Ordination of Gerard Hatton

Today, along with my three boys, I am off on a journey to Wonersh to attend Gerard Hatton's ordination to the diaconate. We are looking forward to seeing him ordained as he was a very good friend to our family as we made our way into the Catholic Church. I look forward to meeting a number of people I have only known through the Internet and facebook. God bless you Gerard and I know, please God, you will make a fine priest as well!

Ecclesial Problems with "Internal Agreements"

I have begun to think about a talk I will be giving near the time of the Holy Father's visit in September. This invitation has allowed me to reflect on my decision to become a Catholic a little over a year ago now. So much has changed about my thinking this past year that it is difficult to believe how I thought at one time. I guess that is the nature of conversion. Conversion is to change one's direction completely from what it was before.

I believe my time outside of communion with the Mother Church was not much more than seeking "internal agreements" with those I disagreed with about ecclesiology in order to feel as catholic as possible. Theologically, I understood that the Church was formed episcopally, but found myself functioning congregationally while out of unity with Peter. Simply assembling together in the name of Jesus, apart from any communion with the whole Church, could not be the act that institutionalises communio. Looking back now, I see that "functionally," I was living by the notion that the Church is established "from below" and hence any group could refer to themselves as "catholic" because the community established in this way holds the power ("keys") of the Church and hence the right of Eucharistic celebrations. I did not see this very clearly for a long time, but now living in communion this past year with the See of Peter has allowed me to come to terms with my thinking.

There are very serious ecclesial problems with the above way of thinking that some readers may also want to consider about the way we view the petrine ministry. Cardinal Ratzinger said in his book Called to Communion that

This approach [church from below view] inevitably destroys the public nature and all-embracing reconciliatory character of the Church, both of which are represented in the episcopal principle and result from the essence of the Eucharist. The Church becomes a group held together by her internal agreement, whereas her catholic dimension crumbles away. The Lord's word concerning the two or three who gather in his name must not be isolate; it is not a definitive and exhaustive statement of the whole of the Church's reality. The assembly, even the informal togetherness of prayer groups, has an important role in the Church. But as a constitutive principel of the Church, these things are not sufficient.

Something to think about for those outside of communion with Peter.

Valle Adurni on the Current Difficulty of Decisions for Anglicans

Valle Adurni

For those whose cocktail was almost 100% Catholic, the decision has more or less made itself. However, I worry about those whose Catholicism is, say, at 80%. They know (and I agree) that it would be unwise to join the Roman Catholic Church in any form without basically subscribing to the doctrinal package. They may hope that the Ordinariate would cushion the impact of this, but this is unlikely to be the case. The Ordinariate provides a variation on Latin Rite disciplinary matters, but not on doctrinal ones.

So what? They have been living for years side by side with those whose views differ! But now, the authorities are going to be very insistent that orthodox (100%) Catholic doctrine be preached. The fudge will have to be left behind.

So, they are caught between a Rock (Peter) and an increasingly hard place (The Anglican Communion). With the departure of many respected colleagues on the Easyjet flight to Rome, the religious world looks even bleaker than it did on the day that Synod voted for women bishops.

I have every sympathy for people in this position. All we can do, I think, is pray for the gift of faith for them, that they may come to believe the fullness of the Catholic faith that has meant so much to them all these years. And be kind.

Father Shaun Richards of St Silas Church Pentonville to Become Catholic

If Father Shaun reads this post, please know that you are in our prayers as you make this journey. God bless you for making this step of faith! Welcome Home!

Sunday 6^th June 2010 AD

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I have often spoken to you about the need to listen to what God is saying about life and how he wants you to follow him.

I have also been listening to the Lord and trying to work out what he wants from me. It's a difficult thing to listen and discern and naturally it takes time and prayer.

Over the past eighteen months God has been asking me to explore again my vocation as a priest. It has been a restless time because there has been so much going on, especially with our pioneering solar roof.

Saint Silas has been my home for nine years, and its true what people say - time really flies when you are having fun! I've had the best of times with you. This is also the longest time I have ever stayed in one place and it has been blessed and holy. We have built up our prayer life together, redeveloped our building and grown in many different ways.

I can hardly imagine not being here, but I have come to recognise after much prayer and some heartache, that God is asking me to change direction and to work in another part of his vineyard. So the time has come for me to prepare to leave Saint Silas Church and say goodbye.

There is never an ideal time to leave a church, and the thought of leaving you all is very painful for me, but Bishop John has agreed to let me go. My last Mass here will be on Sunday 25^th July. I hope we can all be together on that day.

My new post will not be as a priest right away. I will be catching up on an overdue holiday and hope to work as a layman in the Roman Catholic Church. Eventually I may continue my priestly ministry there, but that is some time away.

I have thoroughly loved being your parish priest and friend; you have taught me so much. I ask you now, to support our church wardens and church council and to set about the important task of praying for the swift appointment of a new parish priest.

You remain in my prayers. I hope that you will pray for me too.

Stay blessed, keep the faith!

Father Paul Schenck, Father of Eight, Ordained Catholic Priest

Deacon Keith Fournier tells a story of a man who is fearless in the protection of the unborn who was ordained a priest in the Catholic Church on Saturday. He is the father of eight children and a testimony of what it means to be pro life. Enjoy it all here.

"He and I discussed his desire for ordination over the years following on several occasions. I watched him go through what I have watched others go through who have walked the same road. His desire to be Catholic led him to give it all up - and offer to serve in any way that he could in the Church he loves. Over the years the mettle of this man always shone through. He is a man of heroic virtue, courage, and perseverance.

It was against this background that I traveled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania this past weekend; to rejoice with my long time friend at the goodness of the Lord in calling him. He was ordained a deacon six months ago. With a dispensation from Rome waiving the celibacy requirement, he was ordained to the Holy Priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church on the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Father Paul "Chaim" Schenck was ordained by his friend, the humble and holy Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine, Fla. His Diocese is without a Bishop since Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades has been called to the Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend in Indiana. In a rare turn of events, Fr. Paul was allowed to choose a Bishop to ordain him.

I sat next to my brother deacons and behind the numerous priests who were present. I wept through most of the exquisitely beautiful ordination. His dear family was there, along with a Church filled with people whose lives have been touched by his heroic service to the Lord. They came from his days as an Assemblies of God Pastor, an Episcopal minister and now a Catholic Priest. It was an extraordinary event. When the Mass was ended I asked Fr. Paul for his blessing. He placed his hand on my head and gave me a priestly blessing, in Hebrew.

I believe that Fr. Paul Chaim Schenck is a prophetic sign of the coming full communion of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I will share more about that in the future. I ask our global readers to pray for Fr. Paul Chaim Schenck, Priest of Jesus Christ. He is a gift for a new missionary age. May there be many more."

Prayer for Private Intention

We have a prayer request that has a lot riding on it at present. Can I ask for prayers from all readers and to pass on to anyone you know to pray for our particular intention? Thank you to all in advance.

The Catholic and Chastity: Real Sexual Education for the Young and Old Alike

Chastity or the control of the sex appetite is an integral part of the Christian religion, and from the earliest centuries has been strictly enjoined on the followers of Christ. In the sermon on the mount, He recalled the Mosaic law which He then intensified and explained in a way that no one could mistake His meaning. "You have heard," He told the people, "that it was said to the ancients, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that anyone who even looks with lust at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (8)

The Master proceeded to draw the conclusion from this premise. If unchastity is sinful and commissible even internally, every means should be taken to avoid the occasions of sin. "If your right eye leads you astray, tear it out and fling it away; it is better for you to lose one part of your body than for the whole of it to be thrown into hell." (9) While the injunction is directly addressed to men, its scope is universal and applies equally to men and women. Of course the energetic language in which Christ warns against the occasions of sin must not be taken literally. Nevertheless the cost of sacrificing a known sinful occasion may be as high as plucking out an eye or cutting off a limb. Yet it must be done if virtue is to be preserved.

Writing in the same spirit a generation later, St. Paul outlined what some have called the magna charta of chastity. His letter to the Corinthians, whose city was notorious for profligacy, is steeped in Oriental imagery and revolutionary in its demands on fallen human nature.

Make no mistake: no fornicator or idolater, none who are guilty either of adultery or of homosexual perversion, no thieves or grabbers or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers, will possess the kingdom of God. Such were some of you.

It is not true that the body is for lust; it is for the Lord – and the Lord for the body. God not only raised our Lord from the dead; He will also raise us by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are limbs and organs of Christ? Shall I then take from Christ His bodily parts and make them over to a harlot? Never! You surely know that anyone who binds himself with a harlot becomes physically one with her…but he who links himself with Christ is one with Him, spiritually.

Shun fornication. Every other sin that a man can commit is outside his body; but the fornicator sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a shrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the Spirit is God’s gift to you? You do not belong to yourselves; you were bought at a price. Then honor God in your body. (10)

For a believing Christian no more need be said. In his weakness he may sin and dishonor the body which houses the Holy Spirit, but he does not question the authority that stands behind the injunction to chastity, nor does he doubt that with God’s grace chastity can be practiced.

Every manner of sin is identified by St. Paul: fornication which is intercourse between unmarried persons, adultery or sexual relations in which one or both parties are married, self-abuse (the effeminate) or masturbation that indulges sex pleasure on one's own body, sodomy or homosexuality where two men or two women have carnal relations, and finally a sweeping condemnation of all kinds of immorality.

The gravity of these sins is implied in the consequence that follows on their commission. Those who sin against chastity will be excluded from the kingdom of heaven. Salvation therefore depends on the practice of chastity. In fact, even pagans are said to be guilty of unchastity because in the preceding context, St. Paul told the Corinthians they had to be washed of their sins (through baptism), which assumes they were culpable even before receiving the gift of faith. The natural law of reason tells people that unchastity is sinful, and they are correspondingly responsible, whether they are Christians or Moslems or of no religious affiliation.

Basically the sinfulness of unchastity derives from its violation of one's own body, which for a Christian includes the additional crime of dishonoring a member of Christ, defiling a body redeemed by the blood of the Savior and destined to rise with Him on the last day, and desecrating a shrine of the Holy Spirit.

The teachings of faith are strengthened by the insight of reason into the sinfulness of unchastity in all its forms. As a backdrop for the evidence of reason we know that the natural purpose of sexual activity is at once biological, psychological and social. It is biological because the built-in function of intercourse is to fertilize the female cell and thus conceive a human being. Not every act of coitus results in the conception of a child, but no conception is possible (except by a stupendous miracle) without carnal intercourse. It is psychological because conjugal relations among humans, otherwise than mating in animals, should be the culmination of love and the acme of deepest affection. It is finally social because children need the on-going care of father and mother, whose own mutual love is fostered by intercourse and whose love of their offspring must first be stabilized by their love for one another.

All sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage defeats one or more of these natural functions and is therefore morally wrong. Moreover since these functions are transcendently important, whatever actions contradict them are gravely wrong. They are by their very nature mortal sins.

Fornication defeats the social purpose of sexual activity. For although children can be physically conceived outside of marriage, unmarried partners cannot give their children the education and moral nurture they require. Without the stability of married life, and given the example of unwed cohabitation, children cannot be brought up to respect their parents or to practice the fundamental virtues of decent living. Premarital intercourse also contravenes the psychological purpose of sex experience. By implication coitus is a total self-surrender and a symbol of mutual and abiding love. But without the stay of marriage and the guarantee of permanence which only matrimony can assure, the self-surrender is really self-deception, since only the marriage contract says "until death do us part." Until that commitment has been made, either party is free to withdraw his or her affection and leave the other a victim of caprice.

A fortiori adultery defeats the social and psychological purposes of sex activity by adding to the sin of fornication the further crime of injustice against one's lawful spouse. In the Old Testament this breach of contract was considered basically a sin of inequity, where the rights of a husband or wife were invaded by a third party. And the commandment of the Decalogue which forbade a man to covet his neighbor's wife was correlated with the sin of avarice since it assumed that, like avarice, to desire any man’s spouse is theft by intention. Like robbery, adultery takes what belongs to someone else by the strongest ties of personal affection.

Solitary use of the reproductive faculty is sinful because it defeats all the purposes of the sexual powers. Biologically a child cannot be conceived, socially and psychologically the function of marriage is inverted when the sex organs are stimulated by thoughts or external manipulation in order to excite venereal pleasure.

It is incredible to read how widely accepted is masturbation as a normal outlet for sexual tension, and how many sociologists, psychiatrists, counselors and medical practitioners permit or even advocate the practice. The clash between Christian and pagan standards of morality could not be clearer than here, where two contradictory philosophies of life teach the very opposite about solitary self-abuse. Kinsey and the staff on the Institute for Sex Research devote thousands of words to defending solitary sexual activity. "When no guilt, anxieties, or fears are involved, the physical satisfactions which may be found in any type of sexual activity, whether socio-sexual or solitary, should leave an individual well adjusted psychologically." (11) It would be hard to find anywhere in modern literature a more damaging indictment of Western civilization than the foregoing statement, italicized for emphasis. Not only masturbation but any type of sexual activity which gives physical satisfaction is commendable and should be psychologically beneficial, once a person rids himself of what the new prophets of sexualism call the tyranny of conscience.

Too seldom has a connection been made between this license to enjoy any kind of sexual activity, especially solitary sins, and the widespread practice and promotion of birth control. Yet nothing appears more certain than the transfer from one to the other. Persons who have indulged their passions in self-abuse during the years before marriage will continue to indulge after marriage, and with perfect consistency. Why should contraception be avoided in marriage if solitary sex pleasure has been practiced (and rationalized) before a couple marry? The same reasons hold good in both cases: gratification without fear of begetting a child, satisfaction without self-sacrifice, and self-indulgence with no concern for the welfare of others. Masturbation and contraception are related as cause and effect. People (and especially men, accustomed to gratify their passions alone with no scruple about committing sin will continue to gratify those same passions, alone, although in the company of the person they marry. The basic gratification has not changed, but only its technique. The only check on a continuum from one indulgence to the other is the certainty that sex is morally good only if altruistic – directed to please the partner in marriage and benefit whatever children may be born of their selfless love.

Fr Hardon SJ

Using the Shepherd's Rod and Staff: Pope Benedict XVI

"Your rod and your staff – they comfort me": the shepherd needs the rod as protection against savage beasts ready to pounce on the flock; against robbers looking for prey. Along with the rod there is the staff which gives support and helps to make difficult crossings. Both of these are likewise part of the Church’s ministry, of the priest’s ministry. The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray. The use of the rod can actually be a service of love. Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated. Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented. As if it were no longer God’s gift, the precious pearl which we cannot let be taken from us. Even so, the rod must always become once again the shepherd’s staff – a staff which helps men and women to tread difficult paths and to follow the Lord.

How true is the above paragraph? It compliments the wonderful video below from Fr Barron. How often is tolerance of heresy passed off as love? How wonderful of the Holy Father to speak of the faith as a precious pearl that we must guard and keep! This was pointed out at the beginning of the Holy Father's homily that reminded us that the priesthood is not simply an office but more importantly a Sacrament. This is something that often gets little attention or has little understanding. A Sacrament is a gift from God that is not tampered with by men but a pearl to be guarded as a substantive marker of the faith. About priesthood being rooted in the Sacred Heart of Jesus the Holy Father said,

We are celebrating the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in the liturgy we peer, as it were, into the heart of Jesus opened in death by the spear of the Roman soldier. Jesus’ heart was indeed opened for us and before us – and thus God’s own heart was opened. The liturgy interprets for us the language of Jesus’ heart, which tells us above all that God is the shepherd of mankind, and so it reveals to us Jesus’ priesthood, which is rooted deep within his heart; so too it shows us the perennial foundation and the effective criterion of all priestly ministry, which must always be anchored in the heart of Jesus and lived out from that starting-point.

God has not and will not ever abandon his people and particularly his priests. May they be a wellspring of life which gives life to others!

Zenit

Archbishop Nichols: Rediscovering the Gift of Faith

Close of the Year for Priests - An interview with Archbishop Vincent Nichols from Catholic Westminster on Vimeo.

Go Forth and Transform the World with a Rich and Smart Catholic Faith

Understanding Communio in the Tradition

The Church does not have the right to exchange the faith for something else and at the same time to expect the faithful to stay with her. Councils can therefore neither discover ecclesiologies or other doctrines nor can they repudiate them. In the words of Vatican II, the Church is “not higher than the Word of God but serves it and therefore teaches only what is handed on to it.” (5) Our understanding of the depth and breadth of the tradition develops because the Holy Spirit broadens and deepens the memory of the Church in order to guide her “into all the truth” (Jn 16:13). According to the Council, growth in the perception (Wahrnehmung, perceptio) of what is inherent to the tradition occurs in three ways: through the meditation and study of the faithful, through an interior understanding which stems from the spiritual life, and through the proclamation of those “who have received the sure charism of truth by succeeding to the office of the bishop.” (6) The following words basically paraphrase the spiritual position of a council as well as its possibilities and tasks: the council is committed from within to the Word of God and to the tradition. It can only teach what is handed on. As a rule, it must find new language to hand on the tradition in each new context so that—to put it a different way—the tradition remains genuinely the same. If the Second Vatican Council brought the notion of communio to the forefront of our attention, it did not do so in order to create a new ecclesiology or even a new Church. Rather, careful study and the spiritual discernment which comes from the experience of the faithful made it possible at this moment to express more completely and more comprehensively what the tradition states.

Even after this excursus we might still ask what communio means in the tradition and in the continuation of the tradition which occurs in the Second Vatican Council. First of all, communio is not a sociological but a theological notion, one which even extends to the realm of ontology. O. Saier worked this out accurately in his thorough-going study of 1973, which details the position of the Second Vatican Council on communio. The first chapter, which investigates “the way of speaking of Vatican II,” claims that the communio between God and man comes first and the communio of the faithful among one another follows from this. Even the second chapter, which describes the place of communio in theology, repeats this sequence. In the third chapter, Word and sacrament finally appear as the genuine constructive elements of the Communio ecclesiae. With his majestic knowledge of the philosophical and theological sources, Hans Urs von Balthasar described the foundations of what the last Council developed on this point. I do not want to repeat what he said, but I will briefly refer to some of the major elements because they were and still are the basis for what we wanted to accomplish in our journal. In the first place, we must remember that “communion” between men and women is only possible when embraced by a third element. In other words, common human nature creates the very possibility that we can communicate with one another. We are not only nature but also persons, and in such a way that each person represents a unique way of being human different from everyone else. Therefore, nature alone is not sufficient to communicate the inner sensibility of persons. If we want to draw another distinction between individuality and personality, then we could say that individuality divides and being a person opens. Being a person is by nature being related. But why does it open? Because both in its very depths and in its highest aspirations being a person goes beyond its own boundaries towards a greater, universal “something” and even toward a greater, universal “someone.” The all-embracing third, to which we return so often can only bind when it is greater and higher than individuals. On the other hand, the third is itself within each individual because it touches each one from within. Augustine once described this as “higher than my heights, more interior than I am to myself.” This third, which in truth is the first, we call God. We touch ourselves in him. Through him and only through him, a communio which grasps our own depths comes into being.

Cardinal Ratzinger, 1992

The Gift of Books; What a Blessing!

Today I went to Andy's home, one of our fine MCs at St. Cuthbert's Durham, and he gave me a gracious gift: three boxes of books of theology, philosophy, liturgy, spirituality, history, ecclesiology and biblical texts. A huge thank you to Andy for his generosity in helping to add to my library! There is nothing like the gift of books. I must say, his library of some 8,000 volumes would impress any theologian, particularly a Catholic one...I coveted his library and study greatly! Now, the shelf space is very limited here at home and the library continues to grow. More shelves please!

P.S. If anyone else is wanting to clear out their library of Catholic theological/liturgical books, do let me know and I will happily help to lighten the book load if needed!

MARIALIS CULTUS: A Sacrificial Offering as our "Yes" to God

A mystery of salvation, therefore, that in its various aspects orients the episode of the Presentation in the Temple to the salvific event of the cross. But the Church herself, in particular from the Middle Ages onwards, has detected In the heart of the Virgin taking her Son to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord (cf. Lk. 2:22) a desire to make an offering, a desire that exceeds the ordinary meaning of the rite. A witness to this intuition is found in the loving prayer of Saint Bernard "Offer your Son, holy Virgin, and present to the Lord the blessed fruit of your womb. Offer for the reconciliation of us all the holy Victim which is pleasing to God."(56)

This union of the Mother and the Son in the work of redemption(57) reaches its climax on Calvary, where Christ "offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to God" (Heb. 9:14) and where Mary stood by the cross (cf. Jn 19:25), "suffering grievously with her only-begotten Son. There she united herself with a maternal heart to His sacrifice, and lovingly consented to the immolation of this victim which she herself had brought forth"(58) and also was offering to the eternal Father."(59) To perpetuate down the centuries the Sacrifice of the Cross, the divine Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice, the memorial of His death and resurrection, and entrusted it to His spouse the Church,(60) which, especially on Sundays, calls the faithful together to celebrate the Passover of the Lord until He comes again.(61) This the Church does in union with the saints in heaven and in particular with the Blessed Virgin,(62) whose burning charity and unshakable faith she imitates.

21. Mary is not only an example for the whole Church in the exercise of divine worship but is also, clearly, a teacher of the spiritual life for individual Christians. The faithful at a very early date began to look to Mary and to imitate her in making their lives an act of worship of God and making their worship a commitment of their lives. As early as the fourth century, St. Ambrose, speaking to the people, expressed the hope that each of them would have the spirit of Mary in order to glory God May the heart of Mary be in each Christian to proclaim the greatness of the Lord; may her spirit be in everyone to exult in God."(63) But Mary is above all the example of that worship that consists in making one's life an offering to God. This is an ancient and ever new doctrine that each individual can hear again by heeding the Church's teaching, but also by heeding the very voice of the Virgin as she, anticipating in herself the wonderful petition of the Lord's Prayer-"Your will be done" (Mt. 6:10)-replied to God's messenger: "I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let what you have said be done to me" (Lk. 1:38). And Mary's "yes" is for all Christians a lesson and example of obedience to the will of the Father, which is the, way and means of one's own sanctification.

Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Paul VI

Number 53 Out of 200 Most Popular Catholic Blogs

I have discovered this evening that de cura animarum is number 53 out of 200 of the Most Popular Catholic Blogs on the net. I figure with a blog with the material that I usually post about, this result is not too bad. The news blogs that report the really popular material are the ones most frequently visited. They are the ones that obviously create a platform for much discussion.

I do hope this blog offers some food for thought and theological reflection. Anyway, it was interesting to see the results based upon a programme that was built to calculate google reader searches etc.

Two Intentions Requested from Readers

Can I humbly ask that readers offer up prayers for two specific intentions that we have as we prepare our move to London in a few weeks time? Thank you in advance to all who offer prayers on our behalf.

Preparing for the Papal Visit Video

Ecumenism and the Heart of the Struggle.

There is a way of looking at ecumenism that has had far-reaching consequences for the Church. I believe one of the main weaknesses of Lancelot Andrewes, for instance, was his implicit denial of the existence of a universal Church in the second millennium, as if tradition was frozen at the end of the first. What we face by looking at ecumenism in this light is to deny what is at the very heart of Church and tradition and that is the question that everyone seems to struggle with, authority. What the result has been in the ecumenical movement in many circumstances has left the Church without a voice of authority save the voice of the present day. This is where I believe the Holy Father has touched the infection of the ecumenical wound today and why it continues to become more polarized. What we end up with is a warm and fuzzy comparing of customs rather than a deep search for truth. The question is as follows: 'Is Unity the fundamental principle of hermeneutics approaching all theology?' The Holy Father answers this important question with regards to Anglican-Catholic dialogue with the following:

Ecumenical dialogue does not mean to opt out of living, Christian reality, but rather it means advancing by means of the hermeneutics of unity. To opt out and cut oneself off means artificial withdrawal into a past beyond recall; it means reducing tradition to the past. But that is to transfer ecumenism into an artificial world while one goes on practicing particularization by fencing off one's own thing. Since this preserve is regarded as immune from dialogue but is still clung to, it is lowered from the realm of truth into the sphere of mere custom. Finally, the question arises of whether it is a matter of truth at all or just a question of comparing different customs and finding a way of reconciling them. In any case, the axiom that introducing dogmatic definitions made since the separation should be regarded as "not in keeping with dialogue" would mean a flight into the artificial, which should be firmly resisted.

This is very important with regards to the recent offer by the Holy Father to Anglicans who wish to become Catholics and united to the truth and authority of the Catholic Church while maintaining some of its traditions and customs that--and here is the important part--do not strike against the dogmatic truths of the Catholic faith and 2,000 year tradition.

Having come to the end of my thinking on my thesis topic of seeing Andrewes as an ecumenical conversation partner with the Catholic Church, a thesis which I still embrace in many ways, there remains the underlying problem of tradition and authority that a hermeneutic of unity cannot sufficiently answer. This question remains emphatic today for those Anglicans wishing to pursue the Anglican Ordinariate. At the heart of this question is the Eucharistic Faith of the Catholic Church with its emphasis on transubstantiation, sacrifice, adoration of the consecrated host, the sacramental nature of priesthood (not to mention the question of the number of sacraments) and the communio content and questions surrounding the Petrine ecclesiology. These things are not simply a matter of a Latin Rite custom.

A hermeneutic of unity is possible and desirable but it is a hermeneutic that cannot be divorced from truth and authority to paraphrase from our Lord. It seems to me that the key to unlocking the door begins with authority and the sacramental basis for unity. How things have changed since the visit of Pope JPII in 1982 and where things are today!! The present state of Anglican identity does not honestly offer much hope to what was prayerfully being considered then. This is where the very well-liked quotation used at my final FiF meeting was uttered and maintains a permanent place on my blog in the left column. It was written by William Ledwich in his Insight article in December 1983 entitled "With Authority, Not as the Scribes". It reads,

Jesus did not found a Catholic party in a cosmopolitan debating society but a Catholic Church to which he promised the fullness of truth; a body which reduces its Catholics to a party within a religious parliament can hardly deserve to be called a branch of the Catholic Church, but a national religion, dominated by and structured on the principles of liberal tolerance in which the authority of revelation is subordinate to democracy and private opinion.

Nothing has changed for Anglicans since Newman's day or Andrewes for that matter: the place of authority and dogma as opposed to private opinion. That quotation above is at the heart of this convert's decision and why I believe Andrewes helped to make ecumenical dialogue possible in today's ecclesial world. The state of things in the Anglican communion are not presently offering a lot of hope to the fundamental problems surrounding the question of the Church's authority. It is my understanding that the water under the bridge since Andrewes helped to pave the way for the Apostolic Constitution but the question of Truth remains to be at the heart of the struggle.


______________________________________
**I've added the Twitter link if any readers care to follow me.

Looking to Study Biblical Theology from a Catholic Perspective?

Take a look at the St Paul Centre for Biblical Theology. There are numerous resources for the Catholic who wishes to grow deeper into their faith in Christ and love for the Catholic Church. I do recommend readers to visit and pursue their faith at a deeper level so that we can begin to see the needed evangelisation and Gospel imperative capture the hearts and minds of us all.

Faith Magazine: May-June 2010

Take a careful read of the new issue of Faith Magazine. It proves to have many important comments and theological content on current issues worthy of our open and honest discussion. Perhaps one or two articles here.