Pope Honorius I occupied the chair of Peter from 625-638. As the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia notes in its article on Honorius, his chief claim to fame is that “he was condemned as a heretic by the sixth general council” in the year 680. The heresy in question was Monothelitism, which (as the Encyclopedia notes) was “propagated within the Catholic Church in order to conciliate the Monophysites, in hopes of reunion.” That is to say, the novel heresy was the byproduct of a misguided attempt to meet halfway, and thereby integrate into the Church, an earlier group of heretics.To change the teachings of the Church to meet heretics halfway is, of course, a very bad idea. Anglicanorum coetbus clearly isn't doing this. On the other hand, what is it doing? I thought on and off yesterday about my visitor's remarks:
The reality is that over 90% of the formation in an Anglican or Protestant seminary would be virtually identical to formation in a Catholic seminary. . . [C]ourses even in liturgy and sacraments are likely to have covered the differences in liturgical practice and sacramental theology among various major denominations to some extent. . . . Thus, for an individual who has completed a full program of Anglican or Protestant seminary formation, what remains is the more mundane issues -- Catholic canon law, polity, processes, administrative procedures, and sacramental preparation and practice -- rather than an in-depth study of distinctly Catholic theology, liturgy, and sacraments.So OK, by my visitor's reasoning, if I took some equivalent of the sophomore survey on World Religions at, say, Swarthmore, that would prepare me as, say, a Presbyterian, at least to take mass at a Catholic parish, since I would fully understand the difference between Catholic and Protestant sacraments. Now, to become a Catholic priest and administer the sacrament, not just receive it, obviously more would be needed. A more advanced survey would help, and then a webinar or two. And then a pledge that I buy into things. Or do I somehow have this wrong?
As a practical matter, what's going on in Houston, as best I can see it, is that although the Church isn't changing its formal teaching to meet heretics halfway, it is in fact fuzzing over important distinctions -- by my visitor's estimate, maybe something like 10%, in order to integrate groups of heretics into the Church with their clergy. Or clergy without heretics attached. Just gotta get these guys into clericals.
Let's keep in mind that Methodists are clearly copacetic as far as the Anglican ecumenism project goes. But like Presbyterians and unlike Episcopalians and "continuers", they have only two sacraments and do not recognize the full Bible. But they're still 90%, and as we've seen, they get waived in without much formality. Now, there's nothing official about my visitor's view that if a group accepts 90% of Catholic teaching, that's darn near close enough -- but even our new kitten could figure out how things work around the house without a policy manual. My visitor is simply perceptive.
So what's the cutoff? Baptists, maybe 85%. Another few webinars and they're in? Mormons? Well, there are a few sacramental issues like baptizing the dead, but although they don't recognize the Apocrypha, they make it up with the Book of Mormon. A college transcript with the sophomore survey on it, though, should fix things fine.
I'm not buying this. And by "this", I mean the actuality of Anglicanorum coetibus as it's been implemented. The only upside is that almost nobody else has bought into this either.
