Yet More About Personal Ordinariates

OK OK I can't leave this topic alone.  Last time  I hoped would be the last post on this topic but I have found two more articles that reflect on the importance of this Vatican initiative.

Unfortunately, the first is not available on-line.  Colin Morris in an article Ecumenical Candour in the Methodist Recorder dated Thursday 5 November 2009, makes the following points:

1. He observes Pope Benedict has at 'a single stroke ... altered the ecumenical landscape forever'.  He contrasts the Pope's action with the Meccano-model of ecumenism, usually referred to as conciliar, where the aim is to bolt together all the churches into a single church.  (The photo shows a Meccano model of a difference engine.  We might see a reflection of Morris' description of the process whereby we first bolt the Protestants together at the same time as the Catholics and Orthodox bolt themselves together and then we simply bolt the whole lot together.  I seem to remember Charles Babbage never got his difference engine to work!)
2. Morris writes: 'It seems that the Pope's vision is not of any coming great Church; he believes it already exists complete with a Vatican postcode, but before he dies he intends to reverse as much of the Reformation as he can manage and sew together the torn garments of the old Christendom.'
3. Morris goes on to question the implications of this for churches 'made up only of those who think the same' because they 'they lack true catholicity, even though they include "Catholic" in their title'. 
4. He recalls the unification scheme between the Methodist Church and Church of England in the 1960s and how divisive it was for the Methodist Church.
5. He goes on to suggest that the implications for the Anglican Methodist Covenant today is that at best it is not a priority and at worst would be unnecessarily divisive.
6. He points out that 'many of the most successful movements of contemporary faith have no interest in playing the ecumenical game in the traditional way; denominational labels mean nothing to them, they hardly bother with sacred buildings let alone ecclesiastical institutions'.
7. He sees establishment as a major problem for the Methodist Church in its unity conversations with the Church of England.  To become established would be a retrograde step.
8. Why so?  Because the Methodist Church is, in contrast to the Anglican and Catholic traditions, a non-conformist approach to faith.  Morris contrasts the Old Testament prophetic tradition with the priestly tradition.  Both have authenticity but the non-conformist approach is needed as a balancing truth.
9. The contribution of non-conformism has not been so much establishing institutions as the discovery of participatory democracy .  He cites Thomas Paine as the most eminent Methodist!

This is a welcome article because it affirms the contribution non-conformists can make to this debate.  Institutional churches (and Methodism is one of them) do not hold the whole truth.  The more they strive for purity of doctrine or practice, the more they lose their integrity as a single church.  The paradox for the Pope is that by bolstering his church with conservatives, he is undermining its integrity as a catholic church.  I am still not convinced this is the Pope's intention but it is a point well made. 

What is the Pope's intention?  Some clues can be found in a post on Clayboy's blog, Translating Pope Benedict's Apostolic Constitution into Plain English .  This shares the text of the Apostolic Constitution and helpfully provides a translation into plain English.  I've no way of evaluating this but it looks fairly plausible to me and perhaps offers an insight into what is happening inside the Catholic Church.  One thing that strikes me is the implications for local Catholic Bishops and Priests.