Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is a special Catholic diocese for Anglican and Methodist converts in the United States and Canada. It allows these parishioners to maintain elements of Anglican liturgy and tradition in their services. The ordinariate was established by the Vatican in 2012.

Based in Houston, Texas, with the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham as its principal church, the ordinariate includes 41 parishes and missions with over 6,000 members in the United States and Canada.

The ordinariate is under the direct authority ( exempt) of the Vatican. Former members of communions of "Anglican heritage" such as the United Church of Canada are included. The liturgy of the ordinariate, known as the Anglican Use, is a form of the Roman Rite with the introduction of traditional English Catholic and Anglican elements. Also called "Divine Worship" or the "Ordinariate Use", the Mass is celebrated according to '' Divine Worship: The Missal'' and the canonical hours according to '' Divine Worship: Daily Office''.

The ordinariate describes itself as "a structure, similar to a diocese, that was created by the Vatican in 2012 for former Anglican communities and clergy seeking to become Catholic. Once Catholic, the communities retain many aspects of their Anglican heritage, liturgy, and traditions". It has also been described as "a special kind of diocese confined to specific national territory – much like a military ordinariate that serves members of a national armed forces".

The original ordinariate territory was the same as that of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). However, the Vatican announced on December 7, 2012 that after consulting the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB),it was extending the ordinariate to include Canada. Accordingly, the head of the ordinariate is a full member of both the USCCB and the CCCB.

Structure

According to the decree of its erection, the ordinariate is juridically equivalent to a diocese. The parishioners are led by an ordinary who is named directly by the pope. The ordinary may be a bishop, if celibate, or a priest, if married.

Initially, the Vatican named all married ordinaries as apostolic protonotaries – that is, monsignors of the highest rank – soon after the respective appointments to that office. In the case of an ordinary who is an apostolic protonotary, the ordinary holds the same power of governance over the ordinariate that a diocesan bishop holds over a diocese. The only practical difference is that a bishop may ordain clergy for the ordinariate personally, whereas a non-bishop ordinary must ask a bishop to ordain clergy. In 2016, the ordinariate became the first personal ordinariate to receive a bishop with the episcopal ordination and installation of Steven J. Lopes, a bishop, as its second ordinary.

The ordinary of a ordinariate is canonically equivalent to a diocesan bishop, and thus wears the same ecclesiastical attire and uses the same pontifical insignia ( mitre, crosier, pectoral cross, and episcopal ring) as a diocesan bishop, even if he is not a bishop. The ordinary is also, ''ex officio'', a full member of the episcopal conference(s) of the territory of the ordinariate.

History

Background

In the early 21st century, a number of bishops from the Church of England and the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), a global "continuing Anglican" body, independently approached the Vatican seeking some manner of corporate reunion that would preserve their autonomy and their ecclesial structure within the Catholic Church. Many of these bishops were unhappy with changes within the Anglican Church, such as the ordination of female and LGBT priests, and the consecration of same sex marriages.

In response, Pope Benedict XVI promulgated the apostolic constitution ''Anglicanorum coetibus'', permitting erection of personal ordinariates equivalent to dioceses, on November 4, 2009.

Formation

Pursuant to ''Anglicanorum coetibus'', the Vatican erected three ordinariates over the next three years in countries where interest among prospective Anglican clergy and communities was strongest:

* the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales on January 15, 2011
* the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in the territory of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on January 1, 2012. It later acquired extraterritorial communities in Canada.
* the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in the territory of the Australian Conference of Catholic Bishops on June 15, 2012

The decree erecting the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter designated the Church of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas, as its principal church, analogous to the cathedral church of a diocese.

Growth

In the first weeks after the erection of the ordinariate, over 100 Anglican clergy applied to be Catholic priests in the ordinariate, and over 1,400 lay people joined. Within the first year of the ordinariate's existence, the number of communities joining the ordinariate quickly grew to nearly three dozen. As of 2017, there were 43 parishes and missions (canonically, "quasi-parishes") within the ordinariate.

Mount Calvary Parish in Baltimore voted to join the ordinariate in 2010. In December 2011, the parish settled in court with the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland over the church and associated properties. Thus, on January 21, 2012, Mount Calvary parish was received together as the first ordinariate parish in North America.

On April 19, 2012, the Archbishop of Ottawa, Terrence Prendergast, received 30 Anglicans into the Catholic Church. They included Carl Reid, until then a bishop of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC).. The same week in the Diocese of Victoria in British Columbia, another 23 Anglicans, including Peter Wilkinson, until then the Diocesan Bishop of the ACCC, were received into the Catholic church. These new arrivals immediately formed communities of the ordinariate.

On June 26, 2012, Randy Sly, a former archbishop in the Charismatic Episcopal Church, was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Paul Loverde in Potomac Falls, Virginia. On September 16, 2012, the Cathedral of the Incarnation, the cathedral of the Diocese of Eastern United States of the Anglican Church in America, was received into the ordinariate along with their bishop, Louis Campese.

On February 4, 2015, the ordinariate dedicated a new chancery building, on property adjacent to its principal church (which would become its cathedral with the installation of its first bishop in 2016), Our Lady of Walsingham, in Houston.

On November 24, 2015, Pope Francis appointed Steven J. Lopes as the first bishop of the personal ordinariate. It was announced that on February 2, 2016 that he would succeed the ordinariate's first ordinary, Jeffrey N. Steenson. This appointment was the first time a bishop has been named to any of the three personal ordinariates. With the appointment of a bishop to head the ordinariate, the principal church was elevated to a cathedral, the third in Houston.

In 2017, the ordinariate inducted the last of the Anglican Use parishes originally erected under the provisions of the 1980 Pastoral Provision with the decree, on March 21, by the Vatican that "all parishes of the Pastoral Provision are to be incorporated into the Ordinariate." With this decree, Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio – the first and also largest of the Pastoral Provision parishes – became a parish of the ordinariate, along with its clergy. Our Lady of the Atonement also brought with it the ordinariate's first K–12 Catholic school, The Atonement Academy, with over five hundred students enrolled. The other remaining Pastoral Provision parish, the Congregation of St. Athanasius in Boston, also joined the ordinariate pursuant to the Vatican's decree.

In 2022, Cathedral High School welcomed its inaugural freshman class.

Liturgy and Eucharist

Upon erection of the first ordinariates, the Vatican established the commission ''Anglicanae Traditiones'' to prepare liturgical books of the Anglican tradition for their use, and also for use of the communities of former Anglicans who remain under the jurisdiction of their local dioceses. This commission, under the direction of Steven , first published ''Divine Worship: Occasional Services'' containing rites for baptisms, weddings, and funerals, followed by ''Divine Worship: The Missal'' containing the rite for Mass to replace the respective rites in the ''Book of Divine Worship''. The ordinariate missal took effect on November 27, 2015. was the principal celebrant of the first mass at the ordinariate's principal church according to the new missal.

In his pastoral letter, "Come, Holy Ghost," released February 14, 2020, revealed the ordinariate would become the 14th Latin Church episcopal jurisdiction in the U.S. to make the reception of eucharist normally follow confirmation. It is an arrangement of the sacraments often described as "restored order", with a focus on involving the child's family in sacramental preparation. He said the norm in the ordinariate will be to admit a child to confirmation and eucharist "around the age of discretion, ccording to canon lawbeing sometime between the ages of 7 and 11."

In late 2020, the ordinariate published an Anglican Use form of the Liturgy of the Hours, the '' Divine Worship: Daily Office: North American Edition''. The Personal Ordinariates of Our Lady of Walsingham and Our Lady of the Southern Cross published their own version in late 2021, '' Divine Worship: Daily Office: Commonwealth Edition''.

Deanery of St John the Baptist

In April 2012, Steenson accepted the proposal that all Canadian Anglican converts should be organized as parishes of a deanery of the ordinariate. On December 7, 2012, the ordinariate formally erected the Deanery of Saint John the Baptist for the Canadian parishes. Steenson appointed Kenyon as its first dean, with the approval of the Vatican and the support of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

On December 8, 2012, Peter Wilkinson, the former Metropolitan Bishop of Canada of the (ACCC), was ordained as a Catholic priest by Bishop Richard Gagnon at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Victoria. Wilkinson was later named a prelate of honor

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