I think it fair to say that the Pope’s decision to offer a haven to Catholic minded Anglicans, accepting them as a self supporting body and allowing them to retain their liturgy and patrimony, might well be the most important Christian development since the reformation…..then again it might not! So much depends on two things – the detail of what is on offer and the response of the Church of England itself.
It is often said the night is darkest just before the dawn. How true! Because last July’s General Synod left orthodox Catholics reeling. Synod made it abundantly clear that we are neither valued nor wanted and that, furthermore, the honoured place we had been sincerely promised in 1992 was no longer a certainty. A hurtful sentiment summed up in the decision to pass a vote proclaiming that orthodox Catholic views on ordination were no longer authentically Anglican.
Since then at least 6 priests I know have rescinded their orders and joined the Church of Rome. The Church of England should have known that actions have consequences and, since 1992, it has lost hundreds of truly fine priests. Many of these might still be with us if generous provision had been offered. Giles Fraser might consider that when, in his Church Times article, he states we should be offered pastoral care but no provision at all- it is akin to stating the hungry need feeding whilst ripping bread from their hands. We Catholics don’t want provision like a child wants a toy, we desperately need it if we are to survive!
Who can deny that the reaction to the Revision Committee’s desire to provide, from the likes of WATCH, Affirming Catholicism and Inclusive Church, has only underlined the lack of love existing for those subscribing to an orthodox faith? Just last week we were an unwanted minority facing a bleak future on the outer fringes of the Church in which we were baptised and which taught us the faith which we hold dear.
Into all this darkness the Pope’s proclamation bursts into our horizon as the first ray of dawn. So much lies before us, there is so much to be discussed and ascertained, but for the first time in ages we have genuine hope and options before us. How strange it feels to be wanted, appreciated and understood!
So what are the considerations? We must first ponder Synod’s reaction! Will they will see this as a win-win opportunity, an easy way to shed pesky Catholics and facilitate a female episcopacy? This makes sense but would require true generosity. Please note, the desire for buildings and fabric is not a money grabbing point, rather it is a pastoral consideration. The British hold firm allegiance to bricks and mortar, a fact regardless of the rights and wrongs entailed. It would seem churlish, for example, to take S. Barnabas church building from a congregation that has only ever worshipped in the Catholic tradition, especially when there are so many other churches in Tunbridge Wells! Why not offer the emerging RC Anglican Patrimony Church a place in which to worship? A small sacrifice for the gift of women bishops.
Alternatively Synod might be petulant and resentful. Already Christina Rees (pictured), who has campaigned fiercely to give us no provision at all, is suddenly saying that Rome is ‘poaching’ our Catholic clergy! Funny how’ wanted’ we are now that a door is open to us! It feels like being a battered wife whose spouse, on discovering tehy are to be left, suddenly finds some love in their heart! Which leads me to wonder if the Pope’s offer will cause Synod to finally provide what we asked for all along? Now that would cause a pickle to be sure! Some Anglo-Catholics would find this helpful because they actually do want to stay. But a great many more I suspect, perceiving the direction that western Anglicanism is heading in and not personally compromised by situations in life, will want to go home to papa! Why stay in a loveless union if the honest truth is that you are despised and unwanted? Especially when shelter is offered from a genuinely loving source?
I could go on! We might consider what becomes of the evangelicals or those whose Catholicity is distinctly anti-papal? We might ponder what might happen should the next Pope not look on us so lovingly? We might ponder the resources needed to make this all happen? We might ask what happens to those orthodox priests whose congregations would be split? As I say, so much depends on the details.
For now then we simply need to watch, wait and pray. Nothing else because it is far too early to second guess what lies before us. There will be some hoping Synod might counter respond in equal generosity. Others will be saying the future’s bright – the futures Roman Catholic Anglican Patrimony! Whatever happens though I cannot help but feel a brighter future now exists for those holding authentically Catholic views within the Church of England. For now then get down on your knees and remember to pray, not only for those you agree with, but also for those with whom you disagree!
Have you thought of how much YOU are dividing the church? Make your mind up. Where do you belong? If you are a Catholic, be a Catholic. If Anglican, be Anglican. Have you experienced the care of a Female priest.
I have. They were more helpful and understanding than any male Priest was. In fact, I was turned away by the 1st priest I went to – on 2 different occasions. My “second choice” happened to be the right one.
Once upon a time I would have had nothing at all to do with women priests yet my experience tells me they are deeply religious and do have a calling into the Priesthood. Pastoral care I have received under 3 women priests has been second to none. They do have a place – they are here to stay – and long may it continue.
Women bishops? How do I feel? I don’t know. I would suspect that if the current women priests I have had the pleasure to work with are anything to go by, they would be a good idea. Do I fear what might happen? Yes. Is it because I have faith I am willing to trust in God – let God help and guide the Anglican Church. Yes I have faith. Yes I pray about it and will continue to do so. I pray also that what decision IS made does not divide. Division happened under Henry VIII. We broke away. Catholics were persecuted, then C of E and so on until a more enlightened time when we could co-exist together. There has always been traffic between the churches, long before women priests. I suspect there always will be. Make a decision to be part of the traffic or not. Pray hard remembering you are there for everyone, men women, gay, black, white etc etc. I suspect prayer is accepted equally from Catholics and Anglicans.
Nick Rayner
Make MY mind up?! It was made up years ago Nick. It seem to me that the Church I was baptised into, which preached a male only priesthood in accordance with Christians accross the world and accross the ages are the ones changing minds here.
Furthermore this is what has divided the church, not those who were left unconvinced by what is an unbiblical innovation. Check my page on the right link for all the THEOLOGICAL reasons. To simply damn my views and those of Rome and Constantinople because you are a passionate supporter does you no credit.
Deo Gratias! A truly glorious moment for the pilgrim Church of God.
Thanks Fr. Edward for your inspiring thoughts.
Andy from Switzerland
I don’t see why you are so excited by what is basically a poaching operation by the RCs. Do you truly believe all RC doctrine including the Infallibity of the Bishop of Rome when speaking ‘ex cathedra’? Why should the C/E let you take St Barnabas into the RC church leaving High Church Anglicans with no home to call their own in Tunbridge Wells. In any case not all your congregation will agree with you and some would be very hurt by your decision. As you say, there is a need for prayer and I will be praying that you will see sense and not be swayed by the fact you didn’t get a lot of support from the rest of the church. I thought the committee meeting on Women Bishop’s had moved quite some way from the July Synod, and I am sure a successful compromise will be found. Just give it time.
Good to get back on to the blog today, it seemed to be busy yesterday for some reason, still my sister said it for us on that subject!
When I heard that the pope had made this offer my initial feeling was
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that this would provide a solution, then I thought about what it would really mean to me. I was confirmed at St Barnabas and have never really felt as comfortable with other forms of formal worship as I am there, obviously we always feel at home with what we know, but do I want to become a Roman Catholic, should I have to? The C of E seem to think that they have to be hip, modern and forward thinking and then expect ALL of their many denominations to fall in line with the lastest ‘in thing’ disregarding centuries of teaching. What about a little thought for their very origins.
I think that if a woman has a strong calling to the priesthood then there should be avenues for her to fulfill that calling and a glass ceiling should not be placed on her career in that field simply because she doesn’t have the right physical ‘equipment’, and here comes the but, there should equally be provision for those who have always worshipped within the C of E in a traditional, catholic way, otherwise the powers that be will simply have transferred their predjudice from women to the Anglicans. If the Church of England want to be inclusive and fair, they had better start getting on with it!
Hope this makes sense as I am having a ‘foggy’ day today but felt I wanted to comment, just as long as nobody twists my words…….
“Make MY mind up?”
Yes, make YOUR mind up. This is more than being about women in the Episcopacy. Much more. The Church of England rejected the doctrine of Universal Papal Jurisdiction and has never accepted the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. Nor does it accept that the Church fully subsists only in the Roman Catholic Church. Nor does it teach that belief in the Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption are required to be believed, are actually matters of salvation. If you sincerely believe what the Church of England has rejected, then you have no option but to become a Roman Catholic. If you cannot affirm any of these then you have no business considering the Roman option. Please stop playing at being RC in everything but obedience, while enjoying the privileges that come with being a member of the Established Church. Make your mind up!
I am afraid it is now all over for FiF within the C of E, because of the stupid reactions of yourself, Father T E Jones, the FiF leadership and those two silly bishops to what your Dad rightly calls ‘a poaching operation’ by a particularly unscrupulous and power-crazed RC, who most certainly does not represent majority opinion within his church. There must be many intelligent and principled FiF people who are spitting mad at this stupidity and this papal malignity which between them have totally undermined the recommendation of the Revision Committee. There isn’t a cat’s chance in hell of Synod passing it now. So: some FiF priests will go, unfollowed by many of their congregations, and the remaining FiF will get a much worse deal: pastoral sensitivity at best.
How stupid and unnecessary. How destructive and self-destructive.
Fantastic news. Can’t believe it’s true though. I think the sticking point for a large number of Anglican lay people and some clergy, no matter how much they are in sympathy with Rome, is over the issue of divorce. I have some in my congregation, as I am sure you must in yours, Father, whose only reason for remaining Anglicans is that, as divorced and remarried people, they cannot be received into the RC church, or, at least, cannot be admitted to its sacraments. The fact that we hace a pastoral duty to such would make it hard for us to leave those to whom we have ministered and cannot take with us, I think.
Well, all you married clergy and laity thinking of moving should be prepared for a possible enlargement of your families, since you’ll immediately be throwing any form of contraception in the bin. Right?
Emotions are clearly high. Lets all take TIMEOUT here! No-one is doing anything at all at this moment in time. Let us accept that some are firghtened of what might happen to Anglicanism and that others are equally excited that they might no longer need to live as a tolerated but often despised minority. Equally there are those unable to accept the primacy of Peter and those unable to accept the validity of women bishops! It is all a mess but -at last- possible solutions look likely.
So hold back on the anti-Catholic sentiment (it wont wash with me anyway!) and I will hold back from cuddling too close to the pontiff. I do admit a touch of Roman fever……but NOTHING IS HAPPENING for a long time yet. And IF ever decisions are to be made then they will be made collaborativlely with all voices heard. But -as far as I can see- there are no decisions to dates. Read the blog again….we stand in a different set of circumstances but a lot is still to come. Now is time to pray for and love one another. Not get all hot under collars and hurl abuse.
I am actually, like many I am guessing, torn between two realities. The best solution would be for the C of E to show some integrity and prove it has a genuine desire to live for the Gospel and not sleepwalk into becoming a new religion for a secular world.
Shame about the picture at the top of your blog showing an early photo of Papa B wearing a horrid Marini I cotta. It would sort of put me of the trans-Tiber swim if I didn’t know that he’s now got a new man, Marini II, in charge of his wardrobe.
There are some very poignant comments in your article and also in several of the comments. The oddest reaction so far is that of Christina Rees. She howled when any provision was envisaged for FiF parishes, and now she is howling because we have been offered an alternative. The tight-lipped response from +Schori of ECUSA seems to display the fact that she finally realises that ECUSA has been pushing everybody to the limit, and the Liberal Lemmings of the CofE have been rushing to jump off the cliff ASAP. Now those Lemmings are bewildered that somebody has offered pastoral care to FiF. The offer from Rome is not poaching, it is pastoral. The Anglican hierarchy as a whole (General Synod included) has been shown to be spiritually and intellectually lacking, if not barren, for its failure to take FiF seriously. All the details of the offer need to be examined, some of us will be unable to accept the offer for doctrinal reasons, and those of us who accept the offer will have to negotiate the emotional minefield of leaving the known for the unknown in response to God’s call – Abraham’s journey. But the Pope’s offer is a fundamentally good and Christian act.
‘The best solution would be for the C of E to show some integrity and prove it has a genuine desire to live for the Gospel and not sleepwalk into becoming a new religion for a secular world.’
That’s so, so crude, so, so ignorant a misrepresentation of the inevitably differing perspectives of sincere Anglicans who (hitherto) have so wanted to keep you with them.
What you should have said – and what in your better moments you would have expressed – is:
‘The best solution would be for the C of E to continue to provide provision for different integrities concerning the issue of WO, in the clear understanding that both sides would immediately stop attacking and criticising each other for defective Chirstianity.’
But – despite the rather humane and moving letters that I have received from Father T E Jones – I think you guys – you FiF guys – have thrown this away by your intemperate embrace of a cynical ‘poaching operation’ from the current (not the permanent) Vatican leadership – ‘i lupi di Vaticano’, as one of Fr Mark’s renegade RC priests so memorably and accurately described that current cabal.
The announcement from the Vatican of the intended formation of an Ordinariate to cater for those Anglicans who decide to convert to Roman Catholicism en masse, has been described by several sources as ‘generous.’ In my confusion, I would rather like someone to tell me where exactly the ‘generosity’ lies in an offer that:
1. asks priests to deny the validity of their orders, and in some cases their sexuality;
2. asks priests and their families to become homeless and incomeless;
3. asks priests to go back to College and be taught how to do what many of them have been doing for years;
4. asks priests to become chaplains to increasingly smaller congregations, with no hope of missionary pastoral work or growth, through occasional offices, schools etc, which are still uniquely afforded by the status of Church of England;
5. asks priests to use a liturgy they never before every had any intention of using;
6. asks congregations to leave churches where they have worshipped all their lives;
7. leaves congregations who stay with the possibility that they will never have a catholic priest again;
8. leaves congregations who go without their priests for two years;
9. leaves more English parishes without catholic priests to baptise, marry, visit the sick, take assemblies, bury the dead, and in so doing, reach out and teach the faith to the wider world;
10. leaves the vast majority of ordinary people in England without any access to the catholic faith.
So all the masks are now removed, Fr Ed, and our ‘so called’ friends are exposed for all to see. They are not pleased for us in the Catholic wing because at last there might be a home for us to flourish in and to get on with the business of winning souls for Christ, no, they say stay in the CofE and see what crumb there is eventually offered to you, see how far you can compromise what you sincerely believe in for the sake of maintaining the status quo. After a few years you will probably give up fighting and start to like the new CofE, it won’t seem worthwhile – if you can’t beat them, join them.
Hypocrites!!
I suppose the only point I would make for your consideration is what happens if and when the liberal wing of the Roman Catholic Church regains ascendancy in the Vatican as happened in the 1960s? Would you be comfortable with some Pope down the road that would bring about another Vatican II spout of reforms that included 21st Century versions of folk masses with guitar toting priests? It could very well happen, maybe not tomorrow or next year, but it has happened before.
Could not such a Pope close the very door that now has been opened for Anglo-catholics? He would have the power to do so, and without warning.
I am a bit hesitant with this proposal because I talked to a colleague of mine who is a bishop in the Catholic Church here in the States, and he told me “hell will freeze over before the US Conference of Bishops will go along with this.” Granted, he was in the more moderate camp of US Catholic bishops, but I found the comment (which he said I could use on condition of anonymity) telling. There is a lot of hostility to the idea on numerous levels, and I think that might spill over towards Anglican converts down the road.
I fear Anglo-catholics might find they are just as despised by powerful elements in the Catholic Church as they were in the Church of England. I guess what I would warn would be the old adage, “all the glitters is not gold.”
This is a test post. My previous entry here seems to have been lost.
I’m still struggling to get past the first paragraph.
“I think it fair to say that the Pope’s decision… might well be the most important Christian development since the reformation…..then again it might not!”
So the rejection of slavery is where in the list? Get some perspective.
Unfortunately the Roman Catholic Church suffers from the same modern ‘malaise’ as the Church of England, i.e. the divide between liberal vs conservative. I don’t think this divide should have been a reason for an open schism, as it sadly happened with the Anglicans. Unless, one party significantly loses the focus on Christ, in that case of course that party would eventually leave Christianity and embark on a journey to become a follower of something or someone else. That’s the freedom of choice given to us and we should therefore not fight against each other but recognize each other’s choices charitably.
As a Roman Catholic I am extremely happy about the Vatican proposal for a new Anglican structure. Anglicans of traditional mindset with their beautiful language and liturgy could only enrich the Catholic Church. Many among Roman Catholic faithful are desperate for real spiritual food, but the bishops deny it to them, instead giving them watery bread with no taste. I think it’s possible that converted Anglicans could attract many Catholics to older style of spirituality, maybe even as a special vocation within the worldwide Catholic Church. But it means that these Faithful would have to remain true to themselves also in the Roman Church and not start to water down their solid spirituality. In any case they would be more than welcome and certainly not despised. American Catholic bishops who think that ‘hell rather freezes over’ before a mass-conversion occurs are really only thinking of politics and how they are quoted in newspapers rather than movements of the Holy Spirit. They should, in my simple opinion, simply be ignored.
Was not England Roman Catholic for a thousand years, before embarking on a different path, and where there not even popes from British lands?
In the ultimate analysis I think it really doesn’t matter in which formal Church the traditional-minded Anglicans are, as long as they follow the Road of the True Christ with all their heart and soul. I will pray for your success to convert all of Britain and the whole world to Jesus Christ and wish you all the best, in whatever ‘structure’ you happen to be.
Best regards, Andy from Switzerland
There is no doubt that the Christian world has been taken by surprise by the Pope’s offer to form an Ordinariate for traditionalist Anglicans. I don’t believe he is poaching but offering a refuge for people he does not quite understand. The mendacity of American blow-ins like Christina Rees makes me sick and so does the humbug of the enemies of Anglo-Catholicism equally taken by surprise. They are behaving like cats from whom a tortured bird has been rescued. The only reason why I am commenting on your blog is because of some of the comments made already and knowledge of Anglo-Catholicism in more secure days.
Commentators show that within what is left of Anglo-Catholicism there is little unity of heart and mind and they prove the old Anglo-Catholic adage, ‘Scratch an Anglican and you’ll find a Protestant’. It also shows the chasm that exists between the Anglo-Catholic clerical and lay minds. For understandable reasons clerics are more worried about their position and loyalty because they have to encounter other Anglican clerics and bishops of entirely different views. Upon the whole, the laity are happy in a church of their choice and can forget what goes on beyond its walls. Ecclesiology rarely forms part of their thinking. Bricks and mortar and what happens within them do. Anglo-Catholics are essentially congregational.
My instinctive feeling is that if this provision is to become a reality it is likelier to succeed beyond the shores of England where an Established Church does not exist. Not only is there greater legal freedom but attempts at maintaining residual Anglicanism independently from the Anglican Communion have had time to mature as self-supporting, if fissiperous, entities. Attempts to do likewise in Britain have proved ludicrous and unsuccessful; no sane person would want to be associated with them. The reason for their success abroad is because they are not constrained by the legal constitution of Establishment.
Here in England Anglicans are free to worship as they wish within a legal framework on a selective basis. Anglo-Catholicism is so bound up with bricks and mortar that it is going to involve enormous sacrifice to have to leave magnificent churches for humbler places of worship because I cannot see how the churches will easily be transferred to the proposed Ordinariate. But, if so, will there be enough people to fill and maintain them? Take the reality of Brighton, for instance. You could get the entire Anglo-Catholic congregations there into St Bartholomew’s and still have room for more.
London not only presents similar problems but also no guarantee that established Anglo-Catholic congregations will want to take advantage of the Pope’s offer. I call them congregations because those who attend them come from far and wide. Parishes like All Saints, Margaret Street, St Mary’s, Bourne Street, the Annunication, Marble Arch, St Augustine’s, Queen’s Gate. for instance, under their present incumbents will have no intention of leaving the Established Church. FIF might be able to broker a deal with the trustees of the Catholic Apostolic Church and secure a long lease on Christ the King, Gordon Square, which, like St Bartholomew’s, Brighton, would be able to contain the mass Anglo-Catholic congregations of London. But where will that leave the struggling shrines dispersed throughout the capital? The majority of these churches have small congregations by Roman Catholic standards and the maintenance alone will be prohibitive without access to diocesan funds. The future of churches like St Stephen’s, Gloucester Road, hang by a thread.
So one could go on. It will be a bitter pill for many British Anglo-Catholic priests to swallow if made to use Anglican rites they have never used before and take on an Anglican identity that most at heart have rejected for a personal form of Roman Catholicism applied on an existential basis. This is likely to create a serious identity-crisis. Abroad a continuous Anglican liturgical identity has been maintained more consistently, especially in America and the Commonwealth. Quite apart from other serious problems, doctrinal and moral, it is hard to see how this will succeed satisfactorily in these islands.
Which brings me back to sacrifice. Any change of religious allegiance involves sacrifice, it is an inescapable part of the process. Nothing will be achieved without it. But, on the basis of bricks and mortar alone, will the sacrifice demanded by having to give up beautiful, if randomly-attended, churches be bearable by the rank and file of the laity whose knowledge of ecclesiology is so fragile? And will they have the financial resources or the desire to support the new status quo? Rhetorical questions I realize but ultimately practical ones. Wouldn’t it be more realistic for those who accept Rome’s claims to make quiet submissions and learn to breath new air or swim in deeper water? At the moment I can only envisage an unholy mess in which churches like St Barnabas, Tunbridge Wells, and St Peter’s, London Docks, may have to be left behind, hostages to fortune. I cannot see you or the idiosyncratic and self-made T E Jones being happy with that.
The offer is there in principle with details to follow. But my instinct is that relatively few British Anglo-Catholics will be willing to accept it and will be content to soldier on in a hostile environment until the movement finally disappears into history.
The American scriptwriter William Goldman famously said “Nobody knows anything”, a reference originally to the inability of anyone in Hollywood to predict whether a film would fly or “bomb”. I have found the idea transfers to virtually any area of life where attempts are made to speculate on what is likely to happen in the future, when armed only with the evidence of the here and now or the past.
The outcome here, I would suggest, is highly uncertain. But what I do strongly feel is that if this is just a prelude to more gaming, posturing and bluffing on all sides, culminating in an all round collapse of any “deal” then I think it will be a huge opportunity lost.
For which reason, the call by the Bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough strike me as the only sensible way forward. In the space of prayer of reflection shouldn’t we simply trust God to show us the way forward?
Worth remembering this prayer, particularly from verse 20:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=17&v=1&t=KJV#top