Navel gazing v. the real plight of women

Boko Haram 'has abducted, raped and enslaved 2,000 women in reign of terror'

One year ago today over 200 schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram. Dreadful as that event was, there has been much less publicity on the plight of around 800,000 children who have been forced to flee their homes. According to reports from UNICEF "more than 1.5 million people have fled their homes due to the violence." Muslim women often bear the brunt of this inhumanity along with non-Muslims.

Meanwhile at the Church in Wales' meeting of the Barry Morgan Appreciation Society Governing Body this week a large chunk of the Agenda will be taken up by the representation (plight!) of women in the Church in Wales resulting in the Motion - 

"That the Governing Body:
receive and welcome the Report of the Working Group on Representation of Women in the Church in Wales dated April 2015 and endorse the recommendations therein;
accept that the Church in Wales has not achieved in the last seven years the expected cultural change, the appointment of more women into senior posts and the greater involvement of women in Church decision making;
recognise that the equality agenda is the responsibility of the whole Church;
commend the Report to the Province, dioceses, deaneries and parishes for study and appropriate action;
request the Standing Committee to allocate the recommendations in the Report to the appropriate bodies for action;
request the Standing Committee to report back on progress in implementing the recommendations within 3 years."

The navel gazing is so intense that the Church in Wales is blind to the fact that Provinces which have adopted the feminist agenda are going downhill fast. Highlighted in the Report is this gem: "the Church was best placed to fulfil its mission when all of its members are enabled to fully acknowledge their gifts and duties and to exercise their unique talents and vocations as individuals", ie, jobs for the girls. It certainly does not apply to members who are out of favour because they seek to fulfil the mission of the universal Church rather than a self-indulgent separatist minority which claims membership of the Holy Catholic Church as they tear her apart. If they genuinely wished to "recognise that the equality agenda is the responsibility of the whole Church" [my emphasis], they would take the universal view.

Agendum 12 introduces "Evangelism - Witnessing to Good News in Wales and 2020":
"The essential vision behind the Church in Wales review of 2012 was that Church can be the bearer of good news to the world". Do they realise that there is a world beyond Offa's Dyke?

Mean-minded gender politics v. traditional Anglican faith

Readers may have observed that I find it difficult to be 'slow to anger' where the Anglican church is concerned today. What makes me particularly angry is the complete absence of compassion for men and women in the church who, in common with the majority of Christians, simply want to practice their religion in accordance with tradition, something that should be a human right. I have witnessed and valued women's ministry for its dedication in many areas of church life but much has now changed setting one against another. I didn't see the need for Deaconesses to become Deacons any more than actresses needed to became actors or heroines to became heroes but whereas actors and heroes of either sex were equal in pursuit of their ambitions, so called equality in the church meant something different, a change in our understanding of the priesthood using faith as a vehicle for gender politics. 

Women deacons became priests on the dubious pretext that there was no biblical objection and the assertion that there was little difference between deacon and priest other than the utterance of a few words (such regard for the sacred ministry!). Now it is the 'stained glass ceiling' that has to be shattered in the guise of equality. Such is the success of this secular based campaign that even some opponents of the ordination of women express sympathy for their position, one which has been manipulated to appear one of prejudice. If they succeed in their goal the next step will be parity which is the aim of Women and the Church (WATCH). Only when we have a woman Archbishop will cries of injustice be allowed to fade.


The appointment of women bishops shatters the tradition of the Universal Church of which Anglicanism has been part. In England, 2012 sees the culmination of a process of deception and lies using false promises to achieve this objective. In Wales their Archbishop is determined to reintroduce the measure in 2012, ignoring the earlier defeat on the basis that the Holy Spirit is only at work when the Archbishop finds the result favourable. Out of spite he went on to deny traditionalists acceptable pastoral and sacramental care by imposing oversight by a bench of bishops none of whom shows any sympathy towards traditionalists. The Church of England has been more tolerant in consecrating replacement PEVs but what of the future given the intransigence of members of Synod, particularly the hard edged women of WATCH and GRAS?


I have to accept that not everyone shares a traditional understanding of the sacred ministry but I cannot understand why, as Christians, new Anglicans would want to deny traditionalists the opportunity to continue to practise their religion as they have done well before many of the new breed of Anglicans entered the church. While some traditionalists may be able to look to the Ordinariate or possibly to the Western Rite of Orthodoxy many will find themselves in the wilderness as their own church adopts a take it or leave it approach, carefully crafted to offer only something known to be unacceptable on the basis that anything else would imply that women would be seen as second class bishops. I was particularly saddened over Christmas to receive a card from a very devout lady with a message that she had had enough and given up going to church. Like many disenchanted souls before her, she had been receiving the sacrament regularly before many of the new breed of Anglicans were born. Does people's faith count for nothing in the gender politics that now obsess our church? 


In my previous entry I again highlighted the plight of traditionalist Anglicans in the Episcopal church of the United States and the road to ruin the liberalised Episcopal church there has embarked upon. There is another report here which well illustrates what happens when liberalism replaces the traditional faith of the church. Our once tolerant, broad church should look again to the faith of the Universal church and end its obsession with gender politics while there is still Anglican church in which to hold the office of bishop.

Prepare the way before the people of the Lord.

The Church as the body of Christ.

Reflection in this season of Advent has led to hope, trust and despair. Despair that the Anglican church many of us have known and loved is departing from the Universal Church, trust in the unity offered through the Ordinariate, and hope that if that journey is made, it is steered in accordance with Christ's example alone.

I came across the above icon in a Blog while reflecting on the 'One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church'. At first I was encouraged by what I found in the opening statement:

  "Our Lord Jesus Christ, before his crucifixion, prayed to His heavenly Father asking that His disciples be one, just as He and His Father are one (John 17:20-23). This is the prayer of all true Christians. It is for this reason that we confess in our Creed that we believe “in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” in which we are saved."

Reading on led to despair. What followed was another story of division, the same division that disgraces the rest of the Universal Church furthering the cause of secularism by giving ammunition to detractors. 

In the past week I have found myself in discussions with people of various persuasions; atheist, Catholic and Anglican. In response to an atheist's question about the Holy Grail, a Catholic present explained about transubstantiation and appeared surprised by my agreement as if transubstantiation meant nothing to an Anglican. Then a traditionalist Anglo Catholic told me how he had been sidelined by the new wave of Anglicans in his church, showing no understanding of the catholic faith or reverence for the Sacrament. All this came in the wake of the controversy started by the Bishop of London about the new Roman Missal, commented on in the Catholic Herald by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith and followed up by him with "Catholics are being deceived into attending non-Catholic services" when he wrote:

"If a Roman Catholic from France or Italy visits this unidentified church and sees that the Roman rite is seemingly in progress, they would not unnaturally assume that the church was a Roman Catholic Church, in communion with the Holy Father, wouldn’t they? But they would be mistaken. Such a church uses the Roman Missal, but is not a Roman Catholic church, and is not authorised to use the Roman Missal by the Bishop of the diocese (the Catholic bishop, I mean; the Anglican bishop has also forbidden it). Moreover the persons attempting to celebrate Mass are not recognised as priests by the Roman Catholic Church. In short, the visitor from France or Italy may see what looks like the Mass, but what is in fact not the Mass."

"Moreover the persons attempting to celebrate Mass are not recognised as priests by the Roman Catholic Church". Really? So what are non-Roman Catholics doing at the altar? 'Catholic' is not a trade mark belonging exclusively to the Roman Catholic Church. Like it or not, members of the Anglican church profess the same belief in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Also, the Orthodox Church claims to be the true church so who is to say that we are not partakers of the one bread? Priests who converted to Roman Catholicism have been know to comment that their former Anglican congregations often had more knowledge and understanding of the faith than many of the cradle Catholics in their new congregations who simply pop in to Mass and out again as quickly as possible, often on a Saturday evening thus avoiding any lengthy period of worship. I know many 'Catholics' who think nothing of going to an Anglican church to receive* the sacrament and I have seen Roman Catholic priests who, although they do not receive, cross themselves at the elevation.

As Christians united in baptism we all 'look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come'. Here and now in our own way, 'the people of the Lord' do as Jesus bade us unconstrained by earthly dogmas. Anglo Catholics do not kneel at the altar in vain. None of us knows the day or the hour but when the hour comes we can all say in good conscience, we received the Body and Blood of Christ by faith with thanksgiving. 


* Read an Anglican priest's experience on Fr Mervyn's Blog here.

Women in dog collars

Photo: Jane Mingay

How sad that this is what the Anglican church has come to. Dominated by women in dog collars desperate for purple shirts as though they have a God given right to be bishops. Such is the force of their feminist movement in the Anglican church they now dominate debate in England and Wales bringing with it all the equal rights baggage of parity, same sex partnerships and their pension rights.

The latest news from the BBC will give women clergy even more courage to oust all those who oppose their feminist strategies, faithful Anglicans or not, putting all their trust in synodical governance over the faith and tradition of the Universal church using their preposterous claim that their manipulations are the work of the Holy Spirit.

In our Creed we still claim to be members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but unilateral decisions of Synod have separated us from the wider church of East and West at a time when great strides are being made towards unity. Putting religious differences aside, this dialogue from "Light of the World" [ISBN 978-1-86082-709-9] on 'Overdue Reforms?' sums-up the position of women's ordination in the Universal Church:

"The impossibility of women's ordination in the Catholic Church has been clearly decided by a "non possumus" of the supreme Magisterium. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith laid this down under Paul VI in the 1976 document Inter insigniores, and John Paul II reinforced it in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis. In this document, speaking in virtue of his office about the "divine constitution of the Church", he writes —and these are his exact words—"that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful". Critics see this as a form of discrimination. The only reason Jesus did not call women to be priestesses, it is said, is that this would have been unthinkable two thousand years ago." - Peter Seewald.

"That is nonsense, since the world was full of priestesses at the time. All religions had their priestesses, and the astonishing thing was actually that they were absent from the community of Jesus Christ, a fact that in turn is a point of continuity with the faith of Israel. John Paul II's formulation is very important: The Church has "no authority" to ordain women. The point is not that we are saying that we don't want to, but that we can't. The Lord gave the Church a form with the Twelve and, as their successors, with the bishops and the presbyters, the priests. This form of the Church is not something we ourselves have produced. It is how he constituted the Church. Following this is an act of obedience. This obedience may be arduous in today's situation. But it is important precisely for the Church to show that we are not a regime based on arbitrary rule. We cannot do what we want. Rather, the Lord has a will for us, a will to which we adhere, even though doing so is arduous and difficult in this culture and civilization. Incidentally, women have so many great and meaningful functions in the Church that there can be no question of discrimination. That would be the case if the priesthood were a sort of dominion, whereas it is actually intended to be pure service. If you look at the history of the Church, women—from Mary to Monica and all the way down to Mother Teresa—have so eminent a significance that in many respects they shape the image of the Church more than men do. Just think of major Catholic feast days such as Corpus Christi or Mercy Sunday, which originated with women. In Rome, for example, there is even a Church where not a single man can be seen in any of the altarpieces." - Pope Benedict XVI

Wales Ordinariate Exploration Group

Belmont Abbey is the venue chosen to begin the process of exploration and discernment for those who are interested in knowing more about the Ordinariate. Anglo Catholic laity and clergy will meet there with the Ordinary, Monsignor Keith Newton, on Saturday 5 November 2011. The following details have now emerged: 

11.00am tea/coffee on arrival at Belmont Abbey 'Parish Centre'

11.30am Keynote Address (Monsignor Newton)

12.45pm Midday Office with the Belmont Abbey Community, followed by lunch

1.45pm 'Open Session' - further questions & answers, discussion, and briefing on plans for continuing further exploration after the day

3.00pm conclude with a brief Act of Devotion and depart

How ironic that 'traditionalists' in Wales have their own Archbishop "Bazzer" of Neath to thank for this development. Since the retirement of their much respected Provincial Assistant Bishop David Thomas, the Archbishop has shown remarkable contempt for traditionalists in Wales. In fact, his concern for followers of a false prophet over the faithful in his own church earned him the title of Grand Mufti of Wales in the Llandaffchester Chronicles. Helping him to rub in the salt have been members of the clergy with an eye on preferment who have sold out to His Darkness's vision of a church that is 'more relevant to society' than a vision of heaven on earth and who now belittle those who remain faithful to the teaching of the Universal Church. Their sneers that an Ordinariate in Wales had a fat chance are about to be tested.

In a comment under an earlier post the question was posed, "With two bishops on its pay roll, statistics reveal, that the diocese of Llandaff has the least number of communicants throughout the province of Wales. How on earth do these two keep their jobs?" Quite so. With six Diocesan Bishops and Deans, an Ass Bishop and 26 Archdeacons presiding over ever decreasing numbers, the Harris review already has plenty to think about. The possibility of an Ordinariate in Wales and all that that implies will give them an unexpected bone to chew over.  

  

Another screw in the Anglican coffin

The slow death of the Anglican church looks set to continue. While the role of bishops and priests becomes ever further divorced from traditional religious reality congregations continue to haemorrhage. 

Despite earlier pleas for restraint from Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, after the Bishop Gene Robinson affair, Canon Mary Glasspool was elected a bishop in Los Angeles while being in an openly long standing lesbian relationship. 'Restraint' is now turning to farce as synodical Christians seek additional ways of bending Christianity to their will rather than the will of the church Universal. 

Politically correct these decisions may be, but what is more important, the kingdom of God or personal desire? Christians should not discriminate against lesbian and gay people but that view is becoming one-sided. What consenting adults do in private is their own affair  but those Anglicans who try to remain faithful to the tradition of the Universal church rather than synodical debate are increasingly marginalised. 

Christina Rees, introduced by the BBC as "a senior member of the Synod", describes the latest move as "a very controversial issue still in the Church of England". Formerly the leading light in WATCH, Ms Rees was probably the right person to consult about controversy since she and her chums have done their level best to silence those who do not share their parochial view of the Universal church. They have sought to exclude anyone who is not a sympathiser of trendy, worldly desires. It will be interesting to see if they can find it in their hearts to accommodate all in the church, even those who don't share their view of the kingdom of heaven, by voting for appropriate episcopal oversight for traditionalists when/if the opportunity arises.