THE P RTAL
April 2018 Page 8
elsewhere , “ Those are important , but one of the things the Governing Council spent a lot of time on over the last 18 months came to fruition only in the middle of this year . It was to create a protocol for appointing the Ordinary for the Ordinariate of OLW .
“ If I fell under a bus tomorrow , or when I retire , there has to be a process of how we come to choose names on the terna , which is the list the Governing Council is responsible for sending to the CDF . This is a list of three names from which they will choose one , though if they don ’ t like the names they can send the list back of course .
“ One of the things I was very keen on was that , if I am alive , I should not be present when the Governing Council talks about my successor . I feel that would be inappropriate , so that has been laid down . Also , we set out a timetable with opportunity to mull it over and take soundings amongst other people , to find out about the possible candidates before the Governing Council has a final discussion and puts the terna together . That is an important part of our responsibility ; it took some time to think about , put together and get it right . This protocol is now part of the particular law of the Ordinariate .
“ Secondly , we set up an associateship . Many people wanted to be more closely linked to the Ordinariate , although not able to be members . This is not for the people outside of our worshipping communities ; we have the Friends of the Ordinariate for that . This is aiming at people who want to worship reasonably regularly with Ordinariate communities , associate themselves with it and support it financially and spiritually . We set up this associateship and are slowly getting completed forms and registering them .
“ We will also be setting up a database so that we can send out information to our members and associates though we are not trying to pull people away from their diocese or congregations . Take our first parish in Torbay ; there are members of the parish there who are not members of the Ordinariate but are making that their spiritual home . That brings me to the other thing that has happened this year ; the setting up of our first parish .
“ I ’ ve not rushed into setting up parishes . I think it ’ s very important that we take it slowly and that there is some real stability , but it seemed reasonable to make Torbay a parish because we own the building and it ’ s the first opportunity to do this . We are looking at some criteria to set up other Ordinariate Parishes , and it doesn ’ t have to be that you own a building . This process is nearly finished now , and once the criteria are completed , we will send them to our groups .
“ It will be up to the group to say , “ We would like to be a parish .” It is not for me to say to a group , “ Would you like to become a parish ?” Then there will be certain stages for them to go through to make sure the group is financially sound , that it has a future , that it is selfsufficient , that it is looking to the future and that it has a mission plan . If all those things are in place then we will set up other parishes . I hope that by the end of next year we would have two or three others .
Mgr Keith Newton inducts Fr David Lashbrooke as the first Parish Priest of the Ordinariate Parish of Our Lady of Walsingham with St Cuthbert Mayne - Photo : Catholic Herald
“ The other great thing that happened was our ordination in June of ten deacons at St James ’, Spanish Place . We decided some time ago that normally we would not have separate ordinations in England in different dioceses . Having our own underlines and emphasises that this is an Ordinariate event . It is an Ordinariate ordination and men are being incardinated into the Ordinariate of OLW , they are not being incardinated into the local dioceses . Next year we will have a large ordination of eight men . The two Scottish deacons were ordained to the priesthood in Scotland in December 2017 .”
I asked Mgr Keith about the high ratio of priests to lay people in the Ordinariate . “ Some of our priests are seconded to the local diocese from Ordinariate groups . This is our way of giving them a stipend , but the question is , do we want priests to be used in the wider Catholic Church , and the answer is yes , we do . This is a contribution we can make to the wider Catholic Church .
“ There are not as many laity as we would like though I always felt that this is a long term goal . It reminds us that the Catholic movement in the C of E did not get to as many people as we thought it did . So when push comes to shove , most practising Anglo Catholics are quite happy to stay where they are whatever happens , but we continue to pray for more lay people .
“ There is a small trickle of people who come in and there will always be some local Catholics who join us
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