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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Loss of the Religious Life
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
I've just heard that St Edward's House in Westminster has been sold to Westminster School to be converted into a new boarding house, thus closing the last British house of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist (SSJE).
Why is it, do you think, that Anglican religious orders still appear to be in decline (particularly the male ones) when the Catholic Church is experiencing something of a revival? I wonder whether it's because, under Benedict XVI, it's largely the traditionalist orders that are expanding, whereas young traditionalists in the C of E are less likely to want to take life vows in a church that has such unresolved issues and which is constantly changing.
Any thoughts?
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Please give the source of your claim that Roman Catholic religious communities are seeing increases in membership.
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
Well, it is largely based on my own experiences, but the more traditionalist orders I've come across do seem to have had a good few vocations in the last few years. The English Dominicans have a steady flow of novices, Downside, Ampleforth and Douai all have novices and/or juniors, the Transalpine Redemptorists in the Orkneys continue to grow and the Norbertines in Chelmsford had their third profession in four years last Monday.
Enough for you?
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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Offeiriad
Ship's Arboriculturalist
# 14031
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Posted
I saw one example recently: the international website of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) highlights the steady increase in the number of vocations they are experiencing.
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
(I should probably make it clear that I was referring to the Catholic Church in the UK, as a more direct comparison to the Church of England.)
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boat Boy:
Enough for you?
Of course not. You wouldn't take the fact that your neighbor had a baby this year as proof that the world's population is increasing.
--Tom Clune
[ 12. July 2012, 18:39: Message edited by: tclune ]
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
Well, my point was more about the decline of Anglican religious than the increas of Roman Catholic orders...
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
I wonder whether it has something to do with the disproportionate influx of women now that their calling to ministry is being recognised, so that the C of E is currently out of balance.
Religious orders in the C of E have surely been few in any case since Henry VIII?
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boat Boy:
Well, my point was more about the decline of Anglican religious than the increas of Roman Catholic orders...
I guess I misinterpreted your intentions. You appeared to be suggesting that the Anglicans were doing something wrong and the Catholics were doing something right. While that may be true, the insinuation that this can be gleaned from increasing or decreasing numbers is always suspect. Combine that with the increase or decrease being based on a feeling rather than a statistic, and the house of cards gets awfully tenuous.
--Tom Clune
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
Tom - I apologise; I can see how my original post could easily be interpreted that way.
Raptor - well, they all disappeared after the Reformation, but then orders for women reappeared in the 1840s and SSJE was the first of the new male orders, in the 1860s. There are still some around, such as the Franciscans, Alton and Elmore Abbeys (both Bendictine) and the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, for example, but the Cistercians at Ewell, SSJE in Oxford and London and the Society of the Sacred Mision at Kelham have all just about disappeared.
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(S)pike couchant
Shipmate
# 17199
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Posted
It is, and it's one of the great tragedies of the Church of England's recent history. It is perhaps unsurprising that Betjeman, whose poetry chronicles so neatly the decline of the Church from its highpoint ('Those were the days when that divine baroque/ Transformed our English altars and our ways.') through the disasters that began later twentieth century and continue to this day, should have written a wonderful gem of a poem on this subject:
Felixstowe, or the last of her order
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'Still the towers of Trebizond, the fabled city, shimmer on the far horizon, gated and walled' but Bize her yer Trabzon.
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
Oh yes, I'd forgotten that poem. I remember being called upon to explain the church references in A Level Engish lessons!
Rowan Williams described the religious life as 'the best kept secret in the Church of England', and though I have a great respect for his opinions I cannot see how that is a good thing - the lack of discussion about religious vocation is surely the life's greatest weakness?
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
I wonder whether it has something to do with the disproportionate influx of women now that their calling to ministry is being recognised, so that the C of E is currently out of balance.
from my pov, it's hard to see that state of affairs as "out of balance". It seems rather to be "finally balanced", or at least "more balanced".
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
Why should a 'disproportionate influx of women' (whatever one's opinion of the OOW) have any effect on men's orders? Women's orders remain much more numerous.
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Maybe it's just a subjective impression I've got, but it often seems to me that the more 'traditional' parts of anglo-catholicism have little interest in or contact with the religious life. Most Anglican orders, both of men and women, grew out of the Oxford Movement, but few members thereof these days would identify with the conservative FinF tendency.
There are many new religious orders, here or elsewhere in Europe, either those committed to the traditional vows especially celibacy, or 'new patterns' of monasticism including married people. Mostly they are ecumenical in ethos, like Taizé, or the Chemin Neuf community. Traditional orders are finding increasing numbers of people drawn to them as oblates, third order members or similar.
The community of which I have most knowledge is the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield. While its membership is not much more than a quarter of that in its heyday, it is in good heart, with a couple of novices and several enquiries in the pipeline.
The triumphalist days of the 1950s are well behind us, but the monastic movement has been a crucial part of the life of the Church since the earliest days and it will survive if God wants it (which I am sure She does). But Anglican orders need to be a bit more proactive about making themselves known, so that it is no longer 'the best-kept secret'. Parishes, and diocesan vocations advisers, can help a great deal by keeping that awareness before people.
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boat Boy:
Why should a 'disproportionate influx of women' (whatever one's opinion of the OOW) have any effect on men's orders? Women's orders remain much more numerous.
ISTM that it may have an effect on the perception of and attitudes toward the organisation as a whole where there has been a surge of female influence into a previously male-dominated culture, which has not yet settled into a balanced normality.
Those men called by God into a religious order may naturally migrate to an organisation which remains male-dominated?
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
quote:
Originally posted by Boat Boy:
Why should a 'disproportionate influx of women' (whatever one's opinion of the OOW) have any effect on men's orders? Women's orders remain much more numerous.
ISTM that it may have an effect on the perception of and attitudes toward the organisation as a whole where there has been a surge of female influence into a previously male-dominated culture, which has not yet settled into a balanced normality.
Those men called by God into a religious order may naturally migrate to an organisation which remains male-dominated?
Do you have an organisation in mind?
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
I wonder whether it has something to do with the disproportionate influx of women now that their calling to ministry is being recognised, so that the C of E is currently out of balance.
I don't know what this has to do with men's orders. Certainly one could argue that before OoW women with a vocation to full-time ministry might best fulfil it by joining an order.
An interesting angle on this debate might be One Foot in Eden by Alan Wilkinson. It is a novel telling the story of a young Anglican priest in the 1950s who became a monk and eventually the Superior of his community. It wouldn't win any prizes for literary merit but it is a very sensitive portrayal of how the Religious life flourished and survived in the C of E through the social, theological and liturgical changes of the 1960s and later.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Qoheleth.
Semi-Sagacious One
# 9265
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boat Boy:
There are still some around, such as the Franciscans, Alton and Elmore Abbeys (both Bendictine) ...
Alton received one novice in First Vows last week, with another novice and postulant in community. The Elmore community, of course, is now at Salisbury Priory.
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Posts: 2532 | From: the radiator of life | Registered: Apr 2005
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
Yes, I saw that - wonderful news.
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Qoheleth.
Semi-Sagacious One
# 9265
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
quote:
Originally posted by Boat Boy:
There are still some around, such as the Franciscans, Alton and Elmore Abbeys (both Bendictine) ...
Alton received one novice in First Vows last week, with another novice and postulant in community. The Elmore community, of course, is now at Salisbury Priory.
And let's not leave out Mucknell, also with a recent novice.
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The Benedictine Community at Alton Abbey offers a friendly, personal service for the exclusive supply of Rosa Mystica incense.
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Shire Dweller
Shipmate
# 16631
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Posted
No mention has yet been made of Mucknell Abbey.
They relocated from Oxfordshire to Worcestershire and have developed a small(ish) monastery there.
I know little about them other than their website though.
Cross posted, sorry!
[ 12. July 2012, 21:05: Message edited by: Shire Dweller ]
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Right around the Wrekin
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Joan Rasch
Shipmate
# 49
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Posted
I've got to note that while SSJE in the UK may closing its house, SSJE in North America (link here) is thriving. I worship at their chapel in Cambridge, MA every Sunday, along with an average of at least 50 other guests. In the last few months, I have witnessed one monk making initial vows, three novices clothed, another postulant in residence, and at least one more likely to arrive in the next couple of months. I could also mention the VERY successful program the past 9 months with 5 interns (both men and women) in residence both in Cambridge and at the rural site (Emory House). We all continue to enjoy the many happy results of the complete overhaul of the Cambridge Monastery and guest house.
As you will see by the website, SSJE is also very active in the on-line world.
What's their secret - I would say that on the one hand they are very centered in their life of prayer under their Rule, but are also very welcoming to guests and friends as well.
- Joan
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* A cyclist on the information bikepath
Posts: 509 | From: Boston, MA USA | Registered: May 2001
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
Thanks Joan, I remember meeting a couple of SSJE brothers who were visiting Oxford a few years ago. It's interesting to see how the British and American provinces of the order have developed in such different ways over the years.
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Shire Dweller:
No mention has yet been made of Mucknell Abbey.
....
I know little about them other than their website though.
From which it is interesting to note that their most recently professed brother is a Methodist presbyter 'in full connexion'.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
I think it's a numbers thing. CoE numbers are none too high, and AC congregations are (I think) a rather lower proportion of the CoE than they used to be. The pool of possible Anglican monastics will come primarily from AC congregations, so you would expect the number of vocations to have dropped off.
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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jlav12
Apprentice
# 17148
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Posted
This is entirely a personal opinion but I think the English Reformation and especially the publication of the Prayer Book made religious orders superfluous. The Prayer Book sought to eliminate the distinction between religious and secular by providing a common Office that was intended for everyone. Added to that there wasn't an Anglican expression of monasticism for ~300 years (~1535-~1835), which contained the "classical" Anglican period.
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boat Boy:
Why is it, do you think, that Anglican religious orders still appear to be in decline (particularly the male ones) when the Catholic Church is experiencing something of a revival?
This is just my observations, via being a long time reader of the blogs of a small smattering of US RC female orders, but I see a lot of women going in as postulants, but only a tiny fraction of them making it all the way to junior professed. Even then, I've seen a few who were JP not go on to life profession.
A conjecture, from the way I've heard some of these women talk, and talking to my RC female friends, is that if you're a woman who even shows the littlest inkling of interest in Roman Catholicism, you're pressed pretty hard to find your vocation in the monastery by priests and well meaning laypeople.
My experience as a woman who has shown the littlest inkling of interest in the Episcopal Church is that priests and well meaning laypeople keep asking me when I'm going to postulate for the priesthood. I'm usually the one in the room who knows more about Episcopal monastics than anyone else.
(And I'm also about this close to getting a t-shirt printed up that says "Called to the Laity" because I am fed right up with people assuming the diaconate and priesthood are merely the next steps in the career path towards being a Good Christian.)
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
I'd love that tee-shirt! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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tomsk
Shipmate
# 15370
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Posted
Boat Boy, would setting the numbers joining the religious life be better considered in the context of the numbers joining the priesthood? I gather that for the Catholics in the UK those numbers aren't too healthy.
There are also different forms of community (Iona, Lee Abbey).
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
The pool of possible Anglican monastics will come primarily from AC congregations,
Not necessarily. See my post above.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jlav12:
This is entirely a personal opinion but I think the English Reformation and especially the publication of the Prayer Book made religious orders superfluous. The Prayer Book sought to eliminate the distinction between religious and secular by providing a common Office that was intended for everyone.
Which might have worked if 'everyone' used it! The experiment lasted, as you say, for about 300 years but the need for religious orders eventually manifested itself.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
Roman Catholic religious orders, such as the Carmelites, talk about their "charism", which I take as the particular way of approaching and apprehending the Divine Grace they are gifted with as exemplified by their great saints, such as St John of the Cross and St Theresa of Avila.
Orthodox monks and nuns also have a clear idea of their mission, which is to dedicate their lives to hesychia, which is a thoroughly ascetic prayer life.
I think the heyday of Anglican monastic orders was in the late 19th Century which really represented a sort of Anglo-Catholic high tide.
Different Anglican religious orders seem to have different aims. Up until fairly recently I was connected with a First Order Anglican Franciscan church (SSF). They seemed a fairly stable, if somewhat ageing order, with one novice in Australasia. I believe other Provinces are more flourishing.
The monastic life would seem to be relatively unattractive to many moderns. Celibacy would seem rather counter-cultural these days. Ditto obedience. "Poverty" seems a relative term. More "non-individual ownership" of quite considerable resources.
I do not think there is a huge call to monasticism these days. I did consider becoming a tertiary at one stage but felt the local branch were merely playing games.
My gut feeling is that more and more people will be influenced by religious spirituality, be it Benedictine; Jesuit; Carmelite; whatever but they will tend to integrate it into their own lives, often by using appropriate prayer or devotional books, as there appear to be few genuinely accepted religious exemplars anywhere. Holiness is not gained by mere rote following nor by talk.
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Well...
Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
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StevHep
Shipmate
# 17198
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Posted
I spent some time a few years ago on retreat at the Cistercian monastery on Caldey Island. The buildings had previously been created by an Anglican religious community. Most of what now constitutes the monastic guest housed had originally been the private residence of the Anglican Abbott. The Cistercian Abbot inhabits a cell which is as simple as that of his brothers and this practice is fairly normative in modern Catholic monastic life.
The conclusion that the monks tended to draw from this was that Anglican monasticism suffers from being, in some senses, a self conscious 19th Century creation rather than being an organic, many centuries old tradition. Certainly it draws from the well of tradition but it draws from other sources too, and more specifically Anglican ones, which makes Anglican monasticism a unique experiment which is still in its early days. Give it another thousand years or so and we can begin to draw some solid conclusions about it.
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http://catholicscot.blogspot.co.uk/
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
I'd love that tee-shirt!
Another one, although I tend to say I am "vocationally lay"
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
SteveHep, I'm not sure I'd agree with you. I know the Mucknell community pretty well (and its previous incarnation at Burford) having been going there for almost 20 yrs now. They seem to me to be deeply rooted in the Rule and in Tradition generally, while aware of modern challenges. Over the years I've seen many people come and go, having tried their vocation, but the core community has grown slowly but surely.
Having visited Caldey several times as well (helping with school retreats in the guest house) I get the impression that the Anglicans there were a bit of an odd bunch. Mind you, that could be said of several figures in the Oxford Movement. I read somewhere that many of its leading lights were very hot on the idea of episcopal obedience - until it was actually applied to them when they screamed blue murder!
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Sir Pellinore
Quester Emeritus
# 12163
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Posted
I suppose a T-shirt would have to say more than:
"I'm just a lay".
"... laity" doesn't quite crack it.
Perhaps:
"Being laity is a perfectly respectable vocation".
"The church needs laity. Just for the money". ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
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Well...
Posts: 5108 | From: The Deep North, Oz | Registered: Dec 2006
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Boat Boy
Shipmate
# 13050
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Posted
Hmm, but can one really incorporate religious spirituality in one's own life? Yes, there's a roaring trade in prayer books based on the ideas of Francis or Benedict, but I'm not convinced that it's really possible to incorporate the charism if those orders (well, not the contemplative ones) into every-day life outside the cloister.
I suspect I also agree with the idea that, though Anglican orders follow ancient rules of life, they are also constantly challenged by the context of the wider Anglican church and that therefore makes it much of a challenge to simply 'relax' into the rule and way of life.
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
My gut feeling is that more and more people will be influenced by religious spirituality, be it Benedictine; Jesuit; Carmelite; whatever but they will tend to integrate it into their own lives, often by using appropriate prayer or devotional books, as there appear to be few genuinely accepted religious exemplars anywhere. Holiness is not gained by mere rote following nor by talk.
I'm sure that is true, and many lay people are taking Benedictine spirituality, Franciscan spirituality, or what have you into their lives. Either by becoming oblates/associates of communities, or more generally. Esther de Waal has written many books about the Rule of St Benedict and its relevance to everyday life. But ISTM that there will always need to be a core of committed, vowed religious for this wider constituency to relate to.
The peculiar historical circumstances of the 19th century revival in Anglicanism help to explain some of the crazier and more ultramontane expressions of monasticism like Fr Ignatius of Llanthony, and (slightly less crazy) the Benedictines of Caldey. But that age is long gone and no-one would survive two weeks in a modern Anglican monastery or convent if all they wanted to do was act out a medieval fantasy. The days when monks and nuns were trotted out as exotic extras on the set of Anglo-Catholic Congresses are long gone, as is the suspicion of the religious life on the part of all but an equally loony protestant fringe. Taizé and Iona (admittedly not a religious community in the traditional sense) have seen to that. The main problem is a lack of awareness of Anglican religious among many laity and parishes. Parish priests and vocations advisers should do more to publicise them.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
I suppose a T-shirt would have to say more than:
"I'm just a lay".
"... laity" doesn't quite crack it.
Perhaps:
"Being laity is a perfectly respectable vocation".
"The church needs laity. Just for the money".
Something like this perhaps?
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boat Boy:
Why is it, do you think, that Anglican religious orders still appear to be in decline (particularly the male ones) when the Catholic Church is experiencing something of a revival? I wonder whether it's because, under Benedict XVI, it's largely the traditionalist orders that are expanding, whereas young traditionalists in the C of E are less likely to want to take life vows in a church that has such unresolved issues and which is constantly changing.
Any thoughts?
Vision.
As far as I can tell the Anglican Communion has none of what it should be. The goal of liberals in the Anglican Communion appears to be catching up with the surrounding population morally - hardly a vision to inspire someone to devote their life to. The goal of the conservatives at the moment appears to be to try to prevent the liberals from changing anything. And that's no more inspiring.
On the other hand I may emphatically disagree with the RCC but it has a vision of what the world should be like and presents it. And because that's a vision it's something people see and that does encourage people to devote their life to it.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spiffy:
(And I'm also about this close to getting a t-shirt printed up that says "Called to the Laity" because I am fed right up with people assuming the diaconate and priesthood are merely the next steps in the career path towards being a Good Christian.)
Spiffy - that is absolutely wonderful. Totally agree.
The religious life is vitally important.
Betjeman's poem Felixstowe, quoted above, I find deeply moving. The point being surely that the vocation of the nun is most powerful when all the concrete expressions have gone: "Safe from the vain world's silly sympatising, safe with the love that I was born to know".
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Boat Boy
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# 13050
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Posted
I think there's a general consensus that one of the main causes of the lack of vocations is a lack of publicity, either by communities or by parishes and dioceses that wish to support them.
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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Albertus
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# 13356
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Posted
Agreed. I don't think I've ever worshipped at a church which has even mentioned vocations to the religious life as something that might suit some people, let alone actively sought to foster them. It might just be that I attend the 'wrong' sort of churches for that kind of thing, of course, but IME the CofE/CinW is, with a few honourable exceptions, actually pretty lousy at actively fostering vocations to more 'mainstream' ministry too, so being a monk or nun isn't really going to get much of a look in at all.
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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.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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(S)pike couchant
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# 17199
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Agreed. I don't think I've ever worshipped at a church which has even mentioned vocations to the religious life as something that might suit some people, let alone actively sought to foster them.
Really? I'm pretty sure that 'vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and religious life' was mentioned in the prayers at Benediction last time I went. I will concede, however, that vocations to the religious life are mentioned far less frequently than those to the priesthood. Every parish I've ever attended has had pamphlets and posters about priestly vocations. The most common one, which I think comes from the ACS, has a picture of a man in a chasuble and says something like 'called to serve and to lead: at the altar, in the pulpit, amongst the people'. This focus is understandable and appropriate give the serious priest shortage faced by the Church of England, but it does mean that the religious life tends to get sidelined.
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'Still the towers of Trebizond, the fabled city, shimmer on the far horizon, gated and walled' but Bize her yer Trabzon.
Posts: 308 | From: West of Eden, East of England | Registered: Jul 2012
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Boat Boy
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# 13050
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Posted
I'd agree partially with both of you - I've been to many Anglican (usually FinF types) that have ACS posters and the like amongst the leaflets at the back, but I can't ever remember anyone prompting a consideration of religious vocation. Secular priesthood, yes, but not the religious life. That includes the likes of Pusey House where, one would hope, such orders would have great support. The only times I've ever been able to seriously discuss it have been when I've bumped into religious (we had a CR Father running a mission at the school in which I teach this year).
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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Angloid
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# 159
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Posted
FinF and ACS are hardly likely to encourage people to visit Anglican religious communities since they will inevitably encounter monks and nuns who are enthusiastic supporters of women in the priesthood, and indeed the latter may very often be such.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Boat Boy
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# 13050
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Posted
I'm sure FinF is more actively supportive of religious communities than any other society or identifiable group in the CofE, though of course that is purely conjecture...
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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(S)pike couchant
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# 17199
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
FinF and ACS are hardly likely to encourage people to visit Anglican religious communities since they will inevitably encounter monks and nuns who are enthusiastic supporters of women in the priesthood, and indeed the latter may very often be such.
I don't think that's true at all. In fact, I think it's categorically untrue. Most Anglo-Catholic parishes maintain links to religious communities. I know for a fact that Pusey House does, and I believe the Holy Week preacher at Bourne Street this year was a member of the Community of the Resurrection.
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'Still the towers of Trebizond, the fabled city, shimmer on the far horizon, gated and walled' but Bize her yer Trabzon.
Posts: 308 | From: West of Eden, East of England | Registered: Jul 2012
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Boat Boy
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# 13050
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Posted
What links does Pusey have? Ascot Priory doesn't count now that Mother Cecilia has died!
Posts: 151 | From: The deep south (of the Home Counties) | Registered: Oct 2007
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