Confusion has emerged over reports that Vatican officials instructed Anglican Ordinariate clergy to concelebrate and abandon certain traditional ceremonial roles at solemn Mass, after a senior bishop publicly denied key elements of the claim. However, this is contradicted by separate sources, who maintain a limited meeting did take place. The guidance, purportedly discussed during a recent meeting in Rome, would be a further mark of ongoing efforts by the Holy See to standardise liturgical practice along the lines of the liturgical reform of the 1960s, even within communities established to preserve elements of particular patrimony and traditions.
Initial reports circulating in Catholic media and on social platforms suggested that bishops of the Anglican Ordinariates had been directed by Cardinal Arthur Roche to require priests present at solemn Masses to concelebrate rather than assume the ceremonial roles of deacon or subdeacon. The claims attracted particular attention among clergy and laity attached to more traditional forms of liturgical celebration.
However, the Ordinary of the Ordinariate in England and Wales, Bishop David Waller, has firmly rejected the suggestion that such a directive was issued following a meeting of multiple bishops with the Vatican. In comments relayed through social media by a journalist who said he had spoken directly with him, Bishop Waller described the report as “totally untrue” and characterised it as a “mischievous lie”. He further stated that no such meeting between Ordinariate bishops and Cardinal Roche had taken place.
According to Vatican correspondent Niwa Limbu, Bishop Waller indicated that recent communications to clergy were instead intended to clarify existing liturgical requirements. He was quoted as saying that “the three bishops have simply reminded people what the rubrics of our rite require”, emphasising that every liturgical rite consists not only of texts but also of prescribed ceremonial norms that must be observed.
Subsequent commentary from other figures within traditionalist Catholic circles suggested that a more limited discussion may nonetheless have occurred. Writer and liturgical scholar Peter Kwasniewski reported that a source had specified a meeting between Cardinal Roche and Bishop Steven Lopes, who leads the Ordinariate serving the United States and Canada. If accurate, such a meeting would not contradict Bishop Waller’s statement that no gathering of multiple bishops had taken place.
The question centres on the long-standing practice within some Ordinariate communities of assigning priests to fulfil the ceremonial functions traditionally associated with deacons or subdeacons during more solemn liturgies. While the formal order of subdeacon was suppressed in the Latin Church after the Second Vatican Council, the role continues to appear in certain ceremonial contexts, particularly in communities that draw upon historic Anglican or pre-conciliar Catholic traditions.
The Ordinariates themselves were established under the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, promulgated in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI, to provide a canonical home for former Anglicans entering full communion with Rome while retaining elements of their liturgical and spiritual heritage. In England and Wales, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham serves several thousand faithful across dozens of congregations, and similar jurisdictions operate in North America and Australia.
Liturgical scholars note that concelebration – in which multiple priests jointly celebrate the Eucharist – has been widely encouraged in the post-conciliar Church as a sign of priestly unity, though it is not universally mandatory in every circumstance. The balance between maintaining inherited ceremonial customs and ensuring conformity with universal liturgical law has therefore remained an ongoing point of discussion within communities entrusted with preserving distinctive traditions.
For the present, no formal decree altering Ordinariate liturgical practice has been published by the Holy See.
