tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post113455434270033755..comments2024-03-24T15:19:06.377-04:00Comments on The Continuum: Merger ... or Acquisition?Fr. Robert Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-1134934421640197262005-12-18T14:33:00.000-05:002005-12-18T14:33:00.000-05:00"To have any assurance of being able to continue a..."To have any assurance of being able to continue as Anglicans in any sense of that word, I think Anglicans interested in this sort of thing would have to be offered an "Anglican Rite" like the Eastern Rite Catholics -- complete with their own bishops, priests, seminaries, clerical discipline, and liturgy." <BR/><BR/>An Anglican Rite Church in communion with Rome (an "ecclesia sui juris" in Canon Law terms) is unlikely to be on offer unless there is a movement to Rome comprising both significant numbers of congregations and people, and a coherent presentation indicating just exactly what elements of the "Anglican Patrimony" they desire to preserve (and I strongly doubt that Rome would accept married bishops in any case). But, that aside, there are two alternatives between the current unique "Anglican Use" and an "ecclesia sui juris." These are a "personal prelature" (such as those for Opus Dei, on the one hand, and the Fraternity of St. Peter, on the other) and an "apostolic administration" (such as that of the Tridentine-Rite AA of Campos in Brazil). A personal prelature has the advantage of having no geographical circumscription, but the disadvantage that it requires the permission of the Ordinary bishop to function in any diocese, and the Ordinary can impose limitations on the way that it functions, while an apostolic administration, while it does not in any sense come under any other Ordinary bishop, exists within a geographically circumscribed limit.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-1134933796523588902005-12-18T14:23:00.000-05:002005-12-18T14:23:00.000-05:00"The other catch, and this is a big one -- they ca..."The other catch, and this is a big one -- they can be forceably converted to the regular Novus Ordo Roman Catholic mass at any time. Apparently, in many cases, this has already happened."<BR/><BR/>There are, to the best of my knowledge, three such cases. The Las Vegas, NV Anglican Use Roman Catholic parish either collapsed or was suppressed after the priest encountered "personal difficulties" such that he could no longer exercise a priestly ministry -- or so I was told some four years ago; and I was not informed of the meaning of the euphemism "personal difficulties." The small and struggling Fort Worth congregation effectively collapsed after its priest accepted an offered appointment (whether as parish priest or asisstant I know not) to a Roman Catholic parish. Finally, the Columbia, SC, has spurned (or at least refused) any involvement with the other Anglican Use parishes and has effectively abandoned all of its distinctively Anglican characteristics in favor of the straight Novus Ordo Roman Rite ever since it was erected as an Anglican Use parish years ago -- this despite the fact that its (married) parish priest was originally Curate of the Anglo-Catholic ECUSA Church of the Good Shepherd in that city and led the majority of the active congregation of that church, first out of ECUSA into Continuing Anglicanism, and than to Rome.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com