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Sunday 12 August 2018

Commendable but...


"A Poor Upbringing?"                                                    Source: Church in Wales


Eisteddfod focus on child poverty. A Provincial press release from the Church in Wales draws attention to the issue of child poverty. "Church volunteers are stepping in to provide food and support for struggling families as cuts to public spending impact on child poverty."

All very commendable. - "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." - James 1:27.

Also, "Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” James 2: 15-17.

The latter quote comes after "Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment" in a section headed Favoritism Forbidden.

Another type of poverty has been created in Wales. Spiritual poverty. The process started by Barry and his bench sitters and carried on by Abp Morgan's successor, as they favour the ordained ministry of women and all the LGBT baggage brought with it above traditional, often cradle, Anglicans. 

No mercy has been shown to former and existing Anglicans who who have clung to the catholic faith. No tolerance and no support after the position of Provincial Assistant Bishop was buried by Abp Barry Morgan in indecent haste at the earliest opportunity without discussion. Provincial episcopal visitors as enjoyed in the Church of England are banned from providing sacramental and pastoral oversight in Wales.

Too many career minded clerics 'saw the light' after it became clear that Governing Body decisions were to carry far more weight than scripture, tradition and reason. Wittingly or unwittingly, they have aided the bench of bishops in turning the Church in Wales into a pit of misery, soon to disappear down its own orifice.

Ministry areas are struggling. Clergy are in short supply. So much so that lay people are conducting services, including Communion by Extension where "the sacrament is taken to a church from another church within the benefice, where the Holy Eucharist has previously been celebrated". A measure encouraged to keep the bishops in the style they mistakenly believe they are entitle to.

Further decline seems inevitable.

The bishop of St Davids followed by the bishop of Llandaff lost no time in advancing their secular causes while complaining that they had been discriminated against because people disagreed with them. Holding the view that the ordained ministry is not open to women is not discriminatory, it is the position of the Holy Catholic Church

Feminism and LGBT issues have become so dominant in the Church in Wales that traditional faith is seen as unacceptable, casting former loyal Anglicans into spiritual poverty.

Nobody cares, least of all the "chief pastors or shepherds" despite what is claimed:
 What distinguishes the Church from other communities, at least in its own self-understanding, is that it is a ‘spiritual’ community – a fellowship/community of the Holy Spirit. That is, it claims to participate in the Spirit of God and to be established as the community it essentially is by the Spirit of God. - The Church and its Ministry

Surrender of the C of E to the ‘zeitgeist’
Pride is one of the seven deadly sins - "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" Proverbs 16:18) yet gay pride is being celebrated by the Anglican Church. Rainbow altar frontals have become commonplace and Cathedrals bless Gay Pride proclaiming “diversity” as the new gospel

Gay Deans are in vogue. In the latest instance from the Church of England, Ely Cathedral redefines Christianity; – Anglican Unscripted and the surrender of the C of E to the ‘zeitgeist’.

In Wales it is reported that "MajorPride" has been planned to "celebrate the diversity of the community in Llantwit Major  where the church are "happy to host events"

One wonders what St. Illtud, the founder-abbot and teacher of the divinity school known as Cor Tewdws, located in Llanilltud Fawr (Llantwit Major) would have made of that.

Already steeped in gay pride the first woman bishop in the Church in wales was shoe-horned into St Davids in a political move which caused much dissension while the second woman bishop with similar credentials continues to do her own thing

The bishop of Llandaff intends to take all her licensed clergy, Stipendiary and Non-Stipendiary, on a charter flight pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in May 2019. She must be hoping that airline pilots, air traffic controllers and baggage handlers play ball and do not strand all Llandaff diocese clergy in Spain.

Worse still, God forbid, if the plane were lost, this carefully crafted plan would leave the entire diocese without clergy but by then most services may be conducted by the laity anyway.

As the bishops go about the country's business, faithful worshippers continue to be excluded in favour of men who prefer to be thought of as women and vice versa despite their biology, women who want to marry women and men who want to marry men using parcel-post to deliver the means of creation.

What a legacy. 

8 comments:

  1. Maybe the poet Baudelaire was also a prophet, after all, in his 'To the Reader'?
    From Baudelaire’s ‘To The Reader’

    It is the Devil who shall lead us hence!
    Repugnant objects meet us on the way,
    More close to Hell with each passing day
    We walk unhorrified, despite the stench.

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    1. Very strong words Geraint but who can deny that the once vibrant Church in Wales is now in an advanced state of decomposition.

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  2. The 'pilgrimage' to Compostela will not happen - or the Bishop lacks all judgement.

    Cromarty

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  3. With the petulant gaze of an Archbishop and the constipated appearance of the bishop of Bangor, we pray: "Herr, zu wem sollen wir gehen?" John 6:68b

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  4. Or maybe even this one, Man kann sich auch zu Tode 'siegen', popularly translated as 'You can drive yourself victoriously into your own grave' (literally, 'One can win oneself to death') ...

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  5. Dylan from Dolgellau13 August 2018 at 15:24

    Commendable? The Bishop of Bangor's fumbling attempts (both linguistically and in terms of his grasp of the issues) to address child poverty in Wales were absolutely pathetic. An abysmal performance. What was Shirley thinking by asking him in the first place? There are far more people of substance, who can speak more effectively (and directly) to this subject, and whose command of the Welsh language is infinitely more impressive. As usual, it has to be a bishop because the myopic mentality of the Bench is that a bishop is the only way the Church in Wales can be adequately represented. Well, after the way the Church in Wales was 'represented' episcopally at last year's Eisteddfod, I would have thought a bishop was the last person we needed. No wonder they amalgamated the Cymanfa Ganu and the opening service, this year. I have no doubt that it was to avoid having to invite either Dick or Juno to give a sermon in spluttering cringe-worthy 'Welsh.'

    They don't get it that we just look more and more stupid at these major cultural events, and no-one is learning the lessons.

    Thank you, Shirley, for making us a complete laughing stock, as always. Of course, you could have invited one of several clergy from the Church of England, who have done a runner from Bangor over the past decade. Intellectually and linguistically more accomplished than the Bishop they forsook, they would have portrayed the CinW in a glowing light. But they would have underscored the degree to which those that are left in the Principality are nothing more than a bunch of witless dunces. And we can't be having that, can we?

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  6. Next year they can now invite a real Welsh person to preach at the Eisteddfod for a change. The Rev Marcus Robinson RN, has been elected General Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of (not 'in') Wales, for 2019 -20. Was he and Prince Andrew not baptized in the waters of the Falklands together in 1981, or was it 82?

    No doubt the pagan gorsedd and His Darkness will insist it be another 'pink pansy'.

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