IS IT POSSIBLE THAT CATHOLIC PRIESTS AND CONGREGATIONS NOT A PART OF THE ANGLICAN ORDINARIATE COULD ALSO USE THE SOON TO BE RELEASED ANGLICAN ORDINARIATE ROMAN MISSAL IN ADDITION TO THE ORDINARY FORM AND EXTRAORDINARY FORM LATIN RITE MASS?

At Fr. John Hunwicke's blog, Mutual Enrichment, he has an article on the soon to be released Roman Missal of the Anglican Ordinariate. He seems to hope that this Missal could be used by priests like me who love every legitimate form of the Latin Rite. In fact, this form of the Latin Rite is another expression of the Ordinary Form. So in effect, Pope Francis who approved of this new Anglican Ordinariate Missal has set into motion two forms of the Ordinary Form of the Mass. How cool is that especially in view that in the unity of diversity of the Latin Rite in the post-Vatican II era, we have one Latin Rite with two expressions, the Extraordinary Form and the Ordinary Form and now the Ordinary Form unity has two expressions. Cool I say.

But what do those in the know think about rank and file Catholic clergy and parishes making use of the Anglican Ordinariate's Roman Missal which should be for sale any day now? Might it happen?

Fr John Hunwicke

15 January 2015

Growing the Ordinariate Liturgy

Our distinctive Rite, then, has immense advantages. In highly important ways, it reconnects with the liturgical Tradition which was, to an unhappy degree, ruptured in the decades following 1960. But it is also highly receptive to elements in those post-Conciliar changes which were actually mandated or permitted by the Council, and which are of pastoral advantage. Gloriously, it throws the windows open to a liturgical experience which is in a sense 'vernacular' but utilises a sacred vernacular closely similar to the Latin of the Roman Rite. This Latin, as demonstrated by modern linguistic and literary scholarship, was never 'vernacular' in the sense of using everyday language, but addressed God in a highly formal and deliberately archaic dialect. That is exactly what we do in our 'Tudor English' rite. The Roman instruction Liturgiam authenticam encouraged precisely this.

I very much hope that our Rite will spread within the Anglophone Catholic world, quite simply because it is what that world needs. And it is clear (and very welcome) that Ordinariate congregations are not and will not be exclusive ghettoes. As a result of this, in parishes where there are Ordinariate clergy, laypeople from both backgrounds, 'Anglican Patrimony' and 'Diocesan', worship together. Thus Ordinariate Catholics with their Anglican Use, and Diocesan Catholics with their Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms, mingle, and have the capacity very much to enrich each other. Mutual Enrichment as advocated by Benedict XVI! Diocesan clergy have often asked me, as I have given talks to laity and clergy in many countries, whether they are allowed to use our admirable Rite, and I have had, with regret, to explain that the general answer is No (except in particular circumstances).

There are a couple of things we could do to help facilitate the growth and spread of what our particular charism has brought into the Catholic Church for the benefit of all the members of that Church.

(1) There could be a protocol something like this:
When this Rite is used in circumstances where there are substantial numbers of worshippers who are not members of the Ordinariate, the Celebrant may, at his discretion and for pastoral reasons and after consulting the Ordinary, omit the Prayers of the People, the Penitential Rite beginning Ye that do truly, and the Prayer after Communion beginning Almighty and everliving God. 

(2) It could be enacted that non-Ordinariate clergy of the Roman Rite may celebrate our Use iusta pro causa, because it is in fact a lawful Form of the Roman Rite together with the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms. It was part of the genius of Benedict XVI canonically to make it clear in Summorum Pontificum that the EF and OF are both equally forms of the Roman Rite, so that any Roman Rite priest can use either of them without needing any permission from anyone. By doing this he avoided the legal complications inherent in 'biritualism', which would have enabled unsympathetic bishops to sabotage his intentions. The same basic principle should analogously apply to the Anglican Form.