Petertide ordinations in Wales

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby welcomed female priests at St Paul's Cathedral in 2014                                                                               Source: BBC

For the first time since women were accepted for ordination, most deacons ordained in the Church of England in 2019 were women, only 44% of whom were aged under 40.

It can be only a matter of time before Anglicanism in this country is dominated by women who feel free to do as they please.

In 2020 the Covid-19 lockdown has resulted in churches being closed, only now re-opening for private prayer but that has not prevented the Church in Wales from carrying out some ordinations.

The diocese of Monmouth has been asked by bishop Cherry openly to pray for a new female deacon who will be ordained in Newport Cathedral today.

Of more concern is the rumoured secretive ordination behind Llandaff Cathedral's closed doors today of a man reportedly in a same sex marriage.

Some observations from a concerned commentator:

The regulations forbidding clergy holding public services in their churches have been the cause of deep anxiety and concern.  Even when our churches are permitted to be open for private prayer they will not be allowed to vocalise any form of worship.  Grotesque?  Yes.  You may only go into a church if you promise not to utter aloud any praise of God or articulate intercession!

However – one rule for the lower clergy, another for the hierarchy – there is a rumour doing the rounds that Mrs Goulding (alias the bishop of Llandaff) is intent on secretly holding a ‘private’ ordination service behind the locked doors of Llandaff Cathedral in the presence of only a few members of the Chapter.  ‘A private ordination behind locked doors’ is no more possible than a ‘private marriage behind locked doors’.  Ordination is the concern and action of the whole people of God.  The service makes this clear at various points when the congregation is asked questions about the suitability of the candidates and whether it is the wish of the people that they be ordained.

Furthermore, there is apparently to be no Communion.  The 1662 Prayer Book, and Wales 1984 – and indeed all ordination services – are within the context of the Eucharist.  ‘ . . . all they that receive Orders shall take together, and remain in the same place where hands were laid upon them, until such time as they have received the Communion.”

If the bishop and the priest do not receive the Holy Communion together then one may justifiably question whether it is a legal or valid ordination.

Postscript

Social distancing being ignored:

Deaconing in Newport Cathedral 27 June 2020                         Source: YouTube

RE-OPENING CHURCHES UPDATE Monmouth news Posted: 19 June 2020

Postscripts [28.06.2020]

Episcopal double standards in evidence?

Following the report of a secretive ordination service in Llandaff Cathedral a tweet from Llandaff diocese has been posted in response to a tweet in which it was queried whether or not churches can now hold worship providing it is behind closed doors:

"Llandaff Diocese #StaySafe

@LlandaffDio

Morning Rachel. Yes, ordinations  took place in the cathedral yesterday. Doors were closed because public were unable to attend due to strict social distancing rules. No family or friends could attend. 

Unusual circumstances this but safety must come first. ✝️❤️"

There was no announcement of the service that I can find and no prayers invited for the ordinand(s) - more than one is now indicated.

In view of the serious observations contained in the main post, above, a fuller explanation should be made instead of a Covid-19 safety brush off.  

PS 2 [28.06.2020]

A further tweet shows five candidates were ordained as deacons to serve in the diocese plus another four presumably to serve in other dioceses.

Postscript [29.06.2020]

Source: CinW Twitter

The latest Petertide ordinations reported on Twitter:

"Ordinations Covid-style in St David's Church Abergwili - congratulations to Heulwen Evans, Jordan Spencer and Lorna Jones, the first of our Deacons to be ordained yesterday (Sunday 28th). All duly socially distanced..."

So should one assume there was no laying on of hands in Abergwili?

Postscript [01.07.2020]

From Twitter: Next, St Asaph

"ORDINATIONS

It should have been the ordination of priests last Saturday, and I am currently working towards the provisional date of Saturday, 3rd October, for the ordination of our seven priest candidates (Gareth Erlandson, Sally Harper, Simon Piercy, Chris Spencer, Sue Storey, Carol Thomas and James Tout), hoping that it will be possible to hold the ordination in the Cathedral as usual.  Do please hold all these individuals in your thoughts and prayers.

By agreement with the Welsh Government, however, we will be able to proceed with the ordination of our deacon candidates, and this is because the government has accepted the argument that it is a necessary step to their assuming ministry and their work as Assistant Curates.  In line with government regulations, the ordination service will be online live streamed and recorded, and socially distanced, or with PPE precautions.  Ordinations are joyful occasions when we give thanks to God for the calling of men and women to ordained service, but on this occasion, the absence of supporters and a congregation will be keenly felt.  It is my hope, therefore, that many of us can hold them in prayer at the time, and support them from a distance.  Please remember George Bearwood, Luke Bristowe, Helen Dawson, Toby Jones, Gregory Lachlann-Waddell, Ben Lines, Jo MacKriell, Jim Thompson and Gail Woodward in your prayers." - AD CLERUM - JULY 2020

If there was 'agreement with the Welsh Government' as stated it makes the secrecy surrounding the ordination, Monmouth excluded, all the more surprising

The bench should come clean and explain to the faithful how the ordinations were conducted with social distancing and whether they took part in the context of the Eucharist.

Postscript [05.07.2020]

Source: Church in Wales

St Asaph coming clean at their Petertide ordination service yesterday. Oodles of photos here. Clearly much thought of safeguarding is in evidence.

Locked out

Many regular Sunday church attenders will be feeling lost following the closure of churches in accordance with government instructions on defeating the spread of the coronavirus. In time of need they are denied the comfort of Holy Communion and fellowship. 

Many of us have been there for years. Effectively excommunicated, orthodox Anglicans have in many areas been left with no church to attend, especially in Wales where the Assistant Provincial Bishop David Thomas was not replaced following his retirement in 2008. 

My experience of virtual services has not been inspiring, unlike the above video link which was sent to me by a well wisher. 

We have lost so much.

“Women of Jerusalem, do not shed your tears for me, but for yourselves and for your children! For the days are coming when men will say, ‘Lucky are the women who are childless—the bodies which have never borne, and the breasts which have never given nourishment.’ Then men will begin ‘to say to the mountains, Fall on us! and to the hills, Cover us!’ For if this is what men do when the wood is green, what will they do when it is seasoned?”
Luke 23:28-31

Confirmation

 "The new bishop of Llandaff's first presidential address at a Llandaff diocesan conference makes informative reading. Strong on sociology but weak on theology and spirituality she should sit easily on a bench of bishops devoid of such talents.
Formerly five of the bishops in Wales held Oxford Firsts in Theology."
- From an entry 'Sociology replacing religion' in October 2017.

There was much hype about the former Dean of Salisbury beginning to transform Llandaff as soon as she crossed the Llys Esgob threshold.

She has - but not as one might have expected as the illustration shows.

In 2016 the Bishops of the Church in Wales wrote a Pastoral Letter to "all the faithful" concerning admission to Holy Communion of all the baptised "by virtue of their Baptism alone".  There were objections that the decision was based on dodgy legal advice,

In the rite of confirmation the Holy Spirit is invoked to come upon those who are to be confirmed.

At the Governing Body of the Church in Wales in September 2017 a private members’ motion asked for the time to consider in more detail documents prepared by the Bench of Bishops and for their period of introduction to be extended by a year to enable greater consideration of its implications. The Mover said "some people had theological objections to the change and their opinions should be heard."

The motion was carried. Discussed again in April 2018 at the  meeting of the Governing Body the bishop of St Asaph told delegates: "We are in the business of creating faithful disciples of Jesus Christ; enabling people to grow into a living faith." He added without any hint of irony: "We are a church which believes in theological debate and as a Bench of Bishop’s we are open to discussion."

There has been no meaningful debate with traditionalists but there was a brief nod to orthodoxy when a Confirmation service took place on 3 October in Llandaff Cathedral led by a Society bishop. Bishop Philip North was invited to celebrate and to confirm candidates.

I have seen no official report or photographs of the event. Some have suggested this was probably out of  official embarrassment due the numbers present. However, this is one report which appeared on Twitter: "Standing room only in the Cathedral for a Diocesan Confirmation @LlandaffDio and the most candidates I think I have ever seen. What utter joy. Thank you @BishopJuno and @BpBurnley. God is good!"

There is no such holding back in the Winter issue of Croeso in which the sacrament of Confirmation is subsumed under a story about same-sex marriage, the joys of the Gathering (an ecumenical LGBTQ+ safe space)! and a mini celebration in the candidate's local church with "flags and prayers for LGBTQ+ folks."

The liberal drift has indeed engulfed the Church in Wales.

From her gay friendly base in Llandaff, June Osbourne has followed the example of the bishop of St Davids, Joanna Penberthy in promoting the LGBTQ+ cause while the third woman bishop to be appointed, Cherry Vann, bishop elect of Monmouth confirms the priorities of women clergy with a talk at a Rochdale Pride event on 'the Church of England's Pastoral Principles for living well together'.

Sociology has replaced theology but it should come as no surprise.

Writing for Virtue Online, Biblical Anthropologist Alice C. Linsley who served as a priest in the Episcopal Church for 16 years addresses 'Ten reasonable objections to women in the priesthood':

1. The Church is not a democratic body.
2. Women's ordination is linked to homosexual activism.
3. Women's ordination is rooted in Feminist thought.
4. Women priests perpetuate confusion about gender.
5. Women priests represent rejection of the authority Scripture and Tradition
6. Women priests cause confusion about the Eucharist.
7. Women priests represent a denial of the Fathers' teaching.
8. Ordination of women to the priesthood undermines women's ministries.
9. The feminization of the clergy discourages men's participation in the church.
10. A female at the altar blurs the biblical distinction between life and death.

The paper is confirmation of how sociology has replaced religion in liberal Anglicanism.

Fit for purpose?

The bishops of Bangor, St Davids, Monmouth, Swansea & Brecon (Archbishop), St Asaph and Llandaff .                                                Source: Church in Wales

All dressed up but nowhere to go. The Church in Wales has no future.

That is the conclusion of bishops who are not deluded by their own sense of importance. 

Much has been made of dwindling attendances at Sunday services, apart from at the Governing Body (GB), but why does anyone attend services at a church that has lost its way? It cannot be for theological reasons because the Church in Wales has abandoned theology for the Zeitgeist.

Conclusions reached at GB are no longer based on scripture and tradition but on the whims of a manipulative bench of bishops. Biblical truths are ignored or misinterpreted to make them appear more plausible.

Faithful Anglicans who are unwilling to accept false doctrine have left the church thus strengthening the hand of remaining members who are willing to conform.

If the mission of the Church in Wales is based on false doctrine its evangelism will lead people astray so it must be better for the soul to be a believer on the outside than a non-believer on the inside.

To be cast out by remainers with false accusation of misogyny, homophobia and of not believing in equality is the flowering of weeds sown by bishops who have interpreted the Gospel to accommodate secular trends resulting in churchianity rather than Christianity.

The Church of Wales is deformed with no apparent chance of correction. All of its bishops continue to show allegiance to posturings of the former archbishop. A form of succession which perpetuates his brand of radicalism has developed into a ministry not of hope but of despair. The consequences are dire.

For worshippers no longer able to tolerate the hypocrisy of the bench of bishops there is not the range of options available to disaffected Anglicans in England.

Assistance that may have been provided by provincial episcopal visitors from England to allow traditional parishes to flourish has been stymied by mean-spirited shepherds and shepherdesses who refuse to allow PEVs to cross the border.

Consequently most of Wales has been turned into a spiritual desert for traditionalist Anglicans. The faithful have been abandoned while the Church in Wales continues to pretend to be in fellowship within the Holy Catholic Church.

It is generally assumed that disaffected Anglicans will turn to Rome as the only practical alternative for those who need to find another spiritual home.

That is not so simple for conscientious worshippers who are drawn to the 'catholic and reformed' worship provided by the Anglican Church.

The Ordinariate was set up by Pope Benedict XVI to maintain Anglican patrimony. It allowed 'Anglicans to become Catholic while retaining elements of their identity', not that there is much opportunity to participate in Wales other than in SE Wales.

If that option is available the process of reception into another church after a lifetime of Anglican devotion is not an attractive option, particularly for those in declining years, often widows or widowers, cradle Anglicans who hoped to die as Anglicans as did their husband or wife.

In the absence of Anglican churches abroad visiting Anglicans have been permitted to receive at the local Catholic church but that does not apply in the wilderness created in Wales so the faithful are denied Holy Communion.

The bench of bishops speak of an inclusive church based on equality. It includes some but not others. There is no equality in that.

They are not fit for purpose.

Dodgy legal advice leads to Eucharistic free for all

Source: New Directions

Readers of the March 2017 edition of Forward in Faith's magazine New Directions (£) will have read the worrying conclusion by a leading law expert that the Pastoral Letter from the bishops of the Church in Wales authorising the reception of Holy Communion based on Baptism alone was based on dodgy legal advice.

This is the conclusion of the Rev'd Professor Thomas Glyn Watkin, a former Professor of Law at Cardiff and Bangor and former First Welsh Legislative Counsel to the Welsh Government. Between 1981 and 1998 he served as Legal Assistant to the Governing Body of the Church in Wales.

Professor Watkin writes: "The interpretation placed upon the rubric  by the Legal Sub-Committee not only circumvents the Church's due processes for alteration to rites and discipline. In its consequences, it displays a scant respect for - or an inchoate understanding of - the rule of law in Church affairs."

Professor Watkin wrote at the beginning of the article: "In a letter to the Church Times on Friday, 27 January, His Honour Judge Andrew Keyser QC responded to my letter in the edition of 13 January concerning Confirmation and Admission to Holy Communion in Wales. In his lengthy and carefully-worded letter, he quoted the views of the Doctrinal Commission on the issues, but he revealed nothing of the reasoning behind the Legal Sub-Committee's conclusions. The two pieces of unanimous legal advice to which he refers, and the reasons why other interpretations were deemed "unpersuasive", remain firmly hidden from scrutiny,

In a February blog entry, Church in Crisis, a letter from Professor Watkin to the Church Times was reproduced. In it he wrote, "The Church in Wales Book of Common Prayer, enacted by various canons, declares that confirmation is a rite, and its rubrics provide that confirmation is generally necessary to receive holy communion. The Church's constitution provides that alterations to rites and discipline may be made only by canon.

"The Welsh Bishops wish to allow those who have been baptised to receive the sacrament without need of confirmation. They are attempting to do this by pastoral letter, without any authorisation by canon. The Archbishop has written in this paper (Letters, 25 November) that the change makes confirmation 'a service of response and commitment to God's grace given at baptism and at the Eucharist for those who want to make such a commitment'.

"...The Welsh Bishops state that they have legal advice assuring them that the 'step does not require any change in the present Canon Law or Constitution of the Church in Wales'. A polite request to make public that legal advice met with an equally polite refusal. That the alteration is controversial is clear from recent correspondence in these columns (Letters, 14 October and 23/30 December)."

The Article Riding Buckleshod over Canon Law in New Directions gives a fascinating insight into how the Church in Wales under Barry Morgan seemed able to receive the advice they wanted to hear to justify their actions. Professor Watkin is not alone in his concern. Some of the highlighted text from a previous article in New Directions by the Venerable Martin Williams, the former Archdeacon of Margam: The Civil Law was all that mattered; Canon Law is swept away; These are existential concerns about our identity; Not once in the documents is "Eucharist" used; and, It is hard to imagine what the bishops have in mind. The Archdeacon concludes, "The Church in Wales is in a very deep crisis indeed."

The Church in Wales claimed to be "re-adopting the practice of the early church on admission to Communion – the sharing of bread and wine – in an effort to strengthen ministry to children and young people in particular". Ministry to children and young people will not be strengthened by making Holy Communion commonplace. It is the mystery and awe that counts. Something deeply spiritual. The 'otherness'.

The Doctrinal Commission's seal of approval was used to authenticate the former Archbishop's divisive views on same sex marriage. Always careful to implicate the bench with 'collegiality', Barry Morgan's views have prevailed by one means or another. Sadly I hear that he can be seen still lingering around Llandaff Cathedral like a bad odour, no doubt trying to exert influence on his form minions.

Much discontent is apparent from comments received under previous entries. If ever there were a time for a fresh start this is it, starting with the new Bishop of Llandaff, not tainted by political intrigue but steeped in holiness and righteousness. Someone the bench will look up to, not kowtow to.