Saint Hilda, Shouldst Thou Be Living At This Hour?

If the Ordinariate followed the general pattern of Anglo-Catholicism, then, beyond London and the South Coast which have histories of their own, it would become thicker on the ground the further north or west you went, with a strong showing in Wales. The alleged Catholic sympathies of the Episcopal Church in Scotland have always been rather more complicated than has often been suggested, Scotland having been telling one of those Anglican Provinces, along with Canada and New Zealand, where hardly any opposition to the ordination of women has ever been expressed. But even so, three or four groups might have been expected to show interest.

Yet the opposite is the case. The Ordinariate is concentrated heavily in the South, and very heavily in the South East. At whatever stage, while it does exist, it does so only barely in Wales, or Scotland, or old citadels such as Devon, Cornwall, and South Yorkshire. Or, indeed, in the Diocese of Durham, which has been in something approaching a state of civil war ever since November 1992, and where Forward in Faith holds three of the six lay seats on the General Synod, but where interest has been expressed by precisely one parish, a legendary, and undoubtedly thriving, "shrine" with no discernible "Anglican patrimony".

There are also a good many such "shines" in and around Sunderland, for example. But even they have shown no apparent inclination to join the Ordinariate. The incense belt either side of the Tees, partly in Durham and partly in York, has no Ordinariate take-up whatever. All Saints, North Street in York itself, one of extremely few places where they really are still using the sort of Tridentine Rite translated into Cranmerian English for which the Ordinariate was conceived, is also conspicuously absent, as is the very similar Saint Stephen On-The-Cliffs in Blackpool. And as, indeed, is the entire Diocese of Blackburn, into which East Lancashire parishes currently under Bradford are resisting transfer because it is so High and because two out of the three bishops, including the diocesan, do not ordain women to the presbyterate.

One could go on. Meanwhile, the recently resigned Bishop of Fulham joins his most recent predecessor among the Monsignori, the recently resigned Bishop of Richborough becomes Ordinary to his only predecessor, and the recently resigned Bishop of Ebbsfleet is set to be joined in the Ordinariate by the Folkestone final parish of the more recent of his two deceased predecessors (my father's successor but one in Saint Helena, although he certainly did not use the Roman Rite there). But the Bishop of Beverley and the Retired Bishop of Beverley, neither of them anything less than the most dyed-in-the-wool of Anglo-Catholics, both remain in the Church of England.