Looks like it’s finally happened! I was skeptical up to the last moment and am still trying to sort out the full story, but it looks like Rome is indeed accepting the Traditional Anglican Communion.
Updates:
- why nothing from Zenit yet? Here’s the official word that there’s going to be a forthcoming even more official word.
- Why exactly was ++Rowan present? Especially as this news—as far as I can tell—pertains to Anglicans not under his jurisdiction…
- The response from Forward in Faith.
- Some English Anglo-Catholic bishops already have a timeline put together: decide to move by Feb. 22nd, 2010.
- Some healthy reminders on the size and scope of this change from Br. Stephen.
- As I’ve said a few times today in various places, I think the major shift here is conceptual rather than actual. It changes the way the relationships between Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Orthodoxy are configured.
More to follow as data becomes available.
Why ++Williams? The new structure apparently applies not just to the TAC but to other groups of current or former Anglicans who wish to establish an Anglican Use jurisdiction. I imagine that a large swath of Forward in Faith in the UK will go over; I wonder what will happen in the Diocese of Fort Worth here in the US.
I don’t know why this won’t post:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2009/10/joint-statement-of-archbps-nichols-catholic-and-williams-anglican/
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2009/10/anglicans-desiring-unity-will-have-ordinariates/
Brian—the spam filter catches anything with 2 or more links.
Did you note that
A) Rome’s ecumenical officer was absent from the announcement? and
B) Archbishop Rowan Williams was “informed,” not consulted?
Perhaps this morning’s Washington Post got it right: “Vatican fishing for disgruntled Anglicans.”
What a lot of pundits on this issue seem to be missing is that the main driver behind this was the REQUEST of the Traditional Anglican Communion (a splinter group) to be received en masse.
That’s the point of this exercise.
Now, if any sections of the CofE or other groups join in, they’ll be icing on the cake but are not fundamentally the cake itself.
Derek, I spoke to a few people offline who suggest that FiF in the UK might be the cake itself–specifically, that they made overtures to Rome about a decade ago, and that +Burnham has been working behind the scenes in the runup to the General Synod of the C of E, in which the consecration of female bishops is on the table. Now, of course, the Synod can say, we’ll have female bishops without conditions, and if you don’t like it you can avail yourself of the Roman Option. Will the FiF bishops and clergy call their bluff, leave their beloved buildings?
I think this is meant for FiF.
Yes, Andrew Burnham sought out Rome.
Places like Fort Worth probably won’t go over because historically American Anglo-Catholics unlike their English cousins are non-papal and Prayer Booky even though they look wonderfully Tridentine, often more so than the English now. (An American one believes in something called Anglicanism – which is rather different to what most Episcopalians think Anglicanism is; an English one says he’s in the part of the Catholic Church that happens to be in England.)
Derek,
I agree with Brian: FIF UK is the cake here. Look at the timing and the travel.