Brighton addendum

Fr Beau ensured sobriety at the party

Not a good day for photos, but here are a few more to add to the recent Brighton story. We went to a 14th birthday party on Saturday evening (a week ago now) and here are a few photos from the event. Sadly one camera went missing (and I had forgotten to take mine) but you will get an idea of the event from what we have rescued here.... none still of Fr Beau's fractured ankle.

[Above] Dad pictured concocting a potion; grandad behind his shoulder.




Birthday boy before he misplaced his aunt's camera, among other servers at his party.

Brighton

At the Throne (just!)

A few pictures from last weekend's Confirmation at S Martin's have been forwarded, so as promised here is a little memento of that visit. Fr Beau Brandie was heavily handicapped - he really is too old to play rough games, but he'd managed to get a broken ankle, so processions were more than usually dignified. He produced a good number of candidates, though, and a merry time was had by all. I shall let the pictures do the talking - currently I am getting geared up for a Patronal (St James) at S Michael's Croydon (who have James, very cunningly, as their second Feast of Title) - we head off that way tomorrow.

At the bunfight

Fr Beau with Trevor: Rachel and me

Free at Last!

Free as air

As Synod fades into memory, one emotion remains; grateful thanks that the speculation is ended, and we know we are not wanted. "Oh, but the Archbishop has said ...." Forget it. What the Archbishop said has been ignored, and will be again. "Oh, but the dioceses are to debate the proposals..." To what end? They cannot amend anything, only approve or disapprove; and the certainty is that they will all approve what is before them. "Oh, but the final vote is not for eighteen months, there will be a new Synod, they need a two-thirds majority.." So what! If it were to fail at that hurdle it would come back very swiftly, with even less concessions to traditionalists. No, we have been given a one-way ticket, and the sooner we use it the better.

Spire of Ryde All Saints

So yesterday, taking a day out to the Isle of Wight (see the Anglo-Catholic blog) was wonderfully refreshing. Especially seeing All Saints Ryde in the pastoral care of the Bishop of Richborough, and so a constant thorn in the flesh of Portsmouth Diocese plc, standing proud on the skyline.

Quarr on the skyline

Then Quarr Abbey, where my former colleague among the college Principals, Dennis Lloyd of Mirfield, took refuge after leaving the C of E. We had a lovely day on the Island, and Osborne is worth a long journey.

English Heritage are doing a great job restoring Osborne house and gardens to their former glory. This is also an excuse to show you some pretty pictures from the Solent in Cowes week.

Portsmouth Harbour Entrance, the

Spinnaker on the right

If you have been to Portsmouth lately you can't have missed the Spinnaker Tower. We can glimpse it from Lymington, twenty miles away. Close up you get some impression of its size; the top three floors are glazed [they appear black in the picture above: click on the picture to enlarge it] and way up there you glimpse tiny figures of spectators... terrific. Knocks the Angel of the North into several cocked hats.

The base of the Spinnaker tower, with the Masts of Nelson's Victory in the distance.

Southampton

So, this weekend was spent in Brighton. But I shan't blog about it until I get some pictures forwarded; once again I forgot my camera so I wait on others to send me something. Meanwhile, yesterday. It was a trip to the dentist (three fillings and a new denture, since you ask) but en route I had time in hand and headed to the Southampton City Art Gallery.

Southampton as a City is a grave disappointment. Have you ever been to a concert in the Guildhall? Impressive 1930's building, but not a touch of paint since it was built. Went to a BSO concert there and was devastated to find even the conductor's rostrum had peeling paint! So of course there are very few concerts there. The erstwhile Bouremouth Symphony Orchestra (which I knew first when Charles Groves was Conductor, half a century ago) now has its home in Poole where there is a great concert hall, the Lighthouse. Unfortunately, though only 24 miles away from us, it takes an eternity to get there through the hinterland of Bournemouth. There are a few ancient Southampton buildings which the blitz missed and the developers have not yet cleared away, but they are generally closed. There are two things though that redeem the City. The parks, and the Art Gallery. Mind you, they were going to flog off some of the collection in order to renovate the building ... not sure where that one has reached now.

The gardens are marvellous, and very well mainstained, and run through the centre of the city. Yesterday I spotted what I thought might be a cork oak, and it was, Quercus Subur, a fine specimen. These gardens are a great feature - unlike the Solent Coast which ought to be a feature but is generally hidden behind warehouses and piles of freight containers. Well, it is a working port, but it would be nice to be able to get a glimpse of the sea now and again.

The art gallery though. Why hasn't the present exhibition been advertised nationally? Why have there been no major reviews in all the colour supplements? It is just knock-out - I almost missed my dentist's appointment.

It is a maritime exhbition, and is called something like Turner to Today. Of the many treasures (and you should be able to view them on line, but you can't: what is WRONG with this City?!) there is a terrific Maggi Hambling in her Sea series; a great wall of a painting, with a furious array of waves and spume and general fury. Wonderful. There's a nice little Boudin, some so-so Lowrys - his version of the floating bridgeis not a patch on another of a a different floating bridge (on the Isle of Wight) by a local artist - but the show-stopper is the Turner. Fishermen trying to launch a boat into such a sea! Over all, a great looming sky. The notes say there is hope in the sky; I saw it as nothing but foreboding. If you can get to Southampton before early September, then you should. It is free, and when I visited yesteerday morning I was the sole visitor. One other chap came just as I left. Made me quite oblivious of my teeth. Must go back asap and give it more time - I might even look at some of the Videos and Installations!

Oh, and today is my 15th anniversary of Consecration, so we have just split a lovely bottle of Sancerre which Jane bought to celebrate the occasion. Cheers!

The Pope and the Ordinariate

It is perhaps foolhardy of me to question a statment made by a Catholic Bishop on "Anglicanorum Coetibus", but I am not sure that Bishop Farrell has given an exactly correct version in an interview published by Zenit (the Catholic News Agency).

He say, inter alia, 'A particular problem of discernment arises when it is a question of groups. Not all groups have the same "ecclesial consistency." In the end, it is up to the episcopal conference of a country or region to study well what can and what must be done. ' Now that is not how I read 'Anglicanorum Coetibus'. I commented on the original ZENIT article, but have had no response, so I raise the matter again here in the hope that others can put me right.

Here is what is said in the original document: "Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church are erected by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith within the confines of the territorial boundaries of a particular Conference of Bishops in consultation with that same Conference."

Now that contrasts with Bishop Farrell's "it is up to the episcopal conference... to study well what can and what must be done". This reads rather as though the final decision rests with the local Conference of Bishops. But in fact it is the Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith, CDF, which is the deciding body. Of course local conferences of bishops will be consulted and will advise, but the whole point of the Ordinariate (unless I am badly mistaken) is that its future does not lie with the national bishops' conference.

Possibly I am misreading or misinterpreting what Bishop Farrell says, but since he holds such an important role as Secretary of the Vatican's Unity Council, I do hope this can be clarified.

His concern for Unity and his experience of the ARCIC process of course must weigh heavily on Bishop Farrell, and it must be a great sadness to him that the recent York Synod seems to have undone all that has been achieved over the past decades. He concludes his interview saying

"We will continue the ecumenical dialogue with a realism that accepts things as they are and is aware that the road ahead is long and arduous. Knowing, however, that dialogue is a task imposed by Christ himself and sustained by the grace of the Holy Spirit, soul of the Church of Christ."

I believe and pray that the Orinariates may have a role in that continuing conversation, and in leading many more Anglicans into the fulness of Catholic Faith and Worship.

[The photograph of the Holy Father above is one I took at the Fatima Pilgrimage in May]

Fulham Profile

Wild excitement yesterday: the Beeb rang me! Then a slight deflation; they wanted me to talk about Bishop John of Fulham. Eventually sense prevailed and I realised they wanted something about a man of the moment, not an old has-been like me. So this afternoon I used my geriatric bus-pass to go into Southampton. There at Radio Solent HQ they clamped headphones on me, and sat me in a cubicle waiting for lights to go on.

The Programme is called "Profile". It tries to do something to give, as they explained, a more rounded picture of people in the news than the media usually manage. So I had to do my best to demolish the image set up by WATCH and their allies of some monstrous wife-beating misogynist. Not difficult, really; who could imagine Bishop John getting away with beating Judy! And as for misogyny, the truth is that there are many women clerics in the dioceses where he works who look to HIM for support against the rabid women-hating-but-pretend-supporters among the hierarchies who have done more to harm women's ministry than anything perpetrated by Forward in Faith.

It is a fourteen minute programme; they recorded me for fifteen, and mine is only one contribution among many, so whatever I was able to say will be seriously filleted. For all that, I hope they manage to do some justice to a man who has borne the heat and burden for so long.

Even now people are carping about the statement he has issued on behalf of Forward in Faith. Of course he does not, and connot, say "we must all be come members of the Ordinariate tomorrow". He believes he must still screw what little concessions he can from Synod, not for himself but for those unable or, at present, unwilling to enter the Ordinariate. It will be no easy task, but John Broadhurst has never flinched at difficult tasks.

The programme goes out on BBC Radio 4 at 7pm on Saturday (unless, I suppose, the golf, or some minr coup, intervenes) and is repeated on Sunday at 5.40pm.

Too late, too late.

For more years than I care to remember, between the 1970s and 1995, I was a member of General Synod, and of the Catholic Group in Synod. It always has had a difficult task, but in recent years that has become almost impossible. Women clergy and their supporters have swamped Synod, and on the rare occasions I have visited since leaving it I have been saddened by the bitter and divisive tone of that body. Once we valued those of other opinions, and could share a joke with them. Now, it seems, there is only rancour.

So it is brave, if also foolhardy, of today's Catholic Group in Synod to continue trying to participate. In particular it was unwise of them to continue taking part in the debate once it was clear that only a Code of Practice will be available for anyone staying in the C of E after women are consecrated. We have said "A Code of Practice Will Not Do". We have explained why this is so. We have too much evidence already of 'codes of practice' being ignored; and even the 'code' has not yet been formulated, let alone agreed to. A pig in a poke is a safer bet than a code of practice with no legal backing.

The Group has my sympathy. For all that, the "statement" they have issued is so feeble, and so clearly evidence that they think we are in "business as usual", that I feel I must respond to it.

"The Catholic Group in General Synod is encouraged by the remarks of the Archbishop of Canterbury that there is still ‘unfinished business’ and that ‘the Church is only part of the way through the process’ of determining the way forward for women bishops legislation".

Well of course we are all always encouraged by remarks of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Encouraging remarks is what he is so good at. But he made plenty of remarks during the recent Synod, and they were all ignored. There will not be any change in the "way forward for women bishops' legislation". That way is already determined. The liberals have not given an inch, and they are not going to.

"The Group was, however, disappointed that there was a lack of support for financial hardship where clergy feel by conscience that they need to resign from the Church of England."

Disappointed! I was scandalised. There will have to be a fight over this. The Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament in 1993 could see that what was then proposed amounted to constructive dismissal, and they insisted that financial provision should be made for those who in conscience had to leave the ministry of the Church of England. That should be even more necessary now, since many of us were hoodwinked into staying with promises of lasting provision. If the Ecclesiastical Committee does not come to our rescue (and it should, for priests are being deprived of their Livings, which parliament recognises as property) then the Law may; and the Law must be proved if necessary with some test cases, backed financially by anglican catholics and our catholic societies.

The onus now is on the Church of England to provide for its clergy to remain within the Church for which we have always fought as loyal Anglicans.

Dream on my dear friends in the Catholic Group. No provision is going to be made, except what individual bishops, male or female, might feel they can offer fromtheir goodness of heart. And what bishops give they can also take away. We asked for provision for our children and grand-children. The provision from Synod will not even see us out, let alone future generations.

"We remain committed to both the process and our Church, and would wish to play a major part in helping the Church in its ongoing journey in a spirit of unity that is Christ’s way".

But the process is already played out, and our Church is no longer recognisable as the Church of England we have known and loved. Friends, stop playing games. The game is over. The fat lady has sung. It is too late.

Goodbye, Goodbye, I'm leaving you...