(OSV News): Bishop David Waller, the first bishop the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in Great Britain, which was created for Catholics of the Anglican tradition, welcomed the pope’s show of support and predicted the fledgling will continue growing and strengthening.
“We’ve constantly heard rumours that Rome was going to put an end to our ordinariate—that it was just a papal whim which no one wanted,” Bishop Waller said.
“Yet this was never the attitude of the Holy See, which has always been supportive and caring. In the eyes of the world, we looked foolish and ridiculous when we risked joining the ordinariate 13 years ago. But no one today regrets doing so—our reckless abandonment to God is what’s kept us going, along with the joy and excitement of being in full communion with the Catholic Church,” he said.
Bishop Waller was speaking at his episcopal ordination at Westminster Cathedral, London, on June 22 by Víctor Manuel Cardinal Fernández, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith, as he became the first bishop to lead the London-based personal ordinariate.
…we looked foolish and ridiculous when we risked joining the ordinariate 13 years ago. But no one today regrets doing so—our reckless abandonment to God is what’s kept us going, along with the joy and excitement of being in full communion with the Catholic Church
Bishop Waller
Bishop Waller said in an interview that he had been “surprised and shocked” by his nomination, announced on April 29, and had spent time, as the ordinariate’s vicar general, working out how to satisfy the “criteria and qualities” required by Rome.
However, he added that he had been “inspired and encouraged” by prayers and pledges of backing from the ordinariate’s priests and lay members, as well as former fellow-clergy from the Anglican Church of England.
Monsignor Keith Newton, the ordinariate’s outgoing head, remarked that the ordinariates created by Pope Benedict XVI came under the direct jurisdiction of Cardinal Fernández’s dicastery—rather than the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops—giving it a “special interest” in its future development.
He said the ordination of the British ordinariate’s first bishop would “make a substantial difference,” and added the cardinal’s personal involvement signaled his “confidence and interest.”
We have several priestly ordinations pending, with others being trained for holy orders in the usual way at London’s Catholic Allen Hall seminary
Monsignor Newton
“We have several priestly ordinations pending, with others being trained for holy orders in the usual way at London’s Catholic Allen Hall seminary,” said Monsignor Newton. As a former Anglican bishop with three adult children, the monsingor was ordained a Catholic priest for the ordinariate, but could not be ordained a bishop owing to ancient prohibitions on the practice shared by Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Instead, he was made a priest-ordinary overseeing the ordinariate, but lacked the ability to confer ordination — a status similar to a chorbishop in some Eastern churches.
“Some people have long thought the ordinariate was just some kind of temporary arrangement—but this shows it will form a permanent part of Catholic life here,” he said.
Established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, the personal ordinariates function as Catholic dioceses with Anglican traditions that celebrate the Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, sacraments and other liturgies in traditional English according to the liturgical books approved by Pope Francis.
In his homily on June 22, Cardinal Fernández described the ordinariates’ “meaning and mission” as offering Anglicans a “path towards full participation in the gift of apostolic succession” in the Catholic Church, while also enabling them as Catholics to maintain what Pope St. Paul VI had called the “legitimate prestige and worthy patrimony of piety and usage proper to the Anglican Communion.”
