www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Anglicanism may not last out the week

I'm an avid reader and occasional poster on Pontifications and am delighted that a man of such stature has come into the Catholic Communion. I amongst many others congratulated him on his ordination and wished him many years.

Frankly, though I am sorry to hear of any soul outside of the Catholic Church, and even more sorry to hear of those willingly leaving the Church's bosom, otherwise I think we have a pretty sweet deal with the Episcopalians right now. They take our progressives who unfortunately can't find it in their hearts to accept the Teachings of the Church, and we get their faithful of a generally more traditional bent who willingly accept and embrace all the doctrines of the Faith.

So, ideally it would be better, but the "to-and-from" flow looks good to me. As much as it hurts to hear of people born Catholic who, either of their own fault or of their malformation in the faith, leave the Church, they do less harm outside of its doors than they do from within.

Logos - Alexis

Amen to that! It's the ones who stay and undermine the Church's teachings that do the greatest harm.

Sweet deals?? How can you use that kind of terminology?? It amazes me.

What do you think of those then who become Orthodox and were Catholic?

The thread is riddled with hubris and wishful thinking. That just appears to be the way it is.

I was speaking a bit hyperbolically perhaps, Brian, to emphasize my sadness over the fact that people choose to leave the Catholic Church for the Anglican Communion, but at the same time to express gratitude that it seems that many of those who are wont to do the most damage to the Church see fit to leave it for some Episcopal churches which are more than willing to entertain their fanciful wishes.

Now, that's not meant to be a blanket statement. Check out the Diocese of Linz in Austria. I'd imagine going from that to an Episcopal church would be like going from a Pentecostal church to high-church Lutheranism.

And as to your final question, I'd be more than happy to discuss that in a private message conversation, but not openly in this thread because I don't want to inflame passions, offend others, and beat a dead horse.

Logos - Alexis

Then there are those that leave the banality of modern day Roman liturgy for the dignified and very often, more traditional than most Tridentine Catholic worship, for Anglo-Catholic worship. And in English no less. The bishop came for visitation today, to the parish that I've been attending, and I saw some things that you don't even see in Rome during a Pontifical Mass anymore.

John,

I agree with what you said, except that Anglo-Catholic worship is sometimes more traditional the Tridentine Catholic worship. Don't the Anglo-Catholics still use a Protestant/Reformation liturgy? Therefore it is necessarily by its own definition NOT as traditional as the Tridentine Mass. And if it's the Tridentine but simply in English, then it's still not as traditional since the Tridentine Mass has always been celebrated (with few exceptions) in Latin.

The Traditional Latin Mass is far, far older than Protestantism and goes back to the early days of Christianity in Rome.

And naturally since the entire Roman Rite has been liturgically reformed/(malformed?) since the close of Vatican II, you wouldn't see many a traditional thing done "even...in Rome during a Pontifical Mass anymore." Not surprising.

And as an aside, I'm not just talking about liturgics. I'm also talking about doctrine. Many Episcopalian converts leave their more dignified forms of liturgical worship to (painstakingly but joyfully) enter into Christ's Church at their local St. _____ Catholic Church, which often does have, as you've noted, extremely banal worship.

Logos - Alexis

While it is certain the Latin missal of 1962 has similarities and components from the early days of Christianity it certainly developed over the centuries, as did all rites. However one bit of information is that in the early days of Christianity Latin was not the common language of the empire. It was more the business language and the government language. So perhaps it is certain that the original liturgy would have been in Kloine Greek or the vox populi. It was not until the 3rd century that latin became more of the language of the people in the western parts of the empire.
P.S. I wasn't offered any money, gifts or coupons by the Greeks to write that little factiod

I was surfing the religous section of the Sunday paper and an Episcopalian Church advertised Confession and absolution as "by appointment." However I don't see any mass exodus yet from the many CofE parishes around here.

On the original topic --- there have been two splits in the Episcopal church in my area in recent years. A traditional parish formed some years ago and eventually became OCA. Just recently, a new parish has formed under an African bishop. So for any practical purposes, the split has already happened. I understand one of the mainline ECUSA churches is now having serious budget problems because of the latest loss of members. Who knows where it will all end?

Logos-Alexis, I'm not talking about language here, since that seems to be a hot button issue I'm talking, ritual, ceremony, movements, gestures, vesture. It's a sad day that these have been preserved and still used in Anglo-Catholic churches, while totally disregard and thrown out in Roman ones. Look at www.s-clements.org [s-clements.org] you'll see the entire Tridentine mass done there. Any they do use quite a bit of Latin.

Also, the BCP 1542 was based on the Sarum rite, which was ancient in itself. As with today, pre-Trent there was little liturgical uniformity in the Latin church. Many churches, religious orders, nations, and even cities had their own rite. Trent simply codified the mass and made it THE universal usage. Not a good thing in my opinion.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Orthodox Pyrohy, the Tridentine Rite hardly goes back to the "early days of Christianity in Rome."

John K

The "tridentine rite" is the 1962 Roman Missal. The current Roman Missal and the 1965, 1962 Missals all have differences but they are of the Latin Rite. And there is no "novus ordo" there is the current Roman Missal. I'm not arguing with anyone, just making some points I reserve saying sometimes. Although I am not Latin Catholic it does get me feeling sort of displeased with the negative term "novus ordo" which seems to have been spawned upon as a negative term by folk's on the internet.

John,

I've been to St. Clement's website many times, most recently two days ago. Judging from the pictures it does seem "Tridentine," but nowhere on the website (that I can find) do they give a text of the worship service they use, or even a name to it.

And Orthodox Pyrohy, in fact, didn't deny that the Traditional Latin Mass has a history that goes back to the early days of Christianity in Rome. You just said that it doesn't, but it seems historical data disagrees with you. Anyway, I don't disagree that rites develop over time, and it seems that the Roman Rite underwent quite a change sometime between the third/fourth and sixth centuries.

Orthodox Pyrohy,

I did know that the first Christian liturgies in Rome were conducted in Greek and then later switched to Latin. No argument here on that! I'm not so ignorant of basic liturgical history to not be aware of that, or to suppose you were coerced into saying that by "the Greeks." LOL.

Logos - Alexis

Dear all,

The term "Novus Ordo" was actually coined by the Holy See in promulgating the liturgy in question.

Rather than argue about the history and development of the Roman Liturgy, it would be much more profitable to read the extant documents (of which there are quite a few) - the Ordo Romanus Primus, the Gelasian Sacramentary, etc. The notion that anybody in third-century Rome was celebrating a Tridentine Low Mass is too absurd to require refutation.

The "Sarum rite" is actually the Sarum Use of the Roman Rite.

And so it goes.

Fr. Serge

The article is written by a former Anglican and now Catholic, so the prognostications of doom would hardly be surprising. To me represents the hubris along with what seems to be a hope expressed that the best will be swept up in trade for the worst who can leave. Overall I would say it is wishful thinking to believe there are boatloads of Anglicans out there waiting to become Catholic.

So the hubris part first. Anglicanism will most certainly survive because the basic element and most defining principle is the Prayer Book as the central focus of worship. That�s the essence of Anglicanism since there are so many expressions of how that is put in to practice. This quote


Which to me shows the shortsightedness of the blog article. The �Anglican Communion� really has nothing to do with the heart of Anglicanism. It appeared hundreds of years after the formation of the Church of England and is really a legacy of the British colonial empire. In some places the church is in grave danger, but of course in others it is doing quite well. The �Anglican Communion� may very well disappear, but Anglicanism will just live on in a different form or in multiple different ones.

The wishful thinking is there are boatloads of Anglicans waiting to become Catholic. My guess is in reality it�s a trickle. Lots of Anglicans these days are evangelicals, so there is certainly a profound theological divide there. In other cases there is an equally profound cultural divide that would keep Anglicans from becoming Catholic, particularly among the very high church Anglo-Catholics. Most commonly I think the interflow is among the broad church type � Catholic to Anglican and the other direction. It doesn�t surprise me that the Anglican Use is based on the 79 BCP for instance, and will probably continue that way until the Anglican Use no longer exists. The Episcopalians I know who are former Roman Catholics are not the dissenting, uber liberals we might assume. They are actually quite similar to the majority of lay Roman Catholics in this country in terms of their overall views, and they simply didn�t feel bound by their cultural associations to stay in the church they were born in. I don�t know of a single one who became an �Anglo Catholic� however. They all go broad church.