THE
P RTAL
March 2012
Page 9
The Ordinary’s Page
Monsignor Andrew
Birnham writes
The Ordinariate
is sometimes attacked for being rather small, and
therefore fairly insignificant in the ecclesiastical landscape. We are sometimes
laughed at. We sometimes make others angry or bitter. Given that Anglicans are
famous for being attached to particular churches, and part of particular communities,
it sometimes amazes me that anyone at all joined the Ordinariate. Yet 1,000
people did so, barely twelve months ago, and others are presently undertaking
the Lenten journey, with their eye on being received and chrismated this
Easter. Meanwhile, we have 60 clergy, and there are some more on the way.
For fun, I thought I would have a look on the internet
and see what a small church in this country should
look like. Slightly larger than the Ordinariate – with
120 clergy, some sixty centres, and a considerable band
of faithful – is the archdiocese (as we would call it) of
the Greek Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox
are in two groups. The diocese of Sourozh, linked with
the Moscow Patriarchate, has a couple of dozen active
clergy, serving the liturgy in a couple of dozen centres,
and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
(ROCOR) in this country is about half that size. So
the Russian jurisdictions, combined, are smaller than
the Ordinariate, though they have some property and
a good number of lay people.
I looked then at a Catholic diocese, and I looked
at the one associated with our patron, Our Lady of
Walsingham. In the diocese of East
Anglia, there seem to be some 90 clergy
and just over 100 places of worship: in
terms of priests and centres, a bit bigger
than the Ordinariate. In terms of laity,
no doubt much bigger – but much more
long-established.
ownership and use, if it cannot be restored, cannot
at least be shared. This is a view I have held since,
as a cathedral chorister, I watched, fascinated, as a
modern Catholic Church was built in Southwell. ‘Why
duplicate?’, I thought.
The General Synod has made it entirely plain that,
whatever space is given to Anglo-catholics, the historic
justification for being an Anglo-catholic – bringing the
whole Church of England to understand and embrace
an inherent Catholic Faith and Order – has now gone
for ever. Meanwhile we long for our Anglican brothers
and sisters to come and join us in the full communion
of the Catholic Church, not because of this or that
issue, but because Rome is home. RITA – Rome Is The
Answer – as people used to laugh at me for saying.
And perhaps still do.
In short, as a brand new particular
Church, we are doing very well indeed.
We are part of the universal communion
tracing its history back to Caesarea
Philippi, when Christ called Peter the
rock and said, ‘on this rock I will build my
Church’, (Mt 16:18). And we are learning
what it feels like to be a Catholic.
I now fully understand and increasingly
share the feeling that mediæval churches
and cathedrals are really ‘ours’, stolen by
Tudor apostasy. I cannot see why their Rome Pilgrimage: at Mass in the Chapel of St Joseph in the Basilica of St Peter