POPE BENEDICT IS THE POPE OF CHRISTIAN UNITY AND IT APPEARS THAT POPE FRANCIS IS NOT DISMANTLING THE AUTHENTIC WAY TO TRUE CHRISTIAN UNITY--THE ORDINARIATES!

While it is quite evident that there is "discontinuity" between Popes Benedict and Francis, as I have written recently and all along since the beginning of the papacy of Francis, there is also continuity.

In Pope Francis there is a mixing of old and new, continuity and discontinuity. I firmly believe that most of the discontinuity stuff will have no lasting impact on the Church but will be seen only as a parenthesis as some call it. I call it a blip. So I prefer to emphasize in Pope Francis' papacy that which will have lasting impact and of course it is all that is in continuity with his previous two successors.

As quickly as Pope Francis' dismantled the restorations of Pope Benedict another pope can now do the same with some of the less than prudent decisions of Pope Francis and point to Pope Francis' precedence in doing so.

But let us focus on the continuity issues like John Allen does in a Crux article which I reprint:

Analysis

Anglican appointment reveals continuity between Pope Francis and Benedict

By John L. Allen Jr.

Associate editor November 25, 2015

At the level of style, Pope Francis is obviously a somewhat jarring contrast with his predecessor, emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. Francis generally comes off as a warm Latin populist, Benedict more a cool German intellectual.

Leaders, however, promote either continuity or rupture not primarily at the level of style but rather policy, and on that front, one can make a case that Francis has a surprising amount in common with Benedict. His reforms on both Vatican finances and the clerical sexual abuse scandals, to take one example, are clearly extensions of Benedict’s legacy.

A new chapter in this largely untold story of continuity came on Tuesday, when the pontiff tapped 40-year-old American Monsignor Steven Lopes as the first-ever bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, one of three jurisdictions created under Pope Benedict in 2012 to welcome former Anglicans into the Catholic Church.

Related: Vatican appoints a new bishop to lead breakaway US Anglicans

The Ordinariate of St. Peter, based in Houston, serves ex-Anglican communities in the United States and Canada. Our Lady of Walsingham is based in the United Kingdom, while Our Lady of the Southern Cross is in Australia.

The Lopes appointment represents continuity with Benedict on multiple levels.

For one thing, Lopes was for many years the personal aide of American Cardinal William Levada, who served from 2005 to 2012 as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Benedict. Levada was, and remains, a close friend and ally of the emeritus pontiff. Lopes himself worked in the CDF from 2005 until his appointment this week.

For another, the creation of new structures for former Anglicans was a signature Benedict move that drew criticism on at least two fronts.

First, critics saw it as an “un-ecumenical,” a violation of the gentleman’s agreement between Catholics and Anglicans not to go fishing in one another’s ponds. Second, given that most Anglican defectors these days tend to be theological conservatives, critics styled it as example of Benedict trying to drive the Catholic Church to the right.

Some may have expected that opening to be played down under Francis, but clearly that’s not the case. As a press release announcing Lopes’ appointment put it, Francis’ move “affirms and amplifies Pope Benedict’s vision for Christian unity” and makes the ordinariate “a permanent, enduring part of the Catholic Church.”

Francis also recently approved a new set of texts for the celebration of Mass by the ordinariates, incorporating distinctive features of Anglican worship (my addition: and elements of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass which could well be inserted into the current Roman Missal as an appendix of options). Those texts will go into use on the first Sunday of Advent on Nov. 29, and Lopes played a key role in producing them.

In a Crux interview Wednesday, Lopes said he sees his new job as all about continuity between the two popes.

• Vatican appoints a new bishop to lead breakaway US Anglicans

“I worked very closely with Pope Benedict in creating the ordinariates, and I know his vision was of allowing diversity in communion,” he said. “Pope Francis embraces that model and is pushing it through to its logical conclusion.”
Francis, Lopes said, is conscious of carrying forward his predecessor’s approach.
“I met with Pope Francis last Wednesday and heard from him on this very point,” Lopes said. “He knows very well what he’s doing.”

Lopes argued that the experience of the last three and a half years has undercut much of the alarm voiced at the beginning about Benedict’s move. For example, he said he hasn’t witnessed the “tension and blowback” observers expected from the Anglican side.

“On the contrary, the Anglican/Roman Catholic dialogue is continuing,” he said, adding that there have been several examples of the Episcopal Church in the United States “being very, very gracious when whole communities have come over.”

He also denied that the former Anglicans he now serves are entirely made up of disgruntled conservatives.

“Anglicanism itself is diverse, so the people coming in are diverse,” he said. “To paint the ordinariates with a brush of just one color may be a handy narrative, but it’s false.”

At the moment, Lopes said, the ordinariate for the United States and Canada has 42 parishes, 64 priests, four deacons, and roughly 20,000 faithful. It’s in an expansion phase, he said, both because other Anglican communities are still requesting entrance, and because his parishes tend to be keenly missionary and are attracting new members.

Looking forward, he said it’s plausible new ordinariates could be created in other parts of the world, perhaps to serve Latin America and the Pacific islands. Although Africa contains the majority of the world’s Anglicans, Lopes said he would be “surprised” if an ordinariate emerges there. Most African Anglicans, he said, are evangelicals, with different understandings of church authority, the sacraments, and so on, from Catholicism.

Taking the long view, Lopes predicted that the basic idea behind these communities – that “unity of faith allows for vibrant diversity in expression … which Benedict believed, and to which Francis is now giving contours” – will stand the test of time.

“We’re about to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation,” he said. “I don’t think it’s overstating things to say that 500 years from now, we’ll look at this idea of Benedict and Francis as what began to heal the rift of division in the Church.”