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What is the Personal Ordinariate? Canonical and Liturgical Observations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2010

Christopher Hill
Affiliation:
Bishop of Guildford

Extract

Questions have arisen as to the manner of the publication on 9 November 2009 of Anglicanorum coetibus, the Apostolic Constitution Providing for Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans Entering into Full Communion with the Catholic Church. What is clear is that the views of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, under Cardinal Walter Kasper, were given less weight than ought to be expected and that both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of Westminster were informed at only a late stage. More assuring for the long term, Cardinal Kasper has stated that this provision is not a new form of ecumenism. Significantly, the Vatican statement following the meeting between the Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Benedict XVI in Rome on 21 November reiterated ‘the shared will to continue and consolidate’ the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the Anglican Communion and noted approvingly that the details of the third phase of ARCIC would be discussed at informal talks with Anglican representatives in the days following the Archbishop's visit to the Pope. Whatever else the Ordinariate may be, it is not a substitute for that ‘serious dialogue’ established by Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI which has as its continued goal, despite obstacles ancient and modern, the restoration of ‘complete communion of faith and sacramental life’ between us.

Type
Comment
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2010

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References

1 For critical views from a Roman Catholic perspective, see articles by Nicholas Lash and Michael Walsh, Tablet, 14 November 2009.

2 Address at the Pontifical Gregorian University Symposium for the centenary of the birth of Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, 19 November 2009.

3 Comunicato della Sala Stampa della Santa Sede: Udienza All'Archivescovo di Canterbury.

4 Common Declaration, March 1966.

5 See Sherlock, Charles, Church Times, 27 November 2009Google Scholar.

6 Vatican Commentary on New Norms for Anglicans, 9 November 2009 (<http://www.zenit.org>).

7 Beal, JP, Coriden, JA, Green, TJ (eds), New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (New York, 2000)Google Scholar.

8 See the Tablet articles at n 1 above.