THE
P RTAL
June 2018
For things should not be loved for the sake of places,
but places for the sake of good things. One can
think that St Gregory plays with the word for “places”
here, meaning not only geographical places, but
textual “places,” or diverse formulae and traditions of
worship. Such liturgical “inculturation” is only good
if it nurtures faith and results in something devout,
religious, and right, something unified and unifying
that people can grow into.
This pastoral concern is the overarching context in
which the inclusion of Anglican liturgical patrimony
into Catholic worship should be seen. Divine
Worship is not a museum piece, but rather the Holy
See’s judicious grafting of proven Anglican shoots on
the living trunk of the Roman Rite to promote new
and healthier growth. In effect, following St Gregory,
Anglican patrimony is not so much worth preserving
in itself. Rather, its value and virtue is measured to the
degree that it positively contributes to making better
Catholics and more Catholics by fanning the flames of
faith, hope, and charity.
III The recognition that there is a unique English
tradition worthy of preservation was affirmed by
Blessed Paul VI in 1970 when he canonised the forty
English and Welsh martyrs. On that occasion he
praised “the legitimate prestige and worthy patrimony
of piety and usage proper to the Anglican Communion”
(Homily 25 October 1970).
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inheritance or “potency” in Anglicanism has not only
been preserved, but has also been strengthened as the
rule of faith that more or less consistently informed
the Prayer Book tradition. It is only in relatively recent
times that the traditional Prayer Book has faded in
favour of more contemporary forms of worship. In
this way, the transformative power of the lex orandi
embodied by the Prayer Book was diluted in practice
as each l ocal community seeks to design its worship to
express its own theological and ecclesiastical outlook.
It is remarkable that the Catholic Church should
have undertaken a formal process such as the
Anglcianae traditiones Commission to identify
and incorporate the richness of Anglican liturgical
practice. In constituting a body of authoritative texts
duly approved and promulgated by the Holy See,
Divine Worship is true to the fundamental character
of a liturgical “patrimony.”
It is massively important to recognise that the
liturgical books comprised by Divine Worship arise
from an exercise of Peter’s authority over the churches
that recognises the authentic faith of the Church
expressed in Anglican forms of worship and confirms
that expression as a treasure or patrimony for the
whole Church.
In other words, the universal Church recognises
the faith that is already hers expressed felicitously in
another idiom. The elements of sanctification and
In saying this, Blessed Paul VI in effect declared truth that are present in the Anglican patrimony are
that notwithstanding the separation of Anglicans and recognised as properly belonging to the Church of
Catholics since the 15th century, the English Catholic Christ and thus as instruments of grace that move the
tradition preserved in Anglican Patrimony has communities where they are employed towards the
nourished the Christian faithful in that Communion visible unity of the Church of Christ subsisting in the
and so has enriched the Church. Cardinal Joseph Catholic Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 8).
Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, clearly shared this
conviction.
By further enriching those expressions through
access to the Magisterium that authentically interprets
Well before he signed the Apostolic Constitution the Word of God and preserves Christian teaching
Anglicanorum coetibus into law, the then-Prefect of from error, the Catholic Church proposes this form of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had worship anew as an efficacious means of sacramental
written:
grace for future generations. To be sure, the sources are
Anglican, and many of the liturgical texts in Divine
“Much of Catholicism remained in
Worship have their origin in a situation of ecclesial
Anglicanism, as a matter of fact…On the one
rupture. Yet there is a powerful dynamism at work in
hand, England separated itself from Rome,
the reintroduction of these texts in communities now
distanced itself very resolutely from Rome…
in full communion with the See of Peter.
[O]n the other hand, there is a firm adherence
to the Catholic tradition. In Anglicanism
It is not just that they are given a “new lease of life”
there have always been vital currents that have
in a new context or successive generation. These
strengthened the Catholic inheritance.”
liturgical forms “return” to the Church having been
(Salt of the Earth, 145)
purified and transformed in Catholic communion.
Words pronounced at other times and in other
According to Cardinal Ratzinger, this Catholic contexts are no longer simply Cranmer’s poetry or an