NO SECTS PLEASE, WE'RE BRITISH

William Oddie reveals the manoeuvring

towards religious realignment following the Synod's decision to ordain women

ABOUT THREE weeks ago, Cardinal Basil Hume flew to Rome. Everybody assumed that it could be for only one rea- son: to discuss how to respond to the request of Dr Graham Leonard, the former Bishop of London, to allow a substantial number of Anglicans to submit collectively to Papal authority without renouncing all their traditions.

The Cardinal's office pointed out that Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the president of the pontifical council on ecumenism, was not in Rome that weekend; also that the Cardinal's visit had been arranged long before the General Synod had decided to ordain women.

But none of this convinced anybody who did not want to be convinced. The signals currently being sent out from Archbishop's House, Westminster, are that Dr Leonard is being taken seriously. For Cardinal Hume not to have discussed his idea in Rome at all seemed hard to credit; and besides, it is well known that it is not Car- dinal Cassidy but the immeasurably more powerful German Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, who will make the final deci- sion.

Cardinal Ratzinger is Prefect of the Con- gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His enemies love to remind you that this used to be called the Inquisition; he represents for many English Catholics everything they most mistrust about the more ultramon- tane Vatican apparatchik. Is it really likely that such a man will respond favourably to Dr Leonard's request?

Perhaps it is. It is not Catholic conserva- tives who are currently sending out waves of hostility towards the potential converts, but those most restive under the authority of Rome. In such Catholic circles, women's ordination is generally favoured; and they have failed to realise that dissident Angli- cans wish to leave their Church, not over the narrow issue of women priests, but because they have perceived that, in taking this decision unilaterally, the Church of England has now renounced its traditional claims to Catholicity.

The Anglican exodus is seen by Catholic liberals, almost certainly mistakenly, as an essentially reactionary movement. Catholic enemies of the present Pope, like the new Daily Telegraph columnist Clifford Longley (who is also an old enemy of Dr Leonard), have begun to rubbish the scheme. Longley is a regular contributor to the liberal Catholic weekly, the Tablet, which has itself now taken an editorial decision to under- mine Dr Leonard's proposals (there is a probably well-founded rumour that a major offensive is planned for Eastertide).

So, predictably enough, has the house journal of the Anglican establishment, the Church Times, which at a time of intensive coverage of Dr Leonard's initiative in the secular press gave it only a single glancing reference in an article about something else. This virtual silence, heavily suggestive of the psychiatric phenomenon known as 'denial', reflects the sense of deep shock that has seized the ruling elite of the estab- lished Church. A desperate but unconvinc- ing charm offensive has been mounted to persuade the malcontents — about 400 clergy and perhaps 5,000 laity — to stay. One scheme to keep them inside the C. of E. is currently being pressed by the present Bishop of London, Dr David Hope. This envisages the establishment of something called an 'alternative episcopal oversight'. This would be rather like a kind of subordi-

nate Vichy administration, with Dr Hope in the uncomfortable position of being a kind of Anglo-Catholic Marshal Petain.

This scheme, however, is unlikely to appeal to a majority of the dissident cler- gy. The initiative has passed to Rome; how will Rome respond? The hostility of the Tablet set will do Dr Leonard no harm with Cardinal Ratzinger, who is heartily sick of liberal Catholic accusations that he is a hard-line reactionary. Certainly, he is quite capable of responding imaginatively to the current situation in England; the works of John Henry Newman had a great influence on Ratzinger as a young man, among them the Apologia pro Vita Sua, which sets forth the reasons for Newman's own conversion. So he understands why Anglicans become Catholics; he also knows that at one time Newman himself favoured the establishment of an Angli- can-rite jurisdiction loyal to Rome.

But before any decision can be made by this enigmatic personage, Dr Leonard must get the support of Cardinal Hume. The problem here, many observers tell you, is the Cardinal's own distinctly Angli- can tendencies; he became Archbishop of Westminster at a time when corporate reunion between Canterbury and Rome was beginning to look an almost credible aspiration, and when past denunciations of Anglican priestly orders as 'absolutely null and utterly void' (Pope Leo XIII) were arousing strong twinges of that potent phenomenon 'Catholic guilt'.

But ever since the General Synod's deci- sion there has been a falling of the scales from many Catholic eyes. The repetition in so many speeches in the Synod debate (including Dr Carey's) that Rome's views were not an overriding consideration con- firmed what the conservatives had said all along.

Cardinal Hume remains cautious allow- ing the disaffected Anglicans into the Church of Rome on their own terms; but he spoke of his great respect for Dr Leonard — probably a crucial factor in all this (they built up a close relationship in

Westminster, less public than that of Bish- op Sheppard and Archbishop Worlock in Liverpool, but no less important for that). In Rome, Cardinal Cassidy declared that if a group of Anglicans were to put in a joint application 'we obviously would have to take it seriously'. Given the inertly inex- pressive nature of Vaticanspeak, and Cas- sidy's own ecumenical priorities, this was almost effusively welcoming.

It is not, in fact, the first time Dr Leonard has launched such an initiative, and on that occasion the answer was a clear and definite negative. Things are very dif- ferent now. The silence that has super- vened after the initial rush of media interest covers a great deal of activity. But nothing can happen immediately, in any case, for practical reasons. Departing Church of England clergy will not qualify for the financial compensation they will need to survive before the Synod legisla- tion goes through Parliament, and is then promulged; that could be 18 months away. By that time, the juridical shape that will govern the exodus will have emerged. So will the Anglican Catholic liturgy the Pope must approve before it goes into use Already, it is looking less likely that some form of independent ecclesial entity, with its own bishop and structures of authority, will be the way ahead. Much more likely is the 'pastoral provision', under which already some 15 former Anglican parishes in America have been accepted into the Catholic Church by local bishops. The precedents here are encouraging: the scheme has worked well, and the Anglican parishes have fitted with few difficulties into their new dioceses. Problems over buildings and property have been much less intractable than many feared. In some cases, parishes have been allowed to take their churches with them; in others, they have been given hospitality in existing Catholic churches.

It is already clear that the historical implications of all this are potentially very great; we could be witnessing nothing less than a realignment of English Christianity. Without its most resolute Anglo-Catholics, the Church of England could, paradoxical- ly, be more united than at any time in its history. Anglican reunion, first with the Methodist Church, then with the United Reformed and other liberal Protestant Churches, could soon follow the departure of most of those who in the past have opposed such schemes.

But the question remains: what's in it for Rome? Dr Leonard is quite clear that it is the wrong question. 'I believe that Rome has a pastoral heart,' he says; `I'm not thinking of what Rome may get out of it . . . I happen to believe that Rome is con- cerned with the proclamation and the maintenance of the true gospel — and I believe that that alone is an adequate rea- son for them to act.'

There is, nevertheless, something in all this for the Catholic Church in England. The Anglo-Catholic initiative is taking place at what looks remarkably like an his- torical turning point. There is a deep malaise in the Anglican establishment, fur- ther deepened by its symbiotic relationship with the monarchy. Talk of disestablishing the Church of England is looking more realistic than for many years past. Already in England, there are more Roman Catholics in church on Sunday than there are Anglicans; the departure of a large body of Anglican Catholics could strength- en this trend dramatically. The Church in England, the Ecclesia Anglicana, was Catholic for 1,000 years; it broke from Rome over the question of divorce. Already there have been demands (from the liberal Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard) for the Established Church to abandon its formal prohibition against the remarriage of divorced per- sons: the marginalisation of the Anglo- Catholics, combined with the crisis in the monarchy, has had an immediate effect of the most far-reaching kind. It is all begin- ning to look remarkably as though the wheel of history has come full circle.

'Marriage? No, I'm still waiting for Mr Far Right.'