The Gavin Ashenden Problem

Gavin Ashenden, who had been a "continuing" bishop and an Anglican priest before that, was received into the Catholic Church in December 2019 and is characterized as "England’s highest-profile Catholic convert" (presumably meaning in recent years). My regular correspondent commented,

As I troll Ordinariate-themed websites etc Gavin Ashenden’s decision to join the Catholic church has been an over-reported topic. He was, of course, a “bishop” (of a “continuing” micro-denomination) and a former Queen’s chaplain (one of 33 honorary chaplains at the time) so this was very exciting news to some, leading to considerable speculation on his future relationship with the OOLW. So his decision to seek ordination in the Diocese of Shrewsbury has come as a big disappointment to Mrs G and others, coupled now with criticism of the Ordinariates in this interview . This has led to 31 mostly anguished comments on the Anglican Ordinariate Facebook page so far.

I went to the Patrick Coffin interview at the link. It's more than an hour long, but the subject in question is brief. At about 5:05, the interview turns to the ordinariate. The remarks run to about 6:50, and I transcribed them in full:

PC: Are you drawn to the ordinariate? It seems like a natural fit.

GA: No, I'm, I'm not, interesting the United Kingdom ordinariate and the American ordinariate are rather different ideas, I mean it's the same thing, but I think the difference is this, that in America, where the plan originally came from, the idea was that a number of Episcopalians who were very fond of their Anglican heritage wanted to be able to come over celebrating their -- their -- liturgical roots, really, and not lose some of the beauty of the Cranmerian liturgy. Interestingly, Anglicans in England haven't taken the same point of view; they've said basically if we're going to be Catholic, we're happy to shake the dust of Anglicanism off our feet and become fully and properly and entirely Catholic, and although there is some beauty in 17th century Anglican liturgy, it's a very mixed bag, and indeed for many of us, we've struggled with it for quite a long time, because as you know, Anglicanism in the 17th century tried to ride two horses at once, both -- both Catholic and Reformed, and one of the reasons you've become a Catholic is because you've come to the position that you think, now that was a real failure, they didn't manage that, so from an English point of view, few members of the ordinariate have wanted to bring in their -- the echoes of their Anglicanism, and I think I'm one of them, if I'm going to become a Catholic priest, which God willing maybe happen, then I'm very happy not to come with a slightly foreign cultural ethos attached to my baggage, but to throw myself into the family as a full member, drinking of the same culture.

PC: Mm-hmm, yes, that all coheres.

I think Ashenden's view is well-informed. Recall that the Anglican project began in the late 1970s surrounding the Episcopalians' 1976 General Convention, when they approved prayer book revisions that were in fact modeled on Vatican II, including multiple choices of liturgical style, multiple eucharistic prayers, and the three-year lectionary. The puzzling thing here, of course, is that the Episcopalians were moving their liturgy in a Catholic direction, while a fringe faction of hotheads, including Fr Jack Barker, insisted that this somehow deprived the liturgy of its Catholicity or something.

For reasons that aren't clear, then-Bp Bernard Law began treating with Barker and a few others, apparently well behind the scenes and through intermediaries. They came up with an incoherent plan for an Anglican personal prelature, though the strategy for its implementation led only to protracted litigation that destroyed half a dozen Episcopalian parishes, either gradually or all at once. The outcome of this phase was the Pastoral Provision, whose intent continued to be what Ashendrn correctly interprets as allowing a fringe group to "bring in the echoes of their Anglicanism".

Again for reasons that aren't clear, after the establishment of the Pastoral Provision in 1981, Law persisted in attempts to establish a personal prelature for Anglicans, via negotiations with Cardinal Ratzinger in 1993, and finally via a push that resulted in Anglicanborum coetibus when Ratzinger rose to the papacy.

In 280 words, Ashenden has gotten to the heart of the matter: this is an American proposal that tries to enshrine Anglican liturgy within the Church, without any understanding of where that liturgy comes from and oblivious to the message that's being sent, which is correctly interpreted by people like Mrs Gyapong, who believe they're going to bring Anglicanism into the Catholic Church to the Church's benefit.

And he's having none of it. I'd be fascinated to hear Fr Longenecker's take on this, as he's also a former Anglican priest who cane into the Church outside the Pastoral Provision or Anglicanorum coetibus -- but I'm sure this would raise trouble Fr Longenecker sees no reason to stir up. In any case, I think Ashenden's view is the correct one.