(Times): Anglican version of the 'inquisition' proposed to avoid future schism

An Anglican version of the Roman Catholic church’s “inquisition” is proposed today in a document seen by The Times.

Bishops are urging the setting up of an Anglican Faith and Order Commission to give “guidance” on controversial issues such as same-sex blessings and gay ordinations.

The commission was put forward as a proposal this week to the 650 bishops attending the Lambeth Conference as a way of preserving the future unity of the Anglican Communion. Insiders compared it with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body formerly headed by the present Pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and previously known as the Holy Office or Inquisition.

This morning’s “observations” document is the second in a series of three. The third will be published next week. The document says: “Anglicans are currently failing to recognise Church in one another.”

Read it all.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, Anglican Covenant, Anglican Identity, Instruments of Unity, Lambeth 2008, Windsor Report / Process

13 comments on “(Times): Anglican version of the 'inquisition' proposed to avoid future schism

  1. Toral1 says:

    The Inquisition! In England, Canada and the U.S.! This is quite a shock!

    But then: no one expects the Spanish Inquisition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uprjmoSMJ-o

  2. Dan Crawford says:

    What a headline. Just goes to show once again that reporting on religion in the print and electronic media is usually done by lazy people with obvious biases who have access to easy slogans and who are devoid of any knowledge of or understanding of religion, let alone history.

  3. Kendall Harmon says:

    The headline really bothered me but it is the one they went with. It is not only inaccurate but doesn’t help the present atmosphere. Remember in many (almost all?) cases the headline is not written by the article author.

  4. David Keller says:

    Read the end of this article. What we need is “consensus”. Consensus doesn’t mean 100% agreement. On same-sex unions and blessings and on lesbigay ordinations there is already consensus. This is what TEC has been doing for years. We keep having “conversations” until we orthodox change our minds, leave or die. For once I actually agree with the liberals. Let’s go with consensus–the one we already have.

  5. the roman says:

    Does an auto-de-fe always have to be a bad thing? Hhmmmmm??

  6. tired says:

    I suspect that Ruth was OK with the headline. Here is her first sentence: “An Anglican version of the Roman Catholic church’s “inquisition” is proposed today in a document seen by The Times.”

    She makes the Times sound more like the Guardian. Has she been sneaking meusli into the newsroom again?

    😉

  7. Jeffersonian says:

    Pray tell, what hideous tortures are being devised in the dungeons of Lambeth as we speak? Blended scotch? Bacon bits on the salad? Reading of a 50,000-word ++Rowan Williams exegesis on “Jesus Wept”? Oh, the horrors…

  8. libraryjim says:

    Jeffersonian,
    Given your examples, I might just decide for the Inquisiton form of torture over the modern. Less painful.

    JE <><

  9. Ad Orientem says:

    I took one look at the picture and caption at the top of the article and read no further. It was too insulting, and rendered anything that might have been written after it suspect at th very least. I hope someone will post an article on this subject that doesn’t begin by insulting people. I really wouldn’t mind finding out whats going on.

    ICXC NIKA
    [url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]

  10. austin says:

    Actually, the Spanish Inquisition (let alone the Roman office) was relatively benign and was far preferred as a jurisprudential model to the contemporary secular version of justice. Protestant and Enlightenment polemic gave the SI bogey man status–effectively, as it still seems to work. Elizabeth I’s thought police, under Cecil and Walshingham, and their papist purge were just as nasty as anything happening in the Roman church.

  11. libraryjim says:

    Well, Phil, you know —

    when you can’t convince people to come to your side by using five-dollar words like Indaba,

    then resort to name calling like “inquisition” and “Flat-Earthers” to describe your opponents. 🙄

    Peace
    Jim Elliott <><

  12. libraryjim says:

    sheesh, I can’t even tell to whom I am writing.

    That was addressed to AUSTIN, not PHIL.

  13. Laura R. says:

    [blockquote] Reading of a 50,000-word ++Rowan Williams exegesis on “Jesus Wept”? Oh, the horrors… [/blockquote]

    AAACK!!! No, please! Anything but that! I’ll say whatever you want!!