The Church of England… whither? Fr. Z again offers his solution.

The late Fr Richard John Neuhaus once quipped that the purpose of the Anglican Communion was to make irony redundant.

From the Daily Mail:

Church of England chief backs ‘re-christenings’ after sex changes: Officials risk furious backlash by introducing ‘services of welcome’
Church of England suggests offering transgender Christians re-christenings
Move is believed to provoke a furious backlash among some traditionalists
Last year committee said rules that might stop people changing sex should be abolished

The Church of England yesterday suggested it will offer transgender Christians ‘re-christenings’ with their new names.
Vicars cannot [yet] re-baptise those who have changed sex but could use existing ‘services of welcome’ to announce a new name before God, the most senior official said.
The advice is likely to be endorsed next month by the Church’s parliament, the General Synod.
It will ease pressure on Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby from liberals who want to see the church’s conservative rules on sex and marriage swept away. But it is likely to provoke a furious backlash among some traditionalists. [Riiiight.]
The CofE’s most senior official, Synod Secretary General William Nye, said in a paper sent to Synod members: ‘It is a fundamental belief of the Church that baptism can only be received once. [For Now.]
‘There is therefore no possibility of the Synod approving a form of service for the re-baptism of transgendered persons in their new gender who have already been baptised.’ But he said the CofE can have no objection if they want to have an ‘Affirmation of Baptismal Faith’ service in a new name.

[…]

Yet. There is “no possibility of the Synod approving a form of service for the re-baptism”… yet.

It’s only a matter of time.

When your church – rather, ecclesial community – is locked into the State, it follows as the night the day that the ecclesial community’s doctrine and practice will eventually conform to the special groups who control and sway government, entertainment, etc. The Church of England…rather the Ecclesial Community of England is locked into the state as the religion of the state.

Why do I write “Ecclesia Community of England”?  More on that HERE

This sounds like it’s right up the alley of certain groups and certain Jesuits in the Catholic Church.

Hence it is time for me to call once again for the Anglicans at long last – at very long last – to issue their groundbreaking and courageous document

Romanorum coetibus!

A few years ago, the Pope of Christian Unity, Benedict XVI, gave us Anglicanorum coetibus by which former Anglicans are welcomed into the Catholic Church and they can retain their heritage.  Their ranks are growing and they are exercising a wonderful enrichment of the whole Roman Church.

Even more urgent today is the need for the Church of England to issue their own document Romanorum coetibus, by which they can welcoming into their “ecclesial community”, all the dissident Catholics who, rebelling against the Magisterium, desire to keep their most treasured customs.  There in the embrace of the Anglicans they can have their clay pot chalices and burlap banners, their ditties and rainbow stoles, free from the interferences of patriarchal oppression… or now fixed genders or sexes!  Under Romanorum coetibus these folks could maintain their cherished 60’s music progress to the ordination of women and openly – more openly pray to the earthmothergoddess… all without the spirit-repressing domination of masculine and gender particular Rome! When everything is a moving target, then by golly it’s the C of E for you.  What a great contribution those newly rechristened Anglicans could offer!

And pleeeeese take the Fishwrap with you?

Hey! Think of the great healing gesture it would be for certain Jesuits to join the C of E, especially after the C of E killed all of those old fashioned Jesuits… which it’s water under Lambeth Bridge, ain’t it, as Preserved Killick would put it.

I only want them to be happy.  After all, who am I to judge?

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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

  1. MrTipsNZ says:

    Fr Neuhaus was more than correct. It is ironic – or perhaps not – that the CoE SecGen is called Bill Nye…..

  2. Alanmac says:

    I said it before, I’ll say it again,
    The Anglicans tried to be everything to everyone, they became nothing to nobody.
    There is a powerful lesson here.

  3. Boniface says:

    The most weasely part of this article, no surprise from the Daily Mail, tbough, is the dishonest statement “is believed to provoke a furious backlash among some conservatives.” As evil as the proposed notion is, that’s an incredibly (oh, wait, no, it’s the Daily Mail) unprofessional, dishonest, and irresponsible statement. What it means is, “we’re making stuff up and calling it news.”

  4. These “services of welcoming”, much less re-christenings, are a slap in the face to God. They basically say “God, I am not happy the way you made me. You must embrace the new me, the way I see myself.”

  5. Gregory DiPippo says:

    Church of England… wither.

  6. JabbaPapa says:

    Church of England chief backs ‘re-christenings’ after sex changes

    I don’t know who I am to judge, but I do know Who the Lord is to Judge.

    Nevertheless, it’s hard to see anything of religion as such in this lefty PC identity politics proposal …

  7. Kerry says:

    Something is incorrect with the phrase, ‘service of welcome’. Shouldn’t it be ‘welcoming service’ or ‘service of welcoming’. Paul and 1 Corinthians comes to mind, “For it has been shewn to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of [the house of] Chloe, that there are strifes among you. But I speak of this, that each of you says, *I* am of Paul, and *I* of Apollos, and *I* of Cephas, and *I* of Christ. ” Of Christ, not of Apollos, or Cephas; certainly not “…of welcome”.

  8. Pingback: Father Z on Anglicans and Anglicanorum coetibus | Anglicanorum Coetibus Society Blog

  9. TNCath says:

    Can the LCWR and CMSM and their affiliated religious orders go with them, too?

    I think it’s a great idea. Let them all go! However, I am afraid they won’t because they want to destroy the Church from within because they are slimy and dishonest in their phony convictions.

  10. Phil_NL says:

    Quaeritur: if the CoE will now / one day hold one can baptise the same person twice, will that mean their definition of baptism has/will have become so warped as to invalidate those baptisms? Not just the second time for those whom it concerns (that’s clearly nonsense to begin with), but the first time for everyone in the CoE as well?

  11. bsjy says:

    It seems unlikely the Anglican Church would issue its welcoming document in Latin. More likely: Esperanto.

  12. Archicantor says:

    Father, as an Anglican myself, I have felt the legitimacy of Fr. Neuhaus’s jibe all too often. May I nevertheless suggest a slight correction? You have made affiliation with the state the source of Anglicanism’s maladies. I fully concede that this has played a large part in the Church of England’s history. But most provinces of the Anglican Communion are not, in fact, established by law; and yet those in, for example, Canada, the United States, and Scotland are every bit as likely — or more likely — to drift. (Indeed, establishment by law in England has sometimes acted as a brake on some “reforms.” For example, the Church of England is unique among English Christian bodies in being forbidden by statute law to solemnize same-sex marriages.)

    I put it to you, therefore, that the problem is not the state. (After all, the Catholic Church has sometimes been an “established Church” too.) Rather, it is provincial autonomy. There are some 85 million Anglicans in the world, and most of them are utterly aghast at what is happening in the “West.” But there is no way for an orthodox majority to compel a few wayward provinces to listen. Each province, therefore, is increasingly tempted to interpret scripture and tradition only in the light of its immediate context, which leads to ridiculous concessions of the kind you mention, because such unfortunate persons are, after all, our neighbours, and we don’t want to make them feel sad. They are present to us, while our conservative co-religionists are thousands of miles away. As for tradition, the “democracy of the dead,” well, the dead aren’t authorized to vote at General Convention.

    Efforts are being made by orthodox Anglicans to overcome this problem in the ecclesiology they have inherited. (St. John Paul’s invitation to separated Christians in Ut unum sint to begin a conversation about the role of the Petrine Ministry is becoming more urgent all the time.) But it looks increasingly as if there will be a schism between those Anglicans who are willing to submit to the “catholic” (universal) consensus of the Communion and those who insist on their provincial autonomy. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been dancing like mad to avoid having to choose a side.

    It seems to this outsider that the present occupant of the See of St. Peter is rather keen on provincial autonomy, which is what greater competence ceded to the national Bishops’ Conferences would amount to.

    Beware that road, dear separated brethren! And as for Romanorum coetibus, please, dear Father, we’re in enough trouble as it is!

  13. JabbaPapa says:

    Phil_NL :

    Quaeritur: if the CoE will now / one day hold one can baptise the same person twice, will that mean their definition of baptism has/will have become so warped as to invalidate those baptisms? Not just the second time for those whom it concerns (that’s clearly nonsense to begin with), but the first time for everyone in the CoE as well?

    If the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were to have any backbone for such things yes, but in these days of over-enthusiastic radical ecumenism who knows …

    [I am confident that that would draw a SWIFT and sharp negative response.]

  14. JabbaPapa says:

    Archicantor :

    Efforts are being made by orthodox Anglicans

    If there are such persons, their most reasonable hope to preserve any sense of an Anglican “orthodoxy” presently would be to join one of the Anglo-Catholic Ordinariates, where the orthodoxy is genuine …

  15. dallenl says:

    Well written and most informative comments. While I sympathize with archicantor, I would politely note that the purpose, spoken or otherwise, of the Ordinariate is to restore the pre-Tudor Church of England. That certain honest and valid traditions are retained, does not alter the objective of legitimizing the sacramental orders. At the present rate of departure from even the Tudor and Stuart disciplines, it should not be long that one can look back to this period as an aberration in the continuum of English belief.

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