Exploring an Irish Ordinariate: St Thomas More, witness to the call to communion with Peter

Wednesday 6 July 2011

St Thomas More, witness to the call to communion with Peter

While the universal Roman calendar commemorates St Thomas More on 22nd June, alongside St John Fisher who was martyred on that date in 1535, it was on 6th July in the same year that St Thomas was martyred.

The collect for his commemoration in the Anglican calendar prays that God "inspired Thomas to put conscience about earthly honour, so that he died the king's good servant, but yours first".

St Thomas More's rejection of Henry VIII's overthrow of the primacy of the See of Peter and Henry's arrogation to himself of the title 'Supreme Head of the Church in England', speaks into the present crisis within Anglicanism. Apart from the See of Peter, a church's unity and communion is greviously undermined as other sources of authority challenge the apostolic tradition.

The witness of St Thomas More points to the call to the ecclesia anglicana to live in communion with Peter.

St Thomas More, ora pro nobis.

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An Ordinariate for Ireland?

The recognition of the riches of the Anglican tradition by Pope Benedict XVI in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus has offered the hope of the reconciliation of the Anglican tradition to the See of Peter after centuries of separation.

The creation of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and preparations for Ordinariates in the United States, Canada and Australia demonstrate how many Anglicans across the globe are responding to the promise of Anglicanorum Coetibus.

The burden of a painful and divisive past has meant that there is little, if any, expectation of an Ordinariate in Ireland. This, however, does not have to be case. The ARCIC process, initiated by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in 1967, achieved significant agreement between Anglicans and Roman Catholics with regard to the Eucharist, Ministry, Authority, the Church, Justification and the Blessed Virgin Mary, offering the hope of healing the rupture of the 16th century. Anglicanorum Coetibus builds on this hope.

For those Anglicans in Ireland who believe that Anglicanorum Coetibus should be prayerfully explored, this blog is offered as an arena for discussion.

The blog is run by an Irish Anglican and is a personal endeavour.