"I now have it on good authority that the ommission of any qualifications other than ‘maleness’ for alternative bishops was indeed a ‘deliberate oversight’. Attempts were made in the revision stages to give more substance to their qualifications than this, but this was apparently resisted strongly.In other words, people knew what they were doing.Now call me naive, but I’m still a bit shocked by this. I expect us low-lifes to be doing skull-duggery. I genuinely thought that at the higher levels of church management there was a bit more openness and even-handedness.It seems I may have been wrong..."I'm afraid some of us on the Catholic wing of the Church (in England but most particularly in Wales) came to this conclusion a long time ago.
Naive? Yes, a bit. But we were right to expect better.
Unfortunately, synodical structures tend to reinforce fallen human nature and seem to lead inevitably to 'parliamentary' behaviour.
"You did not so learn Christ!"
Even having read John Richardson's posting I'm not sure I've understood his point.
ReplyDeleteMy cynical suspicion from the first was that there might be a prepared concession here designed serve as a diversionary tactic. It's a standard negotiating ploy: you make an unsatisfactory offer, knowing full well it's unsatisfactory, so that you can then make a minor concession and the other side is so grateful that don't notice the revised offer is still inadequate, and they swallow a lot of other stuff they otherwise would have jibbed at.
In this case instead of offering proper apostolic succession place the powers that be first offer maleness, precisely so they can make the concession of proper apostolic succession (or at least of opening the door to it), and traditionalists will be sufficiently pleased they will forget all they other problems with what is offered.
Is this the sort of thing that John Richardson is alleging??
The negative reaction from WATCH and allies to the changes suggests, however, that if this is the plan someone has neglected to tip them the wink. It also suggests (unless there is some sort of complicated double bluff going on) that they have failed to grasp that if traditionalists accept what is now offered they will effectively be cutting their own throats, and ultimately it will be game set and match to WATCH, albeit a little more messily and slowly than they would like.
The main objection to my hypothesis, however, is not that the powers that be are incapable of such cynicism, but that they are incapable of such cleverness!
It is finished!
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