The Latin text of AC (thanks, Joshua) has one or two points of interest; I suspect that there is clearly at least one place at which a deliberate alteration has been made in the sense of the provisional English text. The phrase "the Anglican Communion" has disappeared, to be replaced by the word "Anglicanismum". I suspect that this might have something to do with accomodating the Continuum: Anglican groups which might not technically be categorised as part of the Anglican Communion as recognised by Canterbury.
Felicitously, the English phase that disunity "wounds that which the Church is and that for which the Church exists" is replaced by the statement that it "gravely wounds the mystery of the Church". This raises it to a more theological level, yes? And eliminates woffle.
"In a corporate manner" is replaced by the adverb "glomeratim", which means "in a ball, in a mass". This distinctly suggests a mass movement. It cannot bear the meaning that each individual seeking admission must belong to a local group; it clearly indicates that the Holy Father discerns a mass movement towards unity, and that this is what he is providing for. This is important. There is, for example, manifestly no ground in AC for limitations in the number of Anglican clergy who can be admitted to the presbyterates of Ordinariates. VI (1) says that the Ordinary can accept Anglican deacons, priests, and bishops who enjoy the qualities demanded by Canons 1026-1032. None of these canons, as far as I can see, gives any grounds for thinking that a priest who "doesn't have a group" should not be allowed to enter into the presbyterate of the Latin Church by means of the Ordinariate structures.
This is very important. It is necessary that the Ordinariates should have a large number of available clergy. Those who have served in the parochial ministry of any major denomination know the importance of a large pool of clergy - mostly retired - to oil the wheels. A pastor may need to go on holiday ... or go to a Deanery meeting ... or go on retreat ... or go and preach somewhere else ... . And solemn liturgy traditionally requires three sacred ministers; and solemn liturgy is something to which the Patrimony is very attached. Ordinariate groups may be small, but it would still be very difficult to pastor them on one priest and a retired priest (not least because retired clergy can also have commitments). The nearest Ordinariate group could be a hundred miles away; its clergy might not find it terribly convenient to travel such distances in order to cover my 12.30 Low Mass on Friday and Wednesday. And if I have to be away on a Sunday, and the local RC priest is already having to trinate in order to serve the churches in his care, he might not be terribly enthusiastic when I phone him up to ask if he can cram another Mass in for an Ordinariate group. It is clear that Ordinariates may not be able to pay a large number of clergy, and I certainly do not suggest that the local RC hierarchy should have to unearth money to do so; but it would be very wrong if extremely experienced clergy, retired and living on their C of E pensions, and desirous of exercising their priesthood in Full Communion, were, in effect, told that they could only enter Ordinariates in the lay state. Don't forget that retirement in the Church of England tends to happen much earlier than in the RC Church. Are droves of healthy active priests in their sixties really to be declared clerically redundant under the Ordinariate system? Are we sure that this is what the Holy Father has in mind?
And, if all one hears about the age profile of the Roman Catholic clergy in some places is true, you would have thought that Roman Catholic clergy themselves would distinctly welcome the advent of a large new pool of clergy whom they can "try" for occasional - or, indeed, more than occasional - duty. Being incardinated into an Ordinariate does not mean that one can't be lent. In the Good Old Days of the Irish Church, it lent clergy in shiploads to dioceses all over the world. To this day, there are probably many more Irish clergy working outside than there are inside Ireland. There is no reason why Ordinariates could not make a modest, and enthusiastic, contribution to staffing in the dioceses.
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20 comments:
Thank you, Father, for an illuminating analysis.
John U.K.
I take the groups to be intended as nuclei for future Ordinariate parishes, and the need to belong to a group being equivalent to being attached to a particular parish. I have seen no indication that the number of retired priests accepted will be rationed, quite the reverse. In any case, as Catholic priests do not retire until they are 75, I would suppose that convert clergy in the 65-75 age bracket will automatically become "unretired". You are quite right in stressing the need for as many clergy as possible to serve a possibly rather scattered flock.
Catholic priests do not retire until they are 75
As it's been told to me, there is no retiring age as such for R.C. priests, but 75 is the age at which provision is made for their support should they retire from normal ministry.
The effect of this is that most do retire at 75, but they do not have to (unlike Anglican clergy) - tho' some who are reluctant may be "persuaded" to do so.
Equally, they may choose to retire at an earlier age, but since (in normal circumstances) the Church will not support them, they can only do this if they have private means.
Whether or not Catholic priests retire at a certain age (this varies from place to place and country to country; Canon Law I think says little about such modern notions), they are still very much available for supply, unless frailty of old age or ill-health precludes this.
May I ask - it seems, as an outsider looking in, that Anglican clergy, even bishops, when retired, retreat back into the lay state: perhaps this applies more to those less-High, but it seems that many if not most no longer celebrate daily, and may even be content to attend church on Sundays with the laity in the nave rather than stand at the holy table.
This phenomenon, strange to Catholics, tends to confirm the fears that most Anglicans have a very functionalist idea of Orders.
Again, I recall being confused when an Anglican bishop here in Australia retired, and was then appointed the equivalent of parish priest of some small country church. The idea of a bishop (not an auxiliary) retiring from his see and regressing down the grades of Order seems very odd.
Oh, and no worries at all, Fr H., my pleasure to be of assistance.
I still feel foolish about thinking "glomeratim" to be some strange misprint...
Let me assure Joshua that this "retired" priest is busy almost every Sunday and numerous weekdays, saying Mass or concelebrating and preaching etc.
Also, re. retired Bishops, the former Catholic Bishop of Clifton, Mervyn Alexander, after retiring from his See acted as parish priest in one of the parishes of the diocese.
I take Sir Watkin's point about retirement age, but Bishops are certainly required to offer their resignation to the Pope at 75.
Yes, bishops (but not presbyters) are required to offer their resignation at 75, but it it is not invariably accepted, so even this is something less than a "retirement age" as Anglicans have come to understand it.
Joshua's comment about Anglican clergy retreating back into the lay state, seems very much the exception in a British context. The Church of England (especially in rural areas) would have ground to a halt years ago without the services of retired clergy. Many will tell you that they are busier in "retirement" than they were before!
This is one of the reasons that the departure of retired priests to the Ordinariate will have a greater impact than one might at first suppose. The Church of England currently operates on the presumption that most of its clergy will continue to be active as priests after retirement and until age and infirmity set in.
I am much relieved to be corrected.
By the way, Joshua ... I was very impressed by your query about glomeratim. Most people who have a smattering of Latin and want to give the impression that they have more, would have checked in dictionary before they commented. The fact that you had not met this distinctly unusual word, and were prepared to say so in that very natural way without looking it up ... makes clear that you are a genuine and instinctive latinist!
Fr Hunwicke says: “"In a corporate manner" is replaced by the adverb "glomeratim", which means "in a ball, in a mass". This distinctly suggests a mass movement. It cannot bear the meaning that each individual seeking admission must belong to a local group; it clearly indicates that the Holy Father discerns a mass movement towards unity, and that this is what he is providing for.”
In fear and trembling I would have to say that, in some respects, I do not agree with Father Hunwicke’s understanding of the Latin.
In the first paragraph of the Constitution which sets out the aim and import of the whole document, the Latin is a faithful replication of the English text first provided. Groups (coetibus) of Anglicans have been moved by the Holy Spirit to seek full communion with the Catholic Church, “prouti singulos et glomeratim”. In my view the text refers here to groups of Anglicans who have made up their minds as individuals and as a “mass”, as a “collective”, as “a crowd”. Clearly those individuals who belong to a group but do not wish to enter an Ordinariate would remove themselves from that group or crowd.
In the fifth paragraph the term “in a corporate manner” is translated as “glomeratim”. In the light of what the first paragraph says (in the Latin text), this is consistent with the idea that those people come as a group (comprising individuals of course, making individual decisions). It is interesting to note that the word “singulos” does not appear in the fifth paragraph. Father Hunwicke’s more diffuse idea of a “mass movement” does not, in my opinion, do full justice to the Latin text which, as I say includes both the idea of a mass movement as well as groups.
Does this exclude individuals coming as individuals from entering the Ordinariate? No it does not. The first paragraph speaks of “singulos et glomeratim”, a broad enough expression to include individuals who do not belong to a specific group. That would seem to me to further include retired Anglican clergy who could also seek ordination in the manner prescribed.
Father also says that phrase "the Anglican Communion" has disappeared, to be replaced by the word "Anglicanismum". I have not been able to find that in the Latin text and would be grateful if it could be pointed out to me.
Papal documents are regularly composed in languages other than Latin (Italian, Polish, German) and then translated into Latin by Vatican staff. Should not the Latin be understood by reference to the original language, rather than vice-versa?
Going by the text on the Anglo-Catholic site, the term Anglicana Communio occurs at I.4 and VI.1, Anglicanismus at VII
Cerastium glomeratum is a species of flowering plant in the pink family known by the common names sticky mouse-ear chickweed and clammy chickweed. It is probably native to Eurasia but it is known on most continents as an introduced species. It grows in many types of habitat. This is an annual herb growing from a slender taproot. It produces a branched, hairy stem up to 40 or 45 centimeters tall. The hairy leaves are up to 2 or 3 centimeters long. The inflorescence bears as few as 3 or as many as 50 small flowers. The flower has five hairy green sepals which are occasionally red-tipped, and five white two-lobed petals which are a few millimeters long and generally shorter than the sepals. Some flowers lack petals. The fruit is a capsule less than a centimeter long which is tipped with ten tiny teeth.
My grand-daughter has ten tiny teeth but does not look much like the rest of the description so she may not, after all, be a Cerastium glomeratum
or even a Cerastia glomerata. I prefer the name Catherine!
Thanks, Fr H!
I've been musing about this word "glomeratim"...
so, in Latinate English, would we speak about:
- an agglomeration of Anglicans?
- an Anglican conglomerate (a conglomerate being a rather uncompacted rock made up of compressed sand with larger particles and pebbles, if I recall)?
Just joshing!
More thoughts about *glomeratim*:
Virgil Aeneid VI 310(ish)
talks of souls gathering on the banks of the Styx waiting to cross and flocking there like birds:
quam multae glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus annus
trans pontum fugat et terris immittit apricis.
I have this picture of them huddling together waiting desperately to get to warmer climes!
But it's not to happen for them all:
navita sed tristis nunc hos nunc accipit illos,
ast alios longe summotos arcet harena.
Life can be a *beach*!
The clear preference in the Latin text for Anglicanismus rather than Communio Anglicana reflects an important ecumenical point that has had to be clarified in the months following the issue of the Apostolic Constitution in English.
AC is a response to requests for a structure for full communion going back over 2 decades that could not have been contemplated prior to Lambeth 2008. The Apostolic See has not wished to respond to these requets for as long as the Anglican Communion was a communion, constituting a sole ecumenical dialogue partner. This was why Cardinal Kasper (at Archbishop Rowan's request) spoke to the Church of England bishops to clarify the consequences of no longer conforming to the common tradition, and also why the Roman and Eastern Catholic delegation was so strong at the 2008 Lambeth Conference, given the duty of Peter to strengthen his brethren.
When however it became clear that a third of Anglican bishops worldwide had stayed away, it was perceived that the Communion no longer existed as the sole body embracing all those who belonged to the Anglican tradition de jure. Not having a juridical status in the constitutions of its member churches and provinces, it rested on operation by consent that has evidently been lost. Hence a recognition of the new reality - the phenomenon of an "ism" that accounts for all Anglican Christians (regardless of their allegiances and separate communions), of which the Anglican Communion itself now forms only one part.
Now that the Anglican Communion is forced to exist as a loose federation of autonomous churches that are not necessarily in communion with each other, or indeed in full communion within themselves, the Roman see feels free to respond to the different components of Anglicanism impartially, and without harm to the integrity of the much looser and far less representative-of-Anglicanism Anglican Communion.
Can someone please tell me where the word Anglicanismum appears in the Latin text. It is not in my copy which I got from the Vatican website.
OK, I have found the word Anglicanismo. It is in sections VII and IX. But when Father Hunwicke says: " The phrase "the Anglican Communion" has disappeared, to be replaced by the word "Anglicanismum". I suspect that this might have something to do with accomodating the Continuum: Anglican groups which might not technically be categorised as part of the Anglican Communion as recognised by Canterbury", and Fr Woodruft says: "The clear preference in the Latin text for Anglicanismus rather than Communio Anglicana reflects an important ecumenical point that has had to be clarified in the months following the issue of the Apostolic Constitution in English", they are not entirely correct. The term Anglican Communion is retained in the Constitution in 1. §4. "Ordinariatus fidelibus laicis, clericis necnon Institutorum Vitae Consecratae vel Societatum Vitae Apostolicae sodalibus constituitur, qui olim ad Anglicanam Communionem pertinebant et nunc plena cum Ecclesia Catholica communione fruuntur, vel in ipsius Ordinariatus iurisdictione Initiationis Sacramenta recipiunt." I agree that the more inclusive "Anglicanismo" in the other parts of the text are used to be more inclusive of Anglicans coming from groups which are not in communion with the Anglican Communion. My reason for asking the original question, "Where is the word Anglicanismo?" is because I stopped at the earliest reference. I wish someone had had the courtesy to reply to my question though.
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