Saturday, February 05, 2011

Ordinariate Watch: Anglicans, Catholics to discuss ‘Becoming One’


A regional conference exploring the possibility of “ordinariates” within the Roman Catholic Church being established for Anglicans and Episcopalian parishes seeking full communion will be held Feb. 25 and 26.

The conference, entitled “Becoming One,” will begin with Evensong, an Anglican form of Vespers, on Feb. 25, and will conclude with the celebration of Noonday Prayers Feb. 26 at St. Therese Little Flower Parish, 5815 Euclid, in Kansas City. The conference will also include celebration of the Anglican Use Mass.

“Becoming One” will be hosted by Father Ernie Davis, a former Episcopalian priest who was ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood in 2002. Administrator of St. Therese Little Flower Parish, Father Davis has celebrated a weekly Anglican Use Mass at the parish, beginning with a community of Anglicans who were received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in 2008

The conference will explore the 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and its Complementary Norms in which Pope Benedict XVI set a structure for accepting and governance of Anglican communities seeking full communion. The constitution was written following a request by the worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion, once part of the broader Anglican Communion, to be accepted corporately into the Roman Catholic Church while retaining Anglican traditions and liturgies.

Father Davis said one goal of the conference is to bring together leaders of scattered Anglican communities who are discerning full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

“We are talking about scattered groups of very small communities,” he said. “These are groups who have left the Episcopalian Church and have carried on courageously for maybe 20, 30 or 40 years. They have been heroic with sticking with the essentials of the Christian faith. It is that group that went to the pope and said, ‘We want to be received into the Catholic Church.’”

Featured speakers at the conference will be Traditional Anglican Bishop David Moyer, rector of Good Shepherd Parish in Rosemont, Pa., and Father Christopher Phillips, pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Parish in San Antonio.

To read more, click here.

Related article: Cardinal Wuerl: ‘We’re a little ways off’ from establishing an ordinariate

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