Light On Dark Water

A Bit of Uneasiness About the Pope

So far almost everything I’ve read about Pope Francis has been very encouraging, and there seems to be very good reason to expect very good things from him. However, there is one small storm cloud on my personal horizon, and that of everyone involved in the Anglican Ordinariate.

The Anglican bishop of Argentina claims that then-cardinal Bergoglio “called me to have breakfast with him one morning and told me very
clearly that the Ordinariate was quite unnecessary and that the Church
needs us as Anglicans.” That news is naturally being very well-received among Anglicans who resent the Ordinariate.

My pastor tells us that too much is being made of this, that Venables is an evangelical who is ordinarily disliked by, for instance, the Episcopal Church in the U.S., that it’s only hearsay from a phone call, and that the Catholic-Anglican situation in Argentina is very different. And that the pope is certainly well-disposed to the idea of an ordinariate with non-Roman liturgy and practices, as he himself is (or was) the ordinary for Eastern Rites in Argentina.

I’m not going to panic, but I’m uneasy. Not that I think the pope would do anything as dramatic as suppressing the ordinariate–his reported closeness to Benedict XVI, who instituted the ordinariate, would certainly argue against that, and against him being hostile to it. But if the Venables report really reflects his feelings, he could neglect it or thwart its growth. That would be tragic, because from what I’ve seen you won’t find a more committed group of Catholics than those of us in the ordinariate.

I’m not sure exactly what the status of Venables’ group is with respect to Canterbury and the other more-or-less official branches of Anglicanism.

Update: response from the ordinary, Msgr. Steenson

Maclin Horton
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10 responses to “A Bit of Uneasiness About the Pope”

  1. From Argentina

    I was going to stay silent, but you refered me to this post.
    I refuse now to prognosticate how Francis will be…
    As bishop he was very near the line of “every religion is good”, so the “you need to stay being Anglican” doesn’t feel strange to me. He asked for blessing from televangelists, celebrated Hanukka, and so on…
    Well, not every religion… traditionalist catholics were not liked on his diocese (even when Argentina is one of the strongholds of Lefebvrism) He prohibited effectively the application of Summorum Pontificum (sp?) by forcing the priests that wanted to say the old mass to stop and making one “official monthly old mass” said by a priest that didn’t like it, and introduced lots of innovations. Cassocks were almost banned on his diocese too and so on. When Benedict insisted on translating “for many” as “por muchos” instead of “por todos”, first the correction was delayed and then was mixed with a simultaneous movement from “vosotros” to “ustedes” (similar to thou -> you; beware that in spain spanish “ustedes” is almost unused, here “ustedes” is the familiar word and “vosotros” the dignified one) He’s very “low-church”.
    Anglocatholics are more or less the anglican equivalent of traditionalists, so it seems reasonable that he were opposed to the ordinariate.
    But, as I said before, I prefer not to speculate on how he’ll be as Pope. Let’s hope, wait and see.

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  2. Mac

    Agreed (with your last statement). What you say does sound disturbing, and I know some of the Latin Mass proponents have expressed worry about their situation. “very ‘low-church’” is disheartening. It’s hard for me to see how anyone who has a clear idea of what’s troubling the Church would not want to make the liturgy more beautiful. Well, I’m going to try not to worry. Especially as there’s nothing I can do about it.

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  3. janet

    Good for Msgr. Stetson.
    AMDG

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  4. godescalc

    The comments disturb me for a slightly different reason – if the Anglicans are an important part of the Church, this is a reason for the Ordinariate; praising Anglicanism while describing Catholic Anglicanism as unnecessary is basically declaring that being Catholic is a waste of time. If that’s the case I should have stayed Protestant myself.
    (I hope the Pope does turn out friendly to the Ordinariate; I don’t have a massive affinity for liturgy, but I do have a slight soft spot for the old Anglican way of doing things and would very much like to see it preserved.)
    (I don’t expect the Pope to go around saying “well, being Catholic is a waste of time”, though, so I’m not going to worry too much about the possibility he talks like that as Pope. And most of what I’ve heard of him, I like.)

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  5. Mac

    “praising Anglicanism while describing Catholic Anglicanism as unnecessary is basically declaring that being Catholic is a waste of time.”
    Exactly. And it’s an even odder statement when you consider that the Anglican bishop recounting the conversation is, I’m told, definitely in the evangelical non-Catholic wing of Anglicanism. So I’m inclined to think that there is some degree of misunderstanding involved.

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  6. Craig

    I’m just catching up on some blog reading…
    I haven’t had much time since the election of Pope Francis to learn about him. There does seem to be a bit of uneasiness in those quarters where liturgy is a special concern (Fr.Z and The Chant Cafe, for instance). And it may well be that such concerns will turn out to be well-founded.
    Still, I like something that Janet wrote a few days ago (no time to get the link!) to the effect that our first response to Pope Francis ought to be one of generous welcome, filial love, and attentive regard. I would never denigrate the importance of beautiful liturgy, but even a Pope with the liturgical equivalent of tone deafness can have a great deal to teach us.
    I know everyone here knows this, so my saying it is mostly pointless. Perhaps I’m preaching to myself.

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  7. Mac

    “…even a Pope with the liturgical equivalent of tone deafness can have a great deal to teach us…” Yes, that’s what I’ve been telling myself, too. Or preaching to myself, perhaps. I’m not averse to having the teaching reinforced.
    Even if liturgy is not as important to him as it was to Benedict, there’s still a lot of distance between that and tone-deaf, and still more between being tone-deaf and doing something actively deleterious. We can hope that even if he’s not very interested in the matter, it will be just a question of benign neglect.
    Here’s a very good post by Fr. Dwight Longenecker on the subject.

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  8. Janet

    it doesn’t mean he’s going to make everybody sing Eagle’s Wings every Sunday
    Don’t worry, there are already plenty of people out there to make us do that. 😉
    I read that article earlier and thought it was pretty good. I also read another one by, I think, Jimmy Akin, trying to explain why people are going overboard worrying about decisions about the installation. What I have been thinking, though, is that this is an unprecedented discussion. Who knew all these little details about John Paul II’s ordination in 1978? Where would anyone have found all this information? And even eight years ago, I don’t remember all this minute examination of what was going on. It seems to me that what we are seeing is an internet phenomenon that is causing a lot of worry.
    Of course, I love good and beautiful liturgy, and I would love to see the work that Benedict did continue, but, you know, a week ago, this man didn’t even know he was going to be pope and none of us knew who he was.
    AMDG

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  9. Fr. Matthew Venuti

    Venebles has since said “The reaction to the point about the Ordinariate is far more significant than the original comment which incidentally was not written for publication. The conversation was in 2009 and did not imply that the Ordinariate was temporary or an error, merely that the speaker values the Anglican Church as it is.” More at http://www.tunbridgewells-ordinariate.com/blog/?p=6448
    -Fr. Venuti

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  10. Mac

    Thanks. That’s very encouraging. One wonders exactly how the comments got out, as the impression I had from their appearance in a couple of places was that Venables himself had initiated the disclosure.
    The comment from “Peter” on that post is a perfect example of something I’ve always found very frustrating from some Anglicans: on the one hand, “Nothing of substance separates us.” On the other, “We won’t come over until you change X, Y, and Z.”

    Reply

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