This is a tempest in a teapot just as I said it would be. When the Bishop of Rome issued Anglicanorum Coetibus it was said that 400,000 continuing Anglicans plus many more from the Church of England and the Anglican Communion would be rushing for the bridges of the Tiber. On Sunday, the Roman authorities held "ceremonies across the country" to receive Anglicans in Canada wanting to join the new Anglican Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church. Only around 100 confused Anglicans in all of Canada accepted the Roman bishop's "generous offer." Still, Rome is hoping for "dozens" more in upcoming weeks!
Only about 1,400 Anglicans out of 27 million have joined the new Ordinariate in Great Britain, and about 1,000 more are said to be on the Roman road in the United States - and that number may be wishful thinking as well. Despite the hype, the wishful thinking on the part of Rome, and the "generous offer" of the Roman bishop, Anglicans are not going to leave their Church to submit to an unreformed papacy. It is just not going to happen. Yes, we have got problems; but I would not trade our problems for their deeply rooted doctrinal errors, nominal Christianity, and moral scandals.
Sunday, April 15th, was the day that Anglicans from all over Canada were to be received into the Roman Church. The attached article will tell you about the lonely 100. I feel bad for them. My heart is captive to the Word of God. Here I stand. I can do no other. May God bless the ongoing New Reformation in the Anglican Communion. We have lived through a long Good Friday, but Easter morning always follow Good Friday. A new Springtime is coming. I can already smell the first flowers of Spring. Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! The best is yet to come!!!
13 comments:
The Canadian newspaper article that I was commenting on can be found here:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Breakaway+Anglican+groups+join+Catholic+Church/6475391/story.html
blessings,
Fr. V. E. Novak
Any thoughts about asking Fr. Novak onboard as a writer for the Continuum blog? He has an excellent perspective.
Here I stand. I can do no other. May God bless the ongoing New Reformation in the Anglican Communion.
May I ask... what is the New Reformation in the Anglican Communion?
Susan
Susan: I can't answer your question because I didn't write this. Maybe Fr. Novak might explain what his phrase means.
Hi Susan,
You can read about the New Reformation and realignment in the Anglican Communion on my blog:
http://frnovak.blogspot.com/
The majority of the Anglican Communion does not ordain women priests and the vast majority of the ACNA are opposed to this practice as well. It will end. For more information see the following:
http://www.anglicanchurch.net/media/FCAwomenandpriesthood.pdf
Lest you think that I am naive, I have been in this fight a long time. I left PECUSA in the 1970s after the great St. Louis Church Congress. Unfortunately, so many of our people have become so used to being defeated that they cannot recognize what God is doing today and have all but lost hope. The truth is that Jesus knows His way out of a grave, and the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. The tide has turned. The Church is being restored. It will be a long battle, but take heart: Victory belongs the Lord and His people.
blessings,
Fr. V. E. Novak+
www.holycrossomaha.net
Fr. Novak: I appreciate the facts you highlighted, that I wanted our readers to see. Obviously, we pray that the ACNA will come to the right conclusion about Holy Orders. That would be a step forward in a direction toward unity with us.
As a traditionally-minded anglo-catholic I am rooting against WO in ACNA and hoping for growth among the continuum churches. That having been said I also hope the Ordinariates are able to flourish.
Has there been any recent movement towards the St Louis churches achieving unity? It is always encouraging to hear of such news. In any case, peace be with your from a diocese in the Middle East where there is no WO and also there is no other show in town than the Anglican Communion.
Fr Novak,
I visited your website and have read the article titled, "Why Women are not Ordained to the Apostolic Ministry." It is most excellent! The Bible references you cite are unequivocal evidence in support of the male offices of bishop, deacon and priest as established by Christ. I can only wonder why any theologian might think otherwise.
Susan
ACNA needs to figure out if they are Anglicans with liturgy, sacraments, and a validly ordained ministry with Bishops, Priests, and Deacons or not.
There is far too much of these sorts of places on their web site:
Service Times
9:15am - Intercessory Prayer
9:45am - Quiet Reflection
10:00am - Service
I have found numerous "gatherings" in the ANCA who have Sr. and Assistant "pastors" who don't list any sort of ordination whatsoever. Their qualification seem to be having a seminary degree.
These groups never refer to Morning Prayer, Daily Offices, or Holy Communion/Mass/Eucharist listed as what one will attend for "Service". I've seen praise bands, AV-Power Point displays, and all sorts of nonsense about "prayer warriors" available during and after "service."
Service? What does that mean? And just what the heck is everyone else doing while the prayer warriors get to the REAL business of telling God what to do? No, this won't do at all.
What is a "Ministry Partner congregation?" Anglicans are "in Communion" or they are not.
This is certainly not to denigrate those who are practicing historical orthodox Anglicanism within the ACNA - but as a group, the ACNA really need to decide where they stand on these huge issues. This sort of laissez-faire will lead to immense squabbles down the line, not to mention Mass confusion (pun intended.)
I watched an excellent video of a lecture given by an Eastern Orthodox bishop to an ACNA gathering and he basically said the same thing: you have to settle your debate about what constitutes a valid ministry, you must be sacramental and liturgical, and your churches need to be set up like churches not auditoriums. He was clearly addressing the very anachronisms I just pointed out. Because of these things there can be no inter-Communion. Not with other Continuing Churches, and not with the East.
There are plenty of Godatoriums in the United States serving U2Charist Snackraments and all that. I didn't leave this Evangelical nonsense 20 years ago for people to import it into Anglicanism. And the Orthodox won't stand for it...
Well, yes, they do STAND during Liturgy however.
Fr. Novak,
I read your blog's posting on the New Reformation in Anglicanism, and am left with a question.
There seem to be two errors of focus. Why is the concern only about openly homosexual bishops and not all homosexual bishops who indulge their temptations, whether overtly or covertly? And why is the concern only about bishops, as opposed to all the clergy?
The limitations implied at least suggest a de facto tolerance for homosexual activity, so long as it does not become an open scandal, and for openly homosexual lower clergy. Surely the only way to clean up any segment of the Church is to clean out the actively homosexual clergy, of all three grades of Holy Order, wherever they may be found?
For if there were no homosexually active deacons, there would be in future few or no homosexually active priests, and if there were no homosexually active priests, there would be in future few or no homosexually active bishops.
Contrariwise, so long as actively homosexual deacons are tolerated, there will be actively homosexual priests, and so long as actively homosexual priests are tolerated, there will be actively homosexual bishops.
John A. Hollister+
I wish this post hadn't linked to holycrossomaha.net, as that site includes some pretty bold inaccuracies, such as:
• "The Reformed Episcopal Church/Anglican Church in North America is the old Episcopal Church, and is recognized as such by the Primate’s Council of the Anglican Communion."
This falsely implies recognition from the official Anglican Communion that just isn't there. Further, it's a joke to claim that ACNA, with its priestesses, novus ordo liturgy and common happy-clappy worship, can in any way represent the "old Episcopal Church" or classical Anglicanism more broadly.
There 27 million baptized Anglicans in England...of which less than one million regulasly attend Church on Sunday.
The Church of England now baptizes less than 20 per cent of English babies.
In Wales the Anglican Church has 45,000 regular communicants out of a population of 3 million Welsh.
Fr. Novak wrote, "The majority of the Anglican Communion does not ordain women priests and the vast majority of the ACNA are opposed to this practice as well. It will end."
Of course, it is indisputable that the majority of the Lambeth Communion tolerates the practice of "ordaining" women "priests" and remains in communion with those who do so. Having "designated heretics" (sort of an inverse of the concept of "designated drivers") to do the things the designators haven't quite brought themselves to do really can't make the essential theological problem go away.
So it remains to be seen whether Fr. Novak is correct that the practice of women's "ordination" will end. But even if it does, that still leaves two looming problems: (1) What will be done with all those deaconettes, priestesses, and bishopettes? And (2) How will the Lambeth Communion deal with the taints upon its Sacramental Intentions that have been created not only by women's "ordination" but also by the existence of the Churches of South India and North India as well as by intercommunion agreements with Lutherans and Methodists?
John A. Hollister+
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