Victoria Street

The ordinariate seems still to be the number one topic among Forward in Faith followers and Anglo-Catholics. No more "Crossing the Tiber" perhaps, rather a gentle walk down Victoria Street, one end to the other, from Church House and almost to Victoria Station ... but not into the Basilica for normal Mass, rather into an area specially for those holding to their Anglican patrimony and from which Roman Cathloics outside the ordinariate will be debarred.

All of which causes me a mental headache, perhaps anxiety leading to the migraine from which I am suffering as I write. Nick Baty, prominent as a Roman Catholic journalist with The Universe and Catholic Family Life, would tease me from time to time as being far more Roman than he was.

This was odd as all the liturgy at St. Mary's, Thorpe, Egham, where my wife and I worshipped in retirement, was taken from Common Worship. It typified what seemed to many Roman visitors a sensible Anglo-Catholicism highly consonant with the best of their own.

Briefly there appears a paradox: Benedict wishes those moving into the ordinariate to bring with them a patrimony which will be clearly Anglican; those moving over seem indistinguishable from Roman Catholics. So where is the Anglican element of the patrimony to be? We need to know. Surely it can't be "Common Worship"? Much more an attitude of mind and an approach to pastoral care which is fairly indefinable these days. Newman + George Herbert, perhaps.

As I note, we need to know. It is not good enough to say that it will evolve as former Anglicans move ahead in faith that it will work out well. We need to know the direction and a little detail to be spelled out.

Good hunting!

Fr. Ted