Dr Williams acknowledged that traditionalists who cannot accept Church of England plans to ordain women bishops were in “considerable confusion and distress”.
But the Pope’s offer to accommodate disaffected Anglicans would leave the Church with “practical challenges” as vicars resign and churches lose worshippers, he said.
Dr Williams’s comments came in his first media interview since The Daily Telegraph disclosed that five Anglican bishops were to join a new section of the Roman Catholic Church established by Pope Benedict XVI.
“join a new section” of the Catholic Church?
::facepalm::
Interesting this idea of Anglicans and Roman Catholics sharing space in Anglican churches. Depending on the age of the church edifice, weren’t a lot of older British churches built by people who considered themselves very much Catholic, part of the universal church, and determined to keep the original church traditions and art the government and religious “reformers” were determined to get rid of and destroy. (People forget the horrendous destructive iconoclasm that was part of the so-called Reformation).
According to some of the latest groundbreaking Church history research, a very strong case can be made for the argument that the break with Rome was far, far more unpopular among the people than has heretofore been believed. In fact, the break apparently took a lot more powerful government pressure and persecution and was not the widespread popular movement it has so often been portrayed as.
Two of the very best books along these lines are by Eamon Duffy, a reader in Church History at the University of Cambridge and president of Magdalene College. The books are “The Stripping of the Altars–Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580,” and “The Voices of Morebath Reformation and Rebellion In An English Village” both from Yale University Press.
Maybe rowan will NOW encourage Jefferts-Schori and Hiltz to share space with departing traditionalist Anglicans in NA
Re #3
iAnglican
I would rather celebrate the Holy Mysteries in a parking garage than share the altar with overt heretics.
In ICXC
John
“the Pope’s offer to accommodate disaffected Anglicans would leave the Church with “practical challenges†– so it’s the Pope’s offer that creates these practical challenges? Is there NOTHING going on in the wide (and wild) world of Anglicanism that leaves the Church with these “practical challenges”? Are we really this clueless, or are we just deeply dishonest?
I think a degree of dishonesty has always existed in a church wed to the state more than to biblical principles….