Anglicanorum coetibus itself uses a slightly different phraseology, "groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately". There's no "with", and I think that's important, because I think the UK writer is inserting "with" to imply a level of parity between Anglicans and Catholics that many Anglicans would like to assume, but isn't in the actual text of the constitution.
The visitor wrote,
There is an old saying, "You can't be a little dead or a little pregnant." I would like to revise that saying to say, you can't be a little Roman Catholic and a little Episcopalian/Protestant at the same time. It is one or the other. Either you cross the Tiber or you don't; it is that simple.The bee in my bonnet that had been buzzing over "full communion with" all day yesterday and last night finally brought to light what I think was the real issue, the 2001 communion agreement between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Episcopal Church, which is sometimes officially described as an agreement to be :"in communion with", though tellingly, this phrase does not actually appear in the official communiqués. They use the terms "among and between", but not "with".It appears to me that what the Ordinariate is trying to do is create a "boutique" church where there is a relationship with the Catholic Church, but not too close.
Not stated in the official communiqués but I believe canonically implied is that denominations in "full communion" in this particular context recognize the episcopal actions of the others. The Catholic Church recognizes baptisms and marriages performed by Protestant denominations, but it does not recognize confirmation or ordination, which are canonically episcopal actions. Thus, based on the TEC communiqué linked here, TEC recognizes, as a practical matter, not only confirmations but in particular ordinations performed by the Philippine Independent Church, the Church of Sweden, and the ELCA, among others.
This wrinkle came up here when Anthony Morello discovered that he could attend seminary in the Philippines at much less expense and be ordained in the Philippine Independent Church and have his ordination recognized by TEC when he returned to the US. Through sheer persistence, he got two TEC bishops to place him as an administrator in two dioceses until one finally suspended his faculties.
This, of course, is very different from the implication in the actual phraseology in Anglicanorum coetibus, which refers only to the wish of Anglicans "to be received into full Catholic communion". The Catholic Church does not recognize either confirmations or ordinations performed by Anglican bishops. "Communion" here is simply not "intercommunion" as implied by the ELCA and TEC. In fact, my friend the ELCA Pastor Robert can describe himself as an "Anglican wannabe" and not deviate in any significant way from the policies of his own denomination.
One problem that the visitor in yesterday's e-mail brings up is that writers, like the one in the UK Catholic Herald, don't understand very clearly what they imply when they say "full communion with", versus "full Catholic communion". But Houston as a practical matter allows this misunderstanding to persist in its day-to-day actions, performing receptions into the Church (effectively confirmations), ordination as a deacon, and ordination as a priest on certain ordinands within the span of a single weekend. The performance of the episcopal sacraments is so perfunctory as to constitute de facto recognition of their Anglican validity.
But as I grow as a Catholic, I recognize more and more that Catholic priestly formation doesn't occur in Protestant seminaries, and it can't be conferred in a weekend, nor even over a period of months in webinars or seminary day courses. I think of the All Saints Day homily I heard at last Friday's mass, in which a young associate pretty succinctly outlined Catholic Sainthood 101, with particular reference to St Maximilian Kolbe. He made the point that Kolbe would likely have been sainted even had he not been a martyr to the Nazis, stressing his life of humility and sacrifice.
I never heard a homily like this as an Episcopalian. All Saints Day is not an Anglican day of holy obligation, and typical homilies on the subject, delayed to the following Sunday, basically say that since Aunt Gertrude was a nice Episcopalian lady, she was a saint just like Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. It seems to me that this is just one tiny example of how Bp Lopes can't take an Anglican -- or indeed, some other flavor of Protestant, as he often does -- and say poof, you're a Catholic priest. It just doesn't happen that way, and too many of the tiny group that's actually in the ordinariate are kidding themselves about this.
I'll have more to say about this and the visitor's e-mail tomorrow.
