Foot in the door

'Sailing Nun' to help steer Church course with key Vatican job

 (Photos source: Twitter)

Translated from Vida Nueva: "Nathalie Becquart: the woman with a voice and (for the first time) with a vote at the Synod" - and a foot in the door!

"A female undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops. Make no mistake about what it means. It is not an administrative responsibility anymore. The French nun Nathalie Becquart will be in charge, along with the Spanish Augustinian Luis Marín, named after her on February 6, to take care of the proper functioning of this Roman department that is in a prominent place on Pope Francis' reform agenda. And they will do so under the guidance of Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Synod since last year.

Marie-Lucile Kubaki, Vatican correspondent for the French Catholic weekly La Vie, observed, "With her arrival at the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, the Pope deepens his logic of appointing more women to positions of responsibility in the Vatican, as he did with Francesca di Giovanni, undersecretary in the Section for relations with States in 2020, for example.

"Small but firm steps. That seems to be Jorge Mario Bergoglio's strategy. It is clear that Nathalie's voice and vote will not change things on their own. But for the first time, the opinion of one of the 660,000 religious women on the planet counts. Will others follow?"

'Small but firm steps' will sound familiar to Anglicans. Step by step women who, allegedly, only wanted to be deacons used every trick in the book to be ordained priest  and to be admitted to the episcopacy.

Remember when it was said that if women were allowed to be accepted as deacons, it didn't follow that they would then be allowed to become priests? When deacons wanted to be ordained priests, it didn't mean that they would be allowed to become bishops?

Jolly June Osborne, bishop of Llandaff, admitted recently in a podcast that "once you've made women priests there isn't a theological reason at all why they shouldn't enter the episcopacy."

June along with her colleague Joanna Penberthy, bishop of St Davids, both complain that anyone taking a different theological position to them is prejudiced.

In a television interview in April 2018, bishop Joanna asserted, "if you can be prejudiced in the soft institution of the church, what does that say about your attitude to women?"

The 'soft institution of the church' to use Penberthy's words has been used by feminists to advance their own cause at the expense of the Church, trampling on the faithful in the process as Women and the Church (WATCH) have demonstrated when they have reneged on the agreement that gave them what they wanted, feminist power.

A foot in the door is just the beginning.

I don't care says Archbishop

Archbishop Justin Welby                                    Source: The Spectator

It is a sad time for orthodox Anglicans when archbishops don't care, adopting a mix and match approach to faith, driving Western Anglicanism into the mud as it becomes bogged down by secularism. And it is not just Canterbury. The Church in Wales and the Scottish Episcopal Church are in the same rut.

The US Episcopal Church (TEC) was allowed to become terminally infected by the spirit of the age before if wafted over the pond to infect the Church of England (CofE) and beyond, welcomed by impatient liberals as if it were the Holy Spirit rather than the Zeitgeist.

Interviewed for The Spectator the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, responded to claims that "one in ten Catholic priests is a former Anglican vicar by saying, "Who cares? I don’t mind about all that. Particularly if people go to Rome, which is such a source of inspiration."

Such an inspiration that after talking since the 1970s about possible reunion the CofE ignored pleas by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches and admitted female priests, blocking the road to unity.

Archbishops may not care but orthodox Anglicans do care. While Anglican priests cross the Tiber going to Rome, Catholic priests are travelling in the opposite direction. The numbers are likely to increase after Pope Francis told gay priests to "be celibate or leave the priesthood", thus further diluting Anglican orthodoxy as the CofE embraces homosexuality and same sex marriage.

Rev Dr Tina Beardsley: "Positive development"

 Next on the Anglican agenda is the CofE's welcoming of transgender people with calls for an Affirmation of Baptism service adapted to allow transgender Christians to celebrate their new sexual identity.

A step too far? The Church of England is facing opposition from more than 2,000 of its own clergy and office holders over new guidance on celebrating transgender ‘transitions’.

It comes as no surprise that according to an analysis of CofE churchgoing in 2017 less than 50 people attend Sunday services at a typical English parish church and just one in ten babies is baptised into the Church of England.

Archbishop Welby accepts that the numbers are "challenging". From the Spectator article, "vocations are rising but weekday and Sunday services decreasing and the number of marriages and baptisms declining sharply. Perhaps the most startling statistic is that just 2 per cent of under-25s regard themselves as Anglican. ‘If you’re over 70, you’re eight times more likely to go to church than if you’re under 30,’ he says. ‘And I think that’s a huge challenge.’ I ask if he thinks rising secularism is also a challenge: that young people who go to church are seen not just as weird but as potential bigots and homophobes. It’s not a story he recognises."

No doubt the archbishop will welcome liberal minded Roman Catholic priests into his un-orthodox Anglican Church leaving orthodox Anglicans even more isolated. As conviction Anglicans they are unlikely to become Roman Catholics. Many have already left. Those who refuse to contemplate leaving 'their church' will be further compromised by sustaining an organisation that no longer shares the faith of the vast majority of Christians in the Anglican Communion

For those who are tempted to become Roman Catholics the writing is on the wall in the headline Papal advisers on female deacons hopeful for positive answer.

Rome has only to look to Canterbury for the dangers in that. As deacons in the Anglican Church justice demanded that they be allowed to become priests, then bishops, then cohabiting priests, then married priests, then married bishops. They call it progress but it is not Biblical.

Another bite of the apple?

Pope Francis has repeatedly pushed for greater roles for women in the church, but maintains that
 priesthood is for men only.  (ANDREW MEDICHINI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO)

There have been a number of reports recently about the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church. From The Star, for example: "The Vatican’s commission of Latin American church leaders is demanding greater decision-making opportunities for women in the church and proposing that Pope Francis call a special meeting of the world’s bishops to discuss women."

"The Pontifical Commission for Latin America said after its recent plenary that the church needs a radical “change of mentality” in the way it views and treats half of humanity. It was published in Thursday’s Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.

"The commission members — 22 Latin American cardinals and bishops, plus 15 women who joined the panel for the meeting — said it was both possible and “urgent” to increase opportunities for women at the parish, diocesan and Vatican level.

" 'This opening isn’t a concession to cultural or media pressure, but the result of a realization that the lack of women in decision-making roles is a defect, an ecclesiological gap and the negative effect of a clerical and macho conception,' the communique said.

"They warned that if the church doesn’t fix the problem soon, women will simply leave." Full text here.

Also, from Life Site: "Recent comments from Viennese prelate Christoph Cdl. Schönborn, apparently supportive of ordaining women, are opposed, I suggest, to at least three fundamental ecclesiological values but they have occasioned, as far I have seen, no correction whatsoever from Church leadership, and thus seem to be a chilling illustration of the erosion of order in the Church." Read the response here.

What many Anglicans liked about the Anglican Church was that it was both catholic and reformed, retaining the creeds and threefold ministry of the deacon, priest and bishop. But further reforming has plagued the Anglican Communion. In adapting to local circumstances, provinces in the US and here in the UK have allowed political activism to over-rule scripture and tradition.

In Wales a political fix saw the first woman bishop appointed to the diocese of St Davids followed by a second appointment by the bench of bishops to the diocese of Llandaff. The consequence has been a shift to gender politics. Sexuality has replaced spirituality while gender equality is the new mission.

None of this need have happened. Generally, the sort of women who agitated to become deacons saw the move as a stepping-stone. After their objective was achieved it was claimed to be unfair that women deacons were not allowed to be priests. After they were admitted to the priesthood it was the stained glass ceiling. Allowing them to be elected as bishops was now the "only logical step" said arch-schemer Barry Morgan. The stained glass was shattered along with Anglicanism. The results are clear for all to see. 

To claim that 'if the church doesn’t fix the problem soon, women will simply leave' is absurd. Many women have left the Anglican Church because of the changes, not because they are sexist but because the church has become secularised.