Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross

Structure

A personal ordinariate established under the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus is canonically equivalent to a diocese. The faithful of the ordinariate are led by an ordinary who is named directly by the pope. The ordinary may be either a bishop, if celibate, or priest, if married. So far, the pope has named all married ordinaries as apostolic protonotaries—that is, monsignori of the highest rank—soon after the respective appointments to that office. The only practical difference is that a bishop may ordain clergy for the ordinariate personally, whereas an ordinary who is not a bishop must ask a bishop to ordain clergy of the ordinariate on his behalf in the same manner as the major superior of a clerical religious order.

The ordinary of a personal ordinariate is the equivalent to a diocesan bishop, and thus wears the same ecclesiastical attire and uses the same pontifical insignia (mitre, crosier, pectoral cross, and episcopal ring) as a diocesan bishop, even if he has not a bishop. The ordinary is also, ex officio, a full member of the episcopal conference(s) of the territory of the ordinariate, even if he is not a bishop.

History

In the first decade of the 21st century, a number of bishops from the Church of England and the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), a global "continuing Anglican" body, independently approached the Vatican seeking some manner of corporate reunion that would preserve their autonomy and their ecclesial structure within the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI promulgated an apostolic constitution, Anglicanorum coetibus, permitting erection of personal ordinariates equivalent to dioceses, on 4 November 2009. The Vatican subsequently erected three ordinariates: the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the territory of the episcopal conference of England and Wales on 15 January 2011, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in the territory of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on 1 January 2012 and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in the territory of Australian Conference of Catholic Bishops on 15 June 2012.

The decree erecting the Personal Ordinariate of the Southern Cross designated the Church of Saints Ninian and Chad in Perth as the principal church of the ordinariate, which fulfills the same role as the cathedral church of a diocese. This church building previously housed a congregation of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia (ACCA), the Australian province of a global "continuing Anglican" body known as the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) and its congregation was also received into the ordinariate. Pope Benedict XVI concurrently appointed the Rev. Harry Entwistle, a former bishop of the ACCA who received ordination as a presbyter of the Catholic Church on the same day, as the first ordinary. The ordinariate has subsequently received the congregations and ordained the clergy of ten additional congregations throughout Australia and two congregations in Japan. Additionally, the Ordinariate has announced that the Church of the Torres Strait, previously a separate province of the TAC, will come into the ordinariate substantially intact and will form a territorial deanery in that region.

Communities

Since its inception, the ordinariate has grown to include 11 Australian congregations in Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales.

The ordinariate has also begun to form in Japan. In February 2015, a congregation of the Traditional Anglican Church of Japan was received as the Ordinariate Community of St Augustine of Canterbury in Tokyo, the first ordinariate community in Asia. In June 2016, another priest was ordained for the Ordinariate Community of St Laurence of Canterbury in Hiroshima.