Saturday, June 27, 2015

Anglo-Papalism vs Anglo-Catholicism

My reference to Anglo-Papalism yesterday has led me to a puzzling question of definition. I first encountered the term when someone, I forget who, made the point that Jeffrey Steenson is an Anglo-Papalist, not an Anglo-Catholic, and in context I took this to mean a nominal Anglican who believes that nominal Anglicans (not just members of the Church of England) belong under the authority of the Pope. Support for this position would probably be the idea that the 1534 schism between Henry VIII and the Pope was essentially political, not theological. If one follows Diarmaid MacCulloch, this is a historically incorrect view, although I've heard it expressed in person by one Episcopal bishop.

However, a visitor has pointed out to me that Anglo-Papalism in the US is not the same thing as Anglo-Papalism in the UK. My visitor describes the UK flavor (in nominally Church of England parishes) as follows:

This included saying the Breviary in Latin, using the English Missal, discouraging the laity from making any responses at Mass, wearing only fiddleback chasubles, praying for X our Pope, etc. After Vatican II it often meant the [Novus Ordo mass] and radical reconstruction of the sanctuary [presumably moving the altar and removing the communion rail].
If this was done in either Episcopal or "continuing" parishes in the US, other than moving the altar, it would be highly unusual. The tendency in the US among parishes calling themselves "Anglo-Catholic" would be to retain Tridentine vestments, but also to retain the communion rail, and sometimes to restore the altar to its pre-Conciliar position against the wall for celebration ad orientem. Latin was not normally used in the spoken liturgy, though the Latin wording might be used if music by Haydn, Mozart, etc was sung for the Gloria, Agnus Dei, and so forth.

The most important feature that I see discussed in the Wikipedia entry is a missal liturgy:

The English Missal has been widely used by Anglican Papalists. This volume, which is still in print, contains a form of the Tridentine Mass in English (though with an alternative Latin translation of the Canon) interspersed with sections of the Book of Common Prayer.
This appears to be essentially the same as the missal used at St John the Baptist Calgary, which appears to be nearly identical to the missal used at St Mary of the Angels, and which had probably been used at both Episcopal and "continuing" high-Anglican parishes such as Good Shepherd Rosemont, PA. My former Anglo-Catholic TEC parish, St Thomas Hollywood, used the 1979 Rite One with Tridentine vestments and etiquette (such as copes, birettas, and subdeacons) under Fr Barbour, but moved to an abridged missal (no threefold Lord-I-am-not-worthy, no Last Gospel) with the altar placed against the wall under Fr Davies.

My visitor points out that UK Anglo-Papalist parishes had been using the Novus Ordo mass since Vatican II, so for those entering the Ordinariate, the introduction of the English Missal hasn't been well received. For the UK Ordinariate parishes, as a result, there has been a tendency to gravitate to any Catholic parish that uses the Novus Ordo mass, as this is what they're used to, the schedule is probably more convenient, and it lasts only an hour in any case.

My own experience has been that, since both St Thomas Hollywood and St Mary's included extended musical performance in their high-mass liturgies, the abbreviated missal service at St Thomas typically lasted 90 minutes; the full English missal at St Mary's often took two hours. This is definitely longer than either Rites I or II in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer usually takes, yet the choice in the Ordinariates is now either Novus Ordo or the Whole Nine Yards.

It seems to me that this limited choice of liturgy is one obstacle to the growth of the Ordinariates. But also, based simply on my experience with an "Anglo-Catholic" TEC parish, as opposed to an "Anglo-Papalist" parish more typical of the Ordinariates, the difference in liturgies wasn't made clear as things began to get going, and the implications of using the one English missal may not have been thought through.