English Catholicism as a separate Western Rite?

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tafan2 said:
My point is that the OP’s idea that England has been culturally distinct from (western) Europe throughout its history is wrong
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And I tend to agree. At least I would say that everywhere in Europe is culturally distinct to some extent. England is better than anywhere else, of course, but that’s a different matter. 🙂
 
Ha. Being an American who has traveled throughout Europe a bit, I would agree with you on the “better”, although perhaps the Czechs and the Poles run you a close race.
Yes, everywhere in Europe is culturally distinct to an extent (as is different areas of the US, often to a lesser extent than Europe). But I would perhaps argue the distinctions between Europe and England culturally largely came after the reformation, as England came out of the reformation in a somewhat unique way.
 
“joyfulandactive said:
large periods of history, the English church consisted mostly of two groups. 1) a small number of aristocratic families who had been rich enough to pay the fines and hold onto their lands and 2) working-class Catholics who were the descendants of immigrants from Ireland, Portugal, Italy etc. Any indigenous working or middle class Catholicism had been wiped out and was not allowed to be replaced.
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Not entirely true. My husband’s Lancashire family have an Sixteenth Century English martyr in their background. The faith was kept among the Lancashire working class without any help from immigrants. A sore point, actually. Many were the mutterings when a parish priest claimed in a sermon one St. Patrick’s Day that the English had the Irish to thank for the Faith still persisting today.
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tafan2 said:
I won’t argue with your corrections of my post. My point is that the OP’s idea that England has been culturally distinct from (western) Europe throughout its history is wrong. With your corrections to my post, the point still stands.
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Very possibly. I could be wrong. I was just throwing out the idea, more as a way to integrate Anglicans while allowing them to keep as much as possible without becoming just one more nationality in the Roman Rite. The ordinariates and similar measures seem to be sufficient for now.

On another somewhat related topic, why do the Orthodox subdivide themselves based upon ethnicity? I know there are many historical reasons for this, but is there ever any thought of merging together two or more national churches, with a unified hierarchy and diocesan (eparchial) structure, and so on? I have in mind particularly the historical immigrant Orthodox rites in North America — why have a Greek, Antiochian, and Russian parish all in the same town, when instead they could merge into one large Orthodox parish?

I am opening a new thread on this.
 
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GordonP said:
Americans frequently confuse Scotch-(Irish) from Northern Ireland, and Scottish from Scotland, even those with Scotch or Scottish ancestry.
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It can also simply mean people whose ancestry includes people who are from Scotland and people who are from Ireland, in the same way as a person who has ancestors from Germany and ancestors from Ireland would describe himself as “German-Irish”. It does not mean his Irish ancestors lived in Germany or vice versa.
 
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Seems Americans have got it wrong, then. Scotch is a drink not a national group. Note the same article from Wikipedia says those still in the British Isles call themselves Ulster Scots.
 
TomH1 said:
Scotch is a drink not a national group.
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There are Americans, including myself, who use the term “Scots-Irish” rather than “Scotch-Irish” because we have heard this sort of objection, usually from UK people. In the USA nobody really cares if you say Scots or Scotch.
 
Not in an exclusivist way. In the East there are certain people who view the Greek or the Russian as “more Orthodox” because of this and that. Maybe the discrimination comes out of sentimentalism and would have happened either way, even without the territorial Patriarchies. According to Saint Paul it is even worse to isolate based on sentimentalism one nation other than the others because this implies that God is unfair or He presents Himself differently to people not based on their merits and virtues (like in the case of Saints) but based on inherited culture (and race). The whole point of Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit united the Church and the Apostles even if they were speaking different languages, the Holy Trinity is united not divided. The Holy Spirit respects differences but not brings division not even favorable division. According to the Old Law favorable division was possible but then Jesus came and said to love one’s enemies and this means favorable division is no longer accepted.
 
TomH1 said:
Seems Americans have got it wrong, then. Scotch is a drink not a national group. Note the same article from Wikipedia says those still in the British Isles call themselves Ulster Scots.
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There is absolutely nothing “wrong” about it. The Americans simply retained a historical term that their cousins in the Old Country eventually abandoned.
 
I think (take with salt) the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) has propositioned Rome about entering full communion but on the condition they could be a sui iuris Anglican Rite Church and not made into an Ordinariate. This was denied.
 
Wesrock said:
This was denied.
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The point of disagreement that could not be resolved was whether bishops could be married (not priests, but bishops).

Also, the talk of reunification with Rome occurred during the term of Bishop Hepworth. Since he resigned in 2012, any interest in reunification seems to have fizzled out.

Even interest in the ordinariates that were established in 2011 was short lived, and the groups seem doomed to eventual extinction as they are not attracting new members and are losing its mostly elderly current members due to the ravages of time.
 
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The whole lengthy story of what was going on for years in the TAC, which was an umbrella organization of Continuing Anglicans (some of them) mainly getting its steam from an American Continuing Anglican Church (at the last, the Anglican Church in America) was murky even to other Continuing Anglicans. In the end, the idea of some sort of painless blend of the TAC and the RCC never happened, of course (as most Continuing Anglicans predicted). In the end, a few parishes of the ACA, at least, came in, after Anglicanorum coetibus. The major drive for the move had always been top-downward, and the laity didn’t like what was finally offered.

The final impetus for Anglicanorum coetibus, ironically, wasn’t the TAC manuvering. It was contact between orthodox Church of England Bishops, in late 2008-2009, who sought out Rome for a method to escape the inevitable attempt by the CoE to consecrate females as Bishops. Which opened a door that some TACs also used to enter.

I was posting steadily, back in the day, trying to explain what I thought was happening. And what might happen next. I feared that would be what you suggest in your final para. But I don’t see any figures that might lend light on the subject, currently.
 
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GKMotley said:
But I don’t see any figures that might lend light on the subject, currently.
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Figures are really hard to come by. At best, you have to rely on oblique statements from people inside the movement about how disappointed they are that the movement is not attracting many new members and that sustainability is an major concern. Mostly on blogs and such.
 
I understand. And sadly, it does seem to be what I predicted. Which, ten years ago, got me labelled as anti-RC, in some circles.

I watched an Anglican Use parish, one of the first, become (naturally) an Ordinariate parish. And disappear in in 4-5 years.
 
GKMotley said:
I watched an Anglican Use parish, one of the first, become (naturally) an Ordinariate parish. And disappear in in 4-5 years.
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A big problem was that most of those who initially joined were late middle aged and beyond, and they were not accompanied by their by then adult children, making transmission to the next generation all but impossible. Attrition due to ageing out and death mean that these parishes will eventually evaporate.
 
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This was also among my opinions. It was, in fact, a problem that many more Anglo-Catholic Continuing Anglican parishes faced and still face, to some degree. My own parish was aging visibly, and barely holding our own, for some years. Until suddenly, an influx of large, young, active families, bursting with kids, and fitting in very nicely.

A miracle.
 
I think @HomeschoolDad is thinking of pre-Henry VIII Catholicism in England, e.g. things like the spirituality, devotion or piety expressed in the Sarum Rite?
 
Dunno if it makes you feel any better, but the last Ordinariate service I attended around here in the States had quite a few families with young kids. Including the priest’s own kids.
Didn’t look like it was in danger of going extinct.
 
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