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Sunday 15 January 2017

Dr Una Kroll meets her maker


  Dr Una Kroll                                    Source; Bury Times
Dr Una Kroll, feminist campaigner and prominent activist in the movement for the ordination of women has died in Bury aged 91. Given her chameleon approach to faith one wonders what sort of reception she had at the pearly gates. 

Described as "An inspirational woman famed for her humanitarian work", she had been a doctor, nun, a feminist campaigner and an activist for peace and justice. In 1997 when living in Wales she became a priest but "shocked admirers and friends" by publicly leaving the priesthood she had so long campaigned to be part of. 

The Rev'd Dave Thompson of St John with St Marks Church in Bury summed up her priesthood when he said, “She was a remarkable woman who influenced the church in matters of equality and campaigned tirelessly for women’s rights".  

That is the nub of it. She and her fellow campaigners have achieved the 'equality' they wanted but at the expense of others who have struggled to keep the faith instead of bending scripture and tradition to satisfy their own desires. That is what much of Western Anglicanism has been reduced to.

Writing for the Church Times Linda Hurcombe explains: Information in this article is from a recent interview with the Revd Dr Kroll for Christian Voices Coming Out, a heritage project that captures the stories of pioneering LGBT Christians, and their advocates and allies.

That is the package today. Feminism and LGBT issues, using the church as a vehicle for women's rights regardless of the consequences.

How many people have been led astray by the spiteful organisation WATCH which has urged others to follow their example rather than the example of Christ? Clergy who have determined which way the wind blows, ambitious bishops exercising their liberal credentials and laity who have felt that they have no option other than to go with the flow. They have all become victims of 'equality'.

The saddest thing about these 'pioneering' women is that they appear blind to the disastrous effect they have had on the church as attendance continues to fall. Not content with having achieved their original goal they are now campaigning to change the Lord's prayer to 'Our Mother who art in heaven...'. How long before there are calls for three Queens representing the nature of humanity at Epiphany?

Una Kroll was ordained to the priesthood in Wales by a strong supporter of the ordination of women, Dr Rowan Williams when he was Bishop of Monmouth. Dr Kroll later gave up the priesthood to become a Roman Catholic claiming that she wanted to support RC women claiming to be called by God thus leading even more astray.

A convert to Anglicanism Una Kroll was a nun who married a monk. Clearly she did what she pleased regardless of the consequences for others despite her 'humanitarian' credentials. She may have been a remarkable woman among those who 'influenced the church in matters of equality' but their idea of equality has not been extended to others. Their intransigence was later to cause Rowan Williams great difficulties when he became Archbishop of Canterbury as they obstructed moves to provide alternative episcopal oversight for Anglicans opposed on theological grounds to the sacramental ministry of women.

Many faithful Anglicans who showed charity in accommodating the desires of these women have since discovered to their cost, that their church has left them. This is particularly so in Wales where women were successful in ensuring that there will be no provision for alternative oversight. I have seen no evidence of a campaign for equality on behalf of the excluded.

What, one wonders, did St Peter make of that at the pearly gates?

10 comments:

  1. From this testimonial, did Dr.Una Kroll really know what she wanted , other than proving to herself how much confusion she could cause? Or did she just want to sample all the possible roles in life?
    A doctor, An Anglican Nun, married a monk! Then Anglican priest, then Catholic and at some point in addition to allegedly campaigning for women's equality ,she campaigned for LBGT rights.
    It seems a shame that she did not come across a sound spiritual advisor at an early point in her life.

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    1. She had the most notable spiritual guides in the Church of England in their day. Unfortunately, people are not always what they appear to be. Later on, Both Donald Allchin and Donald Nicholl looked after her. They were both great men of great spiritual wisdom but her early guides ( as with St Theresa of Avila) caused her a great deal of trouble and unhappiness.

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  2. I do so agree with you Simple Soul, it was a great pity that Dr.Una Kroll did not come across a sound spiritual guide at an early point in her life.

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  3. Not the Nine O Clock Pews17 January 2017 at 00:38

    Simple Soul, Kroll was a self-centred individual who would have benefitted from pondering her pride and vanity. She could hold no fixed point but jumped from one to another for little more than self-gratification. Clearly she was driven by some inner demon to seek refuge in successively extreme positions and in the process wrought a great of damage on the institutions she inhabited. However she could always revel in her fame, or at least notoriety.

    ++Bazza is motivated by similar egotism and a need to bestride the stage, albeit with a rapidly shrinking audience that's walking away from the Church in Wales. His desperate desire for relevance underpins everything he does: it seeps through all his media pronouncements. Chasing the headlines reveals the man's underlying insecurity about his status and importance. His legacy is the twilight of the C in W.

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  4. Couldn't have put it better myself Mr Brain.

    Clifford Williams

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  5. Retired and Relieved18 January 2017 at 09:42

    Sorry this is only tenuously linked to Una Kroll, but I was at a certain convent of Dr Kroll's acquaintance recently, where a group of former Church in Wales clergy (ie those now serving outside the Province) were meeting. They were being facilitated by a Welsh Anglican academic, and a copy of his paper was left lying around afterwards. It makes fascinating reading and, I think you'll agree, it was bang on the nail. The sentient passage is quite long, so I'll send it in sections. But there is clearly some thinking going on by the exiled about what the future of the Church in Wales will be - and they obviously don't like the Barry Morgan years. So here's the first bit with the rest to follow in about 4 or 5 posts.

    The most obvious problem with Barry Morgan’s archiepiscopate is that it has been obsessed (and I do not think this is putting it too strongly) with things that are ‘less than God’. Most obviously, those things are all related to the gender and sexual revolutions of the last few decades: matters about which Jesus spoke very little; and matters from which the rest of the world moved-on long ago. The upshot is that, when Barry Morgan pontificates on the media about celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ordination of women in Wales, or the consecration of a female Bishop of St Davids, wider society’s reaction is ‘So what’? It is just another sign that, theologically, he is still inhabiting the 1970s and fantasizing about being ‘radical’ when, in fact, he is just being off- base.

    A post-Barry Morgan Bench is, perforce, going to be obsessed with ‘growth’ (a euphemism for managing the decline over which Barry Morgan has presided). This obsession is, ultimately, grounded in fear, and will come across as fire-fighting. It will do nothing to express the abundant generosity and wisdom of God to the wider world. It will simply be seen in terms of institutional survival – and that inspires nobody.

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    1. Thank you Retired and Relieved. I have taken the liberty of combining your comment with your four further comments into a new 'guest' entry.

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  6. Her conversion to the Catholic Church was like Tony Blair a travesty. May those who allowed her to believe that she had been received, be punished for their sin and come to repentance.

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    1. Did you know her? I was her friend for nearly thirty years. Her conversion to the Catholic Church really began in her teens. Her public entry in later life as just a fulfilment of a long journey. It was no travesty.

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    2. She did not accept the magisterium of the Church and true love is based on obedience. If you love me you will keep my commandments.

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