Here is the article.
Looks like the Pope is making it easy for those un-easy Anglicans to switch their affiliation. Well if you are a conservative in the Anglican Church, and you are disheartened with what is going on with the your denomination, for it is obvious, the liberal group has the upper hand. They are into homosexual clergy and women's ordiantion, why not just jump ship? Kinda, take off from the frying pan, and dunk yourself down to the fire.
This behavior reminds me of the time when I was a Pentecostal. You hear of a congregation losing its pastor and another pastor hovers around and wheels and deals with members of the congregation who just lost its leader. They are like vultures (maybe the better word - wolves) circling the spoil.
Lets us face it, the Pope is a business man.
So I ask, if I was an Anglican, what am I buying when I go to Mother Church? Like I said to people I know, the Pope will allow you to be a Lutheran, Anglican and a Baptist or whatever, he will allow you to practice quietly what you will just don't make it formal and don't buck the Pope. The Pope will allow you to hold your views, so long as you know who is your daddy.
This could start a mass exodus from other denominations, there is power in what the bandwagon can do, you know.
This should give some ideas to people in the ELCA (perhaps even people from my own Synod?). Because just recently they have now allowed practicing gay/lesbian ministers to hold pastoral positions, so the conservatives in ELCA may have another option. Would that be the answer?
Why not go back to your Scripture and hold tenaciously to the Confessions? Would that not be the better option?
I guess if your loyalty is to conservatism per se and not to Scripture, you can make any excuses with your decision and won't loose sleep over where you belong.
11 comments:
Here's what I think, Lito: it doesn't matter much, except for what it signals about the RC Church and what it reveals about the Anglican communion.
It signals the intention of the Roman Church to back away from ecumenical engagement with all but the Orthodox Churches. The Anglican communion was the most promising dialogue partner for the RCs for a long time, but this action pretty much says the courtship is over.
And it says that Anglicanism is so weak and debilitated that the Pope can afford to slight it in this manner and not have to worry about the consequences.
So, its impact is largely symbolic. There will be no mass conversions, and those who do swim the Tiber will be mostly clergy. There may be an 'ordinariates' set up in London, and perhaps in the US, but that will be about it, and they will be as peripheral to the life of the Roman communion as the Eastern Uniate churches are, even more so, because of their small numbers.
Btw, this would all ahve been averted if Rowan WIlliams had no tbeen appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, but that's history now, although I did blog about it on 'Glosses...'
Blessings!
(I trust Pheonix is still improving?)
So I ask, if I was an Anglican, what am I buying when I go to Mother Church? Like I said to people I know, the Pope will allow you to be a Lutheran, Anglican and a Baptist or whatever, he will allow you to practice quietly what you will just don't make it formal and don't buck the Pope. The Pope will allow you to hold your views, so long as you know who is your daddy.
Hello my friend! How are you?
Well Lito, both of us having been formerly members of Holy Mother Church know that your observation is right on target.
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, which is a liberal and independent Catholic paper in the U.S. nevertheless holds out this thought:
Picking up on this theme was NCR senior correspondent John Allen, writing for The New York Times: "There's also nothing preventing the Anglican Communion from creating similar structures to welcome aggrieved Catholics who support all the measures these disaffected Anglicans oppose. Certainly, after today, the Vatican would have no basis to condemn such a move as an ecumenical low blow."
Wouldn't that be a hoot? Anglicans offering a haven for disenchanted Catholics?
Hope all is well with you, blessings to you!
Your Lutheran sis, Christine
"Wouldn't that be a hoot? Anglicans offering a haven for disenchanted Catholics?"
Anglicans in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion are not in a position to offer a HAVEN to disenchanted Romanists simply because:
a) The evangelicals are not traditionalists. Their attitude towards culture leaves much to be desired. Their view on morals are not Catholic. Some of them have become liberals in their view of Scripture and Tradition.
b) The Anglos are divided into liberals and traditionalists with the majority actually being liberals in one form of another. Despite the outward display, Anglos are at heart liberals. Only some are truly traditionalists. But these traditionalists either yearn AFTER Rome OR they see the Church of England as simply a branch of the Catholic Church alongside the Roman Church.
In other words, traditionalist Roman Catholics will be equally disillusioned if they find themselves in communion with any of the two broad groups outlined above.
The best is to join the Churc of England (Continuing) in the UK or the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA (Traditional) or form their own jurisdiction under a traditional Protestant bishop where a reformed Mass shorn of its abuses can be practiced centred on justification by faith alone as the heart of the Gospel.
Fact is neither of the same two broad groups are actually catholic-minded. The Divine Service is either not there or subject pretty much to the same abuse one finds in the Roman Church.
AS,
I think Christine may have been thinking of liberal Anglicans offering liberal Roman Catholics a haven from an increasingly 'conservative' church. Playing 'tit for tat', if you will.
I don't think it's likely to be offered in a formal way, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a continuing drift of individual liberal Catholics to liberal Prostestant churches. I think the culture war in the post-Vatican II RC church may well have been won by the conservatives with the election of Benedict XVI, especially if his papacy lasts another 5 years or so - for better or worse?
Pr M/Christine/AS
I read that there is an average of 40 priests from the RC that swing over to the ECUSA, I guess these must be liberal episcopals.
But the gesture of this pope must have been a blunder on his part. This means he has shown his true colors. He is casting intrigue. I hope people see this for what it truly is.
So then if the Pope can do it, why not any Protestant Bishop out there formally pinching the RC sheep?
God bless you too Christine,
LPC
PS. They are letting Phoenix come home this weekend. So far so good.
Great news on Pheonix, Lito, thanks be to God and may he continue to bless him and keep him in his care.
I've always wondered what will happen when the Church of Rome elects the first pope who has no hands-on experience of the pre-Vatican II church.
It will be interesting.
Christine
Christine/Pr.M.
re: A Pope who has no pre-Vatican II experience.
Ah yes, I see the point.
It is most interesting to see how he carries Vatican II concepts. I expect him to be of a liberal bent.
May the Lord save, defend and comfort us.
LPC
PS. Thank you for the prayers, please continue to include Phoenix and his parents in your prayers.
MH,
If you read my post carefully, you will see clearly that it is more of a critique of the current state of the Church of England itself, rather than Rome. You will understand then the evangelicals are in no position offer a HAVEN to disillusioned Romanists much less evangelise them to the Reformation Faith.
I do not know about you, but I don't want Roman Catholics ending up as Fundamentalists or generic evangelicals.
What I want to see is what we saw at the Reformation, nothing more, nothing less.
Dear Kuya,
Yeah, Roman priests swinging to the Episcopal branch is not significant.
What we want is a Reformed Catholic Church which preserves Western Catholicity minus the accretions and abuses - which is truly Old Catholic and ecumenical in the best sense of the word ...
A.S.
Yes that is fair, I see your point.
If my RC upbringing is an indication, and I have met RCs who call themselves evangelicals, I find it hard for these folk to cut lose.
Rome has a way of making you feel cozy with what you have. I went home a few years back and I watched an evangelist wearing a suit, holding a large bible and preaching on the rapture! Only at the end of the program did I realize he was an RC priest. He was like Jimmy Swaggart.
In then end, Rome says - you want this and that, come on in, we have that too and you can have that too.
Only those who are concerned with doctrine will leave Rome.
LPC
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