Ordinariate Watch: TAC Archbishop Hepworth on the Situation in the ACA , the Patrimony of the Primate, and Being Truly "Catholic."

I deeply regret the action that has been precipitated by the three bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion in the United States. They find themselves unable to accept the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, and unable to support the unanimous decisions of the College of Bishops of the TAC to “come into the fullness of Catholic Communion”....

I have been part of many phone conferences this year with the US bishops of the TAC. I have written to the three dissenting bishops urging them to accept the responsibility that their position entails. I have reminded them that it is not open to a bishop of the TAC to dissent on the major policy of the TAC and remain a member of the College of Bishops.

In a pastoral response to their difficulties, I have established with their consent a grouping of clergy, parishes and individual faithful who have made a firm intention to join the United States Ordinariate on its establishment. I have appointed Bishop David Moyer as my representative for this purpose, and have more recently appointed Bishop Louis Campese to the pastoral oversight of those coming from his Diocese into the Ordinariate.

This use of the Patrimony of the Primate was approved by all the bishops of the Anglican Church in America. It was agreed that those involved could stay in their own parishes, but under the episcopal jurisdiction of a bishop entering the Ordinariate. It is a strictly temporary device to allow those entering the Ordinariate, and those not yet entering, freedom to make their own plans without the canonical harassment that is now occurring....

I must remind everyone of the following...To be truly “catholic” demands that one is in Eucharistic Communion with the Church led by the successor of Peter. From the most ancient times, that has been the understanding of “all the churches”. The tragedy of Continuing Anglicanism – and indeed of the Anglican Communion – is the absence of Eucharistic Communion with anyone but itself....

To read the entire statement, click here.

In other words, the only true Catholic is a Roman Catholic. The "Protestants" playing Catholic in North America either must join Archbishop Hepworth on the road to Rome or cease in his eyes to be Catholic. This view is not surprising in Archbishop Hepworth's case as he is a former Roman Catholic.