[A]s regards the definition of "Anglican Patrimony": since we do not have an authorised list or specific definition, we can only refer to the words of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus:He concludes, "And we have no more precise definition than that!" This seems awfully Anglican, and not in a good way. I'll have more on this in a subsequent post.elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside her visible confines (i.e. of the Catholic Church). Since these are gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity
(Lumen Gentium 8 as quoted in the preamble to AC)so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared
(AC III)
I can only wish that Cardinal Ratzinger had been better briefed, preferably with material from Frederick Kinsman, prior to his 1993 meeting with Jeffrey Steenson and Clarence Pope. The Kinsman view of Anglicanism is that it's something amorphous and dangerously vague.
The first concern I would have had as a Catholic fly on the wall in 1993 would be who Steenson and Pope actually represented. It's hard to think they represented anyone but, at best, a clique of like-minded and perhaps opportunistic Episcopalians, mainly in the Diocese of Fort Worth. (Both Steenson and Pope kept the 1993 meeting very quiet; Pope wanted all correspondence sent to his home, not the office. The outcome in 1993-4 was that St John Paul was not entirely on board and told Ratzinger to go through the CDF. Ratzinger had more sense than to try this and had to wait until he became pope to take the matter any farther.)
The second problem is that there are three main strains of Anglicanism, High, Low, and Broad, with Broad the most prevalent and infecting the others extensively. However, Steenson and Pope represented, if anyone, only certain members of the US High Church or Anglo-Catholic faction. Kinsman (Reveries, p 138):
Of Anglo-Catholicism, there are only two special criticisms. First, from an Anglican standpoint, it is not really Anglicanism: and second, from a Catholic standpoint, it is not really Catholicism. Yet, looked at from a purely Anglican environment, Anglo-Catholics have a case. Anglican history and formulas make it clear that, if, in the Church of England, any wish to imagine themselves Catholics, it is intended that they may do so. Two questions particularly concern Anglo-Catholics: Are Anglican ministers Catholic priests? Is the English Communion Service the Mass? There is here no discussion of the facts, merely calling attention to the policy of permissive fancies.So, much of the Anglo-Catholic side of Anglicanism is founded, according to Kinsman, graduate of Keble College and Pusey House, Oxford, and sometime High-Church Bishop of Delaware, largely on "permissive fancies". Um, where are the precious treasures here? Anglicanism has set up a situation that's allowed a faction to pretend to be Catholic, and they're happy as bugs with it. I've thought now and then -- and I've heard the opinion from influential members of the US-Canadian and UK Ordinariates as well -- that in effect, if not actual intent, Anglicanorum coetibus was a put-up-or-shut-up gesture. Should substantial numbers of Anglicans wish to become Catholic and bring their precious treasures of faith with them, a certain type of door would be opened.
Disappointingly few have entered.
Kinsman made no specific prediction, but I don't think he'd be surprised at this outcome. The complaint we hear that "TEC stopped being Catholic in 1974" comes from Anglo-Catholics, and they're among the non-takers (probably "continuers"), although Steenson and Pope made their 1993 pitch to Cardinal Ratzinger on the promise that in fact they'd come over in a massive body, 250,000 strong, instead of in the forlorn and desultory little groups we've actually seen. But, as Kinsman correctly notes, the Anglo-Catholics are not the largest group among Anglicans, and certainly not the most influential. He says in Reveries, pp 143-144,
In my judgment, Anglicanism is best understood when it has no principles, only a policy; and that the [Broad] Anglo-Liberals best represent its policy and spirit.So where is the "Anglican patrimony", besides the small number of liturgical additions to which Msgr Lopes refers? I see teary-eyed sentimentalism and pretty pictures of country churches on blogs like Ordinariate News, but no substance. One might point to CS Lewis, say, or other Anglican devotional writers llke Donne, Herbert, or Swift, but they're part of a literary tradition, read by people of all faiths or no faith, and are not coming into the Catholic Church in any special way.
I think we're pretty much left with Msgr Lopes's list of Cranmerian additions, plus some unspecified whatever. The whatever is what worries me.
