Please follow this link to the keynote address given by Bishop Michael Gill, Diocesan Bishop of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa Traditional Rite, given at the World Consultation on Continuing Anglican Churches in Brockton, Massachusetts on Thursday 3rd November 2011.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Bishop Michael Gill - Keynote Address
Please follow this link to the keynote address given by Bishop Michael Gill, Diocesan Bishop of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa Traditional Rite, given at the World Consultation on Continuing Anglican Churches in Brockton, Massachusetts on Thursday 3rd November 2011.
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Reflection: The 2024 APA Clergy Retreat on G3 Unity
Reflection: The 2024 APA Clergy Retreat on G3 Unity
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Following on the intriguing discussion at The Continuum , below is the carefully-researched essay by Father John Jay Hughes found in his 197... -
First this ... His Beatitude Jonah, the Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada of the Orthodox Church in America (...
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Being a Tractarian, ressourcement, patristically-minded, first millennial, conciliarist, philorthodox kind of Anglo-Catholic, I have always ...
3 comments:
Fascinating and moving. But there is point which requires a rebuttal.
Anglicanorum Coetibus is not an effort of proselytism designed to entice men to leave one Church for another. Rather, Benedict XVI created a juridic structure for Anglicans to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church (against, by the way, the rather strenuous objections of the Catholic Bishops of England and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity) only because groups of Anglicans, including Anglican bishops, had repeatedly asked for such a structure. There is no recruiter looking for men to join up (as in the case of the errant Canon Missioner); rather, the structure exits for the sake of those who ask to use it.
As far as we knew, and had repeatedly been reassured, it would be intercommunion. No special requirements needed from any member of the TAC. We would all be accepted at face value. As Anglican Catholic Christians. However, when the A C document with complementary norms were interpreted, a whole different scenario opened up, bewilderment and confusion set in. Unnecessary and sad.
Dear Anonymous,
Nothing written by Pope Benedict ever gave anyone that impression that any and all persons could be received into full communion with the Catholic Church without the same requirements for sacramental life that oblige all Catholic Christians in full communion with the Bishop and Church of Rome. Perhaps there were souls who saw what they wanted, but the documents themselves were clear -- as is the sacramental discipline of the Catholic Church.
The chief difficulty for many Anglicans who want to become Catholics is remarriage after divorce. No person in this condition (or who is married to someone in this condition) can be received into the Catholic Church until and unless all previous marriages have been examined by a tribunal of the Catholic Church and those previous marriages have been found not to have been sacraments but civil marriages only.
Those norms have existed for hundreds of years, and no one has ever been exempted from them. Ask Henry VIII.
As for the candidates for ordination, they must each be examined at several levels before they can be ordained, and that process is ongoing for dozens of Anglican clergy all over the world.
In sum, those who want to live in full communion with the Catholic Church will do what must be done to be received, but no one can claim that there was any "bait and switch" in Anglicanorum Coetibus. Everything about our doctrine and discipline is open, in print, and available in every language on the planet.
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