18 August 2023

A most wonderful man

 With the retirement of Mgr Andrew Wadsworth as boss of ICEL, the Chuch has lost, at least to some degree, the talents of a very fine priest and scholar. Fr Andrew is a polymath and a polyglot and a warm and loving pastor.

He has ministered through difficult times. No sooner had the New Translation of the Novus Ordo been completed, and accepted by the relevant Episcopal Conferences, than somebody in Rome set up a committee called Vox clara which made large numbers of unnecessary changes to the agreed texts. In his letter of resignation, Fr Andrew very rightly says that this mess needs now to be cleaned up. 

Readers will remember how, after the unalloyed evil of traditionis custodes spread its dark and cruel shadows over the Latin Churches, Father reacted in one brief public cry of anguish. Because: he is a man who, paradoxically, worked for much of his life at enabling vernacular, Anglophone, liturgy, yet knew where ... far deeper in the old Roman Rite ... his own strength and mainstay lay.

When the Ordinariates were set up, Mg Andrew was my own 'mentor'. This was not an easy role. It had become known that I favoured the Forma Authentica of the Roman Rite, which, indeed, I had regularly used, in Latin, in my last Anglican post. Although I know of no canonical or juridical provisions in Anglicanorum coetibus giving the the English hierarchy a veto over who was admitted to the presbyterate of the Ordinariates, it appeared that, de facto, they did possess such a veto and were more than willing to use it ... on me.

I was informed of this veto in Holy Week the day immediately before our scheduled admission to Full Communion. I remember the scene in the piazza in front of Westminster Cathedral as, in a state of very considerable distress, I ran up to Fr Andrew and shared with him what I had just been told. He folded me in his arms ... somehow or other, we worked through those next painful fourteen months while I was made to feel in fullest measure ... blow by blow ... the punishments the hierarchs deemed due to my preferences. If there is one thing at which the then English Bishops were dab hands, it was the construction of hoops through which their victims had to jump. I have never felt so desolate in all my life. The first hint that it is possible to be happy despite being in Full Communion with the See of S Peter came when Andrew invited me to his Birthday Party (in the Common Room at Harrow School) and put Pam and me on the same table as Mgr Bruce Harbert (previous ICEL boss) and some other Good Eggs.

Thank you, Fr Andrew, for everything.

13 comments:

  1. Was Vox Clara the body that decided that ‘ simile modo’ could not be translated into English - ‘ likewise’, but had had to be latinised as ‘ in a similar way’?

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  2. It is appalling that basically you were too Catholic as an Anglican and therefore a threat in the minds of small-minded clergymen. Thank you for who you are as a priest and for what you do as a priest and historian of the liturgy. I will probably never meet you but I'm grateful to you for your blog! Ad multos annos Father!

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  4. I remember the via crucis that you went through. If i do not err, your weblog, which i then followed, for a longish time was suspended. Eventually it came back on line; I am sure that many readers missed you in those dark days.

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  5. Sorry: simili. Predictive text menace!

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  6. I second Matthew's comment.

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  7. I remember way back when the Ordinariate was set up, reading in one of the Catholic papers something of a headline "no cults please, we're Catholic". I'm cradle Catholic all the way, and in my innocence and youth that headline was setting out to terrify the Catholic in the pew (we have to deal with Anglicans now, yes, even you Irish lot in the North West).

    Now, it's hilarious. Give me an ordinariate priest any day over the dross that still seem to infect the pulpits (ironically, in the churches with no decent pulpits or altars).

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  8. I join Matthew Kluk above in wishing you many more years of fruitful work in the liturgical/historical apostolate, Father. Why is it that the Roman and Anglican clerical class attract so many blockheads? It truly is an ontological mystery. But you met one of the very good ones in Monsignor Wadsworth (ever wondered why he was never consecrated bishop, with all his sterling credentials?): a worthy priest of Christ and a true gentleman. May he, too, prosper!

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  9. Salve Father, from faraway Australia I had no idea that you were subjected to such bullying treatment. I am shocked, shocked ... but not surprised! I imagine that it was probably not just should liturgical preferences and opinions those bishops [lupi in fabula] disliked. They probably just hated your blog anyway!

    Anglicans were invited into the Ordinariate by Pope Benedict XVI. Enter the English bishops. We needed to be warned - equo ne credito!

    As one who has learned much from your various postings over the years, I am glad that, with the support of your friend, you were able to overcome.

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  10. Arghhhhhh! Why do people do these mean things???

    I am so glad that you persisted, but also that you were given help to persist.

    Sometimes we underestimate how much we need each other in times of trouble, and how much it means to get even a little help.

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  11. I know that the late great Anthony Boucher was once a member of ICEL, but I don't know if it was for good or for evil. He was devout, but that was the Sixties.

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  12. "The worst persecution is not with the Church. The worst persecution is not of the Church. The worst persecution is by the Church."

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  13. You mention late and unnecessary changes imposed by Vox Clara on the new English translation of the Missal (c. 2010 I believe). Was one of these unnecessary changes to change the translation of "Credo ... et Unam Sanctam, Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam" from "I believe One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church" to "I believe *in* One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church"? I recall seeing a draft of the revised translation before it was finalised and it had the former version, with no "in", and was very disappointed with the final version that had inserted an "in" that simply isn't there in the Latin.
    I was delighted to find the the Ordinariate's Divine Worship Missal reverts to the accurate translation without the "in". Inserting that "in" changes the meaning of that clause of the Nicene Creed.

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