Over at Shawn Tribe's magnificent The New Liturgical Movement blog, I made the following comment in response to a post on the future Ordinariates for former Anglicans entering the Catholic Church as well as the liturgical texts that will be authorised, and I post it here so that others may read my thoughts upon this important subject if they should happen upon it:
I offer a word of caution in this area. Each nation in the Anglican Communion is very different from England. Roman Catholics (and English Anglicans) often make the mistake that opinions in England are the authentic opinions of the Anglican Communion, and nothing could be further from the truth.
The good Father is largely correct in his general estimation of Anglican English preferences. However, what the Ordinariates require is a great generosity in the provisional authorisation of liturgical texts in order to meet the needs of Anglicans entering the Church in nations outside of England. The specific meaning is that Anglican texts like the English Missal, the Anglican Missal, and the Cowley American Missal will have a provisional place in the Ordinariates. Likewise, the Book of Divine Worship used by the Roman Catholic Anglican Use parishes in the States provides a wide and generous plan of all texts and rites in both hieratic English as well as the common current idiom.
There should be a period of long reflexion upon the Sarum Missal and the texts and rites of the Caroline Divines and the Non-Jurors, and it is without question that some or all of these texts are part of that rich Anglican patrimony of which Pope Benedict has so eloquently spoken. Generosity of provision simply means that more Anglicans will be able to find their way home to Holy Mother Church, and it is the reconciliation of Anglicans with the Church that is the point of any of these provisions. Generosity of provision is essential with an accent upon 'generosity' as the watchword of these endeavours.
+Laus Deo!
