Anglican Use - Definition and Overview

Anglican Use is a term used within Catholic theology to refer to former Anglican ecclesial communities that have become reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church. This reunion became a formal possibility in 1980. Anglican (or Episcopalian) churches are now able to become particular churches within the Catholic Church. They typically use the Roman Canon of the Mass, rather than the adaptation of the liturgy made by Thomas Cranmer. ¹

The formal establishment of the Anglican Use enabled former Anglicans to be reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church while retaining the tradition of permitting married clergy. The ordination of married men is also permitted in the Eastern Rite Catholic churches, but is regarded as controversial among Western or Latin Rite Catholics, whose canon law prescribes a celibate priesthood.

The Anglican Use rite (a.k.a. The Walsingham Rite) is not to be confused with the Anglican Communion itself, whose member churches do not accept the full doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and hence are not in full communion with it. A condition for reconciliation in order for an ecclesial community to become "Anglican Use" is "[a] profession of faith (with appropriate additions to address the points on which there is divergence of teaching between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church) ... to be made personally by all (ministers and faithful)...." [1] (http://www.atonementonline.com/resource001.html)

External Links

• Unitatis Redintegratio (http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html), Decree from Second Vatican Council
• Document establishing the Anglican Use, July 22, 1980 (http://www.atonementonline.com/resource001.html)
• A Place Has Been Prepared: "Anglican Use" Catholic Parishes (article) (http://www.newoxfordreview.org/2001/nov01/charlesmwilson.html)
• An Anglican Use parish (http://www.walsingham-church.org)
• The Text of the Anglican Use (Walsingham) Mass (http://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/RCCAnglicanUse.htm)

• ¹ Robert Ian Williams, "The Anglican Use: An Alternative View", The Latin Mass Magazine (http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/), Vol. 13, No. 1, Winter 2004, pp. 36-41.