Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI writes Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham
(Vatican Radio) Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has sent a message to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, which was established for former Anglicans in England in 2011. The message was on the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict’s apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, which was released on November 4th 2009.
The Pope Emeritus was responding to a letter he received from Nicolas Ollivant, the chairman of the Friends of the Ordinariate, a charity set up to support the Ordinariate’s work.
Mr. Ollivant’s letter also included information on the Ordinariate’s central church in London, Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, on Warwick Street. It is the site of the former chapel to the Bavarian embassy to England, which greatly pleased the Pope Emeritus.
The full text of the letter (translated into English on the Ordinariate’s website) is below
Since I know that you read the German language without difficulty, I may answer your friendly letter of 1 September in my mother tongue, since my English would not quite suffice to do so.
Your thanks for the establishment of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has greatly moved me, and I ask you to convey my thanks to all its members. Naturally, I am particularly glad that the former Bavarian Chapel has now become your Ordinariate’s church, and serves such an important role in the whole Church of God. It has been a long time since I have heard news of this holy place, and it was therefore with all the more interest and gratitude that I read the description with which you accompanied your letter.
Once more, many thanks, and may God bless you all.