Women Bishops - a comment

Hi everyone!

The parish newsletter of St. Matilda's, st-matildas.tripod.com, has a useful comment on its "News" page. The commentator looks at the proposed legislation and finds that he is in accord with the ABC on the urgent desirablity of our getting leglisation through General Synod so that we can get with the task of serving the nation without distraction over this particular item.

The entry reads as follows:

"Women Bishops Looming

 After the record turn out for the Prayer Vigil about the debate on Women and the Episcopate, debate has been simmering, to use the best word, throughout the parishes.

The general feeling is that we have had quite enough of picky postering from extremists on all sides of the matter. It is time to get on with it and then see if it will work.

What angers people is that the squabbling presents an unpleasant picture of the church as a set of slightly lunatic bigots. If we have women priests then women bishops become a matter of course.

The problem is accommodating those who feel diffident over women in the episcopate.

Our view, expressed forcibly by the Rector at a recent meeting of the Parochial Church Council is that the patrimony of male bishops should be retained in some way or other within the Church of England.

The Bishops wish to have a motion passed that insists that those taking this view should be respected. Dr. Williams has spoken strongly about this. He points out that "respect" is a word with a real definable meaning. It follows that any interpretation of a Code of Practice which fails to provide for such views would be invalid and unenforcible. That is to say that any group wishing to maintain a male succession of those in episcopal orders in the Church of England would have to have their wishes fulfilled i.e. male bishops in a male apostolic succession would have to be provided.

With this in mind it is to be hoped that general Synod will pass decent legislation and not set us up for another period of unseemly "handbags at close quarters" throughout the coming years. That we get on with our witness to the Good News in Jesus Christ and provide good quality pastoral care throughout the Church of England is paramount. A failure to pass this new proposal would be counter-productive to our mission. As said often enough in these quarters we represent a sober, Reformed Catholicism in the west of Christendom. Let's get on with it. We can work out the details later. The process of establishing these details could be exciting and profitable for both the women bishops concerned and those wishing for the alternative.

What price the opinions of those in the pew?

More worrying is the way in which the wihdrawal of motions A and B under the Act of Synod will disenfranchise the laity from decisions over what is provided for them.

We do not know the answer to this problem, but it is intensely worrying."

 

There is ample food for thought here which I hope the more extreme advocates of male episcopacy will heed. Forward in Faith and the Mission Society of Saint Wilfed and St. Hilda please note. Much of the tone of some speakers as reported from Fif's recent Synod left much to be desired.

St. Matilda's Parish - News and Gossip

Hi Everyone,

There is now a news and gossip page for my virtual parish, in its virtual diocese, in its virtual location. You should click here to see it.

As a taster this is a copy of the first posting of the page:

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"News
An update of gossip and news from around the parish and the diocese

Women Bishops Ahoy!

The Diocesan Synod has voted in favour of allowing women to become Bishops in the Church of England and instructed its representatives in General Synod to reflect that in their speeches and how they vote.

However, Hugh Brassingbridge the Co-Chairman of Forward in Faith in the Diocese has taken a very strong view on the matter and says that he will demand proper, legally binding, provision for those who cannot go along with this but wish to remain as faithful Anglicans. His comment that Synods were not soap operas and that we did not have to wait until the GRAS lady sings did not go down very well with several well-appointed (shall we say!) matrons fluent in the French language.

We await his contribution to the various debates, fairly agog with excitement as to where his rhetorical skills will lead him. However well-intentioned his campaign to retain the Provincial Episcopal Visitors in some form may be, we have a feeling it may not succeed.

Our leading feminist has commented "Dear old Hugh! I hope that no one hits him with an umbrella" adding "But he has a point. We could do with far fewer pressure groups and a bit of decent evangelism in the Church of England."

Autumn Events

The November Fayre will be held this year at the Village Hall in Potherton on 19th November from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sir Roger Fairweather, Bt, will be opening it. We look forward to a visit as enjoyable as his last one three years ago.

Study Group

The autumn study group is meeting on Wednesday evenings in the Vicarage. Mass precedes these meetings and starts at 7.30 p.m. The study group itself meets from 8.15 p.m. until 9.30 p.m. All are welcome, but please bring along a Bible and let us know you are coming.

Gossip Piece

We hear that the Bishop is examining a whole deanery-full of clergy along the lines of excising the seven deadly sins. We hope he means society at large and not the learned and reverend ladies and gentlemen of the town under scrutiny! It is understood that this rather unwarranted visitation may well be a reaction to the unfortunate events in the Bishop's predecessor's time surrounding the visit of the ABC "Jack the Mack."

We would assure His Lordship of our complete faith in the Church's ministers in the town concerned.

Items for inclusion on the St. Matilda's Gossip Column and the News Page may be handed in at the Vicarage at any time (during working hours!)"


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For new readers, the foundations of much of the gossip are detailed in several novels, still in the process of writing, revision, or editing prior to publication.

In conversation with my son recently I commented that writing was a wonderful way of venting one's spleen. So you have been warned!

However I do follow advice from my training therapist whose remedy for anger against someone was to write a strong, abusive, letter using any kind of bad language that was appropriate, but to do it late at night, so getting it out of the system and onto paper. In the morning, she said, we can tear that up and write a polite, pointed, note instead, or just speak to them!

Watch this space!

Best wishes to all,

Fr. Ted

Christ or Narcissus? Whose face do they see?

" Narcissistic Personality Disorder. A distressing triad made up of pathological self-centerness; a repeated pattern of frustrating, damaging efforts to establish intimate relationships; and an insecure, fragile self-concept. Internally an unpredictable lability makes life miserable." C.M.Berry, "The Baker Encycopedia of Psychology" Marshall-Pickering, London/Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan h.b.,1223pp, 1985, p.745

Well, they gather in numbers in many places, liable to sudden moves and changes whenever the wind blows favourably from across the Tiber, or unfavourably from their own governing body in General Synod. Judging by the reports and comments on the blogs and websites and the church press and the broadsheets such gatherings have taken place wherever members of Forward in Faith have drooled together over the Pope's offering to groups of Anglicans who wish to become Roman Catholics whilst remaining as Anglican as they can.

Their self-centreness blinds them to the appalling damage such an action would do to the cause of Christian unity, as well as to the rather obvious point that being in an Anglican-style enclave of Roman Catholicism will mean that the rest of their Roman Catholic brothers and sisters will have little contact with them. Is that supposed to be unity? Theoretically, probably Yes. In practice the disunity is carried over. In terms of Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism, disunity is increased by the appearance of a large "traditional" and catholic shaped hole within the former.

Believe me, I would have become a Roman Catholic many years ago were it not for one thing - my vocation. If I had looked only in the mirror, I might have been tempted to think - "What a lovely Roman you'd make"! However I looked also into the faces, and listened to the voices, of fellow Christians who knew nothing or very little of such things. They asked for my ministry. I saw the face of Christ in them and served them diligently and as best I could until illness, old age, and a measure of invalidity prevented it.

To convert to Roman Catholicism would have been to desert them. Being good Anglicans and not all traditionalist or catholic in their orientation,hardly any would have followed me even if I had asked! I stayed to serve them as I had been called to do, despite being regarded as more Roman in practice than many Roman friends. It was their description, not mine as I was only following normal Anglo-Catholic usage.

In time there will be those who after careful consideration feel that their true vocation is to serve in a different jurisdiction and ecclesiastical structure and that the Anglican Church which has nurtured and fed them so far is no longer home for them. I have no problem with these and respect their calm integrity and their thoughtfulness where it is present.

Change happens, as they say, and Cardinal Newman commented that a true Christian will make many changes, continuous conversion in essence. An acquaintance of mine returning to the fold after many lapsed years, having made a full confession and received absolution was told by her spiritual advisor "and now your conversion begins." For some conversion to Roman Catholicism will start that process in a new and exciting way. For many others a quick trip to their local psychoanalyst beforehand might be needed. I have been impressed over the years in contacts with Franciscans that so many of them had degrees in psychology and post-graduate qualifications in psychotherapy, (OFM Franciscans that is - SSF had the late and much loved Peter Graham of the Clinical Theology Association to help them over many years).

I have my doubts as to whether whether many of those members of Forward in Faith now so fervently saying they want to be Roman Catholics, Anglican-style, gaze into pools of water. However, they do, I suppose shave, or trim their beards, or brush and comb their hair and so look into a mirror. What do they see? Who is important? The lowly unprofitable servant of Christ and His people - or a wonderful reflection only of a self-centred personality. They may feel refreshed by the generous offer from Rome ... and it is unbelievably generous and kind. However they should perhaps themselves reflect on the fate described below of a certain, handsome, Greek, youth:

"Narcissus pined away and died, leaving behind only a small, sad flower which even today thrives best when bent over cool streams." C.M.Berry, op.cit. p.743

An apt description of our limper brethren in this matter.