Who Is Fr John Hunwicke? -- III

Yesterday, I looked at Fr Hunwicke's account of his formation as an Anglo-Papalist in this interview and concluded that he's effectively been the same sort of fringe Anglican for much of his life, and he's brought those views into his Catholic conversion without much insight and, it would seem, without much change. He especially seems to see the Catholic Church fron the high-church Anglican perspective, whereby a select group has "correct" opinions that are constantly threatened by the less correct and, in Anglicanism, is always defeated by them.

Frederick Kinsman understood that this is a shell game that was always part of the Tudor design as Elizabeth worked it out. I think Hunwicke's difficulty is that he's always believed Anglicanism and Catholicism are functionally equivalent. Anglo-Papalists see themselves as "real" Catholics, when actual Catholic authorities would gently explain the options available for them to take actually to become Catholic. A difficulty now is that Hunwicke and the small number of others like him have taken Anglicanorum coetibus to be a tacit acknowledgement by the Church that Anglicanism and Catholicism are equivalent, and indeed, Anglicans have better ideas.

Thus, without much reflection, tney bring the high church lost-cause mindset with them and think it makes them the best kind of Catholic. This seems to be what's behind remarks like this in Hunwicke's interview:

My blog started out as a place where ‘Liturgical notes’ were published, as opposed to the blog of Father Z, who provides a sort of liturgical service to the faithful. And yet, little by little, it became natural to support and explain the restoration that Benedict XVI had made possible.

Later on, when the crisis of the current pontificate became obvious, it seemed natural to explain what is going wrong in the Church and to support Catholics puzzled and distressed by what Cardinal Brandmüller has rightly called the Apostasy made manifest under the current pontificate.

. . . Curiously (from the Bergoglians’ point of view), the ‘traditionalist movements’ belong to the least sclerotic sections of the Church. As a matter of fact, clericalism, as something evil and oppressive, appears under its cruelest light in the areas of the Church where Bergoglian ‘apparatchiks’ dominate. Therefore laymen must show the way, especially when the clergy are too afraid.

So the Catholic Church has gone wrong, but the high church Anglicans have arrived, like Colonel Custer and the cavalry, to reinforce the body of faithful led by Fr Zuhlsdorf. (It would seem that Bp Hying, who eased Fr Z out of his diocesan territory, has revealed his true nature as a Bergoglian heretic.)

It seems to me that Fr Hunwicke, formed by the high-church lost cause paradigm, has brought this model with him into the Church. But the Second Council simply posits a different model, and Lumen Gentium, as authoritative a Church document as you can find, provides this outline:

2. The eternal Father, by a free and hidden plan of His own wisdom and goodness, created the whole world. His plan was to raise men to a participation of the divine life. Fallen in Adam, God the Father did not leave men to themselves, but ceaselessly offered helps to salvation, in view of Christ, the Redeemer "who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature". All the elect, before time began, the Father "foreknew and pre- destined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that he should be the firstborn among many brethren". He planned to assemble in the holy Church all those who would believe in Christ. Already from the beginning of the world the foreshadowing of the Church took place. It was prepared in a remarkable way throughout the history of the people of Israel and by means of the Old Covenant. In the present era of time the Church was constituted and, by the outpouring of the Spirit, was made manifest. At the end of time it will gloriously achieve completion, when, as is read in the Fathers, all the just, from Adam and "from Abel, the just one, to the last of the elect," will be gathered together with the Father in the universal Church.

I can only think Hunwicke had Lumen Gentium in mind when he said in the interview,

I don’t believe that Vatican has taught formal error, but it was based on, and relied (as Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out) on, an excessive and dangerous optimism.

As far as I can see, Hunwicke never quite gets around to making clear what he seems to keep implying: the Second Council was in error. Certainly as I began reading the Vatican II documents, I couldn't help but note how many of Pope Francis's statements simply echo Lumen Gentium. This would normally make him a faithful pope, but if you think Lumen Gentium is in error, he must certainly be a heretic. I think Fr Hunwicke has at least the minimal good sense never quite to say this straight out. And not only that, he says,

Fortunately my Ordinary has always been favourable to me.

This might be the most disturbing thing Fr Hunwicke has said. What's encouraging is how much Msgr Newton's flock, with Fr Hunwicke its most visible member, has shrunk.