Women Bishops - Not Yet - The Reason Why!

Shot in the Foot

Gras, Watch and the rest of them have a lot to answer for, including the defeat of their own cause.

Radical, intransigent, vocal, and "gimme-all" they have prevented the logical development of the ordination of women to the priesthood.

They need not blame the so-called "traditionalists." The latter put forward sensible arrangements which they refused. The suggestions of the archbishops were rejected with much rejoicing by the feminist lobby.

Why?

I cannot think why. I only know that they failed.

All that I realise is that if earlier suggestions, to cater for the one-third to a quarter of the membership in the pews which is uneasy about or opposed to women as bishops, had been accepted then we would have everything in place for women to be consecrated as bishops in our church.

Bluntly, GRAS, WATCH and all the rest of them have shot themselves in the foot, leaving the rest of us with the burden of finding a way through again.

The nation will take note. Unfortunately the chattering classes and the media of our nation will blame the wrong people. It was a small caucus of militants in favour of the measure who brought about its downfall. They over-stepped the mark ... and paid for it, having combined arrogance with hubris in large measure.

The phrase "see how these Christians love one another" can only be said with huge irony in the Church of England now. Maybe as aspirants to the bench of bishops, these ladies should consider why they chose not to follow the earlier advice of the archbishops under whom they serve .

Let's hope that they will realise this and get together with those whom they seem to despise so strongly and work out how we can all live and work in peace together once more. A little humble pie all round I think!

Yours ay,

Ted

Website - Reworked in Some New Directions

At long last I have reworked the St. Matilda's website so that it reflects my life in general and not just since retirement. I have brought it to date including a fictional reference to arrangements about the ordinariate of Anglicans in the Roman Catholic fold.

It is set in the genre of historical fiction. Like all such it has to be based on fact and takes care to avoid reference to people actually alive today, but tries to be accurate about the past, as in my descriptions of various founding fathers and a variety of saints. The website refers now, less to the immediate past than to an imagined and realistic image of the Church of England as it is.

The past nature of the Church of England is described in the novels I have been working on for the past years, off and on. I was asked once to accept my bishop's nomination of me as an academic at Cambridge along Starbridge lines. The circumstances of the time meant I was unable to accept, although I would not have been to first incumbent of my then benefice to have taught in the University. These novels are, in a way, my "Apologia Pro Vita Anglicana" to make up for my being unable to contribute through that appointment.

"Watch this space," therefore, for the time that someone decides to publish them. They form a series of ministerial chronicles (the “ ... Ad Templum” series ) a chronicle of over lapping periods, mainly twentieth century:

“Divinely ad Templum” deals with normal parish life in the 1990s, with reminiscences from the previous half-century, the characters displaying a variety of distinct psychological profiles as used in the Clinical Theology Association for whom I taught for many years. It reflects also the Church of England as she tries to come to terms with the ordination of women to the priesthood, and the increased influence of the "liberal tendency";

“Victims ad Templum” is a description of the impact of the two world wars and the town planning initiatives post WWII on a settled rural community covering a wide period from c. 1915 to the 1960s;

“Hilariter ad Templum” pokes gentle fun at the church’s obsession with certain kinds of sin above others, looking at a variety of sexual indiscretions and positions, different ways of raising money, the petty jealousies of a small town and parish life in a settled urban community. The date is uncertain but there are women clergy in post, so it has to be post 1994!

“Per Accidiam ad Salutem” deals with depression and the pressures of Army life with particular reference to the problems faced by the cadre of women soldiers and their partners and families as they have emerged and gradually climbed the promotional ladder during the 1980s and 1990s;

“Heaven on Earth” is based around a conversation held by the recording angel at the Pearly Gates with St. Peter in which the nature of human relationships is given a thorough examination as various candidates for admission are presented. It may or may not be fiction - it is however autobiography under some heavy devotional garb. As I wrote in an initial draft of thoughts and ideas: “The story is true. However my own studies on the nature of memory suggest that I leave it to the reader to decide how much is accurate and how much the way my mind chooses to recall it. Whatever the reader might choose to think, it remains my life story with my golden girl. To vary or correct it would require far too much research, I suspect, for anyone to bother. So I hope that the readers will lie back, read on, and enjoy it all; life with her really was that marvellous!”

I reserve copyright in absolutely everything concerned with these works - so hands off without my express, coded, permission!

You will find it at http://st-matildas.tripod.com/ . Please note that I have been ultra-careful to see that all permissions and copyrights were properly mentioned.

Armistice Day

Good morning on Armistice Day.

It is of course the Feast Day of that splendid ex-soldier St. Martin. There is a windown in All Saints, Longstanton which pictures him alongside St. George. It is next to the font and reminds us all that entry into membership of the church means both loving service to others and sacrifice.

So, I suggest that the time has come for us to sacrifice our internal warfare over women's ministry, and love and serve those around us. However the blogosphere look as if warfare is bound to continue - vicious, petty, and often scaring in its woeful lack of any basis in reality.

I commend, therefore, a couple of useful comments from my mentor when completing my Ph.D.:

first the comment that the university wasn't all that interested in my personal opinions but in my describing the opinions, writings, actions and lifework of those whom I was studying - the sheer nastiness of so many posts on the interent underlines the wisdom of that advice;

Along with that was a question he asked regularly and which I took over into my practice as a counsellor and tutor in counselling and pastoral care - the question "Where is the evidence?"
It is a good question and goes along with the saying, of Fritz Perls the founder of gestalt psychotherapy, "The facts are friendly. They all that we have to deal with." Indeed, beyond the facts there is only speculation, including of course scientific investigation and sound academic research ... maybe.

It would help if the advocates for the different approaches to the present debates would adopt such objectivity. However, they have a problem in that the Vatican has not defined exactly what the ordinariate is to be in practice. Until then, opinion is more likely to remain our primary option until the facts are known. When they are known they will surely be very friendly? However, that is, of course, only my opinion.

One fact is very, that clear the numbers moving into the ordinariate will be small in terms of the Church of England they leave ... and just as small in terms of the Church they join. I shall not speculate on the numbers who will join them after the move has been made, nor on the numbers joining the Church of England after they have gone.

In the meantime, we would do well to concentrate on the facts: some are leaving and making their plans to do so; some are remaining; both sets are small in number. They are no threat to anyone. So why not end the fuss and begin to make peace?