Economist Albert O. Hirschman wrote that members of organizations in decline can choose either to leave or use their voices to call for change; their loyalty to the institution may affect the extent to which they do one or the other. Vocal conservative Anglicans have secured a viable exit while maintaining loyalty to their old traditions. In the face of an inflexible hierarchy, liberal Catholic voices have had little effect; the grudging loyalty of those who remain is in jeopardy. The Vatican announcement will make the Catholic Church more conservative and the Anglican church more liberal. Is that what ecumenism is meant to accomplish?
I’m afraid that’s the drift in just about all places these days. I’m willing to say that part of this is the result of our “hardness of heart,” but much of it is about something else, I think. That “something else” may be a future we cannot see clearly yet, but one which will require a much firmer foundation in the Faith than many in the West have felt they needed in the recent past. We may find all sorts of immediate “reasons” for occurrences such as these — and those reasons might even be true to some extent in the short term — but events in Church History often spring from a perspective too vast for any one day, month, year, or even decade to detect.
Hursley
Non calmor sed amor psallit in aure Dei