"Equal opportunities for all in the Church"

"For all" - really?

As you may have guessed by now, nothing is more eagerly awaited at this blog than 'Highlights' - it's not, as you might have imagined, anything to do with hairdressing (window dressing, perhaps, yet even the most ingenious of editing can't disguise the overriding impression of crisis in the province's life) - no, it's the official report of the latest meeting of the Church in Wales' Governing Body.
Ancient Briton has this critique of the September 2011 meeting here 
I can't help thinking that if these really were the highlights [see here], what on earth were the low moments like?

Unsurprisingly, I find myself largely in agreement with what 'Petros' has to say about the present theological direction of the province.
Many of us are deeply concerned about the wisdom of the Church simply holding up a mirror to our society's secular agenda without even seeing the need to offer a radical critique based upon Holy Scripture and the Christian tradition.
The strategy, by now very familiar, of always looking inward to realign the nature of the sacred ministry, our beliefs and ecclesial structures in order to make them more acceptable to contemporary western culture is so clearly a failure that one might have hoped that even the most committed of theological liberals would begin to have doubts. Evidently not. The impression given (well, haven't we got things spectacularly wrong down the centuries?) isn't an obvious aid to evangelisation.
The contrast between the words spoken in Lampeter last week and those spoken over the last few days in Germany by the chief pastor of another communion could not be more stark and more depressing.

The sickness of the West, revealed in its insatiable appetite for what is new, with its instant reactions, its lack of any historical sense or reference, and its chronic short-termism, is being echoed in some of the very places which should stand as bastions of historic faith, culture, and the tradition of centuries.
For any Christian community to fall victim to this disease is a tragedy. It is now hard to believe that the battle to re-establish what Chesterton called "the democracy of the dead" ("equal rights" for the dead in G.B. speak?) - that is, for us, the recovery of apostolicity (the essential guarantee of authenticity) in holy order and in moral theology - is other than irrevocably lost in those traditions which trace their separate ecclesial existence to the upheavals of the sixteenth century.

And the sting in the tail? We've come to expect one.......

"In answer to questions about women in the episcopate, Archbishop Barry announced that discussions would take place in the GB next year, leading to legislation being prepared for a vote to make it possible for women to be bishops."
[I'll try and suppress the thought that it will take more than a vote to make 'it possible,' because that seems to be the issue which is at the root of our present difficulties, doesn't it?]

Yet one hopes - even now - that this latest statement will concentrate a few minds............ very quickly........

'Ancient Briton' also has this to say:
"Now those in Wales adhering to the traditional faith can only pray for a successful outcome when their Ordinariate Exploration Group meets on 5th November. Please pray with them."

I couldn't possibly comment, but the link to the Welsh Ordinariate Exploration Group is here