Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter News -
  • This may not merit a thread all its own, but I didn't know what else to do about sharing that....

    I learned just this evening that, as of the 21st April, the Church of Our Lady of the Atonement, and Atonement Academy, will have been transferred to the Ordinariate. We welcome them and share the glad news with all. This should be a blessing both to Atonement and to the Ordinariate. Singing a Te Deum is appropriate.
  • I certainly count this as good news.
    Very appropriately, April 21 is the feast of St Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (d 1109). Although this year Easter Friday will take precedence on April 21.
    Thanked by 2Salieri SBCpianoman
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    Yes, congratulation to the parish, the school, and the Ordinariate! This is happy news.
    Thanked by 1SBCpianoman
  • I received some explanation this morning via the Walsingham grape vine - it seems that this is being done at the behest of the Holy See, which has required of all Anglican Use and Pastoral Provision parishes that they join the Ordinariate. This will be a good thing for us, though one really scratches one's head at why they (the parishes) haven't done this before. My impression has always been that Atonement preferred to be its own sort of self as a diocesan Anglican Use parish.

    The Ordinariate currently has 40-45 parishes. I don't know how many will be joining us as a result of Rome's initiative. Atonement is certainly the only parish as developed and comfortable as Walsingham.

    (More details may be found at the Ordinariate's website.)
    _____________________________________________

    Other news of interest -
    We are in the final months of building a new educational building, Elizabeth Ann Seton Hall, which will have more classrooms for the Holy House, our home-schooled children's program, AND a large choir hall with raised spaces for up to 100 singers and a Steinway grand, plus rooms for music archives and offices. We are very serious about music at Walsingham and our choirmaster, Edmund Murray and his wife Chalon, are quite gifted at building choirs of all ages. At present we have the normal Cathedral Choir, the Treble Choir, Chorus Angelorum (our in residence semi-professional evensong choir), and an after school music program for youth. There will be more.

    (Donations to Elizabeth Ann Seton Hall may be made via Walsingham's website.)
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen cesarfranck
  • rollingrj
    Posts: 344
    I happen to know the organist/choir director there and have been following this story from its inception. It is the resolution the parish and Ordinariate have been seeking. Deo gratias.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    Some more ordinariate news (to keep it brief, I focus on the things related to musicians as such, though as Catholics interested in the life of the Church, I invite you to read the whole bulletin):

    Summer choir opportunities 2019 (no weeknight commitment):

    Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church, San Antonio, TX (my old parish)

    11 am Mass Adults and high school students going into grades 10 and above are welcome to join the choir at the 10:20 am warm-up. Having served here before, I know that the choral music traditionally includes the ordinary of the Mass (either Latin or Anglican), Anglican anthems and Latin motets for offertory and communion, as well as minor propers - this may or may not be accurate as of the present. Consult the director of music for more information regarding this as well as opportunities for children.

    Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church (June 30, 2019 bulletin)

    The Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham - Catholic Church & Shrine, Houston, TX
    (marvelous place with a shrine and courtyard; I have been wanting to attend this for at least a decade now)

    11:15 am Mass Adults and high school students are welcome to join the choir during July and August. Call time is 10:30 am. Full choir typically sings one piece, whereas the staff singers sing the other. Congregational ordinary with choir singing parts as appropriate - we are currently using the one by John Merbecke & the Old Scottish Chant Gloria. Anglican style gradual sung in parts with congregation. Propers sung by choir, and hymns are typically sung SATB (unless noted in the hymnal) with congregation. Hymnal 1940. Contact the director or assistant director of music for more information. Having been there last week, I will say that things will feel a little cramped in the choir loft, but the acoustics are marvelous. As I mentioned above, I have been wanting to attend this church for a decade or more now; so far I have been most pleased here since first arriving for a workshop in June 2017 and then coming back - permanently - to attend university in Houston in August of last year.

    Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham - Catholic Church and Shrine

  • .....
  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    Not Our Lady of the Atonement, Our Lady of Walsingham. I squeezed two different announcements into the same post - one after the other.

    Our Lady of the Atonement, San Antonio, TX for one.

    The Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston, TX for the other.
    Thanked by 1Joseph Michael
  • The Church of the Atonement is not nor has been our nor anyone's cathedral. For some years it opted not to be a part of the Ordinariate, but preferred, strangely, to remain a diocesan church of Anglican Use in the Diocese of San Antonio. That changed several years ago when HF Francis decreed that all Anglican Use or Pastoral Provision parishes would be transferred to the Ordinariate. It is now a parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, of which the Church of Our Lady of Walsingham is the cathedral.
    Thanked by 1Joseph Michael
  • Caleferink
    Posts: 429
    I seem to remember that the Archbishop of San Antonio was quite upset (to be charitable) about losing the parish. Besides the Holy Father's decree, wasn't OLA's transfer to the Ordinariate spurred by the sudden exile of its founding pastor?
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    Caleferink - YES! and YES!
  • Maureen
    Posts: 674
    IIRC, I believe Atonement initially felt an obligation to stay with the diocese, because they owed San Antonio for helping them cross the Tiber, and things had always been good, and because they were asked to stay.

    But then bishops changed and Atonement was doing really good with attendance and schools, and there was a lot of jealousy and meddling on the diocesan side. No doubt there were non-angelic things that happened on either side. But then the bishop ordered the pastor to go away, and apparently more meddling was to occur, along with the diocese getting some cash or buildings or something. There were noises about taking away the Anglican Use and prohibiting Latin and so on. (I was very annoyed personally because the really good Bible study podcast on the Atonement parish webpage disappeared when the pastor had to leave.)

    So things got messy, the parishioners appealed for help, and the Vatican shoved them all over into the Ordinariate.

    Why is it that so many people cannot leave a working parish alone? There are plenty of trouble parishes that need help and can't get it, but a parish that is supporting itself tidily has a big fat target painted on it.

    Anyway, now Atonement is in the Ordinariate and has even calved itself, so it's a happy ending! But the Pope's decision was a bit hard on any other pastoral parishes that wanted to stick with their initial dioceses. (If there were any.) OTOH, the bishop of San Antonio really should never have asked Atonement to stay in the first place. An informal partnership or alliance could have probably done as much good as staying, without setting up the parish for problems later.
    Thanked by 1bdh
  • Anyone in the know about what recently happened at St. Bede's, where a priest was excommunicated by Bishop Lopes? It's hard to understand the news when the only extant source is Church Militant.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    Maureen, there's only one remaining Pastoral Provision community, the Congregation of St. Athanasius in Boston.

    As it happens, the area also has an Ordinariate parish, St. Gregory the Great. When its founding pastor retired last year or so, the respective bishops decided that it is best to combine the two groups, so they are now worshipping together.

    As for the future, the Archdiocese has indicated that the two groups can continue until the priest in charge of St. Athanasius retires, and then the Archdiocese will suppress the Pastoral Provision congregation as a canonical entity. At that point it will be up to the Ordinariate to provide a priest for its ongoing parish.
  • pfreese
    Posts: 147
    “Anyone in the know about what recently happened at St. Bede's, where a priest was excommunicated by Bishop Lopes?”

    I actually happen to live in the territorial Roman Rite parish that hosted them. The long story short is that their former pastor made some disparaging remarks about the Holy Father during a homily on CTK Sunday last year (and posted it on the internet, doh...). Bishop Lopes caught wind and suspended him, and gave him 60 days to publicly recant his homily or face excommunication, which considering he hasn’t returned I assume he chose the latter.

    I’ve sat through several of his homilies before and I’m honestly not too surprised he crossed a line, he’d be right at home with the FSSP guys across the river. I know he also belonged to several different denominations before joining the Ordinariate (he grew up in the Plymouth Brethren), so his problems with authority should be viewed in that light.

    Msgr. Jeff Steenson briefly became administrator of the parish (he’s lived up here for quite a while and taught in our seminary before being appointed the first Ordinary, VERY nice gentleman). He was only there until May and the parish has been suspended ever since.

    Honestly, this whole controversy didn’t make much news in the broader Roman Rite up here. I was only tipped off when I went to one of their masses this past Spring and their old pastor wasn’t there, and I didn’t get the whole story until my parochial vicar told me a few months later. The whole thing was very hush hush but I’m sad to see St. Bede’s close (hopefully for now); they were a nice community and their masses were obviously wonderful. I know the Ordinariate community continues to meet, albeit without sacraments, and they’re trying to restart the parish, though that’ll be heavily dependent on their ability to get a new pastor (which is likely a big if). In the meantime they’ll have plenty of good options to choose from, there are several fairly traditional OF parishes in the west suburbs of Minneapolis (including their former host) as well as two SP EF parishes in the inner cities. Definitely keep them in your prayers during what is hopefully a transition.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    They're posting news from time to time in the Liber Facierum: https://www.facebook.com/minnesotaordinariate
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • I’ve sat through several of his homilies before and I’m honestly not too surprised he crossed a line, he’d be right at home with the FSSP guys across the river.
    Pfreese, for the life of me I'm not too certain what is meant by this quotation. I work for the "FSSP guys across the river" (in Minneapolis) and I can't guess if you think we cross the line often or what. This is not at all my experience here...
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    I will not tell you what I think (believe) about the ordinariate.
    Thanked by 1StimsonInRehab
  • ...will not tell...
    Ha! Perhaps Francis thinks so highly of the Ordinariate that he is at a loss for words to express his admiration. Or else he dislikes the Ordinariate so much that he is at a loss for words to express his disdain. Or, perhaps he is utterly ambivalent and is at a loss for words...

    Well, I'll say what I think about it. It is, minus the Old Church English and a few other Anglicanisms, what Catholic worship in the Anglophone world should and would closely have resembled IF what Vatican II actually said actually had been heeded. This is not said out of any Anglican chauvinism, but out of common sense and a sense for natural evolution rather than the revolutionary reign of terror that we got (and still have). It seems so obvious - but for the Prayer Book English our worship is everything that the council actually called for - and is absent all the baggage that it didn't call for.
  • tandrews
    Posts: 157
    Thanks for the update on St. Bede's, pfreese. I was hoping to attend one of their Masses but I'm glad I saved myself the 90 minute drive!
  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    The Church of the Atonement is not nor has been our nor anyone's cathedral. For some years it opted not to be a part of the Ordinariate, but preferred, strangely, to remain a diocesan church of Anglican Use in the Diocese of San Antonio.


    Our first application (I was there before going to OLW in 2018) was shortly after the ordinariate was formed in 2012. Archbishop Garcia-Siller declined it first, then our pastor withdrew the application. From what I was told, the archbishop told us we could make application later (some of the issues at the time included the ordinariate not being set up to handle a parish school).

    We made application again in the fall of 2016, according to sources close to the rectory. Then there was a "pastoral visit" from the archbishop - as I am not in close contact with the rectory and administration of OLOA, I was only informed later that the purpose of the visit was for the dismissal of our then pastor. We did not prefer to be in the archdiocese - far from it, both my pastor as well as myself were very excited about Pope Benedict XVI's decree "Anglicanorum Coetibus". At the time of the parish transfer in 2017 I was discerning between staying with my parish and transferring from the Latin Church to the Byzantines. Our archbishop's strange behavior led me to make a decision quickly that as I no longer worshipped regularly in archdiocesan parishes (OLOA was formally transferred to the ordinariate in March 2017), then it made no sense for me to remain under his jurisdiction. Accepting the three month offer (between March to the end of June 2017 - I applied to be added to the apposite register very close to the deadline after hearing my priest at the Byzantine chapel, a biritual Dominican, say some very disturbing things about the archbishop) for any Latin Catholic, including those not regularly eligible for formal membership in the ordinariate, to become such was the quicker of the two decisions - that is, be added to the Apposite Register of Ordinariate Members vs. petitioning for a transfer from the Latin Church to the Ruthenian Byzantines, though in retrospect, I am now convinced that Our Lady has chosen where she wants me to be (when I was accepted on the apposite register, I naturally spent more and more time with OLOA rather than the Byzantines - it was a natural transition, not a forced one at all, which is why I am convinced that this was our Lady's desire all along for my life.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    our worship is everything that the council actually called for . . .


    Out of genuine curiosity, MJO, how would you interpret the following quotations?

    “There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing” - Sacrsanctum Concilium, :Par. 23

    “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services” - Sacrosanctum Concilium, Par. 116

    And lest we forget the words of the Pope who started the Council . . .

    “The employment of Latin has recently been contested in many quarters, and many are asking what the mind of the Apostolic See is in this matter. We have therefore decided to issue the timely directives…so as to ensure that the ancient and uninterrupted use of Latin be maintained and, where necessary, restored.” - Pope John XXIII, Veterum Sapientia

    Again - genuinely curious.
  • If, as it would seem, our esteemed Stimson just above here is implying that Ordinariate liturgy and the directives of the recent council are at odds, I fail to see in what way. The very existence of the Ordinariate is a fulfillment of the council's views on oecumensism.

    To address the points put forward above, the following is offered -
    1, Forms already existing - liturgically, the Anglican Use draws heavily from Sarum usage, Eastern usages, and from various Latin usages from before and after Trent - not to mention a number of the historical Books of Common Prayer, which themselves are derived from Western usages. Musically, the Ordinariates' usage is without peer in its impeccable repertory of the Church's historic and modern works, for choirs and for congregations.
    2. Gregorian chant thrives in the Ordinariate. Every mass is often peppered with it, both in Latin and in English.
    3.The ancient and uninterrupted use of Latin thrives in the Ordinariate, far more so than is to be the case in all but a relative very few strictly Roman rite parishes and cathedrals. Walsingham's well attended 8.00am mass, for instance, is celebrated with Gregorian ordinaries in Latin, and with Latin Gregorian propers from Graduale Romanum. Relatively few strictly Roman rite churches could say the same of themselves.

    To be repetitive, our liturgy is everything that the recent council called for, and is absent all the baggage that it didn't call for. We are not perfect, though. Alas, one will look in vain for riddle curtains about our altars, nor will one find appareled albs and amices in our sanctuaries - but one will, unfortunately, find that a degree of that decadent and prissy Roman and un-Anglican lace creeps now and then into our sanctuaries. We do, admittedly, have some way to go.

    (I hope, honourable Stimson, that this contributes to the satisfaction of your 'genuine curiosity'.)
  • the Anglican Use draws heavily from Sarum usage


    I am unaware of any significant way the Anglican Use liturgy borrows from Sarum. I could name a few superficial ways it mimics the Sarum use, but even those were not unique to Sarum. All the medieval uses had their own peculiarities, as Gregory DiPippo has often explained.

    Can any specifics be named?

    Remember: Items common to many uses don't count. (e.g. the Sarum Canon is virtually identical to the 1962 Missal Canon.)
    Thanked by 1StimsonInRehab
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    The very existence of the Ordinariate is a fulfillment of the council's views on oecumensism.
    Bingo
  • CharlesSA
    Posts: 163
    I do not care to offer an opinion on the Ordinariate, as I know next to nothing about it and thus it would be a very uneducated one. So this comment is not meant to be an outright criticism of the Ordinariate's liturgy - at least, not any more so than of the state of the modern liturgy.

    I just wanted to offer a comment regarding point #2 of MJO right above: one characteristic inherent to "Gregorian chant" is the LATIN language. Anything that is not Latin is not Gregorian chant. It certainly may be considered chant, but not Gregorian chant, since Gregorian chant is entirely composed with regard to the particularities of the Latin language/accent. English language rules and accents are much different than Latin, and thus, while it may very well be argued that English chant is beautiful and edifying in its own way, it cannot be said to be the same thing, nor can it be said to have the same effect (though I do not intend to discuss right now the merits or demerits of this different effect), as Gregorian chant. Thus, employing English chant at Roman Rite Masses cannot be said to be fulfilling the council's request that "Gregorian chant" have "pride of place" in the liturgy.

    I think the same could be said for the Ordinariate as well, since if the Church had not gone into destruction mode with the liturgy in the 60s, the post-conciliar liturgy would not have been conducted primarily in the vernacular, and thus any Ordinariate established would not have been either. After all, the Sarum Rite would have been entirely in Latin when it was in use.

    In any case, it is wonderful to hear that Gregorian chants are used in the Ordinariate; as you say, it is a shame the the same cannot be said of the vast majority of Roman Rite Masses today.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    Bingo

    Now that's a Catholic expression, eh? :-)
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    It does, Chickson. It's good to hear an alternate view from Davies in Cranmer's Godly Order.
  • I did some checking, and even a few items I thought were unique to Sarum are not.

    So I guess the only conclusion we can arrive at is that the Anglican Use liturgy does not use any elements that are Sarum. At least not in any serious way.

    { Reminder: Items common to (and shared amongst) a whole bunch of rites and uses don't count. }
  • After all, the Sarum Rite would have been entirely in Latin when it was in use.


    Yes, and you can see this online when you do a Google search.

    I would love to know how this fake rumor got started that the Anglican Use is somehow based on the Sarum, in any meaningful way.

    --

    I read on a blog: (https://sarumuse.wordpress.com/)

    Bishop Peter Elliott, an Australian Roman Catholic prelate and former Anglican, encouraged hopes that Sarum would at least be an option in the yet future Ordinariates.


    Also:

    In a discussion with a friend about Msgr. Stephen Lopes’ excellent talk on developing an agreed upon liturgy for the Anglican Use Ordinariates, my friend noted that of all the sources mentioned in the talk, Sarum was omitted. This is a particular drum I banged for years. It is not going to happen, as so few are interested in Sarum. The English Ordinariate is Novus Ordo with a few Anglican trimmings, with some parishes using the BDW. I don’t know about Aussie, but the Ordinariate in the US would be more for the Anglican Use as it stands with a few improvements and corrections.
  • Some things said here are confusing to me. In my recollection, and I have an old Sarum Missal in Latin, I see very little similarities between it and the 1962 Missal Canon. The rubrics, actions, decorations, among other things are significantly more elaborate and involved. To my way of thinking, I think the 1962 Mass is boring. Also, I prefer the Sarum melodies and the Opus Anglicanum needlework. Since I was once a music director at an Anglican Use church and I know also the 1962 Missal and the Sarum Rite well, I can say, yes I do see some similarities but many differences too. One has only to study these masses on youtube to evaluate. One huge difference I know well is that in the Sarum Rite the usage of a large number of Sequences is unique to the Sarum Rite. Am I missing something?
  • Some things said here are confusing to me. In my recollection, and I have an old Sarum Missal in Latin, I see very little similarities between it and the 1962 Missal Canon.


    ...in the sense that they are, verbatim, word-for-word identical? How is that different in any way? There are numerous Sarum missals online, and you can see for yourself. I'm trying to find a way to link to individual pages and place them here.

    In terms of large numbers of Sequences, this was certainly not unique to Sarum. More to the point, my understanding is that the Anglican use did not adopt such Sequences in their liturgy.
  • fcbfcb
    Posts: 331
    I do think that the Collect for Purity is from the Sarum Missal. But other than that, I think it's right that the BDW isn't particularly "Sarum."
  • Correct, Deacon fcb -
    The Collect for Purity was among the Sarum preparatory prayers in the sacristy before mass.
    We have retained quite a number of other collects from Sarum - and some ceremonial and vesture).
    I don't care to look the collects up just now.
  • the Anglican Use draws heavily from Sarum usage


    So … perhaps a few collects? Anything else? A few collects are certainly inconsequential.
  • From these responses, it would appear the Anglican Ordinariate liturgy has virtually nothing to do with the Sarum use.

    The only thing anyone has been able to point to so far is the possibility of a Collect here and there, which may possibly have been unique to Sarum; certainly a very insignificant thing when we're speaking of liturgy.

    (I would be interested to know what the Yellow Boxes mean, by the way.)
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    @Dixit_Dominus_44

    We were asked to sing at the First Mass of an Ordinariate priest (ex Anglican). His community had been using the 'English Missal' and he believed that he could continue using it as a Catholic priest. We had been told we could sing the Propers and Ordinary in Latin, so I brought along the Sarum Chants for that Sunday. They of course did not match because the English Missal is based on the Missal codified by St. Pius V.

    As for how much of the modern Ordinariate Liturgy is based on the Sarum books, a read of Fr. Hunwicke... http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,370
    "virtually nothing to do with the Sarum use" cannot be strictly true, since Sarum is the Roman Rite with variations on the same scale as the Dominican Rite. As Adrian Fortescue put it, Sarum and the rest
    "are merely the Roman rite with quite unimportant local variations. They can indeed hardly be called derived rites; if one may take a parallel from philology one may describe them best as dialects of the Roman rite ... To distinguish the Roman, Sarum, and Mozarabic liturgies on the same plane is like classifying English, Yorkshire dialect, and French as three languages."
    Further, the influence of Sarum is filtered through the Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer certainly based BCP on Sarum, with three goals in mind 1/ the vernacular and the involvement of the congregation , 2/ removing anything repugnant to protestants, while 3/ changing as little as he could, (so as to annoy as few people as possible. Cranmer's overriding desire was for the tranquility of the realm). But presumably he would have typical parish practice in mind, and I do not know how the Sarum Missal was adapted by parish priests. Fr Hunwicke comments -
    I had been planning a low Mass, and I discovered that while the Sarum Missal provides very full rubrical directions, they presuppose a Cathedral High Mass. It is not at all easy to work out what exactly Sir Mumpsimus did when he was racing through his Chantry obligation at six o'clock on Monday morning;

    The Ordinariate Rite/Use starts with a distinctive feature of Sarum, the 'Collect for purity' which was in the entrance procession, and now stands as the first prayer.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    @a_f_hawkins
    Further, the influence of Sarum is filtered through the Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer certainly based BCP on Sarum

    The earliest versions of the BCP have influences from Sarum, but the later filters removed all but a few things. It should be remembered that while the Sarum Use was an English Use it was also a version of the Roman Rite, it being said in Latin was a major component.
    with three goals in mind 1/ the vernacular and the involvement of the congregation

    Really? do you have evidence of this? The vernacular I suspect was a way of changing the meaning of various texts in a subtile way that would escape notice or all but the observant.
    2/ removing anything repugnant to protestants,

    I think they were burning protestants for heresy at the same time they were executing Catholics for Treason. They removed things that were inconvenient to despotic and adulterous kings and despotic and sadistic queens (Bloody Bess). The removal or deletion of the Office and Mass of St. Thomas of Canterbury from the older books is an interesting example.
    Cranmer's overriding desire was for the tranquility of the realm)
    I think his overwhelming desire was not to follow in the footsteps of St. John Fisher, St. Thomas More or even Card. Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell, so keeping the above despotic monarchs happy was his primary objective, and after so much effort he did not succeed! He would have made an ideal member of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales c. 1970-2000.

    As to less solemn versions of the Sarum Use, as far as I can tell we know very little.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,370
    "As to less solemn versions of the Sarum Use, as far as I can tell we know very little. " Yes, Eamon Duffy gives us social colour, but there is no rubrical precision. As to the vernacular, 'language understanded of the people' is not, I think, just a cover.
    Biddings, that is telling the congregation the specific needs for their prayers, also seem to have figured in the Sarum entrance procession.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    'language understanded of the people' is not, I think, just a cover.

    That is assuming that everyone spoke English... Wiki At least one author suggests that a part of the uprising was the enforced new liturgy in a language not understood by the people.

    I do wonder how many people in England c. 1549...
    a. Spoke English (The English of the BCP)
    b. Could read English
    c. Could read and write in English and not understand Latin.

    This idea of an elite wanting to produce a novelty 'purely' to aid the understanding of a vague majority, sounds familiar.
    It could be true history repeats itself.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,370
    The first edition BCP was 1549. Second edition 1552. Mary abrogated it in 1553 and restored Sarum Use. Elizabeth succeeded at the end of 1558, promulgated a third edition in 1559, and an edition in Latin in 1560. Welsh was authorised in 1563 (published in 1567), Manx in 1610 (in manuscript, not printed).
    When Thomas Wilson was installed as Bishop of Sodor and Man in 1697, the ceremony was conducted in Latin because that was the only language both the Bishop and clergy understood.