 |
| Representatives of the Women's Ordination Conference stage a protest in front of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Tuesday, June 8, 2010. Source: Washington post Photo by Pier Paolo Cito |
"Amongst a lot of social change, we too continue to see the loss of Sunday churchgoing. And this can feel as if we’re in terminal decline. Add to that the loss of connectedness many once had with the church – now more than half our neighbours happily describe themselves as having ‘no religion’. And then add the lost trust in what the church stands for - ask anyone under 30 what they make of the Church and they’ll pretty soon mention our unhealthy preoccupations with gender and sexuality. Those multiple losses feel really significant for those who love the Church and all it stands for."
The words of the bishop of Llandaff, June Osborne, delivered in her Presidential Address at the Llandaff Diocesan Conference 2019 following her observation that churches in the Gwent Valleys had suffered 'a 37% loss of membership within just the last few years'.
Despite similar evidence from other Anglican Provinces that have ordained women, the Roman Catholic Church appears oblivious to the dangers of creating a female diaconate. It is clear from experience in the Anglican Communion that ordaining women deacons provided them with a stepping-stone in a planned progression from women deacons to women bishops resulting in exclusion for many and indifference to their plight.
Once women deacons established a toehold in the Anglican Church, equality of opportunity, not theology, took hold. The rest is history. People who rarely if ever set foot in a church have become arbiters of what is or is not acceptable in Anglicanism as liberal leaning bishops strain to be evermore relevant to society.
In 2010 the US Washington Times reported the results of a Poll that showed 80% of Catholics were 'comfortable' with the idea of women priests but it is worth remembering that the US Episcopal Church started the Anglican rot which spread to England and Wales resulting in many faithful Anglicans finding themselves effectively unchurched.
Other Catholics claimed that the Catholic Church would never ordain women but within a decade of that poll Pope Francis appears open to reversing claims made by Pope John Paul II that the Church had no authority to ordain women (1994) and those who continued discussing women’s ordination were effectively excommunicating themselves (1998).
One Catholic bishop, Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, has claimed that the Amazon Synod was being used as a “tool” to change the Church and create “a new kind of religion", a situation familiar to orthodox Anglicans who find themselves excluded by newcomers.
Speaking after the conclusion of Rome’s Amazon Synod which approved a document calling for further discussion on allowing women deacons, the former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, described a male-only priesthood as "codology dressed up as theology".
It is difficult to take such women seriously when their interests appear to be more about feminine power than spreading the Gospel. True they use the Gospel but for their own ends. They talk of love and inclusion but are content to see women and men who do not share their views excluded, leaving them with no church to attend and no pastoral care.
Continuing her presidential address at the 2019 Llandaff diocesan conference June Osborne said "So many want to tell me how church life enriches their existence and is precious to them."
Church life did that for many others before they were excluded but the breed of woman that seeks power in the Church couldn't care less who is hurt on their march to the top. Instead they complain of discrimination and misogyny if anyone dares to disagree with them as they look to society for support.
Church life did that for many others before they were excluded but the breed of woman that seeks power in the Church couldn't care less who is hurt on their march to the top. Instead they complain of discrimination and misogyny if anyone dares to disagree with them as they look to society for support.
Osborne started her address by referring to the September Electoral College which chose a new Bishop of Monmouth. She described the decision as excellent saying, "I know Archdeacon Cherry Vann will be an outstanding bishop for our friends in Monmouth."
There have been rumours that Cherry Vann was not the choice of Monmouth diocese and that their candidate was rejected which suggests yet another stitch up by the Church in Wales establishment in pursuit of their liberal agenda.
In her first interview following her election the bishop-elect said: “I am also aware that the church is struggling to be relevant in people’s lives. I want to work with people to find ways of communicating, what is essentially, a message of love and hope to people who find the institutional church difficult or inaccessible."
In her first interview following her election the bishop-elect said: “I am also aware that the church is struggling to be relevant in people’s lives. I want to work with people to find ways of communicating, what is essentially, a message of love and hope to people who find the institutional church difficult or inaccessible."
St Paul spoke of love in action. He also said: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
The movement for ordaining women to the priesthood peddles a false concept of equality in defiance of the message received through scripture and tradition which have been followed by generations in a broad Church. All has changed.
After women were ordained deacons in the Anglican Church demands for priesting quickly followed employing claims of discrimination and misogyny if they were denied what they claimed was the next logical step. They claimed that it did not mean that women wanted to be bishops, until they were priests.
After women were admitted to the priesthood, it was the 'stained glass' ceiling and promises of mutual flourishing if women were allowed to become bishops. Another false promise.
After women were ordained deacons in the Anglican Church demands for priesting quickly followed employing claims of discrimination and misogyny if they were denied what they claimed was the next logical step. They claimed that it did not mean that women wanted to be bishops, until they were priests.
After women were admitted to the priesthood, it was the 'stained glass' ceiling and promises of mutual flourishing if women were allowed to become bishops. Another false promise.
Now that there are women bishops parity is demanded using the usual slogans of discrimination and inequality. Parity has already been achieved in the Church in Wales following the 'election' of Cherry Vann.
In her presidential address Osborne referred to the "lost trust in what the church stands for" adding: "ask anyone under 30 what they make of the Church and they’ll pretty soon mention our unhealthy preoccupations with gender and sexuality".
That preoccupation has been manifested most prominently in female bishops. Presumably they haven't finished yet.
Rome beware.
In her presidential address Osborne referred to the "lost trust in what the church stands for" adding: "ask anyone under 30 what they make of the Church and they’ll pretty soon mention our unhealthy preoccupations with gender and sexuality".
That preoccupation has been manifested most prominently in female bishops. Presumably they haven't finished yet.
Rome beware.
Ask anyone over 30 what they make of the Church and they'll pretty soon mention your unhealthy preoccupations with gender and sexuality.
ReplyDelete"your" ?
DeleteFunnily enough though, the unhealthy preoccupation with gender and sexuality rests in the domain of the house of bishops. I don't hear the houses of clergy and laity wishing to press on with the issues around same-sex marriage, so I wonder if the observant bishop of Llandaff has ever mentioned this to her colleagues, or is this part of the softening up process to ease the path of the bishops' pet project next year.
DeleteSeymour
1 Timothy 3:12 "A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well."
ReplyDeleteNuff said.
Perhaps someone can help me out here. It was only when the Province voted to accept the Ordination of Women, that women were allowed to be put forward as a Diocesan Bishop. When did the Province agree to accept same sex marriage, that made it possible for Ms Vann to be appointed as the Bishop of Monmouth? Have I missed something? LUKAS
ReplyDeleteNo LUKAS. From A Pastoral Letter from the Bishops of the Church in Wales to all the faithful concerning gay and lesbian Christians:
Delete"What this all means is that we, as Bishops of the Anglican Communion, mindful of the results of our consultation and the Statement of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, and of all our members, including those who are gay and lesbian, do not feel that we can support at this time a move to change the discipline of the Church in Wales with respect to the teaching on marriage, nor can we permit the celebration of public liturgies of blessing for same sex unions."
http://cinw.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/04/SameSexPastoralLetter160321.pdf
The bishops do as they please, deceiving the faithful.
How times have changed! Then the bishops couldn't support any changes to the Church teaching or practice; but suddenly, with two female proponents of change on the Bench, and the LGBT+ community have hit the jackpot. You are quite right, AB, Rome needs to be very wary.
DeleteSeymour
PP. Given we have evidence that same sex marriage and civil partnership bar's two men from such office in England. Jeffrey John being a Prime example. How come lesbian women are the exception to the rule? But, is there evidence of a marriage in the case of the Bishop elect, or like many other gay men and lesbian women clergy just in a monogamous relationship.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be nothing about the CinW to suggest it can raise itself out of mess it has created for itself since the ordination of women - no leadership, scholarship, vision or clarity; instead we have LGBT, a practising lesbian Bishop elect and a floundering about with various social issues best left to the local authorities. A recipe for further decline.
ReplyDeleteStoppit
It appears that feminism and the C in W have no boundary's.
ReplyDeleteCatnap.
One change June forgot to mention in her Presidential Address is that she's looking for a PA. Again. I can assure you this will be a familiar pattern. In Salisbury, it was a standing joke that June went through secretaries like water. Each year as the first cuckoo of spring was heard, the vergers would remark that it would soon be time for the Dean to have a new secretary.
ReplyDelete"Add to that the loss of connectedness many once had with the church – now more than half our neighbours happily describe themselves as having ‘no religion’".
ReplyDeleteJune Osborne's reference in her diocesan conference address has a peculiar personal relevance for me, though I'm sure that it wasn't one which she had in mind!
I was brought up in a pretty typical conventional and 'respectable' secular family of the mid-20th century. We still had a few remaining echoes of earlier generations of religious observance: my family - or at least my mum's side - would have thought it quite improper for a child not to be baptized and not to be taught to say his prayers at bedtime, so in my case both happened. And of course there was also the vague and disconnected school assemblies and RE classes usual in secular schools to sort of top that up! None of it made any real sense to me, and I remember, round about the age of twelve, thinking that I was probably an atheist, a term which I'd probably just discovered!
But by the time I was fifteen I'd hit that age and stage when teenagers not infrequently start to question the values and assumptions of their parents and begin to explore whether there might be some alternatives more convincing and fulfilling. And that challenge ultimately led me to the Church. The fact that it was the Anglican church was at the time almost random: the C of E - I grew up in north-west England - was the church to which our family never went, but with which they felt some vestigial attachment and I'd been baptized C of E. But the main factor was probably that the Anglican church was the nearest, geographically, to where we lived. And as in any case I'd no real idea where best to start my search, the Anglicans were as good as any other.
And over time, as I worshipped and learned and prayed and read and was confirmed, the faith finally seemed to me to take real shape and begin to make more and more sense. I came to see what Christianity was actually about - what it was saying. A sort of fides quaerens intellectum, which I found both satisfying and fulfilling: to such an extent that when that time came round I chose to study theology for my degree.
But in the seventies that began, ever so imperceptibly at first, to unravel. Initially I thought that it was just another theological and ecclesiastical ferment - church history points to many such! - rather than a entire shaking of the foundations. But as the Anglican church - at least in the developed world - began more and more to withdraw from several positions which, not so many years ago, it had affirmed as core teaching, and foundations were indeed being shaken, I came to feel, first that Anglicanism now had no place for Christians who held to some of the beliefs that the Church itself had taught me; and ultimately, though it's taken years, I've also come to question certain of the 'foundations' themselves.
Perhaps Bishop June might fruitfully ponder the possibility that the 'multiple losses' and consequent 'terminal decline' might in some part be rooted in the Anglican church's retreat from some of the core beliefs which it once affirmed confidently. In my own case, for sure, that applies!
Thank you John for sharing that. A bit like you, I chose theology for my degree, and it led me to Anglicanism from the Baptist Church. When I informed my family, who were staunch Non-Conformists, I thought my parents were going to have a coronary.
ReplyDeleteOur local vicar proclaimed the faith with confidence and certainty. He and I had huge disagreements on various theological points, much to the amusement of members of the congregation, but it was always good humoured.
One point we both agreed on was "anamnesis"; and our Vicar used to say that it was more akin to recall because you could recall the army, in which case you moved it from one place to another; but you can recall events, in which case you simply remembered them. That has stayed with me, and every time the Eucharist is celebrated, I am conscious of the fact that Jesus' sacrifice has been brought into the present moment, and with that sacrifice we are consecrating this moment to God. This is why I find it deeply disturbing when I hear the current Archbishop encouraging his clergy to dispense with the Eucharist in favour of entertaining the masses, and I gather that this is being promulgated by other bishops too.
Jesus' words in John's Gospel: "Whoever eats the flesh of the Son of Man and drinks his blood has eternal life." leads to me to ask, why would anybody want to become an entertainer when they can give something so precious to the world? I genuinely think that the bishops have lost the plot.
Seymour
My pilgrimage caused some consternation in my family too. My father waxed gloomily on people whom he'd known in his youth who, as he described it, had suddenly 'got religion' which in his estimation had done them no good at all, and I recall my aunt, with the chip basket in one hand and a pan of hot fat in the other, exclaiming in horror that 'we've never had anyone religious in our family'. But I survived, and used to tell them all that I was the black sheep of the family! They got used to it, though they were always uncomprehending.
DeleteOn the topic of anamnesis I remember coming to a conclusion similar to your vicar's; my version of it was that τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν in Greek has more of an implication of 'do this to bring me back' than the more passive retrospective sense that the English word 'remembrance' usually connotes. As an illustration, when I remember my aunt and her chip pan, in no sense do I recall her past action into present reality, nor even seek to do so.
In my early teenage explorations I subscribed to a series of booklets produced by the Catholic Enquiry Centre which sought to explain RC teaching in straightforward terms. One was entitled 'It's the Mass which matters', and explained why the Eucharist is always the heart and focus of all Christian worship, around which all else, however edifying or inspiring, is essentially secondary. I always believed that to be the case, and that the centrality of the Eucharist both expresses and continually creates the Church as the Divine Society rather than merely some sort of 'Jesus fan club' sentimentally trying to establish 'what would Jesus do?'