This week, the Vatican announced that it would make it easier for conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians–those uncomfortable with women priests and accepting gay people–to join the Roman Catholic Church. . .Reporters, however, have missed something important . . .
From the Independent (UK): The Big Question: Why is the Catholic church offering a home to congregations of Anglicans?
“The establishment of ‘Vatican Use’ in the Church of England will allow those who, in conscience, cannot accept all of the doctrinal and ecclesiological positions of the Pope of Rome to move to the Anglican communion, where you are not required to check your conscience and reason at the door of the church.” said Dr. Williams, while Archbishop Nichols looked on from the side.
The timing of the Rome’s announcement of an Apostolic Constitution was driven by the General Synod’s determination to allow women bishops in the Church of
After the news that the Vatican is effectively carving out a special church-within-a-church to shelter traditionalist Anglicans upset at gay priests and women bishops in their own church, one has to wonder if the cafeteria line isn’t forming to the right.
Pope Benedict XVI has created a new church structure for Anglicans who want to join the Catholic Church, responding to the disillusionment of some Anglicans over the ordination of women and the election of openly gay bishops, says the Associated Press. But the folks this story describes left the Anglican Communion long before Gene Robinson was consecrated.
The Archbishop of Canterbury needs to own some responsibility for the situation regarding homophobia in the Church being far worse than during his predecessor’s time. The Archbishop treats issues of sexuality only as ecclesiastical problems and solutions, denying theological insight and fresh thinking regarding this issue as given to other matters.
The Archdiocese of Sydney, one of the leading voices of conservative theology within the Anglican Communion, has suffered a huge financial loss in the past year. Peter Jensen, the Archbishop of the Diocese, is now wondering aloud about whether or not this loss constitutes God’s judgement upon them.
There’s a new development in the continuing story of the Diocese of Sydney’s decision to allow deacons to “celebrate” the Holy Eucharist as a way of avoiding having to ordain women to the priesthood. According to news reports in Australia a church court has been convened to hear a suit brought against Sydney by other Australian bishops.
Could you live with some of the suspect ecclesiological assertions in the covenant if signing on meant that the Communion Partner Bishops and Rectors, the Duncanites, the Minnsians, the Jensenites, et al. could no longer claim that the Episcopal Church’s membership in the Anglican Communion was in jeopardy?