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 …

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 …”

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!

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.

Sorry, just a silly attempt at some levity.

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.

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.

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!!!