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.

Illiberal venom is growing by the day!

I can't think why the liberal minded person should become so venomous in denigrating others. The topic of women bishops gets the liberal lot frothing at the mouth with each trying to outdo the other on the best epithet. Traditional Christianity is given the acid tongue treatment big time. This Guardian lot of scribes reacting to an article are just an example. Do they think it enhances the debate in any way?

Robert Key is the Conservative MP for Salisbury. But he is also a proponent of female prelates. His approach is to turn the Gospel on its head. When Christ told his disciples that "My Kingdom is not of this world" it wasn't to suggest that future generations could adopt the notions of the World and supplant them in the Kingdom. Mr.Key has a topsy-turvey understanding of Christianity. He is also becoming something of a clerical bully. Not very nice. In fact, it could be termed un-Christian. I have no idea what Mr.Key thinks a woman bishop will do in a Catholic church but it certainly cannot be to promote Catholic doctrine. He is sidling up to the break-the-doors-down grouping, those who want to impose their will on those that cannot in conscience accept this innovation.

The female prelate propaganda is promoted as if the whole world-wide church is in favour. It is not. Those within Anglicanism that support this are a minute fraction of the Church. They have the temerity to believe God is allowing them to force their will onto others. A high-minded belief indeed! Within the Church of England those opposed to female prelates are not saying "NO" to those that want this. We are saying "Don't trample on our beliefs, our consciences and our understanding of the Catholic Faith".

Is it too much to ask that a little Christian charity could be placed on the table?

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?

Peter Oborne knows nowt!

I've long since thought many in the secular press were gearing up the anti-Catholic rhetoric. Peter Oborne in today's Daily Mail shows how very biased and bigoted the secular mind can be. He knows precious little about the Faith of the Church yet feels free to opine. Fair do's, but it only shows him up to be a typically careless opinion maker when it comes to church affairs. I suppose having a conscience that is being sorely tested is largely lost on him! The fact is many loyal Anglicans, who believe firmly in the traditional sacramental ways, are feeling got at by sniping and silly epithets.

I would have thought he was worthy of better things.

Drunk driving woman bishop resigns

I had never heard of the fact that a woman headed up the Lutheran Church in Germany. Now it has come to pass that she drank too much and got caught driving a car. So that's how I get to hear of her! This is relatively big news on the continent but it has gone virtually unnoticed in Britain. Margot Kaessmann appears to have been caught out on the drink front having previously stated that alcohol abuse was a concern.

Far be it for me to cast the first stone. I'd be feeling too guilty even contemplating stooping down to find one. She did wrong and admitted it freely. What I found interesting is that Ms Kaessmann has been described as the "popstar of Protestantism". She has an attractiveness that would lead the media, at least, to propound such an opinion. And that seems to be the way protestant thinking is going for those of a liberal persuasion. Ms Kaessmann is divorced and no doubt has a particular view of what kind of "good report of them which are without" a bishop should have. Liberal churchpeople have liberal interpretations, one of which suggests she may be a kind of X Factor competitor or maybe Germany's Got Talent.

What would St.Paul have made of it all!

People in glass pools shouldn't sink any lower!

The Episcopal Church seems hellbent on being the modern day version of the Synagogue of the Libertines. All things to all men, women, and 101 genders in between. The episcopacy is modelled in their image and for their designs and fancies. Out goes anything much that St.Paul spoke about. Sin is now an optional extra in the polity of the church. In fact, the only sin that can be committed in the Episcopal Church is gainsaying the liberal agenda.

It's a farflung experience from the days when the church had some moral backbone. Now the essence of faith is that there are virtually no wrongs that can be done other than be a follower of traditional doctrine.

Mary Glasspool has been elected as a female prelate in the diocese of Los Angeles. Exactly what the angels think is not credited to the shinanigans. Ms Glasspool is the very model of a modern Episcopalian. She is also a lesbian in a 21 year-old relationship. Her lifestyle is at odds with traditional teaching. She has turned the received wisdom of understanding what sin is into a rejection of the faith in favour of her own views on moral conduct. It is far more than the Pick 'N Mix at Woolworths. This is like walking into the old Woolies and demanding that the selection of chocolates and candies on offer be removed so that a whole new range can be brought in just for personal satisfaction.

When Jesus met with the woman caught in adultery he forgave her. Her accusers had fled not willing to condemn her because of their own sins. He said to her, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more". The whole thing about that was not sinning anymore. It is a state of being seemingly lost on the hierachy of the diocese of Los Angeles.

This has caused a stir in the press. They love a good contretemps in the church. But the one comment that is a bit rich is from Canon Giles Fraser, Chancellor of St Paul's and one of the founders of the liberal Inclusive Church network. He says it "is another nail in the coffin of Christian homophobia". Utter tripe, but there you go. Those opposed to rewriting the Faith are not phobic of anyone, but want sinfulness rightly explained and explored.

I do not come to the blogosphere as some paragon of virtue. We all do things we should not. But I would be very much against getting my personal baggage encoded as some sort of new sacramental doctrine for others to follow.

I see that the Archbishop of Canterbury is somewhat uneasy about the whole thing. Difficulty for him is that he has helped to get the door open a bit. He's now trying to put a brand new self-closing mechanism on it. Best really to let the Episcopal Church leave the Anglican Communion so they can follow their hearts and desires in a new direction. I don't have anything against Ms Glasspool and her beliefs. Everyone is entitled to freedom of expression and belief. I just don't want her trying to force me to follow in her footsteps.

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.

Key to Anglican distress

The Revision Committee of the Church of England (overseeing the introduction of women bishops) has just given a snub to traditionalists by not giving any safeguards to protect their beliefs. Maybe this was a change of mind due to the Pope's recent intervention in the matter. It pleases the zealots of the winner-takes-all variety. They want a church without compromise to their heady mixture of secular notions and equality measures. One such person at the forefront of this bandwagon with bullbars on it is Christina Rees. She is a long-time proponent of browbeating her opponents into eventual submission. A lot of what she says is tempered with un-Christian sentiment and a desire to promote wordly ideas over the sacred.

She is chair of a group called Women and the Church and she says that the plans show the Church is committed to equal treatment. "This is wonderful news. It's a major breakthrough as it expresses the view that men and women are equal in the sight of God. I'm glad that we have not ended up with a political compromise and the committee has instead ceded to the will of the people." The implied barb is that those who do not agree with her do not see that men and women are equal in the sight of God. Of course, that is baloney, but her insidious detractions hold sway in the prevailing world. What is lost on her is that orthodox Christianity has never understood that men and women are "equal" in this world. They have complementary states of being for living out God's purpose. One without the other diminishes humanity. However, a crude equalisation of human beings is something traditional Christians cannot accept as being part of the Catholic Faith.

Many Anglican catholics are viewed at best as a mildly eccentric group and at worst as a unsavoury cuckoo in a very precise and politically correct nest. In my own family, my catholic beliefs within Anglicanism are seen as difficult to comprehend. Most prefer a religious adherence that never questions, never sets boundaries, but has the glow of a feelgood factor. Low on the doctrine, high on the octane. And please believe me when I say I don't mean this in a nasty way. They have said as much themselves.

Robert Key is a Conservative MP. In matters of religion, though, he is anything but conservative. More like a radical with a rapier. He is a man with little sympathy for pain of the consciences of dedicated priests. He wants no truck with safeguards or episcopal oversight. It's a love it or lump it arrangement. When this measure gets to the House of Commons, some odd alliances will come to the fore. Key has no desire for compromise or compassion. Pity!

With the Pope's provision for an Anglican enclave in the Roman Catholic Church, Catholic Anglicans are caught between going or staying. If we go, we may find the journey longer than we thought. If one reads Damian Thompson's blog or Ruth Gledhill's it is full of Catholics (RC's that is) deriding Anglican orders, verbally abusing the concept of "Anglo-Catholics" (they put the inverted commas round anything catholic to highlight differences). There are those, like Damian, who see this new Anglican Rite as a great thing. If we stay, we may get our PEV's removed and a female prelate demanding the legal right to officiate at a service. This happened in the USA when women bishops, Jane Dixon in particular, tried to enter churches where they were not accepted as sacramentally valid.

The answer to the distress is really simple. Anglicanism has always been a via media. Now it's turning into via one way. I'm not about to say women cannot be bishops if that's their belief. The position currently is that we have impaired communion. Anglicans are either in or out of communion with each other. Some have left the Anglican Communion altogether. It is far better to be together with mutual respect than not.

I suspect many will stay. If we get to the stage where a woman bishop is determined to enter a church formerly under the oversight of a PEV, then life will be hard. Maybe she might call the police in. Who knows? We've been here before when priests were put in jail for contravening a law that impinged on catholic practices and belief. It may happen again. But not if faith, hope and charity have a deciding part in future developments.

The Anglican Catholic "thing" and the Woman Bishop "thing"!

I love the way some Anglicans talk about each other. The BBC is monitoring the women bishop "thing". I say that because a certain Mr.Jim Cheeseman, a member of the General Synod who opposes the plans for women bishops, says, "I think a lot of people who are in the Anglican Catholic "thing" have thought about Rome and decided they are Anglicans." That is about right. I have thought about it, but it doesn't mean I want all the other "things".

It will take a bit more thought to work it all out satisfactorily, but one "thing" I don't want is for a female prelate to come banging on the door upsetting us all. There are some very nice people on both sides of the belief divide. What we need is some kind of well-built bridge rather than a hotheaded bunch of eccliastical navvies digging deeper for a parting of the ways.

Will Walsingham fall foul of the new order?

Following the vote in General Synod, it seems the intention of the liberals in the Church of England is to sweep aside the Act of Synod which gave us Episcopal Oversight and to "force" traditionalists to accept women bishops. There appears little comfort for the views of Archbishop Carey, who signalled that there were two integrities of value. Without a legal framework, the traditionalists could be subject to the courts under the discrimination laws.

A test case could be dynamite for church/state relations. It may be based on a female prelate bringing a lawsuit against an incumbent and his PCC, or it could be a female cleric claiming sexual bias over an application to a parish vacancy. Either one could set a dangerous precedence.

What of Walsingham, that great shrine in Norfolk? The administrators state that -

Membership of the Association is open to all priests who are permitted to minister sacramentally at the Shrine: those of the Anglican Communion who are in good standing with their Bishop and episcopally ordained priests of Churches with whom the Anglican Communion is in full communion. The Guardians maintain the discipline of reserving sacramental ministry in the Shrine to male priests ordained by a male bishop. When necessary the Superior General of the Association (the Priest Administrator of the Shrine) will rule on admission to the Association, and in extreme circumstances may withdraw membership of the Association.

Could the administrators find themselves before the courts on charges of discrimination under the secular law? I think it a real possibility. After all, those who hissed at the Synod would not think twice about setting a lawsuit into motion!

And what of the Roman Catholic Church in England, and the Orthodox? Could they find themselves equally in the dock defending core beliefs against a strident opponent? It is not unlikely, I think, especially if a legal precedence has been set.

The Archbishop of Canterbury should endeavour to find a reasoned, thoughful, but above all godly way out of this tragedy.

The Church of England is Protestant again

"A couple of hours ago, the Church of England decisively severed itself from its Catholic roots. By voting to ordain women bishops without significant safeguards for traditionalists, it reasserted its identity as a Protestant Church. Whether it will be a liberal or conservative Protestant denomination remains to be seen. But any hope of unity with Rome and the Orthodox has gone forever." So writes Damian Thompson in his Telegraph blog.

It came as no surprise to me. I will see where we stand tomorrow, the we being the traditionalists. But I fear it's as the Rev David Houlding, a leading Anglo-Catholic, said. "It's getting worse – it's going downhill very badly. It's quite clear there is a pincer movement and we are being squeezed out. We are being pushed by a particular liberal agenda and we are going to have women bishops at the exclusion of any other view."

As I felt this morning, precious little discernment. More a view shaped to current fashion.

Episcopal mayhem?

Tomorrow the synod of the Church of England votes on whether to press ahead with legislation that would allow women bishops. The proponents of this innovation are all for having no system in place for allowing traditionalists the right to opt out from having to serve under a woman bishop. This morning, Christina Rees, probably the most vocal proponent of the measure, sounded all sweetness and light when she answered questions put to her by Robert Piggott, the BBC's Religious Affairs Correspondent. I say answered, but she spun her way neatly out of answering the question as to why those born into a church that had a male-only clergy should change their beliefs. Instead she suggested that life would all be cosy and comfortable without any need for safeguards.

In her world of prelatial power, all that a traditionalist priest would be required to do would be to let a female Diocesan into the parish once a year to "preach, or to teach, or to open a fete. So long as she can come in". This sounds like it has not be thought at AT ALL. It is, to my mind, typical woolly nonsense. What is this notional bishop to do? Is she to robe as a bishop during the service, or attend in a simple dress? Will she address the congregation from the pulpit with warm words of delight? Or will she feel she's in need of "explaining"? What teaching role is to be assumed? And as for opening a fete, well I would think that a bit condescending!

Now, just to put my views on the line. I am a traditionalist. I am an Anglican Catholic who cannot reconcile the Sacrament of Holy Orders with anything other than a male integrity. However, at the same time, I cannot understand how the C of E could seek to ordain women as priests but not to consecrate them as bishops. In that, I agree with Ms Rees. Where I beg to differ is that forcing a woman onto a parish where there is little or no belief that she is what she says she is is farcical.

Christina Rees had Robert Piggott believe that the option would be "for services where a male bishop would not be needed". In other words, the Mass or Confirmation would not be services where this notional Diocesan would attend. This all sounds like sweet reasonableness indeed, but, as I say, it is not thought out.

Having recently been liked to "withering on the vine" I don't see the situation as Christina Rees does. She likens it to the USA, where "it worked well". Piggott either knows little of the Episcopal Church or he chose to let her paint an unrealistic picture. When Jane Dixon was in charge in Washington, she determined to preside at a eucharistic service. When priest and vestry declined, she bussed in her own suporters to make a stand. Whatever Ms Rees says, there will be these stand-offs here unless we get safegurds built into the legislation. I can't see the Archbishop of Canterbury being too comfortable with a female prelate trying to conduct a similar pantomime here.

Why we cannot agree to live and let live, with the two "sides" living within the same tent I do not know. But Ms Rees and her friends want a "winner takes all" approach, with the likes of me kow-towing or leaving for pastures new. Sounds a bit like Shaun the Sheep's in charge of the fold!

Precious little discernment there!