www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Church of England votes for Women Bishops

It seems that the Church of England has taken another step away from traditional Christian teaching on ordination.

Church of England Votes for Women Bishops [catholicnews.com]

Following the "lead" of the Episcopal Church USA.

This will put further strain on the Anglican Communion. The global south has been greatly displeased with the "mother church" over many issues, including the female presbyteriate. Now yet another widening of the fissure.

Who didn't see this coming? From their actions of recent years, this was inevitable.

Christ is in our midst!!

Sadly this all started in 1974 when retired bishops took it upon themselves to transgress their own Church's law and ordain women in the United States. It then took two years before the U.S. body officially voted to permit what had been an abuse. Interesting how people move to regularize an abuse and the next thing one sees is that the abuse has become the norm.

Bob

Having a number of friends who are members of the Anglican Ordinariate, this will serve to push Anglicans "on the brink" over to either Rome or Orthodoxy (most likely to Rome).

One thing (there could be others) that the Anglican Ordinariate has over the Western Rite Orthodox Vicariate is that Rome is considering the approval of a formal liturgical cultus of Anglican worthies for the Ordinariate.

Blessed King Charles the Martyr is, of course, of pre-eminent position among them but there are others whom the formerly "High Church" Anglicans venerate such as Archbishop William Laud, Nicholas Ferrar, William Law, Lancelot Andrewes, Bernarc Mizeki, James Otis Sargent Huntington and others.

Just as the Eastern Catholic Churches, when they came into communion with Rome at various points in history, kept their own Saints, so too there is no reason why the Anglican Ordinariate (some call themselves "Anglican Catholics") cannot honour their own saints and servants of God.

Alex

Seems like the entire RC Church in England would be better making the Anglican Liturgy its main form of worship!

Which one? There's about 4 official and multiple unofficial forms actively used.. Fr. Huniwicke, when he converted, celebrated the Extraordinary Form, but I think he celebrates the approved Anglican Use form as well.

Completely predictable.

I attend the "Anglican form of worship" at our Ordinariate parish.

It is like a pre-NO High Mass celebrated with the utmost reverence, facing Ad Orientem etc.

It would do the RC Church in Britain a lot of good for it to adopt such a "form of worship!"

I know Todd would agree (which is my way of beginning the long road of apologies to him).

Alex

I don't think there is a big desire in the U.K. for an Anglican style Catholic liturgical life. My wife was received into to Catholic Church in London, where many churches had Novus Ordo Latin Masses, which is what she preferred. There is a bit of a time lag over there. In the 1970s it was still rather conservative. Now, while the U.S. is getting more conservative, they in the U.K. are going through their more liberal phase...it is part of the integration of Catholics into broader British society. Still, I do not think anyone who is Catholic other than some disgruntled ex-Anglicans, would want anything that looks like Anglicanism, especially all of the Irish folk who live there. Believe you me, I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area where there were a few Anglo-Catholic parishes which I loved, which made me think that this is what Western Rite Orthodoxy might have looked like until some rather pathetic attempts materialized and burst that bubble.
Warning: Editorial...We Americans really have to get over our anglophilia. I am just as much an anglophile as the next man, but in truth, the English are nor more cultured and certainly not more educated than we are. There has been a great leveling going on there since 1945, not to mention their simultaneous brain drain. Yes, many of them are more articulate. That is because many, espec. in London are very outspoken and opinionated. And, of course, their P.M. seem to be more articulate, but that is because they have constituents they have to engage with, unlike our President.

Dear Mark,

You raise a good point of discussion.

I am familiar with the Anglican style you mention - but what I see in the Anglican Ordinariate is far from the "normative Anglican style" if I may use such a term.

These Anglican converts are as High Church/Tridentine as can be (which is why I like them so much ).

If anything, they go "overboard" with respect to heavily traditional Catholic ritual (which is another reason to like them!).

One group of the Anglican Ordinariate belonged to a parish which has a sign on the outside of its main door - "We are not Protestant, but Catholic . . ."

I've yet to see an NO Ordinariate Mass - not that I'm in a hurry, mind you

Alex

As a former High Church Anglican (Episcopalian) I did like the worship of the parish I participated in, but the ordination of women priests, and later bishops, made me realize that the Episcopal Church is a lost cause. The strange doctrines and immoral positions taken by the Episcopal Church made my conversion to Catholicism in 1987/88 much easier.

Dear Todd,

Absolutely - I attended the Confirmation of 12 former Anglicans as they became members of the Anglican Ordinariate last year and would have been the sponsor of a further member - except that he walked out of the Church at the last minute when he saw an altar girl there . . .

He is now an Antiochian Orthodox Christian of the Western Rite (not that there's anything wrong with that!).

One thing I've noticed at the Ordinariate Masses is the number of Anglicans who attend who are not members of the Ordinariate.

I guess they are on the edge or something.

New converts are drawn from these and one can imagine that innovations such as the above will help to push them in.

One memory I have of that beautiful ceremony when the Anglicans were received into the Ordinariate is a young fellow who joined who said his family warned him against becoming Catholic and who threatened to disown him.

I understand that they've learned to live with his decision since and are even thinking about joining the Ordinariate themselves!

My former employer, a pious Anglican himself, is now actually open to the idea of joining the Ordinariate after I told him he can continue to worship according to his High Church traditions but be under Rome.

He thought about it and said there wasn't a single negative he could see in such an "arrangement!"

Please accept my deep spiritual bow, Todd the Theologian!

Alex

Was he going to be confirmed at an actual Anglican-use Mass or was he going to be confirmed at a ordinary Roman Mass that the bishop was at? I find it hard to believe that any parish of the Anglican Ordinariate would have female servers. Also, while I think it is an abuse, is it really a reason not to enter the Church?


I wonder how much longer there will be an Antiochian western-rite? I've heard the new Metropolitan in America is not supportive of the idea.


My father, while never threatening to disown me, was concerned that I wanted to attend Anglican services. Direct words, "that's like Catholic without the pope."


My father is now an Deacon in the Reformed Episcopal Church. While, I did become a Catholic with the Pope!


I often wonder if the Ordinariate had been an option when I left the Episcopal Church, circa 2004, would I have joined it? I assume so but then I wouldn't have discovered the richness of Eastern Christianity. I pray your former boss comes home to the Church.

Right. They're not the church but I'm not mad at them. And outside of England they've officially had women priests since 1976 and women deacons before that, I imagine. I don't care to the point that I can wish them well. As Damian Thompson imagines Pope Francis saying to the new English women bishops, "Join me in spreading the gospel." I think our liberal high-church cousins (same creed and similar Mass as me, and not like Catholic liberals) are up for that.

Anglican Use is better than standard Novus Ordo because it's more conservative ceremonially but I don't miss the Book of Common Prayer, because I know enough English history not to. (That said, the few times a year I'm at an English Mass I say the old BCP Nicene Creed from memory.) Neither do the Anglo-Catholic alumni who are the British ordinariate. They've used the Novus Ordo for many years because they already believed Catholic teachings and wanted corporate reunion.

Altar girls, like women Eucharistic ministers and women lectors, are another attempted Trojan horse by liberals for women's ordination in the Catholic Church; on that the runaway convert turned Western Rite Orthodox's instinct was right. (But it's not about our doctrine so he was wrong.) Yet because the British ordinariate has long been Novus Ordo, from back when they were Anglo-Catholics, they do have altar girls like many Catholic parishes do. The American one's a different story: fine pre-conciliar ethos liturgically, and they know what altar girls really mean.