THE P RTAL
April 2015
Page 6
This Holy Desire
Antonia Lynn continues here examination of Anglicanorum
coetibus - this is the article that should have appeared last month
O
ver these
last few months, I have been using Anglicanorum Cœtibus as a kind of Examen, in
the way we might examine our conscience at the end of the day. A useful exercise, I think, as we enter
the Ordinariate’s fifth year. How have we lived up to Pope Benedict’s hopes for us?
Just as in a daily Examen, it is often the small details
that are important. Look in the Complementary
Norms, which set out the nuts and bolts of how
the Ordinariates work. There in paragraph one is a
reference to the Ordinariates’ relationship with the
local Conference of Bishops.
Is this simply about official structures, or is there
something for us to contemplate? Well, that word
‘bishops’ should catch our attention. ‘Wherever
the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as
wheresoever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic
Church’ wrote Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to
martyrdom - surely not wasting his words on anything
not of vital importance to the future of the Christian
(the episcopate is one and
Church.
undivided.) We have been received into the Church
I had read this many times as a s tudent of Church where that is true. Generosity of spirit is a fitting
history, but I remember how powerfully - and response.
personally - they struck me when I was struggling with
my decision to leave the increasingly divided Church cultivate bonds of unity
with the presbyterate
of England; I suspect I’m not alone in that.
So how else might we respond? Ignatius went on to
Of course, the Anglican Church has been further counsel ‘you must all follow the lead of the bishop,
riven apart of late over exactly this issue, and I think as Jesus Christ followed that of the Father’. That’s not
what makes things harder for us is that our detractors simply about working relationships: it’s about loyalty,
will be watching to see how excited we are going to get commitment, willingness to share - and about love.
There is clear advice for clergy in Anglicanorum
about it.
Cœtibus: they are to ‘cultivate bonds of unity with the
Let’s be careful not to fulfil their expectations! We presbyterate of the Diocese in which they exercise their
might even surprise them by saying of the newly- ministry.’ What about lay people? Have we friends in
consecrated Bishop of Stockport (in the words of the parish in which we live? Do we ever worship with
the Catholic Herald’s editorial): ‘[She] is now an them? What are the gifts and talents we might offer
important Christian leader with whom the Church within our local Catholic church, or the diocese?
can and should work in spreading the Gospel… we
It might not be easy, and we might feel uncomfortable
look forward to… joining her in praising our Saviour.’
If this sticks in our throats, we might perhaps ask or unwelcome. But Cardinal Nichols recently reminded
ourselves if we have really understood the gift we have us all of the need for a ‘balancing act, between, on the
received in being welcomed into the Catholic Church: one hand, showing the deep desire of Pope Benedict
to appreciate the distinctiveness of many aspects of
freedom and truth.
the Anglican patrimony, which are consistent and
When Cardinal Walter Kasper addressed the expressive of Catholic faith, and yet, on the other
Anglican bishops, when the ordination of women to hand, to show how [the Ordinariate] is very much an
the episcopate was looming on the horizon, he quoted organic part of the visible Catholic Church centred
Cyprian of Carthage: ‘episcopatus unus et indivisus’ around the Holy Father.’ How visible are we?
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