Has it occurred to anyone else that there are more articles about the Anglican-Catholic Ordinariate than there are people taking advantage of it?

What I find among so many who have commented in the negative on the papal invitation, is that too often they want to continue the ARCIC-type dialogue because there is one thing or another that each is pooh-poohing the offer because they’re unwilling to consider that some personal sacrifice is required. Quite often such comments come from clergy who have divorced and remarried, or bishops who ordain women and remarried clergy, and of course bishops who are married themselves (i.e. most Anglican bishops), knowing that Rome will not consider them for ordained ministry, ordained episcopal ministry in the latter case. Bishop Harvey’s comments at the ANiC synod this week I found to be most unhelpful as lay people try to sort out all of this.

It must be pointed out that what these commentators are reacting against is not the Roman position only, but that which has been held by the majority of Christendom for most of the life of the Church.

At the time of the English Reformation, the Church of England never declared herself out of communion with the Bishop of Rome

FWIW didn’t the Acts of Supremacy do exactly this?

driver8,
I agree with you, the appalling historical ignorance by many of those who presume to be the preservers of truth is astounding. They know precious little about the English Reformation and squat about Rome.

Unity between Canterbury and Rome and/or Constantinople was possible in the 60s—and there seems to have been movement toward that.

It ended in the 70s with the ordination of women to the priesthood.

It is unlikely to happen now.

A good many TEC priests and bishops and some parishes have already left for Rome. Others will most likely follow suite; but not a flood. For now ACNA is a more viable alternative for catholic minded Episcopalians, although it now becomes easier for those Episcopalians who live in Roman dioceses where the bishop was opposed to Anglican use parishes and priests.

It may be more problematic for the Church of England.

#4 & #5, I’m not a professional historian, so I stand ready to be corrected by one, but my understanding of the Act of Supremacy was that it simply constrained papal authority in England (“the Bishop of Rome hath no more authority in this realm than any other foreign prelate” ... or something to that effect), not that it broke communion. In any case, papal authority (and, hence, communion if it was ever broken) was restored under Mary and Archbishop Pole in 1553. So the relevant question becomes, When was it then broken again? I believe the technical answer is when the Pope excommunicated the queen and put England under interdict in 1570 (note: 12 years after QEI’s accession). In fact, I read about a week ago the fascinating tidbit that Elizabeth was invited to send English bishops to the Council of Trent, which would indicate that, according to Rome, England was still in communion. Sadly (IMO), she declined.

#7, you’re right about the interdict and Bess’s excommunication, however, the doors were left wide open for all the faithful to revolt against the Act of Supremacy and embrace papal authority. I’m not sure when C of E members were explicitly excommunicated before Leo XIII’s Apostolicae Curae declared Anglican orders to be absolutely invalid, based largely on the changed wording of the prayer of consecration of priests and bishops in the extremist Protestant 1552 BCP which left out the clause “for the office and work of a bishop/priest.” Bottom line: We’re out of communion, and Rome can’t go back on Apostolicae Curae, so all incoming clergy will have to be conditionally reordained. But from what I’ve read of Benedict XVI’s writings, I don’t think he would necessarily see conditional reordination as doing what had never actually been done by an Anglican bishop, but rather affirming it and removing all doubt as to the validity of the incoming clergymen’s orders in light of Ap. Curae.

1. The Church of England never declared itself out of communion with the Bishop of Rome.
2. John Fisher (1469-1535) was bishop of Rochester and in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

QUESTION: Then, why, after June 22, 1535, was John Fisher’s head no longer in communion with the rest of his body ?

As the late Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher wrote, “The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ’s Church from the beginning.”
If indeed this was ever true, I challenge you to find anyone in TEC who would subscribe to this way of thinking now. Certainly not KJS.

Is unity possible between Catholics and Anglicans?

No.
Unity would require apostasy on the part of Rome or submission on the part of the Anglican Communion.  That people in Rome and Canterbury are too polite to admit this publicly and cease wasting a lot of time (and money) on these pointless discussions is unfortunate.

It’s not impossible.  Some churches are willing to take a stand and say “enough, we do not have enough in common to justify further dialogue.”  It just takes a little bit of integrity (word choice deliberate) and backbone.

In ICXC
John

“The primacy of Scripture and the Catholic Faith and Order of the early Church serve as the very foundation of the English Reformation and historic Anglicanism. Persons, churches, etc, availing themselves of the Pope’s provision, while maintaining some aspects of Anglican spirituality and liturgy must sacrifice this foundation and become Roman Catholic in Faith.”

Here is the lie of this argument. If His premise were ever true (that Anglicanism was founded on the primacy of Scripture) then it ceased to be true many decades ago. In fact, the idea that Scripture might be primary is now repugnant to Anglicanism.

The problem with the Pope’s offer isn’t the Bible - it is authority. Anglicans are singularly devoted to the core principle of “everyone doing what is right in one’s own eyes.”

This is the real reason why relatively few Anglicans - even “Anglo-Catholics” - will accept the pope’s offer. Anglo-Catholics exist because they feel they have the right to do what is right in their own eyes (The American Missal). Evangelical Anglicans exist by application of the same principle (drop the liturgy and hire a band), etc. Revisionists also (ordain women because I say so).

The problem is authority!

Amen, Razorback Padre! 
  For so many who have crossed (or are considering crossing) the Tiber, the issue is authority.  Once one comes to the conclusion that the Roman Church is what She claims, one must obey.  If anyone thinks there is a chance the fullness of the Faith resides in Her, that person should not rest easy until a firm conclusion has been reached. 
  My conversion to Rome came in almost the same way my conversion to Christ did: denial > courtesy born of an indulgent tolerance > absorption of daily revelation resulting in an awakened curiosity > serious consideration > the conviction of the Holy Spirit, working through my need, and that amazing working of God’s grace enabling a stubborn human soul to yield—that special grace that I have felt only rarely, that feels like an insupportable weight, at once uncomfortable, yet of unbelievable comfort.

#12 I think it is disingenuous to say “Anglicans are singularly devoted to the core principle of ‘everyone doing what is right in one’s own eyes.’” This simply is not true. Many, many, many anglicans are devoted to the principle of following God and interpreting scripture through the lens of Holy Tradition and reason. Like Orthodox Christianity, anglicans take the seven councils to be the true councils of the whole church and binding on our faith. Anglicans simply don’t agree with the headship of the bishop of Rome over the entire church, or the dogmatic view of the later councils that were only held within the RCC. At least, that is my understanding of things, by all means correct me if I’m wrong.

#13 I don’t understand how to reconcile this statement with the fact that Rome is in full communion with the Orthodox churches but the Orthodox churches do not recognize the authority of the bishop of Rome. So it seems to me that Rome claims that it has all the authority of Christendom unless you happen to be part of the Orthodox churches in which case you have a free pass from Rome to disregard Rome’s later teachings, and Rome is okay with that. Perhaps I’m mischaracterizing, but it seems strange to me. It also seems strange that this can’t naturally be extended to other churches with apostolic succession.

#14
You are mistaken if you mean that Rome considers the Greek or Russian Orthodox Churches to be in full communion with her. 

From Dominus Iesus:
17.  Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.58 The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches.59 Therefore, the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these Churches, even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God, the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the entire Church.60

There are many smaller eastern churches in communion with Rome:

From here:  http://en.allexperts.com/e/f/fu/full_communion.htm
The Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome are the following: the Latin Rite, the Coptic Catholic Church, the Ethiopic Catholic Church, the Maronite Church, the Syrian Catholic Church, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church, the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church, the Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church, the Byzantine Church of the Eparchy of Križevci, the Greek Byzantine Catholic Church, the Hungarian Byzantine Catholic Church, the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church, the Macedonian Greek Catholic Church, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic, the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church, the Ruthenian Catholic Church, the Slovak Greek Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Which means, I guess that the bishops of these particular churches do acknowledge the Primacy of the bishop of Rome.

CofS is correct in his #15.  The Orthodox Church is not in communion with Rome and does not recognize the various doctrinal innovations of the Latin Church.  The Eastern Rite Catholics are indeed in communion with Rome and are Roman Catholic in all but their liturgical forms (which in most cases have been heavily latinized).  With the exception of the Ukrainian Greek Rite Catholics; the sui juirs churches under the Pope are generally very small in numbers. 

The history of the various Eastern Rite Churches is a fascinating subject.  Many (though not all) were created by the various wars and changes in governance over territory on the border between traditionally Orthodox and Catholic lands.  When land was ceded to a monarch of a different faith the people were generally expected to switch to the church of their new sovereign.  Over the centuries the Orthodox praxis of most of the uniate churches was eroded and eventually subsumed by the dominant Latin Rite.

In ICXC
John

#15 and #16, thanks for the in depth explanations.

To #14
First: It would be disingenuous if I were suggesting that every single Anglican were devoted to any one idea. We both know there is no one unifying Anglican thought held by each and every Anglican! (Not even that “Jesus is Lord!”). However, I did not intend so to assert. I intended to assert that Anglicans collectively - as in Anglicanism as a body - are devoted to the idea of everyone doing what is right in ones own eyes. It is the standard mode of operation in this communion and the principal by which so many incompatible philosophies have come to dwell within one denomination. I am not disingenuous, I am making a serious assertion which I believe still stands.

Second: The Orthodox Churches are not in communion with Rome nor the other way around. So, your second assertion is equally incorrect.

#16 - John,

I must admit my knowledge of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches is very limited, but I understand that those who had to Latinize their liturgy have pretty much returned to the older Eastern forms, one of the few good things to have come out of II Vatican.
Occasionally I attend a Byzantine Catholic Church in Williamsburg VA (when I am visiting my folks - Ascension of Our Lord). My Dad likes to go there because his side of the family is Macedonian and Orthodox, and he converted to the RCC to marry my Italian mom. He says it reminds him of Orthodox Mass when he was young, except that the liturgy is now in English (though sometimes some responses are in a Slavic language, perhaps Ukrainian, I am not sure). He recently took my aunt and uncle there who are Serbian Orthodox, and they were quite surprised at how close the liturgy was to what they are accustomed to. The only thing that disconcerted uncle was the big picture of Pope Benedict in the entrance to the church.
Despite being in English, I find their liturgy very beautiful and is to me what the OF coming out of II V should have been, as far as preserving fidelity to the old forms after switching to the local tongue, instead of the anything-goes mess prevalent at the majority of OF Catholic parishes in the US (and Europe).

#16 John, within the past 20 years or so, the Eastern Churches in union with Rome have been working steadily to get back to their Eastern historical and liturgical patrimony. They are bound by a different code of canon law than the Western churches, have different disciplines than the Latin church, and are doing their best to rid themselves of “Latin accretions.” Most major decisions are made in those churches, both individually and collectively, with consideration of how will the Orthodox react - which is a cause of great concern for them. While I think your characterization of them would have been accurate a number of years ago, given the sincere efforts to return to their roots, I don’t think that it would be so true now. In fact, it is my understanding that the Melkites in the Holy Lands actually have been known to concelebrate with their Syrian Orthodox counterparts on occasion (much to the chagrin of both the RCs and other Orthodox) and that their divine liturgies are, for all practical purposes, identical.