THE AUSTRALIAN ORDINARIATE
... “next year”
Our Lady Help of Christians
At last some details are beginning to emerge about the proposed Australian ordinariate. It seems likely that the Blessed Virgin Mary will provide the title for the ordinariate which could, for example, be erected as The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady Help of Christians and will probably be under the patronage of St Mary MacKillop (St Mary of the Cross).
Speaking at an Ordinariate Information Day in June, Bishop Peter Elliott said that Anglicans become members of the Catholic Church in and through the ordinariate by applying in writing – application forms will be issued later this year.
After making a Profession of Faith and receiving the Sacraments of Christian Initiation (in practice Confirmation and the Eucharist), they are registered as members. In accordance with usual Roman Catholic practice, each person will require a Confirmation sponsor.
The ordinariate will relate pastorally and practically with the local Roman Catholic Diocese and the Australian Catholics Bishops Conference (ACBC).
The process of forming the ordinariate is moving steadily on three levels: an Ad Hoc Commission for the ordinariate has been established to represent the ACBC. The Commission is supervising the whole process, working with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Australian Ordinariate Implementation Committee consists of members of the Anglican Church of Australia and the ACCA. This Committee brings before the Commission grass-roots concerns, practical issues and proposals to facilitate progress towards an ordinariate. Lastly, there local working groups.
Courses of formation in the Faith for the laity are under way in the groups that are seeking to enter the ordinariate. Formation is focused on an intense study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Another complementary approach is being considered, and that is when an Anglican group is “adopted” by a nearby Roman Catholic parish.
Bishop Elliott again pointed out the necessity for those who have remarried after divorce to take their situation to a diocesan marriage tribunal, even if they have already received an Anglican permission to remarry.
As Roman Catholics are not permitted to be Freemasons, men seeking to enter the ordinariate will have to resign from the lodge.
He said that clergy seeking ministry in the ordinariate are finding priest mentors among their Roman Catholic brethren. While they come under the authority of their own ordinary, they will nevertheless be part of the brotherhood of priests and deacons which is found in every Roman Catholic diocese. They will minister primarily within the ordinariate, while working alongside other priests of the Roman Rite in the local Roman diocese.
An ordinariate liturgy is being prepared by an international commission, though, of course, the Roman rite in its two forms is always there for the ordinariate which will now take shape “next year”.
However, as Roman Catholic Archbishop Collins of Toronto says: “For those who disagree with recent trends in Anglicanism, but who do not want to become Catholics, in communion with the Pope and accepting the whole faith presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, there are various other options; they clearly would not want to join an ordinariate established according to Anglicanorum Coetibus.”
