SWISH of the Curtain

Ever since the Society Model was announced, there has been something nagging in the back of my mind about acting. Something on TV maybe? No, now I have it. There was a serialised radio play on the BBC called "The Swish of the Curtain". According to the Beeb, who revived it as recently as 2007, it was an 'astonishing story' ..'Pamela Brown's 1940s tale of stage-struck children who start their own theatre company'. It even gave rise to a Theatre School in Bournemouth - their logo appears above, I hope they are glad of the publicity.

So there we have it: Our Lord spoke about "children in the market place saying 'we piped for you and you would not dance'". Neither John the Baptist nor Our Lord himself could satisfy them. Now there's another little group, a 'society' which wants us all to play their game.

Fr Hunwicke has posted a devastating account of where this Society Model has come from - a product of the dream-world of Chichester. Perhaps, though, there is also about it something of 'The Swish of the Curtain'; stage-struck children, setting up their own company. Of course we wish them well; but I fear it is going to end in tears when the theatre management tells them their little show is not going to appear. It will be patronised for a while by those who would use it to undermine Anglicanorum Coetibus; but it will not be allowed to have any independence, any jurisdiction. Just patronised. Still, children grow up, and eventually they will be looking for a more authentic and enduring company. The longest-running show on earth has an opening for them - the Ordinariate will always be there to welcome them.

Watch it!

Chichester explains

I never thought I would say it, but WATCH (Women Against the Church, or some such thing) have written something sensible. Mind you, it comes in the midst of a deal of rubbish about how Hilda of Whitby would have really been ordained and so on; still, credit where it is due, when it comes to writing about the 'Society Model' they are almost as accurate as Fr Hunwicke. This is what they wrote:-

'The “Society model” (which this proposal seems to embody), was discussed in depth by the Revision Committee when it looked at how best to provide for those who would not accept women as bishops. It was rejected because, ‘Crucially the majority of us came to believe that there was some risk of creating a society that was an even weightier body than a Diocese. This was because some of the representations made to us seemed to envisage that jurisdiction would in some way be conferred on the society itself and through it to its bishops… we therefore voted by 11 votes to 7 that we did not wish the draft Measure to be amended to give effect to a society model.’ (Report of the Revision Committee, page 22 paras 110, 115)'

Now Fr Houlding, at least, knows all this, because he made the report which the Revision Committee threw out. So why was he supporting it (albeit very luke-warmly) at the "Sacred Synod" last week?

(rt)The Bishop of Ebbsfleet enthralled by Fr Houlding's defence of the Society Model

BTW, is it only me who thinks of Christine Keeler when they say "Society Model" ?