New bishops of Ebbsfleet & Richborough

Fr Jonathan Baker SSC

The Archbishop of Canterbury has seen fit to appoint new bishops to the suffragan sees of Ebbsfleet and Richborough. Downing Street made the announcement on Thursday that the next Bishop of Ebbsfleet is to be the Revd Dr Jonathan Baker ssc, Principal of Pusey House, Oxford and Secretary of Forward in Faith, and that the next Bishop of Richborough is to be the Revd Norman Banks ssc, Vicar of Walsingham, Houghton and Barsham, Rural Dean of Burnham and Walsingham and Chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen. Both priests will now become bishops administering sacramentally to Anglicans unable in conscience to accept the innovation of women in holy orders, particularly the priesthood and episcopate.

Fr Norman Banks SSC

The announcement has been welcomed by traditional Anglicans, those who have moved to the Ordinariate under Rome, those without in the continuing churches and those in Forward in Faith. Other Anglicans are also expressing warm respects, even if they are not so traditional. But some have spoken with a sharp tongue.

Jean Mayland is a lady for sharp words. On Thinking Anglicans she says "These appointments are despicable. In response to an advert from his Appointments Secretary many of us wrote asking that that he wait until next year when the new legislation will, God willing be approved and hopefully such posts disappear. He has nevertheless appointed them - maybe in the hope that next time he and Sentamu will push through their heretical amendment. It is a slap in the face for faithful women priests".

Heretical? Despicable? Ms Mayland is herself a lady cleric and church person. However, as with all liberals, she has taken to expressing her will as God's Will. Not content to accept that the overwhelming majority of sacramental Christians believe the three-fold ministry is male in creation as given to us by Tradition and Scripture. That majority, made up of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran Christians, rejects the notions of those who desire innovations based on presumed fairness and equality of the modern world, as being inconsistent with the faith of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Whilst sacramental Christians may be divided yet are praying and working for unity, it is beyond doubt that Ms Mayland's approach is hellbent on perpetual division.

She thinks Rowan Williams is a heretic! There is a hymn - "God moves in mysterious ways" - and it is hard sometimes to fathom what some people really want. It's a mystery to me what goes on in Ms Mayland's mind. I bet she'll have us out of the Church of England at the point of candlestick if she could. Heretic, indeed! Some cheek, I'd say.

Queen opens Henry VIII's General Synod

Last night I was surfing the net, looking at information on the activities in General Synod. One site I was looking at had the C of E logo in the corner. My son came in and saw the words "Church of England" emblazoned across the screen. "Oh, Church of England!", he said, with a knowing tone in his voice. "That's not God's Church". I was taken aback a bit by this enthusiastic piece of information, but also rather intrigued. "Who's church is it?" I enquired. "Oh, no", he said, "it's Henry VIII's church". For a moment I didn't know what to say. Then thought that maybe his lessons at school were taking him on a very interesting path. He's learning about Henry VIII but I wonder if he's being given the unvarnished truth. Most people think this in one way or another. It seems that the secular education authorities just perpetuate the same old myths and teach them as gospel.

Henry may have had his beef with the Pope but he certainly was no factional sect builder. He maintained his beliefs in the Catholic Faith going so far as to instigate laws to defend it against protestant reformers who scared him as much as his mother-in-laws. I can't see folklore religion being a proper subject for the National Curriculum.

When the Queen opened the General Synod she mentioned the hard tasks before the members. She does this as Supreme Governor, but she hasn't got a church in her name. The general fuzzy thought process for most in England is that the Church of England is not really anything other that a protestant organisation that does some good things. I think it was best summed up in a remark by a British Army officer in the Balkans, when he was discussing how the Army was helping the Muslims of Bosnia. "Well, of course, they're not proper Muslims you know. They're sort of C of E Muslims". Not that there could be any Muslims of this kind, but it neatly illustrates what the Archbishop of Canterbury is up against. A vague understanding that somehow the Church of England is wishy-washy and not "proper". In 1986 the Episcopal Church had an advertisement which promoted the canard. Looks and sounds jokey but just shows up the familiar error.

So my son may have a point. Not that it's not God's church, but that those within it don't always profess the Faith in a coherent manner. Most Anglicans I meet have no desire to have any spiritual depth. This is not to slight them. They just prefer a religion that is undemanding in the literal sense. That is, not too many questions.

I just query whether children in primary schools should get a proper version of Henry VIII or get the popular version of him.

Archbishop of Canterbury has been 'abducted by aliens' says bishop

Bishop Gene Robinson doesn't do himself any favours by being rather rude about Rowan Williams. He seems to think that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been "abducted by aliens" simply by trying to profess the Faith. What is alien for the Church is for the sacraments to be undermined by those who, for whatever reason, cannot maintain the discipline of faith. Those that keep to the historic understanding of the Church's traditions are attacked and belittled. Gene Robinson may have quite an honest belief but his beliefs are not those of the whole church by any stretch of the imagination. That is the point, surely.

This story appeared in the Daily Mail which also reports that the archbishop of Canterbury "has warned of shortages of vicars due to clergy moving to Rome". Most who are moving at the moment are not vicars, but as I've said before, the secular media uses the term "vicar" for any cleric regardless of the actual position.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331530/Archbishop-Canterbury-abducted-aliens-says-bishop-battle-gay-clergy.html#ixzz161sDo700

Rowan Williams dressed to please

This is a great picture of the Archbishop of Canterbury on a visit to Bangalore, India, where he met a diverse group of Christians. They all came together to greet him and heap praise on him. The photos taken of the event reveal a certain uneasiness in the archbishop's demeanour. I've always thought that Rowan Williams seems better placed as a theologian rather that as a preacher or travelling evangelist. Mostly his sermons are so highbrow as to be higher than those words chosen by Humpty Dumpty to mean what he wanted them to mean. Alice definitely represents the modern day Anglican, confused by the content but willing to accept that it has some kind of learned truthfulness about it all.

Women bishops and Anglican Catholics

So the dust has yet to settle. I didn't think there was much of a bang to start with. The liberal tendency in the Church of England has got its way. Or as Andrew Brown says in the Guardian, "The triumph of Anglican women". Those like him have little sympathy, or empathy even, for the Anglican Catholic that hasn't gone to the lobotomy clinic. We are seen as all manner of things most of which are fairly unpleasant. I've always thought there was something very illiberal about liberals. It's not as if traditionalists were trying to stop women being bishops!

If it all goes through as is, Catholics in the Church of England will face (if they stay) a female prelate trying to impose her will on a parish that has no wish to be other than faithful to the catholic beliefs that have always been believed. She may or may not be helpful. She may or may not be nice. But I am absolutely sure she will not stop at doing nothing! They wanted absolute obedience to the new doctrine. Of course, they can't get it because this is something we cannot give them. It is this that the liberals, be they secular or of the church, won't tolerate.

The flying bishop scheme, the Provincial Episcopal Visitor arrangement, will go. So will the Act of Synod. Churches who have opted to take advantage of the act will be left with no legal protection. A female prelate could block a new priest's appointment or just be plain difficult. She could, quite legally, force her way in to be present at a mass or any other service. It happened with considerable frequency in the USA. Most traditionalist parishes there have either been successfully sued or subdued. It takes a special type of priest to maintain the faith.

We were told at Mass this morning not to worry too much. I won't then. Our mass sheet tells us to be "worthy ambassadors of the Catholic Faith". Hard going in the Church of England. Perhaps Rowan Williams will get a message in a dream tonight?

Archbishop of Canterbury in goalpost moving exercise

The Archbishop of Canterbury has gone to Rome. Not over to Rome. Just a short visit to speak his mind. However, it seems to me his mind is tortuously flexible these days. He spoke at length when giving an address in Rome, as the guest of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The address was part of a symposium being held at the Gregorian University, to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Cardinal Willebrands, the first president of the Council. Much of the address contained reference to women's ordination in relation to traditional catholic understanding.

The Archbishop's prose is sometimes heaving going on the reader, but the gist of his argument is that local churches without the whole catholic church can makes "local decisions" without deviating in any mammoth way from core beliefs. This is a bit like stretching rubber to see when it will break. He also suggests now that female ministry is based on baptism and on vocation, as a measure of equality. It all smacks a bit of changing the ingredients in a well-established recipe because some people think the recipe makes a bad cake.

He says this, "All ordained ministers are ordained into the shared richness of the apostolic ministerial order – or perhaps we could say ministerial 'communion' yet again. None ministers as a solitary individual. Thus if the ministerial collective is understood strictly in terms of the ecclesiology we have been considering, as serving the goal of filial and communal holiness as the character of restored humanity, how much is that undermined if individuals within the ministerial communion are of different genders? Even if there remains uncertainty in the minds of some about the rightness of ordaining women, is there a way of recognising that somehow the corporate exercise of a Catholic and evangelical ministry remains intact even when there is dispute about the standing of female individuals?" (Use of the word gender instead of sex is telling). The implication is that only a few have uncertainty over ordaining women whereas the opposite is crystal clear. He also seeks to find a way of incorporating female ministers into some kind of nebulous collegiality without really addressing what he calls a "dispute about the standing of female individuals".

The goalposts are being moved and the players are being given to think that the new rules will have no affect on the play in the field. The Archbishop also asked that the Roman Catholic Church give an answer as to what exactly is wrong with what some "local churches" are doing. I'd say if he doesn't know now he never will.

In a nutshell, this address was a convoluted way of asking whether there was a possibility of putting the current impaired communion of Christians together in a quick-fix solution ignoring disputes and disagreements. We all know we have to heed the Dominical request that we "all be one". Rowan Williams' suggestions sound laudable but it would surely be at the expense of conscience and catholic (universal) tradition.

Not a gay day for Anglicans

The worldwide Anglican Church is in a state of crisis over homosexuality. The trouble is that the Christian message is being polarised and turned into a "what's best for me" situation. It is also the case, as with the Episcopal Church in the USA, that people have become Anglicans but have brought their own agendas with them.

Traditionally Anglicans have taught that they preach not a new faith but the faith "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est - That which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all". Unhappily, new ideas and beliefs have tugged on the comprehensive nature of Anglicanism.

The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is about Christian living. Whatever is said in the world, this sacrament does not embrace genitally-based homosexual relationships and by its nature cannot do so. There are only two ways of living out the Christian life. Celibacy and Matrimony. However, we all fall short, some more than others. Our lives are seduced by temptations all around us. Those not living up to the Christian ideal should not be castigated or denounced.

It is therefore a little sad that the Archbishop of Canterbury has had to step in to defuse the rising tensions over the issue. He quite rightly deplores the threats made against Rev Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude, describing them as the "latest round of unchristian bullying". During the Second World War the saying "Careless talk costs lives" was used. Similarly, careless talk costs Christian integrity!

In Australia, the Reverend Richard Lane has denounced a judge for calling himself a Christian Anglican whilst living in an openly gay relationship and warned as a "messenger, watchman and steward of the Lord in the Anglican Church of Australia", he faced God's judgment. Well, all I'd say is that we all face God's judgement. However, the Australian judge, Mr. Justice Kirby, made an assertion on ABC Radio late last year that the Anglican and Catholic archbishops of Sydney, Peter Jensen and George Pell, had, via religious instruction, made it hard for people to adopt a more tolerant attitude to gays. This is his opinion, but the teaching of the Catholic Faith should always preach tolerance whilst not abiding sinful activity.

I would hope that clerics like Richard Lane temper their language. It is one thing to practice the traditional sacramental teaching of the Church. It is quite another to pose as being God's chosen over other people.