PRESS STATEMENT
From the Catholic Group in General Synod
Responding to the statement of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York Re. forthcoming women bishops debates
The Catholic Group in General Synod is grateful to the Archbishops for their suggestion of a possible way forward for the Church of England, both to enable the consecration of women bishops and to provide for those who cannot in conscience accept the ministry of women bishops. We are particularly grateful for their recognition of the need for bishops with jurisdiction in their own right to minister to us, and to all those who share our convictions.
We look forward to studying the amendments in detail when they are published. We very much hope that they will provide ‘nominated bishops’ who will be real leaders in mission and ministry. It is also be vital that the amendments provide for us to continue to hold a principled theological position, looking to the faith and order of the undivided Church. We believe that the Church will be better served by the consistency of a national scheme of provision.
The Catholic Group is wholly committed to securing provision within the Church of England.Canon Simon Killwick
The Archbishops
are proposing that the Flying Bishop Substitutes (I cannot help thinking of them as "Grounded Bishops") will have jurisdiction, and that this jurisdiction does not come from the Diocesan Bishops but "from the measure". The diocesan bishop would have every right to exercise ministry of any sort in any parish is his or her diocese, "the diocesan would in practice refrain from exercising certain of his or her functions in such a parish" (a parish which had written a letter asking for special treatment).
I hope members of the Catholic group will press Synod on this. What are the 'certain functions' which the diocesan will not exercise? Will it include the selection of candidates for ordination?
Will it include all confirmations in parishes which ask for special provision?
Moreover, who will monitor this? In the bad old Act of Synod days, with PEVs and all the rest, the Archbishops took an active interest in how the Act was being operated, and did a bit of gentle leaning on episcopal colleagues who ignored the Bishops' Guidelines. Now, it appears that everything will be decided by the Diocesan Bishop (after consulting, not with disaffected parishes, but with their own Diocesan Synod).
So what safeguards are there for any parish, when the Diocesan Bishop decides she has had enough of all this and will disregard any guidelines?
And who will choose the "Nominated Bishop" for any diocese? In the PEV system, the Archbishops consulted widely and ensured that those appointed were themselves opposed to women's ordination. Will the same apply in the new circumstances? Surely not - and it would be hard to find anyone prepared to act as a Nominated Bishop (with jurisdiction) whose jurisdiction in reality is hedged about by a Diocesan Bishop who can change the rules whenever s/he pleases. But it is a good question, so again I hope some member of the Catholic Group will ask it, and tell us the answer.
And what of those ordained by women 'bishops'? At present such people, male or female, may not be licensed to officiate in the Church of England. Indeed I understand that even when we have women bishops, those ordained by women bishops overseas will still have orders which the Church of England cannot recognise.
Will it be possible for ordinands to require ordination from the hands of a Nominated Bishop? That has been a sticking point for many Diocesan bishops in the present dispensation.
Will parishes have the right to refuse the ministry of those ordained by women 'bishops'?
These are just a few of the many questions which must be answered before anyone should accept the Archbishops' amendments as worthwhile.
It looks terribly as though what is being proposed is well intentioned, but depends upon human beings always acting honourably. They have not in the past, and it is certain they w
ill not in future. Naturally every diocesan bishop will consider his/her arrangements to be absolutely fair; but who is to monitor this fairness? Call me cynical if you will; once, before I became a Provincial Bishop and had to deal with Diocesan Bishops and their Archdeacons, I was just an innocent trusting babe. The iron entered my soul when I discovered that promises made ("Just rescind the votes: we promise you will have a male priest") have been broken more often than not.I am sure Canon Killwick and the catholic group will do their best for those who feel they must refuse the offer from Pope Benedict. I hope they and the Archbishops get something worthwhile from the July Synod; but I have a horrid feeling that they will come down the steps of the York Synod saying "I have a letter here giving us the firmest of promises: it will be peace in our time".
For a vision of what ecclesial life will be like without PEV-cover look no further than Wales. Credo Cymru (the Welsh FinF) are a spent force. Through poor strategy and woefully inept tactics they have been completely out-manoeuvred by the Bench of Bishops. SSC Wales is completely impotent. All those years praying for Unity with the See of Peter, and when the best offer ever available comes along in the form of a possible Ordinariate, they run a mile because of the problem of heterodox lifestyles. It is then somewhat galling to hear the gin and lace brigade, with their cottages with the boyfriends, saying, ‘Never mind when we retire we can grab the pension and convert to Rome as laymen!’
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, The Llandaffchester Chronicles are doing an excellent job at exposing the hubristic behaviour of the Church in Wales hierarchy http://llandaffchesterchronicles.blogspot.com/
I sent what follows around to my friends over 24 hours ago; so far there has not been a single response:
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking about these matters for the last couple of days; and now I have just read this:
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/30879/
which I find incomprehensible in its enthusiasm, however "qualified." As I read the archbishops' proposals -- and please correct me if I am wrong -- there is nothing in them that would prevent a "flaminica" (my term for a "womanbishop," with intentionally pagan connotations) form appointing as her "coordinate bishop" a man keen on WO and who (purports to) ordain(s) women, and who might therefore provide "episcopal functions" for such "recusants" as would accept them, but who could hardly serve as an advocate for them and their "orthodox integrity" -- in this respect, of course, completely different from the current PEV scheme. Moreover, and in the longer run (but perhaps the fabricators of this proposal have in mind John Maynard Keynes' "in the longer run we will all be dead") there seems to be nothing to prevent the appointment of a male bishop whose diaconal and presbyteral ordinations were at the hands of a flaminica, or who was himself consecrated by a set of bishops including a flaminica.
I think that in these circumstances "conservatives" (Evoes, Anglo-Catholics -- "papalists" and "anti-papalists" alike) and WATCH Liberals (and, generallly the sort of looney enrages who frequent Simon Sarmiento's "Thinking Anglicans") should all seek to defeat the archbishops' proposal -- indeed, they should adopt one VI Lenin's "the worse, the better" as their watchword -- and then seek to prevent it from gaining the requisite two-thirds majority in the House of Laity for the final vote in 2012 or thereabouts.
Professor Tighe, I am sure you are right. Unless the Archbishops' amendments give the firmest legal definition of who may or may not be a co-ordinate bishop, there is no sort of future for even the most lily-livered traditionalist in the CofE. But I don't agree with you in seeking to get the archbishops' proposal thrown out (unless it is done at a very early stage) for it will simply mean some will be encouraged to defer their acceptance of the Holy Father's offer to the Greek kalends. We have had too much synodical delay already. One, clean, single clause measure would be best. +E
ReplyDeleteIndeed, you are right, Bishop Barnes; that's what I meant by "the worse, the better." I suppose that if the proposal is thrown out at the final stage by failing to attain the necessary two-thirds majority in all three houses, it will come back in the next General Synod session "with a vengeance" as what will amount to a "single clause measure" but perhaps at such a distance in the future whatever momentum "the Ordinariate option" may have attained will have been thoroughly dissipated.
ReplyDeleteIn that event, if I may be blunt and Machiavellian, it will behoove proponents of "the Ordinariate option" to vote with "the enrages and enragees" on the other side to scuttle the archbishops' proposal, and achieve something as close to a "single clause measure" as possible. After all, decades of experience with liberals in the Episcopal Church here in the States, its Canadian sister, and the Scandinavian Lutherans of Sweden and Norway has demonstrated with what degree of trust the promises of liberal institutionalists should be regarded.
Woe to those who cry 'Peace' where there is no peace.
ReplyDelete