They Shall Be Called Anglo Catholics

The Mass According to the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Here in the United States, Anglicans entering the pope's personal ordinariate for 'Groups of Anglicans' will likely have to be called 'Anglo Catholics' or 'Anglo-Catholics,' with or without the hyphen.

The reasons for this are complex. The first reason has to do with the name 'Anglican Catholic' itself. The Catholic Knight has recently learned from a fellow blogger that some small splinter-group of traditional Anglicans, not interested in the ordinariate, are claiming a legal service mark to the term 'Anglican Catholic' and may be threatening legal action against anyone else who dares to use it. While in my opinion it is unlikely that this group can really service mark such a general term, I believe it is equally unlikely that the ordinary of the U.S. ordinariate will seek a legal challenge to it. Though I think he would likely win such a legal challenge, it's probably not worth the fight. The second reason has to do with the fact that there are more than just Anglicans entering the American ordinariate. A small contingency of Lutherans, calling themselves the 'Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church' will also be joining the ordinariate. It would be inaccurate to describe this group as 'Anglican' per se' because they are not. They are Lutheran, and while they've obviously adopted some Anglican customs, they come from a form of Protestantism that originated in Germany under completely different pretences than the English Reformation. So to imply that they are 'Anglican' under an 'Anglican Catholic ordinariate.' Is somewhat of a misnomer.

The term 'Anglo,' coming from the Latin for the British tribes of 'Angles,' simply means 'English' and in a religious sense, it refers to the form and style of Christian worship that developed in the British isles. It is the same religious form used by high-church Anglicans, Anglo-Lutherans and the 'Anglican Use Pastoral Provision' parishes in the U.S. Catholic Church. So the term has a more broad base. While the ordinariate itself may be called anything under the sun, such as the 'Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham' as in England, and may possibly include the word 'Anglican' if that is the desire of those who control it, the term 'Anglo Catholic' might better be used as a loose, quick and informal way to refer to those Catholics who become members of the ordinariate.

The term 'Anglo-Catholic,' usually with a hyphen, has a long tradition of being used to describe high-church Anglicans anyway, and these are the type of Anglicans who are most likely to find interest in the pope's ordinariate. Removing the hyphen might be an easy way to loosely distinguish between those who are in the ordinariate and those who have yet to join. Those outside the ordinariate might be hyphenated 'Anglo-Catholic' while those inside the ordinariate might dispense of the hyphen 'Anglo Catholic.'

If the term 'Anglo Catholic' seems inappropriate, than about the only other term left is 'Anglican Use Catholic' as it is the term already used in the United States by the Anglican Use Pastoral Provision parishes.

Of course if none of these seem suitable than there is yet one last suggestion. The full Latin term for Anglican could be applied creating the term 'Anglicanus Catholic.'