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Please pray for Fr Waller and the parish of Saint Saviour’s Walthamstow, who woke up to discover church notice boards vandalised. Furthermore Fr David had a threatening message left on his ansaphone- warning him of violence if his church should opt for the Roman option. Clearly this is criminal behaviour and a matter for the police- but what sort of person stoops to this level in order to hurt another? We should pray for this person as they are clearly lost and full of hatred.
This is the sort of sectarian nastiness one might have (sadly) expected at the height of troubles in N. Ireland but within the Diocese of Chelmsford? It comes as a stark warning to everyone -be careful what emotions you sow! Regardless of our theological views and differences we must work together in love, showing the world how we Christians can handle difference with generosity and integrity.
So a plea from me today! Let us stop the in-fighting- it only ever adds power to the devil’s elbow and creates an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. The problem is really straight forward- liberals and traditionalists have met a stale-mate over the need to consecrate women. One’s gain becomes the other’s loss- so how do we move forward in love?
Love comes through honesty and at this moment of crisis we desperately need clarity not fudge. From my perspective, and after a lot of reflection, there are only two options available that offer hope for the future of the Church of England and both come at a cost.
1) The General Synod decides it wants to keep its traditional Catholics. This requires offering a structural solution akin to that being offered by Rome, not simply as a bargaining tool, but in honest recognition that this is the minimum Catholics need to remain in the church with integrity- adhering to their sincerely held Catholic doctrine as well as practice. Which leads to the cost with this option- Diocesan Bishops of the future might need to relinquish control over a small number of parishes and our unity and ecclesiology would look a little odd from the outside.
2) The General Synod decides it wants a cohesive church and consecrates women without such provision for opponents. If this path is chosen, as now looks certain, then it needs doing honestly. Let us not pretend ‘codes of practice’ work, they are only smoke and mirrors- ingenious ways of helping parishes pretend their Bishop does not exist! This second option comes at the cost of unchurching a minority of members. A moral obligation then exists to assist those departing to the ordinariate through prayer, financial help, generosity with buildings (shared or loaned?) and love.
What is not acceptable is to pretend that Catholics can remain with integrity in a church which accepts women bishops. Our faith is based on principaled doctrina and is not simply an ‘expression’ open to compromise on matters of holy orders.To force us to remain with no provision – or force us out with no assistance is akin to stabbing someone in the back whilst smiling into their eyes. So let the church decide. Either take a small hit on women bishops, but keep the Catholics on board- or- proceed down a path of full power for women bishops but accept responsibility for helping trad. Catholics to get out. But whatever we opt for let us do it in love of one another…please?
Pray today then for our common future amd spare a thought for Anglo-Catholics who cannot accept the ordination of women. It really does feel horrid being in the Church of England currently. Father Waller’s board expresses what many of us are starting to fear- that we are actually hated within our own family, who have no real desire to help us, but will seek to hurt us if we stay and hurt us if we go. Pray God that this fear is entirely unfounded.
This act is utterly atrocious and something I never thought I would see. There must be proper provision; or even better, complete shelving.
Bishops, Synod, etc. please do the right thing!
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This is downright sickening, despicable and cowardly behaviour.
Shame on the perpetrator!
The people who desecrated this church should be punished.
I do, however, have a two serious questions?
1. Why would you expect this (however sadly) in Northern Ireland? Does a lesser standard apply to this western province of the UK?
2. The Church of Ireland, an older sister church in these islands, decided 20 years ago that women could be ordained to all orders – deacon, priest and bishop. The faith and order of the Church of Ireland – Catholic and Reformed – has survived. I see myself as a Catholic Anglican, fully at home in the Church of Ireland.
If the CofE decides to ordain women to the episcopacy, you
write, “A moral obligation then exists to assist those departing to
the ordinariate through prayer, financial help, generosity with
buildings (shared or loaned?) and love.” Really?
Prayer? Of course. Financial help? Only on full commercial terms, if
even that. And then to insist on the buildings…
Who decides on doctrine in the CofE? Local priests who don’t like synodical government? “I don’t agree. I’m off (to Rome, to the Baptists, wherever) and you are *obliged* to render financial help and the odd building or two.”
Pingback: Fr Waller of the parish of Saint Saviour’s Walthamstow, woke up to discover his church notice boards vandalised and then received a threatening message left on his ansaphone warning him of violence if his Anglican church should opt for the Roman Catholi
“Clearly this is criminal behaviour and a matter for the police- but what sort of person stoops to this level in order to hurt another?”
More often than not, it’s people with strong religious convictions.
you mean like Richard Dawkins and the Woggler?
This is indeed tragic, but Conor Buckley cannot seriously believe what no reputable historian of early medieval Ireland, whether of faith and no faith, believes: that the Church of Ireland is the ancient Celtic Church and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is some Italianate mission import which managed to seduce the majority of the population away from its ancient sister in the 16th century when the papal yoke had finally been thrown off. Possession of ancient ecclesiastical sites is one thing, and I understand that many organisations need their foundation myths. like the freemasons and the Temple of Solomon, and the British Israelites and tellingly-shaped sheilanigigs, and the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and the Priory of Zion, but seriously, the Church of Ireland being the church of Patrick, Columbanus, Bridget and Nessan? Paleese…!
Fr Ed. This disappoints and saddens me enourmously. I am an ordinand and whilst I am from the ‘other side’ of the fence, in respect of the ordination of women, I was brought up in the Anglo-Catholic tradition and have a great many Catholic friends, again, on both sides of the situation we find ourselves in.
I follow yours and a number of others blogs and digest what is being said from all perspectives. Many take a very fair stance. All that I hope for is that we proceed in a prayerful manner without any mud-slinging or words of hate/anger. I have seen some truly shocking exchanges that stagger and sadden me as they are apparently from people that preach Christ’s love and forgiveness. This sort of thing in Walthamstow saddens me greatly. Apart from anything else, it shows the lack of respect for Fr Waller and members of his congregation who have a certain viewpoint (and someone is not willing to actually have a grown up conversation about it).
I pray that we may, between us, find a way forward that minimises the hurt; but I fear that we won’t. If this is the case, let’s all be dignified and respect each other as fellow Christians.
This kind of sectarian outrage has nothing whatsoever with any legitimate Christian church, Catholic or Reformed. I hope we will soon hear of public statements of support for the parish and priest concerned from their bishops, and we must all hold both the victims and the perpetrators in our prayers.
A lesser standard does not apply- I was merely making the point that this sort of sectarian hatred is almost unheard of in Wlthamstow- wheras parts of Ireland Ireland sadly have a bit of a history of it as anyone would surely admit? It was not a jibe- I am married to a half-Irish wife with family on both sides of the Irish border! And I have loved visiting them!
We will certainly pray for you here at Holy Trinity. What an appalling thing to have happened. Don’t be un-nerved, you know it will not be anyone from the Deanery, whatever our views on various matters. Whoever did this cannot possibly be a member of any of our churches. Please ask if we can help in any other way
I admire the Administrator very much and – as an Irishman – took no offence from his statement. I should make it clear that regarding the Church of Ireland I was responding to Conor Buckley’s statement which implied that Roman Catholicism in Ireland was some sort of Italian innovation introduced by the counter-reformation. This is, alas, a fond legend of origin of the Church of Ireland, as I well know, but – notwithstanding the acquisition of ancient ecclesiastical sites as a result of the fortunes of war, historically completely untenable.
Wow, that’s the kind of anti-catholic stuff I thought only went on in places in the American South where I grew up.
They will be in my prayers.
I must say, having thought about this a little, I wonder whether this is more than mindless sectarian vandalism.
Just think about it. Most people in Walthamstow would not care less about the church and certainly not about it’s being Roman Catholic or not. Therefore, if they were going to vandalise the place, they might use more ‘choice’ wording in doing so than this! It is also unlikely to be the work of other denominations – I really don’t think things are that bad! So who could have done it? Well, whoever did it, did so because they wanted to make a point. And why do people make points in extreme ways? It is because they care passionately what they are saying. And who are those who are most likely to care passionately about this subject? The answer is those in the congregation itself.
If this is so this is even more worrying. Perhaps the Vicar and his Wardens might like the idea of the Ordinaraite (according, that is, to Mr Thompson) but on his own admission, he has not really sought many views of the people. Given that the reactions of the majority of laity have been, at best reserved, and at worst dead against becoming Roman Catholics, perhaps this action is actually a protest from within.
That is not to condone the action, which I don’t – I stand by what I said earlier. However, it is a lesson to all priests. They are not priests for themselves, but they are there to serve the people of God, and for that they must be prepared to listen to them.
Conor Buckley deserves an answer. The reason why there is an obligation on the Church of England to make financial provision for those it is driving out is because it has consistently said that those who are opposed to women’s ordination have an honoured place in this church, and will be treated equally. In fact, our priests have been passed over for every sort of preferment, have been told the church would be better off without them, and are in the process of being made homeless. If, in 1992, the Cof E had said “we have settled the matter; women can be priests and everyone must accept it”, the House of Commons would have turned down the legislation. As it was, the Act of Synod was passed, and despite efforts by ‘liberals’ to limit it to tenor twenty years it was deliberately left as a continuing provision. It was Archbishop Eames who headed the commission which advised that the Church of England alone, and the Anglican Communion alone, cannot decide on so important a matter. We are in a process of Reception (which means that the matter may NOT be received by the whole church, and would then have to be revoked by the C of E). It is this and similar promises which have enable many to remain within the church of our baptism. If stipendiary priests are to be expelled – and that is the effect of saying “you must accept women bishops” – then there must in all justice be recompense to enable those men and their families to survive at least until they find other paid employment.
On the other hand, Apostolic:
(a) it seems to be a historical fact that the Celtic church in Ireland, although originally introduced by Christians who ultimately derived from the Christian church based in Rome, was relatively free-floating until brought into (Romish) line by the Council of Whitby (it was always thus, of course);
(b) at the time of the Reformation, most/all (I forget the precise statistics) of the bishops in Ireland accepted it;
(c) it is most certainly the case that recurrent scandals (sexual and other) have brought the RC church in Ireland into disrepute in recent decades, and that the C of I, from an admittedly low base, is in generally better odour in the South;
(d) there are aspects in which the C of I (and E) preserves the Irish heritage far better than the Irish RC church. Example: a few years ago, I was at a wedding service in the North of England where the bride was Anglican English, the groom RC Irish. As a friendly gesture, the English Anglican celebrant included St Patrick’s Breastplate among the hymns. The Irish RCs present didn’t know it!!! I, by contrast, C of I choirboy decades ago, knew every word.
Apostolic says:
November 23, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I admire the Administrator very much and – as an Irishman – took no offence from his statement. I should make it clear that regarding the Church of Ireland I was responding to Conor Buckley’s statement which implied that Roman Catholicism in Ireland was some sort of Italian innovation introduced by the counter-reformation. This is, alas, a fond legend of origin of the Church of Ireland, as I well know, but – notwithstanding the acquisition of ancient ecclesiastical sites as a result of the fortunes of war, historically completely untenable.
It is no more untenable than the claim of the Church of England – and indeed of the Church in Wales. Henrician Royal fiat worked more effectively on one island that is all
Unfortunately John repeats the legend of the freestanding Celtic church placed under the “Romish” yoke by, ironically, Anglo-Normans acting on behalf of the pope. Apart from some earnest antiquarians, cathedral sidesmen and tour guides asserting property claims, no one seriously, and certainly no reputable historian of medieval Ireland, would contend that the CofI is the early Celtic church liberated in the 16th Century. I know plenty of Roman Catholics who know St Patrick’s Breastplate, but these issues do not turn on such ephemera. Michael Thompson is right to say that it this no more untenable than the parallel claims of the Church of England and the Church in Wales. Indeed. In England and Wales such claims are ultimately equally spurious, but in the Irish case, with the supposed apostasy of the greater part of the population to the “Italian Mission” , such claims are as ludicrous as they are enduring for those who depend on them.
A comment on financial aspects: Things may have changed since I retired but it was usual in the world of secular employment, when one changed employer, for one’s pension to be transferred to the new employer or for it to lie dormant in the old employer’s scheme (continuing to accumulate) until retirement. This certainly happened to me. Are clergy transferring from one church to another a different case?
Jesus wants us to be spiritually free of all things of the flesh. What is spiritual is neither man nor woman. What is holy has no part of men’s rituals and divisions.
If any man needs to go before God to make another vow, what is this to God? If you do not already work for Him 100% now, why then would He accept your new vow? You waste the time He has given you. Can the finger of a hand work better attached to the other? No, it becomes a hindrance, tolerated but cumbersome, it has no full function and will always belong where God had first placed it.
Unfortunately ‘Apostolic’ does not argue at all precisely. I do. ‘Relatively free-floating’ (the words carefully chosen) does not claim as much as ‘freestanding’. The Council of Whitby, institutionalising Roman control, was centuries before ‘Anglo-Normans acting on behalf of the pope’. Whether or not RCs know the hymns (and other writings) of St Patrick is not ‘ephemeral’: it is an indicator of how live that ancient tradition is for them. I, too, know RCs who know the hymn in question: I was not asserting that no RCs knew it, but noting that a whole group of Irish RCs from Dublin and Wicklow did not, whereas the C of E people present (and Northern C of E people set some store by the Celtic tradition) and I (C of I) knew it perfectly. Something here to be explained! And no attention at all is given to the argument that most/all bishops in Ireland ‘turned’ at the time of the Reformation. They did.
As so often, the imprecision and (I am afraid) sheer ignorance of some ‘orthodox’ and RC Christians about the ‘Reformed’ tradition can only be explained in terms of dismissal and contempt. I do not reciprocate this. I insist that the debate be conducted less ignorantly and prejudicially.
Was it not the will of God that Moses should cross the desert? Was it not the will of God that luke-warm Churches in the book of Revelation be spat out?
I agree we should give 100% to God where we are- but this involves listening to his voice and making a stand when institutions begin to water down the faith and Gospel. If a move does happen, and that is not certain yet, it will be to free us for God’s work and cease us having to defend it from the margins and get embroiled in years of in house division. I am so tired of church politics- I just want to get on with being a priest. But I can only do that within an ecclesiology that makes sense to me.
‘In England and Wales such claims are ultimately equally spurious, but in the Irish case, with the supposed apostasy of the greater part of the population to the “Italian Mission” , such claims are as ludicrous as they are enduring for those who depend on them.’
Quite so. Nonetheless the faithful souls who followed whichever ecclesiastical tradition are not personally responsible for the misfortunes or otherwise of the sixteenth century and lives have been and are sanctified in both streams.
My own view is that the river was split, rather more ‘succesfully’ in England and Wales than in Ireland. What is really at stake is surely whether or not one channel has become horribly silted up?
Administrator says:
November 23, 2009 at 3:23 pm
you mean like Richard Dawkins and the Woggler?
As we are both Atheists (i.e. lacking strong religious convictions), I think that’s highly unlikely. Personally, I’m just happy to sit back and watch your two churches tear themselves apart before they disappear completely.
Well despicable and criminal it may be, but in our church, unusual it is not. I remember hearing of a church where the parishioners found that the statuary had been smashed, stained glass windows broken, funery chests broken open and bones scattered on the floor. Of course it was Winchester Cathedral and the perpetrators were roundheads. It was a pattern of destruction repeated in the Tudor and Stuart era; to abbeys, churches, cathedrals, and even to people.
Imagine living as a Christian at that time. It must have seemed as if the end of the world had come.
I agree with Fr Ed, where there is no love shown, God is not there.
Ah! But your creed of ‘no belief’ is every bit as passionate as my love for Christ. And your desire to share that ‘faith opinion’ every bit as evanglestic in nature as anything done by the church…..it is the agnostic who is truly impartial who sits in the middle my chum!
Dear Father Ed.,
I hope you are not going to suppress my accurate and trenchant reply to ‘Apostolic’ ‘s lazy and offensive rhetoric.
Best,
John.
Dear Father Ed,
You have, in my view, been very fair to “John” and what many would regard as his arrogant claims for the Church of Ireland’s supposedly ancient lineage. There seems little point in replying to his patronising, and if I may say in all charity, passive-agressive sense of grievance. Beyond pointing out that the bishops of the medieval church were intimidated by Henry VIII, like their English counterparts, apart from +John Fisher and several abbots, accepted the break with Rome, including that notorious opportunist, Miler Magrath of Cashel (reconciled on his deathbed), as well as the apparently greater familiarity of Anglicans – “Hibernians?” – with St Patrick’s Breastplate, there is no substance to his claims, but it this is his comfort zone, so be it.
John I have held nothing back – so it may not have registered
Anglo-Catholicus- I like John even if we disagree on most everything
BOTH OF YOU- stop the bickering and be nicer to each other
; ) you know it makes sense!!!
Dear Administrator,
I accept what you say. There seems to be an intermittent fault on the site. I definitely sent it off and in fact ‘you’ve posted that twice’ came back.
‘Apostolic’: you haven’t had the benefit of reading what in fact I wrote.
The daubing of the notice board is to be condemned outright. I submit that it was not done by a Christian, just as the sectarian desecration of churches and meeting houses in Northern Ireland during the “troubles” was not done by Christians.
As has been said the C of Ireland sanctioned the ordination of women over 20 years ago and it has not fallen apart. Indeed the ministry of women priests is highly valued and respected by clergy of all ecclesiastic hues. Mind you, we have had no female bishops yet!
Gamaliel said a wise thing (Acts 5:38-39): “If this [development] is from men, it will fail; but if it is from God, you will not be able to stop it.”
One final thing, while I like to believe that the C of I is indeed the rightful successor of the ancient Church in Ireland, it doesn’t really matter that much as there are more pressing matters for Christians to attend to. And had the 16th Century Reformed Catholic Church in Ireland been permitted by the monarch to translate the BCP and the Bible into Irish and to use them, Ireland might well be a very different place today.
There is some truth in what you say, except possibly what you say about the agnostics. I still haven’t made up my mind about them.
Sorry, just a silly attempt at some levity.
Dear Ken,
You must believe what you wish about the orgins of the CofI, but for the reasons already outlined, and in all charity, it is historically untenable.
Dear John,
Before you start attributing imprecision and laziness of thought to the Roman Catholics, I think I should point out that you have got the wrong end of the stick. I am a member of the Church of Ireland and come from a line of CofI clergy. That is what I meant when I wrote “as I know well” in an earlier email. I am all too familiar with your apologia regarding the Church of Ireland’s ancient credentials and was convinced of them until I read theology and history at TCD and medieval history at Cambridge. Indeed as a chorister I sang with great conviction, “Lift thy banners, Church of Erin, to thine ancient faith we cling”! I know many good Christian people in the Church of Ireland which formed me, as I do in the RC church. I think however that theere is little use in criticising RCs for their apparent ignorance without looking at our own ignorance, indeed often arrogance, which includes the snide inference, often still heard away from ecumenical circles, that they are only the vulgar “Italian mission”, while we, due to our more authentically celtic-crossed stoles and hymn knowledge, are the true Irish Church.
“Trenchant” your comments may have been, but accurate they are not, and they misrepresent what I have written. I am well aware of the Synod of Whitby, having written a dissertation on it. the point I was making was that the reforms of the synod of Whitby and later reforms of the Gregorian papacy were only properly enforced with the coming of the Anglo-Normans. However, it is still entirely without foundation to suggest that the Irish church, quasi autonomous only because of geography, was a proto-Protestant, or if you wish, proto-”Catholic and Reformed” body, just waiting in the long centuries under the “Romish” yoke for Cramner, Hooker et al to appear, only to be subverted by a foreign Italian importation.
We feel offended about the RC’s view of the validity of our orders, as expressed quite dispassionately by Leo XIII, while we think it is ok to refer to the superstitions of the Church of Rome in our website. We assert, moreover, that we accept the first four councils of the Church. Do we – have we – accepted fully the proclamation of the Council of Ephesus of the Virgin Mary as “Theotokos” – the God-bearer – with all that this implies. And I haven’t even got to the question of what notion of a sacramental episcopate and priesthood the Elizabethan bishops in England and Ireland thought they were imparting, for the RC objection is based on this, rather than schism, and whatever the understanding of these bishops in this regard, it certainly was not that of the bishops of the “Celtic” church.
Your haste in blaming my supposed ignorance on being RC may be revealing, “as I know well”. Rather, if you must, blame this on me or on the Church of Ireland!
Dear John.
I forgot to mention a few other items: As regards sexual scandals, referred to in your earlier messages, these are by no means unique to RCs, or in any way intrinsic to the RC clergy. To succumb to this view would be to surrender to some atavistic spooky view of Catholicism, as embodied in 19thC sensational and salacious`exposes’ of “priests in the confessional”, combined with the more recent Freudian notion that celibacy is repression and therefore produces abusers. It need hardly be mentioned that the great majority of abuse is within families, and married fathers are the prime culprits statistically. Celibacy does not make people into abusers. Rather, people with this predeliction are attracted to roles where these might be indulged, such as social working in non-conformist Wales and proverbially naughty scoutmasters and vicars. There have been plenty of Anglican abusers, clerical and lay, married and celibate, and it would be wrong to suggest that this is confined exclusively, or even largely, when adjusted for relative scale, to R Catholicism.
As regards the attitude of Irish bishops to the Reformation. Not all of them approved of it; at least two did not. The great majority of clergy and laity certainly did not. But let us say you are right in regarding such issues as significant in measuring truth. It would appear odd, as a man of the Reformation who believes in the priesthood of all believers and the prominence of the laity, to ignore the predominant sense of the Irish laity and lower clergy (which did not support the Reformation) and emphasise instead the (pressurized) view of the bishops. Moreover, if you believe that truth is measured by such episcopal majority and minority numbers, do you then believe that on an issue such as ordination of women, rejected by both RCs and (far more) Orthodoxy as something not only that they won’t do but do not (that includes the Pope who cannot exercise authority outside of tradition) have the authority to do so, the fragmented episcopate of Anglicanism can go against the views of the vast majority of RC (including its Eastern non-Latin rites) and Orthodox bishops? We would also have to believe that the Holy Spirit’s views on women’s ordination were hidden for almost 2000 years, only to be revealed comparatively to a majorty of the Anglican episcopate, a hotline not apparently offered to the great majority of bishops who are RCs and Orthodox.
I would re-emphasise what I said about good Christian people in the Church of Ireland which formed me. However, there is still a great deal of unchristian sentiment, and the myths surrounding the supposedly ancient origins of the church, are central to this. Unlike our CofE brethren, who acknowledge their debt to medieval Catholicism by occasionally allowing Benedictines and others to celebrate Mass in the great abbeys built by then, we rarely acknowledge such connections. We display St Laurence O’Toole’s heart in a reliquary at Christ Church in Dublin not because we in any way venerate relics, but essentially because we want to stake our claim to an ancient site (which no one, least of all reputable scholars, seriously believes).
The myth of the ancient origins of the Church of Ireland is very interesting in one respect; it offers a key insight into how the Anglo-Irish ascendancy sought to establish its claims to a sense of Irishness – referred to by historians as Colonial Nationalism – in the 18th Century and assert this against (for most of them) the land of their recent ancestors – England, mainly due to resentment of metropolitan patronage in state and church. It was supremely ironic that many of those whose familes had arrived within within living memory were such champions of Irish historic rights, as expressed by William Molyneaux. There was, of course, at that time a great enthusiasm for Irish symbols etc for the Volunteer movement. This is all very interesting, but it does not in the least support the myth of continuity with the “Celtic Church”. At least the Scots Presbyterians, having successfully resisted the attempts to force episcopacy on them, do not in the established Church of Scotland pretend to such continuity. As Theobald Wolfe Tone, that son of the CofI and of TCD, acknowledged the Irish RCs as “the Irish – properly so called”.
In my view, we need in the Church of Ireland to rid ourselves of that arrogance so embodied in the concluding page of “The Anglo-Irish Tradition”, by its keen apologist, J. C. Beckett: “The Catholics can save themselves; the Protestant must save the nation”. It is only when we rid ourselves of that kind of caste arrogance, the notion that we provide some moderating rationalist leaven to the otherwise irrational and vulgar RC masses, that we can begin true ecumenism in Ireland. This includes an unchristian pride in “trenchancy” and “accuracy” about manifestly arrogant claims.
In this case, such claimes are indeed “vanity of vanity …”
http://archipelago-of-truth.blog.co.uk/2009/11/23/st-saviours-7447232/
Rome awaits with open arms and Love!
We look forward to having you!
God Bless you all regardless of your eventual choice.
Thanks, P.
It’s a wonder that “John” hasn’t responded yet to my more recent contributions, as he had incorrectly blamed my ignorance on being RC, and ignorant of the Synod of Whitby, when I am in fact CofI and a former chorister at that, like him, and steeped in the apologetic identity he still regards as unproblematic. Still, Advent is supposed to be a time of reflection …