THE
P RTAL
October 2015
Page 20
month. So who are the other four and a half thousand?! JRH: I take advantage of the option in the Ordinariate
mass to turn east because we’re crying out for a bit of
JRH: I think the big thing is that we’re not a threat to transcendence and it’s that that carries us forward.
the Diocesan Catholic Church and we’re not a threat When I’m on the bus I’m reassured that the bus driver
to the Church of England, and the sooner people is facing in the same way as the passengers because it’s
grasp that message the better. But, it’s a long, long term disturbing if he swivels round on his chair!
process of education to show to people.
JRH: I felt first of all that I was seen as slightly inferior
JO: It’s the ecumenism that interests me about the amongst Catholics but as soon as I was made a parish
Ordinariate and it’s misunderstood by almost everyone priest I was taken much more seriously.
whether they are in or out of the Ordinariate. There’s
a sort of false ecumenism that meets at the lowest JO: No problem with Wendy, as far as the other
clergy are concerned?
common denominator.
JRH: Some people are very keen to emphasise that
you’re Roman Catholic to show in some way they don’t
like you, but I prefer “Anglican Ordinariates” because
there are other Ordinariates around the world – such as
Ordinariates for Eastern Catholics or for the Military
and it’s just simply one style of grouping for Catholics.
Wendy H: They have all, without exception, been
charming, friendly and delightful. I’ve felt completely
welcomed.
JRH: Well with a prophetic gesture it’s almost ahead
of its time and we have to realise that when the long
sweep of history is written people will say, “Oh yeah,
there’s that thing in 2011 when that Ordinariate came
into being after the 2009 Apostolic Constitution and
that was a sign”. Maybe it won’t be until 2050 or so that
we see it ripen into greater fruition. We have to accept
that.
JO: What is your worst fear for the Ordinariate and
the other is your best hope?
JRH: The people who do object are people who are
still Anglicans who say to me ‘Don’t you think that’s
a terrible slap in the face to all those people who
Because we are of the Anglican tradition, that’s what persevered as celibate all those years and had to leave
defines us, even those who come to the faith in the the priesthood to get married?’ I remind them that
Ordinariate have got to be formed in that Anglican it was Pius XII who gave dispensations to Lutheran
pastors in the 1950s and the fact of married priests
tradition, not just liturgically but pastorally.
today is still by means of dispensation on a case by
JO: Many p