Saint Mark

Special affection for Mark the Evangelist, since my Title parish was St Mark's North End (which does describes not its liturgical, rather its geographical position) in Portsmouth. In those heady days there were seven curates, a Sister of S Peter's Woking, and a somewhat bemused Vicar. He had returned to England from being Principal of the theological college in Calcutta, where he went straight from a post at Westcott House. So Peter May's experience as an Incumbent was nil. The merry band of curates rang rings round him, but loved him dearly.

Since the church was pulled down to be replaced by a brutalist concrete monster, I thought a better illustration would come from another St Mark's, in Florence. Other curates may recall a silly version of the almost equally banal English Hymnal offering for this day:

Thanks be to God for Good Saint Mark

Without whom we'd be in the dark

About an awful lot of things

Relating to the King of kings.

Today I worshipped at a local St Mark's, in Highcliffe, where I confirmed yesterday.

Have a very happy St Mark's day (transferred).

Highcliffe Confirmation

The Bishop of Winchester has managed to lose both his Suffragans at the same time, so now he is calling on the halt and the lame... that is to say retired bishops living in the diocese like John Dennis, formerly of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, and Christopher Herbert, recently retired from St Albans. John, incidentally, is the only bishop who gave me hospitality overnight in his house before I attended a Staff Meeting, back in my time as Richborough. Many Brownie points to him and his dear wife Dorothy.

So today I was wheeled out once more, this time to the parish of Highcliffe, just a few miles west of here. Thought you might like to see the three Candidates. Left to right they are Alastair, Charlotte and Michael, carrying the candles with which they lighted our way out of Church.

Because it is Good Shepherd Sunday I spoke about how the Lord knows his own sheep, and calls them by name; a theme which the Confirmation takes up when I say to each of them "Charlotte, Christ has called you by name" .. "Alastair, Christ has called you by name". All of them had a second name which was a saints' name, so I spoke briefly about that, too; Charlotte Elizabeth heard about Elizabeth of Hungary, Alastair John was reminded of the beloved disciple, Michael James did best of all managing both the Archangel and an Apostle!

The parish priest, Fr Garry, had only just made it back through the ash cloud; he had been in Poland, so there was the added problem of the time of mourning for the loss of the President and so many others in the air disaster. The church in Highcliffe is St Mark's, so it is also their Patronal weekend. It was built by the family who rebuilt Highcliffe Castle in the early 19th Century - they also owned Rothesay on the Island of Bute, and Castel Coch and Cardiff Castle were revamped by them. Highcliffe is extraordinary, since they tore down the Georgian mansion and rebuilt using stone from Normandy; not just stone, but the greater part of a Chateau (Les Andelys) and a good part of an Abbey Church [Jumieges].

Now owned by the local authority, it is a favourite spot for secular weddings - or as I prefer to call them, pagan marriage rites.

Pusey Conference

Fr Baker prepares to introduce the speakers, [l-r] Fr Ackerman, Fr Baker, Fr Ward, Fr North and Professor Duffy.

A full house at Pusey today to hear papers on Anglican Patrimony. For me, it was pure delight seeing and hearing Professor Eamonn Duffy in the flesh. He took us on from his recent account of the reign of Mary and began to put us right about the Elizabethan bishops. But for Elizabeth, there might have been no choral tradition, no cathedral choirs, no chapels royal. The bishops were iconoclasts and protestants, seeing the Church of England as simply a local part of the European reformation. It was the Queen's conservatism that ensured a few catholic elements survived in the Church of England which would enable later generations to claim them as integral to Anglicanism.

I have to admit to a certain paternal pride in attending a conference where the Principal of Pusey House, the Fr Librarian who organised the Conference, and two of the four keynote speakers had all been "my" students. Which is to say I learned the job of being Principal of Saint Stephen's House under their tutelage.

Canon Dr Robin Ward spoke of the Anglican Tradition of Moral Theology. He reminded us that in the Ordinariate we would not have the licence to disagree with the magisterium. We should, though, seek to make a contribution in the WAY in which we approach Moral Theology, for instance treating it as an apsect of ascetic theology. Our approach to the Confessional too should be distinctive - for not having been overburdened by great numbers of penitents, we have had time and space to develop skills in giving spiritual counsel.

After a very generous buffet lunch and much conviviality in the Freddy Hood room and in the Cloister, we returned to hear the second of "my" former students. Fr Philip North, with his wide experience from pastoral ministry in the Northeast, at Walsingham, and now in Camden Town, sounded a note of warning. Unless the Ordinariate enabled us to continue and develop our pastoral and parochial ministry, it would not he for him. Better in that case simply convert in the old manner. Fr Stephen Bould from Folkestone made for me a most telling riposte, saying that if the Holy Father had invited us to attempt the Ordinariate, because of pleas from Groups of Anglicans, it would be churlish not to give it a go.

Fr David Ackerman from deepest rural Gloucestershire showed that the tradition of the scholarly country parson has not quite died out in the Church of England. He compared the systems of Canon Law in England and in Rome, and then gave what was for me one of the great insights of the day. He reminded us that Anglicanorum Ceotibus was only possible because of the Role of the Pope. He compared it with the exercise of his personal authority by a former Pope in giving permission to Francis to begin his Order of Friars. Who could have forseen what the Franciscans would become? Equally, no one can tell where the Ordinariate might develop. But this promising parallel gave me great hope.

The Staff of Pusey House leave the Chapel at the end of Evensong.

We concluded the day with another element of the Patrimony, Sung Evensong. Altogether, a wonderful day. Much more is to be posted about it on 'The Anglo Catholic' site; I have put a few pictures here to show you what you missed if you were not present.

In the Meantime...

A very good couple of days spent in Devon. Old friends Robin and Anne Ellis in Exmouth (seen here in a windowseat where we enjoyed coffee) put me up overnight. The purpose of my visit was to attend the Southwest Synod of SSC (the Society of the Holy Cross), held at Heavitree parish church. That is a place with a great history, and for me is especially dear because it is where my first fellow PEV, Bishop John Richards, had been parish priest. Robin was eventually to join him a an Archdeacon, John of Exeter, Robin of Plymouth. Then John took up the Provincial Bishop task as first Bishop of Ebbsfleet.

The Master of SSC, Fr Kit Dunkley, had asked me to speak about the work of priests in the present climate. Because so many of us seem to be anxious and not a little confused I talked about living in an 'interim' - in the meantime. I hope I may find space to publish what I said on the Anglo Catholic website; here I will just summarize.

"What is this 'little while' he speaks of?" the disciples asked: "we cannot tell what he says."

They were living in the meantime between Resurrection and Ascension; truth to tell, we are all of us in the meantime; waiting for the Parousia at the end of time. "It is not yet apparent what we shall be; but when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is".

So this time of waiting until all becomes clear about the Ordinariate is unsettling; but necessary. Our task, as priests of SSC, is to continue to support one another, and respect whatever any individual may decide. Some for domestic reasons will feel constrained to stay. Others, for the sake of their people, might make the same decision. Others yet again may decide they have to give a lead to their people, and for that reason must go. Whatever decision anyone makes, we must respect it and believe that, like our own , it has been made prayerfully and in conscience.

I ended with a little snatch of song, recalled from my youth:

There’s nothing surer - The rich get rich and the poor get poorer;
In the meantime, inbetween time, ain’t we got fun!

One of the neglected gifts of the Catholic movement is just that; the ability to have fun as Christians. Perhaps it is an important part of our Patrimony as we live through the mean-time.

A Bishop's job is not an 'appy one

Two sermons today, one at our local parish church, the other at St Francis Bournemouth. I had not noticed before how the Ordinal takes the Low Sunday Gospel for the ordination of priests, and the reading for the second after Easter, today, for a bishop's ordination. So last week I said something about the authority to forgive sin, and today about the impossible task of a Bishop - to be merciful, but not to err on the side of leniency, and to administer discipline, but always with mercy. After the trip to Bournemouth and a snack lunch we went to Exbury, the great Rothschild estate, to view the Magnolias and the first of the Azaleas. Later there will be many more, together with a great flush of Rhododendrons. I forgot to take my camera, so you will perhaps be content with a little Magnolia Stellata from my own garden, to sweeten the pill of my sermon.

Ye were as sheep going astray; but now are returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls

When a Bishop is Ordained, the Archbishop hands him a Bible with these words; 'Be to the flock of Christ a shepherd not a wolf, be so merciful that you be not too remiss; so minister discipline that you forget not mercy'. If that is required of a bishop, how much more of the leader of an entire communion, an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Pope?

It is possible that Archbishop Rowan has been breathing sighs of relief lately, with the attentions of the media turned from him to the Pope. I doubt it, though. Our Archbishop will know very well that if the press and television have left him in peace for a while they will return to him with renewed malice once this spell of baiting the Pope had run its course.

Our journalists seem always to delight in building someone up in order to knock him down again. Nick Clegg should be feeling very worried just now. After the televised debate on Thursday, the pundits were saying how well he had come out of it, how much better than the two other party leaders – so not doubt by the time of the election they will be merrily trampling on his reputation and saying what a disappointment he is.

Anyone who cares to look at the facts, and they are readily available on the internet and in some of the more careful press reports, will know that the recent frenzy about Pope Benedict is ridiculous. Far from covering up incidents of child abuse among the clergy, he has done more that anyone to discipline such priests, remove them from office, and instruct his fellow bishops to report any such matters to the police. But the truth is not often what interests the media, or those who hate Christianity.

‘Be so merciful that you be not too remiss; so minister discipline that you forget not mercy’: it is a hard line for anyone to follow, this balancing of justice and mercy. The courts try to do it, and often fail. Our bishops and others in authority try, too. Sometimes they fail – but they need our support in what they are attempting, rather than our ridicule when, in our view, they do not get things perfectly right.

Obstacles to Unity

To counterbalance the wonderful "Anglicanorum Coetibus", every so often Rome creates mountains of difficulties for us. No, not the hyped up press fulminations over alleged paedophilia. In this case I refer particularly to some pictures on the blog 'Orbis Catholicus Secundus' http://www.orbiscatholicus.org/. It begins with a Harry Potter look-alike modelling the sort of hat which once we called a Cure or poached-egg hat.









As if that is not bad enough it continues with diverse bishops and canons. Now I KNOW we often manage to look pretty stupid in church in the C of E, but even the Bishop of Ebbsfleet in all his glory is seldom arrayed like some of these. I begin to understand how Martin Luther felt when he visited Rome the first time. It is all so terribly OTT.



We are assured that come the Ordinariate, former Anglican Bishops may seek permission to wear episcopal insignia. What a dilemma! Do we try to look modest and simply not ask for this permission? And if we DO ask, what are the insignia we are expected to adopt? Are they part of our Anglican Patrimony, lawn sleeves, scarlet chimeres and all? Shall we be condemned to wearing purple shirts because they are peculiarly Anglican? Must we wear our pectoral cross tucked into our waistcoat pocket, or draped over our ample stomachs (either is a favoured Anglican habit) rather than carrying them high on our chest, as the name implies we should? Is our episcopal ring to be a socking great Anglican amethyst, or a Roman gold plate inscribed with the arms of our (no longer) diocese? And why were amethysts given up anyway? The name means "not drunken". Perhaps the reference to I Timothy 3.2 is avoided by Rome, not because it says the bishop should be temperate and soberminded, but because he is to be the husband of one wife?



Oh dear; perhaps all this is sent to test our resolve. So that our transatlantic brothers might be aware of the problems, I have also blogged about this on 'The Anglo Catholic' - if you can bear to read any more in this vein.

A Faithful Ministry

For almost four years three other retired priests and I cooperated in keeping worship going at Holy Trinity Winchester. No sooner is that post filled than another of the four 'Richborough' parishes in the diocese falls vacant. This time it is St Francis' Bournemouth, and the departure of Fr Paul Berrett will be a great loss. He has served for twenty seven years as parish priest there, and his final Mass on Low Sunday was a bitter-sweet occasion.

The Diocese, in their wisdom, have decided that this parish merits a 0.7 post. I have yet to find 0.7 of a catholic priest; and for a parish like St Francis' the idea is preposterous. They have (and have had since the consecration of their church eighty years ago) a daily Mass. Fr Paul has been one of the hardest-working priests in the diocese of Winchester, greatly used as a confessor and spiritual director. Indeed, even the diocese had to admit there were few like him, and four years ago he was created an Honorary Canon of the Cathedral - the sole representative of the traditionalist constituency to be so honoured. Other parishes might make do with a 70% priest; indeed from what I observe many do already (though such men are often paid a full stipend). But Fr Paul has been at the Church's bidding not just for an forty hour week, but something more like eighty.

The churchwardens spoke affectionately of all he has done for them. The Scouts and Cubscouts were there in force to bid him farewell. The place was packed; so much so that Fr Paul said if he had known it would bring people to church he would have retired more often.

Fr Brian Copus (on the left of the photo below, with Fr Paul's wife June on the other side) is a retired priest who will assist during the interregnum; as I shall too, beginning with an evening Mass and Marriage Preparation meeting on Wednesday, and continuing next Sunday at the Parish Mass. At least the round trip is only thirty-odd miles, not the sixty involved in the Winchester interregnum.

I seem to recall that dioceses assess quota on a formula relating to the cost of a parish priest. St Francis have been paying their very large assessment to the Diocese without fail. Now how would it be if they were to pay 70% of this in future? The balance would enable them to make up their part-time priest's stipend to that of a full-time incumbent, pay something to ensure he has a full pension in due time, and still come away with some change. I do hope the diocese will feel able to comment on such a simple and equable solution.

[Photos courtesy of Nick Hillman, blogmaster at St Francis']