Integrate but keep identity, ordinariates urged

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said ordinariates for former Anglicans must integrate into the Catholic community while preserving their distinctive identity, writes Abigail Frymann.

A meeting in Rome last month marked a first between the prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, and Mgrs Keith Newton, head of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Jeffrey Steenson of the US-based Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter and Harry Entwistle of the Australian Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross.

“In these first key years,” Cardinal Müller said, “Anglicans will be interested in how well you are able to make a home in the Catholic Church that is more than just assimilation, while Catholics will want to know that you are ... strengthening our ecclesial cohesion. He noted that some ordinariate clergy and laity wrote blogs sometimes “lacking in charity”, which did not help the ordinariates’ image.