Former Anglican bishop is ordained a Catholic priest

BY STAFF REPORTER
THE BISHOP of Plymouth has ordained the fourth priest for the British ordinariate.
Bishop Christopher Budd ordained Fr David Silk, a former retired Anglican bishop, to the priesthood at Buckfast Abbey, Devon, only three days after he was ordained to the diaconate. He was one of five former Anglican bishops who signed a public letter saying they would join the personal ordinariate once it was established.
With his ordination last week Fr Silk became the fourth priest member of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Fr Keith Newton, who leads the ordinariate, Fr Andrew Burnham and Fr John Broadhurst, who were all active bish ops in the Church of England, were ordained in Westminster Cathedral at the beginning of last month when the ordinariate was erected.
Auxiliary Bishop Alan Hopes, who has acted as a liaison between Anglicans hoping to join the ordinariate and the bishops of England and Wales, took part in the ordination ceremony as did the Abbot of Buckfast Abbey and Fr Newton, who was wearing a mitre.
Deacon Edwin Barnes, the former retired Bishop of Richborough who was received into the Church at the end of January, was also present. He was ordained a deacon two weeks ago. Next week he will be ordained as the fifth priest of the ordinariate. He said that Fr Silk’s wife, Joyce, helped vest the new priest in his chasuble. Barnes described the ceremony as “restrained” compared with the ordinations of Fr Newton, Fr Burnham and Fr Broadhurst which took place in January in a packed Westminster Cathedral.
He added that, like at the Cathedral, there were more people going up for a blessing during Communion than receiving.
During the celebrations, Bishop Budd used a crozier that had been a gift to Fr Silk when he was the Bishop of Ballarat in Australia.
Last week more Anglican priests announced their resignations and said they wished to take up the offer made in the 2009 Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, which set up the law for personal ordinariates to be created.