Everyone, at the beginning of the week, was expecting an announcement from two Anglican bishops that they had resigned their episcopal office and that they would soon be received into the Catholic Church in preparation for joining the Ordinariate soon to be established; and we all knew that there were other bishops in the pipeline. But not many expected five in one go: unsurprisingly, it caused something of a stir, though not exactly jaw-dropping astonishment.
By now, the choreography of this process has become fairly clear. What is less understood is its nature. Some cradle Catholics still just don’t get it. Why do they want their own little enclave: if they want to be Catholics, why don’t they just join? What is this stuff about an Anglican “patrimony”? Isn’t that just what they want to get away from?
The first thing to say about the usage of Anglican “patrimony” is that it wasn’t coined by an Anglican, but by Pope Paul, in the days before the aspiration of an eventual corporate reunion of Canterbury and Rome (always, with the benefit of hindsight, an impossible dream) had been rudely shattered by the Anglicans’ unilateral decision fundamentally to redefine their orders in a way impossible for Catholics ever to accept.
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This article was published in the Catholic Herald early in November and provides the background to the Roman Catholic concept of "Anglican patrimony."
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