Anglican Ordinariate priests ordered to concelebrate Mass instead of taking other ministerial roles [UPDATED]

An Anglican Ordinariate Mass involving deacon and subdeacon

This article has been updated in light of further information. -PAK

I learned from an inside source that Bishop Steven Lopes has told his clergy that Cardinal Roche ordered that priests must cease to function as deacons or subdeacons (and deacons as subdeacons) during solemn Mass but rather, if there is more than one priest, they must all concelebrate, and deacons may only function as deacons.

Vatican Publishes Document Reaffirming Place of Anglican Patrimony in Catholic Life - Ordinariates

 The heads of the Ordinariates established by Benedict XVI under "Anglicanorum Cœtibus" were recently received by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and a long document of the DDF on the continuing relevance of the Anglican Patrimony for the Catholic Church was published.

The document is the following:

[Cathedral of the Ordinariate for North America, Houston]

Characteristics of the Anglican Heritage as

Lived in the Ordinariates Established Under

the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus

24 March 2026

During the Plenary Meeting of the Bishop Ordinaries of the Personal Ordinariates established under the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus (2009), held at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1 to 3 March 2026, His Eminence Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect, invited the Bishops to describe the lived experience of the patrimony at the heart of their Ordinariates, as it relates to how they have received and integrated elements that came from the Anglican tradition.

The Mass of 1965: back to the future? Why it is not an option

The Psalm Iudica (psalm 42): crossed out in 1965

One reason why many good-hearted people wanted a 'Reform of the Reform' is that some kind of reform was called for by the Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium ('SC'). Now that some of them have given up on the project of tinkering with the Novus Ordo, an alternative would seem to be going back to the 1962 Missal and using the Council's criteria to make the reform again. To undertake the Reform We Should Have Had. Fr Somerville-Knapmann suggests it might look like the transitional Missal of 1965. Fr Mark Kirby says very much the same thing with more detail.

The first thing to note is that this wasn't a new edition of the Missal, but just a set of provisional revisions made by the Instruction Inter Oecumenici. There was another lot in 1967, and then the new Missa Normativa came out in 1969. Inter Oecumenici says about itself that it authorizes or mandates that those measures that are practicable before revision of the liturgical books go into effect immediately.

Again:

Until reform of the entire Ordo Missae, the points that follow are to be observed: 

Anglican Ordinariate Use coming up - Mass on October 10

From the Friends of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham (UK Ordinariate):

History will be made in the Catholic Church on Thursday 10 October when a new text for the Mass which includes traditional Anglican words is officially introduced in London.

The new text has been devised for use by Ordinariates throughout the English-speaking world as a way of putting into practice Pope Benedict XVI’s vision of allowing former Anglicans who wish to enter the full communion of the Catholic Church to do so whilst retaining aspects of their spiritual and liturgical traditions. Benedict XVI described these as “precious gifts” and “treasures to be shared”.

The new liturgy — the work of a special commission established by Rome and now approved by the Holy See — includes material from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1662) as well as the Roman Rite. It will be unveiled with a Mass followed by a media launch at the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, Soho.

The Mass will be celebrated by the Ordinary of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton, and the preacher will be Monsignor Andrew Burnham, Assistant to the Ordinary and a member of the commission which devised the Use. Music, drawn entirely from the English tradition, will include Howells’ Collegium Regale.

Mgr Burnham said: “For some time, the Ordinariate has had its own liturgy, approved by the Holy See, for marriages and funerals and the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham already provides a daily office in the Anglican tradition. But the introduction of this new Ordinariate Use is very important because it means that we now have our own distinctive liturgy for the Mass which brings to the Roman rite beautiful Anglican words which have been hallowed for generations. It gives the Ordinariate unity and a corporate identity.”

The Roman Rite in both its ordinary and extraordinary forms remains available for use by Ordinariate priests and there will be no requirement for them to adopt the Ordinariate Use. However, all Ordinariate clergy will be expected to familiarise themselves with it. Some priests are expected to use it regularly, while others – especially in parishes with a large concentration of “cradle” Catholics in the congregation – may only wish to use it from time to time.

The Mass will be celebrated in Our Lady of the Assumption & St Gregory’s Church at 6.30pm on Thursday 10 October. All welcome.

(Tip: New Liturgical Movement)

Thank you so much for your understanding!

I am grateful, too, for the sincere efforts the Church of England has made to understand the reasons that led my Predecessor, Benedict XVI, to provide a canonical structure able to respond to the wishes of those groups of Anglicans who have asked to be received collectively into the Catholic Church: I am sure this will enable the spiritual, liturgical and pastoral traditions that form the Anglican patrimony to be better known and appreciated in the Catholic world.

Franciscus

Address before Justin Welby, leader of the "Church of England" 

June 14, 2013

[Dedicated to the dear Ordinariates of England & Wales and Australia]

You report: American Anglican Ordinariate, anti-Tradition zone

We have received the following report from a reader:

You have previously posted on your blog reports about Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson's animosity towards the Traditional Mass and another contributor, Augustinus, followed up with mention of the Mass being celebrated Friday mornings at Mount Calvary in Baltimore, a church of the Anglican Ordinariate.

You should know that after Mass there last Friday, September 21st, it was announced that, while the celebration of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form is "allowed" [sic] to Ordinariate priests, it cannot be celebrated at Ordinariate premises, "since that form of the Mass is not integral to the Anglican patrimony."

This is less than three months after the termination of another weekday Traditional Mass at an archdiocesan parish due to a priest's reassignment.  That church, St. William of York, with its communion rail and removable low altar, and Mount Calvary were two of the few churches in Baltimore that are well-suited to accommodate the Traditional Mass. 

                                       

Rorate can add that - having confirmed the content above with other sources -, according to our own Roman inquiries on this matter, one man seems to be responsible for the embarrassing and outrageous hatred displayed by the Ordinary of the United States, Msgr. Steenson, regarding the Traditional Mass of the Roman Rite: Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington. Wuerl had been put in place as a sort of liaison between Rome and the Anglicans before the official creation of the Ordinariate, and still acts as the Capo di tutti capi of the Ordinariate, on which he imposes his personal idiosyncrasies and hatreds.

We do not think, though, that this excuses Steenson's unbelievable weakness in his foremost administrative task: defending the rights and prerogatives of his priests and faithful. He may think the rights ascertained by Summorum Pontificum to all priests of the Latin Church, including those of his own Ordinariate, are an easily dismissable "problem" created by "difficult" people, with which he should not waste his scarce "political capital". We say with utmost certainty that this weakness will come back to haunt him and all his priests and faithful in more "serious" matters. We would have thought that his Episcopalian experiences would have warned him to the dangers of ceding territory to the Enemy, but, alas, some lessons are never learned by those constitutionally unable to learn them.

Since the Anglican Ordinariate of the United States has become an explicit and rabid Anti-Traditional area, at least in its highest position, it is unlikely that Rorate will report any of its future developments. We stay with Fisher, More, Byrd, Campion, and Newman, and all the various Traditional rites, forms, and uses of the Latin Church  - they can stay with the "Anglican Patrimony" of Annibale Bugnini. As Vicky Gene Robinson (Steenson's contemporary fellow "bishop" of the Episcopal Church in the early 2000s - Robinson, starting in March 2004, Steenson in October 2004) might say, godspeed on your new "life journey"...

NLM: "The Potentialities of the English Missal for the Ordinariate and the Roman Rite"

The Ordinariates for former Anglicans established by Anglicanorum coetibus can be something mediocre and tame - but they can also be something truly great for the whole Church. The name of the game-changer is "The English Missal" (the Anglo-Catholic translation of the traditional Roman Missal in Early Modern English), not as the sole rite, but as a possibility open to all their priests - and our friend Shawn Tribe, of The New Liturgical Movement, explains why.

It all depends on the will and determination of the leadership in the Ordinariates. They can give this great gift to the universal Church, or they can just remain as a mostly uninteresting  and uninspiring ghetto. It is their choice.

Some recent events put my mind once again to the matter of the English Missal.

The English Missal, as many of you know, is essentially a hieratic English translation of the pre-conciliar Missale Romanum. It was a missal which had been used by various Anglican Catholics, or Anglo-Catholics, in the 20th century.

Fr. John Hunwicke, who himself described the English Missal as "the finest vernacular liturgical book ever produced," summarizes its contents and its use accordingly:

For most of the 20th Century, Anglican Catholic worship meant a volume called "The English Missal". It contained the whole Missale Romanum translated into English; into an English based on the style of Thomas Cranmer's liturgical dialect in the Book of Common Prayer. The "EM" took everything biblical from the translation known as the King James Bible or Authorised Version.

I have often commented on my own hope -- one which I know is shared by many others -- that we would see the English Missal (or something closely akin to it) form one of the liturgical options made available within the context of the Ordinariate. Now it will no doubt be quickly pointed out that the use of the English Missal was by no means universal even amongst Anglo-Catholics and would be generally unfamiliar to many other Anglicans; from what I have gathered from others far more familiar with the situation within Anglicanism, this is certainly true. In light of that, it perhaps would not be the right choice to make it the sole liturgical book of the Ordinariate (which should presumably include a liturgical book which is much closer to something like the Book of Common Prayer) but it surely could be made available as an additional option, a kind of "Extraordinary Form" if you will -- the analogy here is imperfect but I think it gets the basic idea across.

The benefit, from my perspective, is that this liturgical book combines some of the very things which form an important and identifiable part of the Anglican patrimony -- namely, beautiful hieratic liturgical English with correspondingly beautiful English liturgical chant and options for the use of English sacred polyphony -- with the familiar Catholic texts and ceremonies of the Roman liturgical books. In that regard, my own feeling is that it provides a very worthy synthesis which could be well suited to the Ordinariate and its mission -- taken alongside another liturgical book more akin to the BCP. [Read the whole article at The New Liturgical Movement.]

U.S. Ordinariate: Traditional Mass "not integral to the Anglican Patrimony", "not properly used in our communities"

Editorial Note: The whole matter, in fact, revolves around the tastes of the U.S. Ordinary, Msgr. Steenson, and what he views as the Anglican Patrimony. 

Why "tastes"? Because unless one interprets such "Patrimony" exclusively as one limited to a period that began, in the official books, around two decades after the separation of the majority of English episcopate from Rome - and excludes the whole history of Latin Christianity in England before the schism, the period of Queen Mary I, the sacrifice of thousands and thousands of men and women who believed one could be English and worship along with the Bishop of Rome, the countless converts who knew only the Traditional Mass, and the also countless Anglicans who, not having the courage or the will to take the final step, still reintroduced almost all elements of traditional Latin worship in the Anglican services - then the words of the American Ordinary do not make sense. Which they do not. 

It is obvious that the purpose of the Ordinariate is also to protect some kind of "Anglican Patrimony", but it is wrong and historically inaccurate to say that the "Extraordinary Form is not an integral part of the Anglican Patrimony". On the contrary, the Extraordinary Form, or rather, the Latin Mass understood in its, to use his words, "integral" sense, which includes all manners of traditional worship in Latin (not only of the post-1570 Roman variety, but almost identical to it, and identical in the Canon) that spread throughout Europe, and that Saint Augustine established firmly in England, and that English missionaries, such as Boniface and Willibrord, spread even more widely in Europe - this traditional  Latin Mass, in its several traditional rites and forms, including in the vernacular forms introduced in  Anglican settings in the 19th Century, is much more an integral part of the Anglican Patrimony than a Missal approved in 1970, and the Book of Divine Worship approved following all the general lines of the 1979 American Book of Common Prayer, and the guidelines of the Congregation for Divine Worship in the strong Bugninist composition of the early 1980s. 

Since the U.S. Ordinariate is also a part of the Latin Church, it is also absurd, and offensive, for its Ordinary to claim that the "Roman Missal [of Paul VI] 3rd edition could be used", while the Traditional Mass, that under Summorum Pontificum can be celebrated by any priest in the Latin Church freely, is "not properly used in our communities". Its history, as said above, makes it clear that it is proper in all senses of the word, and that it is proper to Ordinariate Catholics as it is to all Catholics of the Latin Church. 

Therefore, of both main points mentioned by the U.S. Ordinary, one is simply untrue (that the Latin Mass is not "integral to the Anglican Patrimony"), the other (that it is not "properly used" in "our communities") is an overstretching of his powers. Both are offensive to history, justice, and common sense. In either case, what is clearly shown is the Ordinary's personal antipathy towards the Latin Mass and to those people, traditional Catholics. Perhaps that is also part of the "Anglican patrimony": personal vicissitudes become law, it was like this with Henry VIII, right?

__________________________________

The Liturgy of the Ordinariate and the Latin Mass

In response to certain questions that have been asked about the use of the Latin Mass in its Extraordinary Form in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, Ordinary, issued this statement:

"We rejoice in the liturgical richness of the Catholic Church. We in the Anglican tradition certainly welcome the Holy Father's concern that the Mass be understood as a living, continuous tradition. The communio sanctorum compels us to read and engage with the Church's tradition with a hermeneutic of continuity.

"The particular mission of the Ordinariate is to bring into the fuller life of the Catholic Church those enduring elements of the Anglican liturgical patrimony which are oriented to Catholic truth. This liturgical identity seeks to balance two historic principles -- that Christian prayer and proclamation should be offered in the vernacular and that the language of worship should be sacral. This is what Anglicans understand when they speak of the prayer book tradition.

"The liturgy of the Ordinariate is superintended by an inter-dicasterial working group (of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW)). At the time the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter was established, the CDW provided important guidance for our liturgical use: The Book of Divine Worship Rite I should be amended to bring it into conformity with the Roman Missal 3rd edition, particularly the words of Consecration. For those congregations that prefer a contemporary idiom, the Roman Missal 3rd edition could be used.

"We have therefore asked that the congregations of the Ordinariate follow this direction. Some of our clergy want to learn also how to celebrate according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. They are certainly encouraged to do so, under the provisions ofSummorum Pontificum and under the supervision of the local bishop, to assist in those stable communities that use the Extraordinary Form. But as the Extrordinary Form is not integral to the Anglican patrimony, it is not properly used in our communities. The Ordinariate will remain focused on bringing Christians in the Anglican tradition into full communion with the Catholic Church. We also are pleased that the Church has provided for the continuing use of the Extraordinary Form, particularly as a pastoral response to traditional Catholics, and regard all of this as a well-ordered symphony of praise to the Blessed Trinity." 

[Source: U.S. Ordinariate; tip: New Liturgical Movement (sidebar)]

__________________________________

From the very moderate and most trustworthy blogger on the Ordinariates, Christian Campbell at The Anglo-Catholic, we also have the following:

I have it on unimpeachable authority that there is on ongoing crackdown on those AU/Ordinariate priests who would dare to learn or celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite on the part of Steenson, Hurd, and Chalmers. The affected priests are naturally frightened, and unwilling to go on record, but make no mistake, the leadership of the U.S. Ordinariate at present has set itself against both Summorum Pontificum and Anglicanorum coetibus. I have it on good authority that this intimidation, an abuse of power, is being report[ed] directly to the Roman Authorities. And the contention that the traditional Latin Mass has no bearing on the Anglican Patrimony — this simply has me flabbergasted. Is there just a shortsightedness on the part of the Ordinary, or is he ignorant of the history of English Catholicism?

We love very much our brothers and sisters in the Ordinariate, or who wish to join the Ordinariate, and, curiously enough, we believe many of them disagree with the personal inclinations of their Ordinary. They should make their position and disagreement, and their grievances, known to him, as provided by Canon Law, and publicly, if necessary.

P.S. Final notes, by contributor Augustinus:

(1) One of the flagship parishes of the American Ordinariate has a scheduled Traditional Mass: Mount Calvary, in Baltimore, has it at least every Friday (officially), and reportedly more often than that.

(2) Celebrating the Traditional Mass -- even in Latin, -- has not been unknown in Anglo-Catholic circles. It was also often the norm as a translation in the ancient English commonly used in worship.

"High Mass" in Saint-Jude-on-the-Hill, parish church of the Church of England
(Hampstead Garden Suburb, Greater London), 1939

(3) The history of the Anglo-Catholic movement simply cannot be understood without the pivotal position of the Traditional Mass.

Ordinariate for Australia officially established

As reporte here since December 2011, the Holy See established today the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, for former Anglicans in Australia. From the Bollettino:

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, erected the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, in the territory of the Australian Episcopal Conference.

The Holy Father, Benedict XVI, has named as the first Ordinary of Our Lady of the Southern Cross the Rev. Fr. Harry Entwistle.

The Anglican-Catholic Personal Ordinariates can, of course, establish quasi-parishes anywhere in their assigned area without a binding permission of the local bishops, but merely hearing their opinion. That was granted to the Ordinariates by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Complementary Norms to Anglicanorum coetibus:

Article 14 ...  §3. For the pastoral care of the faithful who live within the boundaries of a Diocese in which no personal parish has been erected, the Ordinary, having heard the opinion of the local Diocesan Bishop, can make provisions for quasi-parishes (cf. CIC, can. 516, §1).

The Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham

From the website of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham:

Mgr Andrew Burnham: The Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham

Mgr Andrew Burnham, Assistant to the Ordinary, writes in this month's Portal: 

The Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham is to be published very soon now by Canterbury Press. In a month or two we shall have access to this very handsome publication. It will contain the Ordinariate’s own form of Morning and Evening Prayer, drawn from the Book of Common Prayer, together with the Litany, minor offices for use during the day, and a traditional order for Compline. 

The Coverdale Psalter will be included, as will lectionary tables which closely follow the not as yet well-known, but superb, two-year sequence of Scripture readings devised for the daily Office of the Roman Breviary. There will also be the Ordinariate Calendar and, most notably, a rich anthology of post-biblical readings drawn from the riches of the British spiritual tradition. This anthology complements the Roman Divine Office as well as the Ordinariate Office, for it will be possible to use many of the post-biblical readings for the Office of Readings. 

Evensong and Benediction 

Some will find themselves using the different Office books for different purposes – one for individual prayer and devotion, the other for public worship. Those who want to use the Roman Office books in the morning and the Customary in the evening – or the other way round – will be able to do so without too much difficulty. The particular value of the Customary is that it makes available one of the acknowledged treasures of the Anglican tradition – the public celebration of the Office, and in particular of Evensong. The reform of the Roman Office following the Second Vatican Council sought the development of the public celebration of the Office and, truth to tell, that is a reform yet to be realised. In these early days of the Ordinariates, there have been already many celebrations of Evensong and Benediction and it is intriguing to know not only that this has been in accordance with the Holy Father, Pope Benedict’s wish, but also that it has been his great pleasure, that this should have been so. 

Traditional language 

It is hoped that the Customary will be ecumenically helpful too. There has been a deliberate decision by the Holy See that the Ordinariate’s distinct Use should be predominantly in traditional language. This is not to criticise in any way the modern language translations and compositions of recent Anglican revisions. Rather it is a recognition of the value of the sacral language of the Prayer Book. Members of the Ordinariates in North America and Australia are great devotees of Prayer Book English. Moreover, the 400th anniversary of the 1611 Authorised Version of the Bible (AV) – and the immense popularity still of cathedral Evensong – shows that the British public too are aware of the beauty and importance of a traditional sacred dialect. It is that dialect which the Customary and the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible preserve and make available. 

‘Common Bible’ 

Why the RSV and not the King James Bible? The answer lies in the subtle development of the English Bible tradition. For accuracy’s sake, twentieth century students began to rely on the Revised Version of 1881-1894. Meanwhile the Revised Standard Version of 1946-1957 was becoming established and, in 1966, was accepted by Catholics and Protestants as a ‘Common Bible’. It was the first truly ecumenical Bible and brought together the two traditions – the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible and the Protestant Authorised Version. Thus, whenever the Customary quotes extensively from the Bible, it is the RSV that it uses. The Catholic Church in the 1970s in Britain opted (mistakenly as it now seems) for the ‘dynamic equivalent’ Jerusalem Bible translation. That version greatly helped public understanding of the Scriptures, but, like the Mass translation of the same period, was based on a theory of translation that is of great value in paraphrasing and communicating the meaning of, for example, modern literature written in other languages, but no longer thought appropriate for representing sacred texts written in ancient languages. 

Our prayer is that the Customary will be a treasury not only for the Ordinariates but for the whole English-speaking world. 

_______________________________

(Rorate note: the Amazon page for this book mentions Msgr. Andrew Burnham and Fr. Aidan Nichols OP as the editors.)


***************


Msgr. Burnham speaks of "a rich anthology of post-biblical readings drawn from the riches of the British spiritual tradition. This anthology complements the Roman Divine Office as well as the Ordinariate Office, for it will be possible to use many of the post-biblical readings for the Office of Readings." It will be interesting to see to what extent the anthology draws from the writings of Anglican writers; Fr. Aidan Nichols OP had mentioned last year that the majority of readings in the anthology will be drawn from them. See last year's post: More on the upcoming liturgy of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

For the record: Traditional names in the Anglican-Catholic calendar...

...of both the English and the American Personal Ordinariates:

The web site of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter has published its particular calendar and sanctorale. Like the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales, this calendar has the following differences from the Roman Calendar:

-The term "Ordinary Time" is not used of the Sundays. Sundays following the Christmas season are named "Sundays After Epiphany", while the three Sundays before Ash Wednesday regaining their historic names of Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima.

-The Sundays following the Easter season and the feast of the Most Holy Trinity are named "Sundays After Trinity", according the practice of northern Catholicism in general and the Church of England in particular.

-The Rogation Days before the feast of the Ascension are restored.

-Observance of the Octave of Pentecost is restored (in vestments and propers, but using the weekday readings from the Roman Lectionary).

-The Ember Days, at their traditional times, are restored.

-The first Sunday of October is permitted to be used for a parish's dedication festival, if the date of the dedication is unknow

[Tip: Anglican Use news]

They have no idea of what they are talking about

In his comment filled with platitudes on the meeting today (the "Feria Quarta", or Wednesday-centered, periodical meeting of the full composition of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - which was supposed to deal, among other matters, with the latest responses of the Society of Saint Pius X/SSPX to the Doctrinal Preamble presented to them by Cardinal Levada last September, as we had mentioned some days ago), Paolo Rodari, Vaticanist for Italian daily Il Foglio, had this nugget:

There is a paradox inside the current Pontificate: the Pope who pleads respect for tradition loudly strives to find an agreement with "the extreme right" of the Catholic world. It is easier for him to sort things with the Anglicans, that part of Christianity mostly keeping Liberal positions.

There is no "paradox" at all, because there was no agreement with people keeping "Liberal positions". Quite the opposite, the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans were created precisely because Anglo-Catholics are in general so far from the Liberal (doctrinal, ecclesiastical, and liturgical) positions maintained by most in the Anglican Communion. The Pope did not go after simply any Anglicans, but those who wished to become truly Roman, giving them the structure that they needed and for which they had longed for generations. Which is why most Traditional-minded Catholics were and are thrilled with Anglicanorum Coetibus and rejoice in every occasion in which former Anglicans are welcomed into the Church - as we did last Sunday with Mount Calvary, in Maryland. We know most of them are our allies and our friends. They wish us well, and we wish them well.

If only Traditional-minded Catholics were given the canonical structures that they need! Then, Rodari, Tornielli et al. would see clearly that there is much more convergence than "paradox" in all of this. At the moment, it clearly seems they have no idea what they are talking - and writing - about (not a surprise, really).

[Image: Christmas at Our Lady of the Atonement, San Antonio, Texas]

The most beautiful poster in January

Welcome home!

From the local archdiocesan newspaper:

Baltimore Episcopal parish, priests to be received into Catholic Church

By Catholic Review Staff

Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter

Congratulations to the former Anglicans in America for their structure established today by Pope Benedict XVI, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter. Father Jeffrey Steenson was named to head the Personal Ordinariate.

Is this what this Anglican Patrimony thing is all about?

- Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, 2011 - King's College, Cambridge (BBC Radio4 iPlayer). Great for skipping certain parts.

- Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, 2011 - King's College, Cambridge (PDF Order of Service)

As it is known by now, it is foreseen that the Holy Father will establish the Personal Ordinariates for Catholics of Anglican Patrimony in the United States and Australia on the first days of the year of Our Lord 2012. Our best wishes for these brethren in their structures - may they one day be shining lights of what is right and proper and beautiful, for gloriam plebis tuae Israel...

Anglican Catholic Personal Ordinariate in the United States...

... will be established and named on January 1, 2012, as announced by Cardinal Wuerl today in the ongoing meeting of the USCCB (the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops). A Q&A on the new Ordinariate has been made available at the conference website. Congratulations to those who have been so patient!

The first Anglican Catholic Personal Ordinariate, dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham, was created for the faithful of England and Wales in January 2011.

(Sources: The Anglo-Catholic; The Ordinariate Portal)

Reform of the Reform beginning with the Ordinariates?...

From The Tablet:

Priests to face east at ordinariate Masses

21 October 2011

Masses celebrated by priests in the ordinariate are likely to be ad orientem, according to one of its leaders. While the liturgy for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has yet to be approved by the Holy See, Mgr Andrew Burnham said the Congregation for Divine Worship "is likely to commend eastward celebration, when the dynamic of the building suggests it". Mgr Burnham also said that it may also recommend kneeling at mention of the Incarnation during the Creed.

(The full text of the talk of Msgr. Burnham can be found at the Ordinariate Portal.)

More on the upcoming liturgy of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

The "Ordinariate Portal" has belatedly published Part III of Aidan Nichols' talk on The Pope, the Ordinariates and the Liturgy. (Part 1 and Part 2. Rorate posted on the first two parts here; see this as well.) Part III includes the following description of the draft Ordinariate liturgy that was submitted to Rome in March of this year:

"...when with the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus a small liturgical commission was established, with responsibility from the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to see to the needs of a new situation, some difficulty was experienced in establishing a template likely to be acceptable to all and sundry. Overwhelmingly, English Anglicans had abandoned both the Prayer Book Eucharist and that of the English Missal tradition. They had accepted the reformed Roman liturgy, often with a few variations (such as the placing of the Sign of Peace before the Offertory) supplied from modern Church of England liturgical revision, as well as, typically, including the most beloved of such short Cranmerian texts as the Prayer of Humble Access.

The American Ordinariate for Catholics of Anglican Patrimony:FALL 2011

The Personal Ordinariate for Catholics of Anglican heritage in the United States is to be erected in the Fall of 2011 - at least, that is the wish of the Holy See. More details from Cardinal Wuerl's report to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, delivered yesterday, on the first day of their Spring meeting:

Consultation on

Implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

The Ordinariates and the pensée unique