From Bishop Edwin here and Fr Ed Tomlinson here
On the whole I'm rather glad I had a wedding and a concert in the parish this weekend. That also spared me the usual British public transport experience. - bad and prohibitively expensive.
The problem we have here with FiF is that the Welsh Anglican situation - a totally different legal / synodical procedure in a small disestablished church (and the fact that we seem to be rapidly becoming an oupost of TEC) - can hardly be addressed, as it is, realistically, just a sideshow. I don't see how SSWSH can operate in Wales at all (I'm deeply sceptical as to whether if it can operate in England either, regardless of any other issues) so ultimately it's a choice between the Ordinariates (which many see as fulfilling the true vocation of Anglo-Catholicism, even if we have failed to move the rest of the church along with us) individual conversion to East or West or, after the present generation of non-juring clerical "dissenters" is allowed to die out - and that's the optimistic scenario, to knuckle under to the status quo.
We traditionalists in Wales, lacking a common 'ecclesial' identity and uncertain of widespread lay support, haven't been that keen so far to rock the boat or appear disloyal, much less to 'deliver on our own rhetoric.'
Let's all be gentlemen - it was an honourable way of acting, but if your opponents neither shared your values nor your scruples, potentially, and as it has turned out in reality, suicidal. Truthfully, it's now too late to do anything else.
Update: From the Forward in Faith website: Fr Geoffrey Kirk sums things up perfectly here
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I hear rumblings from Wales about the lack of organisation resulting in a tendency to rubbish the Ordinariate.
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't Credo Cymru, the Welsh arm of FiF, more active? With no apparent prospect of acceptable Episcopal oversight, the least they could do is to test how much support there is likely to be without making a commitment.?
For many so-called Anglo-Catholic priests in Wales I get the impression that SSWSH is yet another group to join. This is the type who is in SSC and Credo Cymru. Neither organisation has shown any leadership in Wales. Yet they were the first to rubbish the idea of an Ordinariate. On the quiet they admit that the Catholic cause in Wales is on the ‘hospice ward’, and that on retirement they will grab the pension and do a personal conversion to Rome. How about their loyal parishioners who have supported them in the Catholic movement? If they convert too soon (i.e. before Father goes) they are regarded as rats leaving a sinking ship; but if they wait too long they are seen as romantics harking back to the days of glory.
ReplyDeleteAll SSWSH will do is to provide yet another group for this ‘clubbable’ type of Anglo-Catholic priest and his acolyte lay folk (who will of course pay the cash to keep the group going) to ponce around at an October devotional in lace, fancy stoles and in some cases mozzettas awarded by organisations on far away shores, pretending to be the Roman priests that they haven’t got the balls to join. In short SSWSH is the group for those who have let down the Anglo-Catholic movement.
Furthermore, Anglo-Catholicism has long suffered from the snide remarks of our opponents who highlight the lace, funny hats, camp dresses, smoking handbags and mincing around the sanctuary. So what do the leaders of the Anglo-Catholic ‘hospice movement’ do? They form a new society with the campest possible name and an acronym that sounds like lace brushing past their favourite server!
>>If they convert too soon (i.e. before Father goes) they are regarded as rats leaving a sinking ship; but if they wait too long they are seen as romantics harking back to the days of glory.<<
ReplyDeleteShades of St Barnabas there!
Have I struck a nerve Father?
Pace Old Parson, I think Swish means it's curtains
ReplyDeleteHaving now read the text of Fr Kirk's sermon, I find that I heartily concur. My problem - as it has been all along - is understanding where and why the line in the sand is placed.
ReplyDeleteFor those of us who find the case for women's ordination convincing, yet hope for a Church which embraces all who will submit themselves to Christ, it seems that it is not either of the intolerant extremes which have lost the day but the middle ground where through worship and service Christ is alive in the home and the High Street - or in the 'public square' as successive Popes have wished to phrase it.
Those who seek refuge in the Ordinariate should recognise it for its true sectarian nature and understand that by accepting it they are finally abandoning any hope of continuing with the Cure of Souls.
Venno