The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peterunder the patronage of Our Lady of Walsingham
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On 1 January 2012, the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter was established. Equivalent to a diocese, the Ordinariate is composed of parishes, groups, religious communities, and individuals of the Anglican heritage gathered around the Ordinary. He serves under the direct authority of the Pope, in partnership with the bishops of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, to build up the Church through mutual mission and ministry while retaining elements of the Anglican patrimony. The members of the Ordinariate include “those faithful, of every category or state of life, who, originally having belonged to the Anglican Communion, are now in full communion with the Catholic Church, or who have received the sacraments of initiation within the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate itself, or who are received into it because they are part of a family belonging to the Ordinariate” (Decree of Establishment, 1). Joining the new pilgrims may also be the clergy and people of the Anglican Use parishes, who have been the pioneers in the noble work of living out the Anglican patrimony within the Catholic Church.
The key to understanding the essential purpose of the Ordinariate is to be found in the preface to Anglicanorum Coetibus. In those opening paragraphs, there are no fewer than nine references to the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Here the one Church of Jesus Christ is said to subsist in the Catholic Church: although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure, these elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. There is an inner dynamic in the life and teaching of Anglicanism which continues to draw Anglicans to its source. The Personal Ordinariate is Pope Benedict XVI’s response to “this holy desire.” (from the website of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.) O God of unchangeable power and eternal might: Look favorably upon thy whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of thy providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. |
Our Lady of Walsingham, Patroness
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Steven, our BishopHis Excellency Steven J. Lopes is the first bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter and pastor to all its members and clergy in the United States and Canada.
Steven Joseph Lopes was born in 1975 in Fremont, California to Barbara Jane and (the late) Dr José de Oliveira Lopes. His father was Portuguese and his mother is Polish. José emigrated to the United States in the early 1960s and became an American citizen in 1970. Barbara Jane was born and raised in Detroit, where much of her family still resides. The only child to two educators – his father taught languages and history at the university level, and his mother taught in Catholic schools for 47 years — Bishop-elect Lopes was formed and educated by Catholic schools in the Golden State: St Pius School (Redwood City, Calif.); St Edward School (Newark, Calif.); and Moreau Catholic High School (Hayward, Calif.). |
For his motto, Bishop Lopes selected the Latin phrase, “Magna Opera Domini,” or in English, “Great are the works of the Lord.” By these words, the new bishop expresses his awe of God’s grace in drawing His people to the fullness of Eucharistic communion.
Bishop Lopes is a member of the Order of Malta and remains deeply committed to the Order's service to the sick and the poor. Bishop Lopes is a full member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Ever committed to serving the people of the Ordinariate, his mission as bishop is dedicated to: Inviting new disciples into a life-giving relationship with Christ; Nurturing reverence and beauty in liturgy, so that the Ordinariate’s tradition of worship deepens the faith and authentic discipleship of all the faithful; Modelling ecumenism, fostering the unity of the Church that our Lord prayed for (St John 17.21); Serving in evangelical charity by caring for those in need. |