The reckoning

The Rt Rev Jonathan Goodall (left), Bishop of Ebbsfleet and Tantur International Advisory Board Member, with the Anglican delegation for the canonization
  of  Oscar Romero, led by Archbishop Emeritus of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, fourth from left.                           Photo  Anglican Communion News Service.

The well connected Bishop of Ebbsfleet is stepping down in order to be received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church

Anglican bishop of Ebbsfleet resigns to join Roman Catholic church announced the Guardian before adding: "An Anglican bishop opposed to the ordination of women has resigned to join the Roman Catholic church" as if opposition to the ordination of women is somehow reprehensible.

The secular press is not interested in theological explanations. Why should it be? Many Anglican provinces are no longer interested in theology and differ little from secular organisations but the reckoning is nigh. 

THE COUNTERFEIT "GOSPEL" OF AFFIRMING CATHOLICISM By David W. Virtue, DD, says it as it is. A story of betrayal: "It has been slowly dawning on me that Satan's real work of destroying and deconstructing the Christian Faith in the Anglican Communion is not the obvious or bald-faced lie. Christians can easily spot it and mercifully reject it. Tens of millions of Anglicans, mostly from Africa, Asia and South America have seen through the lie of homosexuality. But what Satan is masterful at is the half-truth, the counterfeit lie and "Did God say"?

ANGLICAN PRELATE FLEES GAY GHETTO FOR ROME shouts Church Militant: "A prominent Anglican bishop is quitting the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England, which is dominated by homosexual clergy, to embrace the Roman Catholic Church." Out of the frying pan into the fire?

Of course there are homosexual clergy. The difference for Anglicans in the West is that the Church is desperate to make it normal, particularly in the Church in Wales where homosexuals are especially welcome while those who keep the faith are rejected.

Clergy unable to accept the ordination of women on theological grounds have been forced to travel to England for the Chrism Mass because the mean-minded bench of bishops would not allow Provincial Episcopal Visitors to celebrate in Wales. 

There was an exception in 2017. The Requiem Mass for Bishop David Thomas. The Principal Celebrant was the Right Reverend Jonathan Goodall, Bishop of Ebbsfleet.

Bishop Thomas was Wales' first and last Provincial Assistant Bishop, an office scrapped by archbishop Barry Morgan, despite promises to the contrary, as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

The venue for the Requiem Mass was St Mary’s Priory Church where Bishop David held most of his Ordination Services and Chrism Mass. 

Bishop Jonathan was denied the opportunity of continuing that tradition. I am sure readers will join me in wishing him well.

No deceit was found in his mouth

Ivan Glazunov "Crucify Him!" - 1994

"Crucify Him!"  There is no more powerful a statement of man's inhumanity to man than in this cry captured in the work by Ivan Glazunov in 1994, the same year that the Act of Synod was 'promulged' then claimed subsequently by the Ass Bishop of Llandaff to be the blueprint for an act of treachery in the Church in Wales.

He cites the Act of Synod 'promulged in 1994' in his contribution to the refusal by the Bench of Bishops to re-appoint a Provincial Assistant Bishop (PAB), an appointment that cleared the way for women to be ordained to the priesthood in Wales. - See the documentation on the Forward in Faith Wales (Credo Cymru) site here (tab down to Appendix 2, e-mail from Assistant Bishop.) 

The Ass Bishop's intervention asserted that provision for the Provincial Episcopal Visitors (flying bishops) in the Church of England's Act of Synod was intended to be of a "temporary nature". Claiming insider knowledge, he testified as to what was meant. What he actually succeeded in doing was proving that if his interpretation was correct, it was not understood by those for whom it was intended leaving them with just an inferred promise. If the intention had been as he claims then it should have been spelled out; otherwise it was a deception.

There is a vague reference in his submission to "several key people in the Church in Wales" who thought the PAB's appointment was "consonant with the spirit of the Church of England's Act of Synod" but who were those 'key' people and what were the motives of their flawed understanding? If the appointment had not been intended to be permanent surely it would have been more honest to have said so directly. Looking at the revised interpretation of the initial appointment it now has the appearance of a devious plot to gain votes for the admission of women to the priesthood, a process repeated at the meeting of the Governing Body when the Bench of Bishops voted unanimously for women bishops after their own Bill had been amended to remove the statutory provision they thought necessary to see the measure accepted.

Not only have the Welsh bishops shown a distinct lack of charity in their interpretation of alternative Episcopal oversight but their assertions have been strongly contested by Credo Cymru - see the documentation here (Submission to the Bench of Bishops 11 July 2009 and the supplementary submission (para. 14) 29 September 2009).
This is not a re-evaluation in hindsight reporting the claimed intentions of others but based on fact:
 We turn now to the question of how provisional the arrangements of 1996 were meant to be.  It should be noted that the first holder of this post in response to comments by Lord Ellis Thomas wrote in a letter to the ‘Western Mail’ that he would not have accepted the post if he had  understood it to be a merely temporary stop-gap with him as the only holder.

Despite what the Ass Bishop had to say on the matter Archbishop Morgan confirms that there was no suggestion that the position was temporary in his statement on behalf of the Bench of Bishops in response to Credo Cymru's request for a new PAB:

 I confess that this matter was not even thought about one way or another in 1996, but we now feel that whilst the Bench was persuaded that such an appointment may have been necessary then, we do not share that opinion some 13 years later. (Para. 2 of Response from the Bench)

If it was the case that provision of PEVs in the Church of England's Act of Synod Measure was intended to be temporary, it is very odd that in the May 2013, in a Report from the House of Bishops GS1886, the Church of England includes a clear statement that no time limit is set:

"Pastoral and sacramental provision for the minority within the Church of England will be made without specifying a limit of time and in a way that maintains the highest possible degree of communion and contributes to mutual flourishing across the whole Church of England." [My emphasis ED.]

Is that just another callous deceit designed to ease the passage of women to the Episcopate in the Church of England or a genuine desire to honour original intentions? PEVs continue to be replaced in England suggesting that what is happening in Wales is a deliberate act of sabotage. A few weeks ago the new Bishop of Ebbsfleet was consecrated:
"Bishop Goodall has been commissioned by Archbishop Welby to serve, in line with the 1993 Act of Synod, as one of two Provincial Episcopal Visitors for the Province of Canterbury, who work with diocesan bishops to provide extended sacramental ministry and pastoral provision on the Archbishop’s behalf, to ensure that “the integrity of differing beliefs and positions concerning the ordination of women to the priesthood should be mutually recognised and respected”.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams of Oystermouth, preached. He said:
Failed churches, fragmented churches: all in a day’s work in a sense. But the continuity and health, the spiritual vitality and integrity of the Church lies quite simply in the promise and act of Jesus Christ.

The present Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, wrote in his "Response from the Bench":
As you know, we have virtually a new Bench.  I am the only member who agreed to the previous arrangements.

Also on the Bench at that time was the former Archbishop of Wales, Rowan Williams. Readers will draw their own conclusions.

Is this really what we want for the Church of England?

"The way Finns feel about the Church is changing faster than ever, as is the Church’s position in the community. A generation ago, 90 percent of the Finnish population held membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, whereas now the number has shrunk to about 78 percent and is falling by about one percentage point annually. Ties between Church and State have also decreased....While the role of the Church as an institution has weakened, its social role has grown. This becomes apparent in the reinforcement and expansion of diaconical work. For instance, the Church represents one of the most important providers of family counselling, and plays a central role in professional crisis work." - The 'down-to-earth' Finnish Church.

 It may be Finnish but is it British? Their 'diaconical work' is most laudable but it is neither necessary nor desirable to turn the Holy Priesthood into an organisation for social workers in vestments. Surely the highest calling of every woman is superior to that of man in motherhood and the nurture of our children but in the women's movement Mary's role in the incarnation is made to appear insignificant compared to the weight given to the example of  Mary Magdalene who is constantly extolled as 'the Apostle to the Apostles' because of her messengerial role having witnessed the Resurrection before conveying the message to the Apostles who were specifically appointed by Christ rather than inferred to bolster a case for lack of evidence.

There is nothing motherly about the campaign for women bishops. The vindictive statement by WATCH in their call for a single clause measure for women bishops totally misrepresents the position of orthodox Anglicans: "Women clergy and supporters of their ministry have had enough of the wasteful wrangling over women bishops. Years have been spent in trying to make legal provision that would satisfy those opposed...." I would be the first to apologise if I misinterpret their allegations but it is difficult to see how the oppressed could be satisfied with the terms of the oppressor simply on the oppressors' say so. I wasn't present at any of the discussions but the Bishop of Ebbsfleet was. His more credible account of 'The General Synod Vote on Women Bishops' is given on the See of Ebbsfleet web site here.  

Orthodox Anglicans have endured many false charges of misogyny, even when the vote in the House of Laity was lost with a large tally of women's votes. As an example of the many women in the church who simply suffer in silence, my wife was deeply hurt and bitterly disappointed on being abandoned by Abp Rowan when he gave his response to the vote. It is difficult to understand why he recognised hurt only in the strident women of WATCH. On reading Bp Jonathan Baker's account Mrs Briton's comment was, "Why couldn't Rowan have said that?" before adding "+Jonathan has been far too charitable to the women of WATCH." - Apparently one has to be a woman to understand women.

Theoretically there is a danger in the strategy of WATCH but no doubt they have either made the necessary calculations or are confident in their ability to manipulate the authority of the church. If the current injustice to a significant minority is made worse, more people may be encouraged to vote against the new measure but like a second-rate trade union, having failed to stuff Synod with sufficient support to assure victory, the call now is to change the rules to give them that assurance. There has already been a no confidence vote in the Diocese of Bristol and a hypocritical call by the Chair of the House of Clergy to oust the Chair of the House of Laity. 

The final absurdity in this process is the claim that we have to be responsive to the priorities of secular society. As if he had become WATCH's trumpet Abp Rowan commented after the vote: The Church of England has "a lot of explaining to do" to the church and to wider society after its rejection of legislation ... In a strongly worded speech to the General Synod [he] warned that the failure of the vote in the house of laity on Tuesday had made the church's governing body appear "wilfully blind" to the priorities of secular society. "We have – to put it very bluntly – a lot of explaining to do," he said. "Whatever the motivations for voting yesterday … the fact remains that a great deal of this discussion is not intelligible to our wider society. Worse than that, it seems as if we are wilfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that wider society."

It would have been understandable if these comments had come from WATCH but coming from a world-renowned theologian they are incredible. If the early church had been guided by the trends and priorities of wider society at the time there would be no church for them to meddle with.

Catholic revival?

Well perhaps not but welcome news indeed.

Breaking News from Forward in Faith.

Next Bishop of Fulham announced Oct 30, 2012

It has been announced this morning from 10 Downing Street that the Chairman of Forward in Faith, Bishop Jonathan Baker, is to be the next suffragan Bishop of Fulham in the Diocese of London. He will be translated from the suffragan See of Ebbsfleet, which he has held since his episcopal ordination in June 2011.

Bishop Jonathan said, ‘I am delighted to be taking up this new post, though of course very sorry to be leaving the priests and people of the Ebbsfleet parishes after such a relatively short time as their bishop. I am looking forward enormously to leading the Fulham parishes and to playing my part in the mission of the church in London across the Diocese.

I am assured that the process of appointing a new Bishop of Ebbsfleet is already underway, and so in due course I am confident that my move will lead to a strengthening of the team of catholic bishops in the Church of England at this critical time.

After having spent the whole of my ministry thus far in the Diocese of Oxford, it will be very good to be living and working in the heart of London for, having grown up in the capital, it will represent something of a homecoming for me.

I will, of course, continue to serve as Chairman of Forward in Faith.’

FiF Secretary Fr Ross Northing, who also serves as Vice-Chairman of the Ebbsfleet Council of Priests, added:  ‘Whilst we are naturally sad to be losing Bishop Jonathan from the Ebbsfleet area so soon, we nevertheless rejoice that he has been given this wonderful opportunity to minister to our brothers and sisters in the Fulham area.  He will leave Oxford with our prayers and very best wishes.’

A message from the Archbishop of Canterbury

Rejoice! is the message from the Archbishop of Canterbury "on the occasion of the consecration of the Bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough" in the August edition of New Directions:


"Today has been a very happy day indeed. We have welcomed Bishop Norman and Bishop Jonathan as colleagues amongst the Bishops of the Church of England and we have celebrated in a very moving service at Southwark Cathedral the inauguration of their Episcopal ministry.


Speaking for myself I'm delighted that we have bishops of such quality to join us in ministering to this very significant section of the church of England. Without the traditional Catholic voice and presence the Church of England would be less than itself.


It would lose a robust, creative, deep rooted part of its tradition. My hope and prayer is that the appointment of these two new bishops and their future ministry will consolidate that tradition, reinvigorate it and help it play its part in the Church of England and the wider church of God for many years to come."


Shame on the Archbishop of Wales, then, for not sharing ++ Rowan's vision, stubbornly refusing those in the Catholic tradition in Wales the Episcopal ministry they also value. If the Ordinariate takes root and Archbishop Morgan loses "this very significant section" of the Church in Wales with all that implies, not least financially, there will be no-one but himself to blame .