It's done.
According to more than one report, there was weeping.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/world/europe/08anglican.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
LONDON — The governing body of the Anglican Church in Britain voted on Monday to approve the appointment of women as bishops, a step that appeared to risk a schism in the church in its historic homeland as the Anglican church worldwide faces one of the most serious threats to its unity in its history, over the ordination of gay clergy members.
The vote came 16 years after the synod voted, after similarly fractious debate, to approve the ordination of women as ministers within the British church. But traditionalists unreconciled to the end of the male monopoly [reporting? or an opinion piece?] within the clergy revived the battle over the issue of approving women as bishops, warning that it could lead to a breakup of the church in Britain....
The vote came at an awkward time for the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury...This month, Archbishop Williams will host the Lambeth Conference in London, a two-week gathering of Anglican bishops from across the world that meets every 10 years. This year’s meeting will seek ways of preventing a breakup of the communion over differences that have pitted the Episcopal Church in the United States against conservatives, mainly from Africa, who oppose the ordination of gay priests and bishops, and the appointment of women as priests and bishops....
Ahead of the synod in York, traditionalists claimed to have the backing of 1,300 clergy members in Britain who were prepared to leave the church rather than accept women as bishops. ...
But traditionalists emerging from the meeting vowed to continue their fight and hinted that the risk of a breakup of the church remained. Several British newspapers reported in recent days that a group of British Anglican bishops traveled to Rome ahead of the vote in York to meet senior Vatican officials to explore the possibility of so-called Anglo-Catholic traditionalists quitting the Church of England and joining the Roman Catholic Church.
Spokesmen for the Church of England, and the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Britain, said they had no knowledge of any meeting in Rome. But a meeting in Rome, if it occurred, would be an echo of what happened when the church first voted to admit women as priests, when traditionalists within the church, including about 500 clergymen, broke away and joined the Roman Catholic Church.
“It’s getting worse; it’s going downhill very badly,” the Rev. David Houlding, a leader of the traditionalists...
The voting in York rejected a compromise proposal put forward in the last days before the synod by one of the church’s most senior bishops in Britain, the Rt. Rev. John Packer, who is bishop of Ripon and Leeds. The compromise would have created a group of three so-called super-bishops, chosen from among traditionalists, who would be given authority over parishes that refuse to accept the leadership of a female bishop or priest.
But the proposal met with strong resistance among liberals...
Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
I hope, for its own sake, that the Catholic Church is paying close attention to what is happening to the Church of England, which is an organisation that has let itself become carried too far away by the spirits and principalities of the age.
People are looking for constancy, strength and absolute morals in an age of growing disparity; they are not looking for the liberal, sub-secular relativism that the C of E offers.
This is why, in Britain, the number of Catholic church-goers has now overtaken the number of Anglican ones.
Yes, but not yet the number of non-Catholic ones. If you include dissenters, i.e baptists, pentecostalists,presbyterians and etcetera, which all used to incorporated in the C of E prior to the mid 17th C, Protestants still outnumber Roman Catholics significantly, I believe.
May all Christians, Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox unite, in the love of God, around what is important in these dark days and preach the essence of the gospel in the name of unity not uniformity.
"I hope, for its own sake, that the Catholic Church is paying close attention to what is happening to the Church of England, which is an organisation that has let itself become carried too far away by the spirits and principalities of the age. "
I hope and pray... or we can follow it over the cliff.
"May all Christians, Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox unite, in the love of God, around what is important in these dark days and preach the essence of the gospel in the name of unity not uniformity."
Amen and amen!
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
To what extent would you say the Preaching of the Gospel is the same as saving the Liturgy?
How much lack of non-uniformity in the Liturgy?
"To what extent would you say the Preaching of the Gospel is the same as saving the Liturgy?"
Hmmm... well, the Liturgy, properly speaking has two basic functions; the first is the worship of God, the second the sanctification of the people.
If we "execute" it properly, in obedience and giving ourselves to it utterly, the sanctification it effects in us will cause us to go and and live the mission it gives us -- the preach the Gospel, to live the Gospel.
"How much lack of non-uniformity in the Liturgy?"
Not sure I understand the question.
But uniformity isn't an absolute value, or even a goal.
Obedience, (which would include efforts at, say, rubrical precision, among other things,) wouldn't produce uniformity.
But it would preclude fabrications, carelessness, ugliness, self-centeredness... and all the things that deform the Liturgy.
When the Liturgy is deformed, it does not accomplish its purpose as well as it could.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Yes, my question phrasing was clumsy.
Presuming that unity matters above uniformity I was suppoing that the notion of a liturgy might want to believe that there wa only 'right' way of doing it.
And that to me implies a desire for uniformity.
Can there be diversity and multiplicity of styles and types of liturgy that are all valid? Or is there only one true liturgical form?
And with respect to the belief substructure of liturgy (as it were) do you believe it necessary for participants in the eucharit to believe in transubstantiation. Or might such a belief be optional?
bit tipsy, sorry, excuse the typos that are irredeemably uncorrectable
"Can there be diversity and multiplicity of styles and types of liturgy that are all valid? Or is there only one true liturgical form?"
Absolutely, and absolutely not.
I was raised Roman Catholic, and practice that, but for long sections of my life I attended the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy exclusively.
I am discovering, as the opportunity to attend the Tridentine Mass, and thus for me to become familiar with it, becomes available, that my reaction to it is NOT what I expected it to be.
I was sure I would either find it clearly superior to the Missa Normativa and grow to dread attending the latter, or find it "did nothing for me" and I would reject it.
Instead I find that I love them both, and my particiaption in one enriches my participation in the other, without any objective changes needing to be effected by the celebrants and liturgists repsonsible for either, (and they could both use some improvement when I've seen them, usually ;oP) -- it is just my eyes and ears that have changed.
And I would, more than anything, like to participate in an Anglican Use Catholic parish, but there is no opportunity -- however, I welcome its existence in the Church.
I think licit, thoughtful variety a good thing, as long as all elements are the very best we can manage, and we never stop striving toward an ideal.
I do think there are matters of dogma that are NOT subject to options.
A right understanding of the Real Presence would be one of them.
Non-negotiable.
Papal priamcy on the other hand...
My own knowledge of ecclesiology is not extensive enough, and my thoughts on it unformed, so I can't articulate it, but I think there would be some form of unity possible in which the Vicar of Rome assumes the position of first among equals in a way that is amenable both to Roman and Other Catholics.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
I only asked because of your use of the definite article "The" in "Save THE Liturgy"...which to me suggests one type; though i see it could mean one standard of validity which could encompass various forms.
Speaking as an Anglican and one who has only recently started attending the Eucharist at all (for comlicated reasons), the Real Presence teaching is not in my bones. That said I have no personal objection to it if people wish to believe it.
But do they have to? I dont mean do they have to if they wish to be Roman Catholics (yes, since it is a feature of membership) but do they have to if they are to qualify as Christians in the eyes of God.
The worry, presumably, from a Protestant perspective is related to idolatry concerns, I imagine, as well as related to a superstitiousness that might be associated with it, even though it wouldn't no doubt be viewed in this light by Catholics.
Ultimately I am interested in the unity of all Christians, not only in all Catholics. Protestants, after all, used to be Catholics in an era when the word Cathoic was as universal as its meaning suggests.
That was why I asked about which was more primary, the Gospel, or the liturgy, since far more common ground is felt between all Christians regarding the former than the latter.
Ultimately to me, Christian belief, and how it transforms moral praxis in the real world (to the end of saving the world) matters more than the specifics of worship (which I see more as an aid and support to belief and an expresive outlet for ones feelings of dependency on and gratitude to God). I do not see Worship as the primarily important thing..because of its intrinsic potentiality for being a focus of dissension amongst Christians. It shouldn't be something which, in arguments relating to its minutae, should fragment and divide Christians.
After all, God is not a narcissist. He doesnt need our worship for himself. In my opinion, he is not like an insecure, vain Roman Emperor, hungry for our reassuring praise for himself, and so for that reason full of demands that it be expressed in this way and not in that way. Yes he accepts our praise and is glad to receive it since it keeps our focus on him, with all the positive consequences for us and our World that that entails.
What is most important to him is that we as Christians love one another and be the light in the World that we can be.
Still, that said, I do not doubt the value and virtue of public acts of worship according to ordered and uplifting forms,and that some can be better, richer and more beneficial than others.
Anyway, I need to look into the history and meaning of transubstantion some more.
Personally, for the sake of history and tradition, I see no problem with acccepting The Bishop of Rome as First amongst equals, as long as it is a real equality that is being meant.
I cant help suspecting that if Jesus had wanted Uniformity over Unity he would have chosen just one disciple to pass on his legacy, not 12.
"I only asked because of your use of the definite article 'The' in 'Save THE Liturgy'...which to me suggests one type; though i see it could mean one standard of validity which could encompass various forms."
No, many manifestations, all but reflections of the one, true Liturgy, the Lamb's High Feast.
The use of "the" is because I coined the phrase as a playful reference to an advertizing slogan of the TV show Heroes, ("save the cheerleader, save the world.")
"do they have to [believe]if they are to qualify as Christians in the eyes of God"
I think God's qualifying exams are less strenuous than those mam creates.
But I also think God sees our hearts and knows our souls and discenrs our belifs on a level far beyond what we ourselves manage.
I even think He, the Author of Logic, gives us credit for accepting conclusions when all we are aware of having accepted are premises, if that makes any sense.
Long post of yours, many thoughts, I'm going to come back later and digest it, have to get to the choir loft for a wedding!
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Post a Comment