The Archbishop of Canterbury has pleaded with the Church of England’s Anglo-Catholics to resist the temptation to convert to Roman Catholicism over women bishops.
Dr Rowan Williams admitted that the future of the Anglican Communion looked “chaotic and uncertain”.
Preaching in london, he said: “God knows what the future holds.” But he insisted that it remained possible to be at once holy, Catholic and Anglican.
Dr Williams did not refer directly to the response from Pope Benedict XVI to requests from some Church of England bishops and traditional Anglicans around the world for a means of admission to the Catholic Church.
“He said that it was still possible to “lead lives of Catholic holiness even in the Communion of the See of Canterburyâ€. ”
Yes. And one must accept female bishops in the CoE without recourse because Synod has spoken. And one must accept the program of the ECUSA/TEC to dismantle the moral and ethical Tradition of the Catholic Faith without recourse. And one must accept that the shifting demographics of Christianity is of no consequence, and when it might be, one should inadaba instead of having a Lambeth Conference with any outcome. And one should not pay any attention to any of the findings or suggestions of the Primates which might conflict with the Western imperialist domination of the processes of the Instruments of Unity. And one should be happy that these possibilities are acknowledged to lead to a chaotic and uncertain future based on the ABC’s actions and inactions. Mostly the latter.
I do not find the case at all compelling myself.
I could not but agree with #1, above. For the very guarantor of chaos and uncertainty (who ought to be the opposite) to preach this drivel is at best annoying, but for some reason the vaguely feels as if it were insulting history, reason, both sides in this unpleasantness, the whole Church in both heaven and on earth, and God. For me as a priest of the Church of England, as an Anglican in the long chain of transmission of the Faith from Augustine of Canterbury and before, it seems that all I’m invited to do by this Welshman imposed on the English Church is to retreat into my parochial cave and commune with an often shining past when the Church was One. I formerly genuinely believed that the Apostles’ successors were there to wisely guide the ship of the Church and protect her from being wrecked on the rocks of error. Now RW says that we’ve got to get used to drifting aimlessly in the midst of the storm, and that no one (including RW himself) has a sure hand on the wheel.
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has pleaded with the Church of England’s Anglo-Catholics to resist the temptation to convert to Roman Catholicism over women bishops.”
Archbishop of Canterbury, meet the barn door. Barn door, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
After reading one of the comments from a British writer concerning Political Correctness in the Church of England…..and elsewhere in the Communion, by the way, I have to agree with that writer in that being PC is one of the WORST things to have come along in years, and the entire philosophy needs to be “dumped into the dustbin” and left there to rot.
Poor Rowan, I sincerely believe he wants orthodox Catholics to stay as he recognises that many of them number amongst his finest priests (myself excluded!) Furthermore he knows that without them his church will be even more unbalanced, chaotic and prone to grave theological error. And it is only once they have left that the Church of England will realise how much it needed them.
IN fairness to him the invention of synod is largely to blame for the terrible mess we are in but he has had a hand in it too.
How can you privately encourage gay marriage but publically speak against it and expect to be taken seriously? How can you do NOTHING about the Gene Robinson debacle except blather on about having no authority and then assure people of anything? Once you publically state a lack of authority you should not be surprised when you find yourself with none when it matters!
Let us face facts. His leadership has been exposed as paper thin and sadly, whilst almost everyone rightly respects Rowan as being a sincere, holy and upright man, almost everyone also laments his leadership ability and the terrible situation he now faces.
That weak leadership, exposed when Synod totally ignored him last July, sadly leaves him in this sermon giving the most hollow assurances I have heard in my life. Rowan I would love to believe you but what can you really offer me as a priest in my thirties who upholds Catholic dotrine and does not accept that hiding in my parish is enough?
Here he is saying ‘please stay, it is grim and it will be grim but holiness could exist here’ without assuring me in any way at all of any meaningful or safe provision or even giving an explanation as to why I am asked to witness to Catholic truth within a communon that allows divorce, gay marriage, abortion, etc
Truthfully the weak response of the Church of England thus far to the Pope’s gesture betrays a church even weaker than I had believed was the case. It is frankly risible. Have we ever had such an uninspiring, confused and weak leadership?
Can you imagine Pope Benedict, Billy Graham or Mother Teresa ever giving such a depressing and empty promise to those who simply wish to stand up for the faith of the ages? Somehow reading this sermon has made me realise the sickness at the heart of the C of E is much, much worse than i had even began to realise.
Truth is the Bishops lament what Rome has done but they know full well that they cannot match his offer or hold back the liberal backlash against us……let us hope they dont now throw toys out of prams and use buildings and structures to thwart us…
You know, some book I read once said something about reaping what one sows. If one sows chaos and uncertainty, lo, one reaps chaos and uncertainty.
I have to say that I do not dislike the ABC. He is a man of his times, a sad figure limited by his own reticence and his commitment to ambiguity which he, like modernity, mistakes for wisdom. It is evident here that he is trying his darnedest to convince Anglo-Catholics to stay, and in so doing is reminding them inadvertently of all the reasons they are considering leaving. I do not envy him at all.
I have to say that upon reading the headline for this post on T19, my first thought was, “Duh. Ya think?”
All Saints, Margaret Street, is one of the centres of “Affirming Catholicism” (whose only distinctives are affirming several innovations that are directly contrary to Catholic teaching). It is Rowan’s native environment. But its course can hardly be held up as a model solution Catholics in the Church of England — those who accept the innovations feel no need to move in any case, those who object are not prepared to settle for pretty liturgies, amused tolerance, and the iron fist of the liberal establishment.
Another observation:
Is it not telling that Rowan seeks to placate by looking for hope in the past when what we need is hope in the present and future.
Surely he can see that our rich heritage, however inspiring it may be, does nothing to ease tensions today.
Surely he sees that when the first woman is consecrated, unless we have a structural solution, we are left floundering unable to know in whose orders we can trust, male and female.
There is nothing here to assure me of anything, merely a suggestion that I hang in there dwelling on my past and pretending it is noble to do so.
“Dr Rowan Williams admitted that the future of the Anglican Communion looked “chaotic and uncertainâ€.
Preaching in london, he said: “God knows what the future holds.—
It’s not an absolute, but there exist many people who believe they have some control over their future.
“This church, with its very particular place in the history of the Church of England, is one small but significant facet of that great mystery and that great gift. And, at times when the future seems more than usually chaotic and uncertain, it doesn’t hurt simply to give thanks.â€
This can easily be said of individual churches, and nothing wrong with giving thanks. But, if this man has become so shackled by his own limitations that he believes the world is, basically, crumbling all around him while he can do nothing, then he should have the integrity to step down and pass the con to someone else, hopefully more focused, decisive, and active.
If a leader will not lead, someone else will step forward and do the job, even if not in name. That’s what the Pope has done here. And ++Rowan had better come up with something quick before the former and Bishop Broadhurst march on and, in the process, make him look an even bigger idiot than he already looks.
Sad, and the future on Anglicanism hangs on a lot of this…
Rowan Williams: Anglican Future looks “chaotic and uncertainâ€
And just who is responsible for the chaos and uncertain future?
Hint: His initials are RW.
I keep thinking of that maxim that you either use power or lose it. And it seems like every time the ABC has the opportunity to exercise power, he throws up his hands and says “but I don’t have it to exercise.” In frustration I’d like to shake him and say AS FIRST AMONG EQUALS, start coercing!!! Use your moral power, the power of the See and throw some weight around! I like the ABC as a person and theologian, but as ABC he seems to just be sitting around wringing his hands while the ship sinks. Any moves of a decisive nature would seem better than what appears to be not knowing which way to turn. And this doesn’t seem to present a compelling argument about why one should stay.
Do I understand correctly that if Synod repents and adopts FIF’s structural solution then few, if any, COE members will accept the Pope’s offer?
Well here is the actual sermon, make of it what you will:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2603
And here is another one from St Mary’s, Bourne Street on the same time. Does any of it have anything to do with the position of Anglo-Catholics and FiF members in the CofE? Who knows. I expect if he had meant to say anything about them he would have put it into English.
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2604
As for whether there is any future for us in the Anglican Communion, well I expect that stopping hand-wringing and dithering, and toadying to the atrocious Presiding Bishop and her abuses might help. Same goes for losing our Anglo Catholics. Try leadership, if you are capable of that. Not just the ABC but the deadbeat old 60’s has-beens in our House of Bishops who got us into this mess as well.
And while we are about it, get some proper financial advice so that our funds are looked after [prudently instead of making us being a joke in the City, and a disaster for our parishes and clergy.
What exactly are you going to tell the Pope? You have screwed up big-time?
Dr. Williams has done more than any other single person to bring the Anglican Communion to the catastrophic place where it is now.
I respectfully disagree with those who find his leadership weak. To the contrary, he has decisively sided with the revisionists at each and every step of this debacle. To refresh everybody’s recollections, the ABC:
1. Thwarted the will of a clear majority of the Primates in repeated meetings, starting with Dromantine.
2. Endorsed the ludicrous JSC report that TEC had complied with the various denmands made at repeated Primates meetings.
3. Preemptively invited all the TEC bishops to Lambeth.
4. The Panel of Reference fiasco.
5. Structured (indabaed) the Lambeth Conference to prevent the bishops assembled from acting.
I could go on, but you get the point. The ABC has done more than anybody else to prevent the Anglican Communion from disciplining TEC, and thus the Communion can no longer act as, or be, a coherent entity. And the revisionist disease spreads and strengthens. As Matt Kennedy has said, think of the consequences Eli faced for refusing to discipline his sons.
The ABC’s latest are not the ruminations of a weak ditherer, but the lament of a strong leader whose actions and plans have backfired.
Anyone noticed how quiet the Church of England has been? You can hear a pin drop.
#5 RPP “Poor Rowan, I sincerely believe he wants orthodox Catholics to stay as he recognises that many of them number amongst his finest priests (myself excluded!)”
On the contrary, we need priests just like you who have a proven track-record of growing their parishes and preaching the Word of God; I wouldn’t assume that this is not valued, and I doubt that it is just me. Any institution values performance, and you are certainly performing and a blessing to our church, whatever decision you eventually make. That of course may to some extent still be in our hands, but waffly sermons which may or may not relate to it are just not good enough to pass for leadership.
Say it ain’t so, Austin. There was a time when All Saints, Margaret Street, was more Catholic than the Pope. Lo, how the mighty have fallen.
Oh they bob up and down and tinkle the bells, but they say they are friends with Jim [of the St Dunstan’s by the Tower gay eucharist] Rosenthal, which probably tells you all you need to know. This was Rowan preaching to his own Aff Caths as far as I can see. They have done a good job of restoring the Butterfield church though.
Thanks, Pageantmaster, for linking to the ABC’s moving All Saints sermon. However, I wonder about his use of Hebrews 11 to say that Christian saints are made perfect by us. It appears to me that the writer of Hebrews is saying that the OT heroes of Faith are, apart from us(Body of Christ), not made perfect. The perfection or communion has been done by Christ is the way I understand the writer. I don’t think St Francis’s perfection is incumbent on our remembrance. Rather our perfection in the communion of saints may more likely depend upon St Francis’s remembrance of us.
#23 Well there you go, although if you are like me you think that the Saints are perfected through Christ’s Grace alone, but certainly not through any actions of ours, otherwise we would be bringing back the chantries. Rowan Williams conflates what we do to “the least of these” we do unto Christ, with some un-Anglican concept that we only move into relationship with Christ as a people together with others. Of course we live out our Christian lives in relationship with other Christians and non-Christians in our acts of witness towards them, but that is something different. To suggest that anyone, Saint or not is ‘perfected’ other than by Christ and His selfless act upon the Cross to enable us to become sons of God, restored in relationship, is very peculiar indeed.
But that is Rowan for you.
Three steps to walking into the future with “assurance†and “hopeâ€:
1. Enter into “the broken middle†with …. RDW/KJS/Francis of Assisi/Jesus ben Joseph – ?? Delete the inapplicable.
2. Delete the chapter heading of Hebrews 12 and continue to the end of v.3 having commenced at 11:1. Delete also the spurious “our†of 12:2 that has crept into most EVV.
3. So that finally we might be in a better position to answer Q1.
For all those “ordinary†folk who demonstrate the sheer holiness of following Jesus’ Way despite the brutal conflicts of doubt and unbelief are able to do so NOT primarily because of others’ all too wavering belief but because of [b][i]His[/i][/b] Singular Mediation as High Priest of “many†brothers and sisters – little old yous and mes – that results in his [i]own[/i] faith being imparted to us, a faith of Singular steadfastness and even joy.
At this time therefore, please may our leaders point to this Singular Mediator, as does the author of Hebrews in [i]his[/i] sermon, rather than to their own sense of uncertainty and ongoing questioning, as they view Everything being “dispersed in clouds of narrative elements†(J-F Lyotard) with “no metanarrative†to bring coherence to the whole. Thank you!
I imagine the ABC does think the cause of saints holiness (to use language that he seems to find unhelpful – perhaps because since the 16th century theology has struggled not to interpret “cause” in a mechanistic way) is Christ. He does seem to believe that Christ really does make people holy. Indeed that such holiness is our “ordinary” end. I imagine too he thinks that Christ’s gift of holiness creates a holy community (living and departed in the Lord) and that creation of such a community is the context in which Christ has willed to perfect us. So that creation of such a holy community is essential to Christ’s redeeming purposes (because Christ has so willed) and thus essential to what Christ is working in each one of us. I hear in the background of this something like Gregory of Nyssa’s sense of the endless ascent into the infinite life of God.
It seems fairly standard catholic (small c) Anglican theology – as always with the ABC phrased in a way that is trying to be fresh. I don’t think he is quite proposing that chantries be reintroduced – not least because chantries are precisely for those yet perfected. In other words chantries were for those in purgatory (the forecourt of heaven, if one is persuaded by that theology) not for saints. Instead he’s talking about the ceaseless growth into God’s infinite life that the saints enjoy and suggesting that the communal element of this progression is an essential part of Christ’s salvific will.
Or so I imagine!
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