English Wisdom: Triumvirate

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I think my family and friends in Britain have been blest greatly with a triumvirate at the head of your Ordinariate in Britain.  While one must necessarily be appointed to make the final decisions, having a council of three at the top is a far better situation than having one leader in isolation.  Even if in Britain this is more ad hoc than a canonical structure, I would hope this sort of triumvirate model would become the norm for the Ordinariates.  Msgr. Newton has shown great, great wisdom through it.

Of course, it would be different in North America and in Australia.  My family and friends in Australia might imagine the Ordinary being named and then two others raised up (as Monsignore of the Protonotary Apostolic or something like it) who would perhaps be former bishops in TAC, the Australian Anglican Church or former priests of the same.  It would be incredibly wise to create from the marvellous incoming Church in Torres Strait such a Monsignor to serve in this triumvirate.

In North America it would make sense to create such a triumvirate under Msgr. Steenson as well.  The territory is vast, and the Ordinariate is not the only expression of the Anglican Patrimony in the Catholic Church in North America.  By way of example,  a former Anglican Catholic bishop in Canada would make an excellent choice as another Monsignor with oversight for the Canadian deanery.  And it would be prudent and very wise to make the senior pastor of the Pastoral Provision parishes also a Monsignor with similar oversight responsibilities among those in the Pastoral Provision but serving in concert with his brother in Canada and together with Msgr Steenson's leadership of the Ordinariate.  

I offer these thoughts to my family and friends who are far more influential than I.  No one seems much interested in what a lay hermit in Texas thinks of these things.  So I entrust the ideas to you if they are worthy.  The one thing that has become clear to me is that a single Ordinary with a Vicar General and an office assitant is an irreduceable minimum that should have been given more provisions for the journey by Rome.  It is too small an organisational model to be effective with so great a missionary task.

I know some will say, But look here! In North America, the Ordinary has got health insurance for us this May.  And look at all of the men being ordained through the training programme he developed.  I am in no way trying to take away from these stellar achievements.  One should applaud the Ordinary right heartily for being willing to take up a task where Rome provided no money and the USCCB offered no immediate help with Insurance from the get go.  We see that as an historian and a scholar he is absolutely the right person for all of these tasks at the onset.  There are other considerations though where he would be well served to have brothers --a Msgr. 'Canada' and a Msgr. 'Pastoral Provision' with which to work in this common mission.

What has developed in England from Msgr. Newton's excellent leadership and vision is clearly a model worth repeating.  And it really is worth repeating everywhere an Ordinariate is established or where there might be a mixed situation like that in North America ... say in India for example.  My family in India have some very clear thoughts about these things, but sadly... and it is sad that this is the case across the board, there is only the most limited collaboration with the Laity in Christ of the Anglican Patrimony, a matter that should be corrected post haste.  Bishops and priests don't make the Church.  Jesus Christ and all of His Faithful make the Church.

+Laudetur Jesus Christus

Mons. Keith Newton: Ordination Homily in Birmingham

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The Holy Father greets Monsignor Newton

The sermon of Monsignor Keith Newton, ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales, strikes me as one that needs to be reposted here as part of the body of early important statements made by those in the new Ordinariates envisaged by the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Benedict XVI Anglicanorum coetibus.  


My opinion is that those Anglican and Episcopalian priests who are trying to discern whether or not to take advantage of the Pope's generous offer should read these sermons.  Some may here the very words they have been longing to hear about the nature of the Sacred Priesthood.  Others may realise they need to read and study in order to comprehend the fullness of the Catholic ministerial priesthood in Holy Church.  Such sermons may direct a reader for the first time to take up and read Prebyterorum ordinis from the Second Vatican Council and find that what was hoped for in another communion or denomination is already written and established in the Catholic Church.  


I find I am filled with an overwhelming sense of joy with regard to the Church  and the future of the Ordinariates, and I pray that you, gentle reader, will likewise experience the same.  What follows now is the text of Mons. Newton's Ordination Homily from the ordinations in Birmingham, England, the text of which may be found on the Ordinariate Portal dated the Seventeenth of June, 2011:


In the South Choir Aisle of Canterbury Cathedral is the tomb of 15th century Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Chichele. It is an example of what is rather pleasantly called a Cadaver Tomb.  It was made in his lifetime and shows the Archbishop on the tomb dressed rather like Archbishop Bernard today, in the robes of a bishop, but underneath in a sort of bunk bed arrangement is the Archbishop in death, his body rotting. It was, of course, intended as an allegory about how we are all going to end up and a reminder of how transient earthly glory is.


St Augustine of Hippo was perhaps mediating on the same truth; the fact he was a bishop did not make him any better or any nearer God than other Christian when he wrote:


The Lord as he thought fit and not according to my own merits, appointed me to this position….and I exhibit two distinct features; firstly that I am a Christian and secondly that I am a bishop for others.  The fact that I am a Christian is for my benefit, that I am appointed bishop is for yours.  With you I am a Christian and for you I am a bishop’.


We all began our Christian lives at the same place, the baptismal font. Our baptism is the most important date in our Christian life; it is our spiritual birthday, a new birth bringing us into contact with Christ’s redeeming love.  Through baptism we are caught up in the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection and become his disciples, entering a new way of life in company with Jesus.  Every baptized person has a contribution to make to the building up of the body of Christ as St Paul makes clear in our second reading (1Cor 12:3-7; 12-13).  Through baptism and confirmation the Spirit has been given to each person for a good purpose.


But within the baptized people of God some are called to further ministry and service through ordination.  To take up St Augustine’s words, indeed with you we are Christians but for you we are bishops, priests and deacons.


Ordination can never be simply for ourselves, we are ordained for the Church, for service to God and our brothers and sisters in the faith. For that reason we cannot speak of ‘our priesthood’.  It is the priesthood of Christ that matters in which those who are ordained have a particular share.  Indeed it is Christ who calls and it is a calling to share in and continue his mission in the world. The words of Jesus on the first Easter evening in today’s gospel make that clear: As the Father has sent me so am I sending you (John 20: 19-23)


This afternoon the eight of you will be ordained to the priesthood in the Catholic Church.  You have been called by Christ – a truth you must never forget – and that calling has been ratified by the Church. There is for you all both a sense of continuity and of change. There is continuity because that call to Christian ministry first came to you some years ago, in some cases many years ago.  You have many years of faithful service and experience to bring with you but you will also be aware that your ministry in the future will be set in a totally new context as priest of the Catholic Church.  Your ordination today will be a fulfillment and completion of all that has gone before but it will also be radically different as you will exercise that ministry of word and sacrament from the heart of the Church in communion with the successor of Peter, whom Pope Benedict reminded us in his homily at Westminster Abbey ‘is charged with a particular care for the Unity of Christ’s flock’.


First and foremost then you are to be ordained a priest of the Catholic Church. What happens to you today will give you a new authentic authority to your ministry. You will discover in the words of Lumen Gentium that ‘There can be no genuine priestly ministry except in communion with the Supreme Pontiff’ and you will share that priestly ministry with every other priest of the Catholic Church.  One of the most moving parts of the Ordination Rite is the giving of the Kiss of peace by your brother priests which profoundly expresses the unity of the priesthood in the Catholic Church.


Though you are ordained for the whole Church, you will also be priests within the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.  You have all been involved in a spiritual journey, certainly over the last year and probably for much longer than that.  It has been a journey not without its difficulties.  Archbishop Bernard will remind you in a short time to ‘model your life on the mystery of the cross’. These are profound and penetrating words, particularly significant for those of us who in our Anglican days were members of the Society of the Holy Cross. As you look back over the years I am sure you will see the providence of God at work in your lives and that he has brought you now to this joyful moment.


As some of the first priests of Our Lady’s Ordinariate you have that special responsibility to help bring to fruition that vision which the Holy Father sets out in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus and which he described at Oscott College last September:


As a prophetic gesture that can contribute positively to the developing relations between Anglicans and Catholics. It helps us to set our sights on the ultimate goal of all ecumenical activity: the restoration of full ecclesial communion in the context of which the mutual exchange of gifts from our respective spiritual patrimonies serves as an enrichment to us all.’


However, we will do that with humility knowing how much we will be receiving.


You will be only too well aware that you are frail earthen vessels entrusted with this ministry by Christ and his Church.  ‘A priest’, wrote the late Cardinal Hume in his book Light in the Lord, ‘is an ordinary man called to an extraordinary ministry. Like everyone else he is himself in search for God and in need of redemption’.


You know all ministry is service and when you kneel down and follow the example of the Saviour in washing feet on Maundy Thursday, you will be aware that simple act seems to sum up what our priesthood should look like, and yet reminds us how far from Jesus’ example we fall short. Indeed how far we fall short of our own expectations, never mind those of other people.


But St Paul has words of encouragement for us when he writes to Timothy and reminds us that it is God ‘who has saved us and called us to be holy- not because of anything we ourselves have done but for his own purpose and his own grace.’ (Tim 1)


In today’s gospel, Jesus gives the Apostles a task; a task which is being passed on to you: as the father sent me so am I sending you.  But he does not leave them unaided; he breathes on them and says ‘receive the Holy Spirit’.


There is the mistake we all so often make, in relying on ourselves instead of reminding ourselves that God has called us and only his grace alone is sufficient.  Or, as St Paul says in his second Epistle to the Corinthians, ‘We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure, to make it clear that such overwhelming power comes from God and not from us’. (2 Cor 4:7)


May God bless you as you serve him as priests of the Catholic Church.


Monsignor Keith Newton, Ordinary

Link to Our Lady's Ordinariate website

+Laus Deo!

Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

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Above is the fine new banner for the Ordinariate on the Catholic Church of England and Wales website with the shield for the CCEW.  I look forward to seeing the Ordinariate of Our Lady Walsingham and the other Ordinariate's developing their own arms for use within the Catholic Church.

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I cannot begin to express my personal joy that the Blessed Trinity has allowed me to live to see this day of the erection of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales.  I am truly too overwhelmed to add any commentary, so I say Deo Gratias and post below Archbishop Nichols' homily which will be remembered with great distintinction as part of the Patrimony of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham:

Ordination to the Priesthood 
of Reverend John Broadhurst, Reverend Andrew Burnham, Reverend Keith Newton

Westminster Cathedral, Saturday 15 January 2011

Archbishop Vincent Nichols' homily

Many ordinations have taken place in this Cathedral during the 100 years of its history. But none quite like this. Today is a unique occasion marking a new step in the life and history of the Catholic Church. This morning the establishment of the first Personal Ordinariate under the provision of the Apostolic Constitution ‘Anglicanorum Coetibus’ has been announced in our hearing. So I too salute John Broadhurst, Andrew Burnham and Keith Newton who are to be the first priests of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. In particular I offer my prayers and best wishes to Keith, chosen by the Holy Father to be its first Ordinary. 

This is indeed an historic moment. In these opening words I welcome you warmly, Keith, Andrew and John. You have distinguished pasts, full of real achievements. Now, ahead of you, you have an important and demanding future! In welcoming you I recognise fully the demands of the journey you have made together with your families, with its many years of thought and prayer, painful misunderstandings, conflict and uncertainty. I want, in particular, to recognise your dedication as priests and bishops of the Church of England and affirm the fruitfulness of your ministry.

I thank so many in the Church of England who have recognised your sincerity and integrity in making this journey and who have assured you of their prayers and good wishes. First among these is Rowan, Archbishop of Canterbury, with his characteristic insight, and generosity of heart and spirit.

This journey, of course, involves some sad parting of friends. This, too, we recognise and it strengthens the warmth of our welcome.

Of course it was John Henry Newman who spoke movingly of this ‘sad parting of friends’. We thank our Holy Father Pope Benedict for not only placing this Ordinariate under the protection of Our Lady of Walsingham but also for giving it Blessed John Henry Newman as its patron.

At Lambeth Palace, in September, Pope Benedict said: ‘In the figure of John Henry Newman we celebrate a churchman whose ecclesial vision was nurtured by his Anglican background and matured during his many years of ordained ministry in the Church of England. He can teach us the virtues that ecumenism demands: on the one hand, he was moved to follow his conscience, even at great personal cost; and on the other hand, the warmth of his continued friendship with his former colleagues led him to explore with them, in a truly eirenical spirit, the questions on which they differed, driven by a deep longing for unity in faith.’ (Lambeth Palace, 18 September 2010)

Then, speaking in Rome on 20 December, Pope Benedict reflected further on Cardinal Newman. He spoke these words. They are of relevance and hope for today:

‘The path of Newman’s conversions is a path of conscience – not a path of self-asserting subjectivity but, on the contrary, a path of obedience to the truth that was gradually opening up to him. His third conversion, to Catholicism, required him to give up almost everything that was dear and precious to him: possessions, profession, academic rank, family ties and many friends. The sacrifice demanded of him by obedience to the truth, by his conscience, went further still. Newman had always been aware of having a mission for England. But in the Catholic theology of his time, his voice could hardly make itself heard...

In January 1863 he wrote in his diary these distressing words: “As a Protestant, I felt my religion dreary, but not my life ‐ but, as a Catholic, my life dreary, not my religion”. He had not yet arrived at the hour when he would be an influential figure. In the humility and darkness of obedience, he had to wait until his message was taken up and understood. In support of the claim that Newman’s concept of conscience matched the modern subjective understanding, people often quote a letter in which he said – should he have to propose a toast – that he would drink first to conscience and then to the Pope. But in this statement, “conscience” does not signify the ultimately binding quality of subjective intuition. It is an expression of the accessibility and the binding force of truth: on this its primacy is based. The second toast can be dedicated to the Pope because it is his task to demand obedience to the truth.’ (December 20, 2010)

Today we thank the Holy Father for the courageous leadership he gives in establishing the first Personal Ordinariate. His intentions are clear. It is, as he has said, ‘a prophetic gesture’. It is to contribute to the wider goal of visible unity between our two Churches by helping us to know in practice how our patrimonies of faith and living can strengthen each other in our mission today. At Oscott College, the Holy Father said to us bishops: ‘It (the Ordinariate) helps us to set our sights on the ultimate goal of all ecumenical activity: the restoration of full ecclesial communion in the context of which the mutual exchange of gifts from our respective spiritual patrimonies serves as an enrichment to us all.’

The visible unity of the Church, then, is central to our thoughts today. Indeed, it was never far from the heart of St Paul as is well expressed in his Letter to the Ephesians and, a little earlier, to the Philippians. His appeal is steadfast: that believing in Christ as Lord, that sharing in one Spirit, that worship of one God and Father create a unity which must be constantly served by the practice of humility, gentleness, patience and love. In Philippians he is more explicit about the attitudes and behaviours that threaten this unity: selfish ambition for the power of office; the search for personal approval or prestige; a focus on the importance of self within a competitive spirit, all taking us away from ‘the mind of Christ Jesus’. (cf Phil 2.1‐5).

History shows how right he is. These patterns of failure mark our histories. They also find expression in the lives of each of us today. So we ask pardon for our failings and seek to renew within ourselves that mind of Christ Jesus himself.

The quest for the visible unity of the Church remains an imperative. In it the role of the successor of St Peter is crucial. Pope Benedict expressed it thus in Westminster Abbey: ‘Fidelity to the word of God, precisely because it is a true word, demands of us an obedience which leads us together to a deeper understanding of the Lord’s will, an obedience which must be free of intellectual conformism or facile accommodation to the spirit of the age. This is the word of encouragement which I wish to leave with you this evening, and I do so in fidelity to my ministry as the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Saint Peter, charged with a particular care for the unity of Christ’s flock.’ (Westminster Abbey, 18 Sept 2010)

The Pope’s ministry to the visible unity of the Church is central to the faith of the Catholic Church. It is central to the faith of those who enter into full communion in this Ordinariate. It is central to the welcome, encouragement and support the Catholic community in England and Wales gives to this development and to all who seek to be part of it.

In his Letter to the Ephesians, St Paul speaks about the variety of gifts given to the community of believers. While recognising that variety, in this Mass we focus, in particular, on the gift of the ordained priesthood within the Catholic Church. It is a priesthood which takes it shape, its purpose, its experience from the Cross of Christ, the great cross above us, referred to so movingly by Pope Benedict. Through this ordained priesthood, the one, same sacrifice of Christ is made real at the altar and offered again to the Eternal Father. It is made present as the sacrament of our salvation. This Mass, every Mass, is at once the prayer of Christ and the prayer of the Body of Christ, his people. Through it Christ constitutes the Church afresh each day, both in Himself and in its visible unity, in the world. This is the work of the ordained priest – the daily constituting of the Church ‐ and it is a priceless gift and service for which we thank God constantly. To this one sacrifice we bring our own small sacrifices, the losses and hardships we carry through failure and sin, through the pursuit of truth and love, through the passing of time. All is offered to the Father in one sacrifice of praise to become a means of our salvation.

In today’s Gospel passage from St. John, we have heard again of the appearance of the Risen Christ to his disciples. At that moment he brought to them the fruits of his triumph over death: the forgiveness of sins and the gift of peace. Here too we come to the work of the ordained priest: to pronounce with confidence the forgiveness of God and to bring peace to a troubled soul and a troubled world.

To this service, to this ministry we welcome our three priests today. But we must be attentive to the words of the Gospel. In bestowing these gifts, the Risen Lord also employs an eloquent gesture: he shows them his hands and his side.

He shows them his wounds. The mission they receive, the mission of reconciliation, comes from the wounds of Christ. This is the mission we share and at every Mass we once again gaze on the wounded, broken body of the risen Lord. Our mission is characterised by woundedness: a mission to a wounded world; a mission entrusted to a wounded Church, carried out by wounded disciples. The wounds of sin are our business. The wounds of Christ, even though we have caused them, are also our consolation and strength.

The first to witness these wounds, the first, perhaps, to grasp their true significance, was Mary, Mother of Jesus. Standing at the foot of the cross she witnessed the inflicting of those wounds. Holding his dead body she must have been marked by the blood shed from them. Now she looks down on our new priests from the other side of this Cathedral crucifix above me. Mary always holds before us her Son, presenting him to us as our hope and salvation. Nowhere does she do so with more grace and elegance than in the image of Our Lady of Walsingham. As this Ordinariate, her Ordinariate, comes into being so may we entrust to her the work of bringing it to fulfilment.

Our Lady of Walsingham: pray for us.
Blessed John Henry Newman: pray for us.

Amen.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
President, Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales