I think it was the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus who said that the Anglican Church existed in order to make irony redundant.
They took another step in perfecting irony by approving wyshops… errrr. women “bishops”.
There is a Vatican Insider piece HERE.
This is not really much of a story, except insofar as it wipes out what was left of any serious ecumenical undertaking with them. As Card. Diaz put it when addressing the Lambeth gathering a few years ago, they now are suffering from ecclesial Alzheimers.
Therefore, the true point of this post.
We are are delighted that the Pope of Christian Unity, Benedict XVI, gave us Anglicanorum coetibus by which Anglicans can be welcomed into the Catholic Church and they can retain their heritage. I am sure their ranks will now swell.
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” (remember, according to Dominus Iesus they don’t have a real Church because they don’t have valid apostolic succession), 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.
How DARE you propose that an inclusive document of the open and affirming Church of England be titled in the oppressive, patriarchal Latin language? Just another reinforcement of the structures of oppression!
I’ve often wondered why Catholics who are so unhappy with the magisterium don’t convert to Anglicanism? Seriously. If I was that unhappy with the church I’d leave for what fit my belief system better.
On another point I’ve often wondered why extreme radicals want to destroy my happiness and faith in the church by basically deconstructing her belief system/rules to negate people like me. Why would they destroy everything just because they can’t handle what the magisterium has always taught?
djc
We are in bad enough shape. Please don’t send over clay pot “chalices” and burlap banners.
Perhaps in a few years a 70th anniversary remake of the classic ‘The Bishops Wife” but now updated to “The Bishops Husband/Spouse/Partner/Signifigant Other/Whatever” Starring Shirley MacLean as the ‘bishop’ and Ellen DeGeneres as the ‘angel’. The long suffering wife role i would have cast Wally Cox but he’s long gone…. maybe Gene Robinson!
Poor deluded creatures…
Why can’t a woman manage the branch office of a government department?
As a former C of E member I can hardly complain about the idea of people leaving that heterodox “believe what you like” institution for the Catholic Church as I did many years ago. But I hope the Church insist that those that do, do so for the right reasons….that they believe All that the Holy Catholic Church teaches, not just because of their opposition to Priestesses and Wishops.
That said, as Pope Francis appears to be doing his best to turn the Catholic Church into the Church of England mark 2 maybe they should think twice about going to all the trouble of converting just to find themselves back where they were with “anything goes”.
Am I right in thinking a Christian was last Friday ejected from a USA Episcopal cathedral during Muslim Friday Prayers for shouting an affirmation of his belief in Christ Our Saviour? Yes, in a “Christian” Church having Muslim (who deny the divinity of Christ) prayers.
You couldn’t make that up could you?
Father and djc,
Excellent points about why progressive catholics don’t transfer their baptisal records over to the Anglican Church. Progressives don’t really believe in the true presence in the Eucharist or they wouldn’t do what they do in mass, they want women priests that want married priests, they want homosexuals to be accepted without repentance and they can openly become priests, they want homosexuals to be able to get married in the Church, they don’t like Latin, they don’t go to confession, they don’t follow Humanae Vitae, they are not obedient to orthodox bishops or priests and they can recieve communion when ever and however they want. Why in the world would they not simply become Anglican’s or Episcopalians they have everything over there they want and it is accepted by their Archbishop. Sadly many Catholic bishops and priests allow all those beliefs to be praticed and don’t really say anything about it to the contrary.
‘Why can’t a woman manage the branch office of a government department?”
Indeed, why not? They have been doing a good job managing the decline of the corresponding government departments in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Thank you for mentioning Father Neuhaus. I miss his intellect and his keen sense of humor. I have oftened wondered at what his observations would be about our current Pope and President.
Any bets as to how much longer before openly adulterous or homosexual “priests” are made “bishops”?
Why don’t they leave? It’s not really about converting to an ecclesial community that fits; that is, for those dissident Catholics who remain in the Church. It’s about converting the remnant traditional Catholics to heresy. But I’m not exactly sure what motivates that.
I have thought long and hard about the ‘when they don’t believe, why don’t they leave? question and think that I have an answer of sorts. The fact that the Anglicans will validate any belief and, now most other Protestant organisations is insufficient for them, they need the ‘last bastion’ which they know/ suspect is the very Church that Jesus founded to ‘cave in’. Only when this happens will they feel really secure that ‘do what thou wilt’ is free of eternal consequences for their actions – ‘but Lord, your Church said that what I did was OK’. It is an enormous, though unwelcome, compliment and admission by these deluded souls.
Whom in the photo is a gyrl? OH! The one with the Buddha-beads on her wrist.
William Tighe says:
‘Why can’t a woman manage the branch office of a government department?”
Indeed, why not? They have been doing a good job managing the decline of the corresponding government departments in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
And the head of the C of E is the Queen.
Jen The Blue,
She (and, assuming this is accurate, Christine Weick, currently a peragrinatrix):
http://www.virtueonline.org/christian-booted-national-cathedral-speaks-out
What would happen if the Holy Father decided he agreed with Saepius Officio rather than Apostolicae Curae and nullified the latter – while not being convinced in favor of women in orders?
Landless Laborer wrote: “I’m not exactly sure what motivates that.”
The evil one!
Stephen D.
Thank you. Whenever I’ve tried to figure this out, I’ve hit a wall. This makes sense that it’s a sort of cognitive dissonance. There can be no remnant of true Catholicism left standing to remind them of their error.
C’mon Father. Don’t call them Romans! They hate Rome!
Modernorum coetibus, maybe.
Some 10 years ago when I was a seminarian participating in (or being subjected to) CPE, I lived at a parish pastored by a former Episcopalian “priest” who converted and was ordained a true priest of the High Priest. I remember sitting in his office having a wonderful conversation. In this conversation he (the former Episcopalian) had already termed Anglicanorum/Romanorum Coetibus in very simple language…..a hostage exchange program!
I think there are many reasons heretical Catholics don’t leave.
One is that many realize that only in the Apostolic Churches does the true presence exist in the Eucharist. They mistakenly believe they can keep the True Presence and reject the magisterial teaching of the Church.
Another is that those who don’t believe in the Sacraments understand that if they leave Catholicism they become irrelevant. This primarily applies to clergy and religious dissidents who know that they only reason that the mainstream media gives them a platform is because they are members of the clergy or a religious. As a member of the C of E or any other Protestant group they would be a non-entity who couldn’t get an email from a mainstream lefty reporter.
Finally I believe that many of the hard-core heretical dissidents are pushed by Old Scratch himself. We know he can’t prevail, but that probably won’t prevent him from trying and using whatever tools he can find to try to destroy the Church.
“What would happen if the Holy Father decided he agreed with Saepius Officio rather than Apostolicae Curae and nullified the latter – while not being convinced in favor of women in orders?”
What would be the point; and cf.:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_30061998_ad-tuendam-fidem_en.html
http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfadtu.htm
“With regard to those truths connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but are not able to be declared as divinely revealed, the following examples can be given: the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonizations of saints (dogmatic facts), the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations …”
Why don’t they leave? I always wondered this myself, but it was explained recently, and it makes crystal clear sense. Money. Cash. Bucks. Cha-ching.
The Catholic Church has vast resources of assets, property, and liquid cash. Dissidents in high places, especially those such as aging LCWR religious, are sitting on goldmines. All it takes is to be the last one standing and it’s all theirs.
It’s also a prime reason why the Catholic Church is attacked from outside. She not only has the Truth, she has the goods. And people are jealous. Sexual-abuse lawsuits not only weakened the Church financially but they also lined the pockets of those who put themselves in the right place at the right time.
It’s pretty obvious, and we only have to look to history to see how this played out in the past. When Henry VIII split with Rome, all kinds of Church assets and personnel were snapped up in England. 500 years later, we hope beyond hope that Anglicanism will crumble and offer restitution to the Catholic Church for all the things they stole back then. But Catholicism will endure, while the rest of Protestantism schisms into tiny little unsustainable factions and ultimately commits cultural suicide on the altars of feminism and population control.
I continue to think that this is a lot of fuss about nothing. What did reunification with the C of E look like before this happened? Reordination of any eligible clergy, which is some but not all of the Anglican clergy. What does it look like now that this has happened? Exactly the same. Nothing has changed. The decisive question is the validity of Anglican orders, and that break happened with Apostolicae Curae, which holds that none of the Anglican “bishops” are actually bishops, so it mystifies me what possible difference it makes that some of those non-bishop bishops couldn’t be actual bishops.
Venerator Sti Lot says: “What would happen if the Holy Father decided he agreed with Saepius Officio rather than Apostolicae Curae and nullified the latter – while not being convinced in favor of women in orders?” He would falsify a key assumption of Catholic ecclesiology, and, by declaring that the judgment of the papacy is unsound, nullify not only the judgment of Apostolicae Curae but also his own judgment nullifying it. Falsus in uno…
There are some really good answers above. Elizium23, Magash, to mention a couple. Stephen D, your answer is brilliant. “But Lord, you Church said that what I did was OK”. There are many reasons, but this is probably the primary one.
“This is not really much of a story, except insofar as it wipes out what was left of any serious ecumenical undertaking with them.”
Oh pahleeeeeeze, with this B of R?….I just coughed up a piece of lung from laughing so hard.
http://veneremurcernui.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/pope-francis-speaks-to-group-of-protestant-bishops-evinces-mere-christianity/
cwillia1 is quite right. Equal opportunities law applies to Anglican overseers just as much as it applies to other employees of the British State.
“When Henry VIII split with Rome, all kinds of Church assets and personnel were snapped up in England. 500 years later, we hope beyond hope that Anglicanism will crumble and offer restitution to the Catholic Church for all the things they stole back then.”
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I couldn’t care less about Anglicanism or what they took… if only they’d give back the old churches that actually look like churches. (Of course, the Catholics in the area would also have to be willing to keep such things, and I have no idea whether that’s more or less likely.)