THE
P RTAL
April 2018
Page 7
The Ordinariate of Our Lady
of Walsingham in 2018
Ronald Crane meets the Ordinary,
the Right Reverend Mgr Keith Newton
I
settled down in Mgr Keith’s comfortable study with the proffered glass of sherry. He began with
an assessment of the past year.
“Well I suppose the thing that’s most significant
is that over the last year we have been settling into
the patterns and structures we have created over the
previous three to four years. There are regular meetings
of the Governing Council, the Pastoral Council and
the Finance Council, and we also have Coordinators’
meetings.
“The Coordinators are priests who have oversight
of priests and people in various pastoral areas. There
are also meetings of the three Deans as well, and the
Ordinary’s Council, which is me and my two assistants.
All these structures have been working well this year.
The Pastoral Council was formed only about eighteen
months ago; that has been the most important recent
development.”
Mgr Keith moved on to issues that came out of the
meeting with the three Ordinaries in Australia this
year. “We met over the course of a week, first with
the priests from the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the
Southern Cross in Australia. The three Ordinaries also
spent time together with Father Tad Oxley from the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and we
covered a lot of ground.
“We talked about publications; producing a book
of devotions and a study version of Divine Worship,
which we hope will be available in the first half of
2018. We discussed our relationship with our former
colleagues in the Anglican Church, our patrimony and
how we can best promote it.
“We talked about the difficulties that all of us have
experienced in the very early years of what is a new
structure in the Catholic Church and how they might
be resolved. I think we all agreed that a major issue
is the owning of property or, if not owning, then the
control of property. If we don’t have control of property,
there is very little chance of the mission going forward
and growing.
“Another issue was formation our clergy, not only
in seminaries but also for former Anglican clergy. I
have to say that I think we are doing well in the UK
in our formation processes. It was useful to share and
compare experiences in Australia and North America
because, although there are many differences, there
is enough that’s similar that we can learn from each
other and understand each other better.”
We moved on to positives from the past year. I
suggested three; formation of associates, ordinations
and the setting up of the first parish. Mgr Keith began
The three Ordinaries in Australia: Mgr Keith Newton, Mgr Harry Entwistle and Bishop Steven Lopes