Preliminary News: Fr Kelley And Elected Vestry Win

I'm told that Judge Strobel issued a written Statement of Decision on Monday, October 26, as a "tentative", in favor of Fr Kelley and the elected vestry. I haven't seen the decision. Since it's a "tentative", attorneys for both sides will have the opportunity to offer challenges and considerations before November 12, the day after Veterans' Day. The elected vestry and Fr Kelley still don't know when they will be allowed back in the building.

From Fr Kelley, "Please continue to pray that the Judge will hasten to sign the Writ of Execution, directing our speedy, if not IMMEDIATE, reinstatement."

"Anglican Spirituality"?

Now and then (for instance, here) I see rather precious references to 'Anglican spirituality", "Anglican spiritual patrimony", and the like.

I owe a great deal to Billy Graham. When I was in my twenties and had fallen away from the Presbyterianism in which I was raised, the radio station I often listened to ran Graham's program on Sunday nights. It always began with him calling out, "This is the hour of decision!" My life had been going badly enough that I never quite turned the radio to another station or turned it off entirely, and the girlfriend with whom I'd broken up was out of the picture -- she would never have tolerated Billy Graham -- so I listened.

Was this "Baptist spirituality"? Of course not. Graham is an Augustinian. His "hour of decision" was probably my "Take up and read!" Actually, when I studied English literature in college and graduate school, my professors seldom stressed Anglicanism with authors like Donne, Herbert, Milton, Bunyan, Swift, or Johnson: they called them "Pauline and Augustinian Christians", which may be redundant, except perhaps if contrasted with "complacent and halfhearted Christians".

But if you think about it, John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, is probably the most-read English spiritual writer, a figure almost comparable to Dante, but he wasn't Anglican. Neither was John Milton. Neither was Isaac Watts, who wrote the words to some best-loved hymns. What on earth is "Anglican spirituality"?

Actually, it reminds me of the university that, in response to complaints from Muslims and atheists that there was a cross in the chapel, elected to remove it from the altar and place it in a vitrine as a "historical exhibit", allowing it to be placed back on the altar only during actual Christian services, after which it had to be promptly removed. That's more like a first cousin to "Anglican spirituality", a somewhat precious and pedantic historical exhibit.

Yet More Clarity

A clerical visitor notes:

Noting that you have lately referred to vestments as "Tridentine", a little clarity might be in order.

It is my observation that MOST Anglican churches in the US that use classical eucharistic vestments use what is called "Gothic" style, the full-cut, as covering the arms of the priest to the wrist.

The "Tridentine" style is also known as "fiddleback", as these are cropped to the shoulders, and cover front & back of the body rather like a sandwich board. This is the cut used in the Franciscan missions in California, for instance. (One can understand a smaller vestment being easier to pack for travel on mission trips, etc.) The number of priests in the US in Anglican circles that prefer this style is small, in my experience. There might be a close affinity to the "Anglican Papalist" group, thinking it was following an Italian model more doggedly. It is generally thought of as "extreme" to go for the fiddleback.

This gives me even more insight into how Anglicanorum coetibus has been put into practice -- I'm not sure that this is what either Cardinal Law or Pope Benedict had in mind.

Toward A Definition Of Anglo-Papalism

I've been ruminating on how to define "Anglo-Papalism" or "Anglican Papalism" for much of this year. In July, I specifically raised the problem of how to define it. Since then, an erudite visitor has made many very useful suggestions for further reading and research that have helped clarify the movement for me. Many thanks.

At the same time, Anglicanism overall is a moving target. It's pretty unusual in the US to attend an Episcopal eucharist that isn't held in a church with candles on the altar, a reredos, stained glass, and a communion rail, with clergy in Tridentine vestments. Before the late 19th century, many of these would be cause for scandal and, in the UK, even prosecution, but they're now common even in the lowest-church parishes, at least in the US.

We might also say that an Anglo-Papalist believes Anglicans should return to Papal authority, but here, Catholicism is a moving target. Some historians trace the rise of the movement to Apostolicae curae, the 1896 encyclical that declared Anglican orders null and void, but in the US, there are three formal paths for Anglicans to become Catholic, either as priests or laity, as individuals or with groups -- RCIA, the Anglican Use Pastoral Provision, and the US-Canadian Ordinariate.

However, a bishop can ordain a former Anglican outside these structures, as was done with Fr Barker, and a priest can receive lay Anglicans outside the RCIA process. As a practical matter, there are few obstacles to Anglicans becoming Catholic even outside Anglican Use or the Ordinariates, and thousands probably do this each year -- but they're hardly Anglo-Papalists.

So Anglo-Papalism is hard to define without a context. In context, at its peak between 1900 and 1960, it was an extreme, even eccentric, wing of Anglo-Catholicism. Two of its identifying characteristics were use of an unauthorized liturgy and reservation of the Sacrament, including Corpus Christi processions, illegal in the UK and cause for raised eyebrows at minimum in the US. However, even at its peak, the movement was small and distinguished from "moderate" Anglo-Catholicism, which has since moved into the Anglican mainstream.

In addition, as a small and eccentric minority, it carried other baggage: it attracted people with actively gay lifestyles, occultists, and, at the time of the Spanish Civil War, fellow-traveling Stalinists. Although there are some holdovers and sympathizers even now, it's primarily a historical curiosity (one historian calls it a "museum piece"), and although it might provide an amusing digression in a Church history lecture, I don't think it can be seriously considered an important part of "Anglican patrimony".

This leads me to the puzzling question of why the Ordinariates would choose to use a version of the Anglican Papalist missal from 1905 as the authorized liturgy. On the other hand, in one of his few official utterances, Msgr Steenson has said,

Some of our clergy want to learn also how to celebrate according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. They are certainly encouraged to do so, under the provisions of Summorum Pontificum and under the supervision of the local bishop, to assist in those stable communities that use the Extraordinary Form. But as the Extrordinary Form is not integral to the Anglican patrimony, it is not properly used in our communities.

But both the Latin mass and the 1905 English Missal, which forms the basis of the Ordinariate liturgy, were used by Anglican Papalists. The 1905 Missal was no more authorized in Anglican denominations than the Latin mass -- strictly speaking, neither is part of an Anglican patrimony -- or if either is, how do we distinguish it from other accepted parts of Anglican Papalism, like the occult?

I'm inclined to say that if Ordinariate leadership wants to salvage the outcome of Anglicanorum coetibus, a good start might be to rethink "Anglican patrimony", lose the Anglo-Papalist craziness and the 1905 Missal, and go to something much more like the 1979 Rite Two.

100,000 Page Views

This blog isn't Drudge or Fr Z, but overnight it crossed the 100,000 page view threshold. It's been going for about three years. In recent months, it's had well over 100 page views per day, with visits from around the world.

Groups In Formation, Etc

A visitor notes, in response to my request for information:

One hardly expects OCSP sources to keep us informed of defections. But the priest in charge of the Savannah group is in palliative care for cancer and I see no evidence on the website that he has been replaced, which makes this at best a group without a pastor. As you mentioned, the group in Arlington, VA has "merged" with the group in DC. I am not sure that many people who worshipped at an Ordinariate Saturday Vigil Mass in suburban Virginia are making the trek into DC for a Sunday mass at 8:30 am. I think that we can see downsizing of some groups, reading between the lines. . . . Despite the fiasco of the situation at St Mary's, the rest of the ACA parishes that wished to join the OCSP seem to have been able to take advantage of the mechanism put in place to enable that to happen. I very much doubt that any of the remaining ones are still contemplating this step. Certainly the ACCC has been tapped out in this regard. ACC or TEC parishes? What are they waiting for? No doubt individual clergy could step forward, and then try to gather a group. Fr Sellers is still trying to get something off the ground in Cypress, TX. But the OCSP, at least, has done so little to make itself known or give evidence of being a viable operation that I can hardly think that anyone who wanted to "wait and see" has become convinced.

I'm still not convinced of the need for, or possibility of, confidentiality if a group, with priest, from an existing parish wanted to come over. Consider that as soon as an Anglican parilsh priest or curate, either on his initiative or on the initiative of a friendly group of laity, said, "OK, let's keep this very quiet, but I'm thinking of giving the people in Houston a call", the bishop would learn about it in hours, if not minutes. I can't believe that there could be any reasonable expectation of confidentiality in such a case -- it would be above-board, with the blessing of the bishop (good luck, though it happened) or not at all.

But if it were a group-in-formation independent of an existing parish, there would be absolutely no benefit in keeping things confidential. You would want everyone possible to know about it. You'd have a website, a newsletter, and a Facebook page.

Not happening.

Are There Any Groups-In-Formation In The US-Canadian Ordinariate Pipeline?

A visitor responded to my earlier post today suggesting

[N]obody publishes the identities of clergy and congregations of various Anglican or "continuing Anglican" bodies who are discerning their call, or even preparing for reception into full communion of the Catholic Church and, in the case of clergy, Catholic ordination. Thus, there is no certainty that the initial wave has ended. Rather, most likely, it has not. Indeed, St. Mary of the Angels could well be added to the list as soon as the legal cases get wrapped up.

I would say on the contrary that lists of parishes and clergy intending to enter the US-Canadian Ordinariate were frequently published on the various Anglo-Catholic blogs during 2011 and 2012, and the progress of parishes like the Church of the Incarnation and St Mary of the Angels, and clergy like Fr Chori Seraiah, Fr Andrew Bartus, and others was discussed in detail and at length. There was no reason to keep that information confidential. If parishes are going through discernment now, there is no reason to keep the process in confidence, and it would presumably be discussed in parish newsletters, Facebook pages, etc, and announced in venues like the Ordinariate News blog.

As far as I'm aware, the most recent reception of a group-in-formation was the Flushing, NY community that was received into a diocesan parish at the 2015 Easter vigil. However, I believe the blog post was erroneous in calling this an Ordinariate group at its reception. Although as I pointed out in the earlier post, the OCSP website list of parishes is not reliable, the Flushing group has never been on it.

In addition, the group's reception was noted in the diocesan newsletter, with acknowledgement to the parish RCIA coordinator, which strongly suggests to me that although their Anglican pastor, Dr. Antonio Contreras, had been leading them into the Ordinariate at the time of his passing, their ultimate reception was via the Flushing, NY diocesan parish RCIA program, and they continue to attend the Spanish-language mass there. I am not sure what the most recent Ordinariate group reception was before this one.

I haven't heard of any new prospective Ordinariate groups in formation. Clergy without groups attached are, of course, being ordained fairly frequently, for whatever that's worth. If anyone is aware of new groups actively discerning Ordinariate membership, I would be most interested to hear of them, and I'll post any information I get here.