No economy at the top: "Bishop Mary and Bishop John join the Church's Bench of Bishops" Source: Church in Wales
The Vicar of Radyr has announced that she has submitted her resignation as incumbent and Ministry Area Leader to the bishop of Llandaff.
The Reverend Vicki Burrows said that she could no longer, with integrity, knowing the many things she knows, serve in the diocese where she believed a 'culture of fear' exists. A diocesan survey conducted after her initial exposure 'brought up the same results'. The senior leadership team acknowledged there was room for improvement. See the vicar's statement in this video link starting at position 1.00.15
The problem for the vicar and those for whom she is sacrificing her ministry is that the bench ditched integrity as soon as they had their own way on the ordination of women. See Brood of vipers!
It is not expected that the bishop of Llandaff will consider her position having already been engaged in a long running battle with her side-lined Dean and the new archbishop confirming his impotency in such matters.
Bishop June also has the precedent of the bishop of St Davids sitting tight until the storm blows over after the Twitter scandal in which she insulted many of her flock. Bishop Joanna is now making more frequent appearances as if she had never blotted her copybook.
Vicars are expendable it seems while bishops expand their empires despite Recommendation XXV for diocesan reform in the 2012 Harries Review.
Instead we have feminist triumphalism praising their latest 'successes'. Recently the Church in Wales tweeted: Our new bishops, Mary Stallard and John Lomas, join the Bench of bishops. We now have more women bishops than men, which we think is a first in the Anglican Communion @AnglicanNews @ChurchTimes.
This is somewhat ambiguous. Presumably they mean joining the bench for a photograph. According to the constitution the “Bench of Bishops” means the Archbishop and the other Diocesan Bishops but the gloating "We now have more women bishops than men, which we think is a first in the Anglican Communion" implies the prospect of an expectation of feminism influencing the Church in Wales even more.
It has been said that the hat makes the man so perhaps the mitre may be thought to make the women. That could explain the biggest mitre being sported by the assistant bishop. If I remember correctly she saw a woman wearing a mitre on a visit to the USA and was even more convinced that women bishops were right!
Postscript [01.04.2022]
Church Times - Dean’s complaint of bullying by Bishop of Llandaff to be heard at tribunal:
"No date for the tribunal has yet been fixed. A spokeswoman for the Church in Wales confirmed on Tuesday that the tribunal panel was currently being appointed by the president, Mark Powell QC. It can have five members, and must include a diocesan or assistant bishop from another diocese.
"The Church in Wales has appointed Gavin Foster QC — joint registrar in the diocese of Salisbury, a former Crown Prosecutor, and former domestic chaplain to the Bishop of Winchester, Dr Tim Dakin — as Proctor to bring the case. The tribunal has considerable powers, ranging from absolute or conditional discharge, rebuke, or monition, to deposition from Holy Orders."
The main focus in a church is the altar where the eucharist is celebrated.
The altar frontal should be of the colour of the day, offering no distraction from Christ's sacrificial death.
Substituting a Progress Pride flag as the altar frontal diverts attention away from Christ's sacrifice to a form of political activism, in this case advancing the cause of a particular group engaged in activities contrary to biblical teaching.
The Progress Pride flag differs from the gay pride in that it includes the Intersex community. What next one wonders?
Described as a "beautiful altar frontal in a friend's church" this is the second time I have seen it on Twitter of late.
Presumably the 'friend' is @RevdJacquiT whose original tweet is no longer visible to all because the account owner has since limited access to approved followers. However, some of the responses to her original tweet are still visible here, including "God knew exactly what she was doing in calling you"!
We have been here before - see The big lie. Misuse of the sacred leads to indifference and loss of mystery, the 'otherness' that set the church apart.
"Celebrating Faith, Hope & Love - An Open Table celebration of communion with OTN Patron Bishop Cherry Vann " Source: Twitter
In a tweet from the Diocese of St Asaph applicants are invited to join the bishops of St Asaph & Monmouth for a special 'Open Table' event in November hosted by the LGBTQIA+ Chaplaincy in the Church In Wales Diocese of St Asaph.
In the illustration above the holy sacrifice of the Mass is merged into LGBT rainbow colours as if to emphasis the bishops' recent victory at Governing Body which approved the blessing of same sex unions.
Open Table issues its invitation to 'come as you are' to a 'Communion service led by Right Revd Gregory Cameron, Bishop of St Asaph', a 'Reflection by Right Revd Cherry Vann, Bishop of Monmouth, Patron of Open Table Network' which will be 'Followed by a simple lunch, conversation and a chance to meet the Bishops'.
Bishop Cameron proposed the motion at Governing Body to allow blessings of same sex unions. In doing so he led Anglicans astray using unorthodox, poor theology which speaks volumes of the unanimous vote of the bishops and two thirds majority of clergy who voted in favour of the motion.
The event is 'Supported by the Open Table Network, a growing partnership of Christian worship communities which welcome and affirm people who are: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, & Asexual (LGBTQIA) + our families, friends and all our allies'.
Other Church in Wales worshippers are left out in the cold.
If you keep the faith as a traditional Anglican or, more recently, as an evangelical you have to "find accommodation as best they can" as the Ven Peggy Jackson put it with all the charity she could muster.
What is the driving force behind queering the Church in Wales? It has become the Great Commission in reverse, driving out the many to welcome the few who interpret the bible as they please to achieve their own ends.
One clue may be in the same-sex extracurricular activities in the St Michael's class of 1984 from which three students were to go on to comprise 50% of the bench of bishops. A bench that would later go on to appoint two LBGTQIA+ campaigning women as bishops followed by a partnered lesbian who is to share a reflection at the Open Table event.
That is not to point the finger at anyone, rather it is to query whether such non-biblical practices became accepted as normal behaviour at theological college.
Whatever the reason, the current position is beyond parody when LGBTQIA+ people and their supporters are courted as the faithful.
Church in Wales parish church of SS Andrew and Teilo, Woodville Road, Cathays, Cardiff. Source: Wikipedia
The parish church of SS Andrew and Teilo has followed the revisionist path of the Church in Wales to the letter but that has not saved parishioners from being sacrificed by bishop June Osborne. Her latest strategy, presumably for growth, is to give away their church. Parishioners are far from pleased.
From their petition Save St Teilo's - Save Our Community:
"In March 2019 the members of St Teilo’s church have been informed that a decision has been made by the Bishop of Llandaff, June Osborne, to give their church away to an evangelical church called Holy Trinity Brompton. The decision was made with no consultation with the clergy or members of the congregation and wider community and she says the decision is final."
Popularly known as St. Teilo's, the parish church became St. Andrew and St. Teilo after the nearby St. Andrew's church was rededicated as Eglwys Dewi Sant.
Before its rededication St Andrew's was a chapel of ease to St John the Baptist Church, the civic church in the heart of Cardiff now dedicated to the advancement of transgenderism following the bishop's appointment of a transgender activist vicar.
Led by a female priest the parish of SS Andrew and Teilo has an "inclusive ethos" and is "formally associated with the Inclusive Church movement". They responded to the Church in Wales initiative taking up the Seven Sacred Spaces model to shape their mission life, something the former bishop of Llandaff, Archbishop Barry Morgan referred to as "places of pilgrimage", an unfortunate link in June Osborne's year of pilgrimage initiative as she prepares to fly her diocesan clergy much farther afield in her widely ridiculed Costa Compostela initiative.
Famed for its Alpha course, Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) describes itself as "a vibrant Anglican church in the heart of London, passionate about seeing lives changed in the name of Jesus." In 2017, the Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT) was established to help build on this momentum of church planting in strategic cities across the UK:
While the success of HTB is to be admired, it is no reason for the bishop's high handed action, destroying one congregation in the hope of starting another. That is not church planting.
"Church planting is a process that results in a new (local) Christian church being established. It should be distinguished from church development, where a new service, new worship center or fresh expression is created that is integrated into an already established congregation. For a local church to be planted, it must eventually have a separate life of its own and be able to function without its parent body, even if it continues to stay in relationship denominationally or through being part of a network." Wikipedia
Among their guiding principles [20 ii]:
"We expect those responsible for church plants to commit themselves to work
to the best of their ability in cooperation with the other churches in the local
area, including the church in whose parish the new church plant is located, as
an integrated part of deanery and diocesan structures. They should aim to use
some of their resources to support the mission of their neighbours and expect
to make regular financial contributions to the diocese, as an expression of the
mutual responsibilities that are a normal part of church life."
What the bishop of Llandaff appears to be doing is adapting Church of England practice for use in the Church in Wales without its structure. In a similar way they cherry picked to write a Code of Practice which specifically excluded separate structures leaving orthodox Anglicans in Wales with nothing but their memories.
Church in Wales bishops have been resolute in refusing permission for orthodox bishops to cross the border. HTB plants have their own bishop for church plants, the Bishop of Islington. There is no indication how this would work in Wales.
We have been here before.
Revisionist bishops have destroyed orthodox Anglicanism in Wales, sacrificing faithful worshippers in pursuit of their secularist agenda. If attempting to address the resulting decline with another experiment is June Osborne's answer parishioners is not taking it lying down.
The 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' project by artist Paul Cummins
On 11 November, Armistice Day, the last of 888,246 ceramic poppies will be planted, filling the moat of the Tower of London with a sea of blood, each poppy representing the supreme sacrifice of a British or colonial soldier during the WWI conflict which began 100 years ago.
Remember also the living dead. The maimed, battle-scarred, blinded, limbless, shell-shocked survivors. The widows, the fiancees and girl friends who never married after losing the one they loved.
The point of posting the 'Meditation on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass' video was to remember why we do what we do, not how we do it. I had intended to post the entry under the title 'Lest we forget' but then I recalled that I had already used it (here) to remember others who had made the supreme sacrifice.
As usual my wife expressed my own thoughts more succinctly when she said in response to some of the comments received, "there is beauty in the simplicity of a said mass in the early morning or late evening when maybe only a few are gathered together but there is also beauty in the splendour of a solemn mass, the colours of the vestments, the music and singing. There is no need to be 'pro' or 'anti'. Each has its place."
Generally worshippers are able to choose between a simple said service and a sung service or they can choose another church where the style of worship is more to their liking. But there is now a more serious dimension. Church members who are unable to accept the ministry of women as priests and bishops must still be permitted to respond in good conscience to Christ's invitation:
"I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."
This is the challenge for the 'enlightened' Anglican Church. It must not fail.
