AU Philippines meets with the Roman Catholic bishop of Cubao

L to R, Fr Raymond Aree, Bp Ongtioco, Fr Joe Frary, me and Bruce Hall

After quite some time of getting all our schedules right, the Anglican Use Society of the Philippines finally met with the the Most Rev. Honesto Ongtioco DD, the bishop of Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines. Bishop Ongtioco earlier gave permission for the Anglican Use Society of the Philippines to hold evening prayer meetings at the Parish of the Holy Sacrifice in UP Diliman under Fr Raymond Arre. We updated the bishop on the slowly growing membership of AU Philippines and the great help that social media has been in giving AU Philippines stronger legs.

We also told the bishop on how Bruce, Fr Frary and I unexpectedly came together. It is probably of God since it is quite a long shot to for all of us to come together. But it did happen. After all how many Anglican Use Catholics are in the Philippines?

Fr Frary told the bishop that with the fragmentation of the Anglican Communion, it makes good pastoral sense to spread the Anglican "virus" to the wider Church, not only in the Roman Church but to other churches as well. This is especially in the West where Fr Frary noted that the near collapse of Christian heritage and culture is not solely attributable to secularism but to something else, perhaps more sinister.

We also discussed at great length what the Ordinariates are and how this will change the way Roman Catholics as a church, a more Catholic Church than it was in the past, a church that will bring all people (Protestants, Anglicans, Orthodox, non-believers etc and of course lapsed Catholics) who wish to do so, be part of her once more.

To all of these Bishop Ongtioco said "We can't prevent the Holy Spirit in doing these things!" He also said he was very glad that there is an Anglican Use Society in the Philippines. Bishop Ongtioco struck me as a down to earth bishop, with wit and humor and good cheer as well as great pastoral sense. It is no wonder the diocese has made strides in catechesis and strengthening its parishes.

The bishop supports our plan to have quarterly evening prayer meetings with the next one scheduled for Mar 21. The bishop also required us to use the Book of Divine Worship since it is a Vatican approved liturgy.

We also made it clear that the identity of the Society is Roman Catholic. As Bruce emphatically said "We are Anglicans in communion with the Pope in Rome"

After merienda "morning snack" we toured the Romanesque Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. I haven't been to this church in years and I was awestruck by the artwork by the diocese's artists. It as if we entered the gate of heaven (medieval cathedrals gave that impression) with that starry vault of the nave. The cathedral's stained glass windows are not yet complete. But once they are, this church will reflect how the 21st century Catholic Church has recovered what was lost without  being dated! Anglican traditions definitely will help the wider Church do the same.

Cubao Cathedral's nave

The Immaculate Conception window

St Lorenzo Ruiz of Manila

soon to be canonized Blessed Pedro Calungsod

The Four Evangelists at the transept.

Truly the Diocese of Cubao is "the light on top of a hill"

Please pray for us.

The Most Rev Honesto Ongtioco DD, Roman Catholic bishop of Cubao will host a meeting for the Anglican Use Society of the Philippines on the feast of the Black Nazarene, January 9 so we can plan our future directions. Please pray for the meeting's success.

Our Lady under the titles of Walsingham and Piat, pray for us!
Saint Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us!
Saint Lorenzo de Manila and Blessed Pedro Calungsod, lay catechists and martrys, pray for us!
Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, pray for us!
Saint Elizabeth Seton, pray for us!
Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!
Blessed Pope John XXIII, pray for us!
Blessed Pope John Paul II, pray for us!

The American Ordinariate is established, Rev Dr Steenson is the first Ordinary

On January 1, 2012, the Holy Father established the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter in the United States. The Ordinariate is for Anglicans/Episcopalians wishing to be part of the Catholic Church while retaining distinctive aspects of their liturgy and tradition.


The Pope named the Rev Dr Jeffrey Steenson, former Episcopal Bishop of the Rio Grande as the first Ordinary. Rev Dr Steenson is a noted scholar of the early Church Fathers, served the Episcopal Church for 25 years as a priest and 3 as bishop. In 2007 he was received in the Catholic Church and was ordained as a priest under the Pastoral Provision in 2008. Dr Steenson is married with three grown children.

Rev Dr Jeffrey Steenson

The formation of Anglican congregations wishing to enter the Catholic Church is a prime focus of the Ordinariate. Already several Episcopal parishes have signified their intention to join the Ordinariate. It is expected that the several Anglican Use parishes (which are under the local Latin Rite bishop) will join as well. The Principal Church or cathedral of the Ordinariate is an Anglican Use parish, Our Lady of Walsingham, in Houston, Texas. Answers to uestions on what the Ordinariate is and who can be part of it are found here.

The name of the Ordinariate is very significant and it reflects on how close to the Pope's heart is Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion.

The First Pro Life day

James Tissot's (1836-1902) Massacre of the Innocents has always been a shocker for me since it is so realistic in its depiction (and is like those photos of aborted fetuses).  And like many people who then and now get scandalised by death (and photos of aborted fetuses), they criticized the artist for the harshness of the theme.  Even though many historians and Biblical scholars now think Herod's murder of the children is hagiography to shore up the early Christians' resolve, I would still think it did happen though not in the scale we thought it was. Nonetheless, a single murder is an abominable sight in God's eyes. The scale doesn't matter. But in our human weakness we tend to consider murder, homicide and  accidental death as statistics.

Tissot painted the scene according to an ancient tradition as the Brooklyn Museum website says

" Herod lured the intended victims to the palace with the promise of a party. The children were then wrenched from their mothers’ arms and tossed to their deaths in a courtyard. Herod’s deviousness was thus highlighted: called singly into a long corridor, the women had no opportunity to warn others of the impending tragedy. "

Tissot's watercolour brings the message that the massacre was due to deviousness and fear and the children are no statistics. Tissot who was once a celebrated painter of gay  ("gay" in its original meaning!)   secular subjects especially of high society in the 1880s had a mystical experience and from then on painted only religious subjects culminating in the Life of Christ. We don't exactly know the details of Tissot's conversion but perhaps the Book of Common Prayer's collect for Holy Innocents Day reflects it well

"O ALMIGHTY God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths; Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"


Let us beg forgiveness to the Lord for our neglect of children for this is the First Day for Pro Life!

A blessed season of the Nativity to all

The Adoration of the Shepherds by James Tissot

Rev Dr Jeffrey Steenson, ex TEC bishop tipped to be first US Ordinary

Virtueonline reports that former TEC bishop of the Rio Grande, Rev Dr Jeffrey Steenson will be named as the first Ordinary of the US Ordinariate once it is erected on New Year's Day 2012.

Dr Steenson served the Episcopal diocese for just two years from 2005-2007 after which  he resigned his Anglican orders and joined the Roman Catholic Church. He was ordained as a Catholic priest on Feb 21, 2008. He teaches at St Thomas University. Upon the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009, Dr Steenson has been heavily involved with Cardinals Wuerl and DiNardo in how the apostolic constitution and its seminary formation program will be implemented in the United States.

Dr Steenson is married with three adult children. As such he cannot be raised to the Catholic episcopate but will have most of the jurisdiction, rights and privileges of a Catholic bishop except that of ordaining men to the priesthood. It is expected that he will be named as a Monsignor.

At present several TEC parishes have decided to join the soon to established Ordinariate. Around 67 priests and 2 Anglican bishops are expected to join as well as the Anglican Use parishes the largest of which are in Texas. These parishes are under the Latin Rite ordinary where they are located.

Ad orientem, worshiping to the East and English church ordering

A medieval English priest offers Mass according to the Sarum Use

Mass celebrated with priest and laypeople  facing the geographical east is really an English custom. In the 7th century, Catholic churches in England were built on the feast day of the saint on which the church when completed will be dedicated. The earliest churches in Rome had the sanctuary at the western end and the entrance at the eastern end due to peculiarities of Rome's geography. The priest thus celebrated mass ad orientem and versus populum.  A prime example is mass in St Peter's Basilica and St Paul's Outside the Walls. However,  the Apostolic Constitution of 472 mandated the worship of the True God to the east which later became universal in the Latin Church until the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.  In England where there was a pagan cult of the Sun, in 597 Pope St Gregory counselled St Augustine of Canterbury, the first Archbishop of that see to deal gently with these customs and henceforth the first Archbishop of Canterbury ordered all English churches be ordered with the altar at the east end and that the celebrant should be bathed in the full light of the morning sun through the East window. Since then this has been a feature of the English parish church.

A  defining feature of the English church is a square chancel which is often rounded in continental European medieval churches. In the medieval Slipper Chapel shown above which is now England's Roman Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk, we see the great East window and the square chancel. These medieval churches had their orientation to the East where the sun will rise at the Spring and Autumn equinoxes. How did the medieval masons figure this out?

Masons will patiently wait for sun to rise and with the use of a gnomon placed at the centre of the proposed church site, the shadow lines at dawn or dusk of the gnomon were marked off on a circle, giving a true east west axis. The resulting east and west points were used as centres marking off two circles that intersect forming a fish shape or vesica pisces. A line drawn between the vertices of the vesica pisces gives the true north south axis. The church plan can now be executed and the church built. Usually the chancel and choir are built first and consecrated

English medieval plan to orient a church

Even the Episcopal Church cathedral in Quezon City show traces of this English ordering of a square chancel and an East window although in this cathedral these are three small windows. The Cathedral of St Mary and St John is oriented to the geographical east like its predecessor in Ermita, Manila which was destroyed in World War II.

St Mary and St John Cathedral in Quezon City

Old St Mary and St John in Ermita, Manila (destroyed in WW 2)

Thus when some cradle Catholics (who have been habituated to versus populum masses) asked the Ordinariate Catholics why they insist on an ad orientem way of worshiping, the reason they gave is that this way is part of the Anglican patrimony which predates the Reformation. Thus it is authentically Roman Catholic.

Reference: Paul NP (1995) Enjoying Old Parish Churches. Vol. 1 Pentland Press, Durham, England.

From the East to the West, Christ is Lord of the Cosmos!

The Western Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King since Scripture warrants it. In Christian iconography it is traditionally represented

In the East as the Pantocrator. This Greek word means that all that happens is made possible by Christ and Christ alone. He rules the cosmos and has total sovereignty over it.

The Pantocrator in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

In the West as the Christ in Majesty, Christ is seated like the Latin Kings and rules over all.

Christ in Majesty in the Codex Bruschal (1220)

The Sovereignty of the Christ over the cosmos was not achieved by violence, deceit, bribery and obviously not by democratic elections! This Sovereignty is because Jesus is the Christ. It is his very essence.

A good old priest told me that in the end we have to give our account of what we have done to a Pantocrat. Jesus is Lord, Jesus is King, Jesus is Saviour and rules over what we see and cannot see! The Universe is a pantocracy even if physicists demonstrate there may be many of them. Christ is ruler of them all.

Even if Christ is Pantocrat, he humbled himself, became man, lived amongst us and atoned for our sins. This is the greatest contradiction in history.

AN ANGLICAN COLLECT FOR CHRIST THE KING

Almighty and everlasting God,

whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son,


the King of kings and Lord of lords:

Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin,


may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule;


who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

American Ordinariate to be established on New Year's day 2012

Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington DC as the CDF's delegate on the establishment of an Anglican Ordinariate announced that Pope Benedict XVI has approved the establishment of the American Ordinariate on Jan 1,2012. Read the details here.

The Ordinariate as a new way being a church, problems and opportunities.

The Anglican Ordinariate is like a baby. In England it is an 11 month old baby and like a child entering its ones and twos, it will have to learn how to stand and to toddle and walk. Thus as the Catholic Herald observed, the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is in its most crucial time in its history. We have to give laud to the Ordinary, the Rt Rev Msgr Keith Newton for being a good shepherd of the Ordinariate.  Many Ordinariate groups have been received with their pastors and they are sharing Roman Catholic churches in England but they have no buildings of their own. While the Archbishop of Canterbury was supportive of church sharing arrangements with Anglican congregations, other Anglican bishops were not supportive and Msgr Newton has made sure that conflicts with the Anglican church were avoided.

As of this writing, the Ordinariate doesn't still have a "principal church" which is essentially a cathedral. Several op ed writes like Damian Thompson have written about it. As the Herald notes, the principal church is needed in establishing the Ordinariate's identity as a church.  The Herald suggests that the Ordinariate has to do something and not wait for the Catholic bishops of England and Wales to act.

One major problem of the Ordinariate is financial. Just like with any Roman Catholic diocese, it is responsible for supporting its clergy. The main difference is that all of the Ordinariate's clergy were former Anglican priests many of which are married and have families (like Msgr Newton himself) or are retired and in need of pensions.  Many of the clergy have to be housed and have to be given dispensations to find secular jobs to support themselves after they have lost their Church of England entitlements. This should be an eye opener for Roman Catholics who want Rome to dispense with the vow of celibacy for all Latin Catholic priests.  If the Ordinariate whose laity are small are having problems, the wider Roman Church whose parish laity numbers in the thousands will have more problems on this matter. It is very likely that more Anglicans and Anglican oriented Roman Catholics will join and worship with the Ordinariate and thus the Ordinary will have to address the financial problem soon. The Ordinariate is not short of supporters who have contributed some "seed money" but they cannot be expected to contribute for the long run. The Ordinariate must be self financing.

We are just awaiting the erection of the American Ordinariate and this will be much of interest for Anglican Use Catholics, Roman Catholics and Episcopalians in the Philippines. However like in England, the American Ordinariate will face similar problems that what the English Ordinariate now faces. But there is a major difference. The Pastoral Provision allowed the establishment of Anglican Use personal parishes in the last 30 years with their married clergy. Some parishes have grown well like the Atonement parish in Texas. Thus there has been experience in making sure that the Anglican patrimony is conserved in the Roman Catholic Church.

In England as in the US unless the Anglican congregations own their church buildings by title, they are are unlikely to bring their church buildings with them when they leave the Episcopal Church since under that church's canons, the buildings and real estate are held in trust for the Episcopal diocese. Like the Atonement congregration, they will have to build their own churches. In one case the Episcopal diocese and the departing Episcopal congregation have reached an agreement on leasing their church building with an option to purchase. But this likely to be an exception rather than the rule.

The Ordinariate is thus a new way of being an old church. We say new since Anglicanorum coetibus is really a radical way of uniting a separated church. But those separated are returning to Tradition which while old is forever new. The Ordinariates need our prayers!