Updated Monday
Several reports of this have emerged today. The “Traditional Anglican Communion” in Canada is not, it seems, getting what it wants.
Ordinariate Portal has TAC Archbishop on Canadian Ordinariate.
Anna Arco at the Catholic Herald has Ordinariate talks stall in Canada.
As the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has been gaining deacons in the last few weeks and continues to take shape, expectant eyes begin to focus on the other side of the Atlantic. A decree establishing personal ordinariate for the United States is rumoured to be announced any day now. Things are looking good for the further implementation of the Pope’s 2009 Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus which reached out to Anglo-Catholics.
But this morning we learned that the leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion has thrown his toys out of the pram and warned that the British structure may well be the first and last ordinariate, as negotiations in Canada have come to a standstill.
Archbishop John Hepworth – a flamboyant and outspoken former Catholic turned Anglican who leads the TAC – wrote a letter to Bishop Peter Elliot, a former Anglican who is the Vatican’s appointed delegate for the Australian ordinariate, in which he accused the Vatican’s Canadian point man for the ordinariate of derailing the process. He said he would put talks with the Church on hold. He added that the Canadian development would have an effect on the potential establishment of ordinariates around the world, including in Australia. The TAC is the largest umbrella group for Anglo-Catholic continuing churches around the world who have broken with the Anglican Communion…
The bulk of membership of the TAC is to be found in Africa and in India, as originally reported by me in the Church Times, see my statistics here.
Update
The RC Archbishop of Toronto has issued a Statement re: Implementation of Anglicanorum Coetibus in Canada.
Never could figure what Hepworth, a divorced, twice-married, former RC priest, expected to get out of this.
Alas… discovering at this late date that the only one who gets what he wants in the Roman Church is the Pope.
Isn’t this what I’ve being saying all along..it is a charade.
As for the British TAC, it has less than a 100 members and a disproportionate number of clergy.
The heady days of 400,000 are now a distant memory.As for your statistics those are highly questionable as well. Apparently much of the African and Indian membership has already left.
The con is being found out.
Archbishop John Hepworth, can form his own church but cannot be other than a layman in the Ordinariate or Catholic Church. He is the problem. Am I in error? Please enlighten me.
The problem is the whole TAC..a tiny sect of persons, with poorly trained clergy and for the most tiny congregations.
I estimate less than a 100 members in the UK.
About 300 in Canada and even less in Australia.
Where have Hepworth’s 400,000 gone?
They never existed…
The statistics I reported in January 2010 were those supplied to me directly by Cheryl Woodman, who has an official position in the TAC, and to whom I was referred by no less a person than Archbishop Hepworth himself. As you can see, she had an unusual method of estimating total membership from usual Sunday attendance, which is what the actual figures supplied (totalling only around 250,000) claimed to be.
I made several attempts to locate more information from Africa and India directly, but was unsuccessful.
Archbishop Hepworth’s background is, as has been noted on various blogs, irregular, to say the least. Time will tell if he is really capable of submitting to Roman authority. For the records, the Ordinariate is and always has been a response to requests from Anglicans of various flavours for consideration. Rome’s position has not changed. If Anglicans want to preserve those elements of their patrimony that do not conflict with Catholicism, then come on home and celebrate that rich heritage within the Church! Submit and practice obedience. Be patient. The Church only asks what Christ Himself asks – deny yourself,… Read more »
The letter posted at Virtue On Line makes some interesting observations about the Anglican Catholic Church in Canada–and they appear to be accurate. There is a tiny Anglican Catholic Church in our city–a block from my parish church. It worships in a tiny house size building that was formerly operated by a protestant sect. Ironically, just around the corner is a massive and thriving Roman Catholic Parish.The local Anglican Catholic Clergy are indeed former members of the Anglican Church of Canada, but as the letter at VoL states, these local lads left the Canadian Church as laity and were trained… Read more »
Simon, the TAC is a Potemkin denomination..I estimate membership less than 10,000 worldwide.
There is no Indian Church with 65,000 communicants. It was all part of the TAC bait.
“The TAC is the largest umbrella group for Anglo-Catholic continuing churches around the world who have broken with the Anglican Communion…” – Anna Arco, ‘Catholic Herald’ And a very small umbrella it is, too! Archbishop Hepworth, himself an ex-R.C.priest, who is the Australian-based ‘Head’ of TAC, has a very small contingent of ex-Anglicans within his own local branch of TAC in Australia, and currently is looking unlikely to have much say with the Vatican on what happens with future ‘Ordinariates’. This is all just a very sad situation, really, for those Australian Anglo-Catholics who fled the Anglican Church in Australia… Read more »
There are 3 Episcopal parishes ( out of 7,000) in the US interested in the Ordinariate. Two of these are embroiled in multi million law suits.In Canada there is one Anglican Church of Canada parish out of 1800. In Australia, New Zealand, South Africa ,Ireland, Wales there are no takers from the official Anglican ( Communion ) Churches. The Ordinariate is a great disappointment. In England and Wales it is / largely middle aged/ elderly phenomenon and it is unlikely that baptisms will exceed ordinations. In the English Ordinariate there is about one cleric for 15 lay people. As for… Read more »
Robert Ian Williams is correct in the sense that there is zippo interest on the part of Canadian Anglicans in joining B 16’s ordinariate. In fact, it tends the other way, The Anglican Church of Canada continues to pick up dissident Roman Catholics.
Why doesn’t everybody just wait and see instead of predicting an outcome? If it succeeds, it succeeds, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. As it happens, I suspect it will do rather better than people think in the UK in the years to come. Beyond that – I reckon the States will be good as well.