The Ordinariate movement (for want of a shorthand expression) [is] the striving to bring the treasures of the Anglican patrimony into the Catholic Church and to provide a jurisdiction for former Anglicans to be received into the Catholic Church in groups and continue to live this patrimony as Catholics did begin in the United States with the Pastoral Provision and what was called the “Anglican Use”.Since Mr Murphy is on the Board of the Anglican Use Society, we must view this opinion as having some weight. Fr Hunwicke, a much-revered priest in the UK Ordinariate, has also recently said,
I have heard it argued that the Extraordinary Form is not part of the Anglican Patrimony. I find this difficult to understand, and, if you have read the first four parts of this piece, so will you. Of course, the Extraordinary Form was never officially authorised in the Church of England or the American and Australian branches of the Anglican Communion. But, then, neither was the Ordinary Form. Certainly, in England, the Anglo-Papalist movement which is our own much loved ecclesial background did use the Tridentine Rite, used it and loved it, and suffered persecution for that use and that love. The Missale Romanum was the gold standard, with the English Missal providing, over half a century, an intermediate stage in the journey towards its full adoption. That is the place we have come from.What seriously bothers me about both statements is their vagueness, and even their somewhat sloppy Anglican inclusiveness. The Vatican in fact took the trouble to provide its particular definition of the term in 2013:
In an interview published in the December issue of The Portal, Mgr. Steven Lopes of the CDF defined this distinctive “patrimony”. “We here have thought a lot about what constitutes Anglican patrimony, particularly as it involves the liturgy, and we have a working definition. It is to say that ‘Anglican liturgical patrimony is that which has nourished the Catholic Faith, within the Anglican tradition during the time of ecclesiastical separation, and has given rise to this new desire for full communion’,” Mgr. Lopes said.He went on,
“’It has nourished the faith’: these expressions from the Anglican prayer books and how they are interpreted through the years - I’m thinking of the Comfortable Words, the Summary of the Law, the Collect for Purity, the Prayer of Humble Access - these are not museum pieces. They have sustained people in their faith because they have given expression, beautiful expression, to the truth! It is a truth of God that truly liberates us and draws us deeper into the mystery of God and of ourselves. The fact that these prayers capture this truth in such a magnificent way sustains faith.” “’Throughout the years of ecclesiastical separation’: well, that acknowledges the fact that Anglican liturgical patrimony is not just 1549 or 1662, nor is it just 1928 or 1976. We can’t go back to a specific period and say ‘this is it’, but you have to look at the whole Anglican experience to see how that faith was nourished’,” Mgr Lopes said.It seems to me that Msgr Lopes is focusing on particular liturgical use, namely the list of Cranmerian prayers that he gives, although he eventually mentions the "whole Anglican experience", which it seems to me is not the best possible way of putting things. However, since Msgr Lopes is clearly referring to liturgy found in the Book of Common Prayer, this would tend to rule out Fr Hunwicke's assertion that the Extraordinary Form is part of "Anglican Patrimony".
Now someone can say, as someone surely will, "Well, 'Anglican Patrimony' means the whole Anglican gift, our whole wonderful spiritual experience. Why are you being such a curmudgeon and nitpicking what spiritual people like Fr Hunwicke say?" But if we do this, we're back to the basic problem of Anglicanism that informed Catholic writers like Frederick Kinsman point out: Anglicanism in fact means anything people choose to make it mean. Neither James Pike nor Jack Spong was tried or deposed for heresy. For instance,
The Rt. Rev. Peter Jensen, Australia’s Archbishop of Sydney, is making headlines for denying a heretic access to the pulpits of the churches under his care. The heretic is the retired bishop of Newark, New Jersey, The Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong — a man who has denied virtually every major Christian doctrine.Who is the better Anglican, Spong or Jensen? Who decides which bishop is part of the "Anglican patrimony", especially if we "look at the whole Anglican experience"? The Primate of Australia, the best authority we can find, is saying they're both good Anglicans and seems irked at Jensen for thinking Spong is not. As Msgr Lopes says, we can't limit things to 1549 or 1662, 1928 or 1976. The 2009 kerfuffle is just as good.Heretics are rarely excommunicated these days. Instead, they go on book tours. Bishop Spong is visiting Australia at the invitation of Australia’s Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane. When Archbishop Jensen denied Bishop Spong access to the pulpits of Sydney, Archbishop Aspinall extended an invitation for Spong to preach in Brisbane’s St. John’s Cathedral.
Linguistic imprecision is part of what I see as the silliness in the Anglo-Papalist movement. I'll have more to say.
