consents sought for Springfield election
A new bishop for the Diocese of Springfield was elected recently. See the official announcement: The Rev. Daniel Hayden Martins elected the 11th Bishop of Springfield.
There have been objections to his election, and rather unusually a diocese in which he had previously served has been one of those raising them. See Bishop Jerry Lamb and Standing Committee send letter regarding consent of Bishop-elect Dan Martins.
This was all reported by ENS in SAN JOAQUIN: Bishop, Standing Committee raise ‘grave concerns’ about Springfield election.
Others however have spoken up in his support, starting with his current diocesan, Bishop Edward Little: see Bishop Little on Dan Martins.
And also the group known as Concerned Laity of the Springfield Diocese.
And there is another letter of support from a group of people who are deputies to General Convention and /or on Executive Council.
Fr Dan Martins has himself been a blogger for some years, see Confessions of a Carioca.
It’s all a very far cry from the hidden machinations of the Crown Nominations Commission.
5 CommentsBishop of Wakefield writes about homophobia
The Bishop of Wakefield, Stephen Platten, wrote an article in last week’s Church Times in which he argued that the C of E should take a lead in engaging with gay people. Its prejudices need challenging, he said.
Read his article in full at Listen, and build a less homophobic society.
OTHER people’s problems and opportunities can often remain theoretical, until they hit us clearly in the face. I learnt this sharply when I accepted an invitation recently to visit a group in Halifax.
We arrived at the secret destination (it is still seen as too dangerous to publicise the venue), both my colleague and I wearing clerical collars. We were warmly welcomed by one ebullient young man, although others were suspicious. In some sections of the room, conversation died, as glances were stolen. In a couple of cases, there was almost a hysterical nervousness, and individuals bounded over to talk at us.
The event was a regular evening meeting of Gay and Lesbian Youth in Calderdale. Half a dozen people made a presentation, aimed particularly (but not uniquely) at the Christian Churches…
Colin Coward has written an article which comments on this piece. You can read that at Two cheers for Bishop Stephen Platten.
6 Comments…Having re-read the article, I want to be more critical, especially since bishop Stephen wants the Church universal to take a lead in ‘real’ listening. My first message back to Bishop Stephen is that it’s a bit rich to ask the Church to take a lead in ‘real’ listening. The Church is so far behind secular society which having undertaken a process of ‘real listening’ has mostly dealt with the ethical, moral, emotional and legal dimensions of homophobia and has already transformed the landscape for LGBT people. It is primarily in the church, and in particular pockets of society, in football, in schools that homophobia continues.
Bishop Stephen says the Church is not unlike our culture in which there are a variety of views with both calls for equality and rampant homophobia. I do not meet rampant homophobia in society, but in the church I meet an all-persuasive prejudice which has a rampantly homophobic effect. Try getting appointed to a new post in the church if you are in a civil partnership or recommending to a lesbian, gay or transgender seeker a church in which you can confidently guarantee they are going to receive a prejudice–free welcome. Changing Attitude has just 30 churches out of 10,000 listed in our Welcoming and Open scheme…
Sunday programme discussion of Covenant
The Bishop of St Asaph, Gregory Cameron, and Dr Lesley Fellows discussed the Covenant on the BBC radio programme Sunday this morning.
The programme is available on iPlayer for those who can receive it, or as a podcast, over here.
The BBC’s description of the item from this page:
The Church of England Synod will meet this month to discuss the proposed Anglican Covenant. But the covenant itself is now under attack from both Liberals and Conservatives. Ed speaks to Rev Dr Lesley Fellows who heads the newly formed No Anglican Covenant Coalition, and the Bishop of Asaph Dr Gregory Cameron.
The item starts about 24 minutes in.
9 Commentsbishops to resign on Monday
There are reports that both Provincial Episcopal Visitors in the Province of Canterbury are to resign, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury is to make an announcement about this on Monday.
This substantiates a story first published by Rocco Palmo on Twitter on 26 October.
There is a report in today’s Times newspaper which is only available online by subscription. But the following other items are available:
Telegraph Damian Thompson Report: Archbishop of Canterbury ‘to announce conversion of two bishops to Rome on Monday’
news.com.au Anglican bishops set to resign over the ordination of women
And Ed Tomlinson has written about it over here, and Bishop Andrew Burnham has added a comment there too.
29 CommentsIs the Anglican Covenant Catholic?
Fr Matthew Duckett has written an article entitled Is the Anglican Covenant Catholic?
9 CommentsIn November General Synod will be asked to approve a draft Act of Synod adopting the Anglican Communion Covenant. This is being presented primarily as a way of dealing with disputes and living together as a family of churches. But it is also an ecclesiological statement; it expresses a particular understanding of what it is to be the church, of what “church” and “communion” mean. As the Covenant text makes clear, accepting the Covenant entails accepting this understanding of the church. But is it an understanding that Anglican Catholics can recognise and accept?
As John Riches has pointed out, the Covenant, like the Windsor Report before it, draws on different and sometimes conflicting ecclesiologies. So its vision of what the Church is, and consequently what communion is, is incoherent. Above all, it is the lack of a clear Eucharistic ecclesiology, and the prevalence of other views which owe much to the Reformation, which is a serious obstacle for anyone approaching the Covenant from a Catholic perspective…
Gregory Cameron writes to the Church Times
The Bishop of St Asaph, Gregory Cameron, has written a long letter to the Church Times about the recent advertisement opposing the Anglican Covenant.
His letter is available to read in full here.
Sir, — There was a very curious document in last week’s Church Times (full-page advertisement, page 7). In it, two organisations, Inclusive Church and Modern Church, for which I have formerly had the highest regard, turned themselves into the nearest to an ecclesiastical BNP that I have encountered.
They resort to the old tactics of misinformation and scaremongering about foreigners and outside influences to whip up a campaign against the Anglican Covenant, and replace reasoned argument with a “Man the barricades!” mentality that is little short of breathtaking…
There is also a news article about this, see Ed Beavan ‘Little Englander’ jibe at Covenant advert.
A BISHOP has compared two groups opposing the Anglican Covenant to “an ecclesiastical BNP”. They are “latter-day Little Englanders”, he says…
…The Revd Jonathan Clatworthy, general secretary of Modern Church, said this week that the Covenant had come out of the debate in the Communion over gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions, but this had been “played down by the Covenant’s proponents”.
He denied the charge of scaremongering. Conservative bishops “have made it quite clear the whole point of the Covenant is to exclude the United States”, he said.
“It’s really a case of allowing differences of opinions to be heard and explored, and that would be prevented by the Covenant as the text says when there is a big controversy you can appeal to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, and they will lay down a decision that will be binding for all Anglicans.”
He said that it would lead to a “centralisation of power” and make the Church of England a “more confessional Church”, making “Anglicanism more like Roman Catholicism with a mighty Magisterium”…
And the Question of the Week in the Church Times is Should the Church of England reject the Anglican Covenant?
32 Commentsarticles about the Covenant
ENS reported yesterday on the latest development in International campaign launched against Anglican Covenant.
This evening the Telegraph has reported on developments in the English campaign in Bishop brands his liberal critics ‘little Englanders’ as new gay row hits Church by Tim Ross.
…The covenant was deemed necessary after international criticism from conservative Anglicans followed the ordination of the Rt Rev Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2004.
Two liberal groups, Inclusive Church and Modern Church, have launched a campaign against the covenant plan, which they say is overwhelmingly backed by traditionalists.
The critics ran an advertisement in the Church Times claiming that the plan represented a move to install an “authoritarian leadership” and “the biggest change to the Church since the Reformation”.
However, the Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt Rev Gregory Cameron, who was on the committee that drew up the covenant, described the opponents as “latter-day little Englanders”.
In a letter to the Church Times, he said the two groups had “turned themselves into the nearest to an ecclesiastical BNP that I have encountered”.
He continued: “They resort to the old tactics of misinformation and scaremongering about foreigners and outside influences to whip up a campaign against the Anglican Covenant and replace reasoned argument with a ‘Man the barricades!’ mentality that is little short of breathtaking”…
Meanwhile Ekklesia has published these two articles relating to the Covenant:
- Savi Hensman Anglican Covenant ignores the problem of evil
And Bishop Alan Wilson has written Encouraging what engagement? How?
Note: There is a particularly good comments thread on this article.
11 CommentsLooking at the Covenant documentation for General Synod, it seems one laudable aim is to promote closer engagement between Churches.
Institutional structures can assist as well as impede strong and fruitful relationships, of course. Having a formal marriage certificate doesn’t stop marriage partners loving each other — indeed it ought to help, all other things being equal. What it cannot do is make people love one another.
Direct meeting is a gospel value. And if this is the aim, one way to judge the Covenant proposal will be to ask “How might it deliver what kind of closer engagement between Churches?” A new refereeing institution could bring churches together when they make decisions others abhor. That‘s the theory, rather like requiring divorcing couples to seek counselling…
Bishop Tom Wright gives interview
The Church of Ireland Gazette has an exclusive story. See Church of England should drop plans for women Bishops if major split would result, Bishop Tom Wright tells Gazette.
Speaking to [Ian Ellis] the Gazette editor in an interview while visiting Ireland, Bishop Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham and now a Research Professor at the University of St Andrews, has said that the Church of England should not proceed to the consecration of women as Bishops if the move were to create a large division.
He said: “my own position is quite clear on this, that I have supported women Bishops in print and in person. I’ve spoken in Synod in favour of going that route, but I don’t think it’s something that ought to be done at the cost of a major division in the Church.”
Bishop Wright warned that if the Church of England were not able to resolve the matter “a ‘quick fix’ resolution” would be “a recipe for long-term disaster”…
And asked about the Anglican Covenant, he said this:
Asked if he thought the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant, aimed at keeping the global Communion together, would become a reality, Bishop Wright said: “I think so, because I don’t think really there’s any alternative.” He said the Communion could not afford to have “the kind of unstructured mess that we’ve had”.
Bishop Wright said that the Covenant “doesn’t foreclose on particular issues”. Rather, he explained, it “provides a framework within which you can have the discussion in a way which tries to keep all parties at the table. Obviously if parties decide to walk away from the table that’s their business, but without some sort of a structured framework what happens is, as always, that the loudest voices tend to win, or at least drown out the other ones, and I have seen that happen and it’s not a pretty sight.”
Asked to comment on what would happen if the Church of England rejected the Covenant proposal, Bishop Wright said: “That is always a possibility, and if that happens, then I suppose the thing would be dead in the water. But that’s a notional possibility which I don’t actually see as realistic.” Bishop Wright was visiting Ireland to give a series of talks to the 18th-21st October Down and Dromore clergy conference, held in Donegal Town.
The entire interview was recorded, and you can listen to the audio file here.
29 CommentsInternational Campaign Seeks to Stop Anglican Covenant
No Anglican Covenant Coalition
Anglicans for Comprehensive Unity
NEWS RELEASE WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN SEEKS TO STOP ANGLICAN COVENANT
LONDON – An international coalition of Anglicans has been created to campaign against the proposed Anglican Covenant. Campaigners believe the proposed Covenant constitutes unwarranted interference in the internal life of the member churches of the Anglican Communion, would narrow the acceptable range of belief and practice within Anglicanism, and would prevent further development of Anglican thought. The Coalition’s website (noanglicancovenant.org) will provide resources for Anglicans around the world to learn about the potential risks of the proposed Anglican Covenant.
“We believe that the majority of the clergy and laity in the Anglican Communion would not wish to endorse this document,” according to the Coalition’s Moderator, the Revd. Dr. Lesley Fellows, who is also the Coalition’s Convenor for the Church of England. “Apart from church insiders, very few people are aware of the Covenant. We want to encourage a wider discussion and to highlight the problems the Covenant will cause.”
The idea of an Anglican Covenant was first proposed in 2004 as a means to address divisions among the member churches of the Anglican Communion on matters ranging from human sexuality to the role of women. The current draft of the Covenant, which has been unilaterally designated as the “final” draft, has been referred to the member churches of the Communion. The proposed Covenant establishes mechanisms which would have the effect of forcing member churches to conform to the demands and expectations of other churches or risk exclusion from the Communion.
Critics of the proposed Anglican Covenant, including members of the new Coalition, believe that it will fundamentally alter the nature of historic Anglicanism in several ways, including the narrowing of theological views deemed acceptable, the erosion of the freedom of the member churches to govern themselves, and the concentration of authority in the hands of a small number of bishops. Two English groups, Inclusive Church and Modern Church, ran anti-Covenant advertisements in last week’s Church Times and the Church of England Newspaper aiming to make more members of the Church of England aware of the dangers of the proposed Anglican Covenant.
“If the Anglican Communion has a problem, this is not the solution,” according to former Bishop of Worcester Peter Selby. “Whether those who originated the Covenant intended it or not, it is already, and will become even more, a basis for a litigious Communion from which some will seek to exclude others.”
The launch of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition website coincides with the commemoration of the sixteenth-century theologian Richard Hooker. “Hooker taught us that God’s gifts of scripture, tradition, and reason will guide us to new insights in every age,” according to the Canadian priest and canon law expert, the Revd. Canon Alan Perry. “The proposed Anglican Covenant would freeze Anglican theology and Anglican polity at a particular moment. Anglican polity rejected control by foreign bishops nearly 500 years ago. The proposed Anglican Covenant reinstates it.”
The No Anglican Covenant Coalition began in late October with a series of informal email conversations among several international Anglican bloggers concerned that the Covenant was being rushed through the approval process before most Anglicans had any opportunity to learn how the proposed new structures would affect them.
Revd. Dr Lesley Fellows (England) +44 1844 239268
Dr. Lionel Deimel (USA) +1-412-512-9087
Revd. Malcolm French (Canada) +1-306-550-2277
Revd. Lawrence Kimberley (New Zealand) +64 3 981 7384
Covenant: a response to the IC/MC advert
Fulcrum has published an article by Andrew Goddard entitled Framing the Anglican Covenant: Trick or Treat? A Response to Inclusive Church and Modern Church.
16 CommentsThe propaganda on the Anglican covenant produced by Inclusive Church (IC) and Modern Church (previously MCU) and published in the church press reveals a most frightening development in contemporary Anglicanism. Two of the Church of England groups most associated with an appeal to reason have demonstrated themselves to be incapable of reasoned argument. They have also revealed themselves so hermeneutically challenged when faced with a relatively simple and short text whose contemporary context is well known that, did I not know some of the groups’ leaders, I would conclude they were deliberately misrepresenting the situation and framing false charges just in order to rally their troops and engender fear in those relatively uninformed of the covenant’s background and content…
Foster parenting case reaches High Court
Two Church of England diocesan bishops and two retired Church of England bishops have written to the Telegraph Councils should not discriminate against Christian carers. The full text of the letter is reproduced below the fold.
Jonathan Wynne-Jones had earlier reported the letter in the Telegraph news columns, Christians’ freedom to express beliefs is at risk, warn bishops.
This case has been running for a while. Rachel Harden reported on it for the Church Times in February 2008, see ‘Unsuitable’ foster-parents to appeal.
Update
It may be helpful, as suggested in the Comments below, to provide a link to the earlier McFarlane case in which Lord Carey intervened. The full text of the main judgement was linked from here.
The full text of Lord Carey’s own witness statement was published by Ruth Gledhill on her blog, but is no longer available; however comment on it from the Church Times is still available here. Update Now available in .doc format here.
32 CommentsCovenant: the articles continue
Malcolm French who blogs at Simple Massing Priest has written about Aesop on the Anglican Covenant.
Paul Bagshaw at Not the same stream has written The legal fiction at the heart of the Covenant and earlier he also wrote How to mount a successful coup in Anglicanism, and even earlier there was Two conversations not talking to one another.
Lesley’s Blog has some thoughts from Jonathan Clatworthy at Is the Anglican Covenant Innocuous or a Serious Threat?
Earlier Lesley herself wrote What to write about the covenant?
And there is media coverage of the IC/MC advert:
Guardian Liberal Anglicans challenge ‘dogmatic’ Church of England covenant
ENS ENGLAND: Church groups campaign against Anglican Covenant
Ekklesia Campaign launched in C of E against ‘backward-looking’ Anglican Covenant
10 CommentsChurch Groups Unite Against Anglican Covenant
Press Release from Modern Church and Inclusive Church
11 CommentsThursday 28 October 2010
Church Groups Unite Against Anglican Covenant
Two major Church of England groups, Inclusive Church and Modern Church (formerly MCU) have joined together to campaign against the proposed Anglican Covenant.
In November the Church of England’s General Synod will be asked to approve the Anglican Covenant. Many Synod members do not realise it, but it could be the biggest change to the Church since the Reformation.
Each of the 38 Provinces in the Anglican Communion is being asked to sign it. By signing, it undertakes not to introduce any new development if another Anglican province anywhere in the world opposes it – unless granted prior permission from a new international body, the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.
The campaign opens tomorrow Friday, when full-page advertisements appear in both the Church of England Newspaper and the Church Times. It will continue during the weeks leading up to the General Synod debate scheduled for Wednesday 24 November, and if the draft is not rejected, but referred to the dioceses, it will continue throughout 2011.
The full text of the Church Times advert is available as a PDF file here.
Newman and the Pope
Graham Kings Bishop of Sherborne has written a Fulcrum newsletter. The full title is:
The Ambiguous Legacy of John Henry Newman: Reflections on the Papal Visit 2010.
6 CommentsBeguiling and virulent, holy and vituperative, quicksilver and splenetic, charming and cantankerous: there are many sides to the character of John Henry Newman, brought out variously and vicariously in their biographies by Ian Ker (Oxford, 1988 – Catholic, scholarly and positive) and Frank M Turner (New Haven, 2002 – Protestant, scholarly and iconoclastic).
The severely critical review by Ker of Turner’s book in the Times Literary Supplement (6 Dec 2002), and consequent response from Turner, who noted that Ker was active in the campaign for Newman’s sainthood (20 Dec 2002), and then the answer of Ker, who complained of Turner ‘impugning [his] integrity’ (3 Jan 2003), intriguingly echo aspects of Newman’s own polemical interaction with Charles Kingsley, which produced his Apologia Pro Vita Sua (London, 1864). Ian Ker did not include Frank M Turner as an author in the book he edited recently, Cambridge Companion to John Henry Newman (Cambridge, 2009) but John Cornwell does draw carefully on both Turner and Ker in his Newman’s Unquiet Grave: the Reluctant Saint (London, 2010).
Newman’s beatification was the centrepiece, culmination and raison d’être of the papal visit to Britain in September 2010. His attraction and trajectory to Rome were the key part of the planning of the visit. But how would the visit be followed up? In parish or university missions, the follow up of people who come to a commitment of faith is vital and keenly arranged. What of the papal visit? Let us consider first John Henry Newman, second some aspects of the papal visit and finally the follow up to the visit…
Synod elections: understanding the results
Updated
Two articles appeared today which relate to this subject.
First, Peter Ould wrote about the problems of discovering the full election details from the dioceses. See Through a Glass Darkly.
I thought it would be interesting (with my psephological hat on) to have a look at the full returns from the recent General Synod elections, to see whether I could pick up any interesting insights on the voting patterns. The full returns are the rather long pieces of paper (handily normally produced on a spreadsheet for easy consumption) that help explain all the transfers and quotas that are used in the STV election system that the Church of England utilises for its elections. For a worked example, see here on the fabulously wonderful Elections Ireland website…
Update Peter has now published the (not quite complete) results that he has collected. See (Almost) Full General Synod Election Results. If you can help him complete the task, please respond to him.
Second, Elaine Storkey has written at Fulcrum about Who won the General Synod elections and what hope for women bishops?
2 CommentsAs the Church House machinery grinds into action, mailing out a truckload of papers for November’s inauguration of the new General Synod, it is interesting to reflect on how this new Synod will respond to some of the issues it inherits from the old. At the centre of these is, of course, the draft legislation on women bishops. Canon Simon Kilwick, chairman of the Catholic Group cautions against any tacit assumption that this will go through in 2012, since there has been a ‘shift in the landscape’ of Synod. However, there is always a shift in the landscape of synod, as change occurs after every election: older members retire, some leave for many different reasons, and others are not re-elected. What this current ‘shift’ actually represents needs therefore to be carefully interpreted…
Faith, Justice, City
Faith, Justice, City is a series of talks accompanied by Shadows of the Wanderer, an artwork installation by the renowned sculptor Ana Maria Pacheco at St John’s Church, Waterloo, from 29th October to 23rd December 2010.
Faith, Justice, City is a series of sermons and addresses for Advent focusing on London’s diverse resident and transient communities and the issues of faith, justice, equality and civil interaction that impact on all. Speakers include Loretta Minghella (Chief Executive, Christian Aid), Jehangir Malik (Director, Islamic Relief UK), Neil MacGregor, (Director, British Museum), Kate Hoey MP, and Rt Revd Richard Cheetham (Bishop of Kingston) . All the addresses will be given during the Sunday morning service at St John’s Waterloo at 10.30 a.m.
Accompanying this series of thought provoking sermons and addresses will be a major sculpture installation that is being shown in London for the first time, Shadows of the Wanderer, by Ana Maria Pacheco.
For more details see here about the talks, and over here about the art exhibit and associated events.
0 Commentstwo more Covenant articles
Bishop Alan Wilson asks an important question: Anglican Covenant: a Tool for…?
I am slightly bemused when I am told some big signature project is perfectly safe because it won’t make any critical difference. If not, why bother? Is there anything worth doing instead that might make a difference? But a new General Synod is about to sign the C of E up to the Anglican Covenant, pretty much on auto-pilot, some say as much out of fear of giving offence as positive endorsement for its supposed virtues. Everyone else can then back-pedal, ignore it, even, depending on where they stand in the culture wars,
* because they fear it will spank TEC
or
* because they fear it won’t,The Covenant then joins a select number of other magnificenti in the lumber room, like the Kikuyu declaration, and life carries on. But, inquiring minds will wonder, what kind of a tool is it? What for? Whose benefit? How?
There’s a scale for assessing tools, that runs from Swiss Army Knife to Turkey Turners…
There is also provision in the article for voting on your choice of tool.
And the second article is from Paul Bagshaw who compares this issue to that of the Church of England (Worship and Doctrine) Measure 1974. The article is titled And always keep a-hold of Nurse …. He concludes:
23 CommentsAnd the relevance of this to a Covenant is:
(a) because the CofE is a State Church it has no ecclesiology – it has had no capacity to think for itself what kind of church it is and should and could be,
(b) the CofE has had centuries of training in the arts of being subordinate and acting as though it was autonomous – it exists through a sophisticated systemic exercise of willful blindness and realpolitik.
(c) The point at which it acquired the power to determine its own doctrine was too late for it to exercise such power. From the mid-1980s ecumenical agreements and the changing shape of the Anglican Communion meant that in practice it could only make definitive doctrinal statements in concert (if not uniformly) with other churches and the rest of the Communion – see, for example, the statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry.
So to adopt the Covenant for the CofE would simply be to accept a new overlordship while continuing to pretend it is superior to it. It will make sure its officers are embedded in the operation of the Covenant so that nothing potentially embarrassing comes to the light of public debate. And thus it will ensure it still doesn’t have to think about its ecclesiology – what principles – actually and ideally – underlie, predispose and can be used to judge the words, structures and action of the Church of England?
CofE news roundup on Sunday morning
The BBC Sunday radio programme has an interview with Bishop John Broadhurst. It starts about 25.5 minutes into the programme and lasts about 6 minutes. Link to it from here.
In the Observer Riazat Butt has a good summary of the overall situation on the Ordinariate and women bishops, in Exodus over women bishops: what will Rowan Williams do next?
News that fewer than 50 Anglicans are converting to Roman Catholicism has set cassocks twitching, leading to talk of an exodus and an earthquake in the Church of England and what the ramifications are for the archbishop of Canterbury, who is only ever described as besieged, beleaguered, embattled or all three…
Meanwhile, over at the Mail on Sunday Jonathan Petre has moved on to what might be the next big story, in Facing the axe: Diocese that has twice as many Muslim worshippers as Anglicans.
6 CommentsA historic Church of England diocese where Muslim worshippers outnumber Anglican churchgoers by two to one is set to be scrapped.
According to sources, the Dioceses Commission is drawing up proposals to axe the cash-strapped Diocese of Bradford in Yorkshire and merge it with neighbouring Ripon and Leeds…
Anglican Covenant: more criticism
The General Synod of the Church of England will debate the proposed Anglican Covenant on Wednesday 24 November.
Paul Bagshaw has recently written several articles about this on his blog, Not the same stream.
First, there was A dishonest Covenant.
In July 2007 I wrote a paper called Bouncing the Covenant through the Anglican Communion (here) which looked at the way the Covenant was to be pushed through.
In retrospect I was wrong about one thing – I had calculated that the majority of Provinces would have endorsed the Covenant by this year, 2010, so that the Church of England would be faced with a fait accompli. In fact the majority of Provinces still have to decide whether or not to accept the Covenant…
That was followed by English and Welsh Bishops.
About the English ones, he writes:
…There is a mix of loyalty (and not wanting to seem publicly disloyal) with a generation of bishops trained into the collective mould (both senses) by having individuality trained out of them: mini-princes in their own domains and courtiers on the larger stage. I’m not sure that government by nineteenth-century unaccountable autocrats was any better (and there was a different structure of checks and balances in place). However, the result today is that the bishops have become like a one-party state: divisions are kept within the club, the public face must be united. (Unless, of course, you retire to Rome, but that’s a different story.)
However that’s assuming there has been structured debate in which differences of episcopal opinion have even been aired. There was, of course, discussion at the Lambeth Conference. I’m not at all sure what debate has been had within the English college of bishops – not that I would know, you understand, one way or the other. But I am led to believe that the new Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council – the other half of implementing the Covenant – went through on the nod.
In A richer Covenant, he discusses in detail the South African approach to the subject. He says:
The sadness from my perspective is that Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has a rich understanding of covenant and its potential, a vision I would delight in – but unfortunately it’s a vision I don’t see in the Anglican Covenant on offer today.
And finally (for the moment) he is critical of Kenneth Kearon’s action in disciplining the Southern Cone. See Utterly negative.
For background, see these pages, starting with A very un-Anglican Covenant.
1 CommentCatholic press on Ordinariate and Societies
On the one hand, The Tablet has a feature article by Abigail Frymann headed The journey begins – Ordinariates and the Church of England.
A flying bishop and a small parish in Rowan Williams’ own diocese are the first of the Church of England rebels ready to turn their backs on Canterbury and make for Rome via the special structure of an ordinariate. But could progress be stymied by salaries, pensions and buildings?
On the other hand, the Catholic Herald has Catholic Anglicans: don’t be taken in by this incoherent scheme to undermine the Ordinariate by William Oddie.
7 CommentsYou may not have noticed it (I had hardly noticed it myself) but the C of E (having with deliberation decided not to make any “special provision” for those opposed to women bishops) is currently mounting a last-minute attempt to undermine the Ordinariate for Catholic Anglicans which is expected to be erected in the New Year. This scheme (which I have absolutely no doubt has the discreet backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury) would be laughable if there were not a real possibility that it might persuade some Catholic Anglicans who are seriously considering coming into communion with the Bishop of Rome to stay where they are. They should be warned: have nothing to do with this scheme. It seems to me to be dishonest, deceitful and both morally and intellectually bankrupt.
The name of the disreputable organisation which hopes to inveigle those Anglicans seriously considering the provisions of Anglicanorum coetibus into staying exactly where they are is the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda. This was set up last month with the backing of 10 bishops claiming to be of Catholic mind; I can only say that I know some of these men of old and the ones I do know are about as “Catholic” in any real sense as a clockwork banana…