Kenneth, What Is The Frequency?

Among the questions that have come to mind over the last few days is exactly why the Anglican project dropped the Book of Divine Worship in favor of an entirely new Divine Worship Missal, especially since, as it's been related to me, the BDW had a version of Eucharistic Prayer III, intended for general use in Sunday masses. while the DWM has none.

Some web searches, plus input from the angry visitor who's been my informant in these matters,. provide an answer. The shift from the BDW to the DWM reflected a major change in the focus behind the Anglican project, or maybe the frequency on which it transmits.

The Wikipedia entry for the Book of Divine Worship is informative:

The Book of Divine Worship (BDW) was an adaptation of the American Book of Common Prayer (BCP) by the Roman Catholic Church. It was used primarily by former members of the Episcopal Church within Anglican Use parishes of the Pastoral Provision and the Personal Ordinariates. It has been replaced by a new book to be used worldwide, titled Divine Worship: The Missal.

. . . When use of the revised English translation of the Novus Ordo Mass went into effect on 27 November 2011, use of the "Rite II" modern language version of the Holy Eucharist in the Book of Divine Worship was suppressed, and parishes had the option of using the "Rite I" traditional language Anglican Use liturgy or conforming to the Novus Ordo liturgy used in parishes not part of the Pastoral Provision.

. . . The Book of Divine Worship contained elements of the 1928 and 1979 American editions of the Book of Common Prayer as well as the 1970 Roman Missal, Missale Romanum.

The Book of Divine Worship was seen as US-centric and was not used in parishes of the Personal Ordinariates outside the USA, but was instrumental in the joint development of a new liturgy by the Interdicasterial Commission Anglicanae Traditiones. . . . Beginning in 2013, as Pastoral Provision aka Anglican Use parishes in the United States migrated from their geographic dioceses into the Ordinariate and as new parishes were established within the Ordinariate, any parishes using the Book of Divine Worship transitioned to the new ordinariate liturgy. As of November 2015 all but two Anglican Use parishes had migrated from their local diocese into the Ordinariate and use of the Book of Divine Worship for the Holy Eucharist had almost entirely ceased. As of 1 January 2016, the Vatican withdrew permission for use of the book in public worship.

The passages from Bp Lopes's 2017 address that I quoted yesterday provide a slightly different perspective:

When we speak of the “Anglican patrimony” preserved in the Ordinariates, certainly liturgical expression is the most tangible expression of patrimony and the most distinctive feature of Catholic life in the Ordinariates. . . . The search for the authentic faith of the Church within Anglican worship allows us to situate Divine Worship firmly within the shape and context of the Roman Rite so that it might be approached in a manner which respects its own integrity and authority.

I take this to imply, in a very roundabout and clumsy way, that Anglicanae Traditiones was going to move the whole focus of the Anglican Use project away from an effort to replicate The Episcopal Church without its controversial elements, such as ordination of women, openly gay bishops, and gay marriage, as a clone that was otherwise recognizably Episcopalian. This in fact was something at which the ACNA has been relatively successful. Instead, Anglicanae Traditiones was going to eliminate the most recognizably Episcopalian element of the Anglican Use project, a liturgy that resembled the US 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and replace it entirely with a 20th century English innovation, the Anglican Missal.

I raised this with the angry visitor who's been my most informative oracle on these issues, as he appears to vibrate on the relevant frequency. He answered,

Why would you think that the Ordinariate was going to basically use the 1979 BCP with the post conciliar Eucharistic prayers? That was clearly never the population that was going to respond to this offer. I have to assume the people who are happy with The 1979 BCP were also happy with the innovations in the Episcopal Church since 1976. Eventually some people got tired of the revisionist agenda and left for the African affiliated Anglican groups but they certainly weren’t looking for Catholic sacramental theology or ecclesiology.

But then he gets to the meat of the problem:

The fact that you continually ask the same question why is the Ordinariate not appealing to more people like you would suggest that there is a large population of people like you, people who like middle of the road liturgy but still expect To come into a separate Ordinariate structure. Why would you bother? Why would your children bother? The part you don’t seem to get is that the vast majority of people who were interested in the Ordinariate know the sort of liturgy that you think is completely esoteric and marginal. Moreover they would argue that that liturgy has formed them deeply and is not merely a small fraction of their day or their lives as Catholics. Prayer shapes belief. I’m sure it is the same case with you.

The question I'm asking is not why the Church doesn't have an ordinariate for 1979 BCP Episcopalians' the question I'm asking is why there is an ordinariate at all, when it's likely that far more Episcopalians already come to diocesan parishes via RCIA than come into the ordinariate in any given year. Those who are attracted to the Anglican Missal style of worship -- a 20th century innovation of highly dubious provenance -- are at best a boutique market.

More to the point, this market has never been able to sustain a diocese-like enterprise. Houston must rely on its bishop's appeal to sustain its own minimal chsncery operations, rather than use it to subsidize schools and parishes like real dioceses.

The only school in the ordinariate, established in a BDW, Anglican Use environment, appears to be on very shaky ground now that its corrupt administration has been purged. Uncertain economic conditions going forward make it unlikely that any but the strongest ordinariate communities can continue. It seems to me that it's hard to argue that the market for a boutique, missal style liturgy can support itself now. Those who support it so vocally, like the angry visitor, strike me as an entitled bunch who want to ride a liturgical first class but won't pay for it. At least the wealthy gilded-age Episcopalians paid for their preference.

My point simply isn't that there needs to be a prelature for middle-of-the-road Episcopalians. My point is that any prelature specifically for Anglicans of any flavor is a make-work project, a boondoggle, a career factory for mediocrities. I suspect the Church will be forced, given economic realities, to recognize this and reabsorb ordinariate communities, or at least the few that survive, into a diocesan structure similar to Latin mass. Or perhaps just drop the project altogether.