Britain to have ordinariate 'by end of the year'?

Two of the Church of England's "flying bishops" will take up the ordinariate offer by the end of the year, according to Anna Arco of the Catholic Herald. She quotes unnamed "sources" for this. As of a couple of months ago, no application had yet been received by the bishops' conference of England and Wales. It wouldn't be surprising if one were to be made by the end of the year, as Arco suggests. But the headline is misleading. One thing is for Anglicans to apply for an ordinariate before December; another thing altogether is to have the ordinariate -- ie establish it -- by then. Rather a lot of negotiation has to take place first. Anglicanorum coetibus provides the legal means of setting up an ordinariate; the terms of that ordinariate have to be negotiated with the bishops' conference - ie who leads it, what flexibility can be allowed in liturgy, and so on. That takes time.

Pope sets an example to non-believers

From the Catholic Herald editorial:

[T]he Pope set a further example to non-believers, of a great religious leader who radiated love, communicated by his winning little smile as well as by his words. From now on, militant secularists will find it very hard to sustain their odious caricature of Joseph Ratzinger: these were a terrible four days for anti-Catholicism.

Anna Arco: CV as example of 'empowered laity'

Writing at the Catholic Herald site, its features editor, Anna Arco, reflects on the Pope's call to the laity to take their place in the public square -- citing Catholic Voices as an example.

William Oddie on Catholic Voices

The former editor of the Catholic Herald writes about CV here.

I know nothing of the origins of this outfit: I came across it first on Sunday, when as a result of attempting to defend on Radio 5 Live ... the practice of clerical celibacy in the teeth of a BBC poll of British Catholics which purported to show them considerably more against it than for it, I was asked two hours later if I would go immediately to a BBC TV studio to talk about the same thing on the BBC News channel. As this would have meant missing either Mass or Sunday lunch with my family or both I said no.

An hour later, as I preparing to leave the house to go to Church, I turned on the TV to see if they’d got someone else already, and they had: a young woman from Catholic Voices (whose name I missed), personable, well informed, competent, agreeable in manner, persuasive, who kept her calm admirably in the face of aggressive questioning and who won from the interviewer the closing accolade: “Thank you. That was very interesting.” It was a splendid performance, and probably better than anything I would have been able to pull off.
Their website is also indispensable. It tells me for instance (I wish I had known this on Sunday) that the poll on which I had to comment for BBC 5 Live (like a later poll for ITV, also showing a substantial rejection of papal teachings) had ignored a crucial distinction between practising and non-practising Catholics.