"Archbishop John Hepworth, the twice-married Primate of the 'Traditional Anglican Communion', who led negotiations with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, said he was *profoundly moved* by the Pope's decision and would immediately seek the approval of the group's 400,000 members worldwide to join
- Ruth Gledhill, The Telegraph -

Granted, Pope Benedict has not been very well briefed with most of his innovative programmes on behalf of his own constituency lately (holocaust, Muslims, etc.,) but one wonders whether he was aware of the fact that this prelate of T.A.C. in Australia, once a Roman Catholic himself, has actually been divorced and re-married. If the Pope was aware of this, what do his advisors say about the suitability of such a person to be seen advising Rome on who might be likely contenders for an alliance with Rome? Is this tantamount to the Pope accepting the validity of, not only married clergy, but also divorced clergy? And what clerical status will be given to Archbishop Hepworth in the new Ordinariate? Will he become more 'Ordinary' than he is now?

Also, will the Bishops of the Church of England, and others Anglican Provinces - who hope to be given 'sanctuary' in the new Ordinariates - have to forsake their episcopal dignity as Bishops in the new rite? If so, one wonders who among them will actually cross the Tiber?

Has anyone got any sense of where this figure of 400,000 TAC Anglicans comes from? It seems, on the basis of a bit of scouting around on their various web presences to be something that is likely to be a huge inflation of reality. Does anyone know anything about them? The Traditional Anglican Church (England) is clearly minute.

Three things I don't really understand (perhaps because I am American?) 1) If C-of-E faithful have wanted to become Roman Catholic, as some FiF comments and others seem to suggest, why didn't they just do that, the more so since many of them in the UK seem to have been using RC worship material for a long time? Why does the possibility of using Anglican worship (or some of it) count more than doctrine and dogma? 2)Why are the articles spouting on about married priests? Those who left 1992-2002 and were married stayed that way, without any big effect (I guess). Surely those in the new seminaries will have to take a vow of celibacy, since if not, there will be a very big change in the RC church, as most seminarians will opt for the 'Anglican choice' 3) Do those who plan to go over because of women priests-bishops really believe that their own ordinations are null and void? How then does their present position differ from that of the women they see as 'non-ordained'? Any answers?

I continue to think that this is all very dangerous. Take the Guardian's blithe 'Evangelicals have nowhere to go'. It's not true; this is an old debate within that large and varied movement ('fishing from boats'); they can just peal off into congregationalism; and some of them have lots of cash. It is absolutely essential that our leaders speak up for 'the Broad Church', 'generous orthodoxy', etc. etc. But they don't.

Sara MacVane, I'm afraid you're not going to get answers to your questions because you're asking about logic and theology with regard to the position of FiF, when they clearly have neither. Sorry to disappoint you. ;-)

Matthew Parris is being both silly and ignorant. He should read Paul Vs article and see that the underlying issue is not about women priests or gay bishops but about the nature of the CofE. I grew up in a church both Catholic and Reformed and in 1992 it chose to abandon its claims regarding Catholic tradition and align itself with the Protestant tradition. This was further reinforced after the vote for women bishops, and a refusal to provide for those wishing to be faithful Catholic Anglicans. Stephen Platten was one-such mean minded and unpleasant bishop as recorded in the way he voted. Given his ecumenical links to Rome as a former Archbishop's Secretary and with ARCIC I imagine he will not be best pleased. But how can anybody in Rome take a man seriously who has behaved so abominably to Catholics in his own tradition?

I hope that Abp Rowan is now going to announce the setting up of an Anglican Southern Baptist Ordinariate, so that disgruntled Evangelicals have somewhere suitably Puritan to go to as well.

It is to be hoped that Forward in Faith will say "We do not think this proposal should be accepted until the whole Church agrees". Some hope of that! St Peter's mother in law must be turning in her grave!

"one-such mean minded and unpleasant bishop"

This comes immediately after this:

"a refusal to provide for those wishing to be faithful Catholic Anglicans."

Pot/kettle, anybody? I mean, it's a bit much that someone could so blithely, and without any evidence or justification whatsoever, imply that I am unfaithful while calling someone else "mean minded". Honestly. Take thou the beam from thine own eye! We all feel this kind of hurt. But the place to express it is behind closed doors with those who think like you do. You get to vent it all, make the nasty cutting jokes that we Anglo-catholics love so much, then put it all aside and treat your opponents with true agape. The problem is not that you feel this way, we all feel similar negative things. The problem is that you seem to think that's it's perfectly OK to express these ideas publically and anyone who takes offence at it is just oppressing you or something. If you come out and insult someone, and especially when you do it by accusing them of things of which you are patently guilty, and if you keep doing that for decades, you can't expect that people are going to be nice to you. If you DIDN'T behave like that and people were still nasty to you, you'd have a basis for a claim of oppression. As it is, you just look sullen and churlish.

I've been defending anti-OOW people for quite some time, since, having once been in your camp, I understand the feelings of hurt and betrayal, as well as the sense that those on the "other side" just don't get it. I have tried to point out that this is not about misogyny, but there are real theological issues that need to be addressed, not dismissed as old fashioned. I have tried to point out that it is not enough to address those issues once three decades ago and then leave it. I have talked about the woeful lack of catechesis from liberals about anything change they want to make. They do often seem to think that what they want to do is so selfevidently righteous that those of us who doubt are too intellectually, and spiritually, inferior to bother with. Then you turn around and do this. I feel like I've been trying to plead your case and you've stabbed me in the back. Thanks.

Sara MacVane has posted three questions which I feel should not be ignored.

1) If C-of-E faithful have wanted to become Roman Catholic, as some FiF comments and others seem to suggest, why didn't they just do that, the more so since many of them in the UK seem to have been using RC worship material for a long time? Why does the possibility of using Anglican worship (or some of it) count more than doctrine and dogma?

I can only speak for myself. I am an American Episcopal priest, retired. I would have loved to go to Rome had it been just like my church at home - good music - good liturgy and good preaching. Rome in the US at least has been weak on music and liturgy and preaching. I have never had a problem with Rome's theology, although its practical applications are sometimes troubling - contraception - divorce etc. I know that celebrate male priesthood is a matter of discipline nor revealed dogma. Still the application of discipline is a problem for me in this and other areas.

2)Why are the articles spouting on about married priests? Those who left 1992-2002 and were married stayed that way, without any big effect (I guess). Surely those in the new seminaries will have to take a vow of celibacy, since if not, there will be a very big change in the RC church, as most seminarians will opt for the 'Anglican choice'

As stated above the married priests issue is a disciplinary one. It can be changed by fiat. This is only critical for currently married Anglican priests who would like to go to Rome, be re-ordained and keep their wives. The fact that Rome has offered this option may may spook Roman clergy.

3) Do those who plan to go over because of women priests-bishops really believe that their own ordinations are null and void? How then does their present position differ from that of the women they see as 'non-ordained'?

It is critical to make the conversation about Orders rather than about women priests or gay men (no one appears to get very exercised about lesbian women). The main issue which will probably prevent me from going over is the fact that I would have to renounce my Orders and the validity of all that I have done as a priest. Only if that issue were resolved would I get to the questions about how women's ordination or gay consecration to the Episcopate might prevent me from leaving.

It seems to me that we now have both ends of the spectrum. Protestants bothered by gays and women cane go to ACNA or its like. Catholics bothered by the same can go to Rome. What is left is we who are concerned for women and gays but are left with no theology, Protestants and Catholics having left. We become good intentioned Unitarians, I fear.

Sara... as a former FinF member from England and now a Canadian RC convert, perhaps I can offer a more constructive answer than Toby Forward's insulting and bigoted remarks.

As an Anglo-Catholic, I wanted to practise the Catholic faith in the church of my baptism, confirmation and long-standing family tradition. I didn't want to become a Roman Catholic, or as you say, I would have done so. After the ordination of women priests in England, the catholicity of most English bishops and clergy became questionable at best - but we were able to maintain our tradition with the 'flying bishops' arrangement. No such provision existed in Canada, so when I emigrated, I had a choice to make. Abandon 'small c' catholicism or go to Rome. Obviously I chose Rome. Now with women bishops on the horizon, and the hatred of people like Toby determined to make sure the special arrangements are done away with, English FinF members are faced with that same choice - abandon the catholic faith and join the protestant sect that the CofE is becoming, or go to Rome.

I suspect you're absolutely right about the married clergy issue - the containment of the Anglican converts in the Ordinariate will minimize the impact of married clergy on the main RC church. A few married seminarians might be accepted, I imagine those who are already training for the Anglican priesthood might be accepted under this arrangement but it won't be for everyone and it won't be open to cradle RCs. Nor would I expect it to last beyond the very first years of the arrangement.

When clergy converted in 1992 they were re-ordained, but as Cardinal Hume said at the time, they were not required to deny any of their past.

Every now and again Damian puts aside the dripping fangs and bile to produce an honest and accurate report based on his private knowledge, excellent sources and deep insight.

In my view this is one of those pieces.

He wrote a similarly starting and honest piece about Rowan Williams several year ago and I recall being stunned by its accuracy and insight.

He can be a superb journalist .......

We will see how many will be willing to go to Rome once they find they will not be able to take the buildings (and miters!) with them, and they will have to rent space at the local pub for their masses, or worse, at the local RC church, and be under the thumb of the not so welcoming local monsignor!

Au contraire--Matthew Parris is dead on. I speak from 27 years teaching at a Catholic college, as an Episcopalian inside outsider. There's a yawning credibility gap between Papists-in-the-pew (and many RC priests) on the one hand and the official policy-makers in Rome. If the upper administration of the RC Church--the Pope, his retinue and the personal appointees of him and his predecessor--were lopped off there would be married priests, both male and female, and intercommunion, if not flat out church union.

Jeremy, one can learn about the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) from their web site at http://acahomeorg0.web701.discountasp.net/tac/tac_index.aspx. They are an international body, active in North America, Central America, and especially in Australia and the western Pacific. The number of 400,000 appears to be the international total.

TAC is not especially new to confusion. For example, the person designated their Bishop for the Armed Forces (within their American branch, the Anglican Church in America) has also tried to continue to function as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Ford - my comments about faithful Catholic Anglicans are not intended to demean you in any way. Given what you write, I suspect you would have been rather more generous than was Stephen Platten at the Women Bishops vote in General Synod last year? You have no idea how revolted the Catholic (of a differing view to you, but of course I acknowledge your use of the same term) people were by the way they were treated. It was a disgrace...and you can search these boards for the disgusting triumphalism of one Giles Fraser at the time, if you want other names mentioned.

HE Baber. I take your point and agree. But where Matthew Parris is spot off is in failing to recognise that the majority of converts will feel on the side of the Papists in the Pew.

Martin Reynolds,

Here and just about everywhere your main concern seems to be to demonstrate just how far 'in the know' you are. Some of us have more serious concerns, and indeed the concerns themselves seem a lot more serious.

H.E. Baber,

What you say chimes with my own experience in the UK and in Europe. That is why it is extremely important for practising Christians of all denominations to break 'rules' and avail themselves of, and demand, practical intercommunion. That way, the 'bottom-up' revolution will undermine and sweep away the 'top-down' diktats, still powerful, of ever more unrepresentative hierarchies. The site of Fr Mark Via Integra provides lots of hopeful documentation.

"When clergy converted in 1992 they were re-ordained, but as Cardinal Hume said at the time, they were not required to deny any of their past. "

Well, that seems disingenuous, seeing that by presenting themselves for ordination they were, by action if not by words, proclaiming that they were laymen up to that point.

John .... I do not have the benefit of "being in the know" in at least one important respect - that is - I do not know who you are! Perhaps you would like to share that in the light of your remark?

I post rarely, but always in my own name - and try to contribute information when I have it, I have been around a while. I am sorry if you find my posts self-agrandising, they are just what I have gathered from being around so long.

I find it hard to understand your comment in the light of what I contributed on this thread. I trained as a journalist and for many years when I worked as LGCM's Director of Communication had to read a mountain of press reporting and comment. You might disagree with my assesment of Damian's piece in the Telegraph but I think my background and professional experience gives my judgment some credibility, if not, it seems with you.

I do not know what unknown concerns you mean - but I assure you my concerns are serious and I can see no reason why you or any other could doubt that.

Speak openly - do not hide .......

BillyD: obviously clergy who leave their denomination automatically become laymen. The same would be true of a RC priest going the other way. However, the point Cardinal Hume made was that those clergy were laymen at that point but they remained free to believe in the validity of their ministry in the CofE. Rome didn't recognize but neither did Rome require renunciation. I agree it could be considers fudge but then that's always been a staple diet of Anglicans of all persuasions.

Benedict's initiative sidelined not only the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity and the Archbishop of Canterbury but also Catholic Bishops in England and Wales and everywhere else. Similarly his reintegration of the SSPX sidelined Catholic Bishops of France and elsewhere, who were fiercely opposed (and who no doubt indulged some secret "I told you so" Schadenfreude when the Williamson scandal broke). Similarly, in issuing the Motu Proprio reinstating the Mass of 1962 he undercut the authority of bishops. In all three cases he makes special arrangements to cater to what he sees as the religious freedom and spiritual needs of ultra-traditionalists. In each case he appeals to the idea of church unity and a generous Catholic embrace of those who have been alienated.

"What is left is we who are concerned for women and gays but are left with no theology, Protestants and Catholics having left. We become good intentioned Unitarians, I fear." - Posted by Allan K

Um, speak for yourself, Allan. The (Trinitarian!!!) theology of the Via Media stands on its own just fine w/o the extremist malcontents...

Clive, I can't speak about 'clergy', but priests who leave their denomination remain priests, lapsed or out of communion, or something else, but still priests. A priest who returned would need to accept canonical obedience to a bishop, but would not be reordained. Of course, it depends as well on the recognition of orders. RC or CofE priests who made that journey away and back would find it to be simple and as I have described. An RC priest who became an Anglican would not be re-ordained, but an Anglican who became an RC would be (re)ordained. I was present at the reception of an Anglican priest into the RC church. The ceremony not only declared his ordination to be invalid, but also questioned his confirmation, so the priest, who had many years ago been confirmed in the Church of England, by a bishop, was provisionally reconfirmed by the parish priest, to the dismay of many of the members of the Church of England who were present. It's a funny old world, isn't it?

"St Peter's mother in law must be turning in her grave!" - David Redrobe, on Thursday -

Now here's a pretty pickle regarding the need for a priest/bishop to be celibate in the RC Church.
If Peter really did have a mother-in-law - as the scriptures suggest - whatever happened to his wife? And was Jesus actually aware that Peter had been married when he appointed him the very first Pontifex Maximus? And how might that affect the culture of celibacy in the RC Church today? One question crops up here: Could Jesus have been mistaken - in not appointing a celibate Pope?

How can you be without a theology unless you never think about God. That's all theology is. All the garbage the roaring bishops and their malcontents demand is just a sort of intellectual self-pleasuring. Just another specialized degree, and that is useless for faith. I'm sure there's some need somewhere for N. T. Wright's and such, but it's only to fill out the invite list for the faculty cocktail party, certainly nothing to do with a living faith!

Theologians are not some sort of necessity unless you completely relinquish your faith!

Thank you, Clive for your thoughtful and articulate answer. I guess my question still is, why would anyone worship as an Anglican if they believed in papal infallibility and what the announcement says is the 'Petrine ministry as willed by Christ', why would anyone who worshipped as an Anglican (and especially presided as an Anglican priest) use RC worship services (part of my ordination agreement was to use services of the C-of-E) and yet remain in the Anglican 'tradition', and why would anyone who really believed in his ordination agree to be reordained. But maybe it is a slow discovery (like so many discoveries) which has to work itself out in our lives and our religious sensitivity. That at least makes more sense to me.

I sincerely hope JCF is correct and that traditional via media theology will carry the day but I am fearful. At least in the US there is precious little theological understanding of any kind. Pragmatism is triumphant. Unitarianism here is understood as "the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and the neighborhood of Boston". Just substitute your own local city or town and you pretty much describe US Episcopalianism.

Martin,

I wrote sharply. I apologise. I know who you are. Obviously, I am on the same side as you in almost all things. But I would like to restate the point more generally (and without now reference to you). People can get carried away with the sheer newsiness of it all and the excitement of speculating or revealing who said what to whom when under what circumstances. All that can be important but can also distract from the sheer seriousness of things - and I'm afraid I think the repercussions of this Pope's intervention (malign as I think it is) are potentially extremely serious.

I only don't 'reveal' identity (plenty of people know it) because I don't want my employer to know how much time I waste (from one point of view) on this stuff.

I'm John Moles, Professor of Latin, Newcastle University.

In the ARCIC discussions, did the Anglican partners not recognize the Petrine ministry -- more as something like a primacy of honor, than as the jurisdictional primacy and infallibility defined at Vatican I?

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) statement of Venice (1976) is here: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ministry/ecumenical/dialogues/catholic/arcic/docs/authority_in_the_church_I.cfm#s6

Par. 24 b says: 'The First Vatican Council of 1870 uses the language of "divine right" of the successors of Peter. This language has no clear interpretation in modern Roman Catholic theology. If it is understood as affirming that the universal primacy of the bishop of Rome is part of God's design for the universal koinonia then it need not be a matter of disagreement.'

"You have no idea how revolted the Catholic (of a differing view to you, but of course I acknowledge your use of the same term) people were by the way they were treated."

I suspect I have a far better idea than you think I do. But, as I said, you can't spend three decades implying that other people's Christianity is defective, even non-existent, and then expect them to be nice to you. Sure, it is their Christian calling to do so, but none of us are all that good at following our Christian calling. That's why there's confession. And you can't expect to demand that the Church make some very unCatholic arrangements for you, because the idea of a "flying bishop" is no more part of the Catholic Tradition than ordained women, and still be able to claim that your catholicity is some how more "catholic" than those who support OOW.

As a comment on Spirit of Vatican II: but of course the ARCIC agreements have no over-all authority in the Anglican Communion and would only count as authentic expressions of an Anglican position in a particular province when and if the General Synod of that province so decided. However even that would not constitute a theological position to be held by all, since beyond the creeds, there is little or nothing that counts as obligatory and universal Anglican belief.

Sara, thanks for your kind words. Indeed I think it's all a question in the end of an individual journey in Christ. For the specific answers around ordination and re-ordination you'd have to ask those priests concerned and you'd probably get as many different answers as there are priests. The one reception ceremony of a former Anglican priest that I attended was where the words of Cardinal Hume I quoted were spoken by him in his homily, so there was no renunciation there.

Also it's worth saying that given my experience in Canada, time heals many things. I count an Anglican Church of Canada female priest as a friend here, and we can completely respect one another's views and choices, because the 'fight' is long since over. This time will come in England as well.

Why would Anglo-Papists not already have left? Probably the music and the incense, at least in part. And the pastoral considerations of their people and their communities. I had a hard time leaving the music and the incense behind, as well as going through a year of RCIA, but like many things that seem unpalatable, in the end it has done me a lot of good.

The parish where I was received has an 8pm Mass attended mostly by students and in its own way, there is as much spiritual uplift in a thousand young people who actually want to be at Mass of their own volition as there is in all the smoke in the world.

I don't think this arrangement will necessarily mean people coming to Rome who have not already been thinking about it - it will just make it easier and mean they have less to lose.

"BillyD: obviously clergy who leave their denomination automatically become laymen. The same would be true of a RC priest going the other way." - Clive, on Frioday -

Not So! At least, not necessarily in the Anglican Church in New Zealand. I recall at least one R.C. priest being 'Received' by the Anglican Church - no renunciation of his Orders, merely a need to make a statement regarding his fealty to the Statutses and Ordinances of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Oh Yes! And, of course, an oath of loyalty to his new Bishop.

"At least in the US there is precious little theological understanding of any kind."

Geez louise, AllanK: do you ever tire of speaking for yourself, in the "Here's looking down at you!" voice? [See re "MarkBrunson at Friday, 23 October 2009 at 9:50am BST", above!]

"Unitarianism here is understood as 'the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and the neighborhood of Boston'. Just substitute your own local city or town and you pretty much describe US Episcopalianism."

You know nothing about my struggling little Episcopal parish, in my suffering little Michigan (!) town---nor, I suspect, about most of TEC, and most Episcopalians. Flippant comparisons to Unitarians say nothing about Episcopalians (OR Unitarians!), only about you. Lord have mercy...

OK John, please, take a pot at me anytime.

I am sorry that my posts gave you cause for irritation - I am unaware of the spirit you describe - though sometimes it might seem that I am more interested in style and form rather than substance.

Alan K knows nothing about the Episcopal Church I have known and loved for thirty-three years, following my reception from the Roman Catholic Church.

I have been a member of several Anglo Catholic parishes during this time, plus a few in-between-high-and-low church parishes, and, in my business and vacation travels, have visited probably fifteen Episcopal parishes in several states, from North to South and East to West, plus two Episcopal parishes outside the US, one in Paris and one in Rome.

None, repeat NONE, even remotely resemble what Alak K flagrantly suggests is the mindset or theme of the Episcopal Church today.

He is wrong, and we deserve his apology for his non-Trinitarian slanders.

St Peter was a widower.

By the way no one discusses the money factor.. where is the money to finance this. This will be the decising factor.

After 30 years in the US the pastoral provision has brought about a hundred men into the Catholic priesthood. The seven parishes ann d communities are mainly attended by cradle Catholics.

Meanwhile there are nearly 700 former Ctholic priests in TEC and literally tens of thousands of former Catholics...including the presiding bishop.
Yet that does not make a headline.

He can't help it, JCF - he's one of those raised to believe that if it wasn't frosted with obscure jargon, decorated with pointless false erudition, chewed by the ecclesial structure, and passed out through the bowels of some seminary, and wiped onto at least 500 pages of high grade paper in type as dense and obscure as the terminology and process it describes, it can't be real theology. Why, then, theology would be something just any plain old human being could do!

When did "theologian" come to mean someone whose head'll explode if he takes it out of the clouds of his own (self-satisfied) intellect or should actually reflect enough to form a single original thought or new understanding?

No wonder no one has much use for organized religion anymore.

"St Peter was a widower."

Really? Where does it say that, RIW? Citation on Simon Peter's wife being dead at the time of his being chosen, please.

"St Peter was a widower." - Robert I Williams -

Chapter and verse of Scripture, please, Robert!

Or was this one of the secret dictats of one of the Popes of Rome - or of Avignon, perhaps?

Or, are you making a case for widowed clergymen being virgo intacta and thus celibate?

1 Cor 9:5 " Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?"

Pat O' Neill, don't hold your breath.

Robert I Williams; Where are you?
What about the provenance of Saint Peter's widowhood at the time Jesus chose him to be the first Pontifex Maximus? (Try the Pope @ Vat 69)

Toby:

Oh, I'm not. Blue is not my color.

"Meanwhile there are nearly 700 former Ctholic priests in TEC and literally tens of thousands of former Catholics...including the presiding bishop.
Yet that does not make a headline."

That's because we don't go trolling for them, RIW.

"Ctholic priests"

Lovecraftian clergy? Sorry.

Meanwhile there are nearly 700 former Catholic priests in TEC

Dunno about TEC but I trained alongside one in Oxford over 25 years ago who was doing a short conversion course before going (without any question of 'reordination') to a parish.

"The same would be true of a RC priest going the other way."

As others have pointed out, this is absolutely not true. Anglicanism recognizes the orders of other Churches having the historical episcopate, including the RCC, the Orthodox, the Church of Sweden, and the Orthodox. Any of their priests making the switch to Anglicanism is not re-ordained, even conditionally. Neither do we re-confirm people from those bodies becoming Anglicans.