What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

This is in from the Times.  My emphases and comments.

Church of England clergy plan mass exit over women bishops
1,300 write protest letter to archbishop

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

More than 1,300 clergy, including 11 serving bishops, have written to the archbishops of Canterbury and York to say that they will defect from the Church of England if women are consecrated bishops.

As the wider Anglican Communion fragments over homosexuality, England’s established Church is moving towards its own crisis with a crucial vote on women bishops this weekend.

In a letter to Rowan Williams and John Sentamu, seen by The Times, the signatories give warning that they will consider leaving the Church if two crucial votes are passed to introduce female bishops.

The Church’s moderate centre is being pressured as never before by evangelicals opposed to gays, and traditionalists opposed to women’s ordination. The crisis is unprecedented since the Reformation devastated the Roman Catholic Church in England in the 16th century.

The General Synod, the Church’s governing body, meets in York on Friday, when clergy will decide whether legislation to consecrate women should be introduced, and whether it should have legal safeguards for traditionalists or a simple voluntary code to protect them.

The letter’s signatories – who represent 10 per cent of practising clergy and hundreds of retired priests – will accept women bishops only if they have a legal right to separate havens within the Church. These would offer opponents of women bishops a network of parishes where they could worship under the leadership of exclusively male clergy and bishops.   [Which is no solution at all.  If they cannot stand fast on who a bishop is, they are doomed.]

The archbishops of Canterbury and York are keen to see women bishops as soon as possible but liberals who support the move have raised the stakes by saying they will not back the change if legal conditions are attached. They fear that such safeguards would enshrine discrimination by creating a “church within a church”.

The signatories are largely from the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church and many will attempt to seek a ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is short of priests and is expected to welcome them again, even if they are married with families, as it did when the Church of England ordained women priests.

The protest over women bishops came as Dr Williams tried to assert his authority [HAH!] on the wider Anglican communion with a strong rebuke to evangelicals who promised last week to form a breakaway Anglican church after a summit in Jerusalem. He described their move as “problematic” and urged those involved to “think very carefully about the risks”. He also made clear his view that the doctrinally strict evangelical wing was not itself free from sin. [That’ll help.] “On all sides of our controversies, slogans, misrepresentations and caricatures abound, and they need to be challenged,” he said.

Of the 1,333 clergy who signed the protest letter, 60 per cent are serving clergy. Among the retired bishops is the former Bishop of Chichester, the Right Rev Eric Kemp. Some women deacons have also joined the protest.

The traditionalists write: “We will inevitably be asking whether we can, in conscience, continue to minister as bishops, priests and deacons in the Church of England . . . We do not write this in a spirit of making threats or throwing down gauntlets. Rather, we believe that the time has come to make our concerns plain, so that the possible consequences of a failure to make provision which allows us to flourish and to grow are clear.”

At the same time 1,276 women clergy, 1,012 male clergy and 1,916 lay church members who support women bishops signed a statement objecting to the prospect of “discriminatory” legislation to safeguard opponents. 

Doomed.

Our sharp-eyed friends at Rorate have a very interesting story.  Not my translation, but my emphases and comments:

I.Media: SSPX asks for removal of excommunications

Agence France-Presse (AFP) publishes today the information that the Rome-based French religious news agency I.MEDIA reports that the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX) has asked the Holy See to lift the excommunications: [If this is so, then it is reasonable to assume that the request was made in the context of a fairly positive letter, the response the the "ultimatum".]

The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X has asked the Vatican to lift the excommunications pronounced against it, an Integrist [sic] [The French term "integriste" is a way of saying "traditionalist", but it has a bit of a pejorative overtone.] organization, to display its will to dialogue, according to religious news agency I.Media.

The Superior of the Fraternity, Bishop Bernard Fellay, sent Pope Bendict XVI a letter responding to the conditions posed by the Vatican to a reintegration of this organization, founded by schismatic [sic] bishop Marcel Lefebvre, the agency notes.

According to an internal note of the Fraternity [read=SSPX] mentioned by I.Media, Bishop Fellay asks that the dialogue "be placed at a doctrinal level" and that he may avoid every hastiness. He underlines that "prior withdrawal of the excommunication of 1988 would favor the serenity of such a dialogue".
...

[I have to fix up this next part of the translation…]
"These conditions seem to aim at securing a favorable climate for a later dialogue rather than precise commitments on specified points," the Priestly Fraternity assesses in its note.

I am very happy to read this.

Note a few things.

The SSPX is trying to slow things down.  This might be important for their interior cohesion as a group.

 

The SSPX wants to talk about doctrine, whereas the Holy See is, at least right now, focused on getting them to tone down the harsh rhetoric and show some positive interest in union.  Issues before group hug.  

When someone incurs a censure for something that is done in public, some sort of public redress is necessary.  You can’t simply ask for an excommunication to be lifted without some sort of public expression of regret or submission.   To make this principle clearer, think of the situation of a "Catholic" politician who says publicly he is pro-abortion and acts on those views in voting, etc.  He must make public reparation before he can receive Communion in public.  Even if he changes his heart, goes to confession and receives absolution, he must make public redress somewhere along the line because the scandal he caused was public.  This is a matter of justice.  Of course the Holy Father can apply whatever mercy it pleases him to apply to what is required by strict justice.

Most importantly, they all seem to be talking in some way about concrete things.

This sad story comes from the Boston Globe.

I just posted an entry a while ago, mentioning that Archbp. Burke, when he was in St. Louis, saved one of their great churches by entrusting it to a traditional group.

Closure doesn’t have to be the only answer. 

On the other hand… if people are not supporting it…. what to do?

Last rites
Parishioners at St. Casimir, Holy Trinity gather for final Mass as churches close
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff and Christopher Baxter
Globe Correspondent / June 30, 2008

The three were the rarest of congregations: the only German Catholic parish in Greater Boston, one of the area’s last two Lithuanian churches, and the first local group of traditionalists authorized to pray in Latin.

In each case, a few hundred worshipers were bound by deep connections to history, strong sense of community, and affection for prayer in languages spoken by few in this part of the world.

The Archdiocese of Boston, strapped for cash and priests, decided it could no longer sustain the three congregations, and yesterday, it shuttered the two churches in which they worshiped: Holy Trinity in Boston’s South End, home to the German and Latin Mass congregations, and St. Casimir in Brockton, the Lithuanian parish.

In a ritual that has become familiar in Eastern Massachusetts, where Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley has cut the number of parishes from 357 to 292 over the last four years, somber and often angry worshipers packed into three funereal Masses yesterday, taking pictures, telling stories, and wondering what they will do next. Each Mass drew about 300 worshipers.

"This is a sad day, a very sad day," said Diane DuBois, who has been praying at St. Casimir for 38 years. On her lapel, she wore a pin that read, "Jesus hears us. Save our Church."

At Holy Trinity, organist George Krim, whose father, uncle, and great-grandfather also played the organ there, was greeted with applause as he played a final postlude with his teary son standing beside him. "There’s been so much joy here, it’s going to take a while," said Krim, 82.

Krim’s two brothers, both at the service, were angrier. "It was hard for me to walk out of there today," said Joe Krim, 72.

Supporters of both parishes plan to challenge the closings by appealing, first to O’Malley for reconsideration, and then to the Vatican. But the odd