Anglican Use

The Canterbury Cross - Symbol of many Anglican Use Catholics.

The Anglican Use is the form of liturgy found in the Book of Divine Worship authorized under the 1980 Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul II for personal parishes in the United States founded by former members of the Episcopal Church in the United States who joined the Catholic Church while wishing to maintain some features of Anglican tradition.

These parishes were established in accordance with the Pastoral Provision granted by Pope John Paul II on 20 June 1980, which permitted the ordination as Catholic priests of married former clergy of the Episcopal Church for service either in such personal parishes or elsewhere in Catholic dioceses of the United States. They are referred to interchangeably as either "Anglican Use" or "Pastoral Provision" parishes.

The Anglican Use liturgy of these parishes differs from the liturgy adopted in 2013 by the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans later established in several countries, and which is properly called Ordinariate Use or Divine Worship.

History

Origins

The remote origins of the demand for such an arrangement has been ascribed to the Oxford Movement in nineteenth-century England. More immediately the demand arose because of developments in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in the 1970s, which began to ordain women as priests and bishops, rejected traditional teaching on human sexuality, blessed homosexual unions and ordained those who were openly living in such unions.

In 1977, some of those who desired union with the Catholic Church contacted individual Catholic bishops, the Apostolic Delegate Archbishop Jean Jadot and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, to inquire about the possibility for married Anglican priests to be received into the Catholic Church and function as Catholic priests.

After the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had reacted favorably to the proposals that had been put before them, a formal request for union was presented in Rome on 3 November 1979 for acceptance into the Roman Catholic Church, for steps to be taken to eliminate any defects that might be found in their priestly orders, and that they be granted the oversight, direction, and governance of a Catholic bishop. They offered the allegiance of their whole hearts and minds and souls, and also "with that allegiance the Anglican patrimony that has been ours in so far as it is compatible with, acceptable to and an enhancement of Catholic teaching and worship".

Pastoral Provision

Main article: Pastoral Provision

The decision of the Holy See was officially communicated in a letter of 22 July 1980 from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to the president of the United States episcopal conference, who published it on 20 August 1980.

Though admittance of the Episcopalians in question to the Catholic Church was considered as reconciliation of individuals, the pastoral provision gave them a common group identity. After a period of being subject to the local Latin Church bishop, the bishop could set up personal parishes for them, with the use, within the group, of a form of liturgy that retained certain elements of the Anglican liturgy; and married Episcopalian priests could on a case-by-case basis be ordained as Catholic priests, but not as bishops.

An ecclesiastical delegate, a Catholic and preferably a bishop, was to be appointed to oversee the implementation of the decision and to deal with the Congregation.

Implementation

In March 1981, Bishop Bernard Francis Law was appointed Ecclesiastical Delegate. He was replaced by Newark Archbishop John J. Myers in 2003 and Kevin W. Vann in 2011. William H. Stetson, a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei, is Secretary to the Ecclesiastical Delegate.

In 1983, the first Anglican Use parish, Our Lady of the Atonement, was established in San Antonio, Texas. Our Lady of Walsingham parish in Houston, Texas followed the next year. Concern about ecumenical relations with the Episcopal Church prevented the Archbishop of Los Angeles from authorizing the establishment in his archdiocese of personal parishes of the kind envisaged, in spite of requests from two groups, whose membership exceeded that of any of the groups for which personal parishes were set up in other dioceses. The petitioners were told that they could only be received as members of the existing ordinary Catholic parishes. Since 1983 over 100 former Anglicans have been ordained for priestly ministry in various Catholic dioceses of the United States.

Personal ordinariates

Main article: Personal ordinariates

On 9 December 2009, Pope Benedict XVI issued the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, authorizing the establishment of personal ordinariates for former Anglicans. The first to be established was the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham for England and Wales in January 2011, followed by the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter for the United States in January 2012 and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross for Australia in June 2012. While Anglican Use parishes were part of the local geographical Latin Rite dioceses, the ordinariates are not integrated into the geographical dioceses but have an independent nation-wide jurisdiction over their members.

Canonical differences between the Anglican Use parishes and the personal ordinariate are outlined in a study published in the 23 January 2012 issue of the National Catholic Reporter. The Anglican Use parishes have not yet joined the new personal ordinariate. A meeting of the Anglican Use Society was scheduled for 8–10 November 2012, in which the leader of the personal ordinariate would take part.

Anglican Use Liturgy

The Anglican Use is an authorized liturgical variant of the Roman Rite of the Latin Church. The Latin Church includes among its liturgical rites the widespread Roman Rite, the Ambrosian Rite of Milan, the Mozarabic Rite celebrated in the Cathedral of Toledo, the Braga Rite in some parts of northern Portugal, and specific uses of religious orders. The Catholic Church also includes several Eastern Catholic Churches, which are alongside the Latin Church but not within it.

The Anglican Use liturgy reflects many influences, including the Sarum Use, the English Missal, and the 1928 and 1979 versions of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, as well as the Roman Missal. Anglican Use liturgy and the 1962 Tridentine Latin Mass have very similar structures. Distinctive features of such Masses include 16th-century English (e.g., "thee" and "thou"), greater use of incense and bell-ringing, and English chants and hymns.

The Congregation for Divine Worship gave provisional approval for the Anglican Use liturgy, the Book of Divine Worship, in 1984, an approval rendered definitive in 1987. This book incorporates elements of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, but the Eucharistic liturgy is from the 1979 Book, with the Eucharistic Prayers taken from the Roman Missal and the ancient Sarum Rite (with the modern English Words of Institution inserted in the latter). New texts were promulgated by the congregation on 22 June 2012, namely the Order for Funerals and the Order for the Celebration of Holy Matrimony.

Divine Worship or Ordinariate Use liturgy

In 2013, a new liturgy that incorporates elements of Anglican tradition was authorized for the three personal ordinariates for former Anglicans that had been established from 2011 on. This has been described as "a different beast entirely" from the Anglican Use. The Anglican Use was based closely on the United States Episcopal Church liturgy, which had developed in ways different from that of Anglican churches in England and Australia, making it unsuitable for imposing on all personal ordinariates for former Anglicans. Its Order of Mass draws elements from the original Book of Common Prayer, from different later versions of it, from the Tridentine Mass and from the Roman Rite as revised after the Second Vatican Council.

The personal ordinariates who had provisionally been using the Anglican Use liturgy adopted this new liturgy at the end of 2013. Initially, the term "Ordinariate Use" was correct, superseding the term "Anglican Use." However, with the publication of new liturgical books for the personal ordinariates, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Divine Worship have decided on the generic title, 'Divine Worship' for the entire liturgical provision for the personal ordinariates, though the term 'Ordinariate Use' may still be used as shorthand.

See also

• Personal ordinariate
  • Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter
• Sacerdotalis caelibatus
• Unitatis redintegratio
• Western Rite Orthodoxy

External links

• Letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith communicating the pastoral provision
• Office of the Ecclesiastical Delegate for the Pastoral Provision
• Anglican Use Society
• Unitatis Redintegratio, Decree from Second Vatican Council
• A Place Has Been Prepared: "Anglican Use" Catholic Parishes (article)
• Historical documents on Anglican-Roman Catholic relations
• Similarities and Differences between Pastoral Provision Parishes and the new Ordinariates

Liturgy

• The Book of Divine Worship (BDW)
• Online version of Anglican Use Mass, Rite 1, according to the BDW
• Online version of the Daily Office from the BDW
• Text of the Anglican Use Mass