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AUSTRALIA: Anglican priests follow ritual from 500-year-old liturgy
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/
December 16, 2010
PRIESTS in Australia's new Anglican Ordinariate will celebrate mass facing east, away from their congregations, using 500-year old liturgies.
Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, said the traditional sacred liturgies -- more in the language of Shakespeare than modern vernacular -- would be held in parishes in all capital cities, the Gold and Sunshine coasts, Rockhampton and Torres Strait.
The process took a major step forward yesterday when Archbishop Hepworth and Catholic Bishop Peter Elliott announced the establishment of an Australian Ordinariate implementation committee comprising senior Catholic, Anglican and TAC clergy. The committee will finalise details of the Ordinariate at a two-day meeting at St Stephen's College, Coomera, on the Gold Coast, in early February. The Ordinariate will be established by Easter or Pentecost, in accordance with the invitation Anglicanorum Coetibus (on groups of Anglicans) issued by Pope Benedict.
The mass-conversions in Britain, Canada, the US and other English-speaking countries have been spurred on by conflicts within the Anglican church over women priests and bishops and controversies over traditional doctrines such as the divinity of Christ and the virgin birth.
Bishop Elliott said the initiative was "groundbreaking and historic . . . I am heartened by the spirit of goodwill and co-operation and the convergence of heart and mind."
Four TAC bishops, a retired Anglican bishop, a Japanese bishop, 24 priests and several thousand laypeople will join from the outset. Many of the Ordinariate's priests will be married, and Catholics will be free to attend their masses.
Chaplain Father Andrew Kinmont, who runs a parish out of the St Stephen's College chapel, plans to join the Ordinariate and hopes his parishioners will as well.
A spokesperson for Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall declined to comment.
