Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter Ordinariatus Personalis Cathedrae Sancti Petri
The coat of arms of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter
Location
Country	United States Canada
Deaneries	Deanery of St John the Baptist
Information
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Rite	Roman Rite (Anglican Use)
Established	January 1, 2012
Cathedral	The Church of Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston (principal church)
Patroness	Our Lady of Walsingham
Current leadership
Pope	Francis
Ordinary	Msgr. Jeffrey Neil Steenson
Vicars General	Fr. Scott Hurd
Website
www.usordinariate.org

The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is a personal ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church within the territory of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops for those groups of Anglicans who desire full communion with the Catholic Church. As a personal ordinariate, it is immediately subject to the Holy See in Rome. It was established on January 1, 2012 in accordance with the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus of Pope Benedict XVI.^[1][2]

The personal ordinariate is set up in such a way that "corporate reunion" of former Anglicans with the Catholic Church is possible while also preserving elements of a "distinctive Anglican patrimony".^[3] The ordinariate was placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Walsingham. The ordinariate is said to have inquiries from over 100 Anglican priests and 1,400 lay people.^[4]

Structure [edit]

The second personal ordinariate to be established after the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, is, according to the decree of its erection, juridically equivalent to a diocese.^[1] The faithful of the ordinariate are led by an ordinary who is named directly by the pope. The ordinary may be a bishop or priest.^[1] The ordinary of a personal ordinariate is the equivalent of a diocesan bishop.^[5] The ordinary is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops by right.^[1][6]

History [edit]

The first ordinary of the ordinariate is Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, a Catholic priest who was formerly a bishop of the Episcopal Church until his reception into the Catholic Church in 2007.^[7] The principal church is the Church of Our Lady of Walsingham, located in Houston, Texas.^[1][2] Monsignor Steenson was installed as ordinary on February 12, 2012.^[8][9][10] As he is married, Steenson will not be a bishop, but holds a similar position and is a full member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.^[8]

The ordinariate's vicar general is Father R. Scott Hurd, formerly an Anglican priest and now a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Washington. He has been appointed for three years.^[9]

On June 26, 2012 former Archbishop Randy Sly of the Charismatic Episcopal Church was ordained by Bishop Paul Loverde in Potomac Falls.^[11]

On September 16, 2012 the Cathedral of the Incarnation, the cathedral of the Diocese of Eastern United States of the Anglican Church in America, was received into the ordinariate along with their bishop Louis Campese.^[12]

Deanery of St John the Baptist [edit]

In Canada, the Anglican parish of St. John the Evangelist in Calgary joined the Catholic Church in December 2011, along with their priest, Fr Lee Kenyon. On April 15, 2012, two Anglican Catholic (TAC) bishops, Peter Wilkinson and Carl Reid, together with members of their congregations, were also received. Monsignor Steenson had earlier met Wilkinson and said that ordinariate parishes formed by such Canadians who join the Catholic Church should together constitute a Canada-wide deanery of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter.^[13] On December 7, 2012, the Ordinariate announced the Holy See's approval of the creation of the Deanery of St John the Baptist, which will minister to former Canadian Anglicans who join the Catholic Church through the ordinariate with Fr Lee Kenyon being appointed as the first dean.^[14]

On December 8, 2012, Peter Wilkinson, the former Metropolitan Bishop of Canada of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC), was ordained by Bishop Richard Gagnon at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Victoria.^[15] Wilkinson was later named a Prelate of Honor by Pope Benedict XVI.^[16] On January 26, 2013, Carl Reid, a former ACCC bishop, was ordained by Archbishop Terrence Prendergast at the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica in Ottawa.^[17]

The Canadian Ordinariate Deanery has parishes or groups in Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Victoria, Oshawa, Cambridge, Edmonton, and elsewhere in Canada.

Liturgical calendar [edit]

The proper liturgical calendar of the ordinariate was approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in early 2012. In the main, it is identical with the current Roman Rite liturgical calendar of the dioceses of the United States, but it has retained some elements that form part of the Anglican patrimony.^[18]

In the Proper of Time:

• In place of "Sundays in Ordinary Time", it uses the expressions "Sundays after Epiphany", "Sundays before Lent" (with the names "Septuagesima", "Sexagesima" and "Quinquagesima" in parentheses), and "Sundays after Trinity". However, the readings at Mass are identical with those in general use in the Roman Rite.
• Ember Days are observed on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday after the First Sunday of Lent, Pentecost, Holy Cross Day and Saint Lucy's Day.
• Rogation Days are observed on the three days following the Sixth Sunday of Easter.
• In the week between Pentecost and Trinity Sunday, elements of the former octave are fostered: while the readings of the Ordinary Time weekday are retained, the Mass propers and use of red as the liturgical color "may sustain the themes of Pentecost".

Regarding the Proper of Saints, the ordinariate observes the proper calendar of the United States, as well as the following saints:

• January 12 - Saint Benedict Biscop, abbot - optional memorial
• February 4 - Saint Gilbert of Sempringham, religious - optional memorial
• February 22 - Chair of Saint Peter the Apostle - solemnity
• March 1 - Saint David, bishop - optional memorial
• May 4 - The English Martyrs, memorial
• May 19 - Saints Dunstan, Ethelwold, and Oswald, bishops - memorial
• June 9 - Saint Columba, abbot - optional memorial
• June 16 - Saint Richard of Chichester, bishop - optional memorial
• June 20 - Saint Alban, protomartyr of England - optional memorial
• June 22 - Saints John Fisher, bishop, and Thomas More, martyrs - memorial
• June 23 - Saint Paulinus of Nola, bishop, or Saints Hilda, Etheldreda, Mildred, and All Holy Nuns - optional memorial
• July 9 - Our Lady of the Atonement - optional memorial
• August 30 - Saints Margaret Clitherow, Anne Line, and Margaret Ward, martyrs - optional memorial
• August 31 - Saint Aidan, bishop, and the Saints of Lindisfarne, optional memorial
• September 4 - Saint Cuthbert, bishop - optional memorial
• September 19 - Saint Theodore of Canterbury, bishop, or Saint Adrian, abbot - optional memorial
• September 24 - Our Lady of Walsingham, patroness of the Ordinariate - feast
• October 9 - Blessed John Henry Newman, priest - optional memorial
• October 12 - Saint Wilfrid, optional memorial
• October 13 - Saint Edward the Confessor - optional memorial
• November 20 - Saint Edmund, martyr - optional memorial

See also [edit]

• List of the Catholic bishops of the United States #Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter
• List of the Catholic dioceses of the United States #Anglican Ordinariate
• List of Roman Catholic dioceses in North America #Episcopal Conference of the United States of America
• Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

References [edit]

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter

• Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter website
• Text of the Anglicanorum coetibus apostolic constitution
• Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter at Catholic-Hierarchy. Retrieved on January 1, 2012.

• Documents about Personal Ordinariates
• St John the Evangelist, Calgary