth, would be ‘Integration not Absorption’.

If then we are to maintain and develop the integrity – the cutting edge for mission – of the Ordinariate, then we need to dig into the Anglican Patrimony as it relates to the enabling of the laity.  It is the bit of the patrimony of which our Blessed Patron so bravely speaks in his generation, and which Fr Clutterbuck sought to develop against a background of Anglo-Catholic disdain!  But he was right, and unless the Ordinariate and the wider Church in our land moves along these lines it will continue to haemorrage its life-blood, its people.

Whatever and wherever the members of a local Ordinariate group are on Sunday it is that weeknight group which is vital.  Here the numbers round about 20 are right for prayer (or the celebration of the Eucharist if the priest-pastor is present); for continuing formation in the Scriptures and the Catholic Faith; for discussion of how we not only defend but also share the Faith (apologetics/evangelisation); for the easy welcome and nurture of enquirers and new members; for sharing the needs (hospital, bereavement) of the group and for practical action (visiting, referring to the chaplain for the sacraments).  If this can be done with supper, then both fellowship and the rumbling stomachs of busy people travelling long distances can be met.

I hestitate to say that this is what the whole Catholic Church in the UK needs – I am not in a position either to know, or to say it!  But my guess is that Catholics have lost the powerful pillars which supported them fifty years ago (school, family life, social life, guilds, many more priests and religious).  Catholic life can no longer be sustained just by Sunday Mass attendance.

I look forward to hearing of the experience of my French friends in their Alpha group, and to see how they have received and integrated part of the modern Anglican patrimony into the life of the Catholic Church.

During this past year  I have re-read much of my collection of the detective fiction of P D James, Ruth Rendell – and of course, Agatha Christie, from whom I borrow the title  of this post.

In this first year of a new papacy there is much speculation about where Pope Francis will lead the Church.  Among liberal Catholics Pope Benedict was seen as attempting to turn back the clock from the liberation experienced at Vatican 2.  The new Pope’s style is thought to be rather different: but what will his message be?  The issues which concern liberal Catholics are contraception, remarriage after divorce, women priests, and just coming over the horizon now, gay marriage.  If only the Catholic Church could move towards making the same change in thinking that the Anglican Church has, so the thinking goes, then Catholicism would be much more credible and attractive.  But while it continues with its stern teaching, particularly in sexual matters, people will continue to leave.

But perhaps those who look  enviously over the wall into the garden of Anglicanism should talk to those who once were Anglicans and have become Catholics.  There are quite a lot of us, both those who came in the two waves around 1994 and more recently through the Ordinariate.  It’s easy to dismiss us, as the press has done, as ‘disaffected’: even worse is to write us off as ‘single issue converts’ (the issue being our failure to cope with women priests!).  We have first hand experience of living with the changes over the years; of thinking, debating and arguing; of coping pastorally with people under the old system and then as the C of E rapidly adopted, on issue after issue, the liberal line taken by society at large. Evans, then (or rather the Ordinariate Catholic) is the most obvious person to ask, isn’t she (or he)?

Most Catholics are unaware just how deeply liberalism has eaten into Anglicanism.  I suppose that one of the defining moments in my recent faith journey, came with something as simple as a ‘Thought for the Day’ broadcast.  (For those of you outside the UK, Radio 4, which is part of our publicly funded broadcasting, has a daily religious spot just before 8 am in which it invites speakers from the major faiths to talk for a few minutes. It is  rather anodyne most of the time, but incurs the fury of the secularists with regular campaigns to have it removed.)  Anyway, it was Ash Wednesday, and the speaker was a well-known Anglican dignitary.  I didn’t hear it, but two people in my congregation (two women in fact, with generally liberal views) were concerned that he had denied Christian belief in personal resurrection and eternal life.  I reassured them, as I felt  sure they had misunderstood, but I checked the text, and found that they were right.  I was shaken by this, and even more so that there was no rebuke.  I contrasted  in my mind  the suspension of an Anglican assistant bishop who had made some unguarded comment  about the then forthcoming royal marriage.

The approach to the major moral issues of the past fifty years has been deeply influenced by what is usually called ‘situation ethics’.  Popularised by the American Anglican cleric Joseph Fletcher in the 1960’s, ‘situation ethics’ placed ‘love’ in opposition to ‘rules’.  In a notorious example he cited the case of a young sailor, troubled by his sexuality, who goes to a prostitute. With her he finds release, affection, and fulfilment of his desires.  ‘Where there is healing and wholeness, ‘ writes Fletcher, ‘there is God.’  I well remember the Anglo-Catholic moral theologian E.W. Trueman Dicken commenting crisply, ‘And I suppose that when he returned home and gave his wife VD she too murmured, “Where there is healing and wholeness, there is God.”

Put like that I imagine that most Catholics and many Anglicans would be appalled.  But if not the extremes of ‘situation ethics’ then many of us will have sat through Synods where ‘morality by anecdote’ has swung the vote.  I recall a debate on the re-marriage of divorcees in which one clergyman took us through an emotional account of his decision to marry a couple where one or both of the parties had been married before.  His story ended with the death of the husband just six months later in a major disaster.  The speaker left the podium believing that he had made the point that somehow re-marriage after divorce should be permitted because of what had happened.  It showed nothing of the sort!  I might well contrast it with a story which has remained with me for thirty years.  A woman I knew supported her husband through the loss of his job and moving home, believing that he was having an emotional and spiritual crisis.  Some months later he admitted that he had been having a lengthy affair, and since his mistress was now pregnant he was leaving his wife and children.  Six months later man and mistress were married in church.  Yet this anecdote no more ‘proves’ that re-marriage after divorce should not be permitted.  What it might do is to make Catholics a little more cautious in calling for the lengthy and careful process of annulment, well removed from the parish, to be replaced by a talk with the vicar.  People do not tell the truth, not to others, not to the clergy and often not to themselves, especially if they badly want something and are determined to have it.

Lastly, I need to point out to Catholics just what happens when the Church becomes too closely linked with the State in what we usually call in England, ‘Establishment’.  Forty years ago ‘dis-establishment’ was a serious and respectable issue, certainly among Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals.  Curiously it is the liberals who have remained most determined to preserve the establishment of the C of E.  During the debate on women priests it was made clear in the courts that the beliefs of the C of E are ultimately decided by the British Parliament.  This was reinforced by the furious reactions of some Members of Parliament to the General Synod’s recent rejection of women bishops.  The close links of C of E liberals with government, media and the chattering classes, must surely lead Catholics to ask whether the independence of the Christian voice can be maintained.

But what has this to do with those who have left for the Catholic Church?  Is it not impertinent of us to continue to make our opinions felt?  I maintain, rather, that it is of vital importance to Catholics in England.  For if the Established Church speaks only with the voice of liberalism, and with a liberalism ever more closely conformed to the spirit of the age, then the Catholic Church will find itself standing  alone, disadvantaged and vilified.  The experience of Anglo-Catholics in their last years in the Church of England, (and those who continue to witness within the Anglican Communion) where they were marginalised and viewed with increasing anger for continuing to ask awkward questions, is surely worth considering.

As much as anything else we bring this part of the ‘Patrimony’ with us, even if it is the darker side, and in reflecting on it we may be able to advise, help and counsel.  Is our experience to be ignored?

Somebody remarked recently that we talk more and more and communicate less and less. The saying of Jesus, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no” (Matthew 5:37) seems forgotten in the torrent of words which people use. Earlier this week I heard a representative of one of the utility companies say on the radio, “We’re working around the proximity of their location”, by which I think he meant, “We’re working close to their homes.” Why do people do it – why do they talk in this convoluted way?

Often it is to obscure meaning, because if they used simple words, people would immediately grasp that something dreadful was going on. Thus we have the “quantitative easing” which means that the Bank of England is printing money: and in the past we’ve been told that that leads to a fatal spiral of inflation. But somehow “quantitative easing” doesn’t sound so awful, if indeed it sounds like anything at all. “Friendly fire” is another one, which means that you’ve killed people on your own side.

Last week a friend who works for a Catholic charity giving advice to women thinking about abortion told me something startling. Some doctors will ask a woman if her pregnancy is ‘wanted’. If the answer is ‘yes’ they then continue speaking about the ‘baby’ which she is carrying. If the answer is ‘no’ then they speak about the ‘foetus’.

This week we’ve heard quite a lot about the abuse of ‘children’. We hardly ever use this word nowadays. It’s ‘kids’ or ‘young people’. Certainly the music and fashion world – “youth culture” – would never use the ‘children’ word, because it wants to project an image of grown-up sophistication for its young customers. ‘Children’ is just not sexy! That is, until these poor ‘kids’ fall into the hands of adults who use and abuse them, and destroy their innocence of youth (what’s left of it) and dump them, probably damaged for life. Then they are children, and apparently they have been ‘let down’ by social workers, police, school …. though we don’t seem to hear much about being let down by parents? Perhaps if we continued to call children ‘children’ until they are ‘adults’ we might be more horrified about how we allow the young to be exploited on a day to day basis long before some dreadful case of abuse hits the headlines.

Pope Francis

Part of the Anglican Patrimony at Most Precious Blood, Borough, seems to be coffee after the Sung Mass on Sunday: and quite a lot of people stay to it. It’s a great opportunity to get to know people. I was talking to a lady who has been at MPB for quite a few years, and she was reminiscing about her Catholic upbringing in Scotland. I found it fascinating: it was her father who took the lead in in overseeing the religious life of the household, and it involved things like blessing yourself at the holy water stoup before going to bed and family recitation of the rosary in the evening.I guess the nearest I ever came to that in the C of E was at Parson Cross, Sheffield, where I served by first curacy. My colleague who ran the Repository had as his motto, “A Sacred Heart in every home”, and true enough, the image of the Sacred Heart or a Crucifix was to be found in nearly all the homes of the congregation. The practices of the Catholic religion were taught simply and insistently: we used all sorts of ways of doing it. I remember teaching the children a song to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon” which went:

Where the white light burns I humbly bow the knee,                                                                 for there the Blessed Sacrament of Jesus waits for me                                                            This is where we greet him, this where we say,                                                                     “Jesus you are Lord and God, present night and day.” 

It would be very easy to knock this sort of thing, and the surrounding parishes were often pretty snooty about our ‘popular’ Christianity, though they never could quite explain why their intellectual liberalism never seemed to be very good at filling churches, but that’s another argument. In fact, there was a biblical/evangelical strand to the life of that Sheffield Anglo-Catholic parish which rooted it in the 19th century revival, and which might very well provide us with a model for the New Evangelisation.

The Lord added to their number

On 31st May 2013, on the authority of Pope Francis himself, a significant change was made to the rules by which the Ordinariate works. (These are called the ‘Complementary Norms’ which flesh out in practical terms the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, which set up the Ordinariates.)

The modification addresses a particular question of who is eligible for membership in the Ordinariate.  Here is the modification in the Complementary Norms:

Article 5 §2:  A person who has been baptized in the Catholic Church but who has not completed the Sacraments of Initiation, and subsequently returns to the faith and practice of the Church as a result of the evangelizing mission of the Ordinariate, may be admitted to membership in the Ordinariate and receive the Sacrament of Confirmation or the Sacrament of the Eucharist or both.

Quite simply this broadens greatly the groups among whom the Ordinariate may evangelise. Previously, only those who had been Anglicans might become Catholics within the Ordinariate. Now, those who have been baptized in the Catholic Church – but did not them proceed to Confirmation and reception of the Eucharist, may also join us.

We can see immediately how this might work in practise. A member of an Ordinariate group gets into conversation with a colleague at work. The colleague tells him that his parents were lapsed Catholics, and he was baptized, but never went any further. He is fascinated by his friend’s enthusiasm for his new Catholic faith (which he contrasts with his own vague, tribal sense of being a ‘Catholic’) and agrees to come to a Sunday Mass with him. The vibrancy of the worship and the strong sense of belonging which he experiences there leads him to re-examine what is important to him in life, and he senses the presence of God at work.  He approaches the Ordinariate priest, and is prepared for Confirmation and Holy Comunion.

But this change in the Complementary Norms is not, first and foremost, about increasing the numbers in the Ordinariate: it is about making new Christians through the work of evangelisation. Now, of course, those who have been baptized already stand in a different relationship with the Lord: they are not ‘pagans’. A seed has been planted in their lives by the faith of parents or grandparents. But that seed has remained dormant, and  those people have not continued on their sacramental journey to Confirmation and the Eucharist. They are not living within the family of faith according to its pattern of prayer and behaviour.

Let’s be honest, there are millions of Christians, yes, millions of Catholic Christians, in this very situation. It is the the state of Christianity in post-Christian Europe: many people who could hardly even be described as ‘lapsed Catholics’ for they have not practised the faith beyond their baptism.

Those of us who have lived and worked as Anglicans will be very familiar with this situation, for in the 1950’s and ’60’s the majority of parents in the UK were still bringing their children for baptism, or ‘christening’ as it was usually known. It was a ceremony in itself, and was not intended to lead to anything else. Much smaller numbers then went on to Confirmation (which for Anglicans always preceeded the receiving of Holy Communion). In the 60’s and 70’s attempts were made to tighten up this ‘rite of passage’, usually by introducing some sort of preparation and by moving the baptism ceremony from Sunday afternoon to its celebration during the main Sunday Eucharist. There was often considerable resistance to this, and indeed it was acted out on Coronation Street with Deirdre Barlow complaining that the vicar had asked her to attend church before Tracey was baptized!

There are, I think, signs that a similar situation has grown up in the Catholic Church, but rather more recently. The Catholic Church has always been much clearer about the responsibilities of parents and godparents – and clearer too about what is expected of a Catholic. ‘You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian’ was something we often heard among the older generation in the C of E. A Catholic could hardly have said this: we all knew that Catholics had an ‘obligation’ to go to Mass on Sunday! But the sense of obligation has grown thin and the promises made by parents who have brought their children for First Communion may well not be fulfilled beyond the day itself. Perhaps we shake our heads and ask how they can in conscience make promises knowing that they won’t keep them. But we live in an age when people are used to getting what they want, when and how they want it. It is not for the priest (or anyone else) to make conditions.

Baptism and the First Communion need to become real opportunities for evangelisation and the recovery of the lapsed – or those who never made it beyond their own baptism! But however warm the welcome of the priest, however good and thoughtful the teaching of the Catechist, it may well be what the family ‘catch’ from the people they sit next to at Mass. Do they get anymore than a limp handshake at the peace? Do they see their neighbour in quiet prayer, in enthusiastic singing, in devout participation in the liturgy? Or is the person next to them late at the beginning, obviously bored out of their mind during the Mass, and gone as soon as the blessing has been given? Just being at Mass because you feel guilty otherwise, is no good for you – and may well put off the person next to you. It is the attitude, the behaviour, the commitment of each person at Sunday Mass which – in itself, evangelises. This is why, above everything else, the New Evangelisation needs a faithful, Spirit-filled laity, able to talk about their faith – but above all daily living the love of God,  and showing his love by their behaviour to the people all around them.

I began with reminisences about Catholic families fifty years ago. Once dismissed as ‘folk religion’ we desperately need to recover the rich spirit and practice which joined Catholic homes to the Sunday Mass and to the liturgical year. It needs refreshing and reinvigorating in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council: a revival of mindless antiquarianism will convert nobody!

We also know that the laity before the Council were weak in their understanding of, and love for, the Scriptures, the written word of God. I was told recently that many African Catholics are envious of their Pentecostal friends for their Bible knowledge.

Many of us in the Ordinariate are discovering the Cathechism of the Catholic Church as an authoritative resource for building up  intelligent and thoughtful Catholic faith among the People of God. For we live in an age when, like it or not, “The Church teaches…” cuts little ice. We need to know – and to be able to explain WHY the Church teaches – and WHY we believe it.

Blessed and praise be Jesus Christ

I have only sung this hymn of Charles Wesley’s once, to a lovely 18th century tune called ‘David’s Harp’. You will find both words and tune in the old English Hymnal at number 378. It is a fine and moving meditation on Genesis 32:22-32.

Come, O thou Traveller unknown, Whom still I hold, but cannot see!                                     My company before is gone, And I am left alone with Thee;                                                   With Thee all night I mean to stay, And wrestle till the break of day.

I need not tell Thee who I am, My misery and sin declare;                                                          Thyself hast called me by my name, Look on Thy hands, and read it there;                         But who, I ask Thee, who art Thou? Tell me Thy name, and tell me now.

Yield to me now, for I am weak, But confident in self-despair;                                            Speak to my heart, in blessings speak, Be conquered by my instant prayer;                          Speak, or Thou never hence shalt move, And tell me if Thy Name is Love.

’Tis Love! ’tis Love! Thou diedst for me! I hear Thy whisper in my heart;                             The morning breaks, the shadows flee, Pure,  universal love Thou art                                    To me, to all, Thy mercies move; Thy nature and Thy Name is Love.

I have taken the selection of these four verses as in the English Hymnal, and also used their change in the last line. If you are interested you can easily find the whole poem (including the last line!) on the internet.

Where are the tongues of fire talking of God and his love? When do men speak of the “commandments” of God, not as a duty to be painfully observed, but as the glorious liberation of man from the enslavement of mortal fear and frustrating egoism? Where in the Church do men not only pray but experience prayer as the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit, as glorious grace? … We talk too little about God in the Church or we talk about him in a dry, pedantic fashion, without any real vitality … Only when the message of the living God is preached in the churches with all the power of the Spirit, will the impression disappear that the Church is merely an odd relic from the age of a society doomed to die … And in turn profession of faith in Jesus as Christ and Lord, the decisive and final word of God in history, might become more alive, more joyous and spontaneous.

Karl Rahner  SJ     1974

Pope Francis & Archbishop Justin Welby

“I am grateful, too, for the sincere efforts the Church of England has made to understand the reasons that led my Predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to provide a canonical structure able to respond to the wishes of those groups of Anglicans who have asked to be received collectively into the Catholic Church: I am sure this will enable the spiritual, liturgical and pastoral traditions that form the Anglican patrimony to be better known and appreciated in the Catholic world.”

From the moment of the announcement of the Ordinariate by Pope Benedict XVI  I  believed that it was an appeal for unity: an appeal from the Bishop of Rome, who has a particular responsibility for the charism of unity, to the Anglican Communion which his Predecessor, Pope Paul VI, once called the beloved sister of the Catholic Church. “There will,”  Pope Paul VI said , “be no seeking to lessen the legitimate prestige and usage due to the Anglican Church when the Roman Catholic Church … is able to embrace firmly her ever-beloved sister in the one authentic communion of the family of Christ…” He made it clear that what he called the “worthy patrimony” of Anglicanism would be preserved in a united Church. A few years later, he said that he believed that “these words of hope ‘The Anglican Church united not absorbed’ are no longer a mere dream”.

The Catholic Church is more cautious about using the term ‘sister Church’ now: the Anglican Communion (or at least parts of it) have embraced such things as the ordination of women and re-definition of marriage, which make re-union more difficult. The excitement about the possibility of Christian re-union has died down. In Britain the annual Unity Week service has become as dreary as the January weather. And there is no doubt that complex forces at work among both liberals and evangelicals have contributed to a strange renewal of ‘anti-Rome’ feeling in this country. The Christian unity scene had become stale, and Pope Benedict sought to break the log jam.

My generation of Anglicans grew up with hope of the re-union of Christians in one Church. I use the word “re-union” deliberately, and not “unity”, which is a looser word which can – and does – have several meanings. My generation hoped for re-union between the  divided groups of Christianity. We could see that the journey was going to be difficult, but we did not believe it to be impossible – because it was clearly the will of God that the Church should be One. The Lord Jesus said so in Scripture and the Creed described the Church as One. Moreover, the Church had been one for a thousand years. It had struggled to maintain a common belief, a common ordained ministry, and shared sacraments  – but for a thousand years, wherever you were in the world, you were one at the altar.

We applauded the work of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, and we were excited at the Agreed Statements on such key issues as the Eucharist and Authority. They were oh-so-carefully- worded, and they seemed to be willing to reach behind the Reformation years when division had been expressed by harsh words and closed ears. Much publicity was given on the Anglican side to the request for clarification on the Catholic side, with the implication that Rome was dragging its feet; Anglicans found it less easy to own up to a growing fearfulness among Anglican liberals about any statement of belief, and among Anglican evangelicals about these statements of belief.

Pope Francis’ statement acknowledges the shock, even dismay and anger among some Anglicans at the announcement of the Ordinariate structures. But he also reminds us of the many examples of understanding and accommodation  as this process began. Many clergy will tell you of heartfelt conversations with their bishop, practical support concerning housing from their Archdeacon, and moving letters from laity on their departure. Of course, there are stories of occasions when this did not happen. The Pope reminds us that the first move was made by Anglicans who appealed to Pope Benedict. I’ve no doubt that there were senior Anglicans (Archbishop Rowan Williams among them) who were worried about the unwillingness of the liberals to reach any sort of accommodation with the Anglo-Catholics. Indeed, it might be said that the Anglo-Catholics found the Pope ready to listen and understand in a way which their own Church did not.

Lastly, Pope Francis looks into the future, and I believe he still has the hope of Pope Paul VI for the restoration of the full communion of all Christians in one Church. He sees the entry of groups of Anglicans bringing their patrimony with them, as a preparation for this restored communion.  The legitimate prestige and usage of the Anglicans will not be lost. If there are some who feared that the Ordinariates might be ‘shut down’ then the Pope’s words will reassure them. For our part we need to do all we can to ensure that the bridge is not closed on the Anglican side. As far as we are able, then, let us keep our contacts and friendships, and let our words be tempered with the spirit of love and the longing for unity.