A Church of England group is proposing a way forward aimed at both permitting women to become bishops – should General Synod vote in favour of this - and of preserving the maximum amount of unity within the Church.
Read summary here:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/40/75/acns4094.cfm
One cannot be 'in communion' with an altar at which one cannot accept the Sacrament as valid. Any such claim is simple nonsense, logically meaningless.
ReplyDeleteIf I believe that a female 'priest' is not a valid priest, I believe that her 'eucharist' is not Eucharist, and I cannot be in communion with her altar
If I believe that a female 'bishop' is not a true bishop, then I am not in communion with her altar, nor can I recognize any 'ordination' that she might perform as valid, which then produces a whole category of invalid male priests with whose altars I cannot be in communion.
And how can I be in communion with altars where her authority is accepted and invalid sacraments are recognized as real?
If women are admitted as 'bishops' the dioceses involved are not Catholic, not having Catholic order, and dioceses who are in communion with these 'bishops' have, at the very least injected a lot of questions into their own life.
There simply are no arrangements possible by which female 'bishops' and those who consider them to be invalid can coexist in one 'church'. Any such attempt is doomed from the outset, and foolish to attempt. There is no way to remain Catholic in this case other than to withdraw from such attempted communion.
ed
My sentiments, exactly.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of discouraging conversation here, let me point out that Titusonenine already has a lively one going on the issue.
However, Dr. Harmon being who he is, one would not expect conversation on that site to be particularly astute in questions of Traditional Catholic Order. The comments over there seem to reflect the typical Evangelical argiments based on "headship", an abstruse Bible-derived concept I always found hgard to defend.
ReplyDeleteed