The purpose of Benedict XVI’s visit to England in 2010 was not only the beatification of John Henry Newman but also the establishment of personal ordinariates, which he claimed were a prophetic gesture in which the mutual exchange of gifts from respective spiritual patrimonies serves as an enrichment to all. Fast forward to 2019 and Newman is no longer a Blessed but a saint, and it is now 10 years since the ordinariate was first announced.
First we must understand that the point of the ordinariate is a revival of an English spirituality – something mostly lost to Catholics at the Reformation when recusants clung to faith even as their patrimony got swept into an emerging Church of England. By the time Catholicism resurfaced in the 19th century, the national patrimony was largely gone. The Church was being rebuilt by immigrants. Yet as the Church regained a foothold in English society the question had to be asked: how to restore an authentic English spirituality without loss of multiculturalism? The ordinariate was Pope Benedict’s answer.
