THE
P RTAL
October 2015
Page 19
The Vice-Chancellor of the
Personal Ordinariate of
Our Lady of Walsingham
Jackie Ottaway meets the Reverend Jonathan Redvers Harris
W
hilst on the Isle of Wight, Jackie Ottaway thought she would take
the opportunity to speak with Fr Jonathan Redvers Harris, soon to be the
new Chancellor of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
JO: You’re a very
important person.
JRH: Rubbish.
JO: No, you’re going
to be Chancellor of the
Ordinariate, you’re an
elected member of the Governing Council…how
much more important can you get?
JRH: I’m Secretary to the Finance Council, and a
Co-ordinating Pastor!
JRH: I’m not involved with that at all.
JO: The Governing Council? I think we all know
what the Finance Committee does!
JRH: The Governing Council are also trustees of
the charity and directors of the company which
is the Ordinariate, which is a company limited by
guarantee. So our meetings are now a bit more formal
in that we have a formal trustees part of the meeting
as well as having to be consulted in matters of who is
to be Ordained and in programmes of formation for
Ordination.
JO: Could you just say a bit for our readers about JO: And you have the choice of the next Ordinary.
what the Chancellor is, because Anglicans have
Chancellors too…
JRH: We give the terna of names to the Apostolic See.
JRH: For Anglicans a Chancellor is a judge in
an Ecclesiastical Court. For a Catholic diocese a
Chancellor is really a glorified Notary, in fact he or
she is a Notary, and really what the Chancellor does,
on behalf of the Bishop or other Ordinary, is to issue,
for example, permissions or dispensations, and doesn’t
in fact have to be qualified in canon law in any way
whatsoever. A chancellor can be a lay person and in
these Islands tends to be canonically qualified but not
always in Orders. So in practice it also means giving
a bit of canon law advice when asked, either to people
getting married or to the Ordinary or to someone who
has maybe got into a bit of a difficult spot.
JO: This is different from Catholic Dioceses?
JRH: Yes.
JO: Could you cast your eye over the Ordinariate
nationally.
JRH: We invented this job of Registrar, as part of the
Chancery Office, because we’re a personal jurisdiction
and therefore by definition we are a circumscription.
That’s the technical term for an organisation within
the Catholic church that is defined by people who
personally subscribe to it, rather by having to be in
a particular place, a parish or a diocese by territorial
domicile. So, as Registrar, I see the applications coming
JO: So involvement in Annulment procedures?
in and they come in very slowly. I’ve had one this week
JRH: No not for the Ordinariate because we don’t and two last week so they aren’t pouring in. We still
have a Tribunal. You might give an enquirer some have between 1400 and 1500 members including our
advice about the nullity process but we don’t of course 90 clerics.
have that in the Ordinariate.
JO: That’s an interesting figure because our
readership hovers between six and nine thousand a
JO: Safeguarding issues?