Mgr Keith Newton will give an address on the Year of Faith and ecumenism in Manchester next month. Visiting the Manchester Ordinariate Mission to celebrate the Ascension of the Lord on Sunday 12 May, the Ordinary will confer the Sacrament of Confirmation at the 11am High Mass (Book of Divine Worship) and then preside at Choral Evensong at 4pm before delivering his address. Both celebrations will take place at St Joseph's Catholic Church, Mary Street, Heywood. All welcome.

Charles Moore, the former editor of The Daily Telegraph, whose authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher has recently been published, is to give a talk on the future of Christianity in Britain at an event in London being organised by the Friends of the Ordinariate. The event will take place in the Little Oratory, Brompton Road, London, on Tuesday 13 June 2013. It will begin with Solemn Evensong & Benediction, celebrated by Mgr Newton and the renowned Oratory choir at 6pm. For more information, visit the website of the Friends of the Ordinariate, www.friendsoftheordinariate.org.uk. Tickets £10 on the door. All welcome.

Mgr Keith Newton bestowed the ministry of Lector and Acolyte on Andrew Harding at St John's Seminary, Wonersh, on the feast of Saint Mark. Andrew is the first seminarian of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, having begun studies for the Anglican ministry at the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield, before being received into the Catholic Church in 2011. Please pray for him and for our other seminarians, studying in Oxford.

Robert Smith from the Sevenoaks Ordinariate Group was admitted to candidacy for Holy Orders on Sunday by the Ordinary. Mgr Newton celebrated and preached at the Solemn Mass at St John the Baptist, Westerham, where Fr Ivan Aquilina - a priest of the Personal Ordinariate - currently serves the diocesan parish and members of the Ordinariate Group. Robert is persuing ordination to the diaconate, and has also recently become a father. We assure him and his wife, Frances, of our prayers.

An illustrated talk is to be given by Dr Andrew Nash, on the life of our patron Blessed John Henry Newman.

Dr Nash, who is a former Head of English at The Oratory School founded by Newman, is the editor of the current edition of Newman's Lectures on the Present position of Catholics in England. He will speak about the life of the nineteenth century churchman at the church of the Most Precious Blood, Borough, on Monday 20 May 2013 at 6.30 p.m.

The talk is being organised by ladies from the London (South) Ordinariate Group, based at Precious Blood, and will be followed by light refreshments.

All are welcome to attend.

Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Westminster, and other Catholic leaders, have offered their prayers for Margaret Thatcher on the occasion of her death on 8 April 2013.

In a message from the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Holy Father was said to be 'saddened to learn of the death of Baroness Margaret Thatcher'. Furthermore, he noted with appreciation 'the Christian values which underpinned her commitment to public service and to the promotion of freedom among the family of nations'. 

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, in his capacity as the President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said 'It was with sadness that we heard the news of the death of Baroness Thatcher, who served this country for many years [...] We pray for the repose of her soul and for the intentions of her family and all those who now mourn for her'.

In a Tweet, Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth (@BishopEgan) added, 'Let us pray for the soul of Margaret Thatcher - may she rest in peace - and for the Divine consolation of her family'.

The former British Prime Minister died from a stroke at the age of 87. May she rest in peace.

The church of Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street, has published details of the new music programme for the coming weeks. Starting from Palm Sunday 2013, the parish has enjoyed choral music at the 10.30 a.m. Solemn Mass, drawing from the Anglican and Catholic musical traditions. English plainchant Propers are taken from the Anglican Use Gradual and hymnody is drawn from the English hymnody tradtion. All are welcome to attend these services.

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
Missa Brevis (Palestrina)
Alleluia! I heard a voice (Weelkes)

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
Missa O Quam Gloriosum (Victoria)
Sancte Deus (Tallis)

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Missa Vulnerasti cor meum (Morales)
I saw a new heaven (Bainton)

Archbishop Gerhard Müller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave this homily on Thursday 28 February in St Peter's Basilica, to group of faithful from the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi:

My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is a great pleasure to be present with you during your pilgrimage to the tomb of the apostle Peter. It is always a great joy to be in this place, which is a sign for us of the communion we share with our Holy Father, and also a reminder of the apostolic mission in which we collaborate with him as fellow workers in the vineyard.

I know, too, that it is a particular joy for those of you who have travelled the journey into that communion from the Anglican tradition as part of this great project of Christian unity which our Holy Father has begun. You will receive much reward for your courage, and for your fidelity to the pursuit of truth. You bring a rich patrimony and heritage, which does not only nourish your own faith, but is a ‘treasure to be shared’ with the whole Church (cf. Anglicanorum Coetibus III).

Together, united in that bond of communion, the Church now journeys through the season of Lent, toward the passion, death, and resurrection of our blessed Lord. This pilgrimage has a particular poignancy for you, as you recall your own pilgrimage into full communion during this season in recent years. The trust with which you set out to fulfil that call to unity, is a reminder for us all to trust in the Lord’s providence, because in doing so we open our hearts not to our own will, but to the will of the Lord himself. We ‘put out into the deep’, in faith, and in complete trust of God (cf. Luke 5:4).

In the First Reading, from the prophecy of Jeremiah, those who trust in the Lord are compared to ‘a tree planted by water [that] does not cease to bear fruit’ (Jer. 17: 8). This is an essential message for you who now have the task of establishing and growing the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and indeed for all of us who seek to be faithful to the call of the Lord. We are assured that our fidelity to the Lord will never leave us stranded nor alone, rather, that faith is the very thing that gives us life. If we place our trust fully in the Lord, then, like Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham, we will see the fulfilment of that trust in the eternal life promised to us: the Promised Land of heaven toward which we journey from the moment of our baptism. Indeed, if we place our trust in the Lord we will not simply survive, but flourish and become beacons of hope, drawing others into a profound and intimate relationship with him.

In these early moments in the life of the Personal Ordinariates, such faith is no luxury! You are forced to trust in the Lord because you have placed yourselves so utterly and courageously into his hands. This is a powerful witness to us all, but also a particular moment of grace for you. With your patron, the Blessed John Henry Newman, ‘do not ask to see / The distant scene’, but rather allow that trust to manifest itself in your prayer, in your charity, and in your fervour for the Gospel. Be joyful in the knowledge that ‘He who calls you is faithful’ (1 Thess. 5:24), because it is that joy which will draw others into a deeper and more profound relationship with us, and with the Lord.

And if we seek the perfect model of Christian joy, then Mary shows us way: she, who bore God himself in her womb and rejoiced in trusting obedience to his will, giving herself entirely over to him. As she was filled with a deep joy, through her intercession may the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham become a place where the joy of Christ himself may be found - a Holy House in which all who seek the Lord may find him. 

A series of talks on the documents of the second Vatican Council will be hosted by members of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in Richmond. Monthly talks will cover four of the major documents of the council, starting on Tuesday 30 April. Further details are available from Fr Peter Andrews. Refreshments will be served.

The first talk will be given by Fr Christopher Pearson on Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (1963) on Tuesday 30 April at 7.30pm in the church of St Thomas Aquinas, Ham Street, Richmond, TW10 7HT. Further dates will be: Tuesday 28 May (Lumen Gentium); Tuesday 25 June (Dei Verbum); Tuesday 24 September (Gaudium et Spes) - each at the chruch of St Thomas Aquinas.

The talks are a local initiative as part of the Year of Faith, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the second Vatican Council.

The Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton, has celebrated Holy Week and Easter ceremonies at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street.

The church, which as been dedicated to the life of the Personal Ordinariate by Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, was the venue for the liturgy of Palm Sunday, the Sacred Triduum, and the Solemn Mass on Easter. On Monday of Holy Week, the Apostolic Nuncio celebrated the Ordinariate's Chrism Mass in the church.

During Holy Week, a professional quartet provided the liturgical music thanks to a generous grant from the Friends of the Ordinariate. Music included repertoire from the Anglican and Catholic traditions and was led by the parish organist and a member of the Personal Ordinariate who works as a music teacher in the London area.

On Palm Sunday, Fr Mark Elliot Smith was nominated as the administrator of the parish by Mgr Newton.

The Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton, has nominated Fr Mark Elliott Smith as the priest of the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street. 

The parish, which is in the Archdiocese of Westminster and is dedicated to the life of the Personal Ordinariate, will serve as a central London base for members of the Personal Ordinariate, as well as continuing to serve the local diocesan faithful.

Fr Elliott Smith was given a special blessing at the end of the Solemn Mass on Palm Sunday, the first Mass in the care of the Personal Ordinariate in the historic church. 

Before ordination in 2011, Fr Elliott Smith served in Tottenham. He has been the pastor of the London (Central) Ordinariate Group since his reception into the Personal Ordinariate, and also works as the Catholic Chaplain to the Whittington Hospital.

Full details of Holy Week services at Warwick Street can be found by following this link.

Over 70 priests from the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham gathered with the Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton, at the annual Chrism Mass today. The Mass, celebrated by the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, was the first to be held in the new central London church in the care of the Ordinariate, Our Lady of the Assumption, Warwick Street.

Just under 300 faithful attended the ceremony with their priests, a ceremony which was enriched by the beauty of fine music drawn from the Catholic and Anglican traditions. 

Mgr Newton received the renewal of priestly promises and preached the homily, which can be read here.

Children at Catholic and Church of England primary schools across Greater London have been taking part in a project organised by a group of women from the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The 'Children's Handwriting and Artwork Project' is believed to be the first of its kind. The aim was to encourage children to study and enjoy the beauty of the psalms. Every Catholic and Church of England primary school in Greater London (Anglican diocese of London and Southwark, Catholic dioceses of Westminster, Southwark, and Brentwood) was invited to take part.  

The children were invited to choose a psalm from a list provided, and to copy out a few lines illustrating it in any way they liked with drawings, collage, etc - and then, in a short paragraph, to give reasons for the choice. The entries for the project will be judged during the Easter holiday period, and prizes presented in the summer term.

'We have been touched by the really beautiful work that children have sent in', said Mrs Kathie Kempton, one of those helping organise the venture. 'They especially loved the psalm that talks about the deer longing for cooling streams, and others that spoke about the wonder of nature. The standard of work has been very high. We were given a small grant from an ecumenical charity to enable us to run this project, and are most grateful for this generosity, which means we can award some prizes, and a little memento to each child who has taken part'.

The Anglican bishop of Argentina and North Argentina, the Rt Revd Gregory Venables (pictured right), has made the following clarification regarding comments reportedly attributed by him to the-then Cardinal Bergoglio: 

"The reaction to the point about the Ordinariate is far more significant than the original comment which incidentally was not written for publication. The conversation was in 2009 and did not imply that the Ordinariate was either temporary or an error, merely that the speaker values the Anglican Church as it is".

A note from the Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton, regarding recent news reports:

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

In the midst of the joy of welcoming our new Holy Father, there have been some concerns about his opinion regarding the Ordinariates. This has been prompted by comments made public by an Anglican bishop in Argentina. Any period of transition brings with it some uncertainty, but we should recall that the Personal Ordinariates, established by the highest form of legal document in the Church, are 'a permanent feature in the life of the Church and a sign of [her] lasting and unswerving commitment to that ultimate goal [of full ecclesial communion]' (Fr Federico Lombardi, 20 February 2013). We commit ourselves anew to that vital mission of the Church, under the leadership of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and continue to work and pray for the unity of all Christians with the Bishop of Rome, who presides in charity over the whole Church.

Mgr Keith Newton
15 March 2013

The Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the Right Reverend Monsignor Keith Newton, has welcomed the election of our new Holy Father.

In a statement he said, "Together with the whole Church we rejoice at the election of our new Holy Father, Pope Francis, an obviously humble and holy man".

"In union with him, we recommit ourselves to the work of evangelisation and of deepening our relationship with Jesus Christ, who guides and leads his Church".

"I invite all the faithful of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham - clergy, religious, and lay faithful - to pray for Pope Francis as he begins his ministry as the Successor of Saint Peter. As his first visit was to the shrine of Our Lady, Salus Populi Romani, in Santa Maria Maggiore, so we turn also to our blessed Lady, Our Lady of Walsingham, and entrust him to her care. May she and Blessed John Henry Newman, our patron, pray for him and may God bless his ministry as Bishop of Rome and grant him a long life!".

The house of the Passionist Order in Rome has given a relic of Blessed Dominic Barberi to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

During this week's pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi, Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, took possession of the relic, which was handed over by Fr Ciro Benedettini C.P., the Vice Director of the Holy See Press Office and a member of the Passionist order to which Blessed Dominic Barberi belonged. 

Blessed Dominic Barberi received Blessed John Henry Newman, the patron of the Personal Ordinariate, into the Catholic Church in 1845. The relic will be housed at the central London church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Warwick Street, which will be staffed by priests of the Personal Ordinariate from Palm Sunday 2013.

Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, and Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in the United States, were present at Pope Benedict XVI's final General Audience in Rome today, Wednesday 27 February.

Mgr Newton is in Rome this week with a group of pilgrims from the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, based in the UK, visiting the city and paying tribute to Pope Benedict XVI as he renounces the office of the papacy on Thursday. 

During the week, Mgr Newton and Mgr Steenson also visited the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross to meet the faculty of the Canon Law school.

On Thursday morning, Archbishop Gerhard Müller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, will celebrate Holy Mass with the Ordinariate pilgrims in St Peter's basilica. At the end of the Mass, a relic of Blessed Dominic Barberi - the Passionist priest who received Blessed John Henry Newman into the Catholic Church - will be handed to Mgr Newton by the Passionist fathers who live in Rome, for the veneration and devotion of the faithful of the Personal Ordinariate. The relic will be housed in the central London church of Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street, which the Personal Ordinariate will staff from Palm Sunday 2013.

Whilst in Rome, Mgr Newton also spoke to the Catholic News Service this week about the ecumenical legacy of Pope Benedict. The interview may be viewed here.

Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate  of Our Lady of Walsingham, has made the following statement following the news from Rome today:

The news of our Holy Father’s decision to relinquish the office of the papacy is one which has surprised and saddened us all today.

Pope Benedict’s pontificate has been an astonishing moment in the life of the Church. He has exercised his pontificate with gentle wisdom and deep humility and will be especially remembered for his clear and profound teaching. Those of us in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham have particular reason to thank God for his pontificate, as he opened the way for Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church through his Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. He will forever hold a place in the hearts of those of us to whom he has been, in a particular way, a shepherd and Father.

We pray now for him and for the whole Church. We entrust the College of Cardinals to the intercession of the Mother of God, Our Lady of Walsingham, as they exercise their sacred duty to elect his successor.

This morning our Holy Father made the following statement:

Dear Brothers, I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

Press Release from the Friends of the Ordinariate:

In a gesture of support for former Anglicans who have entered into full communion with the Catholic Church, the famous Oratory Catholic Church in Kensington is to host a visit this weekend from Monsignor Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. 

Mgr Newton will preach at the Vigil Mass on Saturday evening (9 February) and all seven Masses on Sunday (10 February) to the Oratory’s estimated total weekly total congregation of two and a half thousand. His sermon will include an appeal for funds for the Ordinariate – the structure set up by Pope Benedict two years ago to allow Anglicans the chance to become Catholics while maintaining much of their Anglican heritage. There will be a retiring collection for the Ordinariate at the end of each Mass. 

The Ordinary will also preside at the Oratory’s procession in honour of Our Lady of Lourdes after Vespers on Sunday. 

The Provost of the Oratory, Fr Julian Large, said: "The Fathers of the London Oratory are delighted to welcome Mgr Keith Newton to our house and parish. The Ordinariate is a great gift from the Holy Father to the life and unity of the Church, and we are sure that this appeal for funds will bring a generous response from our faithful at the Oratory." 

The Oratory visit is part of a series being made by Ordinariate priests to Catholic parishes up and down the country, organised by the Friends of the Ordinariate charity which helps to raise awareness of and funds for the Ordinariate. 

Mgr Newton said:  “Since the Ordinariate was established, we have received a tremendously warm welcome from those Catholics who know about us and understand what we are about. However, there are a great many others who either haven’t heard of the Ordinariate or misunderstand what it is. These parish visits provide the perfect opportunity for us to clear up some of those misunderstandings and to enter more fully into the hearts and minds of all Catholics, which is essential if we are to flourish as the Holy Father intended.  They also provide the chance to raise much needed funds for our work.  

“It is a great privilege for me to preach at the historic and beautiful Oratory Church and I am especially grateful to the Oratory Fathers for inviting me and for showing support in this way”, Mgr Newton added. 

Eighty-one former Anglican priests have joined the Ordinariate, but with so far only about 1500 lay members to support them, the structure is dependent on raising funds from the wider Catholic community to pay for the living expenses and training of Ordinariate priests, the setting up of a fund for sick and retired priests and the acquisition and upkeep of buildings.

Archbishop Peter Smith, Vice-President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, has commented on today's debate in parliament to redefine marriage:

"The Catholic Church continues to support marriage understood by society for centuries as the significant and unique lifelong commitment between a man and a woman for their mutual well-being and open to the procreation and education of children. Marriage is rooted in the complementarity of man and woman. For these reasons the Church opposes the Government’s Bill to re-define marriage. Despite claims by supporters of the Bill that the central issue is one of equality, the Bill actually seeks to re-define marriage and will have consequences for society at large.

"It became clear during today's debate in the House of Commons that the government has not thought through a number of profound problems in the Bill raised by members of Parliament during the debate. It will be extremely important that the many concerns we and others have expressed will be fully and carefully considered during the next stages of the Bill's passage through Parliament."

Edmund Adamus is Director for Marriage and Family Life for the Archdiocese of Westminster. He contributed this article in the latest edition of the Friends of the Ordinariate newsletter, Memorare:

In his address at Oscott College just before the end of his state visit in September 2010, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the establishment of the Ordinariate as a ‘prophetic gesture’ and one which will enable a ‘mutual exchange of gifts’ from the spiritual patrimonies of both the worldwide Catholic Church and the unique English expression of a Catholic faith preserved over many generations by those former members of the Church of England, now fully at home sacramentally in the Catholic Church. But what is this English expression? Or perhaps more precisely what does this expression bring to the spirit and mission of the New Evangelisation in our nation? So from the perspective of one who works to support and promote a Culture of Life and the Civilisation of Love founded on marriage and family; here are a few thoughts. 

In a recent letter to the Tablet weekly, a reader wrote: “Last Sunday, I was unable to attend the morning or evening Mass at my usual Catholic church… By chance, I found there was an afternoon Ordinariate service in a church nearby... The Sunday, appropriately, was the day before the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham. The sermon was of Mary’s “Yes” to becoming Mother of God. The hymns were about Our Lady, and I already knew them. Now in my nineties, I feel for the first time that, yet a Catholic, I am truly English”.In one sense this gentleman’s experience sums up for me what I am beginning to see might be a very special ‘gift’ of the Ordinariate to the life of the Catholic Church generally in this country; that is to say, an added and fresh dimension to our Marian devotion and spirit. St Augustine from the early fifth century, as quoted in paragraph 506 of the Catechism, states: “Mary is more blessed because she embraces faith in Christ than because she conceives the flesh of Christ”.

The prominence given within the liturgies and devotions of the Ordinariate to the Blessed Virgin reflects the profound Christocentric faith of its members. In the original Greek of the gospel passage for the Annunciation, Mary uses the word doule. This is a very strong word: it does not mean handmaid or something so gentle. It literally means a slave or even more precisely a bondsman, as opposed to a slave taken in war – i.e. one born so; subject to another. Mary is in all effects abasing herself before the Lord. She is completely his subject or slave or bondswoman. And there is something of that humble spirit about the generous way; with a sense of total self-abandonment, both individuals, families and whole communities of former Anglicans have sought full communion with the Church through their trusting embrace of the gift of the Ordinariate; as have many before them before its existence. They are I believe, truly Marian Catholics. It is the fact of Our Lady’s assent, that she conceived Christ in her heart before he became flesh in her womb which sheds light on the significance of the coming in to being of the Ordinariate when its outward, one might say, its material, tangible visible structure, particularly on the question of having a Principal Church, is still taking shape and not yet fully realised. There’s a sort of hiddenness about the presence of the Ordinariate as yet within the wider Catholic community and the nation, that reflects its faithful solidarity with the humble Virgin of Nazareth. For it is when we have a better grasp of the Marian aspect of the New Evangelisation, that the potential for the Ordinariate to contribute to that evangelisation becomes more striking.

The phrase “New Evangelization” originates from various translations of Paul VI's phrase in Evangelii Nuntiandi rendered in English as “a new period of evangelization”. Other translations also use the word new, for example, the Spanish tiempos nuevos de evangelizacion, and the Italian nuovi tempi d'evangelizzazione. The editio typica, however is: feliciora evangelizationis tempora. The Latin does not use the typical word for new, nova. Instead, it uses feliciora, which translates more literally as “an abundant season of evangelization”. Mgr Brian Bransfield, an assistant General Secretary to the US Bishops Conference has written in his book, “The Dignity of the Human Person According to John Paul II” that “feliciora comes from felix, or happy. Feliciora connotes abundance,nobler, propitious, flourishing, more auspicious, fortunate, or bountiful in an agricultural sense”. The choice of the Latin word indicates how the New Evangelisation is new. The new is not opposite what was in the past, or opposite to “old”. The new is not synonymous with contemporary or current. Rather, [he states], “the new evangelization is new in the sense that evangelization is to be a noble, bountiful, flourishing and of abundance. While the word new is a suitable adjective for evangelization, the quality of the newness should be understood in the sense of feliciora”.Bransfield goes on to explain thatthe Greek for “favoured one”, kecharitomene [which is difficult to translate in to English], means overflowing with grace to such an extent that it is like a fountain within a fountain. Kecharitomene is like a superlative placed upon a superlative. Hence her title: Star of the New Evangelisation. If we are not wholly Marian, our evangelisation cannot be truly new.

Joseph Ratzinger in ‘Co-Workers for the Truth’, under the entry for 9 December states: “Mary is figure image and model for the Church. By gazing on her the Church is prevented from conveying a one-sided male image that reduces her to an instrument of socio-political action programmes”.

The unique way of gazing upon the Virgin Mary is a strong element of the patrimony of the Ordinariate, which is supremely English and Christian. Why? Well because of our long historical roots being the Dowry of Mary as a nation coupled with the place that Walsingham once enjoyed as one of the greatest European shrines after Rome and Compostela. I hope that slowly but surely and in communion with other equally fervent Marian movements in the country, the witness of the Ordinariate to the influence of Mary upon our Christian faith will help us all reclaim something of the tremendous significance of our nation’s identity in God as the Dowry of Mary.  We are all familiar with the phrase, “an Englishman’s home is his castle” which aspires to sum up that profound sense of hearth and home being a place where we are sovereign. For the home or community, conscious of its identity in Christ under the mantle of Mary who was the maker of the home of the Holy Family, an even deeper sense of liberty and dignity abides. Furthermore, Walsingham, as the Nazareth of England, the Holy House being a replica of Mary's House of the Annunciation, is the wellspring and lodestar of the idea of the Dowry of Mary which can and should have direct links to the charism of the Ordinariate.

We British like to pride ourselves on being exemplars of fairness, supporting the underdog and coming to the unashamed defence of those who are treated with brutal injustice whether at home or abroad. I believe along with others that one of the sources of that sense of liberty is and has been our cultural and spiritual connectivity with the Blessed Virgin’s witness to truth and freedom in being the one who physically brought the embodiment of truth and freedom into the world: Christ Himself.  So I hope and pray that in God’s own time and according to the manner in which He wishes it to be manifest, that the Ordinariate will significantly contribute to the realignment of our national Catholic identity to its more ancient roots. The poet Tom Paulin in reviewing Clare Asquith’s book on Shakespeare speaks of the ‘concealed heart of the English identity’, and I believe that it is pursuit of this line of enquiry of which the Ordinariate is emblematic, which leads us to an unveiling of this identity which is truly English because it is truly and authentically Catholic. Whatever the Ordinariate might discern to do to respond to what will be the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Transmission of the Faith and the New Evangelisation, I hope that some thought and attention amongst its highly-educated clergy and laity can be given to the fact that 2015 will mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta; the great charter of the liberties of England once described as, ‘the greatest constitutional document of all times – the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot’. (Lord Denning)

Magna Carta was framed with the help of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and our ancient British liberties are Christian liberties applied to the secular realm. All of this is present in the fiat of Mary, which when properly understood, as it is within the context of the Marian devotions celebrated by the Ordinariate, is the genesis through her of the one who is to ‘to set the captives free’. Perhaps this is why in 1982 on the occasion of his Pastoral Visit to our shores, Blessed Pope John Paul II said,‘God bless Great Britain and enable her to fulfil her exalted destiny in justice and in peace’.

I also hope and pray that the Ordinariate might bring some fresh attention and focus upon the pastoral truths inherent in the Sacrament of Matrimony through its appreciation and use of the language of the Sarum Rite of Marriage. I believe its pastoral significance for today especially in the light of a growing appreciation for an adequate Christian anthropology, is among other things one of the unique contributions an authentic English Catholicism can gift again to the wider Church. I have always felt that those beautiful words - ‘With my body I thee worship’ - exchanged between the bride and bridegroom following their vows, is a sort of primordial Theology of the Body emanating from deep within a very English Catholic Christian sense of modesty and dignity between the sexes. Perhaps there’s a case for insights based on use these words that could give the Ordinariate an opportunity to contribute to the deeper appreciation of the ‘astonishing power’ of spousal graces and love (cf. 2012 Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Nichols & Archbishop Smith) as well as shed light on the ongoing work locally and nationally about improving the provision of marriage preparation. I am sure that the witness to Catholic faith and morality would be massively incomplete without the strong and uniquely British presence of the Ordinariate. As Shakespeare so eloquently put it in Act 2 of Richard II, ‘This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England’, as a nation is the unique gift or ‘dos’ (dowry) to Mary and she in turn gifts all that is best about us as a nation to the world, when and only when we consent to God’s will individually and as a nation. I pray we are fervently inspired to do just that with the help of our brothers and sisters in Christ of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Archbishop Antonio Mennini, Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, has paid tribute to the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and its Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton, who he said was working “without confrontation and in  a spirit of peace and love” to implement the Holy Father’s vision of Christian unity. 

The Archbishop was speaking at a reception at the Apostolic Nunciature in Wimbledon for some forty guests, including Catholic writers, academics and lawyers, organised to raise funds for the Ordinariate – the structure set up two years ago to allow Anglicans the chance to enter into full Communion with the Catholic Church while maintaining much of their heritage.

The Archbishop said many former Anglicans had made great sacrifices in order to take the step to enter into the full communion with the Catholic Church, but in doing so, they had demonstrated to the world what the Ordinariate had to offer and the great wisdom of the Holy Father’s move in setting it up. 

The reception – which raised £10,000 - was organised by the Friends of the Ordinariate charity, which was set up to support and raise awareness of the Ordinariate.

Monsignor Newton also addressed the gathering, speaking of the Ordinariate’s mission to undo the tragedies of the sixteenth century and work with the rest of the Catholic Church to convert the country to the faith. 

He said that building up the Ordinariate would take time, but he was confident that, over the years, many people would be brought by the Ordinariate to see the truth of the Catholic Church.

The publication of the Apostolic Constitution in 2009, he said, had, in some respects, “called people’s bluff” because for many Anglicans it was one thing having a desire for unity, but quite another to see the vision when it was offered and to take the leap. For this reason the Ordinariate was in for the long haul; “it’s a marathon, not a sprint”, Mgr Newton said.

Turning to the challenges the Ordinariate faced, Mgr Newton spoke of a lack of awareness and misunderstanding on the part of many  Catholics about what the Ordinariate was and of the need to communicate its message clearly.  Financial concerns also loomed large. Mgr Newton said the Ordinariate had started with very little and, despite generous help from the Bishops of England and Wales, its resources were very limited.  Among other commitments, it was faced with the need to provide training for its priests, provision for sick and retired clergy and in many cases housing and living costs for priests. 

The chairman of the Friends, Peter Sefton-Williams, said: “We are deeply grateful to Archbishop Mennini for inviting us to the Nunciature and for showing such tremendous support for the Ordinariate. It gives us real encouragement in our mission to ensure that this wonderful vision of Christian unity flourishes in accordance with the Holy Father’s wishes”.

Press Enquiries: Catherine Utley on 07894 122484 or email catherineutley@friendsoftheordinariate.org.uk

The Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Mgr Keith Newton, writes in this week's Catholic Herald. The article is reproduced here by kind permission of the Editor.

January 15 was the second anniversary of the setting up of Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, following the publication of the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus in 2009, which offered a canonical structure for groups of Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church while retaining some of their traditions and liturgy which are consistent with Catholic teaching. 

The phrase “united not absorbed”, describing possible unity between Anglicans and Catholics, was first coined during the Malines Conversations between 1921 and 1927 led by Cardinal Mercier on the Catholic side and Lord Halifax and Charles Gore on the Anglican. This idea has been the goal of formal conversations between the two communions since the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Pope Paul VI in 1966, which initiated the work of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission. In a recent interview with this paper, Archbishop Gerhard Müller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said: “Anglicanorum Coetibus is both a fruit of the ecumenical dialogue and an expression of the ultimate goal of the ecumenical movement.” Of course, it is not the only fruit of the work that has gone into Anglican-Catholic relations over the last 50 years, but it is certainly a fruit; it could not have happened without all that has gone before. It should not deflect us from working and praying for that full corporate union of the Church which is the will of Christ. But, in a small way, those in the ordinariate are working to achieve that aim of being “united but not absorbed”. Talking is one thing, but actually making things happen is another. This is why some have called Benedict XVI “the Pope of Christian unity”.

Let me make clear that those who become Catholics via the ordinariate are as much Catholics as any who are part of a diocese or one of the Catholic Churches of the East. The Catholic Church is much more diverse than most people realise. The ordinariate is now just another part of its rich pattern. Those who enter by this route must, like anyone else, accept the whole teaching of the Catholic Church. It is, if you like, a table d’hôte and not an à la carte menu which is on offer.

Of course, two years is but the twinkling of an eye in the history of the Catholic Church, but much has happened as this new structure has established itself in the life in the Church in England and Wales. There are now 81 priests and one permanent deacon incardinated into the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. These priests minister to about 40 ordinariate groups of various sizes across the country, meeting mostly in diocesan Catholic churches. There are now about 1,500 faithful registered as members of the ordinariate. This figure is modest, but we must remember that new movements often start in significant but small ways. There is a constant stream of new people being received into full communion which I expect will continue for many years as the theological and ecclesiological problems of the Church of England become more obvious and divisions more pronounced.

Of those 81 priests, 28 are over the retirement age for Anglican clergy. They are no financial burden upon the ordinariate as they have their own housing and pensions from the Church of England. As well as assisting in ordinariate groups they are serving the wider Catholic Church in carrying out supply work and conducting funerals and other offices when requested; many are much involved in their local Catholic parish. Of the other 53, as well as serving their ordinariate congregation, 16 have been appointed as priests-in-charge of diocesan Catholic parishes. A further four are assistant priests. Four priests serve as hospital chaplains and four as prison chaplains. Five priests are working in education as either school chaplains or teachers and one is a university chaplain. You will see from this that, as well as serving the needs of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, our clergy are making a valuable contribution to priestly ministry in the wider Catholic Church in England and Wales.

A good programme of formation has been put together. Although most of the clergy have been ordained early in the process, in order to continue to pastor their ordinariate group, the actual formation period is about two and a half years. In addition, there are three men preparing for ordination to the priesthood: one at St John’s Seminary in Wonersh, Surrey, and the other two studying philosophy at Blackfriars Studium in Oxford.

At the beginning of the year I received 11 Anglican religious into full communion and erected a public association of the faithful, setting up a new religious community to be called the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In due course we hope that Rome will erect an institute of consecrated life. We also have two other religious, formerly from the Anglican Priory in Walsingham, who will be returning to Walsingham next month to serve in our National Shrine. In addition, two London parishes have been put into the care of the ordinariate: Precious Blood, Southwark, and Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street. Although we have been made very welcome in the various churches we use such new responsibility will help to develop a more distinctive ordinariate presence. These are positive signs for the future. 

Of course, finance continues to be a problem as we started with very little. The Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales has been generous, not only with its initial donation of £250,000 but also with substantial funds to pay for the formation of the clergy. This does not take into account the more local generosity of dioceses in finding accommodation and stipends for many of our clergy. Nevertheless, we need to find funds, not only for present work but also to provide for the future especially for clergy who might become sick and to provide for their retirement. At present we have nothing, but we are learning to live by faith.

But what of the future? We hope that the ordinariate will just come to be seen as a natural part of Catholic life in England and Wales. Perhaps one of the big hurdles for us is communication. There have been misunderstandings, but often simply because of a lack of knowledge of the Holy Father’s vision. We need to make use of every opportunity to explain ourselves to the wider Church so we can play our part in the mission of the Church and proclaim confidently the sovereignty of Christ our Lord in our present day.

Two sisters of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham will return to Walsingham this month to assist with the apostolic work of the National Shrine of Our Lady. 

Sister Jane Louise and Sister Wendy, who were amongst the first to join the Ordinariate in January 2011, were members of the Anglican Society of Saint Margaret, based in Walsingham, until they became Catholics. They will now return to ‘England’s Nazareth’ where they will help to welcome pilgrims at the National Shrine of Our Lady. 

Sr Jane Louise will take up a new role at the shrine as Youth Missioner, working with individual young pilgrims and groups who visit the shrine to hear more about the history and message of Our Lady of Walsingham. 

Sr Wendy will be welcoming pilgrims to the shrine and also working as an assistant to the Shrine Sacristan, helping with the day-to-day running of the church and pilgrimage facilities. 

The sisters said, “We are very happy to be returning to a place which, as many people feel, is home, and to be returning as Catholics completes this part of our journey. We are excited about the future and if God is willing, that we will grow in number. We are entrusting ourselves to our Lord and our Lady to take care of that”. 

The sisters will take up residence in St Bernard’s Cottage on the High Street in Walsingham. Whilst they will be unable to receive staying guests or pilgrims, they will be glad to hear from friends - old and new. 

The sisters will continue in Private Vows, being known as the Marian Servants of the Incarnation.

Catholic Bishops today urged members of Parliament to oppose the Marriage (Same sex couples) Bill at Second Reading as it distributed a briefing to MPs and Peers. 

The briefing explains why the meaning of Marriage matters to everyone, reasoning that the Bill, for the first time in British legal history, “fundamentally seeks to break the existing legal link between the institution of marriage and sexual exclusivity, loyalty and responsibility for the children of the marriage”. Quoting Bertrand Russell, the Bishops make the point that: “But for children, there would be no need of any institution concerned with sex… It is through children alone that sexual relations become of importance to society, and worthy to be taken congnizance of by a legal institution.” It is worth noting that in last year’s government consultation on the proposal to change the definition of marriage there was no mention of children at any point. 

The briefing goes on to explain why retaining marriage solely for opposite sex couples is not discriminatory. The Bishops also make the point that there is no mandate for this fundamental change to the definition of marriage. Such a change is a major constitutional change and Parliament should not be rushed into making a decision that will have far reaching long-term consequences, many of them unintended. “The British public, as a whole, did not seek this change; none of the mainstream political parties promised it in their last election manifestos; there has been no referendum; there was no Green or White Paper and the Government consultation did not ask whether the law would be changed, but how the law should be changed. 

This Bill paves the way for yet more fundamental change and the proposed safeguards are inadequate, the Bishops say, concluding that the wider legal consequences of the Bill have not been adequately addressed. This includes the unknown implications for public and private law, the impact on freedom of expression and freedom of religion particularly in education and an emerging gulf between religious and secular conceptions of marriage which will have profound implications for the future architecture of relations between Church and State.

The full briefing may be viewed here.

Archbishop Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, will begin his first official visit to the United States as prefect with a keynote address at "The Mission of the Ordinariate", a symposium on Saturday 2 February in Houston, Texas. The address and entire program will be live-streamed online here from 1530 until 2230hrs (GMT).

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI approved the creation of personal ordinariates to welcome former Anglican groups and clergy seeking to enter the Catholic Church as groups. This symposium, The Mission of the Ordinariate, will explore these new structures – which now exist in North America, the United Kingdom and Australia – through the lens of Christian unity, evangelization and liturgy.  

Archbishop Müller, who was appointed Prefect in July 2012, will start the day with a presentation on “The Call to Communion: Anglicanorum coetibus and Ecclesial Unity”.  Anglicanorum coetibus is the Apostolic Constitution authorizing the creation of ordinariates. Ordinariates are similar to dioceses, but national in scope. 

Ordinariate communities retain many aspects of their Anglican heritage and traditions. In his talk, Archbishop Müller will discuss the “unity of the one and the many,” noting that “unity is not achieved by an elimination of distinctiveness. The unity of faith…permits a diversity of expression of that one faith.” He will discuss the ordinariates’ role in responding to the need to maintain Anglican liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions within the Catholic Church and to integrate those coming from Anglicanism into the Catholic Church. 

The full list of symposium speakers is: 

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington 
Archbishop Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 
Monsignor Steven Lopes, Official with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 
Bishop Kevin Vann, Bishop of Orange 
Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, Ordinary, Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter 
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, will offer welcoming remarks. 

The symposium is being sponsored by the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in partnership with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. The schedule, registration and other details for The Mission of the Ordinariate, being held at St Mary’s Seminary, are online here. 

Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, the Ordinary of the US based Personal Ordinariate said, “It is a great honour to welcome Archbishop Müller to the United States. His participation in the symposium signifies in a special way his commitment to this special intention of the Holy Father for Christian reunification”. “We also are grateful for his presence as we recognize Cardinal Donald Wuerl for his extraordinary leadership in guiding the process that led to the establishment of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter,” he added.

As the ordinariate celebrates its second birthday Edmund Matyjaszek writes in the Catholic Herald:

The news that one of the loveliest London churches, Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory in Warwick Street, is to be given over for use by the ordinariate is possibly the best second birthday present imaginable for this new part of the Church in England. There is also poetry in the fact that the ordinariate ­ still little known and even less understood ­ is that of Our Lady of Walsingham. For a church bearing the title of Our Lady's great feast, the Assumption, and also that of the Pope who sent St Augustine in the sixth century as the ‘apostle to the English’, to house the ordinariate, and in London too, can hardly be other than a providential sign for its mission to act ‘as a bridge between the Anglican Communion and the Apostolic See of Rome, reconciling all the spiritual children of St Augustine of Canterbury’.

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman, to give it its full title, was set up on January 15 2011, following the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus of November 2009, to meet the requests of ‘Anglican faithful who desire to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church in a corporate manner’. That is what the ordinariate was set up to do. In so doing I believe it will change the face of English Christianity forever ­ and I say English advisedly ­ in both a national, cultural and linguistic way. It signals the end of the English Reformation, and the beginning of institutional re-union. It is the fruit of the ecumenical prayer of the last few decades. It is a revolutionary step that fully justifies the use of that often politically misused word ‘diversity’. It shatters the naïve idea of a monolithic Church.

It is only possible as a result of the Second Vatican Council whose 50th anniversary we honour in this Year of Faith. Yet it reaches back into the past to re-connect with our deepest elements of national identity and refresh them in a context of living truth, accepting ­ this is the unique aspect, inconceivable were it not for the Vatican Council’s approach to ecumenism ­ that other ecclesial bodies possess ‘elements of sanctification and truth ... found outside the [Catholic] Church's visible confines’.

As Scripture says, God has no favourites, ‘but anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him’. But a corporate means of embodying that? That is new. With the acceptance of ‘elements of sanctification and truth’ comes an extraordinary recognition that this extends not just to the ‘liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican communion as a precious gift nourishing the faith of members of the ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared’, but also to, for instance, the synodal traditions of the Anglican Church. 

There is to be a governing council under the Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton, who will exercise ‘personal authority’. The ordinariate sits alongside and within the diocesan structure and can have parishes ­ that is, groups of the faithful ­ but they will be personal not territorial. (In the age of online communities this idea of personal groupings is perfectly understandable.) But the priests on the general council can vote on who is to be on the terna, that is, the list of three candidates to be the Ordinary. This is more than just a nod in the direction of synodal government. It is an acceptance of the validity of that aspect of the Anglican Church. 

The ordinariate is still small, of course. There is a personal register which has more than 1,220 souls, and there are 81 priests, one deacon and now a community of nuns as well. It is growing.

What does this all mean in practice? To attend an ordinariate Mass is to hear a Catholic liturgy that has parts of Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer. It is to hold in one⊃;s hands the English Hymnal first edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with hymns by St Anselm, George Herbert, William Cowper, Charles Wesley and Christina Rossetti. It is to hear the words of the Revised Standard Version, which go back to Tyndale’s first translation, burnt and then honoured by the authorities, and later borrowed from by every Bible translation since. It is to heal the divisions of centuries by hearing the words framed by both persecutor and punished, but now conjoined in an ecclesial form common to both. It is to pray for our monarch and her family without a tremor of diffidence or unfamiliarity. It is to have George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins sitting in the same pew, and perhaps even to see, across the centuries, Cranmer and Challoner finally embrace.

It is to live in a new house of prayer ­ a very English one at that. It is to repossess the soul of our culture by means of its quintessential agent: the English language. It is to recover that ‘native hue’, which the poet Tom Paulin recently called ‘the concealed heart of the English identity’. It is, after so many long centuries of Christian division, to come home to ourselves.  

Above all, it is to see the land that belongs to Our Lady begin to be fully hers again, gifted by Richard II in a royal act commemorated in the Wilton Diptych: a royal decree, note, that has never been retracted or denied, that is, the dedication of England in the 1380s as the Dowry of Mary confirmed by his Archbishop of Canterbury in 1399: ‘But we, as the humble servants of her inheritance, and liegemen of her especial dower ­ as we are approved by common parlance ­ ought to excel all others in the favour of our praises and devotions to her.’ It is the ordinariate being that of Our Lady of Walsingham that is the key to its nature and even more its mission. Walsingham is where Our Lady asked for a ‘memorial to her great joy’, a ‘newe Nazareth’, to be built. This in Walsingham led to England itself being understood as her dowry or domain, her ‘holy land’, a place set apart for her use alone. No other nation on earth claims anything like this. But the shrine itself, suppressed in 1538, only found its restoration through the joint work in the 19th and early 20th centuries of Anglicans and Catholics.

Is it not appropriate that this great step to the corporate re-union of Christianity should be in the land and under the mantle of she who bore the undivided flesh of God’s own Son; and whose shrine has found new life after centuries of scorn and denial in the very joining of the two great traditions of English Christianity, sundered at the Reformation but now brought back together in one Church?

Go to an ordinariate Mass. Take up the English Hymnal. Sing God’s praises from it. Stand as a descendant of the recusants, as an inheritor of the immigrant traditions of exile, or stand as an Englishman or Englishwoman, confident in the established faith of your forefathers. We are all one now. We have a new national Church emerging. Rooted in history, accepting fully the divisions of the past, but bringing then under the healing mantle of she whose land this always was and is so still.

Edmund Matyjaszek is a poet and playwright. To buy his booklet, Walsingham: England’s Nazareth, priced £2.50, call 020 7736 0350

The Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton, has joined over a thousand Catholic clergy in opposing the government's proposed redefinition of marriage.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, the signatories - who include the bishops of Nottingham, Portsmouth, Wrexham, and Middlesborough - state that "Legislation for same-sex marriage, should it be enacted, will have many legal consequences, severely restricting the ability of Catholics to teach the truth about marriage in their schools, charitable institutions or place of worship".

"After centuries of persecution", the letter states, "Catholics have, in recent times, been able to be members of the professions and participate fully in the life of this country. [...] It is meaningless to argue that Catholics and others may still teach their beliefs about marriage in schools and other areans if they are also expected to uphold the opposite view at the same time".

The Personal Ordinariate was established in January 2011 to enable Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church as groups. Mgr Newton was appointed the first Ordinary by Pope Benedict XVI.

Over three hundred worshippers gathered in the church of Saint Mary, Cadogan Street, last evening for a ceremony of carols and readings to mark the season of Epiphany.

Led by the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton, the event was organised by the Friends of the Ordinariate as a means of raising the profile of the Ordinariate amongst fellow Catholics.

The music at the service was drawn from the Anglican musical tradition and was performed by the widely-acclaimed Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School Schola Cantorum, a Catholic school based in London.

Readers at the service included His Grace, the Duke of Norfolk, the distinguished Catholic author Piers Paul Read, Tablet journalist Peter Stanford, Madeleine Teahan - Associate Editor of the Catholic Herald, Gill Newton, wife of the Ordinary, and Paul Stubbings, the Headmaster of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School.

Clergy from the Personal Ordinariate and supporters assisted in choir and servers were drawn from the seminarians of the Ordinariate, lay members and friends.

A spokesman for the Ordinariate said, "As we reach the second anniversary of the establishment of the Ordinariate, it is good to take stock and to give thanks to the Lord for the many graces we have received. It is good, too, to come together with those who have supported us in these early days, and to ask Almighty God to bless their generosity as we continue to establish ourselves as a distinctive but fully integrated part of the Catholic Church in these lands".

The celebration concluded with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, given by Mgr Newton.

Community of St Mary the Virgin at Wantage
Charity registration 240513

Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary (New Ordinariate Community)
Charity registration 1150264 

The Anglican Community of St Mary the Virgin (CSMV) has been in existence at Wantage since 1848 and has over the last 160 years variously provided within the Church of England education for girls, care of the sick, the poor and the disadvantaged, and retreats for those in need of religious support. 

11 of the CSMV Sisters were received into the full communion of the Roman Catholic Church on 1^st January 2013 via the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the canonical structure established by Pope Benedict XVI to enable groups of Anglicans to enter into full communion while retaining elements of their spiritual and liturgical patrimony.  The 11 Sisters have formed a new religious community called the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary (SBVM) which has been erected as a public religious association within the Roman Catholic Church by the Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton.

The Departing Sisters, the Bishop of Oxford (the Rt. Rev John Pritchard, as Visitor to the Community) and Mgr. Keith Newton have been discussing with their professional advisers how the CSMV and the SBVM would be able to continue their religious lives in their separate communities.  Terms have been agreed in principle to enable the Departing Sisters to establish themselves and to live and work as the new SBVM community. The Departing Sisters have left Wantage and, after a period of formation in their new tradition, are expected to locate themselves elsewhere in England. The Bishop wishes them well as they move on to this next stage in their Christian vocation.

The CSMV will continue in being as an Anglican foundation and new charity trustees have been appointed, following consultation between the previous Trustees (who had all decided to join the new Roman Catholic community) and Bishop John Pritchard.  The new Chair of CSMV Trustees is Baroness Judith Wilcox.

This statement is issued on behalf of the Bishop of Oxford and Monsignor Keith Newton.

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, has today announced that the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and Saint Gregory, Warwick Street, is being dedicated to the life of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The historic church, which is situated in Soho, previously served as the chapel of the Portuguese, and later Bavarian, embassies. In the nineteenth century the sanctuary was rebuilt by the architect, J. F. Bentley, who designed Westminster Cathedral. In his ‘Apologia’ Blessed John Henry Newman mentions a visit to the church as a young boy with his father.  He converted from Anglicanism to the Catholic faith in 1845and is the patron of the Personal Ordinariate.

Speaking of the news, Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate, said, “We are very grateful to Archbishop Vincent Nichols for this gesture of goodwill and support for the Ordinariate. The church is a beautiful example of ecclesiastical architecture in a very central part of London. We will be challenged to provide a strong Christian witness to those who frequent the surrounding area of Soho. It will also provide a fitting place for the liturgical and spiritual traditions of the Anglican tradition to flourish, in complete union with the Catholic Church. These demonstrate our fervent hope for the realisation of the ultimate goal of all ecumenical work, the restoration of full ecclesial communion”.

"The missionary work of the slum clergy of our Anglican forebears to the marginalised of our society must be  at the heart of our mission. We relish the opportunity to engage in this important pastoral ministry, faithfully presenting the teaching of the Catholic Church as the means by which light of Jesus Christ can shine on the dark places of our world. Together with the recent formation of a religious community of former Anglican religious within the Ordinariate this is really good news as we begin 2013".

Ten former members of the Anglican Community of St Mary the Virgin in Wantage were received into the full communion of the Catholic Church on 1 January, the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, by Monsignor Newton at the Oxford Oratory.  Together with two other sisters, who were already Catholics, they form a new religious community  to be called the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Monsignor Newton erected the community as a Public Association of the Faithful with the view to it being eventually granted the status of an Institute of Consecrated life.

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 as a way for groups of Anglicans to enter into communion with the Catholic Church, whilst retaining aspects of their Anglican tradition, both to nourish the faith of the members of the Ordinariate, and as a treasure to be shared with the wider Church.

An announcement was made yesterday (Sunday) that the Parish of the Most Precious Blood, Borough, is to be cared for by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. 

By the kind invitation of the Archbishop of Southwark, the Most Reverend Peter Smith, the diocesan parish of the Precious Blood near London Bridge station will be cared for by Fr Christopher Pearson - a priest of the Personal Ordinariate - with the permission of the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate, Mgr Keith Newton.

Replacing the Religious Community of the Society of the Divine Saviour (Salvatorians), who currently care for the parish, Fr Pearson will undertake the pastoral care of the diocesan faithful alongside the London (South) Ordinariate Group, who have worshipped in the parish in recent months. Fr Pearson's appointment begins in January 2013. 

Mgr Keith Newton said, "We are very grateful to Archbishop Peter Smith and the diocesan authorities for making this possible. It represents a positive moment in the life of the Ordinariate, as we grow towards the establishment of our own parishes and communities". 

The parish of the Precious Blood was founded in 1891.

Members and supporters of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham are being invited to attend a Holy Land pilgrimage in 2014. 

Led by Fr David Lashbrooke, a member of the interim Governing Council of the Ordinariate, and Derek Vogt - who has some 25 years of experience of Holy Land pilgrimage - the journey will seek to explore the life and ministry of Jesus Christ in the very place where he lived and died.

As well as the daily celebration of Holy Mass, there will be plenty of free time for reflection and a glimpse of local culture and customs. 

The pilgrimage will take place from Thursday 8 May to Monday 19 May 2014. For more details, please contact Derek Vogt by email (derek@bakeryclose.co.uk) or telephone 01392 271943.

Archbishop Gerhard Müller, who was recently appointed as the Prefect (head) of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has given an interview to Catholic Herald journalist, Mary O'Regan. Archbishop Müller and the CDF oversee the Personal Ordinariates.

Here is an extract from the interview, which looks specifically at the Personal Ordinariates:

As Prefect of the CDF, Archbishop Müller is responsible for the implementation of the apostolic constitution  Anglicanorum Coetibus. He was keen to talk about the great benefits which have come to the Church through the inclusion of these communities of Anglicans, with their pastors, into Catholic life. Commenting on the ecumenical dimension of the personal ordinariates, he said: “It’s not only the will of the Holy Father, but it is the will of Jesus Christ that all the baptised are drawn together into full visible communion. In this way Anglicanorum Coetibus is both a fruit of the ecumenical dialogues of the last 40 years and an expression of the ultimate goal of the ecumenical movement. 

“What we notice particularly from the clergy who are applying for ordination in the various ordinariates is that there has been a rediscovery in some Anglican and Protestant circles of the importance and the necessity of the papacy in order to maintain the authentic link with biblical Christianity against the pressures of secularism and liberalism. Many of those who have entered into full communion through the ordinariates have sacrificed a great deal in order to be true to their consciences. They should be welcomed wholeheartedly by the Catholic community – not as prodigals but as brothers and sisters in Christ who bring with them into the Church a worthy patrimony of worship and spirituality.”

The complete interview may be read here.

A group of Anglican nuns from the Community of St Mary the Virgin (CSMV) in Wantage, Oxfordshire, are to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in January 2013. 

Eleven sisters from the historic Anglican community will join the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the structure established by Pope Benedict XVI to enable groups of Anglicans to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church whilst retaining elements of their liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral heritage. The group includes the Superior of the community, Mother Winsome CSMV. 

The eleven CSMV sisters, will be joined by Sister Carolyne Joseph, formerly of the Society of St Margaret in Walsingham, who joined the Ordinariate in January 2011. These twelve sisters will initially be established as a Public Association of the Faithful within the Personal Ordinariate. They will be known as the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary and will continue in their work of prayer and contemplation, whilst retaining certain of their Anglican traditions and practices. Foremost amongst these is the tradition of English plainchant for which these sisters are well known.

After consultation with Church of England authorities it has been decided that the sisters will move from their convent in Wantage and, after reception into the Catholic Church, will spend a period of time with an established Catholic community. Following this, the newly established Ordinariate community will seek to find a suitable new home.

Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, said, “The Community of St Mary the Virgin in Wantage has been at the heart of the Church of England’s Religious Life since the mid-nineteenth century. The contribution of the community to the life of the Anglican Communion has been significant, not least through the community’s care for those marginalised by society in Britain, and also in India and South Africa”.

Speaking of the decision of the sisters to enter the Personal Ordinariate, Mgr Newton continued, “Those formed in the tradition of the Oxford Movement cannot help but be moved to respond to Pope Benedict’s generous invitation to Anglicans. The sisters have always prayed for the unity of Christians with the See of Peter, now this is to become a reality for them by means of the Ordinariate. We are truly grateful for their faith, courage, and resolve”.

The community has been in discernment about the way forward since the publication of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009. Mother Winsome CSMV, the Superior of the Community, said, “We believe that the Holy Father’s offer is a prophetic gesture which brings to a happy conclusion the prayers of generations of Anglicans and Catholics who have sought a way forward for Christian unity. The future of our community is a fulfilment of its origins, and as part of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham we will continue with many of our customs and traditions, whilst also seeking to grow in Christ through our relationship with the wider Church”.

One sister, who was ordained in the Church of England and is now to be received as a Catholic, said, “The call to Christian unity must always be the primary motivating factor in the decision of Anglicans to enter the Catholic Church. Anything which impedes that process cannot be of God, and so must be set aside to achieve this aim, which is the will of Christ”.

Those members of the community who will remain in the Church of England have expressed their admiration and respect for those who have taken this decision. In a short statement they said, “Whilst remaining committed to their Religious vows in the Church of England the sisters of the Community of St Mary the Virgin wish the sisters joining the Ordinariate every blessing on their new life in the Catholic Church, and respect the integrity of their sense of call”.

The Community of St Mary the Virgin was founded by the Reverend William John Butler and Mother Harriet CSMV as one of the first communities of nuns in the Church of England since the Reformation. Under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary the community has engaged in charitable work throughout the Anglican Communion, whilst maintaining a balance with the life of prayer.

ENDS

Further Details and Contact Information:

Fr James Bradley, Communications Officer for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, on +44 (0)7880 540727 or james.bradley@ordinariate.org.uk 

A photograph for the use of the media may be found here: www.flickr.com/UKOrdinariate

The sisters will be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church at 10.00 a.m. on 1 January 2013 at the Oxford Oratory. Press and media wishing to attend the event must contact Fr Bradley by 30 December to request permission.

Ordinariate member David Murphy gives his 'view from the pew' during last Saturday's Solemn Mass according to the Book of Divine Worship in Germany:

For most of our small far-flung community of Ordinariate expats, the Solemn Mass in Herzogenrath, Germany, on 1 December 2012 was our first “live” experience of the Book of Divine Worship.

Mgr Newton celebrated the Mass, supported by Fr James Bradley as deacon and Fr Daniel Lloyd as subdeacon, on the last day of the 15th Cologne Liturgical Conference.

Until very recently the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has almost exclusively been identified liturgically with the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, whereas the US and Australian Ordinariates tend to use Rite 1 of the Book of Divine Worship, which is a more typically Anglican form of the Mass, as adapted from the Book of Common Prayer and the English Missal tradition.  

After the second Vatican Council most Anglo-Catholic parishes in the UK adopted the new vernacular form of the Roman Rite in order to identify more closely with the wider Church and thus underline their argument of ‘catholicity’ for Anglicanism.

With the advent of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and the foundation of Personal Ordinariates, the logic in choosing a liturgical form is now very different: the task which the Holy Father has given Ordinariate Catholics is to bring the riches of Anglican liturgy into the wider Church.

And so it was good to experience the proclamation of the Two Commandments before the Penitential Rite, the Gospel chanted from the middle of the nave, the Prayer of Intercession spoken by the priest at the altar, the Comfortable Words, the Peace before the offertory, the Prayer of Humble Access, the Prayer of Thanksgiving after Communion, and - perhaps most significantly - a Mass celebrated in the beautiful vernacular language of the Book of Common Prayer. And indeed it was all of these elements which the German Catholic participants at the Liturgical Conference, who had no experience of the Anglican Use, themselves immediately recognized as an enrichment for the Church at large. The organiser indeed said as much at the end of the conference.

This was a truly holy and exceptionally beautiful Mass, and it felt so right to use these so familiar forms of prayer from my youth within an unequivocally Catholic context.

This past weekend the Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton, celebrated a Solemn Mass according to the Book of Divine Worship at the close of the 15th Cologne Liturgical Conference in Herzogenrath, Germany.

Mgr Newton was a guest of the conference and also gave an introductory talk about the development of the Personal Ordinariate in the UK to the 100 or so delegates. 

A Votive Mass of Our Lady of Walsingham was celebrated on Saturday accompanied by Missa O Quam Gloriosum by the Spanish composer, Victoria, and the Gregorian plainchant of the Roman Rite. Mgr Newton gave this sermon, which may be read here.

A video of the celebration will be made available in due course. In the meantime a number of photographs may be viewed online here.

Monsignor Keith Newton, the Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, will join Archbishop Peter Smith, Bishop Philip Egan, and others, for a new study course on the Catechism of the Catholic Church during the Year of Faith.

The course, which will run from 9 January to 23 March 2013, is based at the Centre for Catholic Formation in Tooting Bec, London, and is part of the adult formation programme offered by the Archdiocese of Southwark. The course is open to all - not just members of the Archdiocese or the Personal Ordinariate.

Alongside the Ordinary, the course will welcome Dr Petroc Willey and Dr Caroline Farey from the Maryvale Institute, Fr Tim Finigan (St John's Seminary, Wonersh), Fr Stephen Wang (Allen Hall), and Mgr John Armitage from the Diocese of Brentwood.

The 12 study seminars will be held on Wednesdays from 7.30pm to 9.30pm, concluding with Compline, and costs £50 per person (bookings in advance). The cost includes a light buffet supper and study notes from the course. Discounts are available for students and the unemployed, and individual sessions cost £8 per person on the door.

Mgr Newton will speak about The Creator on Wednesday 13 March at 7.30pm.

For bookings and further information, please contact the Centre for Catholic Formation on 020 8672 7684.

Catholics across England and Wales will remember the people of the Middle East in their prayers on Tuesday, 4 December, the Feast of St John Damascene. Conscious of the civil war in Syria and its impact on neighbouring countries, the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, at their recent plenary meeting, decided on a day of prayer as one sign of solidarity with the people of the region. 

As a priest and Doctor of the Church who was born in Damascus (Syria) in 675 and died near Jerusalem about 749, St John Damascene’s feast day was chosen because it links the early Church with the living community of Middle Eastern Christians and their vocation as peace-builders.  The Bishops' Conference members pray that the example of St John’s life can inspire Christians, Muslims and Jews to work for reconciliation and justice.

Members and friends of the Personal Ordinariate may wish to make use of this prayer for peace from the new Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham:

Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: kindle, we pray thee, in every heart the true love of peace; and guide with thy pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that in tranquility thy kingdom may go forward, till the earth is filled with the knowledge of thy love; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Customary, p. 684)

Groups from the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham are preparing to celebrate the season of Advent with a traditional service - the Advent Procession - now available for use in the Catholic Church through the publication of the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Immediately before Christmas - and during the Octave - groups will make use of the famous Nine Lessons and Carols, which is heard across the world, broadcast by the BBC from King’s College, Cambridge, on Christmas Eve. The service was constructed by the once Dean of King’s, the Reverend Eric Milner-White, and is instantly recognisable as one of the most beautiful parts of the Anglican tradition - making use of choral music, hymnody, and readings, which trace the prophecies and events of the Nativity of the Lord.

To coincide with the second anniversary of the erection of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, a festive service of carols and readings for the Epiphany, will be held on Thursday 10 January 2013 in St Mary’s, Cadogan Street, London. This will be a candlelit service, led by the Ordinary and in the presence of a large number of clergy of the Personal Ordinariate. The music will be provided by the well-known Schola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, and readings from scripture and the Anglican tradition (now published in the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham) will feature. Amongst those reading at the service will be the Duke of Norfolk and Catholic authors Piers Paul Read and Peter Stanford. The service will conclude with Pontifical Solemn Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Saturday 1 December 2012

Advent Procession at 4pm, Our Lady and St Paul’s, Argyle Street, Heywood OL10 3PB

Advent Procession at 4pm, Holy Rood, Folly Bridge, Oxford

Solemn Evensong of Advent Sunday at 4.45pm, Reading Oratory School

Advent Procession at 6.30pm, St Anselm, Pembury

Sunday 2 December 2012

Advent Procession at 4pm, Our Lady Queen of Peace, Southbourne

Advent Procession at 4pm, St Agnes, Whitley Road, Eastbourne, BN22 8NJ

Solemn Evensong & Benediction at 6pm, St Michael & All Angels’, Huntingdon

Sunday 9 December 2012

Advent Procession at 6pm, Holy Cross & St Francis, Sutton Coldfield

Sunday 23 December 2012

Carol Service & Benediction at 3.30pm, The Assumption, Old Harlow

Nine Lessons & Carols at 6.30pm, St Anselm, Pembury

Nine Lessons & Carols at 7pm, Holy Family, Benfleet

Friday 28 December 2012

Nine Lessons & Carols at 7pm, St Peter & St Boniface, Cathedral Sq., Fortrose, IV10 8TB

Nine Lessons & Carols at 7.30pm, St Osmund, Gainford, DL2 3DZ

Sunday 30 December 2012

Nine Lessons & Carols at 4pm, Our Lady and St Paul’s, Argyle St, Heywood OL10 3PB

Nine Lessons & Carols at 6.30pm, St Joseph the Worker, Coventry, CV4 7DU

Thursday 10 January 2013

Festival of Carols for Epiphany by Candlelight at 7pm, St Mary, Cadogan Street
with music provided by the Schola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School and readings given by the Duke of Norfolk, Piers Paul Read, and others.

On Saturday 10 November, Mgr Keith Newton celebrated Mass according to the Book of Divine Worship in the church of St Agatha, Portsmouth. During the Mass the Ordinary blessed eight new bells which will be hung in the belfry of the church, and will ring out over the city of Portsmouth from January 2013.

During the homily, Mgr Newton recalled the importance of calling people to worship. He said that the tradition of bell-ringing often "evokes a feeling of nostalgia for an England that perhaps no longer exists", but that nostalgia "might also reflect a yearning deep inside us for a relationship with God".

Dr Edward Norman was Canon Chancellor of York Minster and is an ecclesiastical historian. He is an emeritus Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. This article was first published in the Catholic Herald and is published here with permission.

It is not joining the Catholic Church which is intellectually or emotionally difficult: it is leaving the Church of England that is hard. This is not because the Anglican understanding of Christianity is particularly consistent or persuasive – very much not – but because over the years loyalties accumulate, friendships are established and styles of worship become fixed. How could it be otherwise? I was brought up as an Anglican, although by the time I was ordained as a priest I had actually come to recognise that I had not really learned much about Christianity directly from ecclesiastical sources. I had taught myself most of what I knew, and that set a pattern for life. It was from books, and from a study of Christians thinkers and apologists, that my knowledge of the faith derive. 

Among a fellowship of believers a sense of shared faith can also bring palpable blessings, but in the end these things (Church members being humans and not angels) are a fragile basis for a sustained adhesion to a religious life. What is needed, in some form of words or other, is a clear Doctrine of the Church, a sacramental view of the relationship between Christ and his followers on earth.

At its simplest (and therefore most useful) expression the Church is the body of Christ in the material world. 
The unfolding truths were first delivered to fishermen of Galilee, and were to be received, as Our Lord himself declared, by such as little children. Christ did not entrust his message, and the gift of salvation, to a body of writings, or a philosophical formula, or a prescribed order of society: he entrusted himself to a people – the People of God, the Church. By very definition, as a result, the Church must be universal, and there can be no such things as a “National Church”. The essentials of Faith cannot differ from place to place, or culture to culture, although particular rites or interpretations of practice may legitimately vary, not in essentials but in applications. 

The problem for the theologians and theoreticians has always been to determine which things are essential and which are not. There is also, as the Catholic Church teaches, a hierarchy of truths, some of which are more applicable in some circumstances and times, than in others, but which are all nevertheless truths. And there are errors which, because of the ease with which humans allow their passions and enthusiasms to correspond too closely to their desires, are only too readily misunderstood as authentic developments of the exhortations of the Saviour.

Now the main difference between Catholic Christianity and Anglicanism is the nature of the Doctrine of the Church itself. It is not that Catholicism has one understanding and Anglicanism another; it is that Catholicism has such a doctrine and a very clear one and that Anglicanism does not really have one at all. Far too much was left unattended at the Reformation, when English Christianity was detached from the centre of unity and from the Magisterium of the universal Church, leaving the Church in England without a means of determining its own doctrines. No one could have foreseen at the time that the split with Rome was to prove permanent. And so for the next three and a half centuries doctrine in the Church of England was determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. 

Some of the most unsuitable aspects of this state of affairs have been modified, yet the essential position has remained; Anglicanism has no basis for its authority which links it to a universal body. The consequent effect has been that every section of it and, in these days of spiritual individualisation, every person in it feels free to make up faith for themselves and deem the result to be “Christianity”. How can the “Church” be the body of Christ in the world when its confession varies from place to place and person to person, not only in minor but in the most essential teachings about faith and morals? At the centre of Anglicanism is a great void. 

Catholic readers will perhaps find this all very obvious. It is not. However, the way things are seen in the Church of England – where there is actually very little consciousness of any need to think about the authority of Christian teaching at all. Moral issues are determined, where they are determined at all, on the basis of data furnished by media presentation or the findings of surveys of opinion. Doctrinal questions do not in reality get much airing, largely because there is so little common ground for precise formulations or any stomach for debating them – and, anyway, there is no authority for determining the basis of authority, short, one supposes, of legislation in Parliament. As for Christian morality, there is a procession of tawdry public controversies. With every compromise the truths of which the Church of England purports to be the guardian mean less and less.

Seeking to join the Catholic Church, after the experiences of years of exposure to these ecclesiastical inconsequences in the Church of England, induces not only a feeling of coming home but a sensation of cleansing. Humanly speaking, nevertheless, gratitude to Anglicanism is still experienced, and a large degree of lasting affection. The Church of England provides a masterclass in equivocation; it also, however, is the residence of very many good and faithful Christian people who deserve respect – for their perseverance in so many incoherent spiritual adventures. To leave their company is a wrench; to adhere to the Catholic faith is to join the encompassing presence of a universal body of believers in whose guardianship are the materials of authentic spiritual understanding. After lengthy preparation I have immense gratitude.

A priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has published a set of meditations based on the three year cycle of readings in the lectionary.

Fr David Mawson, Pastor of the Shrewsbury Ordinariate Group, has put together three volumes of meditations which he is now revising to bring them into line with the Catholic cycle of readings and also the RSV (Catholic Second Edition), which is the authorised lectionary of the Personal Ordinariate.

The latest edition, Following the King, costs £9.99 (plus £2.50 p&p) andoffers 'everyday encouragement to those who would learn to identify the King whose kingdom we serve'. It is being made available in time for Advent 2012, when the Year C cycle of readings begins.

Fr Mawson studied Theology in Cambridge before teaching and then serving as a clergyman in the Anglican Diocese of Lichfield. He worked as a chaplain in hospitals, prisons, and with the police. 

To order a copy of Following the King, click here.

The Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, spoke yesterday about the progress of the Ordinariate in the United States during the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Ordinary's address can be viewed by video here.

The slides from the presentation (PDF) itself can be viewed on our website here. The presentation contains a number of statistics and other information which helps UK members and supporters understand the development of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in the United States.

This week the Monsignor Newton attends the Catholic Bishops' of England and Wales plenary meeting in Leeds. During this meeting he will update the other members of the Episcopal Conference on the development of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

During the Year of Faith (11 October 2012 - 24 November 2013), members of the Coventry Ordinariate Group will be carefully studying the content of the Catholic faith as it is set out in the Church's Creeds and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

In studying these fundamental documents of the Christian life, members hope to rediscover the beauty of the faith and be inspired afresh to share it with others. Far from being simply an intellectual exercise, the ultimate aim of the course wil be to rediscover in the beauty of the person of Jesus Christ, in order to share him with the world.

Each session will be in the context of a Holy Hour (a time of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament), focussing on one of the twelve clauses of the Apostles' Creed.

For people's convenience, the Holy Hour will be held twice each month (the second a repeat of the first), on a Monday evening from 7.30 p.m. til 8.30 p.m. and on a Wednesday morning from 10.30 a.m. til 11.30 a.m. The dates are may be viewed here. Each Holy Hour is, of course, open to anyone - Catholics and non-Catholics - who would like to know a little more about the Catholic Faith.

Throughout the Year of Faith the Holy Hours will cover the entire Apostles' Creed, but attendance at specific sessions or the whole series is possible.

You can find the Coventry Ordinariate group at Saint Joseph the Worker Catholic church, 1 De Montfort Way, Cannon Park, Coventry, CV4 7DU. For more information please contact Fr Paul Burch on 024 7669 3752

Archbishop Gerhard Müller (right), Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, and Mgr Steve Lopes, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Secretary to the Anglicanae Traditiones working party, will be featured speakers at a symposium to mark the first anniversary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter in Houston, Texas.

The symposium will be held on Saturday 2 February 2013 at St Mary’s Seminary in Houston. Topics will include the ecclesiology of Anglicanorum Coetibus, and the evangelization and liturgical missions of the ordinariate.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, will greet participants. Additional speakers include Bishop Kevin Vann of Orange (California), who also is the Ecclesiastical Delegate for the Pastoral Provision; and Mgr Jeffrey Steenson, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter was established by Pope Benedict XVI on 1 January 2012 for former Anglican groups and clergy seeking to become Catholic while retaining elements of the Anglican traditions and heritage. The US Ordinariate is centred around the church of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas. Its clergy and communities are located across the United States and Canada.  

Further details on the symposium will be posted online soon at www.usordinariate.org.

Around 100 participants were present for the That All May Be One day conference on mission and evangelisation, organised by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, on Friday 9 November.

Delegates heard from Fr Aidan Nichols OP (Talk), Fr Paul Richardson, and Fr Alexander Sherbrooke, who each encouraged members of the Personal Ordinariate (and supporters) to work towards evangelisation through the promotion of beauty, a specifically indigenous approach to the faith and Christian life, and work amongst the poor.

The conference was held at St Patrick's, Soho Square, by kind permission of Fr Sherbrooke, and concluded with the solemn celebration of Holy Mass according to the Book of Divine Worship (right).

The day marked the start of a series and programme of events designed to engage in a process of discernment and listening as the Ordinariate reaches its' second anniversary in January.

An Ordinariate spokesman said, "Mgr Newton has often reminded us that Receptive Ecumenism - which is the fundamental way by which the Anglican tradition is being recognised in the Catholic Church - requires those outside the Ordinariate to direct us towards elements of our liturgical, spiritual, and pastoral tradition which can be brought as 'a treasure to be shared' by the whole Church. This conference heard from three different perspectives, giving us much food for thought as we move forward towards mission and a collaborative role in the New Evangelisation of these lands".

Photos from the event may be viewed here.

Artist and Ordinariate member, John Pelling, has produced a beautiful Christmas card based on a medieval roundel.

The depiction of Our Lady and the child Jesus will be sold to raise money for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The cards are 6" x 8.5" (15cm x 21cm) and available in packs of 10.

THESE ARE NOW SOLD OUT

Orders for 100 or more will be accepted by post. 100 cards will cost £25.00, including envelopes and P&P. Cheques made payable to "Ordinariate OLW".

Please send orders and cheques to Mrs Hilary Andrews, 8 Meadowview, Ashburnham Road, Ham, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 7NN UK.

ALL PROFITS TO THE PERSONAL ORDINARIATE OF OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM.

For orders by email, please contact enquiries@ordinariate.org.uk

The first Ordinariate women’s group has been established. It is based at the London (South) Ordinariate (meeting at Precious Blood Church, London Bridge) and is thriving. The special theme of the group is to foster a sense of Anglican patrimony and at each meeting a talk is given about a leading figure: the first two talks have been on Octavia Hill (social reformer, founder of the National Trust) and Lilian Bayliss (theatrical entrepreneur, associated with the Old Vic and Sadlers Wells) both of whom have strong links with South London. The group is also running a project for Catholic and Anglican primary schools which involves children doing artwork and studying the Psalms. Anyone interested in joining the group should contact the Secretary, London Bridge Women’s Group, 22 Redcross Way, London SE1 1TA, or the London (South) Ordinariate Group: london.south@ordinariate.org.uk

Inspired by the Year of Faith, which opened this week, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is hosting a one day conference on mission and evangelisation for members and supporters of Pope Benedict’s vision for the reunion of Anglicans with the See of Peter.

The conference, which will take place at the church of St Patrick, Soho Square - itself described as ‘a beacon of hope’ for the New Evangelisation - will have keynote presentations from experienced ‘practitioners’, and the opportunity for discussion, questions, and answers.

Fr Allan Hawkins, Parish Priest of St Mary the Virgin in Arlington, Texas, is a former Anglican clergyman who was received into the Catholic Church and ordained under the Pastoral Provision of Blessed John Paul II. Since the advent of the Pastoral Provision, Fr Hawkins has grown and developed a Catholic parish community within the Anglican liturgical and spiritual tradition. Earlier this year it was announced that the parish will transfer to the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.

UPDATE: FR HAWKINS IS UNWELL AND SO WILL BE REPLACED BY FR AIDAN NICHOLS OP. 

Fr Paul Richardson is a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster. He was formerly Assistant Bishop of Newcastle in the Church of England, previously working in Norway, and as a missionary in Nambaiyfa, Papua New Guinea. He was Principal of Newton Theological College, Popondetta, Dean of Port Moresby, and subsequently Bishop of Aipo Rongo, Papua New Guinea, and later Bishop of Wangaratta in Australia.

A spokesman for the Ordinariate said, “This is an exciting opportunity for us and our supporters to begin to think in a strategic way about the development of our mission. We are integrated into the Catholic Church by virtue of our communion, but the Year of Faith presents us with an opportunity to think about the ways in which we can contribute - as the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham - to the work of the New Evangelisation, claiming back these lands for Mary’s Dowry’.

The conference takes place on Friday 9 November 2012 from 11.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. All are welcome to attend. No charge is made, but a donation of £10 is requested, plus a further donation to help cover the cost of lunch, which will be provided. To register your interest, please email media@ordinariate.org.uk 

The conclusion of the conference will be a Solemn Mass, celebrated by the Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton, according to the Book of Divine Worship - the Eucharistic liturgy drawn from the Anglican tradition, currently permitted for use in the Personal Ordinariates.

The programme for the day is as follows:

11.00 a.m. Coffee available

11.30 a.m. First Session: Fr Allan Hawkins

12.30 p.m. Q&A, discussion

1.00 p.m. Lunch (provided, donations please)

1.45 p.m. Second Session: Fr Paul Richardson

2.45 p.m. Q&A, discussion

3.15 p.m. Solemn Mass, celebrated by the Ordinary

Clergy wishing to assist in choir at the Mass should bring cassock, surplice/cotta, and white stole.

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham will be celebrating Evensong and Benediction in St Edmund's College, Cambridge, every week during full term from this Sunday.

The Acting Dean of St Edmund's, the Revd Professor Allen Brent, is a priest of the Personal Ordinariate and has arranged for the service to take a full part in the liturgical schedule of the Catholic-founded college.

Professor Brent has expressed his desire that, just as Anglican foundations see their students attend Evensong in their college chapels, so a college with a Catholic foundation should provide for its' members to gather for evening worship on Sundays, serving as an important moment in the life of the college's week, and an opportunity for students to develop a collegiate identity, rooted in the Catholic faith.

A choir, drawn from the student body, will sing the service. Catholic Clergy wishing to assist in choir should notify Professor Brent by email and bring cassock and surplice/cotta.

Last night, St Anselm’s, Pembury, Kent - a newly erected quasi-parish of the Archdiocese of Southwark, led by Ordinariate priest Father Ed Tomlinson and made up of an equal number of Ordinariate and diocesan Catholics, held the first of ten special reflections to mark the Year of Faith.

Over 100 people gathered for Mass, after which a new statue of Our Lady was unveiled, blessed with holy water and honoured with incense. The statue is being placed in the church to mark the Year of Faith and commemorate the formation of this new quasi-parish. 

Following Mass - and an abundance of delicious homemade cakes - Fr Hugh Allen O.Praem., then delivered the first talk on prayer. In his address he stressed the importance of silence in the life of prayer and encouraged Catholics to build a strong personal relationship with Christ. He suggested that the Year of Faith is an opportunity to fall in love with God again. You can listen to the talk online here.

Fr Tomlinson, pastor of the Tunbridge Wells Ordinariate Group, said, “It was a joyous occasion building on all that we are trying to achieve here in Pembury as we come together via the Papal vision of unity provided in the Ordinariate”.

Speaking of the development of the Ordinariate Group and the establishment of the quasi-parish by the Archdiocese of Southwark, Fr Tomlinson said, “Despite humble beginnings, and in a quiet and often unseen way, we have seen things settle and progress. It means that we can face the future with optimism. Things are taking shape and this series of reflections, inspired by our patron Saint Anselm's quotation 'faith seeks understanding', proves we have something of real value to offer the wider community”.

Full details of the series can be found here.

This morning the Holy Father has opened the Year of Faith. The complete text of his homily at the opening Mass can be found below:

Dear Brother Bishops, Dear brothers and sisters!

Mgr Andrew Burnham gave the sermon at Solemn Evensong and Benediction for the opening of the Year of Faith in Cambridge. You can read the complete sermon here.

The service marked the eve of the Year of Faith, which has been called by Pope Benedict XVI to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the second Vatican Council, and the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Throughout the year, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham will be holding events to celebrate this event in the life of the Catholic Church, and also enable the deepening of the faith of our clergy and laity, as we seek - under the mantle of Mary, and the protection of Blessed John Henry Newman - to conform more closely to the image of Jesus Christ.

Monsignor Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, has endorsed the From Ocean to Ocean pilgrimage of the replica image of Our Lady of Częstochowa at a ‘crucial time’ for the defence of family and the dignity of human life.

The pilgrimage, which reaches the UK on Monday 5 November 2012, will pass through Dover, Canterbury, London, Walsingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Carfin and Glasgow, en route to Ireland. 

The pilgrimage aims to deepen awareness of the importance of Catholic teaching on the family and the dignity of all human beings from the moment of conception until natural death, and is travelling from Kazakhstan, through Europe, to Portugal at the end of the year.

Full details of the pilgrimage can be found on the From Ocean to Ocean website: http://www.fromoceantoocean.org.uk

Giving his encouragement to the pilgrimage, Mgr Newton said:

“I am pleased to welcome the visit of the replica of the famous icon of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa as part of the ‘Ocean to Ocean’ pilgrimage in defence of life and the family. The visits of the relics of St Therese and St John Vianney have shown how significant such events are in fostering prayer and devotion. The pilgrimage comes to Great Britain at a crucial time with so much threatening human life and the family so I will be encouraging people to venerate the icon and to entrust the protection of life and the family to Our Lady’s intercession”.

Members of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham are being encouraged to support the initiative, and to increase their own awareness of these important matters through the study and consideration of the Church’s documents, not least the Year of Faith begins.

Press Release from the Pilgrimage: http://www.fromoceantoocean.org.uk/walsingham-read-to-give-crucial-time-welcome-to-icon/

On Saturday 20 October, a Blessed Sacrament Procession will be held in London. The procession starts from Westminster Cathedral at 3.00pm, and will lead to Southwark Cathedral for Benediction at around 4.30pm.

Last year, the procession was held to mark the anniversary of the Pope's visit to the UK in 2010, and the first Feast Day of Blessed John Henry Newman, Patron of the Personal Ordinariate, and led by Bishop Alan Hopes.

On Sunday 7 October the Bournemouth Ordinariate Group are having the loan of a digital organ, similar to the model they are proposing to acquire. A Viscount Envoy digital organ will be used at the 9.30am (Ordinariate) Mass, the 11.00am (Parish) Mass and at the 4.00pm Evensong, which will be followed by a demonstration recital given by Peter Cook.

Music is a great part of our Anglican patrimony and heritage and this fine instrument will help to accomplish the Holy Father’s wishes. Please do support the event.

On Saturday 6 October, there will be a tour of those places in the City of London which are of historical Catholic significance. The tour, which is free, will last around 90 minutes, starting at 2.00pm at the Church of St Mary Moorfield, Eldon Street EC2 7LS.

The tour will be led by Dennis Delderfield and Joanna Bogle and is being organised by the London (Central) and London (South) Ordinariate Groups.

Four men were ordained to the Sacred Priesthood today, for service in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Fr Brian Copus and Fr John Maunder (right) were ordained by Bishop Alan Hopes, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, at Sacred Heart in Bournemouth, on Saturday morning.

On Saturday evening, the eve of the Solemnity of Our Lady of Walsingham within the Ordinariate, Fr Christopher Cann and Fr WilliamGull were ordained by the Bishop of Nottingham, The Right Reverend Malcolm McMahon OP, in Nottingham Cathedral.

In Bournemouth, the Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton, was joined by Mgr Edwin Barnes. Mgr Barnes preached the sermon, reflecting on the journey from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church. During the ordination, hymns by Blessed John Henry Newman and the traditional Anglican setting of the Mass by John Merbecke provided a taste of the Anglican liturgical and spiritual traditions, now given an honoured place within the Catholic Church.

By the end of September 2012, the total number of clergy in the Personal Ordinariate will reach 80.

The homily by Mgr Edwin Barnes can be read here.

Thanks to Fr Jonathan Redvers Harris for his report from Bournemouth, and Mgr Edwin Barnes for use of the photographs.

The Manchester Ordinariate Group will be meeting in a new venue and at a new time from this Sunday - the Solemnity of Our Lady of Walsingham. They are also starting a monthly 'House Mass' as part of their outreach to the local community.

The new timetable includes Sunday Mass at 11.00 a.m. at St Joseph's, Mary Street, Heywood, OL10 1EG (pictured), which will be followed by refreshments in the parish room.

On the fourth Sunday of the month, at 6.30 p.m., Holy Mass will be offered at The Old Coach House, 3a Bostock Road, Broadbottom, Cheshire, SK14 6AH.

All are welcome to either (or both!) celebrations.

The Manchester Ordinariate Group celebrates the Sacred Liturgy according to the liturgical books authorised for use by the Holy See for those from the Anglican tradition - the Book of Divine Worship.

For further information, please email Fr Andrew Starkie or telephone 01706 625512.
Visit the website of the Manchester Ordinariate Group at http://www.manchester-ordinariate.org.uk

Report from young Ordinariate member, Thomas Starkie:

At noon on 15 September, crowds of Ordinariate members gathered at the National Shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham for Mass, beginning the Ordinariate’s first pilgrimage to England’s Nazareth. The Principal Celebrant was the Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton, joined by, among others, many Ordinariate priests. The Chapel of Reconciliation was filled, with people standing when they could not find space in the pews and, as it was the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, we sang the beautiful and sorrowful chant Stabat Mater, in English translation.

Lunch came next, and an opportunity to talk to and meet people from other Ordinariate Groups, sharing stories, talking about experiences, and connecting with the Ordinariate community from all over England and Wales. The sun shone gloriously all day, and an atmosphere of calm and prayer surrounded us as we were gathered together. It was a chance to step back from everyday life and reflect, especially on the beauty of Christian unity.

Later, as we walked the Holy Mile praying the Rosary (some of us barefoot!), we made our way to the Anglican Shrine. It was a great blessing to be there. We congregated in the shrine grounds for an Ecumenical Service of Sprinkling, led by Mgr Newton and with the Right Reverend Lindsay Urwin OGS, the Anglican Shrine Administrator. As we visited the Anglican shrine, we brought to Our Lady our prayers: prayers for each other, prayers for unity.

Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us!

Mgr Newton's homily is available to read here.

Thomas Starkie (Aged 16) from the Manchester Ordinariate Group writes:

From 23-27 August, hundreds of young Catholics congregated at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, Norfolk. Although this involved hours of travelling to reach the fairly isolated site, being drenched in rain, squelching through mud, and camping in fields, it was not for nothing that these people came together. We sought hope and healing, knowledge and truth, and, for most of us, if not all of us, what we found far exceeded our expectations. This was the Youth 2000 Searchlight Prayer Festival.

As we met each morning for the Rosary, after breakfast, we dedicated each day to Our Lady before hearing a talk on topics such as “Who is Jesus?” and “The Lost are Found”, which we then took to our small groups. These informative and faith-enriching presentations gave us a focus for our discussion as we explored our faith and got to know each other more. We also attended a variety of workshops throughout the weekend, finding it very hard to choose between the available options as they were all so good! One workshop was entitled “Grill the Bishop”, with Bishop Mark Davies - we were blessed with his presence during the retreat, as we were with the presence of all the clergy and religious there, and especially the Ordinariate members among us by the presence of the Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton.

The daily Mass, and services of reconciliation and healing, along with the sessions of praise and worship formed the centre of the retreat, with exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament continuously throughout the weekend. As the festival drew to a close, many people spoke in testimony about the graces and blessings that they had received; many mentioned particularly the Healing Service and the continuous opportunity for Confession.

The whole weekend was a great blessing, a profound experience, and an awesome opportunity for young people to draw closer to God and strengthen their faith.

Editor's Note: Youth 2000 seeks to draw young people into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, lived at the heart of the Catholic Church. It does this primarily through weekend prayer festivals, where young people are introduced to the essentials of the Catholic faith: Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, Confession, scripture, devotion to Our Lady. These festivals are opportunities for young people to experience the love of God, to receive the grace of conversion and to begin living anew the Christian life.

Three more men have been ordained as priests for service in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Fr Kenneth Berry, Fr Paul Gibbons, and Fr Donald Minchew, were ordained to the sacred priesthood by the Archbishop of Southwark, the Most Reverend Peter Smith, on Saturday morning.

During his homily to a packed church of Our Lady of Reparation, West Croydon, Archbishop Smith recalled the particular ministry of the ordained priest in the service of Christ and his Church.

Fr Minchew and Fr Berry served as Anglican clergy at St Michael & All Angels, Croydon, which is across the road from the church of their ordination, and will now lead the Croydon Ordinariate Group. Fr Gibbons served in Maidstone where he will now serve the Ordinariate as pastor to a group of faithful there.

Amongst the clergy present at the ordination were the Ordinary, Mgr John Broadhurst, Mgr Edwin Barnes, Mgr Robert Mercer, and Ordinariate priests resident in the Archdiocese of Southwark. They were joined by local diocesan clergy and by a seminarian of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers from Liverpool, who as a young Anglican was encouraged to consider ordained ministry by Fr Minchew.

A spokesman for the Ordinariate said, "Today we witnessed the ordination of three men whose lives have led to this point - the fulfilment of the call from Christ to serve him as priests of the Catholic Church. As priests of the Ordinariate, serving the local community and the wider Church, their fidelity to a vision for unity and truth has been borne out; they now continue the task of proclaiming that vision to the world".

After the Mass, a celebratory luncheon was given in the parish hall, joined by the Ordinary and the Archbishop.

The first of a new series of Ordinariate film nights will take place at Balham on Monday September 17th. The film "Mother Teresa" starring Olivia Hussey as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, will be shown, starting at 7.30pm, at Visitation House, Nightingale Square (adjoining Holy Ghost Primary School, next to Holy Ghost church), London SW12. Tea, coffee, home-made cakes and snacks, will be available. Suggested donations of £5 to the Friends of the Ordinariate. Everyone welcome. Nightingale Square is 5 minutes' walk from Balham tube station, on the Northern Line and overground from Victoria.

Solemn Evensong and Benediction to celebrate the Feast of Blessed John Henry Newman, patron of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Preacher: Fr Paul Chavasse Cong. Orat. (sometime Postulator for the Cause of Blessed John Henry Newman).

Poster

2012 saw the Ordinariate's first pilgrimage with Mgr Keith Newton to Rome and now, due to popular demand, plans are well in hand for 2013 for a Pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi including being present at a General Audience with the Holy Father and staying near St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and in the old hill town of Assisi.

The dates are Monday 25th February to Monday 4th March 2013 flying from London Gatwick. The cost is £699 and includes return scheduled flights on British Airways: Gatwick – Rome, UK and Italy departure taxes, one piece of checked in luggage per person, seven nights accommodation in shared twin-bedded rooms with en-suite facilities, continental breakfasts and dinners, entrance to all the churches and Basilicas in Rome, the Papal General Audience, daily Mass and guided tours as detailed in the itinerary.

Extras, such as travel insurance and some optional extras are detailed in the itinerary and the single room supplement is £119 for the 7 nights (limited availability).

Full details and a Booking Form will be found by visiting:www.portalmag.co.uk/pilgrimage

Tunbridge Wells Ordinariate Group will be hosting a series of talks to mark the Year of Faith. The talks will be a wide range of speakers including priests of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the well-known Catholic journalist Joanna Bogle, the Right Reverend John Hine, and the founders of Evangelium - Frs Marcus Holden and Andrew Pinsent, amongst others. All are welcome to attend.

10 October 2012 - Fr Hugh Allen O.Praem.

7 November 2012 - Fr Marcus Holden

5 December 2012 - Bishop John Hine

9 January 2013 - Fr Stephen Bould

6 February 2013 - Edmund Adamus

6 March 2013 - Fr Andrew Pinsent

8 May 2013 - Fr Ed Tomlinson

5 June 2013 - Joanna Bogle

10 July 2013 - Fr James Bradley

11 September 2013 - Fr Richard Whinder

9 October 2013 - Fr Jerome Bertram Cong. Orat.

The Norfolk countryside in August sunshine, a crowd of young pilgrims walking to Walsingham, Mass in an ancient abbey destroyed under Henry VIII and now echoing again to the prayers of the Eucharist...this was the John Paul II Walking Pilgrimage, organised by a group of Dominican Sisters and supported by the Ordinariate.  Two Ordinariate priests, Fathers Christopher Pearson and Simon Heans, acted as chaplains during the pilgrimage, which started with Mass in the abbey ruins at Bury St Edmunds. They accompanied the pilgrims, walking some twenty miles a day, with overnight stops at Bury St Edmunds and Swaffham where they slept in a church hall and a school gym.  The group  - which included a large number of young people, several of them veterans of World Youth Days at Sydney and Madrid - arrived at Walsingham on Sunday August 12th, for  the 12noon  concelebrated Mass.  A number of other pilgrim groups were also at the shrine and the Chapel of Reconciliation was packed: the Walking Pilgrimage received a round of applause. There was still one final bit of walking: after a picnic lunch the walkers made their way down the Holy Mile – a journey traditionally done barefoot – for Benediction in the Church of the Annunciation.

The John Paul Walking Pilgrimage began seven years ago, and this was the first time that the Ordinariate has been involved. The aim of the pilgrimage is to pray for the New Evangelisation.

In addition to the Lapel badge, we are now able to provide Ordinariate Cufflinks. The design is the same as the lapel badge with the image of Our Lady of Walsingham. Available from:

   John Worley 
   48 Lawn Lane, 
   Hemel Hempstead 
   HP3 9HL 

price £12 inc p&p
make cheques payable to: Ordinariate OLW
(remember to give address)

The August 2012 edition of The Portal can now be read online here.

At two ordinations over the past weekend, three new deacons and a new priest were ordained for service in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Fr Brian Gill was ordained to the sacred priesthood by the Bishop of Menevia on Saturday, in the presence of Mgr Keith Newton. Fr Gill was Vicar General of the Traditional Anglican Church (TTAC), a part of the Traditional Anglican Communion in the United Kingdom, from 2003 to 2009. As such, together with Anglican bishops from around the world he signed the Portsmouth Declaration in 2007, the hopes of which are fulfiled in the establishment of Personal Ordinariates.

Fr Gill was born in the West Indies, and trained under the Mirfield fathers at Codrington College, Barbados. He travelled to Jerusalem with the Lambeth Bishops before moving to Britain in 1974 to serve in the Anglican diocese of Hereford. He left the Church of England for the TTAC following the ordination of women in the Church of England in the 1990s.

Saturday also saw the ordination of the Revd Kenneth Berry, the Revd Paul Gibbons, and the Revd Donald Minchew, by the Right Reverend Paul Hendricks (Auxiliary of Southwark). Celebrated at the church of the Precious Blood, Borough, the ordination was attended by friends and family of the candidates, as well as priests of the Personal Ordinariate and the local diocese.

We look forward to the ordination of the three men as priests in September.

Day for Life is the day in the Church’s year dedicated to celebrating and upholding the dignity of human life. The Church teaches that life should be protected and nurtured from conception to natural death. This year's Day for Life falls on 29 July 2012.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor once wrote that we need to build "an ethos of life that protects persons from womb to tomb - especially the most vulnerable". Consequently, the Catholic community in England and Wales gathers on the last Sunday in July every year to pray for all who care for and nurture life from its very beginnings and growth to its final years. We also pray for legislators and those in authority that they respect and protect human life in all its stages.

Members of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham may wish to consider praying the Rosary for this specific intention. Resources for the day are available on the Day for Life website.

Members of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham attended last weekend’s Invocation discernment festival at Oscott College, Birmingham. They were joined by Mgr Keith Newton on Saturday. Two reports come from the event, the second one here come from Domenico Aquilina (18) from the Sevenoaks Ordinariate Group. He writes:

When I asked myself the question of whether I had a vocation I didn’t truly understand what it meant to explore a vocation. It is for this reason that the Invocation weekend was so vital for me. Through the truly inspirational story of the Cure d’Ars, the teachings of the gospels and the guidance of priests, nuns, friars, monks and seminarians one learns that to open your heart to God’s will; being honest with Him, we can fulfill the potential that God has for us.

The Invocation weekend is an opportunity that no young Catholic should miss. It allows you to grow as a Catholic, make new friends and, more importantly, talk with people who have been through the process of discerning their vocation. People who are both willing to share their experiences and impart advice to those thinking about their vocation. The simple fact is, a calling is something that needs to be treated carefully and the best way to know how to deal with it is with those who have been through the process and are in the process of exploring their vocation. Discussing my thoughts with those who knew what I was going through was infinitely helpful and fulfilling. Not only this, but it guided me to the path I should take in the future; the experience showed me how to go about both the practical and spiritual approach to discerning my vocation.

A calling to the Priesthood or Religious life isn’t one that comes from you and isn’t one that is just about you. It is a call from God, it is a relationship with God and, if it is there, has the potential to affect life around you more than you could possibly imagine. 

It is for this reason that Invocation was created; it allows young Catholics to have a formation in the Catholic Church, which cannot be given to you anywhere else. I was skeptical and worried about what I would find beforehand, but when I arrived at Oscott and met the people there I realized that I need not be worried. It was the right place for me to be, and I hope it will be for you next time round. Thank you for those who have made this encounter possible.

Members of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham attended last weekend’s Invocation discernment festival at Oscott College, Birmingham. They were joined by Mgr Keith Newton on Saturday. Two reports come from the event, the first today from Alice Heans (Beckenham Ordinariate Group), who writes:

“Admitting to friends and family that you’re thinking that of becoming a nun or religious sister is about as controversial as it gets these days. The singer Sinead O’Connor said last year on her blog that she was ‘living like a nun- and it is VERY depressing.’ Well, being at Invocation last weekend and having the fantastic opportunity to meet lots of religious sisters clearly showed me that Sinead had somewhere gone horribly wrong in her emulation of the monastic life because what they all communicated was a deep sense of joy.

The diversity of different religious communities and lifestyles represented at the event was quite staggering, from Italian sisters dressed in sea green habits (Sisters of Divine Revelation) to fully wimpled contemplative Carmelites and stylishly attired consecrated lay women. These differences of dress are of course just the superficial indicators of the various charisms that these women represent and live. 

In her talk about her vocational journey Sister Catherine Holum (a former champion speed skater!) of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal spoke of the nature of her vocation as a spouse of Christ. Her evident love for Christ and gratefulness for being welcomed into a community that supported and loved her in her vocation radiated from her as she spoke.  However, far from giving a romantic picture of the consecrated life, she also talked about the fears that she had before entering the community and the challenges that religious life presents. 

Meeting many of the different sisters at Invocation I was struck by the diversity of personalities that were drawn to this radical way of life and how it all seemed to suit each one of them!  For me, Invocation was not only a time for prayer and reflection but also an opportunity to encounter these inspiring women of the Church and reflect on their living witness to a life lived in union with Christ”.

The first liturgical texts approved for worldwide use by the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans have been promulgated by the Holy See.

The Order for Funerals and the Order for the Celebration of Holy Matrimony are to be used by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom; the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter in the United States and Canada; and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia.

The new liturgies replace existing texts, including those from the Book of Divine Worship. Drawn from the classical Anglican prayer book tradition, the texts incorporate elements of the Anglican patrimony now in the full communion of the Catholic Church.

Monsignor Keith Newton, Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, noted, “This is an important moment in the development of our distinctive liturgical and ecclesial life. We saw the world stop to watch the Royal Wedding last year, now a very similar and beautiful liturgy is available for use in the Ordinariates of the Catholic Church – it is a great privilege for us to be part of that obvious working-out of practical, receptive ecumenism”.

The liturgies were promulgated by the Congregation for Divine Worship on June 22, 2012, the feast-day of the English saints of the Reformation, John Fisher and Thomas More. They will be implemented in accordance with local civil law requirements in the various nations, with immediate use in the United States and Canada.

"We welcome with gratitude these texts, which bring into Catholic liturgical life some of the most beloved and memorable texts in the Book of Common Prayer. These texts have blessed and comforted generations of English-speaking Christians and will be deeply appreciated in the Ordinariate communities," said Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, Ordinary for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.

The new texts were developed under the guidance of Archbishop J. Augustine DiNoia OP, who served until recently as the Secretary for the Congregation of Divine Worship. Archbishop DiNoia, now the Vice President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, has been re-appointed as chair of the Holy See’s Anglicanae traditiones Commission tasked with developing the new liturgical texts for the Personal Ordinariates. The Reverend Uwe Michael Lang, CO, who also just stepped down from a post with the Congregation for Divine Worship, will also continue his role in the development of the texts.

ENDS

Further information:

Online:

Texts: www.usordinariate.org/ord_news_new_rites.html

Video interview with Monsignor Andrew Burnham: https://vimeo.com/45086589 and https://vimeo.com/45096712

On Sunday 1^st July 2012 Monsignor John Broadhurst received The Reverend Geoffrey Kirk into the full communion of the Catholic Church through the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham at the Church of the Most Precious Blood, London. 

Fr Kirk was an Anglican Priest for 40 years and Vicar of St Stephen’s, Lewisham for 30 years.  As Secretary of Forward in Faith, Fr Kirk worked closely with its Chairman, Fr Broadhurst, over the past 20 years in developing Forward in Faith’s vision for unity and truth together with its statement on communion.  He also wrote extensively for “New Directions”, the monthly journal of Forward in Faith.  Fr Kirk’s sponsors were Deacon Robbie Low and his wife Sara who were also both closely involved in work of FiF, Robbie was editor of "New Directions", before becoming Catholics several years ago.

The reception took place during the regular 11am Mass at the Church where the London (South) Ordinariate Group worships.  Fr Christopher Pearson, the Pastor of the group, prepared Fr Kirk for his reception and said: 

Many people have been inspired by Fr Geoffrey’s teaching, preaching and pastoral care over the years.  His  intellect, writing and wit encouraged a generation in the Catholic movement within the Church of England.  I hope that they will now be similarly inspired to follow Fr Kirk's actions in seeking visible unity.

An internationally renowned Catholic theologian has addressed a conference organised by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham at a day conference in Devon.

Professor Tracey Rowland, Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, Australia, addressed a group of a around 100 people addressing the topic The New Evangelisation in the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, with particular reference to the Ordinariate.

Professor Rowland took time out from meetings in Rome and Leeds, before returning to her native Australia to speak to the conference, which was organised locally by the priests and people of the Ordinariate in the southwest.

Fr Ian Hellyer, the organiser of the conference, described welcoming Professor Rowland as ‘a coup’. 

He said, “Professor Tracey Rowland is an internationally respected Catholic theologian. We are very grateful that she has taken valuable time; it is an enormous encouragement to us in the Ordinariate, especially as we seek to play our part in the urgent task of the New Evangelisation.”

The Conference was hosted by the Benedictine Community at Buckfast Abbey in Devon. 

Fr Hellyer said, “The Ordinariate is only a year or so old and most of us entered the Catholic Church through the Ordinariate in obedience to the call of God. We trusted in this new and special provision because it comes directly from Pope Benedict, whom we believe not only to be a great theologian of our time, but also prophetic in his vision for Christian Unity. In many ways we are now discerning in more detail what it is that the Lord wants us to be doing. One of the things we know is that an intrinsic part of the Ordinariate is that we are called to be missionary. We are not just called to ‘convert Anglicans’ but to reach out and evangelise the wider society with the good news of the Catholic faith. We have been given a new structure which does not have the burdens that many historic structures carry with them, we have nothing holding us back from the work of evangelisation”. 

Professor Rowland was encouraged to attend the conference by Monsignor David Silk, a former Anglican bishop and now priest of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, after they has worked together whilst he was Anglican Bishop of Ballarat in Australia.

Members of the Ordinariate from across the UK gathered to hear Professor Rowland, and they were also joined by local Catholics and Anglicans. 

Fr Hellyer said, “Members of the Ordinariate just love to be together. We have made a tremendous journey in a very short time. Worshipping and being together gives us much joy as we seek to serve the Lord and his Holy Catholic Church”.

The day at Buckfast Abbey began with a Mass celebrated by the Ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton, and concluded with Solemn Evensong and Benediction in the Abbey Church, as an expression of the liturgical heritage which is at the very heart of the Ordinariate’s witness to the Catholic Faith.

Photos from the event can be found here.

Some videos reflecting on the event may be found here.

The July 2012 edition of The Portal is now available to read here.

Keep up to date with the photos from the many ordinations we have been celebrating by following us on Twitter (@UKOrdinariate), Facebook and by looking directly at our photos on Flickr. We have uploaded photos from Fr John Hunwicke and Fr Alan Griffiths' ordinations this week.

A grant of funds from the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has been returned.

The grant was awarded by the Trustees of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament following extensive legal advice in 2011. 

Subsequently the grant was challenged and, as the result of an investigation by the Charity Commissioners, the Ordinariate has returned the funds of its own volition.

Until the conclusion of the investigative process undertaken by the Charity Commissioners, the charitable aims of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham precluded the return of the funds. 

It is deeply regrettable that this generous benefaction is to be returned, but our sincere hope is that the conclusion of the legal process regarding this grant may now lay this issue to rest.

ENDS

Note: No further comment will be made regarding this statement. For specific enquiries or clarifications, please contact the Communications Officer.