Tuesday 15 November 2011

"Without the traditional Catholic voice and presence the Church of England would be less than itself...."

Several blogs today [ here and here ] feature the comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury following the consecration of the new bishops of Ebbsfleet and Richborough in June. His words are very encouraging to those who are able to envisage a continuing future for Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England.
As yet, highly welcome as Archbishop Williams' sentiments are, they are only at present warm words and should be treated with a degree of caution; in a synodically governed and episcopally led body they will remain just warm words until the General Synod votes. There are various views in circulation as to the outcome of that [see here and the comments on Peter Ould's post]
From this vantage point it's difficult to have any great confidence that a synodical majority in favour of women bishops will at the same time allow the setting up of the Society model on which so many are now basing their hopes for survival.

Meanwhile, those of us in Wales can only observe the contrast between these very warm episcopal words and no words at all, and ponder how the province of the Church in Wales, from which Archbishop Rowan was translated to Canterbury, is already "less than itself....." and likely to remain so.

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