Ordinariate in Limbo

Its been a while since my last blog regarding the Ordinariate and that has been for several reasons. The main one being that it is the holiday season.

A few people have noticed that I have not been at church lately and have asked me why, so I thought a short explanation would be helpful.

When the idea of joining the Ordinariate was first put to me it was suggested that we would be joining the Catholic Church but taking some of our Anglican patrimony with us and that we may be able to stay at our present church. In either case we would have our own service. There were other reasons as well like becoming one with Rome and beginning to make one church.

It soon became apparent that we would not be able to stay at our present church and we were eventually told of our new location, which was the main Catholic Church in Sevenoaks.

I was told at the time by people staying and not joining the Ordinariate that St. Thomas’ although a Catholic Church was not a high Church like St. Johns. I thought well that’s ok as we will be having our own services with our own servers etc.

Unfortunately, since we became Catholic I think we have only had 4 or 5 Ordinariate services, we don’t have our own service, we are attending the usual 11:15 mass and the services are taken by the priests on a rota basis. We have been informed about changes that may or may not happen but we have been asked not to say anything until things are sorted!!!

I still feel that the Sevenoaks Ordinariate is and most probably will be absorbed into the local Catholic Church. This is not a bad thing but it is not what I thought the Ordinariate was supposed to do.

 I feel that several people have used the Ordinariate to become Catholic the easy way rather than going through the usual channels, which if that’s what they want fair play to them but I still want to as they say  have all the ‘Bells and Smells’. As I said before I cannot say too much because we have been asked not to say anything until things have been sorted, but I do feel as if I have joined the Ordinariate on a cloud of euphoria and have been left on that same cloud just floating around.

It’s for this reason that I have not been attending church. I have decided to wait until things are sorted and to see if I get a sign in answer to my prayers. I know that nothing can be done on a local level at the moment because of holidays but hopefully things will start to sort themselves out during September.

Maybe the Sevenoaks Ordinariate will have to move to another location to be able to have their own service.

One other note, I am noticing more and more that Mgr Keith Newton and the Ordinariate are appealing for donations to help support the clergy and other requirements of the Ordinariate.

I know that the Ordinariate should be self financing but surely if the Pope wanted this to happen couldn’t he have made more provision then was originally made? And don’t start me on the CBS affair!!!