THE
P RTAL
September 2011
Page 9
One Man’s View
by David Murphy
When
Fr Aidan Nichols and others ask about the place of Anglicanorum Coetibus in Pope Benedict’s
thinking, we immediately start searching on the theological, ecclesiological plane. Me too. But there is one
thing that has been staring me right in the face and which it has taken me all this time to recognise. Although
the Pope signed the Apostolic Constitution on 4th November, 2009, it was not announced publicly until the
9th, twenty years to the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November, 1989. We can hardly imagine
that our German Shepherd would not have realised the symbolism of that date.
reunification
What he was offering Anglo-Catholics was
reunification, becoming one again (ut unum sint), but
trying to avoid the mistakes of German reunification
twenty years earlier. Many East Germans are unhappy
today because they feel that they have been taken over,
absorbed by the West. Important achievements of the
East have been abandoned, like universal pre-school
care, mutual support rather than hypercompetitiveness
in education, culture and sport for all.
expressed concern in her letter to the Editor in August.
healing at the root
In Church matrimonial law there is a powerful
instrument known as sanatio in radice (healing at
the root), by which marriages that are defective,
for example, in form or intent can be validated
retroactively, so that a valid marriage is assumed to
have existed right from Day One. I am sure that a
similar instrument could have been found for these
other sacraments in the particular circumstance s
So Pope Benedict has crafted Anglicanorum Coetibus of reception into full communion of Anglo-Catholics
in such a way that Anglo-Catholics are encouraged whose sacramental understanding is the same as the
to bring their patrimony with them, their culture, Pope’s.
their particular concern for those members of the
community in need of support. As he said himself
But it is not too late for an amendment to the
in his ecumenical address during World Youth Day Apostolic Constitution to be made, so that future
in Cologne in 2005: “ecumenism does not mean … Ordinariate candidates might benefit from it. I am
an ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to sure that this would also encourage those Anglicans
reject one’s own faith history – it does not mean who are perhaps reluctant to abandon so much of
uniformity …”. And then, in his speech to the British what they have believed in and to question their own
bishops in Oscott last year, he spoke about the goal of sacramental past, their “faith history”.
“full ecclesial communion in the context of which the
mutual exchange of gifts from our respective spiritual
So, with this idea of reunification in mind, I venture
patrimonies serves as an enrichment to us all”.
even to suggest an answer to my own question on last
month’s letter page – namely what we call ourselves.
picking people up where they are now What have we always called ourselves? Anglo-
So, although I can understand Mgr Burnham’s Catholics. What have we brought with us? Our Anglo-
feeling of “rebirth”, which he wrote about last month, Catholicism. What unites all those who contribute
it is not really about starting all over again. There is an to the website called “The Anglo-Catholic – Catholic
important principle of education and preaching, which Faith and Anglican Patrimony”? It is of course that they
is called in German “die Menschen dort abholen, wo sie are all Anglo-Catholics, whether they are still part of
sind”, picking people up where they are now. This is a the C of E, or belong to a U.S. Anglican Use parish, the
principle dear to the heart of the Pope, evident in all of Ordinariate, the Traditional Anglican Communion
his teaching, which implies taking a few steps towards or have “swum the Tiber” in years gone by. We are all
the other person, not overwhelming them.
Anglo-Catholics, that is what unites us – and our goal
is to be Anglo-Catholics reunited, reunited amongst
And that’s why I am surprised and disappointed that each other and reunited with the See of Peter. I suggest
the Holy Father was not able to take just one more step, that we are not the renegades, the traitors to Anglo-
to find a way of validating the Anglican Holy Orders Catholicism, which some may consider us to be. What
of our clergy which would avoid their being ordained we are is “Reunited Anglo-Catholics” – this is the goal
twice (and the same applies to confirmation, of we all share and which we all hope to attain, each at his
course). This is something about which Judith Echaniz or her own pace.