Catholic Ecumenism and the Elephant in the Room (I)

Herewith a piece by contributing editor Fr Matthew Kirby on the obstacles to ecumenism. Due to my continuing technological inadequacies, I shall post it in serial form.


In the discussion of how to re-unite the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches the greatest stumbling block is the one least addressed. Ecumenically minded theologians on both sides, supported by their respective hierarchies, search for ways to harmonise Eastern and Western understandings of the Trinity, the Papacy, the Intermediate State and so on. And many of them do so in the belief or hope that apparent differences can be reconciled without either Church betraying its principles. But many would say that the most fundamental principle that each Church holds is that it and it alone is the One True Church and that those bodies outside its present communion are thus not so. Why? Because their confidence about their beliefs is founded on a confidence about who they are. And since both sides believe in the Unity and Unicity of the Church, it seems that this in combination with their self-identification as that Church leads logically to a perfectly symmetrical yet utterly irreconcilable understanding of the Church and the goal of ecumenism.

If this is true, it means that, whatever theological and doctrinal barriers are broken, the greatest hurdle that will have to be faced is answering the question “Who is coming back to whom?” In other words, who, if anybody, will admit they were wrong about their basic identity and accept that for centuries they have been outside the Una Sancta, the Catholic Church? Catholic ecumenism is a question then, not just of how to forge a common future, but how to interpret a divided past.

Anglican Catholics have been somewhat distinctive in that their self-understanding has asserted their Catholicity but in a non-exclusive manner. That is, they have seen present divisions as being within the Catholic Church, such that they along with the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, and perhaps even Oriental Churches are in fact all in the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. (There was a time when many Catholic Anglicans would have put a “perhaps” qualifier before the Roman Catholic Church as well. And, of course, most Old Catholic and Anglican Churches have now undermined their sacramental and doctrinal integrity through innovations such as ordination of priestesses.) It is believed that outward divisions hide but do not destroy an underlying spiritual, doctrinal and sacramental unity.

This Anglican non-exclusivity has then been used against us. Our appeal to Catholic consent, it is claimed, means that we cannot differ from the exclusivist ecclesiologies common to Rome and the East without trampling the Vincentian Canon and proving our Protestantism. This line of argument has been common in Roman Catholic controversial literature directed against Anglicans, being fundamental to Cardinal Newman’s critique and much relied upon, for example, by Al Kimel, recent “convert” to Roman Catholicism and author of the blog Pontifications.

And so it seems we are at an impasse. East and West cannot re-unite without one of them denying its identity, and others who only claim to be part of the Catholic Church without presently being in communion with either East or West, are by that very fact excluded from consideration. One has a picture of two gunslingers facing up and saying simultaneously “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us!” Just then a little guy comes up and says “Ah, come on, I’m sure we can all get along, if … ”. Just then, the first two pause long enough to take turns blowing the little guy away. “Finally, something we can agree on … Now, back to business.”

Is it really so hopeless? Some among RCs and EO would say yes with joy, seeing ecumenism as a heresy or at least a waste of time. Others would say no with a smile, triumphally convinced that the “others” claiming to be Catholic will eventually, either in groups or as individuals, recognise their fraudulent position and “come back to the Church”. I disagree with both of these positions and believe that there is hope, as long as everybody is willing to take Church history seriously. Let me explain.

Al Kimel, in his Pontificator’s Fourth Law states that “A church that does not understand itself as the Church, outside of which there is no salvation, is not the Church but a denomination or sect.” My past response to this on his blog, with minor modifications, follows:

This is not so much an axiomatic law as a derived one. I submit that it is based on the following argument (or something like it):
1. Any truly Catholic ecclesiology must not only teach that the Church is visible and one, but that it is visibly one.

2. A Church holding a Catholic ecclesiology will obviously believe that it is Catholic.

3. Therefore, such a Church must also hold that any body outside its visible unity, that is, not part of its internal communio in sacris, is outside the unity of the Catholic Church. [1 + 2]

4. Any truly Catholic ecclesiology must also teach that outside the Church there is no salvation.

5. Any body claiming to be a church which does not hold a truly Catholic ecclesiology is a denomination or sect.

6. Therefore, a church that does not understand itself as the Church, outside of which there is no salvation, is not the Church but a denomination or sect [3 + 4 +5]

The first premise identified above as underlying this Law has the following corollary for historical interpretation: Any break in communion that discontinues the visibility of unity between one Christian body and another, if the two groups were previously united within the Catholic Church, must leave one group outside the Catholic Church until that breach is visibly healed. Call this proposition 1*.

Thus, if any historical circumstances exist that have very commonly been interpreted by theologians with undisputedly Catholic ecclesiologies in ways that conflict with this corollary, then it must be accepted either that the corollary is oversimplified and requires denial or modification or it must at least be admitted that its denial does not prove a theologian is an ecclesiological heretic! Therefore, given the existence of such interpretations of Church history by substantial numbers of Catholic and Orthodox theologians in good standing, proposition 1 of 6 and the derived Fourth Law would no longer obtain in their present form. Call the existence of such interpretations contra-1*, or C-1*. Now for the evidence.

(To be continued here)

Is the Pope Homesick?

The Vatican, citadel of secrets and intrigue, has thrown up another little mystery: what has the Pope been doing on a spate of night-time missions to his old cardinal lodgings?

Over the past few weeks, the German pontiff has been seen sneaking back to his old room outside the Vatican walls three times, La Stampa reported yesterday."

Read it here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=RRBFKPTOAG4YVQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/01/14/wpope14.xml&sSheet=/portal/2006/01/14/ixportal.html

The Continuum in England

In my travels through the blogosphere this week, I "met" Fr Anthony Chadwick, the TAC chaplain of St. Martin's Chapel in Mouilleron en Pareds, France and the host of another blog, Civitas Dei. I put the following question to him, and his answer follows. I would be interested to hear from people in the UK as to what their thoughts are on this matter.

Question:

I have always been mystified by the fact that so few disaffected Anglicans in Britain even know about the Continuum, much less ever having given any consideration to it, as an alternative to going over to Rome or to Orthodoxy. And that is evidenced by the almost imperceptible Continuing presence in the UK.

Answer:

For England, I can only go by my occasional visits and what I read in the press. The Traditional Anglican Church in England under its Vicar General, Fr. Brian Gill, is doing well. Last October, I went to Evensong in a lovely chapel of a stately home in Yorkshire, where the local TAC parish regularly worships, and found more than sixty people attending.
The TTAC is acquiring real churches in England -- Lincoln and Portsmouth in particular -- and snowballing in its development. The quality and dedication of its clergy and laity are impressive.

Unlike the Americans and people in the "Third World", who adhere to a church because they believe in it, most English and European people take the attitude that society expects them to belong to the official establishment or nothing at all. What is going to be important is to have the Continuum looking like something very official and mainstream -- because it is nothing other than mainstream Anglicanism, just as we knew it as choirboys, altar servers or children with our families. Without that, people are just shameful about joining anything "marginal" and just won't come to it.

Few people go to Orthodoxy, because, though Orthodoxy is mainstream and official, it is considered as something exotic for foreign people -- Greeks, Russians and Middle Eastern people in particular. There is no canonical Orthodox western rite provision in England or Europe.

Another thing people like is intolerant fundamentalism -- it gives them more emotional security. This explains the success of the larger Roman Catholic traditionalist societies and "happy-clappy" Protestants, who feed on peoples credulity for "conspiracy theories" (blame something other than oneself, and one gets that nice glowing feeling of self-satisfaction).

The Continuum is simply classical Anglicanism, and demands nothing other than faith, dedication and an upright life -- those ideas don't fit in with today's consumer mentality.

European Christianity is dying and the USA will eventually follow. We are returning to the first centuries of the history of the Church. Our priority will be ourselves to live as Christians and show that we are happier and better people on account of living an edifying life and believing in something other than money! The days of filling pews and large numbers of people at church services are over. We have to find a new way to bring the Gospel into contemporary life, and of course welcome any who want to come to our liturgy or simply see a priest for any reason. It is the present Pope's vision of a shrinking Church, but gaining in quality what it loses in quantity. The churches of the future European continent will be small chapels and rooms in houses, and the Christianity of the future will be pre-Constantinian.

Merton on the Liturgical Cycle

The liturgical year renews the mysteries of our redemption each day in the Mass and Divine Office. It renews our participation in particular mysteries of the life of Christ. It teaches us the way of the saints and renews our union with them in the charity of the Spirit. It is a year of salvation, but also a year of enlightenment and of transformation.

The mysteries of the liturgical cycle not only bring new outpourings of the salvific waters of grace: they also enlighten our minds with insights into the ways of God, ever ancient and ever new. They teach us more of Christ, they show us more of the meaning of our life in Him, they make us grow in Him, they transform us in Him. Indeed, the liturgy is the great school of Christian living and the transforming force which reshapes our souls and characters in the likeness of Christ.

Read it all at:

http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/

Women Bishops in England?

The following, from The Church of England Newspaper, is only hearsay, but, given the publicly announced developments in this process, it is probably true. And, perversely, it is logical. How can a church have women deacons and priests without bishops as well? What is curious is that there appears to have been no 'fudge' this time in the form of giving a nod to the proposal for creating a Third Province. One must ask Fr Kirk what the point is of such a province.

THE CHURCH of England’s bishops put their differences over women bishops behind them this week in an attempt to continue moving the issue forward. At the House of Bishops meeting in London they were deeply divided over the recommendations of a report, which proposes to introduce provincial regional bishops in place of the Act of Synod.

However, they reached a compromise, which will allow the process of promoting women to the episcopate to go forward, according to one insider. “We had good, robust discussions, but we agreed that we must set out a way in which Synod will approach the issue,” he said. “We have a role to play in giving good leadership and the resolution [for the February Synod] will allow the process to move forward.” The report, which was chaired by the Bishop of Guildford, the Rt Rev Christopher Hill, proposes that the first woman could be consecrated as soon as 2012, but traditionalists at the meeting argued that this was far too soon.

One bishop at the meeting described the report as “insulting” to the Anglo-catholic constituency who have warned that they will leave the Church of England if they are not given proper provisions. Fr Geoffrey Kirk, National Secretary of Forward in Faith, expressed surprise that the bishops had been able to find a way forward on the issue considering the divergence of opinion: “Agreement in the House of Bishops is always astounding and in this particular case, incredible.” He said that the traditionalists would not accept a compromise deal that did not meet their requirements. “People are not prepared to have the Act of Synod mutilated and something inadequate put in its place, especially considering the stakes are being raised with the promotion of women to the episcopate.”

Plans for a free province for those unable to accept women bishops looked to have been discarded as a viable option, but Fr Kirk said that this will happen whether or not it is legislated for. Yet, campaigners for women bishops will be encouraged that another woman has been promoted to a senior position in the Church’s hierarchy. Canon Penny Driver, who is currently priest-in-charge of Sharow in Ripon and Leeds diocese, has been appointed to be the next Archdeacon of Exeter. She joins a handful of other women who have reached the post, from which it is a common platform to be promoted to bishop. A leading campaigner for women bishops, Christina Rees, has also been appointed to a powerful position, gaining a seat on the Archbishops’ Council.

It's Official: I'm Chalcedon Compliant!

Okay, so perhaps on the last quiz you discovered that your views on God were unpalatable. Here's a chance to make amends. This time you will have a chance to prove that you are not a heretic. Do you dare?

For the record, here is the assessment I got: "You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451."

Take the quiz here:

http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=131773

Are Your Views on God Unpalatable?

My good friend and colleague Charles Onians came across this and passed it on to me. See if you can answer all 20 questions without stepping on a mine or biting the bullet, and join the currently 7.6% of those who have taken the test to be awarded the TPM Medal of Honor. Sadly, I was among the 46% who came in second with the Medal of Distinction.

Charlie says he has a complaint about the language used in some of the questions, but I'll let him post that as a response.

http://www.philosophyquotes.net/cgi-bin/god_game1.cgi?num=0&hits=0&bullets=0&bulletcount=0&hitcount=0

When Even the Pope Has to Whisper

Islam is the unexploded bomb of global politics. US foreign policy - the only foreign policy there is, for the United States is the only superpower - proceeds from the hope that a modern and democratic Islam will emerge from the ruins of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Through democratic institutions, Washington believes, the long-marginalized Shi'ites will adapt to religious pluralism. Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's Islam, fixed in amber since the High Middle Ages, will metamorphose into something like American mainline Protestantism.

Alas, the available facts suggest that the opposite result will ensue: more freedom equals more fundamentalism. Not the secular Shi'ite parties but the pro-Iranian religious parties dominate the Iraqi polls. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood quadrupled its vote despite heavy-handed measures to intimidate its supporters; Hamas threatens to displace Fatah in the Palestinian elections this month; Hezbollah has become the strongest electoral as well as military force in Lebanon; and, most important of all, Mahmud Ahmadinejad crushed a more pragmatic opponent in last June's Iranian presidential elections. Islam was founded as a theocracy, such that the Western innovation of church-state separation remains alien to its culture.

Is it possible for Islam to reform? A negative answer implies that Ahmadinejad's January 5 call for world domination falls within the Islamic mainstream. He told an audience of religious students, "We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups and nations. It's a universal ideology that leads the world to justice. We don't shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world. We must prepare ourselves to rule the world."

The previous day, the London Guardian leaked a European intelligence report detailing Iran's efforts to acquire technology required to build nuclear weapons. A very few writers, including this one, have rejected the possibility of Islamic reformation, to the stony contempt of universally accepted opinion.

Now Pope Benedict XVI has let it be known that he does not believe Islam can reform. This we learn from the transcript of a January 5 US radio interview with one of Benedict's students and friends, Father Joseph Fessio, SJ, the provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, posted on the Asia Times Online forum by a sharp-eyed reader.

For the pope to refute the fundamental premise of US policy is news of inestimable strategic importance, yet a Google News scan reveals that not a single media outlet has taken notice of what Fessio told interviewer Hugh Hewitt last week. No matter: still and small as Benedict's voice might be, it carries further than earthquake and whirlwind.

Read it all at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA10Ak01.html

Three Kings?

by Ed Pacht

Three Kings,
wise men,
students of the stars,
and of old and sacred books,
who left no thrones behind,
yet here they are, see them come:
three kings who are not kings
come from far to see the King

Three kings,
wise men,
students of the stars.
and of old and sacred books,
but are there only three?
Could three kinds of gifts
be brought by number more or less?
Could it be that there are four or more?
But this we truly know:
three kings who were not kings,
and may have not been three,
came from far to see the King.

Three kings,
wise men,
students of the stars.
and of old and sacred books,
who knelt beside the manger bed,
in the stable where they did not go,
but no, 'twas in a house they found the child,
and in a house bowed down,
and in a house gave gifts,
three kings who were not kings,
and may have not been three,
come from far to see the King.

Three kings,
Twelfth Day,
or the next year,
or the next;
three kings who were not kings,
and may have not been three,
on a day unknown
to a place unknown,
came from far to see the King.

Three kings, or not,
wise men who followed a star,
and came to a land they did not own,
strangers in a land of promise,
strangers, foreign, gentiles they.
three kings who were not kings,
and may not have been three,
came from far to see the King,
and so have we.
 

Anglican Origins and Historical Revisionism

by Fr Matthew Kirby

One of the more important trends of late in anti-Anglican apologetics by Roman Catholics has been to utilise recent “revisionist” historical scholarship on the English Reformation. The immediate aim has been to show that the Church of England that emerged from the Elizabethan Settlement was utterly Protestant and not in theological continuity with either any pre-Reformation Catholicism or the Caroline Divines and the succeeding “High Church” tradition.

The overall purpose of this historical reconstruction is twofold. First, it is to cut-off any attempt to read back into the intentions of the 16th Century Reformers the Catholic interpretations of the 17th Century. That way the strong assertions of Eucharistic Sacrifice found in the latter can be entirely ignored when dealing with the former, and so the arguments of Apostolicae Curae about the sacramental (non) intention in the Ordinal can be seen as plausible.

Second, on a broader ecclesiological basis, this historiography allows a simple dismissal (as dishonest and innovative) of the traditional claim of Anglican Churches to be constituent parts of the Catholic Church possessing a continuity with the pre-Reformation Church that is distinctive among non-Roman Churches of the West.

While the revisionist histories of scholars such as Eamon Duffy have contributed greatly to our understanding of the period of the Reformation – and have simultaneously undermined some Anglo-Catholic idealisations of the early English Reformers – they do not tell the whole story. Now, was there anything in the English Reformation, especially the Elizabethan phase, which made it distinctive?

The answer is yes. Apart from the maintenance of epsicopal organisation, we see the following features:

1. A consistently griping group of “Puritans”, the dogmatic Calvinists, who complain that the Church of England is not truly Reformed due to its “Popish” ministry and liturgy and its failing to assert “TULIP” Calvinism in the 39 Articles.

2. A Queen guiding the Church who seemed to believe in the Real Presence, liked to have a crucifix on the altar and Mass vestments, probably helped add a rubric to the Prayer Book requiring these vestments, probably was partly responsible for adding a clause to the 39 Articles that said the “the Church … hath authority in Controversies of Faith“.Queen Elizabeth a number of times defended her Church’s catholicity to foreigners and emphasised what it held in common with the rest of the western Catholic Church. For example, she objected to the “invidious difference” made between her and other “Catholic potentates” when she was invited to the Council of Trent in the same way Protestants were, and said “Many people think we are Turks or Moors here, whereas we only differ from other Catholics in things of small importance.” She also appealed strongly to the Consensus of the Fathers in her apologetic for the C of E to Emperor Ferdinand. Indeed, when the Queen addressed the Spanish Ambassador through Lord Cecil as intermediary in 1561, she informed him that the English would attend the Council of Trent if the Christian princes decided the place of meeting, the Pope presided as head of the Council but not as “universal Bishop”, and that dogmatic definitions should be drawn from Scripture, the consensus of doctors and the rulings of the ancient councils. She also demanded that all her English bishops be granted equal voice and vote with the other bishops in its proceedings.

3. A 1559 Prayer Book and 39 Articles which deleted earlier outright denials of prayer for the dead, the Real Presence in the Eucharist and sacramental grace being given ex opere operato. There are also the following in the Elizabethan Injunctions (in 18, 50, & the Bidding Prayers) of 1559: Use of the word “mass” to describe the Liturgy; characterisation of being a “sacramentary”, that is, a denier of the Real Presence, as worthy of denunciation; and the statement “let us pray God for all those which are departed out of this life in the faith of Christ”. Formularies like these that were intended to be acceptable to the non-Calvinist, ‘non-Papist’ Catholics. (The earlier denials, it should be noted, were in documents that never received legal approval by the Church itself.) Also deleted was an abusive prayer in the Litany for deliverance from Papal tyranny. The authorised 1560 Latin edition of the Book of Common Prayer contained prayer for the dead in the communion service for funerals.

4. Deliberate appointment of many moderate rather than Geneva-style reformers as bishops, some of whom we know believed in the Real Presence (e.g., Bishop Guest). Making sure all to be bishops were properly consecrated by at least three bishops. This latter condition was not always met, as I understand it, in those few Lutheran Churches that maintained some sort of episcopacy.

5. Church Law which said “Let Preachers above all things be careful that they never teach aught in a sermon to be religiously held and believed by the people, except that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and which has been collected from the same doctrine by the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops.” The Act of Supremacy makes the first four Ecumenical Councils standards for judging heresy, while the Homilies (authorised at a secondary level) and a consensus of later divines re-affirmed the universal acceptance of the first six.

6. An Ordinal and Liturgy quite different to the vast majority of Lutheran and Calvinist ones. (See 1.)

7. An apologetic (e.g., Jewel’s and Hooker’s) which consistently appealed to the consensus of the Fathers and, interestingly, the example of the Eastern Churches as part of its justification of its Catholic identity despite not accepting Roman supremacy.

8. A significant number of those loyal to the Pope nevertheless taking the Sacrament from C of E altars up to 1570.

9. The 1561 Calender put back into the list a number of mediaeval English saints and other commemorations of mediaeval origin, which contradicts any claim of an emphatic severance from the mediaeval Church. Then there is the statement in the BCP preface, “Of Ceremonies” which states “we condemn no other Nations” and Canon 30 of 1604 (concerning the sign of the Cross) which disclaims any intention to “forsake or reject” the Continental Catholic national Churches, but only to depart from them in “those particular points” where they had “fallen … from themselves in their ancient integrity”. Admittedly this last piece of evidence is from the reign of James I, but it is before the period generally seen as having the episcopate dominated by “High Church” types.

10. An Archbishop of Canterbury (Parker) who said “God forbid that we should have such a reformation here as Knox hath made in Scotland.”

It is, I think, reasonably clear that the English Reformation was somewhat different in character to those in Europe and Scotland. There was a greater respect for Tradition both in basic doctrinal epistemology and in actual practice.

And, here’s the thing that really strikes me about the recent attempt to represent the Elizabethan Church of England as so radically different in character and self-understanding to the later period of the Caroline Divines: If they were so incompatible and discontinuous, how on earth did the “more Catholic” Caroline Divines come to be? From whence did they arise? They come straight after the Elizabethan period, and some were educated by the C of E during it. Doesn’t it make more sense to posit that there were genuine Catholic qualities and Ecclesial “substance” in the post-1559 C of E (albeit often seemingly overwhelmed by the heat of early controversy and over-reaction against Rome) just waiting to be developed and made more explicit by the Jacobite and Caroline bishops and theologians?

These are some of the reasons why I don’t think the revisionist attempt to deny any distinctively Catholic intention or effect to the English Reformation is fair or balanced. We can happily admit that many of the early Reformers taught or held as individuals material heresy in various areas. But their errors never bound the Church of England as a whole. And, just as importantly, underlying their mixed success in understanding Holy Tradition there was at least a formal and official commitment to that Tradition as expressed in the Ecumenical Councils and Patristic consensus.

A subsidiary historical argument that has been used against the Catholicity of the Church of England is that what Elizabeth did she did entirely against the will of the Church as expressed by its hierarchy. Indeed, this was so much the case that she could only impose her will by replacing almost all the bishops, since those appointed (or reconciled with Rome) by Queen Mary resisted Elizabeth’s replacing the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome with that of the Monarch.

However, the fact that the changes made in the Church of England were not sufficiently self-directed does not prove that the changes completely broke its sacramental or ecclesial continuity. One needs to look at the nature of the changes themselves to decide this matter. (As I have above.) Unfortunately, if the inability of a province to freely govern itself and teach without civil interference are sufficient evidence of de-Catholicising, then most European national Catholic Churches were unchurched many times in the middle ages, and long before the Reformation! A plethora of Kings before Henry VIII and outside England who interfered quite effectively with the Churches in their territories may be found in the annals of history. Whether it was to do with Episcopal appointments or even the publishing of a papal bull, earthly princes often imposed their will on Churches.

I should also note that most clergy in England eventually subscribed to the changes made by Henry and then Elizabeth. It is common to see this as mere widespread and repeated cowardice. But that assumes that most thought the changes were, not only objectionable or unnecessary, but a matter of basic principle, worth persecution or even martyrdom.

However, I do not think this is the case. If Henry or Elizabeth had ordered an end to episcopacy or a denial of the authority of the Creeds, the reaction would have been very different. It should not be forgotten that pressure from Churchpeople led to Henry accepting the ambiguous rider “as far as the law of Christ allows” as a qualification of his “Headship” and also led to Elizabeth only claiming to be “Supreme Governor”, and adding other statements disavowing any Ministry of Word or Sacrament.

It should also not be forgotten that conflict with the Papacy over various issues had been unusually frequent in the English Church since long before the Reformation. To characterise all those conflicts with the Pope as being simply acts of the Crown against the Church is illegitimate. English clergy had often sided with the complaints of Kings and other laymen about, for example, Papal exactions and deliberately corrupt and pluralist appointments. Magna Carta is an interesting case in point. The Pope condemned it and those associated with it, declared it void and rebuked the Archbishop of Canterbury for his involvement. Yet, successive Archbishops of Canterbury ignored this and continued to use it when enthroning Kings. And it is worth remembering that Conciliarist sympathies were by no means extinguished in England in the Sixteenth Century!

So, while most in the Church would probably prefer to have been left alone by the Monarchs, the large-scale acquiescence to the English Reformation, even allowing for the reluctance in some places and downright rebellion in others, indicates that the changes were not widely seen as a catastrophic destruction of identity.

So, although many things were said and done amiss on our side at that time and afterward, Anglicans did not see their repudiation of Roman Supremacy as intrinsically and deliberately schismatic or heretical, given the way the Supremacy presented itself back then and the fact that one of the main Anglican criticisms was that the Pope was less Petrine than Emperor-like. They did not reject the kind of Primacy both evidenced and described in recent times in Ut Unum Sint! And so there is hope for better things in the future, and a healing of memories.

The Continuum and Realignment

In a piece over at The Kew Continuum, Fr Richard Kew says, in part:

"During 2005 I have finally accepted the reality that the Episcopal Church of the USA as presently configured will not continue to exist for much longer, and that our responsibility is to start building constructively for the future. I don't really know what Anglican Communion Christianity is going to look like in North America in the years to come, but I suspect it will include many of us who are part of ECUSA, many of the more sensible separated jurisdictions both new and old, and I suspect a scad of those in the emergent churches who are exploring Anglicanism from the outside but would happily leap in if there was something acceptable for them to leap into.

"I suspect what emerges on the faithful end of the spectrum will be pretty loosy-goosy for a few years, but that some order will evolve from a tangle of networks, structured ecclesial organizations, and floating affiliations. I suspect, also, that at some point, although millions of dollars will have been thrown in the direction of attorneys before it happens, we will see some means emerge for faithful Anglicans to graduate out of ECUSA without the persecution that goes with it right now."

Meanwhile, The Living Church begins its review of 2005 with the following:

"The often-predicted, much-discussed realignment of the Anglican Communion began to take place during 2005, even though no official division of the opposing factions has been made. As the year drew to a close, various segments of Episcopal churches had separated themselves from the national structure, aligning themselves with Anglicans in other parts of the world. Former Episcopalians found themselves in the jurisdictions of bishops from such places as Rwanda, Bolivia, Nigeria, Uganda, South East Asia, and elsewhere. Some churches simply declared themselves independent and decided to wait for an official separation to take place. This seemingly unorganized departure highlighted news of the Episcopal Church during 2005."

Read both pieces at: http://richardkew.blogspot.com/2005/12/retrospect-of-2005-prospect-for-2006.html and http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=1625

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

What I am curious about is whether the Continuuing Churches, any or all, are engaged in any strategic campaign, nationally or locally, to offer a haven to the hundreds or thousands of people who are desperately looking for one. With all the flap lately about "corporate" evangelical churches, I hesitate to use such concepts as "marketing campaigns" and "boosting market share at the expense of the competitor." But, in reality, that is what we are talking about here.

The last time I lived in England (1995-1999), I was amazed at the number of people who were disenchanted with the Church of England, but who considered that their only options were either to swim the Tiber or the Bosporus. People would look at me with incredulity when I told them about the 20-year-old Continuing movement in North America and suggested that this was a very real, and ultimately, more appealing option.

So, is anything being done to "seize the opportunity"?

Mizpah

I couldn't pass this up. I came across it purely by coincidence the other night, and it said so much to me. I know I promised not to get bogged down in me, but this poem, by Julia A. Baker, is so beautiful that it has to be shared.

Go thou thy way, and I go mine,
Apart, yet not afar;
Only a thin veil hangs between
The pathways where we are.
And "God keep watch ‘tween thee and me"’

This is my prayer:
He looks thy way, He looketh mine,
And keeps us near.
I know not where thy road may lie,
Or which way mine will be;
If mine will lead thro’ parching sands
And thine beside the sea;
Yet God keeps watch ‘tween thee and me,
So never fear;
He holds thy hands, He claspeth mine,"
And keeps us near.
Should wealth and fame perchance be thine,
And my lot lowly be,
Or you be sad and sorrowful,
And glory be for me,
Yet God keep watch ‘tween thee and me;

Both be His care;
One arm round thee and one round me
Will keep us near.

I sigh sometimes to see thy face,
But since this may not be,
I’ll leave thee to the care of Him
Who cares for thee and me.

"I’ll keep you both beneath my wings,"
This comforts, dear; One wing o’er thee
And one o’er me,
Will keep us near.

And though our paths be separate,
And thy way is not mine,
Yet coming to the Mercy seat,
My soul will meet with thine.
And "God keep watch ‘tween thee and me,"
I’ll whisper there.
He blesseth thee, He blesseth me,
And we are near.

A Sad Parting

I bid your prayers for my wife Susana, my children Andrea and Winslow and for me in the coming days and weeks.

The day after I created this blog, Susana told me that she could no longer live with me and that she wanted to start life anew on her own. She formally did that this afternoon, as she left to spend the first night in her new flat just 10 minutes away. The children will join her as soon as the rest of the furniture is moved in a day or so.

I did not create this blog as a medium for online self therapy, but to provide a place where people can share news and ideas and, hopefully, be nourished in their faith. And I mean to keep it that way.

But please pray for the four of us as each of us begins a new chapter in our life; that we might have the strength, courage and wisdom to know and do what is right and to be as loving and caring for each other as we can be.

God sustains.

Happy New Year

To my contributing editors and to all our readers, I wish a blessed, healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.

May each of us, in our own way, dedicate each day of this year to the praise and glory of God and to the advancement of His Kingdom.

The Circumcision of Our Lord

More than twenty five years ago, in fact almost thirty years ago, when I was in my first year in college, I ha d a run-in with a Philosophy instructor. The older I get, the more I read and the more I learn, the more I know how right I was, and how wrong the instructor was.

Now, that is not the normal reflection one makes of his first year of college, and not the normal reflection I make of my undergraduate days in the 1970s when I was a mere boy and a beardless youth (a time my own kids think may not really have been. When I tell them I was once their age, I am not sure they believe me).

Anyway, this Instructor told the class that the ancient Greeks had believed that matter was evil (so far she was somewhat right), and that, in her words, “we see this as part of Christian teaching, that matter is evil.”

I did not hesitate to contradict her. I spoke right up: “That is not Christian teaching,” I said. And I was right.

She said to me, “Defend that statement.” So, I did.

I pointed out that as early as the Book of Genesis, God looks at His creation and says, “It is very good.” I mentioned the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which use matter for what is holy. I was about to point out the most important part, that Christians believe that God Himself entered the world of matter in what we call the Incarnation, the Christian teaching that God the Son is fully God and fully man in one Person. But, she cut me off, and repeated her assertion that Christians have always believed that matter is evil.

Now that I am a real theologian, and a published one at that, I can add that the entire concept of matter being evil was the worst of ancient Gnostic heresies taught by one Marcion, whom the bishop and martyr Saint Polycarp called “the firstborn of Satan.”

I am sure that these names were not familiar to the instructor. To this day I am irked by the fact that standards at that college were so low as to make an instructor out of someone so totally unqualified. And yet, if that unfortunate person had not been presenting herself as someone who is educated, we could have a certain amount of sympathy.

After five centuries of division and confusion among Christians, it is all too true that the heart of the message is missing from what most people think we believe. During this season of Christmas, and particularly this eighth day of Christmas, the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, it is a good time to state some basics about our faith.

In particular, what does it mean that God the Son was born into the world as a human being? And, what does it mean about the use of matter in sacraments and in worship in general? It is right that we can see water, incense, the sound of bells and other created things as useful in worship.

Our God made a good world, and created things have been sanctified by Christ taking human nature and coming into the world of matter, of space and of time. Eternity and time have met in one Person. For people who object to water, to incense, to bells and to the Real Presence in the Sacrament, I can only ask what they have against Jesus Christ having come in the flesh.

The fact that we believe such a thing, that we believe “the Word was made flesh,” is rather startling, quite a shock when we really take it in for the first time. I recall vividly when I was very young, attending a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and the Rector of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, a small country church in Maryland, read the opening of the Gospel of Saint John, the appointed Gospel for Christmas. I knew the words already, but as they were read in the context of the Church in that holy service, on that holy night, they hit me like a bolt of lightening. “…the Word was God…And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

A few days later I was walking the family dog, and those words came again. I already believed that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man; but the idea of everything that that means once again was like being struck by lightening. It really is rather a shock, a good shock and happy, to grasp the fact that God the Son has condescended to take our very nature into His eternal and uncreated Person- God equal to the Father and the Holy Ghost.

The very fact that Saint Luke tells us that he was circumcised takes on great significance. Every Jewish boy was circumcised on the eighth day. This is what God commanded Abraham, and what Moses simply continued. But, what does it mean that Jesus Christ was circumcised? What does it tell us about creation and redemption, and God’s love for the human race?

Well, to begin with, as our Collect points out, Jesus Christ would fulfill the Law. For redemption, it reminds us of words from the Epistle to the Hebrews: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15).” The fact that He fulfilled the Law perfectly, and was Himself without sin is essential to our salvation; the Righteous One being sacrificed as a Lamb without spot, himself pure from all sin, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed (I Pet. 2: 24).” As Isaiah put it, in the 53rd chapter:

“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

The sinless One, like Adam whose sin made the many guilty, has by His obedience unto death as the atoning sacrifice, made the many righteous. In this first shedding of blood by circumcision He begins to obey and to fulfill the whole Law; no one else ever did it perfectly. No one else could. No man in heaven or earth was worthy to open the scroll, says the Book of Revelation, except for the One who was like a Lamb that had been slain, and is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

What else does His circumcision tells us? It tells us that we can identify Him as an individual in history. This is very important, indeed essential, to believing that His Incarnation was real and not allegorical. Back in the 1980s, in New York City, one of the “progressive” Episcopal churches in town decided to display a female corpus - that is, the body of a woman - on a crucifix. One of the great errors of our time is the kind of feminism that wants something other than simply equal respect for both men and women, which is a good thing in itself. But this is, instead, that other kind of feminism, the Satanic kind that hates human nature as God created it, and meant it to be. It is the kind that hates life, that makes the sin of abortion, which is the murder of the unborn, into its only “sacrament.” Like the witch in Narnia, it makes it always Winter but never Christmas. A female corpus on the crucifix gets to the heart of error. Jesus Christ, in His sacrifice is transformed into a mere symbol. How backwards from reality.

God is the greatest Reality of all, and we human beings are the image. Jesus Christ in His human nature is the exact image, or as the original Greek New Testament says, the express icon of the Father. His Circumcision reminds us of this reality: namely, that He entered real human history. That is, the world, as it really is, received into its created existence the Lord Himself. He was real, and as an individual had marks of gender and ethnicity, just as we all have, each one as who are. His sex was male, his ethnicity was Jewish.

It is important that He was male. This is no “accident” of the Incarnation, but rather, part of the plan. It is important that he was Jewish, descended from the Royal line of David. This too was no mere “accident” of the Incarnation, but an essential part of the plan of His Incarnation. Only a man could be our High Priest and represent all of humanity in One Person - as head. Only a Jew from the line of David could be the eternal King whose government and peace will have no end.

And, all of this ties into that other fact of His Circumcision, his Name. “And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Jesus, Y’Shua, is a Hebrew name that means Salvation. As it says in the book of Isaiah:

Ci’ Adonai Shof’tenu
Adonai Mak’ka’kenu
Adonai Malkenu
Hu Yashi-enu

“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He is our salvation (Isaiah 33:22).”

In the future I want us to study together the two comings of Jesus Christ as they are foreshadowed in the Old Testament: His first coming as Priest and His second when He will come as King. For today, let us consider the meaning of His circumcision, the first shedding of His blood, and His particular history as a male of the house of David of the tribe of Judah. This real man in real history has overcome the barriers between us and God. By taking human nature He has overcome the chasm between Creator and creature that separated us from God. As the Lamb of God Who took away the sins of the world in His atoning death, when He offered Himself on the cross as the full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, He removed the separation between us as sinners and the Holy God. When He rose from the dead He did away with death that separated us from the Living God, the source and author of all life.

His Name is Jesus, He is our salvation.

Fr Robert Hart 

Resolved: To Forgive

With the New Year upon us and thoughts turning to resolutions, here is one we might consider adopting that makes giving up cigarettes sound easy but which is ultimately more beneficial to our health.

1. The holy virtues are like Jacob's ladder, and the unholy vices are like the chains that fell from the chief Apostle Peter. For the virtues, leading from one to another, bear him who chooses them up to Heaven; but the vices by their nature beget and stifle one another. And as we have just heard senseless anger calling remembrance of wrongs its own offspring, it is appropriate that we should now say something about this.

2. Remembrance of wrong is the consummation of anger, the keeper of sins, hatred of righteousness, ruin of virtues, poison of the soul, worm of the mind, shame of prayer, cessation of supplication, estrangement of love, a nail stuck in the soul, pleasureless feeling cherished in the sweetness of bitterness, continuous sin, unsleeping transgression, hourly malice.

3. This dark and hateful passion, I mean remembrance of wrongs, is one of those that are produced but have no offspring. That is why we do not intend to say much about it.

4. He who has put a stop to anger has also destroyed remembrance of wrongs; because childbirth continues only while the father is alive.

5. He who has obtained love has banished revenge; but he who nurses enmities stores up for himself untimely labours.

6. A banquet of love dispels hatred, and sincere gifts soothe a soul. But a heedless banquet is the mother of familiarity; and through the window of love gluttony leaps in.

7. I have seen hatred break the bond of long-standing fornication, and afterwards remembrance of wrongs, in an amazing way, did not allow the severed union to be renewed. Wonderful sight - a demon curing a demon! But perhaps this is the work not of demons but of Divine providence.

8. Remembrance of wrongs is far removed from strong natural love, but fornication easily comes near it, just as a hidden louse can sometimes be seen in a dove.

9. Have remembrance of wrongs and spitefulness against the demons, and be at constant enmity with your body. The flesh is an ungrateful and treacherous friend. The more you care for it, the more it injures you.

10. Remembrance of wrongs is an interpreter of Scripture which explains the words of the Spirit allegorically in order to suit its own disposition. Let it be put to shame by the Prayer of Jesus [Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me] which cannot be said with it.

11. When, after much struggling, you are still unable to extract this thorn, you should apologize to your enemy, even if only in word. Then perhaps you may be ashamed of your long-standing insincerity towards him, and, as your conscience stings you like fire, you may feel perfect love towards him.

12. You will not know that you have completely freed yourself of this rot, not when you pray for the person who has offended you, nor when you exchange presents with him, nor when you invite him to your table, but only when, on hearing that he has fallen into spiritual or bodily misfortune, you suffer and weep for him as for yourself.

13. An anchorite who remembers wrongs is an adder hidden in a hole, which carries about within itself deadly poison.

14. The remembrance of Jesus' sufferings cures remembrance of wrongs, which is mightily shamed by His forbearance.

15. Worms grow in a rotten tree, and malice finds a place in falsely meek and silent people. He who has cast it out has found forgiveness, but he who clings to it is deprived of mercies.

16. Some, for the sake of forgiveness, give themselves up to labours and struggles, but a man who is forgetful of wrongs excels them. If you forgive quickly, then you will be generously forgiven.

17. The forgetting of wrongs is a sign of true repentance. But he who dwells on them and thinks that he is repenting is like a man who thinks he is running while he is really asleep.

18. I have seen spiteful people recommend forgetfulness of wrongs to others. Yes, and being put to shame by their own words, they rid themselves of the passion.

19. Let no one regard dark spite as a harmless passion, for it often manages to reach out even to spiritual men.

The ninth step. Let him who has reached it henceforth boldly ask the Lord Jesus for release from his sins.

St John Climacus from The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 9

Sursum Corda

On Friday, Pope Benedict XVI received participants of the 33rd international congress of Pueri Cantores, a group founded in 1965 to promote the performance of liturgical music by school children. We would all do well to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the following excerpts of his remarks to the group.

"It is particularly appropriate at Christmas to sing the praises of the Lord and to express our happiness, following the example of the Virgin Mary, who was the first to give thanks to the Lord for the mystery of the Incarnation, in the Magnificat, which the Church repeats from generation to generation.

"The Second Vatican Council also recalled how much the Church values the role of those who, in their song, contribute to the the beauty of the liturgy." Because "Christ is present when the Church prays and sings, joining us with the Church in Heaven.

The Pope underlined the important mission of the Pueri Cantores in "helping the people of God pray with dignity,"because sacred music is a "ministerial function of the Divine Service." When the "Church prays, sings or acts, the faith of the participants is nourished and their souls are lifted up to God to pay him spiritual homage and receive his grace more abundantly."

Vatican Information Service

On the TAC and Rome

Will published this at Prydain, and I thank him for making it available. (My apologies to the authors if I got the paragraph breaks wrong; I am still learning the technology).

If you've been following the ongoing stories about the Traditional Anglican Communion and its seeking some form of union or intercommunion with Rome, you may find these interesting as (according to an email I received) they are from a Canadian bishop in the TAC, Bishop Peter Wilkinson, and from Archbishop John Hepworth, the Primate of the TAC.

Here is the statement by Bishop Wilkinson:

From the desk (and computer) of Bishop Peter Wilkinson, OSG

Dear Brethren: Over the course of this year many of you have asked for information on the progress of our talks with Rome. I have told you what I know. So, as a further help to all of us, I have asked the Primate for a letter that would bring us up to date. It follows my introductory comments.

INTRODUCTION

After about 450 years of attempts of varying seriousness, Anglicans and Roman Catholics really began talking to one another after the joint decision by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey, expressed in a Common Declaration during their meeting in Rome in March 1966 --39 years ago.

Within a year the Commission they established had produced a report that proclaimed "penitence for the past, thankfulness for the graces of the present, urgency and resolve for a future in which our common aim would be the restoration of full organic unity."

In April 1977 Archbishop Ramsey's successor in the See of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, and Pope Paul VI, made a further Common Declaration declaring their desire for "the restoration of complete communion in faith and sacramental life." In the same year, The Affirmation of St Louis, so deeply embedded in our ACCC Constitution and the Concordat, also declared "our intention to seek and achieve full sacramental communion and visible unity with other Christians who 'worship the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity,' and who hold the Catholic and Apostolic Faith in accordance with the foregoing principles."

This should not be news to anyone in the ACCC. Since those days a lot of water has flowed down the Thames and the Tiber, and a big log jam -- the purported ordination of women to the priesthood. Rome reacted immediately with both Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II stating in letters to the Archbishop(s) of the day that this act would create a stumbling block to unity. Anglican Synods paid no heed either to the pleas of their own constituency, to Roman Catholics, or to the Orthodox Churches of the East some of whose Synods had declared Anglican Orders valid (Constantinople, Jerusalem and Cyprus).

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission [ARCIC] talks continued and some good progress was made to which Rome did not react.

With the advent of the real possibility of the purported consecration of woman to the Episcopate in England, a Roman Catholic Bishops' response to the Rochester Report (which recommends the Church of England proceed to consecrate women) has stated that, "if the Church of England consecrates women bishops its relations with Roman Catholicism could suffer 'irreparable damage' and warns that women bishops would 'radically' impair relations between the two Churches.

They also said that the reform was at odds with the ecumenical steps taken between the two Churches. The source of this statement goes on to comment that "the long-hoped for reunion between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism remains the pipe dream of a few ecumenical specialists."

Sad to say, in the Canterbury Communion the situation is still deteriorating. A report says that Archbishop Ellison Pogo told over 100 delegates to the 11th General Synod of the Church of Melanesia, that the Anglican Church in the Central Pacific should permit the ordination of women to the priesthood. Archbishop Pogo urged the recusants [Anglo-Catholics] to rethink their stance.

Another report has it that "the Anglican Churches of the Global South are as divided over the issue of women's orders as is the Church of England. Evangelical provinces such as Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda ordain women -- while Nigeria and Southeast Asia do not. Anglo-Catholic Provinces are equally divided with Central Africa opposed and the West Indies in favour of ordaining women.

"The leader of the Ugandan Church, Archbishop Henry Orombi argued that women priests were not a universal panacea for the church's ills and would not work in some places he cautioned, but he believed this was not an issue that should divide the Church."

Dissident groups that have left the ACC [note - ed: Anglican Church of Canada] and PECUSA and are bound up with these Provinces and Dioceses, already have some women in major orders. In light of such a massive defection from Anglican (and therefore Catholic) faith and practice [see the Preface to the Ordinal and the Solemn Declaration in our BCP, which declare that we have no Ministry of our own but only that of Christ's Holy Catholic Church], who is there for Rome to talk to -- only the TAC, and those few remaining faithful dioceses and provinces of the Canterbury Communion?

It is a dialogue Anglicans began in good faith 39 years ago, and it is a dialogue that we are bound to continue, "that", as our Lord Jesus Christ said, "they may be one, even as We are one, I in them and Thou in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me and hast loved them even as Thou hast loved Me [St John 17:22b, 23]; who livest and reignest with the same Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. Amen.

+Peter Wilkinson, OSG

And here is the statement from Archbishop Hepworth, which is most interesting:

The Primate Responds to Reports and Speculation about the TAC and Rome.

It is twelve years since Archbishop Falk led a little group to Rome to explore the possibility of a closer communion with the Holy See, in continuation of the ARCIC agreement between Archbishop Ramsey and Pope Paul VI. Since then, every meeting of the College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion (and we have managed to meet every two years) has endorsed the principle of the TAC seeking to be "an Anglican Church in communion with the Holy See".

Different parts of the TAC have different ways of reporting the doings of the College of Bishops, and there are still some differences in the way that the TAC Concordat (the ruling document that creates the "communion" between TAC bishops) is embedded in the Constitutional arrangements of our member churches, so some seem to know more about what happens in the TAC than others. Some churches have managed frequent visits by the Primate to brief synods and meetings of clergy and laity, others have managed rather less.

So the awareness of what is happening with the "Roman question" varies around the TAC. At this time, almost every National Synod has passed some form of resolution accepting the concept of "an Anglican Church in communion with the Holy See", at least in principle. Some have passed very detailed and enthusiastic resolutions, and embarked on detailed activities with local Roman Catholic communities.

Why are we doing this? Our communion with the Anglican Communion in most parts of the world was shattered by the ordination of women to Holy Orders. In this ultimate of schismatic acts, the Anglican Communion betrayed its claim to share a common Apostolic Ministry with the churches of East and West, which had undergirded its claims to be authentically catholic since the Reformation.

In the same step, the great doctrines of Creation, Incarnation and Redemption are denied. The sacramental life of the Church, by which Jesus brings the saving grace of redemption to each of us, becomes an object of suspicion and uncertainty. Placing a woman priest in a diocese is always "communion breaking", since it makes the very act of communion impossible.

At the same time, the ordination of women fractured one of the most solemn agreements ever made by an Archbishop of Canterbury. Michael Ramsey, when he signed the agreement to create "full and organic communion" with the Holy See, acted upon the urging of the Lambeth Fathers since the "Bell Resolutions" of the Lambeth Conference just before the Second World War, and the enthusiasm of the earliest Conferences for discovering a basis of unity with Rome. And the Pope, in agreeing to this unity that he described as "united but not absorbed", determined to end five centuries of often bitter division.

The Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission was created to achieve this unity. It was clearly understood that, if Anglicans ordained women to Holy Order, the unity would become almost impossible. So each Anglican Province that voted for women priests, voted to end the possibility of unity. The TAC has simply determined to continue the process, since the impediment does not exist within our Communion.

And there is another reason. Having had our communion with the Anglican Communion shattered, we cannot remain "a church on the loose". To hold the catholic faith requires that faith be exercised in communion. Bishops cannot exist cut off from the mainstream of the church's life. Unity is not an option. Jesus commanded it.

Will we be absorbed by Rome? Roman Catholics (including a significant number of former Anglican clergy and laity) have urged us to value our Anglican heritage. One author has written movingly that the TAC seeks "to achieve communion (with the Holy See) while maintaining those revered traditions of spirituality, liturgy, discipline and theology that constitute the centuries old heritage of Anglican communities throughout the world".

We seek to be "Anglican Catholics". That is, to value our Anglicanism while being visibly united to the "whole church catholic" of which our formularies have always spoken.

What stage have we reached? There have been no secrets up until now, and there will be none in the future. The TAC is following a traditional Anglican method of wide consultation, synodical decision-making and deep involvement of clergy and laity.

At Easter this year, I published for the whole TAC a Pastoral Letter on Unity, which set out for publication the point we had reached and pathways for the future. As with all important documents of the TAC, the Messenger carried the full text. I am presuming, perhaps rashly in the case of some countries, that the Messenger goes into every TAC home in the world. Certainly, we print enough for that!

At the moment, there are two documents in the final stages of preparation. The first is a "Pastoral Plan", prepared by an eminent Roman Catholic layman, which performs the joint functions of "verifying the TAC as a worthy interlocutor with the Roman Catholic Church" and of setting out the "desired levels of recognition of the TAC by Rome both before and after full communion".

This document will be delivered to every bishop early in the new year, and will be debated by a full meeting of the College of Bishops, in the presence of clerical and lay representatives of each member church, hopefully in Rome in the first half of next year. The document will then go to the synods of the member churches (even if they must have an extraordinary meeting).

If the document wins the approval of the whole Communion, it will be formally presented to the Holy See, and a more formal process will be established. (At the moment, it would be fair to say that wide ranging, multi-level, international contacts between the TAC and Rome have been proceeding for some years, and have intensified in the past year, with a resultant increase in publicity. It is also true to say that a much greater awareness of the TAC still needs to be created.)

The second document is a formal proposal from the TAC to the Holy See for the TAC to become an "Anglican Rite Church "sui juris" in communion with the Holy See".

The first draft of this document was submitted to the Council for Christian Unity, and its response, with input from other Roman Catholic and Uniate Catholic sources, shaped the present document. It is not proposed to submit this document until the Pastoral Plan is approved by the TAC. The College as a whole has not yet approved the present draft.

A further letter is sometimes mentioned. On becoming Primate, I wrote personally to the Council for Christian Unity resuming the conversations that had been conducted by Archbishop Falk. I made the basic claim, sometimes wrongly reported, that "there are no doctrinal or moral matters of such significance that they would prevent unity between this Communion and the Holy See".

In all of these documents matters of historic difference are canvassed. But both our own bishops and those with whom we speak emphasise the fact that we seek to create a eucharistic community, in which we can join at the altar of God, and from which all else must flow. Questions of Orders, of Liturgy, of clergy discipline, of the way in which we would experience our relationship with the See of Peter, have all been the object of our, as yet, informal conversations. We have found deep rapport in our conversations, as well as much direct speaking, but nothing is, as yet, official. I close this summary with some words shared with me by a Cardinal who has followed this journey. "We must learn to practise the unity we already share from the action of the Holy Spirit. Only then can we ask for more. And the time will be God's time, if we are truly prepared to place this in God's hands."

+John Hepworth Primate

P.S. What Prayer Book will be used?

The Traditional Anglican Communion uses a number of national versions of the Book of Common Prayer, often incorporating the Usage of the English and Anglican Missals. These forms of Public Worship are authorised by the College of Bishops,and member churches do not act on liturgical forms without the authority of the College.

English is only the seventh most-used liturgical language in the TAC, so the various English Prayer Books are not the most significant issue in our Communion, albeit they have local importance.

There is no suggestion that we would adopt the Book of Divine Worship. I have personally indicated to the Holy See that we are deeply moved -- and reassured -- that Rome has authorised any Anglican Liturgy at all. A vital issue for us to discuss is whether we want to attempt a Prayer Book for the TAC at some stage in the future, and then translate it into each of our languages. Bishop Mercer has written with some authority on this proposal. Since it would take all of the annual budget of the TAC for a number of years, it is not on my immediate list of things to do."

Will says:

These statements are indeed most interesting, because for one thing, it appears that the TAC at least has a goal of not simply "intercommunion", but actually becoming a sui generis "Anglican Rite" in the Roman Catholic Church. There has apparently been much thought and prayer invested in this already--and much more is to come if I read this correctly. Note they are already thinking about the Prayer Book to be used it if this all comes about, and the foundation being laid for all of it in the "Pastoral Plan." Note that this also refers to a "Roman Catholic layman" being involved in the planning like other reports we have seen.

Rachel Wept

December 28, 2005, Holy Innocents. Today we remember all those boys who were killed by Herod after the birth of Jesus, in a vain attempt to preserve his own will in the face of the King of kings. My mind goes to those countless children who have been torn from their mothers' wombs because they too threaten the comfort and plans of willful human beings. God is not pleased. I weep, as . . .

Rachel wept, and wept, and wept, for her son, her son, her slain son, and comfort could not be found.

The king raged, and raged, and raged,for his power, power, earthly power, and murder was found in the land.

And ever the power of their own will, seems to give people the right to kill, and no child is safe in the land.

And empty the womb, empty the heart, where the infant in promise was living, but living could never draw breath

And ever before the shrine of "I will", or mightily driven by deep guilty fears, murder is found in the land

Rachel wept, and wept, and wept, for her child, her child, her slain child, and comfort could not be found.

Save in the arms of the One who knows the pain that flows from innocent death, and open-armed calls to the guilty

Ed Pacht

The Holy Innocents

The Holy Innocents, Anon., Germany, 1400s, British Library

As we commemorate the Feast of the Holy Innocents, let us recall that innocent babes are still being slaughtered today, to an extent that would probably have made even Herod blush. The following is courtesy of my dear friend Shari de Silva, at Clueless Christian. (Shari has very correctly provided citations to back up what she has said, but I have left them out to save space. Anyone who wants the full details may contact me).


Twelve Good Reasons to Choose (my) Life …

1. Because I’m your baby and you don’t want to hurt me.
By the time you even knew about me I had brainwaves and a beating heart. (Three weeks after conception a developing baby has a beating heart. Five weeks after conception, brain waves can be recorded).
It will hurt me a lot. (By 7 weeks after conception, a developing baby has a well developed nervous system, and is more sensitive to pain than an adult).

2. Because it could hurt my baby brothers and sisters.
Having had a previous abortion doubles the risk to future pregnancies.
These risks include
A. Placenta previa (with third trimester bleeding)
B. Infertility (inability to conceive) premature birth or still birth
C. Low birth weight
D. Death within the first three months.
E. Cerebral palsy (with paralysis)
F. Mental retardation or learning disabilities.
G. Seizures.

3. Because it could hurt my big brothers and sisters.
Children, aged one to four, whose mothers have an abortion were found to have lower emotional support at home.
Children, aged five to nine, whose mothers have an abortion were found to have more behavioral problems.

4. Because it could hurt my Dad and break up my family.
By ending Mom’s relationship with Dad. More than 50% of male-female relationships end within one year after the abortion of a child.
By making Dad feel guilty and helpless. Of 1,050 men interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, two-thirds of those who acknowledged having fathered an aborted child said they felt guilty about it, and one-third acknowledged feelings of regret, anger, pain, impotence and nightmares similar to those experienced by survivors of combat.
By making Dad a less good husband and father. Abortion encourages predatory sexual habits by releasing men from responsibility for their actions. After interviewing 1000 men whose partners were getting abortions, sociologist Arthur Shostak warned that men who are not helped to mourn over an abortion are learning how to be even less involved as nurturing parents in the future.

5. Because it could make your tummy hurt all your life, and make it impossible for you ever to be anybody’s Mom again.
Abortion leaves fragments of my bones in Mom’s uterus. These are almost impossible to see, even with a special microscope, and usually work into the uterus.
These fragments cause:
A. Infertility (inability to have children) Fertility and Sterility Journal, Apr. 03; Elliot Institute News Vol.2, No.5, 19May03
B. Pelvic infections and chronic pain from adhesions.
C. Future pregnancies outside the uterus ("ectopic") meaning my baby sibling will die and Mom might die too.
4. Bleeding during other pregnancies, with death or disease for my baby siblings.

6. Because it may make it more likely that you will get cancer.
Abortion, with delay of pregnancy, results in loss of protection from breast cancer. This loss of protection is greatest in teenagers who undergo abortion.
By contrast, carrying a child to term protects against ovarian cancer.

7. Because we might both die.
Four out of 100 (4%) moms have life-threatening complications during first trimester abortion.
Twenty two out of 100 (22%) moms have life threatening complications during second trimester abortion.

8. Because taking my life might make you so sad that you take your own.
Low income moms who have abortions are 2.6 times more likely to die of suicide than low income moms who have their babies.
This study examined 173,000 low income California women who had abortions or gave birth in 1989 Having an abortion gave California a higher suicide rate than women in general, while giving birth reduced women’s suicide risk.
Teenage moms who have an abortion are 10 times more likely to die of suicide than teenage moms who have their babies.

9. Because you’d probably live longer if you have me.
A mom’s risk of dying within a year after an abortion is 3.5 times higher than the risk of dying after childbirth.

10. Because you’d be a happier person if you have me.
Of moms who abort a first pregnancy 60% become severely depressed, with many having post abortion traumatic disorder (including nightmares and panic attacks).
Such mothers are 138 percent more likely to have clinical depression compared to women who carry an unintended first pregnancy to term. This terrible sadness continues for at least eight years after the abortion.

11. Because you’d be a nicer person if you have me.
Mothers (in particular teenagers)who have an abortion are much more likely to develop antisocial traits, paranoia, drug abuse, psychotic delusions, and nightmares. They are also more likely to abuse alcohol, drugs and to engage in even greater promiscuity, with resultant increase in HIV and other sexually transmitted illnesses. Such mothers are also more likely to have difficulty maintaining relationships and to have future abortions.

12. Because God is counting on you to have me.
(He said I could count on you too.)