The Roman Catholic Church today moved to poach thousands of traditional Anglicans who are dismayed by growing acceptance of gays and women priests and bishops.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams admitted that he had been caught out after Pope Benedict XVI announced a new “Apostolic Constitution” to provide a legal framework for the many thousands of Anglicans and former Anglicans who wish “to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church”.
The announcement paves the way for thousands of Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic church while maintaining elements of their own spiritual heritage.
I expect a lot of abuse will be headed Archbishop Rowan’s way, but this really is a gentlemanly and entirely appropriate response. Indeed, what else could he say?
Oops. Meant above response to go with previous post.
From the article …
“One aspect of the announcement by Rome is that it clears the way for women bishops in the Church of England.” If anything, it will
also thereby facilitate the increased inclusion of gays and accelerate the insistent Gadarene trajectory of the C of E.
As for the poaching headline, C of E has acted through its principal
North American franchise (TEC) to set up dioceses in various parts
of Mexico, Central and South America, where they regard their efforts as evangelization, not poaching. I guess evangelization
morphs into poaching when it occurs in one’s own back yard.
Poaching? I dont think so. This is a generous response to multiple requests. Poaching implies a campaign. There certainly was none of that on Rome’s part.
[blockquote] He said that it would be a “serious mistake†to view the development as a response to the difficulties within the Anglican Communion. [/blockquote]
I can’t think of any other way to view this.
That’s exactly right, Fr. J. The headline is silly, and the whole article is in fact a little skewed, shall we say. Especially in light of the statement in their 8th paragraph that traditionalists have been asking for years, a claim of ‘poaching’ can only have been put there to sell the blinkin’ newssheet, I would guess.
The best headline I have seen so far, now out on the ‘Chiesa’ website of the Vatican, is “Bussate e vi sara aperto.” That translates as the familiar “Knock and [the door] shall be opened unto you”. And so it has. Thanks be to God.
Doesn’t this article get it precisely wrong. Anglicans came to Rome asking for help. It seems the Pope is inclined to do what he can, as he might see it, to reunify the scandalously fragmented church of the West. (If he had wanted to do little or nothing he could have punted it to the “ecumenical” Curial folks and the ABC for it to be discussed in committees for years to come). As it was, he evidently heard a cry for help and decided to act.
Considering that the Established Church has been doing everything in its power to drive away “traditional Anglicans,” I wonder what sense do the Times consider the Pope’s hospitable offer to be “poaching.” Indeed, to rid one’s neighbor’s estate of what he considers to be pestilence and vermin by enticing them away is most charitable, not unlawful.
Now there is a ROTFL-funny headline at Ruth G.’s blog: ‘Rome Parks Tanks on Rowan’s Lawn’
It finally helped me grasp what is behind ‘poaching’ in the headline of this post; in Britain there is the notion that their very soil, territory, ground is to be kept from any form of control from, well, outside the British Isles, I guess, and particularly from southern Europe. Therefore ‘poaching’ to convey a sense of aggression and trespass as if an enemy has physically encroached upon the lord’s manor and threatens the game on his lands.
All the souls in England apparently belong to the Queen or something? Am I getting it? Someone in the UK perhaps could help out here.
Well, “poaching” is the term being used by some, but not all, on the HOB/D list serve. Poaching means stealing what belongs to another. However, I don’t see anyone being roped and tied, and dragged screaming from their TEC or CoE parish into a RC parish. Sounds like some folks are afraid of the competition.
#3: “Gadarene” ????
Yes, “Gadarene:” WO and SS (as Rome views it)
[blockquote]“The Roman Catholic Church today moved to [i]poach[/i] thousands of traditional Anglicans who are dismayed by growing acceptance of gays and women priests and bishops.â€[/blockquote]
[blockquote]“The General Synod and Parliament are unlikely to approve a legal structure to “protect†Anglo-Catholics from being “tainted†by the hands of a woman, if Rome is showing them an open door.â€[/blockquote]
The clear bias in the word selection of the article and the prospect that Synod might, out of spite, be less charitable to Anglo-Catholics because of this, seem to be of the same, unattractive characteristic.
It would be one thing if reappraisers were simply inept at caring for their fellow Christian reasserters. Instead, the accommodation of some of those reasserters by a third party is painted as a dishonest misappropriation, one which justifies retaliation against the remaining reasserters. The author (and, if true, the Synod) seems to be stamping her foot in frustration, and un-prettily asserting: ‘Why, the reasserters [i]must[/i] do the proper thing – they must stay and be abused as we rubbish their faith!’
🙄
“It remains to be seen what use will be made of this provision, since it is now up to those who have made requests to the Holy See to respond to the Apostolic Constitution; but, in the light of recent discussions with senior officials in the Vatican, I can say that [b]this new possibility is in no sense at all intended to undermine existing relations between our two communions or to be an act of proselytism or aggression.[/b] It is described as simply a response to specific enquiries from certain Anglican groups and individuals wishing to find their future within the Roman Catholic Church.”
(Emphasis added)
ABC Williams
#10,
“Gadarene”, referring to the Gadarene swine who plunged into the
water and were drowned after being infected with satanic spirits.
Thanks, Ich.
Fr. J., driver8, Death B., InTexas, tired: No less a journalist that ‘Diogenes’ sees it in the way we do:
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otr.cfm?id=5097
“The Times of London, with its dizzyingly reckless Monty Python approach to religion stories, headlines its article Vatican Moves to Poach Traditional Anglicans, but the “poaching” metaphor is an odd choice of images when the “rabbits” in question have been pleading, sometimes for decades, to jump into the hunter’s game bag. After all, the decisions that changed the playing field were made by the Anglican churches, not the Pope. The Vatican’s explanatory statement does not hesitate to point to the shattering effect of Anglican capitulations to Left/liberal secularism”…….
(my italics)