Tuesday 5 October 2010

Compare and contrast

A TEC dean,  the Very Rev. Kevin Martin of St. Matthew's, Dallas, has predicted that his Church is heading for disaster. From Virtue Online here
Is it just me, but can anyone say the words 'Dean Martin' without thinking of 'That's Amore?' (frivolous - I know - sorry)
It's also an indication of the present difficulties of the Anglican Communion that an episcopal prediction of a split and the failure of the Anglican Covenant should not even merit a mention. Perhaps we all now have other things on our minds.
But the Bishop of Monmouth, whom I like despite theological differences, and who is usually a very shrewd observer of the Anglican scene, had this to say in a diocesan email to clergy a couple of weeks ago:
"This week I have been at the Bishops’ Meeting at St Hugh’s College Oxford which was a gathering hosted by the English College of Bishops but to which the Celtic Bishops had also been invited................ We also spent some time talking about the proposed Anglican Covenant although my own feeling is that whilst it may help to hold the Anglican Communion together, by the time it goes through the various stages of consultation and decision making, it will be too late and some Provinces of the Anglican Communion will have gone their own way......"
That's quite an admission. I have to say the honesty and absence of 'spin' is, these days, as remarkable as it is commendable.

Contrasting Anglo-Catholic views on the question of Anglican orders and Apostolicae Curae from
Fr Hunwicke here and Fr Tomlinson here
On this particular subject, surely something of a blind alley in our present circumstances, often it's what isn't said rather that what is said that is significant.

We no longer appreciate innocent comedy. From the Daily Telegraph here
- prompted by the death of Sir Norman Wisdom, a truly nice man - and not only because he attended some of my wife's concerts and was invariably polite to the clergy! May he rest in peace.

And lastly, I know it's entirely commonplace in popular journalism (where column inches are an issue) and (in a somewhat different context) academic discourse to refer to people by their surnames only, but am I the only one who is a bit uncomfortable when I come across references (to take a couple of recent examples) to "Williams" or "Nichols" when the authors mean the archbishops who bear those names? I know it's old-fashioned - and maybe an odd thing for a blogger to ask -  but even in the midst of our present visceral disagreements, can't we observe the courtesies which help in a small way to preserve the fabric of civilisation itself? Please...?

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