Only individuals who convert to Rome may apply
The Southern Africa Bishop of the Traditional Anglican Communion, the Rt. Rev. Michael Gill, says there will be no Ordinariate in Southern Africa, and that the only route open to those wishing to join the Roman Catholic Church would be that of individual conversion, requiring, “...in some cases going back to Baptism…”.
Following revelations that the vast majority of traditionalist Anglicans (Anglo-Catholics) around the world do not want unity with Rome, including the majority of the Anglican Church in America (ACA), Bishop Gill wrote VOL in an e-mail to clarify his church’s position.
“In September of 2010, I met face to face with Archbishop George Daniel of the Roman Catholic Church specifically to discuss Anglicanorum Coetibus. (He is one of the senior men in Anglican/Roman Catholic conversations in Southern Africa and is himself a convert from Anglicanism). I did this precisely because of the amount of speculation that was flying around as to the implementation of the document Anglicanorum Coetibus. It is not a document open to interpretation. It is what it is. To read more, click here.
Related article: Hepworth rejects rebuff from US clergy
What kind of a dent will this put into the advertised numbers of 400,000 that TAC was supposed to ferry across the Tiber?
ReplyDeletei guess this puts a dent in Robin's view that Anglo-Catholics are just Roman Catholics in disguise....
ReplyDelete(this is intended as joke...)
George,
ReplyDeleteI recognize that Anglo-Catholics in North America are not a homogenous group. At the same time Anglo-Catholics who share the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church do form a large segment of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the North American Anglican Church. The Romeward Movement exercised a strong influence upon the American Church and would influence the Canadian Church. The seventeenth century Laudians were Arminians and ritualists but they scrupulously avoided the pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic and post-Tridentian Roman Catholic beliefs and practices that the nineteenth century Ritualist movement reintroduced or introduced into the Anglican Church. The Laudians revived what they thought were the beliefs and practices of the Primitive Church. To their contemporaries, the Puritans, the revival of these beliefs and practices marked them as Papalists. The Anglo-Catholicism seen in North America today owes more to the nineteenth century Catholic Revival as it is sometimes called than to the seventeenth century Catholic Reaction as it is sometimes called. Old-fashioned Anglican High Churchmanship is rare in North America if it can be found here at all. What would become modern day Anglo-Catholicism supplanted it. The Laudians were comfortable with a Protestant identity, which they recognized as a Reformed Catholic identity. They accepted the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles and regarded them as the Church of England's confession of faith. While they may have given a Lutheran interpretation to a number of the Articles, they did not reinterpret the Thirty-Nine Articles in a Roman direction. They had a receptionist view of the eucharistic presence. Modern day Anglo-Catholics tend to regard the classical Anglican position as not Catholic enough. In the Continuing Anglican Churches where they are the dominant church party, they have moved most of its jurisdictions away from the clssical Anglican position in a more Catholic direction. The American Missal has replaced the 1928 BCP. Bells are rung at the Words of Institution and the priest after consecrating the elements with his back to the congregation turns to show the congregation the consecrated host for adoration. The Laudians rejected such practices.