From what one hears, the Church of England should be shaking in its warm woolly socks by now. The Pope's latest initiative, allowing ultra-traditionalist Anglicans to go over to Rome en masse while being allowed to preserve their traditional liturgy, is being portrayed as a devious Papist attempt to split and undermine our national Church.
As a strong Anglican, I don't buy into any of this. Many people may not think that there's much difference between the churches, but that's not how they see it in Glasgow, and that's not how the Pope sees it either. These things are important. But still, for me anything Pope Benedict does to break down the barriers is a Good Thing. If some Anglicans choose to go over to Rome as a result of this initiative, I'm not going to throw anything at them. Some of my best friends, etc.
What I wonder is why the British Catholic Bishops are so frightened of a resurgence of the Latin Mass. It seems odd that Catholic liberals are so wedded to modernism in liturgy and music, whereas the hardcore traddies prefer Tridentine rites, Gregorian chant, etc. On the Anglican side it is the hardline evangelicals who are keenest on modern "choruses", tambourines, clapping etc, while the liturgical traditionalists, who cherish the great tradition of English church music, are closer to the liberals.
So, will the Pope's initiative lead to a large exodus of traditional Anglicans? I don't think so somehow. Anyone who is at all susceptible to the ecclesiological arguments of Rome has surely gone over already. We'll carry on making our sublime church music. (The Sistine Chapel Choir is terrible.) We'll live alongside you as we always have, and will listen to anything sensible you have to say, especially to HH the Pope, who is a great Christian theologian. And, while we'll always accept in a brotherly spirit anyone who is honestly convinced to go over to Rome, we'll also rejoice over any of yours who can't cope with the intellectual tergiversations any more and come over to us. - Tim Collard, telegraph.co.uk (click below for full article)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timcollard/100014728/as-an-anglican-i-cant-understand-why-catholic-bishops-fear-the-latin-mass/#