On Wednesday, the 26-strong choir of St James the Great will sing for the congregation as they have always done during Holy Week.
But this week they will do so a mile down the road in St Anne’s Roman Catholic church, their new home.
Led by Fr Ian Grieves, the priest at St James in Darlington for 23 years, 58 parishioners will formally join the Ordinariate, the body set up by the Pope for disaffected Anglicans.
Anglo-Catholic parishes are tightly-knit communities, with lots of mutual support, so I grieve to think of the pain and distress and sadness this kind of thing must cause. I also pause at the description of the Church of England as a dying church. That is not a reason to leave – I sometimes think that times that are difficult for a church are times that have a special call on our loyalties. As an RC priest I also see lots of life and initiative across the water; I notice, however, that much of it comes from the evangelical and charismatic sections of the C of E. The latter will, I think, in the next 20 years, become more evangelical and less catholic and less liberal and hence less of a broad church. Will this be its renewal? Only God knows.
I have come to the conclusion, Fr Tee, that at a certain point the evangelical and charismatic and the catholic meet, albeit starting from different points and taking different routes; indeed I am sure of it having met some very charismatic catholics. This should not be a surprise when the Holy Spirit is in the driving seat, do you think?
PM I wholeheartedly agree. Not everybody agrees – you may remember that unfortunate tape when the principal of Wycliffe, if I remember correctly, counselled his students against a catholic understanding of the Church. Yet surely if our hearts are centred on Christ, if we seek to be open to the Spirit, if we wonder how to fulfil the Father’s will in our daily life and witness … then there must be a huge amount that we share that is catholic, and evangelical, and charismatic. Although (he adds hastily) I am these things only imperfectly and under the mercy …
From the article, the phrase was used regarding the priest’s and some church
members’ “decision to defect to the Roman Catholic Church.” The use of the word
“defect” nicely encapsulates how bound up the C of E is with nationalism, an
ideology which has spawned so much misery in the world.
No Christian church of any sort ought to embrace nationalism.
#4 Whyever not? That is surely exactly what the ‘Roman’ Church did, is it not, even down to adopting Roman court dress, imperial titles, and following the flag; just as the Anglican church did many centuries afterwards, which is why it now spans the globe? Whatever could be better than being a Christian nation?
The problem, if there is one, is with not being a Christian nation.
#3 Yes Fr Tee, I think the differences in churchmanship and perhaps to some extent between denominations recedes into the background when everyone concentrates their attention and worship on the figure riding into town today, imperfectly as we understand it all.
“Blessed be he that cometh in the Name of the Lord!”
I think there is much that evangelical, anglo-catholic and ‘traditionalist’ (if not caught by the first two categories!) in CofE can agree on. They must find that common ground and learn to work together if CofE is to be saved.
Its good that this article in the Telegraph gives coverage to the issue: Members of the General Synod of the Church of England need to understand what they will do to their own church if they press ahead with plans to legalise the consecration of women as bishops, particularly with no safeguards for traditionalists.
Note the comment of one elderly parishioner who does not wish to leave St James the Great – yet:
[blockquote] “The group may have been too hasty to think that women bishops would be introduced without “some kind of cover†for traditionalists, he added” [/blockquote]
If the General Synod follows the legislation as currently drafted and introduces women bishops without any kind of “cover” for traditionalists, then they practically force this man to leave, and no doubt many others like him.
And there will be more. The small number of liberal activists in the Church of England do not care – they are happy to see them go, just as they will be happy to see the orthodox evangelicals depart to some new denomination created by Gafcon.
But those who CARE about the Church of England (which the liberal activists plainly do not) cannot afford to take that view. Their church is shrinking, slowly but very steadily, and its income is falling to the point where it cannot maintain much of its property. They cannot afford to be cavalier about losing people.