“Oh won’t you staaaaay… just a little bit longeeeerrr…”

From the UK’s best Catholic weekly, The Catholic Herald comes this interested piece to which I add my usual E&C.

The Catholic group in the Church of England’s General Synod has called for traditionalists to stay, claiming that they have the numbers to ensure provisions for objectors to women bishops. [This time, perhaps.  And how about after the next vote?  Good argument, huh?  We are going to have a vote about female bishops but we will give some people provisions so that they can pretend that we didn’t.   This is the sort of thing you can vote on in the Church of England.]

Led by Canon Simon Killwick, the group claims that a reshuffle in the Church of England’s legislative body means that Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals could successfully oppose legislation on women bishops in 2012 unless it is amended to meet their demands.

They hope to establish a rival organisation to the Personal Ordinariate offered by the Pope, through which Anglicans can convert in groups while retaining their distinctive patrimony and practices, including married priests.  [I’m still waiting for Romanorum coetibus.]

[…]

Meanwhile the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda, set up last month with the backing of senior Church of England bishops, will offer a structure which closely resembles the Catholic ordinariate. The society will not have women priests or bishops or geographical boundaries and its members will obey their own bishop rather than fall under the authority of the local diocesan bishop, if the General Synod accepts amendments.

Instead of being in communion with the Pope members will be in communion with the Church of England, even if its members consider sacraments performed by women priests invalid. [Think about that.]

[…]

You can read the rest there.

In the meantime ….
Buy some coffee!
[CUE MUSIC]

After a long day of wondering why some churches think they can vote about matters such as the ordination of women as anything, much less as bishops, relax with a WDTPRS mug filled to the brim with piping hot Mystic Monk Coffee.

Bask in the safe-haven of Holy Catholic Church and refresh your coffee supply today!

Not just Monk Coffee … Mystic Monk.

It’s swell!

[Music fading….

Now, how your daddy don’t mind
And your mommy don’t mind
If we have another dance
Yeah, just one more
One more time

…. ]

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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17 Comments

  1. Supertradmum says:

    The Anglicans who have converted to Catholicism that I know have admitted to a “dual personality” or “split mind” on issues, which makes the above “compromise” believable to some. This ability to hold two opposing ideas simultaneously is part of the Anglican view of Catholicity, which has been that they have been the true Catholics, not the “Romans”. Of course, history proves them wrong, but the “religious schizophrenia” continues. I doubt whether the true traditionalists will bite at this bait. Those who are considering coming into the Catholic Church have, I am sure, thought long and hard on their move and will not be swayed by the old arguments. This is a sad attempt to halt the end of the Anglican Church, as it is committing suicide by liberalism.

  2. DT says:

    Mwahahahahaha! The cued music is awesome!

  3. pfreddys says:

    I guess the mark of the true Church being “ONE” does not impress these people.

  4. Stephen Anthony Gregory says:

    Sounds like CoE is concerned with their prolonged existence (which it should be) and the financial side of all of that more so than with the unity for which our Blessed Lord prayed. Am I seeing this wrong?

  5. DT says:

    @ Stephen Anthony Gregory-

    I am not certain whether the CoE is concerned with their prolonged existence. Faithful readers of this blog are aware of Fr Z’s frequent commentary that they can provide a safe haven for those who agree with their ideology.

    I think the CoE is more concerned with this thought- “Perhaps it was a mistake after all.”

  6. Martial Artist says:

    I have to agree in very large part with this part of the comment by Supertradmum, that

    Anglicans who have converted to Catholicism that I know have admitted to a “dual personality” or “split mind” on issues, which makes the above “compromise” believable to some … This ability to hold two opposing ideas simultaneously is part of the Anglican view of Catholicity….

    As a former Episcopalian who left in September 2008 to study the Catholic Church, the turning point for me was an intense revelation that what I had been doing all of my life was attempting to encompass with my mind the unencompassable, i.e., to fully comprehend the mind of God.

    Of course, that is the very core of what I believe to be the “Protestant error,” because it sets the individual’s judgment not just above the judgment of the Church, but above that of God the Father himself. I didn’t have the words to explain the revelation which I had in mid-September 2008 until I read a quotation from Newman in mid-March 2009 which gave me a part of it, and the balance when I first heard the quotation from Anselm of Canterbury, Credo ut intelligam in its shorter form. Those who are not prepared willingly to “think with the Church” will be susceptible to being “taken in” by this approach, and especially those who have first to begin thinking will have the greatest difficulty in avoiding that outcome. I suspect that there will be many such victims, for whom we ought to pray.

    Pax et bonum,
    Keith Töpfer

  7. RichR says:

    I read one Anglo-Catholic priest make the comment: Many Anglo-Catholics have a perpetually receding breaking point. ‘If they ordain women, we’re going to Rome.’ The CoE ordains women, but the Anglo-Catholics stay. Then the next issue comes along, and they say, ‘This is the last straw.’ But then that proves to be another point that is regrettably tolerated.

    If you think about it, this was Cranmer’s method of acclimating Catholic priests to the new Anglican prayer books: a slow and steady series of compromises that, individually are not enough to foster rebellion. But taken as a whole, they move the people and clergy into murky waters that they would not have trodden otherwise. The danger in going along with this is that you may soon realize that you are not courageous enough to make those hard decisions anymore because the chasm has become too wide to jump.

    The time is now….not when the CoE makes another bad compromise.

  8. TJerome says:

    I must be missing something. I’m not sure that creating “chinese walls” or subdividing a Church into sections somehow makes it all right to stay in a Church when something as fundamental as women priests/bishops is involved. That would be like saying, “please stay Catholic” but we’ll create a diocese where you don’t have to believe in the Real Presence. A house divided against itself cannot stand, to quote a famous American politician.

  9. Janol says:

    I’m sorry Supertradmum only knows Anglicans who never truly “converted”. I had considered myself to be “Anglo-Catholic” and it was only because I became convinced that I wasn’t Catholic that I “abjured the heresy of Cranmer”. Sooner or later one has to realize the absurdity of the “Branch Theory” when there is no inter-communion. As also the absurdity of what is up for “voting”. I think it probably more the case that the ex-Anglicans Supertradmum knows might intellectually be convinced that they are only now in the Catholic Church but strongly, emotionally, feel that grace had been given them as Anglicans and that they have an abiding love of all that they had experienced as Anglicans. It has not been easy for me coming into the Church at the very end of Vat. II and having to endure the English translations of the NO and LOL after having been used to the Anglican liturgy. I’ve resorted to Latin and the monastic diurnal but now I’ve made application to join the new Anglican Ordinariate. Your friends may do the same.

  10. Janol says:

    Wow, a Freudian slip? I meant to type LOH not LOL.

  11. Julia says:

    What is LOH?

  12. digdigby says:

    Thomas More, stripped of position and income, gathered his children and grandchildren about him saying, “If we must, we’ll go begging and sing Salve Regina at each man’s door in hope of charity and thus we can still be in each other’s company and be merry together.”
    -Kenelm Digby, MORES CATHOLICI, Vol.4, Pg. 560
    England, St. Thomas is inviting you, come we’ll be English, Catholic and merry together.

  13. irishgirl says:

    LOH is short for ‘Liturgy of the Hours’. Also known as the Divine Office or the Breviary.
    It’s the ‘official prayer of the Church’, said daily by priests [like Fr. Z], religious and laity.

  14. Mitchell NY says:

    I do not understand, if they didn’t have the “numbers” before then what is going on now? If they just feel the issue is correct to have women Bishops then why is it maybe, possibly not correct now according to “numbers”. It comes off as desperation to keep people from coming to Rome and the Pope. Nothing more. And what have they done to explain this to the women they were going to allow to be Bishops? I would feel as if I were thrown under the bus. Maybe they should just leave the Church of England and become lay people in the Roman Catholic Church. That would send a messsage to the Church of England.

  15. Norah says:

    Maybe the priests and congregations who were thinking of converting may grasp at this straw because they themselves or some of their parishioners have been divorced and are remarried, are using contraceptives and don’t wish to cease and would be uneasy as to what would be expected of them if they swam the Tiber. I know that the majority of Catholics use artificial contraceptives and some happily present themselves for Holy Communion after divorce and civil remarriage but I am just thinkin.

  16. Janol says:

    Norah wrote: “Maybe the priests and congregations who were thinking of converting may grasp at this straw because they themselves or some of their parishioners have been divorced and are remarried, are using contraceptives and don’t wish to cease and would be uneasy as to what would be expected of them if they swam the Tiber.”
    Very true. In my own family there was someone who was thinking about following me to Rome but was told she would have to live in a brother-sister relationship with her ‘husband’. Having questioned the Anglican Church and not willing to come to the Roman Catholic Church she pretty much just drifted away from both.

  17. AnAmericanMother says:

    While portions of the Church are just as free-and-easy as the Anglicans/Episcopalians, people who are contemplating a Tiber swim are – by the very nature of what they are trying to do – serious about what is required of them. Some folks are going to flinch and not take the plunge. Others will realize that real faith is not easy, and they are going to have to make some hard choices. But the good news is that once you get over the initial shock, it’s do-able and brings great joy. “My yoke is easy, and my burthen is light.”

    Best cover ever of “Stay Just a Little Bit Longer”: Act 1 Scene 2 of The Abduction of Figaro by P.D.Q. Bach (1807-1742).

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