Inquirer: In place of conventional dioceses, the new arrangements envisage "personal ordinariates". Are they akin to the military ordinariates for dispersed groups of personnel in the various branches of the armed forces?

John Hepworth: Yes, and they are at the heart of what the Pope proposes. They are similar to dioceses but are groupings of people rather than a territory. Under this arrangement the ordinary (who may be a priest or a bishop) will be the shepherd of the Anglican people within the Catholic communion in his area. There will probably be a considerable number of these groupings around the world.

Inquirer: How do the Pope's proposals mesh the Latin celibate discipline for all clergy with Anglicanism's longstanding acceptance of married priests and bishops?

JH: Bishops in the new Anglican structure will be unmarried. This is out of respect for the tradition of Eastern and Western Christianity. But priests who come from Anglicanism will be able to serve as priests in the new structure, whether married or not, after satisfying certain requirements. The truly radical element is that married men will be able to be ordained priests in the Anglican structure indefinitely into the future. It is anticipated that Anglican bishops who are married when they joined the new structure will still be able to serve as priestly ordinaries, exercising some of the responsibilities of bishops.

Inquirer: Have decisions been made yet about the liturgy you'll use?

JH: An international group is working at the moment on the liturgical books for the new Anglican structure. I anticipate something that combines glimpses of pre-Reformation English worship, the glorious liturgical language of the Reformation period and contemporary understanding of the way Christians should approach God will eventually be approved.

Inquirer: How did the once-dominant Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England become so fragmented?

JH: After 1992, when the ordination of women to the priesthood came to both Australia and England, Catholic-minded Anglicans split into two groups. Many stayed within the Anglican Communion and fought for a place in which their conscience would not be damaged, and others left and formed groupings such as the Traditional Anglican Communion. An initial objective of the TAC was seeking unity with the Holy See.

Inquirer: Over the years all sorts of Anglicans have dreamed of some kind or other of reunion involving Rome. Why are you so optimistic this time around?

JH: Some attempts at reunion have been quite lavish and formal, such as the conversations in Belgium between the two world wars and the global process known as ARCIC (the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission) in the past 30 years. There were attempts as early as the 17th century. But what was crucially missing before was the creative co-operation of the Pope of the time. Pope Benedict has devised a new structure that is at once ingenious, pastoral and very generous to the traditions to which Anglican people are attached. As well, there is a certain daring in offering us a structure that relies on the Anglicans to initiate it before it comes into effect. It is, I think, a product of the serene confidence of this Pope, someone who passionately believes that unifying the Christian world is something demanded by God.

Inquirer: Within global Anglicanism, the divisions seem more rancorous than ever. Hasthat made the TAC more comfortable about approaching Rome unconditionally, seeking reunion?

JH: Several critical things have changed in recent times. Theological liberals who were once a fringe group in Anglicanism are now firmly in control across much of the Anglican world. The leadership that was once shared by Anglo-Catholic and evangelical Anglicans has vanished. The liberal agenda has run more quickly than the other groups anticipated and has made it very difficult, particularly for Anglo-Catholics, to remain in the Anglican Communion. On the other hand, the ecumenical movement with its dreams of Christian unity has burned out in its first exciting stage, when people believed that churches would indeed find unity and do it soon. Instead they have found friendship and common endeavour but little organic unity. In that climate Rome has been reconsidering the nature and extent of its ecumenical activity. The book just released by Cardinal (Walter) Kasper reflects this reconsideration. And of course there has been a growing frustration within the Catholic Church about the standard and language of its own worship, which has led some people to look at other High Church traditions. Perhaps just as important is the global movement of people. People no longer spend their lives in one place devoted to a single parish church and local institutions. People are mobile and are prepared to try new institutions. That is perhaps a consideration that is allowing people in the TAC more easily to consider moves such as the proposal the Pope now offers.

Inquirer: Critics who insist on seeing the Pope as God's rottweiler will be hard pressed to explain the fact that he is prepared to create a parallel jurisdiction with married Catholic priests. Even more surprisingly, the option won't just extend to the present crop of married men in Anglican orders, which most observers expected, but to future generations of clergy.

JH: The Anglican tradition has had married clergy for 500 years. It has a long experience of having a clerical family at the heart of the parish. Apart from Ireland, it was only with the expansion of the British Empire that the situation arose where married Anglican clergy worked in the same place as celibate Catholic clergy. The two traditions will continue to live side by side. Indeed, it would be hard to imagine how an Anglican tradition within Catholicism could sustain itself in the long term without married clergy. Permitting it is not in any way intended as a challenge to the rule of celibacy, but it is allowing the vision of a family at the heart of the parish to flourish at a time when the family is under great stress. On the other hand, Anglican Catholics are going to have to relearn the value of the celibate vocation. The TAC already has a number of celibate bishops and celibate communities of priests and nuns, so perhaps the lesson has begun to be learned.

Inquirer: How will the Orthodox react to the new arrangements? Will they be viewing the next six months as a test of Rome's ecumenical bona fides?

JH: Already there are stories circulating that the Patriarch of Moscow has urged his ecumenical negotiators in the Vatican to hurry in order that the Anglicans do not get too far ahead. They're probably apocryphal, but we do know that the Russian Orthodox Church is very close to achieving unity with Rome. It is the largest of the Orthodox churches of the East. We also know that the Orthodox are watching the Anglican process very closely to try to assess the extent to which Rome is serious about tolerating many different traditions of Christianity within the scope of the Catholic Church. I have had conversations with members of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church about the parallels between their conversations with Rome and ours. Christian unity throughout the world is at a very similar moment. Conversation and co-operation are beginning to evolve into forms of organic unity that still protect diverse Christian traditions of worship and spirituality.

END