An announcement confirmed the much-anticipated resignations of Burnham and the Church of England’s other Provincial Episcopal Visitors (PEVs), colloquially known as flying bishops: the Rt. Rev. John Broadhurst, Bishop of Fulham, and the Rt. Rev. Keith Newton, Bishop of Richborough. Joining them are two retired bishops: the Rt. Rev. Edwin Barnes, honorary assistant bishop of Winchester, and the Rt. Rev. David Silk, honorary assistant bishop of Exeter. The journey of the Ordinariate “caravan company” is underway.
“We have been dismayed, over the last thirty years, to see Anglicans and Catholics move further apart on some of the issues of the day, and particularly we have been distressed by developments in Faith and Order in Anglicanism which we believe to be incompatible with the historic vocation of Anglicanism and the tradition of the Church for nearly two thousand years,” said the bishops’ statement.
I doubt that masses of CoE ACs will swim the Tiber. The principal effect of the bad publicity, however, will be in the English Church’s further loss of credibility in the eyes of England’s populace and the world at large. And, if the CoE leadership doesn’t like it, tough. They shoulda thought of that before they made it clear they were so narrow-minded when it comes to dealing with Catholic Anglicans and their concerns. Like in TEC, the orthodox have the upper hand when it comes to representing the Archetypes. Without their acquiescence, the revisors have no street-cred at all.
1. I like your use of Jungian analysis. It is the way I think as well. There are certain contents to each archetype which when violated cause it to no longer apply. Catholic religious, for example, which have abandoned the religious habit or garb have collapsed while new communities wearing habits are now thriving. The essence of the monk/nun archetype is common dress, common work, common prayer, common purse, common table. Take these away and the community will disappear in a generation.
The same, I believe, is true about priesthood, which is archtypally male. Ministry in general is neither male nor female. But priesthood is male.
My diocese has a new bishop. Before he came everyone used the term ministry for everything. He is now using the term apostolate for the pastoral ministry of the church. That one word changes the sense of everything we do.
As for the numbers who will join the Ordinariate, time will tell. I suspect the numbers will initially be rather small, as +Burnham admits, but they may eventually grow much larger than people currently suppose. After all, Fif/UK has about 1000 priests, not counting laity. Alas, the CoE certainly appears, to this American outsider, to be increasingly hostile to genuine catholic Christianity, as opposed to the fake “Affirming Catholicism” kind.
The SSC clergy would seem to fit the “Non-Jurors” category, willing to go down with the ship, so to speak. That is honorable, of course, but it may well prove that now that there is actually a reasonable option for Anglican Papalists, more of them will choose to abandon the sinking ship that is the CoE than people think. After all, the ordination of women to the episcopate is truly a game-changing factor, a deal-breaker. If you accept the Anglo-Catholic understanding of ordination and the requirement of a validly ordained priest for having valid and efficacious sacraments, then they do face the threat of extinction, just like the Non-Jurors eventually did become extinct.
David Handy+