A Defense of the Anglican Ordinariate in the Catholic Church

Featuring some critique!

In the Catholic Church, the Anglican Ordinariate essentially refers to former Anglican, now-Catholics who have brought many (not all) of their Anglican traditions (back) into the Catholic Church. Here, I seek to enumerate just a few points about the Anglican Ordinariate that I find most compelling. These topics have been extensively treated of by many folks far more knowledgeable, qualified and experienced than I, but I still desire to discuss these points myself.

The Ordinariate Mass is obviously conducted in the English vernacular, but the linguistic register in which in the Ordinariate liturgy rests is a hieratic (“heightened"), sacred, elevated one. (Here, liturgical scholar Peter Kwasnewski discusses the importance of hieratic vernacular liturgical languages, such as those of Eastern Christians. Of course, the Mass Ordinary of the Ordinariate Mass [Kyrie/Gloria/Credo/Sanctus/Agnus Dei] can be executed in Latin.) In our contemporary times in which English is essentially the new international, universal, standard, worldwide language, the new “lingua franca", is English, as opposed to Latin - a status quo that does not appear to be changing any time soon. I think that this point cannot be overemphasized. The Anglican patrimony is truly the linguistic heritage of every English speaker on Earth, not just people who are or were Anglicans. Every single English-speaking Catholic would benefit from the Anglican patrimony that has been claimed/re-claimed by the Catholic Church.

For medievalists interested in “bringing back" the pre-Tridentine, medieval English Sarum Use of the Roman Rite, the sad truth is that Sarum truly is not a living prayer tradition and has not been for almost 500 years. I do believe that it is possible to execute Sarum Use Masses without simply making them feel like museum pieces, but my point remains. However, the Book of Common Prayer, which is a living tradition, relied on the Sarum Use tremendously as a source for its material in its first iteration of 1549, as Katherine Krick-Pridgeon discusses here.

Contemporary Anglicans still use the verger role in the liturgy that they retained from Sarum - I am happy to see some English speakers’ Traditional Latin Masses do the same. (Indeed, in his book Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, in laying out the position of priest/deacon/subdeacon/etc. in a Solemn High Mass entrance, the early 20th-century English Catholic Adrian Fortescue includes the verger position in parentheticals.)

Anglicans have also retained the medieval English (and French) structure of having a vestry and warden, a model of lay governance/ownership that could be highly desirable in our times of the Church closing parishes and selling off the church properties with the laity (whose ancestors built these parishes) having little to no say in the matter. Indeed, one wishes that the post-Vatican-II, 1983 Code of Canon Law had executed true reform and restored some traditional Catholic models of lay governance (instead of making matters even worse!).

Of course, the entire point of the Anglican Ordinariate project is about seriously examining Anglicanism and determining which elements of it are actually Catholic, not Protestant. And then promoting these Catholic elements within the Catholic Church.

When we do this, we also find that many aspects of Anglicanism (that we typically associate with Protestantism) are not actually Protestant *as such*, in essence/nature.

1. For example, Anglicanism puts a high priority on Christians knowing Scripture well. Is the idea of Biblical fluency *incompatible* with Catholicism? Certainly not!

2. Anglicans also have real hospitality & fellowship in their parishes. Is the idea of a strong sense of community somehow un-Catholic? Certainly not! It harkens back to old-world European Catholic parish culture.

3. Anglican theology/spirituality (like that of numerous other Protestants) is very patristic (not so much scholastic - a tradition that thrives in traditional Roman Rite communities). But these Church Fathers were all Catholic!

4. Anglicanism “brought back” the married clergy that England had had from the early Church up through the 1200s. Although I would argue that the institution of clerical celibacy at the Fourth Lateran Council reflected organic development in the Catholic Church’s history/life, married clergy is not inherently a Protestant idea. They got it from Catholicism first. Obviously, Eastern Catholics always retained it.

5. Careful analysis of the King James Version of the Bible reveals that this translation is extraordinarily similar to the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible & was in fact based on it. Here, I defend the KJV in detail.

6. Anglicanism retains a culture of stewardship - traditionally, of tithing 10% of one's income. However, this isn't "Protestant." It's biblical, derived from the book of Melchizedek.

7. Liturgical vestments used by Anglicans like the tippet, stole, rochet and chimere are thought of as being inherently “Protestant”, but this is in fact not true. These vestment styles were used in pre-Reformation England.

8. Anglicanism has always emphasized the laity praying the Daily Office. However, this is not an intrinsically “Protestant” idea. In medieval Catholic England, laypeople frequently prayed the Hours with their priests, as Eamon Duffy describes in his famous book The Stripping of the Altars.

One element of the liturgical Anglican “style” that could be appropriated by priests of all rites (I have in mind the new Roman Rite [the Novus Ordo Mass] in particular) is a certain “lightness”, as opposed to vocal heaviness. This light affect is of course facilitated by the inflections and cadences that are inherently present in Prayer Book English.

The “Anglo-Catholic" tradition (the high-church wing of Anglicanism) can be essentially broken up into Roman Anglo-Catholicism and Prayer Book Anglo-Catholicism. The former group used books like The English Missal (a KJV-style translation of the traditional Roman Rite, with a few BCP [Book of Common Prayer] additions) and The Anglican Missal (which was more of a combination of the two). Some have called the Ordinariate Mass a “mash-up" between The English Missal and the BCP, as the Ordinariate Missal contains options to make the Mass more like either one (depending on what type of Anglo-Catholic was the community that is now celebrating the Ordinariate Mass).

It is indeed fascinating that so many “Anglo-Catholics” in England were so strict about always doing as Rome does that when British Catholics adopted the 1974 Sacramentary and then the 2010 Roman Missal, these Anglo-Catholics followed suit. Others, however, retained the use of missals like The English Missal and The Anglican Missal; others even were executing the Sarum Use in its original Latin! Indeed, I favor the suggestion of some Ordinariate folks that the Sarum Use be authorized as the contemporary “Extraordinary Form” of the Ordinariates.

Due to a few Novus Ordo inflections, the Ordinariate Mass has been termed by some as a “frankenliturgy." However, fans of the traditional Roman Rite will appreciate that the traditional Offertory prayers, ninefold (as opposed to sixfold) Kyrie, triple (as opposed to single) Domine Non Sum Dignus, Sprinkling Rite on Sundays, Prayers at the Foot of the Altar and Last Gospel are all options given by the Ordinariate Missal. The Ordinariate Mass translates the pre-and-post Gospel responses as “Glory be to Thee, O Christ” and “Praise be to Thee, O Christ”, reflecting a parallel linguistic structure that matches the Latin “Gloria tibi, Domine” and “Laus tibi, Christe.” The 2010 translation of the Novus Ordo butchers this, rendering the responses as “Glory to You, O Lord” and “Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ.” (See my aforementioned KJV article for a defense of the use of the archaic, personal “thee” pronoun.)

The Ordinariate Mass also retains the traditional, three ceremonial modes of Low, High and Solemn, as opposed to the Novus Ordo Mass. The Ordinariate Missal's inclusion of Introit, Gradual/Alleluia, Offertory and Communion propers that match the schola's sung propers makes it closer to a “real" missal than the 2010 Roman Missal, which includes only Entrance and Communion antiphons that do not match the schola's sung propers. (I discuss this in my article on the new Roman Rite here.)

However, the Ordinariate Mass still requires a lectionary for the Old and New Testament readings, as the Ordinariate Missal does not contain an Epistle and Gospel reading the way a traditional Roman Missal or BCP do. The Ordinariate Mass indeed uses the same 1970s Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) that the Novus Ordo and 1979 BCP do. However, the Ordinariate's 2-volume lectionary, published by Ignatius Press, uses the RSV translation, which is much better than the American Novus Ordo's NAB (New American Bible) lectionary. The RSV lectionary includes a spliced responsorial psalm that is used by almost no Ordinariate communities. (The patrimonial Anglican way to sing a psalm is not in some awkwardly-spliced, contrived antiphon-verse format, but all the way through, in SATB Anglican chant or in unison, monastic-style. The most traditional, patrimonial Anglican psalter is the one translated by Miles Coverdale, which he completed before the English Reformation was underway.) In terms of ecumenism, the RSV translation, used widely by the Protestant world for the last 70 years and rooted in the KJV linguistic tradition, is immensely more useful than the Catholic-only NAB. However, if the traditional 1-year Epistle-Gospel cycle of the BCP were to be restored to the Ordinariate Mass, the Ordinariate Missal would be “good to go", as it contains all of the other Mass texts already.

Even if the 3-year lectionary were retained in the Ordinariate, it would be best for the language to be switched from the RSV to the KJV, as the KJV is hundreds of years older than the RSV and therefore much more traditional and patrimonial. (As the most-read book in the history of the world, the KJV is also more ecumenically useful than the RSV.) The KJV is the only English translation that was ever designed to be read aloud in a church, and the Ordinariate Mass already contains sections of the KJV (in the Comfortable Words and the Last Gospel).

Beyond the 3 year cycle of readings, several other elements of the Ordinariate Mass are not really patrimonial for Anglicans and can hopefully be excised from the liturgy. While it is wonderful that the Roman Canon is the Eucharistic prayer that is required on all Solemnities and at all Sung/High Masses, the other Eucharistic prayer that the Ordinariate Mass offers is Eucharistic Prayer II, which is not only not patrimonial for Anglicans, but riddled with other issues, which I reference in my article here. The Ordinariate Mass also includes the post-Consecration Memorial Acclamation that is not only not traditionally Anglican but an un-ideal feature of the Novus Ordo, which I explain in this article. Finally, the Ordinariate Mass gives as an option the Novus Ordo's Offertory prayers (whose issues I also reference in this article) - fortunately, however, few priests in the Ordinariate seem to use them. Unfortunately, the Ordinariate suffers from the same Novus Ordo practice of moving important liturgical days (such as Ascension Thursday and the January 6th Feast of the Epiphany) to Sundays, as I also discuss in this article. The Ordinariate also suffers from the Novus Ordo’s restructuring of traditional class I/II/III/IV ranking into “solemnities”, “feasts” and “memorials.” However, there is much hope that all of these un-Anglican, non-patrimonial practices will not be inflicted upon the Ordinariate forever. 

The Ordinariate Mass' wonderful, traditional Anglican texts are the Collect for Purity, Decalogue, Summary of the Law, Confession, Comfortable Words, General Intercessions, Prayer of Humble Access and Postcommunion Prayer. Indeed, I (and numerous Catholics I know) pray these last two prayers silently and privately when attending the the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass). Of course, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer wrote these last two prayers in the tradition of prayers that medieval laity often said both before and after Communion. Despite Cranmer’s obvious heresies and other flaws, there is no doubt that the man had a brilliant handle on the English language. Of course, the Anglican interest in all things Eastern Christian (their theology, liturgy, ecclesiology, married priesthood, etc.) is present in Cranmer's prayer writing. As I wrote in my aforementioned article defending the KJV, the English language was at a poetic high point at the time that Cranmer was writing. (The literary author who comes to mind is of course William Shakespeare, whose eccentric and innovative style does contrast heavily with Cranmer’s conservative one.)

Most importantly, these Anglican texts that the Ordinariate Mass contains are not Protestant in & of themselves. Although these prayers were not written by a Catholic, they are Catholic insofar as they are fundamentally compatible with Catholic doctrine. Careful textual-theological analysis of these Anglican prayers clearly reveals this.

I would argue that Cranmer’s translational work has already been tacitly accepted by Catholics for centuries. When was the last time you heard any English-speaking Catholic say the Lord’s Prayer according to any translation but the 1662 BCP one (or rather, the 1928 BCP one that swaps “which” for “who”)? Every TLM Latin-to-English hand missal ever published uses this BCP translation of the Lord’s Prayer. Even in the dark days of the 1974 Sacramentary (until the 2010 Roman Missal abrogated it), the Novus Ordo Mass reverted to Tudor English for the Lord’s Prayer. I have never in my (relatively short) life been to a Novus Ordo Mass that used the new, modern translation of the Lord’s Prayer.

Due to the presence of numerous uniquely Anglican texts in the Ordinariate Mass, and due to many liturgical scholars' idea that you know a rite by its texts, I have no problem calling the Ordinariate Mass the “Anglican Rite." In the same way that Matthew Hazell showed here that the Novus Ordo retains only 13% of the orations from the TLM, John Covert has shown elsewhere that the Ordinariate Mass retained 97% of the collects from the 1928 BCP. Of course, the 1928 BCP derived from the 1662 BCP (which restored much from the Sarum-based 1549 BCP that had been excised in the radically Protestant 1552 BCP). The 1662 BCP is still the official BCP of the Church of England today.

The terms “Ordinariate Use of the Roman Rite" and “Divine Worship Form of the Roman Rite" are rather “made-up" - contrived and inauthentic. They seem to be unnecessary ways of avoiding the word “Anglican", which I do not think that Catholics need to fear. Of course, it depends on how one defines “Anglicanism.” I would argue that “Anglicanism” refers generally to Christianity as it developed in England over the last 500 years, many elements of which the Catholic Church has now reclaimed because they are compatible with Catholicism. (Of course, the discussion continues as to what elements of Anglicanism can be successfully reclaimed by the Catholic Church and which ones cannot.) Further, the conception of multiple “forms” of one “rite” seems to have been upended, in the wake of Pope Francis’ 2021 Traditiones Custodes. I say: leave the term “Roman Rite" to the usus antiquior/vetus ordo/Traditional Latin Mass, call the Ordinariate Mass the “Anglican Rite" (and make it more authentic and Anglican), and refer to what is known as the new Roman Rite as the Novus Ordo Mass or the Mass of Paul VI. Although the now-abrogated 1983 Book of Divine Worship (the Catholic Church’s first adaptation of the BCP) was rather flawed in using the problematic 1979 Book of Common Prayer and 1974 Sacramentary as its main source material, I believe the BDW (Book of Divine Worship) was spot-on in calling itself the “Anglican Use.”

Ordinariate Catholics currently use three books: the 1) Divine Worship Missal, 2) Divine Worship Divine Office (either the Commonwealth Edition or North American edition), and 3) St. Gregory Prayer Book. This is solidly in the Catholic tradition of having a hand Missal, breviary and prayer book (such as the Fr. Lasance one), or numerous prayer books. However, it is not in the brilliantly efficient, user-friendly Anglican tradition of synthesizing the most essential parts of the aforementioned books into one Book of Common Prayer that can be put in the pews of every Ordinariate parish. Although it is good that the flawed BDW was abrogated, it did follow the authentically Anglican format of the BCP. Eventually, the Ordinariate should publish a BCPCE (Book of Common Prayer: Catholic Edition) that combines only the most necessary features (for example, not Bible readings) of the Missal, Office and St. Gregory Prayer Book.

Indeed, the TLM Latin-to-English hand Missal tradition mirrors the 500 year-old tradition of each layperson having their own personal BCP. I seek to here argue that Ordinariate folks with no Ordinariate parish nearby should attend the TLM, as the TLM contains more Anglican patrimony than the Novus Ordo does. This is unsurprising, as the TLM is almost identical to the Sarum Use upon which the BCP was based. In addition to the aforementioned TLM features that the Ordinariate Mass contains, the vast majority of TLM Latin-to-English hand Missals use the Challoner revision of the Douay-Rheims Bible (and for the non-Scriptural, liturgical texts such as the Roman Canon, these TLM hand missals use a linguistic register that is derived from the Douay-Rheims). The  Challoner DR (Douay-Rheims) is immensely more similar to the KJV than the NAB that the American Novus Ordo Mass uses or the NJV (New Jerusalem Bible) that the British Novus Ordo Mass uses. Furthermore, traditional Anglican hymns can usually be heard as the processional and recessional hymns in your average parish TLM in the Western world.

I also believe that folks who claim that the Ordinariate is exclusively a product of Vatican II (and its document “Nostra Aetate”) and would not exist without this Council are not exactly correct. The Catholic Church was prepared to accept the 1549 BCP as a valid Mass, until our politics with Spain went south. Furthermore, Michael Davies has argued that a Mass said by a valid Catholic priest straight from the BCP would be valid, although of course illicit. Of course, all that is required for sacramental validity (in addition to a validly-ordained priest and the intention of at least “doing what the Church does”) is valid matter (bread and wine) and the words of institution, which Cranmer’s Canon, although theologically flawed in other places, does of course contain.

There is currently debate in the Ordinariate about whether or not Cranmer’s Canon (or another BCP-based Canon) could be used in a future Ordinariate Missal. Some folks argue that it is indeed possible to interpret Cranmer’s Canon in the light of traditional Catholic orthodoxy - after all, Cranmer’s Canon does contain the three main sections of intercession, consecration and oblation. Other folks argue that other Eucharistic prayers present in other BCPs around the world better reflect Catholic theology of the Mass as sacrifice, not memorial. Besides pointing out the rather unseemly nature of authorizing Cranmer’s exact Canon for Catholic use, I am not qualified to make a judgment on these claims. However, I am here reminded of the Ordinariate Commonwealth Edition of the Divine Office, which retains the original “and there is no health in us” in the Confession (unlike the North American edition of the Office). While the Calvinist leanings of this 16th-century statement are rather obvious, the Church seems to have ruled by their inclusion of this line in an approved Catholic liturgical book that this statement can be interpreted in an orthodox Catholic manner. I wonder if the same interpretational work can be done regarding Cranmer’s Canon.

SOURCES

Pearson, A. Harford. The Sarum Missal, in English. Wipf & Stock, 1868.

Pearson, A. Harford. The Sarum Missal Done into English. 2nd ed., The Church Printing Company, 1884.

Davies, Michael. Cranmer’s Godly Order: The Destruction of Catholicism Through Liturgical Change (Liturgical Revolution). Roman Catholic Books, 1995.

https://ordinariateexpats.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/shatre-4-4-lent-2017.pdf