Ordinariate Watch: Rocco Palmo comments on Ordinariates

Farewell to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer

With the first ordinariate already established in England, and the groundwork well in progress for similar jurisdictions in Canada and Australia, the venture’s Stateside edition promises to be a unique and especially intense enterprise given both the country’s (and, indeed, the communities’) geographic spread, a fairly think “alphabet soup” of the various Continuing Anglican groups involved, and a facet particular to American Catholicism: the long-standing presence of Anglican Use priests and faithful, who crossed the Tiber long ago, but have been able to maintain an adapted version of the Book of Common Prayer for their worship, which was approved by the US bench and confirmed by the Holy See in 1983 for rites in the States alone.

(By contrast, Anglican clergy and laity received elsewhere have been limited to celebrating the standard Roman liturgy and, all around, not been able to keep their traditions or communities intact. That’ll soon change, however — a key feature of the Anglicanorum provisions, work on a global liturgy for the ordinariates rooted in the Anglican patrimony is already underway, with some estimates tipping its release for as early as next year.)

As things stand, while several hundred Episcopalians and others coast-to-coast have indicated their desire to make the move, the presence of the Anglican Use parishes provides the impending national structure with a well-established set of “hubs” from the outset to help ease the transition. At the same time, the veteran communities’ presence creates a scenario that won’t be experienced with any of the other national jurisdictions: a divergence of experience between long-standing and freshly-arrived Anglo-Catholic groups, and the parts each will play in the wider picture of the new dynamic.

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"...a global liturgy for the ordinariates...." If such a liturgy is produced, it is not likely to be modeled on the 1928 Book of Common Prayer beloved by Anglo-Catholics in the United States, especially in the Continuum, or even to contain prayers and liturgical material from the 1928 Prayer Book. It will in all likelihood be based upon the new Roman liturgy with some prayers and liturgical material from various Anglican sources. If the late Peter Toon was still alive, I suspect that he would be greatly concerned about how the erection of the ordinariates in the US and Canada is going to impact the use of the 1928 Prayer Book and the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book. The Book of Common Prayer is a major part of the Anglican heritage--its "patrimony."