To go? Or not to go? Anglican deliberations

Bishop Edwin Barnes, the emeritus Anglican bishop of Richborough, has written a piece on the Anglo-Catholic blog about the increasingly reticent sounds coming from Britain about the possibility of joining an Ordinariate. Entitled ‘Cold Feet’, the article gives a sense of the mood in England and Wales towards taking up the offer of an ordinariate among Catholic members of the Church of England.

First formal request for Ordinariate in Britain comes from TAC

It looks like the first moves towards establishing an ordinariate in the United Kingdom have been made by the Traditional Anglican Communion in this country. According to Anglo-Catholic, the group–which is small in Britain– has made a formal request to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

This is part of their letter stating that they will take up the new canonical structure offered in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, published last year:

We therefore request that:

1) That the Apostolic Constitution be implemented in the United Kingdom and a Personal Ordinariate be erected.

2) That we may establish an interim Governing Council.

3) That this interim Council be directed by the Holy Father to propose a terna of names for the appointment of an Ordinary in a UK Ordinariate.

While we cannot speak for other groups of Anglicans in the United Kingdom, we shall be delighted if others apply for acceptance under the terms of Anglicanorum coetibus.

NB: It is important not to confuse the Traditional Anglican Communion with traditionalist groups in the Church of England. TTAC counts as a continuing Church and is not in Communion with Canterbury.

Be generous on Anglicanorum coetibus, Pope tells bishops

Vatican Radio reports the full text of Benedict XVI’s speech to the Bishops of England and Wales. He addressed Anglicanorum coetibus, asking the bishops to be generous in its implementation, and the Equalities Bill, praising Britain’s commitment to Equality and yet saying “the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs”.