Quo Vadis Redux

By Michael Heidt
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org

December 10, 2009

"Time keeps on slipping... into the future", goes the ancient and still annoyingly catchy pop jingle. So it has, presenting catholic minded North American Anglicans with a bewildering array of options. Pope Benedict has issued the historic Apostolic Constitution, paving the way for Anglicans to become Roman Catholics while preserving aspects of their patrimony. Metropolitan Jonah, of the Orthodox Church in America, has been no less friendly and it is apparent that the Anglican Church in North America, constituting a new Province, provides a haven for conservatives and traditionalists. All this to say nothing of those remaining in The Episcopal Church, and the various continuing Anglican jurisdictions. It all has more than a hint of byzantine complexity, but where does this leave the believer, other than confused?

Rome

Of course some aren't confused; for them the war is over and it's only a matter of time before they take up Benedict XVI's generous offer, which apparently means reconfirmation for all, re-ordination for some and, possibly, re-consecration for others. For those Anglicans who have come to doubt the authenticity of their Orders and Sacraments and have no doctrinal quarrel with the Roman Church, this is an acceptable pill to swallow. Likewise, for clergy and people who see no future in what they hold to be a failed Anglican experiment, Rome offers the biggest and best ship to jump to. Still, as Rome has rightly insisted, cafeteria conversion isn't an option, which leaves the Tiber swimmer with no choice but to accept Apostolicae Cure, and its claim that Anglican Orders are "absolutely null and utterly void", along with the sacramental life that flows from them.

Constantinople

The Eastern Orthodox Church has also entered the fray, most notably Metropolitan Jonah's OCA. This provides a tempting avenue for those who disagree with elements of Roman teaching, such as the Immaculate Conception and the universal ordinary jurisdiction of the Holy See. Also, in America at least, there is a history of warm ecumenical relationship with the Eastern Church that was only broken by the ordination of women in the 1970s. For those who cannot accept conversion to Roman Catholicism but still wish for union with the greater Catholic Church, Orthodoxy holds promise. None the less, at this point in time the same sacramental difficulties inherent in the choice for Rome hold for Orthodoxy. Anglican converts are expected to be just that, along with re-chrismation and re-ordination for priests. Here, as with the Roman Church, Anglicans seemingly find absorption not communion and a de facto denial of their validity as catholic Christians.

Pittsburgh

But if Rome and Constantinople appear to be offering Anglo-Catholics an opportunity to leave Anglicanism behind, ACNA (Anglican Church in North America) isn't. All Archbishop Duncan's Province claims to be is an orthodox, biblically centered Anglican jurisdiction in North America, moreover, one that is allied to the vast majority of the Anglican Communion. There can be no question that this is Anglican, so much so that it embraces a multiplicity of conflicting belief and practice, what Fr. Geoffrey Kirk calls our "tainted patrimony". For example, some of its members do not believe in Sacraments and some do, others again teach that God from eternity destines the unlucky to hell and the fortunate to paradise, others dispute this; then there are those, like Archbishop Duncan, who ordain women to the priesthood, while most, such as Bishop Iker, do not. All this amounts to a thoroughly Anglican compromise, a federation of dioceses in impaired communion, that's held together by bonds of affection and common cause against the liberal humanist sexual project of The Episcopal Church. This compromise holds little excitement for many Anglo-Catholics. "Why," they argue, "should we leave a Church that ordains women for more of the same, and one that touts Calvinism into the bargain?"

Manhattan

Then, for those who have not already broken free of The Episcopal Church, there's the prospect of staying calm and carrying on in the hope that maybe there will be a sea change in mainstream North American Anglicanism and all, in the end, will be well. Maybe so, it might just be that the Anglican Covenant will rescue some sort of orthodoxy out of the current catastrophe of revisionism. Perhaps Jefferts Schori's denomination will wake up and embrace the Faith, Order and Morals of the Church that was founded by God Himself. It's possible but unlikely and how long before a Baltimore Lesbian becomes your Bishop? Or to put it more seriously, how long can a catholic survive in an ecclesial context where there is, in effect, nothing like a coherent or valid episcopate? Not for long and it doesn't take a gambler to know that the remaining TEC faithful are batting against heavy odds.

Yes and No

What does this amount to for the Anglo-Catholic, the person who daringly asserts that to be a true Anglican is to be a catholic Christian? As we've seen, for some the answer's easy because they've come, like Cardinal Newman, to doubt the initial premise. They gaze to right and left only to see nothing but a grim landscape of non-doctrinal liberalism on the one hand and sola scriptura puritanism on the other. Then, for them, the apple falls and they wake up believing that Anglicanism was never really catholic anyway. Those who believe this have Rome and Constantinople to decide between and in each case the offer seems generous and warm spirited. For sure they will have the dubious comfort of swapping one set of troubles for another, but in their minds at least they will at last be unambiguously catholic.

However, in America, this seems unlikely to draw a flood of converts. Why? Because Anglo-Catholics, for the most part, actually believe that they're catholics and are understandably unwilling to sign up to something that says they're not. To put it simply, many of the laity and more than a few clergy are Anglicans because they decided to be - as opposed to becoming Orthodox or Roman, and hold to the validity of their Sacraments, Order and culture. What choices do these have and can they be made with integrity?

Done Deal

A majority decision has already been made and it lies with ACNA. The three Anglo-Catholic Dioceses that have left TEC, Fort Worth, Quincy and San Joachim, have joined the new Anglican Province along with Forward in Faith North America, itself a founding member of Archbishop Duncan's federation. These four make up the catholic balance in ACNA and exist in a state of impaired communion with the six jurisdictions out of twenty eight that ordain women to the presbyterate. Likewise, they live in doctrinal tension with those who have a protestant understanding of the Faith. With this in mind, the question of integrity still remains; is it possible, in good conscience, to be an Anglo-Catholic and be part of the Anglican Church in North America? Insofar as it's possible to be a part of ACNA and be in full communion with Bishops who uphold the catholic Faith and do not ordain women to the priesthood, the answer is yes. ACNA's permissive Constitution and Canons allow this and more, authorizing FIFNA's non-geographical missionary Diocese, which makes it possible for catholic minded Anglicans to join ACNA regardless of location. Catholic integrity, then, at a base level seems safe within the Anglican Church in North America.

So, what's not to like? After all, ACNA appears to provide a safe harbor for its catholic constituency and while Archbishop Duncan of Pittsburgh ordains women, he's no Jefferts Schori. More than this, the new Province gives Anglo-Catholics a genuine missionary opportunity to shape the character of the emerging Anglican realignment along catholic lines and principles. This is good but not quite good enough because, in the end, Anglo-Catholics don't want to be constituent and in this instance lesser members of a hybrid protestant-catholic union. To borrow Fr. Kirk's language again, they're fed up with the tainted aspect of their patrimony, and while this sounds suspiciously close to the kind of prima-donna Donatism that so spectacularly fails to win converts, it is perhaps excusable. The reason for this is simple; Anglo-Catholics have been fighting a losing war within the confines of the Elizabethan Settlement for a very long time and now, just as their dioceses have managed to break free of it, they're loathe to re-engage. Who can blame them, but does this spell the death knell for Anglo-Catholic involvement in the Duncan led realignment?

New Jerusalem?

Not necessarily, provided Forward in Faith, Fort Worth, Quincy and San Joachim, work together to build a network, or metropolitan area that is unquestionably catholic in Faith, Order and Morals. Or in other words, to formalize the impaired communion that already exists with an ecclesial structure. While allied, or in federation with its sister evangelical Province, this would nonetheless be sufficiently distinct as to satisfy Anglo-Catholic demands for orthodoxy and at the same time meet the imperative that we seek the highest degree of communion possible with our fellow Christians. Once in place it could then conceivably act as rallying point for catholic minded Anglicans within TEC and beyond, serving to reverse the fractious balkanization of the Continuing Churches. Then, with sufficient critical mass and coherence, ecumenical dialogue with both the East and the West might take on new meaning.

Seen in this light the option for ACNA might be more exciting than at first it appears, holding out the potential for a truly Anglo-Catholic integrity in North America and with it a genuine chance at the ecumenism that was started so bravely and floundered so dismally on the rocks of revisionism. Is such a thing possible? The space and generosity is certainly there, what remains to be seen is whether Anglo-Catholics have the confidence and courage to seize the opportunity.


----Fr. Michael Heidt is a priest in the Diocese of Ft. Worth under Bishop Jack Iker. He is the editor of Forward in Christ and is a frequent news writer and commentator for Virtueonline