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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: New Bishop of Sheffield anti women's ordination
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iamchristianhearmeroar
Shipmate
# 15483
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Posted
The way I would consider it is this: why when the CofE has officially come to a clear decision* that both men and women may be ordained to all three orders of ministry are we *increasing* the number of diocesan bishops who will not ordain women? Perhaps it will be that the next bishop of London will ordain women, in which case there would be no change, but it's impossible to know who that will be.
* This is apparent from the five guiding principles, especially 1 and 2 but also 4.
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
The way I would consider it is this: why when the CofE has officially come to a clear decision* that both men and women may be ordained to all three orders of ministry are we *increasing* the number of diocesan bishops who will not ordain women?
Because brilliantly, although it's the reason I stayed in it I accept it's probably lunacy, what the CofE has actually done is come to a clear decision that both men and women may be ordained to all three orders of ministry but that it's fine to believe that they can't and the church will make accommodation for that fact at all three orders of ministry.
Essentially, they've bent over backwards to avoid confronting the fact that logically they've replaced a glass ceiling for women with a stained glass ceiling for dissenters. Which, of course, they have, but until the events of last week they didn't want to say that.
Partly this is because the situation on the ground is such a mess. Take, Sheffield diocese for example - nearly a third of its priests are women, but apparently (according to Thinking Anglicans) around 20% of its worshippers are under a PEV because they won't accept a bishop who ordains women. Whether that's ConEvo churches with lots of congregants and money or a large number of small Trad AC shacks I don't know but it's a significant percentage.
I've got no idea what the figures are like in other dioceses but it seems to me that *anyone* is going to struggle to be a "focus of unity" as bishop in those circumstances.
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Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Callan
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# 525
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Posted
A shipmate who used to be a regular in Ecclesiantics once argued that there ought to be a suffragan Bishop in every Diocese who didn't ordain women. I think that's probably too many surplus Bishops but I think a restoration of the PEVs might make more sense than imposing a Bishop on a Diocese which is largely in favour of OoW.
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kingsfold
Shipmate
# 1726
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Posted
But the Diocese has six seats on the CNC & the House of clergy has three as does the house of laity. Plus the two Archbishops. So the representatives of the diocese do get a say in who they have imposed on them.
Yes, a bloc vote by everyone outside the diocese could overrule the diocesan reps, but how likely is that in practice? All of which suggests to me that there was support for the appointment of Philip North from within the Diocese.
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
A shipmate who used to be a regular in Ecclesiantics once argued that there ought to be a suffragan Bishop in every Diocese who didn't ordain women. I think that's probably too many surplus Bishops but I think a restoration of the PEVs might make more sense than imposing a Bishop on a Diocese which is largely in favour of OoW.
I can't remember who the proposer at Synod was in 1992 but it was actually seriously considered that that should be the case at benefice level, let alone diocesan! It was called the *name-of-proposer* scheme - would never have worked (on numbers of clergy quite apart from anything else) but it was mooted.
I do think at this stage the sensible way forward would be a third province (ducks for cover). I understand entirely why it kept getting ruled out but we are where we are.
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Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
Incidentally, the PEVs don't really need restoring - they're still there, it's just now they deal with letters of request rather than Res ABC. Flying bishops are alive and well.
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iamchristianhearmeroar
Shipmate
# 15483
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Posted
I was for years against a third province, but actually betjemaniac I now agree with you on this.
Conservative Catholics have essentially taken steps to create a church within a church. I find that regrettable but understandable. Why not formalise that as a third non geographical province?
We have come this far without either side persuading the other of the veracity of its cause. The mixed economy approach does not seem to be working on the ground, vis Sheffield, so why not formalise what is a reality?
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The Man with a Stick
Shipmate
# 12664
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
A shipmate who used to be a regular in Ecclesiantics once argued that there ought to be a suffragan Bishop in every Diocese who didn't ordain women. I think that's probably too many surplus Bishops but I think a restoration of the PEVs might make more sense than imposing a Bishop on a Diocese which is largely in favour of OoW.
I can't remember who the proposer at Synod was in 1992 but it was actually seriously considered that that should be the case at benefice level, let alone diocesan! It was called the *name-of-proposer* scheme - would never have worked (on numbers of clergy quite apart from anything else) but it was mooted.
I do think at this stage the sensible way forward would be a third province (ducks for cover). I understand entirely why it kept getting ruled out but we are where we are.
Deanery, not benefice, if memory serves. (Well, I was 6 at the time. If memory from what I've read about it serves).
Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Man with a Stick:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
A shipmate who used to be a regular in Ecclesiantics once argued that there ought to be a suffragan Bishop in every Diocese who didn't ordain women. I think that's probably too many surplus Bishops but I think a restoration of the PEVs might make more sense than imposing a Bishop on a Diocese which is largely in favour of OoW.
I can't remember who the proposer at Synod was in 1992 but it was actually seriously considered that that should be the case at benefice level, let alone diocesan! It was called the *name-of-proposer* scheme - would never have worked (on numbers of clergy quite apart from anything else) but it was mooted.
I do think at this stage the sensible way forward would be a third province (ducks for cover). I understand entirely why it kept getting ruled out but we are where we are.
Deanery, not benefice, if memory serves. (Well, I was 6 at the time. If memory from what I've read about it serves).
Sorry yes I meant deanery. Why I therefore wrote benefice I can't imagine.....
[ 17. March 2017, 09:39: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]
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TomM
Shipmate
# 4618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
I was for years against a third province, but actually betjemaniac I now agree with you on this.
Conservative Catholics have essentially taken steps to create a church within a church. I find that regrettable but understandable. Why not formalise that as a third non geographical province?
We have come this far without either side persuading the other of the veracity of its cause. The mixed economy approach does not seem to be working on the ground, vis Sheffield, so why not formalise what is a reality?
I'm not sure that it's true that the traditionalists are more withdrawn. Some probably are, but my experience is that under the 5GP they are more involved, and less ghettoized than they were.
What steps are you identifying that they've taken to the contrary?
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TomM:
Some probably are, but my experience is that under the 5GP they are more involved, and less ghettoized than they were.
I'd totally agree with that from my own experience - the real militant tendency went to the Ordinariate straightaway. What was left on the Trad AC side were people who wanted to give it a go. Anecdotally, the Trad AC were much easier to deal with when the legislation was making its way through Synod than the ConEvos were - for "my" side it was all about having the space to flourish, no overt glass ceilings, and away you go.
Unfortunately that involved taking a lot on trust - and I recognise that that was needed on both sides after the leadership of the Taliban AC tendency during the 1990s and 2000s.
Where we've got to know is a lot of very upset people (admittedly on both sides but we're talking specifically about the Trad ACs here) - who find it difficult not to think that it was all along a case of "thanks for getting to a compromise which would see the legislation through, don't let the door hit you on your way out now we don't have to humour you."
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
I suppose, overall, I just feel betrayed by my church - and it wasn't even me who was going to Sheffield.
I appreciate that there're plenty of people who would have felt betrayed had +Philip been put into place, but the upshot is somebody was going to have their heart broken whichever way it went.
The CofE have decided it's fine to believe women can be priests, and that they can't. In some ways I genuinely wish they had just told us to clear off in the first place. But I suppose avoiding saying that openly has salved a few consciences somewhere.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
I would like to know the following statistics.
Given the number of New Bishops created since Women could be, what proportion of them were women?
Jengie
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TomM
Shipmate
# 4618
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Posted
Roughly:
12 men and 8 women have been appointed to suffragan sees, with a further 2 vacant or with a retirement announced.
5 men and 2 women to diocesan sees, with a further 4 vacant or becoming vacant (one of those 4 being Sheffield)
Some of these might have been appointed just before it was possible to choose a woman, I'm only digging so far!!
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
That is fine. My digging had got me nowhere. Can I just check, if you know, whether the diocesan were not suffragans beforehand?
Jengie
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Just to say that given those figures there is no evidence that men are being preferred to women as suffragan bishops, there is a 1 in 4 chance of getting this or a more extreme result if the odds were equal.
I would expect a delay with Diocesan Bishops due to them quite often being a second Bishop appointment.
Jengie
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Thanks
When I check for diocese then only the women in that time were not at least suffragans. So ten women to twelve men became Bishops since women could be.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Charles Read
Shipmate
# 3963
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Posted
Resolution:
news of episcopacy
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"This is just unfocussed wittering." Ian McIntosh
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
The diocesan website- the diocesan website- refers to Dr Wilcox as 'The Very Revd Wilcox' ! ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
As bad as our ABC (the equivalent of the BBC). Not so long ago, it referred to a rector as being "the reverend at the church"!!!!!!
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
bump
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Jemima the 9th
Shipmate
# 15106
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Posted
A small thing, but as a little coda to the story, this really made me smile. I'm a huge fan of Catherine Fox's novels.
Posts: 801 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2009
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
And another evangelical. The bench of bishops has become dangerously skewed, which bodes ill for those in the from the middle of the candle up.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
But he was appointed. For good or ill, the decision was made, following due process, that +Philip North was the man for the job. If the point of the 'mutual flourishing' exercise was that a man with his beliefs should be as eligible to become a diocesan as any other candidate, then it worked. He was appointed.
Then he withdrew. Not as a result of failure in process or procedure, but because of personal insults and attacks. This is not about the process being affected or subverted by personal insult and attack (cf Jeffrey John) but because he couldn't take it. Maybe he was unprepared, maybe the insults in his direction were more virulent, obnoxious and offensive than those directed at senior women clergy, women bishops or Jeffrey John over the years although that seems ... unlikely. But nothing in this whole debacle tells me that the process is not fully capable of appointing another man who does not recognise the priestly orders of many of his clergy as a diocesan. Maybe the next one will be less loved, less pastoral, less supportive, but a bit thicker skinned.
anne
This, really. Phillip North was appointed. The Church decided that it could appoint a senior leader who represented a minority strand of thought within its ranks. The process worked, cobbled-together compromise though it may be.
Comparisons with Jeffrey John are inappropriate. North was not told to step aside by an Archbishop who got cold feet, nor did he have his appointment blocked by a cabal of bigots (As in the recent Llandaff fiasco). He just couldn't take the flak that is inevitably attracted by espousing minority opinions (or virtually any opinion at all, these days). Perhaps he doesn't have the right stuff, after all.
It is hardly suprising that an evangelical has been called to step into the breach. Whether or not you agree with them (and I don't, usually), it has to be admitted that they are generally prepared to tough it out.
[ 12. April 2017, 18:58: Message edited by: Rocinante ]
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
I don't see it as being about being thicker skinned at all. It's about being the default option, that the dynamics within the church make unassailable. If the previous appointee had had those dynamics behind him, his skin would not have been flayed in the way it was.
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TomM
Shipmate
# 4618
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Posted
I agree, it's not a question of being thick skinned or not. More, given the entirety of time, he would be having to deal with this question, did he feel he could effectively get on with being a bishop, leading the mission of the Church in the way that it was thought to be discerned that he would.
+Philip turning down the post isn't him saying "I can't take the flak" but "If all I'm going to do is fight battles over this issue, I can't do what the church has called me to do here."
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
If Phillip North is as gifted and saintly as his supporters say he is (and as many of his opponents acknowledge him to be), he should have put those gifts to the test of diocesan leadership and hopefully won over the haters. That is the only way the Church of England can survive in its present form, without losing many of its members and clergy to Rome.
Yes, it would have been hard. Boo-hoo. At least he was offered the chance to try.
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TomM
Shipmate
# 4618
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Posted
But if you've got a group of haters that are demonstrating they are not listening and not engaging with anything you offer, you do not get the opportunity to win them over, because they are not listening.
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
There's plenty of that in both directions. It's not an excuse for just giving up.
Those who are sincere in their Christian beliefs will be amenable to having their minds changed by a truly good bishop of whatever stripe.
(I realise that's flirting with the "no true Scotsman" argument!)
[ 13. April 2017, 12:50: Message edited by: Rocinante ]
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Having been, in a very minor way, on the receiving end of 'flak' from evangelicals over something Philip North has my sympathy.
IME there was no question of engaging in discussion: I was told I was "not a Christian", that I shouldn't "pollute the church" with my presence and that the day was coming when "people like you will be made to conform or go to the Roman Catholic church, where you belong." Some of the worst personal attacks came from a ConEvo clergyman.
Do tell me, how is a bishop, a pastor, meant to minister to people that strident and that willing to be unpleasant?
If the ABofC and the Crown Appointments people had any guts they should have presented Sheffield with another AC bishop-designate.
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
I've also had my share of run-ins with con evos and those of other flavours as well (I've stopped trying to keep track of all the cliques and clubs within the Anglican church, life really is too short..) I tend to just smile faintly and promise to say a Hail Mary for them, or some such.
Loving your enemies is never easy, but if we can't even do it among ourselves then the church is finished. I'm sorry, but saying "I could love my enemies if only they'd stop being my enemies and let me love them" won't cut it.
And perhaps, just perhaps is what I'm saying, if your theological position causes so many people to react so violently, it might just be time to rethink your theology, maybe nuance it a bit? There's only so much mileage in playing the victim.
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
In the Catholic tradition as I understand it there is no space for the prophet-bishop. A bishop cannot tough it out, cannot do the things you are demanding.
If they cannot bring their diocese together, they are not being a bishop. This is why Philip North withdrew: he stood no chance of being a bishop as that tradition understands one.
I don't entirely agree with this either; I think there has to be something of the prophet in anyone who seeks to be a true leader, who will be abrasive and take abrasion when necessary. But that is not his tradition, and it never will be.
The same thing stymied Rowan Williams's tenure as ABC as well: he couldn't allow himself to be his naturally prophetic self.
[edited to remove bolding as it looked rather too shouty]
[ 13. April 2017, 20:50: Message edited by: ThunderBunk ]
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
A hardline opponent of women's ordination who thinks he can immediately unite any diocese around him as bishop (unless it's Chichester) is being profoundly naïve. Any such bishop will have to pursue a prophetic ministry, in that he will have to go out and show the people of his diocese, by words and deeds, why it is wrong to believe that a traditionalist anglo-catholic cannot be a good diocesan bishop. What form such a ministry might take, I have no idea, but then I have no objection to women's ordination and I have no call (that I can discern) to be a bishop.
Following Thunderbunk's comments about the role of a bishop in anglo-catholic tradition (which I take on trust, the ways of anglo-catholicism passing way beyond my understanding), is it therefore impossible for a traditionalist AC to be an effective bishop in the modern Church of England? Philip North is already a bishop, and people speak highly of his ministry, including many women and those who do not share his theological positions. I would therefore conclude that he has to some extent been pursuing the sort of "prophetic" ministry I outlined above. Undoubtedly this has been costly for him, but I do not think he would have been placed in an impossible position in Sheffield, another Northern City like his current Diocese.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
The key point is that +Philip is not currently a diocesan Bishop - he doesn't have that same responsibility for the unity of the diocese. The relationship under scrutiny here is between the priests of a diocese and their diocesan Bishop, with whose licence they officiate.
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
Thank you. So would it be fair to say that the main problem with Phillip North's appointment was that he would be in effect licensing priests whose orders he did not recognise as valid? Unless a way is found out of that impasse, the stained glass ceiling will apply at suffragan level, and no further attempt should be made to appoint a non-ordaining diocesan to an ordaining diocese.
That resolves the issue for me to some extent. I felt that all this talk of opposition and hate mail was a bit of a smokescreen. Prominent figures on both sides of this debate are well used to a bit of aggro.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
This would have been new territory, I think. +Philip North was willing to give it a go, recognising that it was for him to make accommodations as far as he could. It could have been a disaster or it could have been a model of how this could work. But he didn't get a chance to try because some shouty middle-class people in Oxford stirred up a fuss. They should be bloody well ashamed of themselves. End of.
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Jemima the 9th
Shipmate
# 15106
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Posted
Albertus, can you explain the second part a bit to an interested observer but not one close to the action, please? I know there were objections to Philip North's appt from some of the female clergy in Sheffield, but what's Oxford got to with it? And what has their class to do with it?
(Confession, I am spectacularly middle class, so if being middle class is used in what looks like a derogatory way, the hackles are up pretty quickly).
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Lucia
Looking for light
# 15201
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Posted
I would imagine Albertus is referring to Martyn Percy, the dean of Christ Church, Oxford and his interventions as described here.
Posts: 1075 | From: Nigh golden stone and spires | Registered: Oct 2009
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Yes, that's it. Martyn & Emma Percy. What made me so cross about this is that there is every reason to think that +Philip North would have made an excellent bishop for a diocese with some really difficult socio-economic problems, but because he didn't line up on this one issue- although he was prepared to make some accommodations and although female clergy who had worked with him before spoke highly of him, toys were thrown out of prams in the Christ Church deanery garden and the fallout put the kybosh on what could have been a chance to work out something new which might, just might, have pleasantly surprised everybody.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jemima the 9th:
Albertus, can you explain the second part a bit to an interested observer but not one close to the action, please? I know there were objections to Philip North's appt from some of the female clergy in Sheffield, but what's Oxford got to with it? And what has their class to do with it?
(Confession, I am spectacularly middle class, so if being middle class is used in what looks like a derogatory way, the hackles are up pretty quickly).
Philip North has made some excellent statements on class issues within the CoE (namely that the CoE totally ignores working-class communities in favour of being a middle-class social club) and it's not surprising that the thought of more working-class people contaminating the CoE (in their mind) horrified some people. Martyn Percy is the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.
It is striking that the people who kicked up such a fuss about Philip North's supposed sexism are very slow to be concerned about classism within the CoE. There's apparently no room for those who cannot accept women as priests, but also no room for those who want the priesthood to be less white and middle-class. Acting like middle-class people are the victims here is like saying white people are the real victims of racism.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Yes, that's it. Martyn & Emma Percy. What made me so cross about this is that there is every reason to think that +Philip North would have made an excellent bishop for a diocese with some really difficult socio-economic problems, but because he didn't line up on this one issue- although he was prepared to make some accommodations and although female clergy who had worked with him before spoke highly of him, toys were thrown out of prams in the Christ Church deanery garden and the fallout put the kybosh on what could have been a chance to work out something new which might, just might, have pleasantly surprised everybody.
Amen and amen. The Percys should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. All the women clergy I know who have worked with or know Philip North speak very highly of him. Any protest came from people who didn't know him.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Jemima the 9th
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# 15106
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Posted
Thanks for the enlightenment, all. I appreciate it. I can certainly see Albertus's point in that Philip North's appt might just have pleasantly surprised everybody, and it is a shame that we won't now know.
However, we won't know about the possible positives which could have come from his appt, but we also have the unknown unknowns ![[Biased]](wink.gif) (sorry) which come from the absence of the appt of women to that role over the decades.
I keep coming back to anne's post on the previous page:
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
Then he withdrew. Not as a result of failure in process or procedure, but because of personal insults and attacks. This is not about the process being affected or subverted by personal insult and attack (cf Jeffrey John) but because he couldn't take it. Maybe he was unprepared, maybe the insults in his direction were more virulent, obnoxious and offensive than those directed at senior women clergy, women bishops or Jeffrey John over the years although that seems ... unlikely. But nothing in this whole debacle tells me that the process is not fully capable of appointing another man who does not recognise the priestly orders of many of his clergy as a diocesan. Maybe the next one will be less loved, less pastoral, less supportive, but a bit thicker skinned.
....and I remember what I've read over the years on the ship about women at ordination being spat at as they processed up the aisle. So yes, aren't we all of us a bunch of bastards. It's horrible that North was on the receiving end of personal insults. There must have been more to it than the Percys, surely?
I was disappointed by Percy's intervention as reported in the Guardian link above - all that going on about Sheffield being a forward looking city. No doubt it is, but that isn't the point. If you're a theologian, for goodness' sake make the theological point in favour of women's ordination. Any idiot can see that the church is out of step with good practice in modern society here, but the point is the theological one - either it's the right thing to ordain women, or it isn't. (Or, possibly, it might be, but we don't know, so we'd better not, just to be sure).
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:...it's not surprising that the thought of more working-class people contaminating the CoE (in their mind) horrified some people. ...
Perhaps it's my middle class privilege speaking here, but I can't see any evidence of that.
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
It is striking that the people who kicked up such a fuss about Philip North's supposed sexism are very slow to be concerned about classism within the CoE. There's apparently no room for those who cannot accept women as priests, but also no room for those who want the priesthood to be less white and middle-class. Acting like middle-class people are the victims here is like saying white people are the real victims of racism.
Had a lovely chat last night with one of my best mates who lives in Chichester diocese. She regularly attends 2 churches there & is much involved in children's work etc. There's a women priest appointed to the team of churches (forgive my ignorance of the technical term, we have a similar scheme of team ministry here in my part of the east) but of course she can't officiate at communion in one of those churches. There are parts of the country where there's plenty of room for those who don't support OOW.
I don't think the comparison with racism flies, unless there are no working class women. Don't lots of us have privilege in some ways and disadvantage in others? I'll agree that the CofE can be incredibly middle class in places, but there's an awful lot of keeping out the others. It is ridiculously clubby, but there's more to it than class. One of the difficulties I find is the exclusion of those who don't know How Things Are Done, for eg.
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
Should have said that there is one, just one, thing that IMO really should have stood in +North's way and that was his connection with The Society. I think he should have been told that if he were to accept the nomination to Sheffield he should cut all ties with this outfit. I don't know whether he was or wasn't and, if he was, how he responded.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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TomM
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# 4618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Should have said that there is one, just one, thing that IMO really should have stood in +North's way and that was his connection with The Society. I think he should have been told that if he were to accept the nomination to Sheffield he should cut all ties with this outfit. I don't know whether he was or wasn't and, if he was, how he responded.
I'm curious as to what about membership of the Society you think means it is impossible to be a diocesan bishop? (And should +Chichester also be asked to resign, as he's also a member - the group is newer than his diocesan tenure).
And what about other groups? WATCH don't have a membership list of any sort that I can see on their website, but would membership be acceptable for a diocesan? I think +Newcastle has been involved, but I don't know.
And which other groups would/wouldn't be acceptable? How would the Company of Mission Priests, the Society of Catholic Priests, the Society of the Holy Cross or the Sodality of Mary stand?
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
What i think is objectionable about The Society is its register of 'sound' clergy: see here for the registration declaration for priests, and especially the points about having been ordained in the historic male line and only concelebrating with, and receiving communion from, male clergy ordained in that line. ISTM that:
(i) You can't go digging around into ordination history to check that there's no woman in there way back when (as may doubtless become the case over time)without essentially setting up a priesthood within the priesthood
(ii) There's a difference between quietly avoiding situations where you might have a conscientious objection to participation- which I think could just be possible, even for a diocesan bishop- and making a declaration that you will do so, so that you can go onto the 'approved' list. Quiet avoidance gives some room for mutual flourishing: making declarations of theological conviction narrows that room down.
Oh, and yes, +Chichester and all the other bishops should be asked to resign from in. in fact the whole bloody thing should be suppressed by the Archbishops, although I doubt whether they have the legal power to do so or, if the have, the balls to use it. Every bit as objectionable as those parallel structures that some conevos are setting up (again, without AFAICS an adequately robust response from the Archbishops).
[ 17. April 2017, 10:07: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
registration document for priests is here
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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