Rorate Caeli

"The service made me...just for a split-second – wish I was an Anglican"


Since the masterwork of Pope Montini and Annibale destroyed all previous "pageantry" of the Latin Church - the "pageantry" Anglicans copied in the two previous centuries, since they could not copy Apostolic Succession and valid orders, and added to the traditions, including the choral tradition, that had remained from the pre-Protestant centuries -, these comparisons are really moot. Most Catholics today simply do not know what full traditional Papal and Pontifical liturgies look like or did look like.

As for the "Church of England", the best we can say about it is what is said of her illustrious daughter, the "Episcopal Church": it is neither Episcopal, nor a Church. It is of England, not like Stock, More, and Byrd, but like binge-drinking or association football.

Now, could the usurped buildings be returned, please?

Note: Yes, there is a very legitimate English spiritual heritage that is to be recovered by the Ordinariates in what promises to be a bright future. All that now seems empty (Non est hic) pageantry and, hence, necessarily vulgar, as Fr. Blake points out, can be gloriously transformed: Ecce nova facio omnia.