Fr. Hunwickes blogg, «Liturgical notes«, er ofte svært interessant, men han skriver der lite om seg selv. På dette nettstedet leser jeg at han var anglikansk prest fram til askeonsdag i år:
The Reverend John Hunwicke was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies; been a Parish Priest once and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Most recently he was priest-in-charge of St. Thomas the Martyr Church in Oxford, a historic Anglo-Catholic church that was in the forefront of the Oxford Movement, from the revival of vestments and incense to ministering to the urban poor.
On Ash Wednesday, 2011, he, with many of his parishioners, entered a period of preparation in order to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church. He is among those former Church of England clergy who is preparing for ordination to the Sacred Priesthood of the Catholic Church via the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
Et annet sted skriver han selv om sin langsomme vei til Den katolske Kirke, bl.a. dette:
…. I would expect some readers to be suspicious. If this man so proudly confesses his acceptance of the entire teaching of the Church and his love for the Mass of Ages, why has he lingered so long in terra aliena? I think you need to understand the history of the Catholic Revival in the Church of England. It began as a movement which was anti-Papal and upheld the Church of England as the true Catholic Church of this land. But many of its members soon saw how silly this idea of ‘Branch Churches’ was. Soon there was an unashamed ‘Papalist Movement’. Why did it stay in the Church of England? Because of a trust in Truth as certain to prevail; a sense that if one stayed and prayed and fought, the day of a corporate unity between Canterbury and Rome would come. This trust was fortified by the ARCIC ecumenical process, which explicitly envisaged the full organic unity of England and Rome. The ordination of women has made it quite clear that this hope is now – permanently – frustrated. Such a ‘reunion’ can now never happen.
If you are glad that so obvious a fact has now become clear to us, well, I won’t argue with you.
Han skal ordineres til katolsk prest ganske snart (jeg vet ikke datoen). Hans argument om at Den anglikanske kirke oppga å være katolsk da den på egen hånd begynte å ordinere kvinner skulle tilsi at han hadde blitt katolikk i 1992. Hvorfor han – og også msgr. Broadhurst – ventet til 2011, syns jeg er vanskeligere å forsvare.