Within days of each other two prelates - one Catholic, one Anglican (CofE) release opposing statements on the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.
First is Bishop Peter J Elliot, Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne Australia. He says of the Anglicans that ferry the Tiber that they will be "United in Communion but not absorbed." The other is the Anglican Archbishop of York, Dr. Peter Sentamu. As reported in the Telegraph, Dr. Sentamu told the BBC recently of these Anglicans that "they wouldn't be 'proper Catholics.'"
Other than guffaw from these shores, I'll leave it to Damian Thompson to take the good Archbishop of York to task for his spectacularly ignorant and offensive statements.
On this side of the pond the response to the apostolic constitution has been positive from the Roman Catholic perspective. After all it was in America that the precursor to the Ordinariate was established with the Anglican 'Use' parishes.
As far as reactions from the Episcopal Church - it's been pretty muted as that ecclessial community is still in upheaval internally. The national church is taking on individual clerics, congregations, and dioceses as they align with more conservative Anglican provinces.Interestingly while visiting Charleston, SC the former Bishop of Rochester, Pakistani born Michael Nazir-Ali, mused on Constitution that the Vatican has created a Presbyterian Ordinariate because "the Proposal offered no Bishops from the Roman Catholic Church for the fleeing Anglicans."
A little further upstream there's no word yet if the local Anglo Catholic church, Church of the Good Shepherd, is considering the Ordinariate with their spiritual, doctrinal, and liturgical closeness to the Catholic Church.
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