The Ich Kann Nicht Anders Syndrome

One thing that strikes me about the traditionalist movement is the essentially Protestant subtext of so much that comes out of it -- the ich kann nicht anders insistence on speaking out over some perceived, often liturgical, abuse in the Catholic Church. For an example, I had only to return to Fr Hunwicke's blog and today's post. Oddly, he quotes an Anglo-Catholic priest's bombastic remarks from 1921:

Let us remind ourselves that the grand possession of Western Christendom, this great prayer, the Canon of the Mass, this noble Consecration prayer, for at least 1300 years, intact and immutable, formed the basis of the Western Rite.

and comments on it, almost as bombastically,

A hundred years later, most ordinary Latin Catholic churches have abandoned it. Those that use it in celebrations of the Ordinary Form use a version in which, at its most sacred heart, the text has been messed around with. And from Bergoglian Rome come rumours of new liturgy wars.

Surely, this is the time when all who see themsaelves [sic] as Catholic should be sure that they use the Canon and only the Canon; that they use it without the daft tinkerings of the 1960s.

I'm back to Francis's remarks about ritualism. An Anglo-Catholic priest -- that is, a Protestant priest who fancies himself in some way Catholic -- says good things about the Catholic mass taken out of its Catholic context. This is no different from, say, an atheist professor in a religion department (I'm sure there are many) using the same words to admire the esthetic beauty of the mass's language, all of it removed from any question of belief. Somehow the ritual has an existence independent of its Catholic context. But a sacrament must be valid through form, matter, and intention. You can't just separate the words out of it.

I personally would stay away from any mass celebrated by Fr Hunwicke due to what I think is a valid question of intention. Just how Catholic is he? What reservations and substitutions of private judgment does he bring to the celebration? He'll use the words, but he doesn't recognize the council's or the pope's authority? It seems you can take the man out of Anglo-Catholicism, but you can't take the Anglo-Catholic out of the man. Why did he bother to become an unhyphenated Catholic, especially if Anglo-Catholic attitudes from 1921 remain so attractive to him?

But let's look at the context of Fr Hunwicke's blog. A visitor brought me up to date on the UK ordinariate after yesterday's post:

Bp Lopes has aspirations for a career beyond the ordinariate and I am sure he does not want it to be publicly associated with Vat II-haters and quasi-sedevacantists, so they are not given any sort of official platform. Msgr Newton is the captain of a sinking ship —- UK ordinariate membership down by half from its high point five years ago, clergy deaths outnumbering ordinations, etc. Reining in Fr Hunwicke the least of his concerns.

According to this page on the UK ordinariate's official website, they have eight priests under fifty years of age. Fifty of their priests will retire in the next five years. The UK orfdinariate has only a handful of stipendiary positions. Most of its active clergy work in diocesan ministry. About ten percent of the diocesan Catholic priests in the UK were formerly CofE clergy. Those who have chosen to be ordained through the ordinariate were probably attracted to its quicker formation requirements, which, while considerably more rigorous, even in the beginning, than the distance webinars offered by the US ordinariate, did not require the up front two years of study and discernment required of former Anglican clergy by local dioceses.

According to the Annuario Pontificio the UK ordinariate has a priest for every nineteen members, so from a ministry perspective the lack of vocations probably means little. But it does suggest that the long-term future of the UK ordinariate is in some doubt.

When I think of Fr Hunwicke, surely the most visible priest in the UK ordinariate, I can think only of the deconsecrated church used as El Indio's headquarters in For a Few Dollars More. Yet again, we know them by their fruits.