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| Springtime at St Davids Cathedral |
In Spring 2018 there will be an unwelcome change for many in what they regard as the holiest site in Wales. A place of pilgrimage beyond politics. The Rev'd Canon Dr Sarah Rowland Jones, LVO, OBE, currently Priest-in-charge of Cardiff’s city centre civic church of St John the Baptist, will take up her new post as Dean of St Davids.
That is no reflection on her ability. It is not a question on whether she can do the job but whether she should given that the Church in Wales is merely the current custodian of this place of worship when the Church in Wales represents only a tiny minority of Christians who believe that the Church has been wrong on scripture and tradition for two thousand years.
Canon Jones says in the Church in Wales Press Release today: "The Cathedral and its surroundings so strongly convey the sense of being holy ground. For so many, over so many centuries, it has been a sacred place to sense the presence of the living God who is beyond time and space, and yet who is also intimately close to each of us with the offer of redeeming love. It will be a tremendous privilege to join the community of those who today bear the responsibility of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with pilgrims and visitors from near and far".
For many this sacred place will become a museum used to advance the cause of feminism rather than a place of pilgrimage and worship. The Church in Wales plays a dangerous game. St Davids Cathedral is unlike any other in the province. "Nearly £2,000 per day" is needed for the maintenance, upkeep and running costs of "this wonderful working Cathedral" to quote from their web site. Visitors are essential for survival
As women in the Church in Wales increase their power, with 'quota' appointments to gain parity, they play a very dangerous game.
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| The new Dean of St Davids, the Rev'd Canon Dr Sarah Rowland Jones (CinW) |
The new Dean of St David's is clearly a superb manager and administrator and no doubt theologian and Priest. In these respects it is a very sensible appointment (if you accept women in Priest's orders of course). However, the Church in Wales is getting very top heavy with SSM affirming clergy in senior posts. I presume the new Dean is since it was her church in Cardiff that held the recent Gay Pride event.
ReplyDeleteAre traditional Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals going to be allowed to flourish in the future Church-in-Wales? Maybe with +Joanna's position on these matters simply appointing someone from the same stable was an unwise choice. Or is it that nobody cares about taking every wing of the CiW forward in genuine unity anymore?
SSM is going to be the grenade-missing-a-pin in the near future of the CiW. Lets hope traditional Anglo-Catholics and Evangelical can ally and get appointments on the Governing Body to keep the church from committing 'harikari'.
What's that humming sound I hear, could it possibly be Dewi Sant spinning in his grave?
ReplyDeleteI wonder which women is lined up for canon Dorien Davies job as it is vacant then the watch will be complete!
ReplyDeleteC'm on Ty Ddewi are you going to tolerate this latest insult from a Wench who has already called your courage into question with her LGBT address at the National Eisteddfod? Are you going to go quietly into that dark night?
ReplyDeletePoor St David's! It's going to be manic, histrionic, and exhausting. A place of hospitality, prayer and pilgrimage will become an earnest, frenetic and attention-seeking consortium for the promotion of the worst kind of vapid, socio-theological-drivel. Some will now feel excluded. Others will just walk away. If she does as well as St David's as she has done at Cardiff, the place should decline more briskly than the Diocese of Bangor. Of course, she's probably there on the sympathy vote: for not getting anywhere near Peterborough (even after the preferred candidate had to withdraw on health grounds)! One wonders whether June is delighted, too?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the PC agenda shows no sign of slackening in other parts of the CinW. As Bangor looses a Welsh-speaking, graduate archdeacon to a prestigious post in the C of E (for the second time in less than 6 years!), the rarely-open Cathedral gains yet another a non-Welsh-speaking cleric in interesting personal circumstances http://bangor.churchinwales.org.uk/news/2017/10/new-university-chaplain-and-honorary-canon-for-bangor-cathedral-and-bro-deiniol/
ReplyDeleteAt least he's a LGOT+ person so will fit in well with CiW's main mission focus
DeleteBangor Bugle - Never forget, "We continue as we please". The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can let go and let God.
DeleteNews on the grapevine from the barren lands of the north west is that another LGOT+ priest (an ex-RC to boot) has been appointed to parish ministry. The civil partner of Rev Dominic McKeen
DeleteThe dreadful mess that is the Church in Wales
ReplyDeleteThe really interesting question is who will succeed the Manic Street Preacher at St John the Baptist, Cardiff? This is the shop-front for the C in W in the centre of the capital city. It desperately needs to stop being a ghetto for the 'spiritually challenged' and renew its links with the cultural and civic life of the city. In other words, it needs a priest of some gravitas, who is also street-wise, but who has a natural sense of what a city-centre church can offer in music, the arts and education, as well as having a commitment to the poor. Rowland-Jones's predecessor (if you discount that bizarre woman who only stayed a few months before buggering-off to Basingstoke) was a restless eco-warrior who got the balance wrong. He saw through the sham exterior of Barry the Golfer - eventually - but colluded with closing the church on Newport Road. Rowland Jones herself has rubbed more or less everyone up the wrong way, and the place urgently needs to rediscover its core purpose as a place of good quality and stable Anglican worship. R-J has shown that Cardiff is not yet ready for a centre for Radical (sic) Christianity. This will be a good test of how carefully June is listening, and how discerning she is in grasping the issues. A bad appointment here will speak volumes.
ReplyDeleteC'm on Ty Ddewi what are you waiting for?
DeleteAre you a Diocese or a doormat?
The Wench of Abergwili has already disgraced you on two recent occasions with her leading role in the Cardiff pride fiasco and her embarrassing LGBT address at the National Eisteddfod.
Her newly appointed acolyte has already destroyed the foundational work of my friend the late Canon Edwin Davis at St John's, Cardiff.
The survival of the Christian faith in its cradle given to you by Dewi Sant 1500 years ago depends upon your resolve.
You have shown determination and resolve in the recent past.
Are you going to allow two expatriate priestly impostors to get the better of you and destroy your Christian heritage?
Whoever goes there will have their work cut out with a mere 57 on the electoral roll! They will also have to be qualified in leading 'Mindfulness' sessions at lunchtimes. How come that a city centre church does not have a daily lunchtime Eucharist for all the thousands of people who are in the city at that time? Watch out, St David's, it's all about to get... well, frankly, dull and lightweight.
DeleteMay be this is an ideal opportunity for Gerwhine to put his considerable experience (not) at running a large church into action, and take the fruits of his extensive ministry in Llandaff right into the heart of our capital city. After all, there are so few people left there now for him to abuse; and he won't have to disband the choir, because that has already been done for him. He would have fewer services to be absent from, too. I think June should seize the moment and ring Pickfords, instructing them to shift all those dodgy antiques to an address in Cathays Park. Then June can step in and have unfettered access to the accounts. Result.
DeleteCVS, that would be too much to hope for at this precise moment. June is keeping people guessing (not a bad leadership trait, I think), and probably feels she has bigger fish to fry than Llandaff Cathedral at the moment. But she will be keeping a sharp eye on what's happening, and asking why her cathedral in Salisbury was buzzing while Llandaff is slowly but surely going down the sink. 'Leadership' is her big thing, and once she gets to the bottom of why Gerwhine is not bringing people with him, you can be in no doubt that his inability to model good leadership will be addressed. We may have to be patient, though.
DeleteAs an expatriate member of the CinW and of the AngloCatholic persuasion, I'm having great difficulty in understanding what on earth this blog contributes to the work of Christ's Holy Catholic Church. Note CATHOLIC, or Universal which as I understand it includes women, and as St Paul reminded us.
ReplyDeleteFrom afar I will watch what these various women contribute to Christ's mission on this planet before making judgement.
Calm down folks. There are many real problems with Humanity. This is not one of them
Who would
So- will St.Davids only be open a few days a week? Another Bangor!
ReplyDeleteThis is the premier Cathedral in the Province. Trying to run a bu------------- springs to mind.
Catnap
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ReplyDeleteBugger the bishops and their licenses. We bloggers can not be silenced and we reach out to significantly more than a mere fraction of one percent of the population. Our words endure for ever.
ReplyDeleteWe are kings for a day Watchman.
DeleteAh Yes Enforcer but we can hope and pray that for the destructive liberals within the Church it will be a Day of Judgement.
ReplyDeleteBy the way I notice that your comment was posted at an hour long before the lights are on in most parsonages in Wales.
Do you remember the days when the First Mass had been said before breakfast and the Office was well under way as parishoners set off for work?
That was in the days when we knew where the clergy laid their heads - and with whom!
Try not to look at the clock too much Mr Watchman. Enthusiasm is a horrible thing.
ReplyDelete