2011 will be a year of “legitimate Christian protest” against the coalition cuts, the Bishop of Blackburn will warn tomorrow in his Christmas address.
Following a season of violent student protests the Bishop will be the second senior clergyman this week to bemoan the swingeing cuts.
On Sunday the Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, labelled tuition fees as a “tax on aspiration”, warning that they would dissuade the poor from receiving a university education.
Three nuns have been forced to leave their convent and hand over their habits as the row over defections from The Church of England to Rome becomes increasingly divisive.
The nuns were asked to leave the Priory of Our Lady of Walsingham after revealing they planned to join the Roman Catholic Church.
The Rt Rev Peter Wheatley, the Bishop of Edmonton and Visitor to the house, told the nuns to leave the house they were sharing with four other, older, sisters.
Relations had become strained in the convent following the decision by the younger sisters to join the Ordinariate ”“ the structure set up by Pope Benedict XVI to welcome disillusioned Anglicans into the Catholic fold.
A ‘Blogging bishop’ who is a University of Bradford graduate has been announced today as the next Bishop of Bradford. The Rt Revd Nick Baines (53), who is currently Bishop of Croydon, will be the 10th Bishop of Bradford, following the retirement of the Rt Revd David James last July.
Nick Baines is renowned for his media expertise – he is an experienced broadcaster and writer and he blogs and tweets almost daily. He has been Bishop of Croydon (an area bishop in the Diocese of Southwark) since May 2003. He makes use of his experience working with other faith leaders in London following the 9/11 attacks in representing the Archbishop of Canterbury at various international interfaith initiatives.
Within the Diocese, Bishop Pete [Broadbent] is a most valued friend and colleague. I am deeply grateful to him for our partnership in the gospel and was able to say that when I visited him and Sarah at home on Sunday.
What the outside world sees is a bishop who represents the Church of England making comments abut a marriage for which Bishop Pete has himself apologised unreservedly. The subsequent action has been taken in consultation with Pete. The best course now is for us all to refrain from comment and observe the order of the day ”“ heads down or heads off.
Another aspect of the turbulence to which I have referred is of course the Bishop of Fulham’s retirement. Bishop John has served the Diocese for more than forty years in variety of roles and many of us have reason to be grateful for his ministry. He has the gift of colourful speech and there may be some Synod members unconvinced by his suggestion that he was leaving a “fascist” institution for Liberty Hall on Tiber. All people, however, who act conscientiously deserve our understanding.
There does however seem to be a degree of confusion about whether those entering the Ordinariate like Bishop John might be able to negotiate a transfer of properties or at the least explore the possibility of sharing agreements in respect of particular churches. For the avoidance of confusion I have to say that as far as the Diocese of London is concerned there is no possibility of transferring properties. As to sharing agreements I have noted the Archbishop of Westminster’s comment that his “preference is for the simplest solutions. The simplest solutions are for those who come into Catholic communion to use Catholic churches”. I am also mindful that the late Cardinal Hume, whom I greatly revered, brought to an end the experiment of church sharing after the Synod’s decision of 1992 because far from being conducive to warmer ecumenical relations it tended to produce more rancour.
I was recently in America. It’s a country I love but it was depressing. All the energy for legislating on climate change has drained away. Those once leading the debate are now silent, the deniers have turned up the volume. The Administration has stalled on this vital subject. The President said in his State of the Union speech “the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy”. If that’s true (and I believe it is) then America has already begun to cede its premier place in the world economy.
The Chinese are already talking about the economic downturn as “the North Atlantic Crisis”. And according to the Pew Centre Research “China is emerging as the world’s cleanest energy powerhouse”. It has already become the world’s leading investor in renewables aiming for 15% of its energy to be generated through renewables by 2020. It has designated 5 provinces and 8 cities as China’s Low Carbon Pilots, representing 350 million people, 27% of the population and one third of the economy. The centre of gravity is shifting from West to East not just for the World Economy but for the Green Economy.
Future historians will ponder long and hard on why the North Atlantic nations fell so easily on their swords and pressed the self-destruct button.
You may find the programme [at present hosted by William Crawley] link here.
The BBC blurb reads in part:
Earlier this week the General Synod voted to press ahead with the Anglican Covenant, a worldwide deal designed to keep Anglicans around the world united. But the traditionalist lobby group, the Global Anglican Future Conference, rejected the Covenant saying it was ‘no longer appropriate’. We’ll be hearing Bishop Martyn Minns, a member of the Secretariat of the Global Anglican Future Conference Primates’ Council and Dr Graham Kings, Bishop of Sherborne in the Diocese of Salisbury.
There are two segments of particular interest to blog readers. The first starts about 6 minutes in and features comments Guardian report Stephen Bates (it last about four minutes).
The second starts approximately 33 1/2 minutes in. It features those mentioned in the above blurb as well as former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord (George) Carey (the total length of this part is some ten minutes or so).
Listen to it all and note, alas, that this audio is only available for a limited time.
So what am I leaving behind? 75 parishes ”“ not to mention the couple of dozen parishes I lost in Exeter diocese two or three years ago, a loss which I still notice. The mostly wonderful ”“ and otherwise usually loveable ”“ priests who serve those parishes. Fr X who calls a spade an ”˜effin’ shovel’. Fr Y whose private generosity to me and support has been extraordinary. Fr Z who gets in touch every few months with yet another tranche of candidates for me to confirm. And then there are those people who must be named: Vicky Hayman and Jackie Ottaway in the office, and former staff, who have kept the whole thing going. Alan who has driven me around for nearly ten years and has heard me gently snoring through the ten o’clock news as he has driven me home. Fr Bill, my chaplain, who has left my stuff behind in a whole variety of sacristies but who has gone round the bun fights doing most of the Bishop’s pastoral work for him. The team has been fabulous. And there are others too: His Honour Mr Judge Patrick, who used to give me free legal advice and support but who, now he’s a judge is no longer allowed to. The two or three deans who have kept in touch on the phone more or less every week for ten years. Talking of which I should mention my Council of Priests, which became a Council of Friends. The people of the parishes, showing time and time again a commitment to the Lord and to each other which I have found humbling, instructive, and life-enhancing. Various key lay people ”“ on the Lay Council, running Brean, turning up at Parish Evangelism Weekends ”“ serving with devotion and skill.
I’m also leaving behind the hugely maddening Anglo-catholic movement: its frailty and fearlessness, its humour and its holiness. It is a home for some slightly disreputable characters ”“ and the ministry of Jesus specialised in being at table with slightly disreputable characters. Ten years touring round the West and the South West has had its moments. No time for anecdotes, but there was the time when I stopped at a service station and bought two cups of tea, which I promptly dropped all over ”˜me privates’. From Burnham-on-Sea (Burnham-on-Crouch?) back to Oxford in a sodden suit. What would people have thought had I been on the way there rather than on the way back?
The Anglo-catholic movement has fought a losing battle for 150 years, trying to convince the Church of England that she would be Catholic if only she conformed herself to the Catholic Faith and fully embraced Catholic Faith and Order….
From yesterday:
I plan to set off tomorrow morning, with my cotta, red stole, and biretta, to sit in choir at Bishop Andrew’s last publicly Pontifical Mass. I suspect it may be a votive – to anticipate his name-day – of S Andrew; upon whose feast ten years ago he was consecrated a Bishop in the Church of God. But my own Mass early tomorrow morning, if I live that long, will not have been of S Andrew … yet it will have been immensely Patrimonial. Let me explain. Are you sitting comfortably?
The Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Rt. Rev. Peter Price, insisted that the Covenant process was underway well before the election of Gene Robinson in New Hampshire. He referred to an Anglican Consultative Council document, Belonging Together (1992), which had a direct influence on The Virginia Report, much of which formed the basis of Covenant drafts.
Traditional Catholics, in the persons of the Bishop of Blackburn and the Rev. Simon Killwick (leader of the Catholic Group), signalled support for the Covenant as a means to provide greater coherence and integrity in Anglicanism.
A succession of speakers aired doubts. Would the Covenant undermine the autonomy of the Church of England or its prophetic spirit? Some thought that Covenant language like “relational consequences” spells a legalistic threat. Foremost among the doubters was the soon-to-retire Bishop of Lincoln, John Saxbee, who thought a Covenant is unnecessary since “Anglicanism is a covenant.”
Canon Elizabeth Paver, a member of the Anglican Communion’s Standing Committee, introduced a note of realism: in practice the Covenant will advise, never dictate; and it is vital that the Church of England “give some leadership” on the matter.
After a debate in which concerns about the content and implementaÂtion of the Covenant were raised, all three Houses of the Synod voted overwhelmingly for the motion: “That the draft Act of Synod adopting the Anglican Communion Covenant be considered.”
In the House of Bishops, 39 voted in favour, none against, with one abstention; in the House of Clergy, 145 voted in favour, and 32 against, and 11 abstained; in the House of Laity, 147 voted in favour, and 25 against, and eight abstained.
Introducing a debate on the Big Society on Tuesday, the Bishop of LeiÂcester, the Rt Revd Timothy Stevens, said that the programme had begun to unleash a new wave of energy in the Churches for practical social action. The Synod enthusiastically welcomed the conÂcept of the Big Society as an opportunity for the Church and a way of emphasising work that is already being done.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has intervened in the debate over Bishop Pete Broadbent’s anti-Royal Wedding comments. Lord Carey told The [London] Times: ‘I am shocked to learn of the Bishop of London’s judgement on Pete Broadbent. True, Pete was silly to utter such views but the penalty is far too severe….
Should the church take a major role in the Big Society?
Bishop of Leicester the Right Reverend Tim Stevens and author Cole Moreton discuss the relationship between the church and the state.
After a special service at Westminster Abbey later, the Queen is to open the Church of England’s General Synod.
The synod gets the honour of a royal inauguration because this is the established, state church and the Queen is its supreme governor.
The synod – the Church’s legislative body – is the only institution outside parliament that can make laws, even if it does have to get its decisions approved by a special parliamentary committee.
If Christians are alienated from each other, culturally, sociologically and psychologically, how high a formal fence should they erect between themselves? Enough, surely to give reflective space to both and a chance to relate their partial interests in the whole gospel picture whilst they live in tension and await, in joyful hope, a new heaven and a new earth. But temporary fencing, as low and light as possible, has to offer the best way forward if it’s relationships that count.
Church of England bishops have attacked the Government’s planned cuts to public spending, with one warning they will lead to the creation of “townships” in Britain.
The bishops said the Church is on a “collision course” with the Coalition as it seeks to protect those worst affected by the welfare reforms, with one saying the thought of the cuts made him “shudder”.
Another criticised the “double standards” which have left the deprived more affected by the cuts than the wealthy.
Their concerns will be raised at this week’s General Synod, the Church’s Parliament, which is debating David Cameron’s vision of a Big Society.
Auxiliary Bishop Alan Hopes of Westminster, the bishops’ liaison officer for the ordinariate and the highest-ranking former Anglican priest in England and Wales, said small groups of Anglican laity and their pastors had been preparing for reception into the church and the ordinariate since late September.
“The bishops have warmly and generously welcomed the Holy Father’s initiative toward those Anglicans who are seeking full and ecclesial communion with the Catholic Church,” he told the news conference.
“We have placed it all in the context of our overall ecumenical journey – which is exactly where the Holy Father has placed it – which seeks full communion in faith and fullness of unity for which Jesus Christ himself prayed,” he said.
“It has become very clear that there are clergy and groups of people who wish to make use of this journey into the Catholic Church through the ordinariate structure,” said Bishop Hopes, who was received into the Catholic Church in 1994.
Dr Williams acknowledged that traditionalists who cannot accept Church of England plans to ordain women bishops were in “considerable confusion and distress”.
But the Pope’s offer to accommodate disaffected Anglicans would leave the Church with “practical challenges” as vicars resign and churches lose worshippers, he said.
Dr Williams’s comments came in his first media interview since The Daily Telegraph disclosed that five Anglican bishops were to join a new section of the Roman Catholic Church established by Pope Benedict XVI.
A proper reading of the covenant shows it is, on this account, indisputably Anglican and inclusive of all these components of our Anglican heritage accepting that ”˜each of these has a place in the church’s life’.
The critique of IC and MCU distorts this by unfairly and unreasonably painting the covenant as simply a mixture of two concerns pushed to their extremes: ”˜strict evangelical Protestantism’ (the neo-Puritan method) and ”˜Roman Catholicism’ (more centralised and clerical, subordination to an international body). In doing so, they show no awareness of the many elements of the covenant reflecting their own emphases and its overall nuance and balance. Even more worrying is their apparent blindness to the dangers in their own tendency of ”˜de-emphasising revelation and history’. In fact, in the substance and tone of their campaign, they demonstrate that they have become ”˜enthusiasts’ for an isolated ”˜religious liberalism’ who have little regard for ”“ or even fundamentally reject ”“ any ”˜limits on the degree of adjustment to the culture and its habits’.
In summary, their response to the covenant reveals that they are far from being the authentic voice of Anglicanism or the Church of England. Instead, they are at risk of seeking to remake the Communion in their own particular Western liberal image and thus make it captive to what Oliver O’Donovan described as The failure of the liberal paradigm in his first Fulcrum sermon on subjects of the day (now published by SCM as A Conversation Waiting to Begin). At root, their ill-informed polemic suggests that ultimately they cannot accept that their own tradition in Anglicanism must ”“ like evangelical and catholic perspectives ”“ also learn ”˜to live with certain tensions or even sacrifices’ if it is to be truly Anglican. As a result, they rail against a covenant one of whose main strengths is precisely that it prevents any one part of Anglicanism from heading where they sadly risk heading – ”˜in a direction ultimately outside historic Anglicanism’.
Niceness may be enough to carry a measure through an inexperienced and supine General Synod, but it can hardly make the covenant a transformative consciousness raiser, let alone the turbine of a more mutually engaged global denomination. However the General Synod votes, the big issue for the covenant process thereafter will be securing buy-in, confronted by zealots’ disappointment and majority indifference.
It is often observed that individual Anglicans around the world recognise, like and enjoy each other’s company. They generally get on like a house on fire at local level. Their institutional quadrille is where the problems lie. Covenant afficionados may hope beefing up the formal denomination will improve informal relationships. Others fear beefier formalities will sour them.
One Conservative blogger announced this week, tongue slightly in cheek perhaps, that he had believed the covenant useless, until it had been drawn to his attention how much it annoyed Liberals. Et voilà . Even as a kicking foetus, the covenant is already annoying people. This doesn’t imply that once born it will only be used only to promote understanding and harmony. Nice people will use it nicely ”“ others won’t. Real copper-bottomed zealots will almost certainly carry on regardless. The god of unintended consequences will stand in the background, smiling.
The covenant has been portrayed, and betrayed, by its detractors as a dangerous, monolithic innovation of regulatory control, which will stifle freedom and diversity. But forced assimilation is not on the table, and it is false witness to dress it up as such. Gregory Cameron (secretary to the group who produced the covenant) and Andrew Goddard (Anglican ethicist) have demonstrated that its detractors have seriously misconstrued the text and its intention.
The model of the covenant is drawn from family ties and kinship and bounded by mutually agreed norms of behaviour which benefit everyone. It is not a document of doctrinal specifications, like the conservative Jerusalem Declaration, drawn up mostly by those who boycotted the Lambeth conference. Nor is it a contract, as feared by its liberal critics. It is truly a covenant.
In his address to the Lambeth conference 2008, the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, was pithily penetrative and perceptive in drawing out contrasts: “A contract is a transaction. A covenant is a relationship. Or to put it slightly differently: a contract is about interests. A covenant is about identity. It is about you and me coming together to form an ‘us’. That is why contracts benefit, but covenants transform.”
On the eve of the consistory to create 24 new cardinals, the princes of the Church will examine the entry of Anglicans into full communion with the Church and the Holy See’s response to sex abuse in the Church. Pope Benedict XVI’s successor at the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, will present the themes.
Capping a “day of reflection and prayer,” the cardinals will take a look at three current and particularly sensitive themes.
The announcement came in a statement to journalists from the Holy See which outlined the schedule for the Nov. 19 retreat of the College of Cardinals. The schedule for the day before the highly anticipated cardinal-creating consistory includes discussions about religious freedom and “the liturgy in the life of the Church today.”
Bishop [Keith] Newton explained that although the issue of the ordination of women as Anglican bishops has been an important factor in his decision, it is “not the most significant.”
Noting the “surprise” of the Pope’s action on Anglican-Catholic relations, he said that most Anglicans have prayed for union with the Catholic Church. However, this union has seemed less likely because of “the new difficulties concerning the ordination of women and other doctrinal and moral issues affecting the Anglican Communion.”
“Although we must still pray for sacramental and ecclesial unity between our Churches that now seems a much more distant hope,” Bishop Newton said. The ordinariates provide an opportunity for “visible unity” and Anglicans are able to retain “what is best in our own tradition which will enrich the Universal Church.”
Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, will reveal on Friday the Vatican’s plans to welcome the departing priests – including five bishops – who are expected to be received into the Catholic Church early in the new year.
Hundreds of Anglican churchgoers will join them in the Ordinariate – a structure introduced by Pope Benedict XVI to provide refuge for those diaffected with the Church of England.
The number of worshippers who leave the Church is predicted to double as the new arrangement finally begins to take shape.
This is the topic for the 2011 Mere Anglicanism Conference in Charleston, South Carolina in January.
Consider coming and make plans now.
After months of speculation over their future, two Provincial Episcopal Visitors (PEVs) ”” the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, the Rt Revd Andrew Burnham, and the Bishop of RichÂborough, the Rt Revd Keith Newton ”” announced this week that they are resigning to take up the Pope’s offer of joining the Ordinariate.
They will be accompanied by the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Revd John Broadhurst, who had announced his intention to enter the Ordinariate at Forward in Faith’s National AsÂsembly last month… and two retired bishops, the Rt Revd Edwin Barnes, a former Bishop of Richborough, and the Rt Revd David Silk, a former Bishop of Ballarat in Australia, now an honÂorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Exeter.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said that it was “with regret” that he had accepted the two PEVs’, or flying bishops’, resignations. He wished them well in their next stage of ministry, and thanked them for their service in the Church of England. He confirmed that he would “set in train the process for filling the vacant sees” of both flying bishops.
Regarding the resignations of Bishops Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton, John Broadhurst, Edwin Barnes, and David Silk – it is with thanksgiving that we recognize their faithful witness and service to Forward in Faith and the Anglican Communion in upholding the historic Catholic faith. We assure them of our gratitude and our prayers that God will bless and guide them in their future ministries. We pray that the Holy Spirit will provide discernment and guidance to our Forward in Faith brothers and sisters during this time of transition.
As our beloved brothers in Christ embark on their new chapter of ministry, Forward in Faith North America will remain an Anglican ministry, committed to upholding the historic, catholic faith of the church among its members and its affiliated parishes and jurisdictions.
Since its split from Rome (in a messy row about King Henry VIII’s divorce in 1529) the Anglican church has evolved into a curious hybrid. It tries to be both Catholic and Reformed (Protestant). Its adherents include people who believe every word in the Bible is true, modernists who consider it a collection of inspiring fables, and traditionalists who cherish archaic English.
One exotic bit of that ecclesiological cocktail is shrinking. Five bishops from the Anglo-Catholic strain in the Church of England (dubbed “smells and bells” for its love of incense and ritual) are leaving to join the Ordinariate. This is a new outfit set up by Pope Benedict XVI for Anglicans unable to accept their church’s decision this year to let women be bishops.
The move follows a crisis in the early 1990s over ordaining women priests, which Anglo-Catholics saw as dooming their hope for eventual unity with the (male-only) Roman Catholic priesthood. Around 500 Anglican priests switched to Rome then. Others decided to stay in the Church of England, in a parallel set-up led by “flying bishops”. This lot, concentrated in 363 of the church’s 13,000 parishes, bemoan its unilateral approach to theology and intolerance of minorities.
I imagine most of you will already know that I have resigned as Bishop of Richborough as from 31st December and will not be conducting any public episcopal services between now and then. I will, in due course, be received into full communion with the Catholic Church and join the Ordinariate when one is erected in England, which I hope will happen early next year. This has been a very difficult decision and has not been taken without much thought and prayer over the last year. For more than 8 years I have enjoyed being Bishop of Richborough; I have particularly valued the many visits to parishes for confirmations and other occasions. I am more grateful than I can say for the warmth, friendship and support I have experienced from so many priests and faithful lay people. I did not deserve it but I thank God for all I have received from you.
I am sure it will be said that I am leaving because of the issue of the ordination of women to the episcopate. While it is true that this has been an important factor in my thinking it is not the most significant factor. The publication of the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, just one year ago, came as a surprise and has completely changed the landscape for Anglo Catholics. Since the inception of the ARCIC process, set up by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in the 1960s, most of us have longed and prayed for corporate union with the Catholic Church; union which in our own time has seemed less likely because of the new difficulties concerning the ordination of women and other doctrinal and moral issues affecting the Anglican Communion.