Having served as an Anglo-Catholic clergyman for some years it interests me, on a professional level, to see how things are panning out for those who stayed behind in the wake of the Ordinariate in 2010. For those who remained not only refused an offer of unity from Rome but did so despite seismic changes within Anglicanism itself which moved it in an obviously liberal and protestant direction. What then does it mean to be Anglo-Catholic today? What is the theological justification for claiming to be Catholic having made such decisions?
For a long time I posed this very question on this blog but no satisfactory reply was given. So I was fascinated when the new leadership of the ‘catholic wing’ of the C of E issued a statement of principles this week. The document, entitled Communion and Catholicity in the Church of England: A Statement of Principles by the Council of Bishops of The Society , aims to set before us a theological justification of Anglo-Catholicism in the present climate. The burning question I had was naturally this. How will the document deal with the reality and challenge presented by the Ordinariate in the wake of women bishops?
Lamentably the document, whilst full of noble intent and fine sentiment, fails to deliver. Firstly because it presents a fantasy notion of the Church of England, one that is at clear odds with its present reality. Those writing the document must accept this because they no longer make claims about the Catholicity of the wider Church of England but simply beg for a little space in which to pretend the ordination of women never happened. This represent a major shift in the historic aim of Anglo-Catholicism which once existed to drive the entire Church of England into a more Catholic position and then embrace unity with Rome.
Secondly the document fails to explain how this new Anglo-Catholic vision of ghetto existence within the wider body can be sustained into the future. Its all well and good inventing a club with badges and certificates to prove one has never been tainted by women clergy, which will seem horribly sexist to most outside the group, but what will happen if somebody, not ordained by the society, later wishes to join? Will they be re-ordained by other Anglicans? The document does not tell us. Perhaps, after all, it is a vision for hospice care and not a document anticipating a long future life?
All of which is a bit thin. Is this really going to serve Christ today? Is this a vision that is positive and realistic – a way ahead for evangelisation and mission within the 21st Century? It just seems a little “we are the people’s front of Judea not the Judaean people’s front” to me. The big question then is by what authority is this done? If you refuse Rome, and thereby her authority, on what authority do you also refuse Canterbury and her decisions? And in what way is disregarding both Canterbury and Rome a Catholic solution?
Finally the document falls short because the Ordinariate is not mentioned. Not once! Stop and think about that. The Ordinariate was and is an absolute game changer. The biggest challenge to Anglo-Catholic aims and claims for centuries and therefore the cause of mass departures. It ends, once and for all, any claim that one desires unity with Rome and is therefore working to that end- because the offer is there, every moment of every day. Why not simply take it if you really are Catholic and cannot embrace the decisions of the present Church of England? That is a pertinent question. And so is this. If you desire instead to be a part of the Church of England, in fact, then why are you not embracing her decisions as regards holy order because of Catholic teaching? You cannot eat your cake and have it!
At some point these issues must be addressed. It might suit Anglo-Catholics to cover their eyes and pretend the Ordinariate or the ordination of Anglican women never happened. It might suit them to pretend the Ordinariate is a pointless sideshow that doesn’t need taking seriously. But the reality is that things have changed and will never be as they were. The Church of England is no longer embracing the Catholic model of holy orders. And Rome really was deadly serious when it created the Ordinariate. It strikes me that anyone serious about issues regarding communion and catholicity would be advised to look at the offer from Rome again.
There exists a way to preserve the Anglican patrimony and embrace a Catholic reality. But not on Anglican shores. What is left in the Church of England will feed a great many people who delight in a liberal and/or protestant life. Good luck to them. But it doesn’t seem viable or fertile soil for the living out of Catholic life. I don’t say that to be cruel- just honest. Is it time you stopped doing the impossible theological gymnastics and thought again about becoming a Catholic?
More hypocrisy! You did the whole women-free-ghetto thing for years!
It is not hypocrisy to change an opinion or come to a belief in life. Indeed Newman argued that we should all change regularly if we wish to grow. besides which I was ministering during a time of reception now passed, which is highly significant and when we could still say with integrity ‘a code of practice will not do’.
Hear-hear! “A code of practice will not do”…..who are the real hypocrites Guido?!
I think the most interesting point made in your article is about those Anglican clergy not ordained by a “Society Bishop” . Say for example The Revd Fred was ordained by the present Bishop of Gloucester, but then feels womans’ ordination is wrong and wishes to align with the. Society. Will his ordination, by a woman bishop be accepted by the Society? If not, how do they get around that one?! What a mess!
I would be most desirous of seeing such a contingency arise, and to watch the Swishers deal with it. (I imagine a secret reordination would be the thing to do.)
Protestantism always ends up in a mess!
As I wrote elsewhere about this document, I have to wonder about a few things. First, these “Swishers” are, in most cases, carry-overs from the Forward-in-Faith movement, which originated in 1993. From the beginning FiF sought and fostered contact with and mutual support among “Catholic-minded” orthodox opposition groups within the Scandinavian Lutheran churches, and was especially successful in this respect in Norway and Sweden. It is hard to imagine how, with a well-informed sense of the trajectories that these State Churches, or former State Church, have followed on the matter of women’s pretended ordination or, more recently and ongoingly, homosexual pseudogamy, and particularly as regards the provision and withdrawal (in different ways and to differing extents in each of these churches) of “conscience clauses” or other provisions for orthodox traditionalist opponents of WO, leading to the marginalization and isolation of opponents in the ecclesial equivalents of tidal pools evaporating in the hot sunshine with aquatic replenishment cut off by the ban on the ordination of opponents, these “Swishers” can stay in the CofE with such apparent equanimity, mouthing such inane slogans as “better together.” Have they learnt nothing from these Scandinavian examples? Can they seriously entertain the view that the CofE is not (a) empirically speaking, exactly the same sort of body as its Scandinavian sisters, and (b) in practice following the same path to the same ends, and at a considerably speedier rate (compare the amount of time between the first ordinations of women in these Scandinavian churches and the first woman bishops in them, with the same process in the CofE)? Or does a kind of old Elizabethan “English exceptionalism” (“God is an Englishman,” a phrase Elizabethan in origin) still prevail among them?
Secondly, how many are there among them who were, back in the day, enthusiasts for RITA (= Rome is the Answer), for the prospect of some accommodation from Rome, and even the Ordinariate when it first appeared – and then went all cold and silent, rather than take the leap?
The Swishers’ statement begins with a quotation from Dom Gregory Dix. There is perhaps another passage from Dix which addresses their situation more pointedly, that ending with “We should have a choice of wildernesses to serve the Lord – and that would be about all” (Dix, The Question of Anglican Orders [1944], p. 88; and cf. the statement of Dix’s biographer about Dix originating the phrase and idea of “Continuing Anglicans” in 1944 – A Tactful God, by Simon Bailey [1995], p. 129; cf.:
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=1297-tighe
Dix, at least, saw the necessity of forsaking the CofE in the case of its abandoning, clearly if indirectly, its claims to be a “catholic church;” what can we say of the Swishers inane attitude of “better together” when it has manifestly done so? (Note: nothing in what I’ve written states “get out … and become a R(eal) Catholic;” just, “for God’s sake, get out!”)
Just tried to read this in New Directions but you know have to pay to read it – desperate times to pay for the administration costs. The Portal Magazine remains free. But having read it elsewhere it reads just like a Church House document and is highly supportive of the Church of England and out of date on its interpretation of ARCIC which for all intents and purposes is dead. Forward in Faith is no longer “Catholic”. How times change!
Here is a link to the document, Mr. Golightly:
http://www.sswsh.com/uploads/Communion_and_Catholicity_for_web.pdf
How times change!
21 years since the first female ordination to the priesthood in the Church of England.
6 years since the publication of Anglicanorum Coetibus.
4 years since the establishment of Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
First women bishops in the Church of England this year.
Those who have accepted Rome’s generous invitation to come into full communion through the Ordinariate find ourselves with proper canonical status within the Catholic Church, with our own jurisdiction, playing our full part in the Church’s life and mission while retaining our distinct patrimony. Soon the Ordinariate Use Missal will be published by the Catholic Truth Society (!) – underlying the fact that we are an important, though small, part of the Universal Church.
If we then cast our fraternal eyes on our Anglo-Catholic brethren, they are a tolerated minority without jurisdiction in the national church (‘five principles’ are million miles away from third or independent province, which was the stated aim of Forward in Faith when founded in 1993), out of communion with any part of the Catholic/Orthodox Christendom, and eking out an existence in ghettoes using the ever-diminishing autonomy afforded to incumbents and parishes.
I know which of those two I want to be part of! It’s no-brainer.
Powerfully put Fr. Masaki. And hard to argue with a single word of that.
You, and several of those who cleave to the view of the world which you currently hold, seem very good as telling those who have come to different conclusions for themselves that they are wrong, and that the position which they arrive at is untenable, Does this not strike you as a teensy bit arrogant ? They are adult, and capable of working out where their view of truth requires them to stand. What right do you have to think that you know better, and to tell them so ?
If i were robustly putting forth my own ideology in life it would, as you suggest, be unspeakably arrogant. But as this blog merely puts forward the authentic teaching of the Catholic faith, a faith I believe to be revealed by God, then it is not arrogance but simply love. After all Jesus told us to go out and convert the nations with this faith and within the church he founded on Peter. He did not ask us to stay mum upholding a middle classed policy of manners, never daring suggest we have something to offer lest some might have reached a better conclusion than ourselves.
I am beginning to the enjoy the game of spotting the links in this blog between something troubling happening over the Tiber (divorce – annulment) which is followed by a broadside in the C of E’s direction.
Also, I seem to recall all your questions were answered, you just did not like the answers. Maybe if you just asked one at a time (instead of your blunderbuss approach) we may be able to find some clarity and common ground.