On 17 August 2013, Fr Peter Cornwell, a married Catholic priest and former vicar of the same church as Blessed John Henry Newman, The University Church of St Mary, Oxford, wrote a surprisingly mean review in The Tablet of Catholics of the Anglican Patrimony: The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham by the distinguished theologian, historian and thinker, Fr Aidan Nichols OP (Gracewing, Leominster, 2013). Fr Mark Woodruff's response in The Tablet for 24 August 2013 is below.

The book is an extended essay and arose from a remarkable lecture delivered under the auspices of the Ordinariate, as part of a conference on its place and purpose with the work of New Evangelisation. Fr Nichols revisited a familiar and resonant theme of his, that proclamation and evangelisation do not concern only the personal individual but groups and traditions of people, including entire cultures and histories. This understanding, incidentally, lay within Pope Benedict's presentation of evangelisation on his visit to Great Britain in 2010. Faith alone, he said, answers humanity's profoundest questions and longings; hence the need and benefit for the constant and public dialogue of faith and reason, between the Church of Christ and society, the state, politics, commerce and culture. With this in the background, Fr Nichols observed that Catholic society in England was made of four main components: the English recusants at the core of the history from the 16th century onwards, the influx of a large Irish Catholic population to cities from Victorian era onwards, a small but influential stream of English converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism of whom Newman and Manning are the most symbolic but which continues to the present day, and more recently the international diaspora of the last two decades, especially from India, Africa, the Far East and Eastern Europe (including Eastern Catholics) transforming the complexion of parishes especially in the larger population centres. The one culture that seems, however, not to find expression and belonging in the contemporary Catholic Church in England is England's indigenous religious culture for almost the last half-millennium. Thus he makes the argument for embracing the liturgical, pastoral, cultural, spiritual, apologetical, homiletical, operational-organisational and academic-theological traditions and patrimony of Church-of-England Christianity, to equip the Catholic Church in England to address, take seriously, resonate with and converse with English public life and culture, as well as its citizens' religious sensibility, by means of their familiar spiritual language and sensibility.

Where necessary, of course, for reasons of clear exposition of Catholic teaching these Anglican traditions and patrimony need to be duly adapted to meet the fullness of communion within the Catholic Church, but since all internal Anglican traditions, aspects of heritage and customs have been developed and continue in existence within a conversation between the different schools of theological thought and churchmanship, and thus find ways not only to co-exist in Anglicanism's internal ecumenism but also to find clearer expression over against each other, there is something intrinsically Anglican about the adaptation needed when embracing a new setting for being in communion within the Body of Christ. Fr Nichols' 1993 book, which looks at the interplay and relationship between the Catholic and Anglican in English religion, state and culture, The Panther & The Hind: A theological history of Anglicanism remains an essential account of Classic Anglican divinity, and the most sympathetic analysis of the now largely occluded Classic Anglicanism tradition ever made by a Catholic theologian.

It is a pity that Fr Cornwell did not acknowledge this in his endeavour to portray the Ordinariate as a mere refuge for Anglo-Catholics escaping a finally uncongenial Anglicanism. Thus he missed the point that, as the Catholic League can testify, its essential form has been proposed for 100 years at least and that his has influenced Anglican ecumenism for good, spread wide what is now shared by all Christians as "spiritual ecumenism", and placed the cause of Christian Unity, to which communion with the Apostolic See of Rome is integral, at the heart of the Church's purpose in proclaiming the Gospel to the world and its cultures. After all, it is Pope Benedict who organised efforts and structures for a New Evangelisation in the struggle for the soul of Old Europe, including the societies which have in part emerged from it across the world through the 19th and 20th centuries. The Ordinariates established under Anglicanorum Coetibus and Ad Gentes are part of this New Evangelisation and represent the Catholic Church's desire, learned from half a century of direct dialogue and ecumenism, to learn and receive for itself what the providential Anglican tradition and its patrimony has to offer. None of this is for an isolated group that looks in upon its own narrow concerns, any more than Benedictinism, Franciscanism or Jesuitism is - it is something borne by some but for the whole Church - and that includes its efforts to reconciliation and unity.

While some of Fr Cornwell's comments were legitimate debate and criticism in a book review, he made two misrepresentations as to fact, which made it clear that prejudice was the ground upon which he then went on to caricature the persons - the people and priests - of the Ordinariate. It is clear that he can have met few of them. What follows is the letter submitted to the Editor of The Tablet upon submission that Fr Cornwell's affront needed a riposte. it appeared in The Tablet publised on 24 August, 2013. The final paragraph was, however, not included owing to the need to make space for a subsequent letter from Mgr Andrew Burnham of the Ordinariate which addresses the same point more fully and better. (The term "lively conversation" reflects Archbishop Rowan Williams' attempt at a positive description of the adversarial nature of Anglican theological and constitutional decision-making in its Synods, and "treasure to be shared" is a quotation from Pope Benedict's Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.)

Fr Mark comments, "I do not lightly take issue with a brother priest in public, especially one for whom I have the highest admiration. But, since he first expressed these views in 2009 in my hearing and yet, despite eirenic argument to put his concerns to rest, persisted in disseminating them by way of attack on the true motivation and character of his fellow Catholics in the Ordinariate, it is important to say that the cause of Christian Unity is served by airing disagreement frankly towards better mutual understanding and rapprochement in a spirit of friendship, not by caricaturing people acting in good faith."

To the Editor, The Tablet, 20 August 2013

Fr Peter Cornwell says that Anglican patrimony “in truth has proved to be quite elusive”. Anglicanorum Coetibus III locates it in liturgical books, the Complementary Norms adding the tradition of married presbyters and the pastoral council for consulting the lay faithful formally. Article 10 refers to a larger hinterland of its aspects of particular value. In 2010 I collected a volume of over 30 pieces of comment and analysis, critical and supportive - Anglicans & Catholics in Communion: Patrimony, Unity, Mission. A second volume is in preparation. A Customary containing the Divine Office and Calendar was published in 2012 and permission to celebrate an Order of Mass with elements of the Prayer Book rite was issued this summer. This is hardly elusive. 

Nor is it accurate to say that Anglicanorum Coetibus came “out of the blue”. Such provision was explored by prominent Catholic-Anglicans with designated Roman Catholic figures in England and Rome in the late 1980s. And around 2008, a sizeable group of Catholic-Anglican bishops visiting Rome with concerns about the Lambeth Conference and General Synod, even discussing possible corporate reunion, did not go behind Lambeth’s back. What changed was not a papal assault upon the ARCIC method, but Anglicanism’s decision for a fundamental change within the order of bishop. Nevertheless the additional layer of ecclesial incompatibility provides a re-set ecumenical starting point. In this, some have seen a positive opportunity to think through what Anglicans believe the patrimony they offer to the whole Church’s unity in diversity is, in a manner unaddressed before. 

Fr Aidan Nichols has pointed out that the prevailing religious tradition of England for nearly five centuries is a large gap in our consciousness of being the Catholic Church for this land and culture: internalising Anglican aspects of tradition through the Ordinariate offers one way of beginning to fill it, even if late in the day. At the same time it is far from the whole story of Anglican-Catholic reconciliation: for evangelisation to be convincing, Christian unity remains unfinished business. 

Fr Cornwell’s mocking tale of narrow sectaries escaping to a “granny flat” is an injustice to the real priests and people of the Ordinariate. He will indeed find some former Romanising Anglo-Catholics, but he will also find inner city pastors, middle-of-the-road “Prayer Book Catholics”, scholars, diverse origins and backgrounds, “Vatican II Evangelicals”, country parsons, overseas missionaries – people with an ecumenical instinct who did not live apart but took part in the “lively conversation” of the Church of England, and who are proving no less willing to engage in our diocesan parish life, as much as they want to see the Ordinariate’s “treasure to be shared” make its distinctive contribution. What binds them in the Catholic Church is not shallow preoccupation with liturgical tastes, but the faith that is none other than our own, and acting upon it generously. 

 

Fr Mark Woodruff

The Pope concluded, "Unity is on the one hand the fruit of faith and, on the other, a means - almost a prerequisite - for an increasingly credible proclamation of the faith to those who do not yet know the Saviour or who, while having received the proclamation of the Gospel, have almost forgotten this valuable gift. True ecumenism, recognising the primacy of divine action, demands above all patience, humility, and abandonment to the will of the Lord. In the final analysis, ecumenism and new evangelisation both require the dynamism of conversion, understood as the sincere desire to follow Christ and to fully adhere to the will of the Father".

The full text in English is here on the Vatican website.

Evan Davis, the skilful communicator on economic affairs for the BBC, is an atheist. For ten years at least he has been saying that the Thought for the Day slot on the Today progragmme just after a quarter to eight “discriminates against the non-religious”. Since he became an anchorman on Today four years ago, he has continued to express this view. Journalists and presenters on the BBC are supposed to interrogate opinion and actions, not to pursue their own agenda, political or otherwise. Yet, despite a conflict of interest, Evan Davis agitates for change in overall editorial policy to conform to his religious worldview. He believes Thought for the Day should be kept, he believes, but instead of being “monopolised… by people of the cloth” it should “give space to serious and spiritually minded secularists”. In a free country he is entitled to his point of view. But surely it is a conflict of interests to press for such a significant change in overall BBC principles - in the programme you work on - when you are deploying your popularity and expertise to gain the BBC's conformity to your personal religious standpoint.


Thought for the Day is not supposed to be a merely “religious” slot. It is supposed to provide a reflection on the affairs and assumptions of the day, from out of the principles and values of the religious and spiritual tradition that formed our civilisation and in which it continues to share. In other words, while we become wrapped up in domestic politics and Westminster gossip, or absorbed with international crises, as well as human interest stories and great intellectual debates, space for the other dimension in our universe is salutary. To leave out the spiritual and religious means we are omitting to address our world and its problems in an holistic way.


What dismays me about his well intentioned campaign is not how misguided it is, but how unbalanced it is. I cannot imagine what a “spiritually minded secularist” is, unless it is someone of personal depth and reflection, who has examined himself and the people around him, mindful of one or other of the great traditions of moral philosophy that have characterised our various civilisations over the last three millennia. To say the least, however, these traditions are not distinctively secular. And, paradoxically, Christian ascetic wisdom agrees with what might be called a “spiritually minded secularist” that God is no mere projection “out there”, for really the “desert lies within”. But I do not understand what value such contemplation without God has, that is not already encompassed in the non-religious opinion, reflection, discourse, theories and debates that constitute all but two or three minutes of the three-hour programme that is the daily national news flagship. To examine ourselves as people and as a society we need to be holistic, and that means we have to make sense of ourselves in terms of all parts of us, including faith and the dimension of us that is in the realm of the Spirit, as much as by other criteria.


The imbalance is that the “space” for secularists that Evan Davis wants on Thought for the Day is begrudged elsewhere on TV and Radio. Occasionally on religious and current affairs programming, you will find articulate star atheists pitched against people of faith, who either do not match their skills at lively disputation and Christian apologetics; or they are so extreme and unrepresentative as to make for “good TV”, but bad examples of what mainstream religious adherence actually is. But the space where religion, especially the Church, is prohibited with Marxist-Leninist ferocity is radio and television comedy. Stephen Fry uses QI to mock the articles of religious faith and promotes atheism without challenge. Russell Howard turns his observational stand-up routines on his Good News to character assassination of Catholicism and its priests. Satire is devastating when it turns fact and experience on those who deserve to be deflated. But Howard is not troubled with accuracy, as all that is needed is caricature to please his crowd. Marcus Brigstocke, who features on The Now Show, one of whose presenters is Hugh Dennis, the son of an Anglican bishop, conveys his personal antipathy towards the Christian faith in his wry comic monologues with a force that is almost visceral. Each of these programmes has been produced at the expense of licence fee-payers by the BBC. Yet there is no challenge, or right of reply; and there is no like investment of public money in routine satire of atheism, such as handsomely rewards those who use the BBC to promote their personal, secularist religious standpoint.


St Gregory Nazianzus rightly counselled against point-scoring debates, because people will recognise Christ best in what we have come to be, not the words we say. St Francis de Sales reconverted much of his Geneva diocese from Calvin, believing that “the bee achieves more by its honey than by its sting”. Nonetheless, there are too many presenters who use Thought for the Day for a short homily, “preaching to the choir”. I am with Evan Davis, if he finds this dull and self-serving. What we need are wise, even witty, mirrors from the water in the well of life that, in the words of Pope Benedict on his visit to these shores, alone answer humanity’s deepest questions, and encourage the dialogue between religious faith and virtue in public life at every level of society.