….in what the Telegraph calls “the prospect of a historic compromise”, William Fittall ”“ who might be described as the Sir Humphrey Appleby of the Church of England; he is secretary general of the General Synod ”“ said it would be “entirely possible” for those groups or parishes who join the Ordinariate to be allowed to share their former churches with Anglicans who remain in the Church of England.
I would go further: I think it highly likely. The fact is that maintaining its historic buildings is one of the Church of England’s biggest problems. Nothing is more logical than that the members of congregations who (in the Telegraph’s elegant usage) “defect” should share the building they are used to with those who elect to stay in the C of E, and should continue to contribute to its upkeep.
We have in fact seen all this before, in the case of two parishes in the Anglican diocese of London and Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster.
Sounds good to me!
I’m so glad the authorities in the CoE seem prepared to be far more reasonable and gracious than the notoriously fearful and vindictive leaders of TEC and the ACoC.
The case of how St. Stephen’s Church on Gloucester Road in London was shared in the 1990s sounds intriguing, but the fact that the RC bishop shut the place down after only a couple of years does indeed suggest why enthusiasm for this new Ordinariat offer seems to be generally muted and opinions about its viability guarded.
But as an American, I’d love to hear from our friends in the UK.
David Handy+
This is gracious, but it’s clearly not being done to be gracious. It’s being done because “keeping up the property” is seen by the Church of England as one of its important mandates. And they can barely do that now. Were the people who are paying to keep up the property to depart and leave their property behind it would be a huge headache for the Church of England. So logically it makes sense for them to say “we’ll hold title to the property but we’ll let you use it and pay to keep it up and also we get to use it ourselves on as an needed basis.” This is not actually a compromise — its a huge benefit to the Church of England.
Oddly enough, it seems to preserve the status quo – the same people turn up to the same building, and do, more or less, the same thing as they have always done, and believe the same stuff, and worship the same way. Except…the priest has to survive on £8,000 a year, or so, rather than a much better CofE salary and pension. But, there will be no women bishops, indeed, there will be no bishops at all, but there will be an ‘ordinary’, but he won’t be a woman.
But the Catholic church down the road would probably prefer that these people left the beautiful building they have worshipped in and come an help them maintain the decaying ’60’s concrete spaceship they worship in.
And the congregants – in the way of these things, will probably turn up to both sets of services, depending on how they feel at the time.
Plus ça change …!
And the Catholics down the road, will probably come to the ordinariate church, because the music and liturgy is better.
Good.
#5 – I dearly hope that happens. Ordinariate Catholics are much welcome, in part because they can evangelize also the moribund N.O. parishes out there. They are a treasure for the Church, as the Holy Father said. I think that’s why the Magical Circle types are so afraid of and opposed to Anglicanorum Coetibus.