This came up today: The Great Disappointment Continues.
I won’t attempt to understand John Bruce’s Code of Ecclesiastical Titles. Quite honestly, I couldn’t care less. Most days, I wear a pair of jeans and a hoodie with my long hair, but I’m still a priest where it matters!
Another thing that is mattering decreasingly is the story I related in my own defunct English Catholic blog. Benedict XVI abdicated just shy of three years ago and the present incumbent seems to have shown courtesy to the present Ordinariate setup. I closed the discussion with the German word Schluß meaning the quality of being shut, closed, ended, terminated or whatever according to the context. I set out to document the history of the events as I observed and understood them, knowing that history would later be changed for ideological reasons.
I don’t find Anglo-Catholicism (or Anglican Catholicism) so elusive? I, a cradle Anglican, am a priest in a Church that is cordial and polite with Roman Catholics, but is clear in its position (see Anglican Catholic Clarity). We do not seek to become Roman Catholics for the simple reason that we are already Catholics in our Church.
(…) it wasn’t a good project for Rome to try to bring elements of it into the Church, especially in light of the numbers of cradle Catholics who’ve abandoned, or been abandoned by, the Church.
Cradle Roman Catholics find it hard to become Anglicans, because our ethos is totally different. We are more respectful of personality, diversity and difference, perhaps less so these days of corporate management and bureaucracy. Church jumping is not something I would encourage. I welcome Roman Catholics to my services if they wish to come, and they can receive Holy Communion if they wish. I recognise them to be Catholics just as we are, and as the Orthodox are with their own spiritual and liturgical traditions. I also know plenty of Roman Catholic priests who give Communion to Anglicans even if they go against their canon law. As a matter of fact, I do not receive Communion in churches other than Continuing Anglican – and usually only from my Bishop when I am at his Mass rather than celebrating my “own” Mass.
We Anglicans have our Continuing Churches, the RC’s have the SSPX and the various “Indult” communities, or even monasteries where the emphasis is more spiritual than political. The Orthodox have their Old Calendar groups and various workarounds when their bishops become too involved with ecumenism and globalism.
The big problem is for John Bruce to be happy in the parish where he goes, and get involved with all the activities which are great for retired folk and being good to other people. Perhaps they also have prayers and devotions…
The Blue Flower 
Merry Christmas, Father. If you have the time, I would appreciate a chat over email on how to apply Sarum ceremonial in an Anglican Low Mass. I hope I’ve contacted you in the right place. Thank you.
This is the chapter that might interest you from Dearmer’s The Parson’s Handbook – The Holy Communion. Of course, what he would have meant by “Anglican Low Mass” would be the 1662 Prayer Book. You might be meaning something else like the American 1928 or the Anglican Missal. The latter is based on the Roman rite and “worked” to harmonise with the Prayer Book system of Sundays, etc.
I use the Sarum Use as it stood in about 1526, though I do use the Warren translation for celebrating in English.
Thank you. I use the ACNA liturgy’s standard text, which appears to me to be quite close to the 1549 BCP. I have Dearmer, but he seems very bound by 1662 and the laws of Parliament in his day. I watched your Sarum training video and based on that and the Sarum text in English, added my own rubrics to ACNA liturgy. Very helpful.
Yes, Dearmer was very bound to the Prayer Book – Loyalty to the Prayer Book. I think his position was rooted in the idea that you belonged to the Church of England and followed its rites. You only added what was explicitly authorized. Oddly, you could add ceremonial but not texts. In that straitjacket, he was remarkably daring. He must have been an interesting fellow.