On the Gathering of Anglicans

On release of the TCA letter to Rome Archbishop Hepworth followed it with a pastoral letter titled "On the Gathering of Anglicans" that outlines clearly many of the aspects of the Apostolic Constitution.


“On the Gathering of Anglicans”

The Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus

A Pastoral Letter to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Traditional Anglican Communion

20th January 2010

My Dear Fathers, Brothers and Sisters,

Introduction: the dreams of Christian unity

Few things could be expected to excite more controversy than the reunion of churches that have long been living in animosity.

Europe, and the world that Europe colonised, has been shaped in its languages, its politics, its law, as well as its religion, in large part by those animosities. The identity and culture of people and nations have been significantly shaped by religious conflict and division.

The healing of religious division has been one of the most welcome features of 20th century Christianity. The great conflicts of the last century between Christianity and communism, and between Christianity and Fascism, that turned that century into one of the most persecuting since the great persecutions of the Roman Empire, diminished the sense of division and emphasised the wisdom of unity.

In the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church embraced the vision of unity. For Anglicans, dramatic meetings occurred between Archbishops of Canterbury and Bishops of Rome. With great optimism the two churches embarked on theological examinations of the issues that had divided them for centuries and began what at first were tentative and awkward steps in cooperation. Even praying in each other’s churches demanded a confrontation with the habits and assumptions of generations.

At the same time, Christians in Europe and in the Third World began to experience the challenges of a militant and fundamentalist Islam. Confrontation and persecution began afresh.
In Europe and the developed world, a renewed interest in pagan and humanist philosophy, combined with a diminished sense of identity of Christians with their churches led to a dramatic diminishing of religious practice and belief.

It was against this background that the Anglican/Roman Catholic dialogue took place. At first optimistic, the dream of full organic unity – what Pope Paul VI described as the supreme grace of true and perfect unity in faith and communion – faded from reality.

I raise these issues because it is of great importance now that people in our Communion clearly understand why Archbishop Falk, Bishop Crawley of Canada and myself stood in St Peter’s Square, Rome some 17 years ago. We had spent the day with the Pontifical Council for Christian unity, briefing it on the developments within the Anglican Communion that had led to the formation of the Traditional Anglican Communion and of our yearning for the unity that was even then becoming improbable between the Anglican Communion and Rome. The publication by Pope Benedict XVI of the Apostolic Constitution is the culmination of the prayers, dreams and efforts of Traditional Anglican Communion bishops for a quarter of a century, and of the prayers, dreams and efforts of many other Anglicans around the world. In his recent letter to our bishops, Cardinal Levada spoke to us of the delicate process of discernment that will no doubt need to be embarked upon by many of our Anglican brothers and sisters, and no less of the many difficult practical issues that will need to be faced. I speak to you now, as the one whom my fellow bishops elected to carry through the work of unity between the Traditional Anglican Communion and the Holy See, to assist and deepen that delicate process of discernment.

Our Petition

As is normal in such circumstances, our petition to the Holy See has remained confidential until a formal response has been received. The letters to those who signed the petition mark that formal response. As a result, in order to deepen our understanding and promote discussion, I am releasing the petition with this pastoral letter.

The petition notes the history of recent Roman/Anglican conversations, and the extraordinary note of optimism in the 1960s. It then notes the abandonment by the Anglican Communion of those things held by Rome and Holy Orthodoxy as essential to Apostolic Faith. It then notes the development of the Anglican resistance and the faithfulness that began with the conference at St Louis. The teaching of the Affirmation of St Louis is set out, particularly as it relates to the sacramental life of the Church and the nature of the Church itself.

The petition particularly notes the words of the Affirmation where it states we declare our firm intention to seek and achieve full sacramental communion and the visible unity with other
Christians who worship the Trinity in unity and unity in Trinity and who hold the Catholic and apostolic Faith in accordance with the foregoing principles.

Our Communion has always understood that those words apply most significantly to the Catholic Church. (I might add, lest there be any confusion, that I use the word Catholic Church as the formal entity headed by the Bishop of Rome, and which consists of a number of Rites, some in the East and some in the West, of which the Roman Rite is the most populous. In common conversation, of course, it is called the Roman Catholic Church in many parts of the world. In a part of the petition where we quote a Roman authority, the words Roman Catholic Church are actually used.)

The petition then notes the formation of the Traditional Anglican Communion and its spread. It indicates the way in which its growth has been shaped by the advice given at that first meeting 17 years ago in Rome. It notes the expansive process of consultation and synodical debate that had already taken place as a precondition for the petition being submitted.

Then comes the heart of the petition. Firstly, it knowledge the wide consultation with Roman Catholic people throughout the world. One observation was particularly influential in the 12 months during which the petition was being prepared. It accurately describes the founding purpose of our Communion, and then goes on to acknowledge the four great aspects of the Anglican heritage that we desire to be cherished in any unity:

Because the Lord has not yet returned in glory, the complete unity and communion of believers for which He prayed has not yet been achieved, but each believer and each church and ecclesial community, recognising the life-changing unity engendered by our shared baptism, is called to make Christian unity a lifelong commitment, just as we are called to spread the Gospel to the whole world.

Recognising that obligation, and with great confidence in the Lord and in the power of the Holy Spirit, a worldwide community of Anglican Christians has united under the name “The Traditional Anglican Communion” for three main purposes:

• To identify, reaffirm and consolidate in its community the elements of belief, sacraments, structure and conduct that mark the Church of Christ, which is one throughout the world:

• To seek as a body full and visible communion, particularly eucharistic communion, in Christ, with the Roman Catholic Church, in which it recognises the fullest subsistence of Christ’s one Church; and

• To achieve such communion while maintaining those revered traditions of spirituality, liturgy, discipline and theology that constitute the cherished and centuries-old heritage of Anglican communities throughout the world.

The Bishops and Vicars-General who assented to the petition and solemnly signed it on the altar then make four solemn declarations.

The first concerns the Ministry of the Bishop of Rome. The late Pope John Paul II wrote to the churches that are not in communion with the Bishop of Rome, setting out in fresh language and in the light of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council the ministry exercised by that Bishop, and seeking the views of those churches on the way in which they could use his ministry of unity and authority. Unity and authority are the two qualities that have most eluded the churches of the Reformation. Anglican history is riddled with the problems caused by lack of authority. Recent Anglican history has seen the creation of one instrument of unity after another, but no one has discovered an instrument by which authentic teaching can be given to God’s Anglican people. The bishops in their petition described the limits on their exercise of authentic apostolic authority that is created by their lack of communion (especially Eucharistic communion) with catholic bishops throughout the world.

The second declaration concerns the nature of the Church. It is fundamental to the life of the church that its bishops and the churches they lead be in Eucharistic Communion with the See of Rome to which bishops of the ancient church looked as the instrument of unity and Catholic authenticity. At the same time, reflecting the Second Vatican Council, the bishops did not deny the unity that already exists among Christian communities. This petition is about more perfect unity – a unity so deep that the Eucharist can be shared.

The third declaration concerns the teaching of the Church as it has been received from Jesus through the Apostles and their writings, confirmed by the authentic tradition of the Church and proclaimed to the world at this time. The fullest statement of contemporary Christian belief, the bishops believe, is to be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is deeply biblical and patristic, and addresses matters that puzzle and confront Christians at the present moment. The bishops understand that not everything in the Catechism is of equal authority, and also understand that the faith must be proclaimed to every generation in language that accurately portrays what the Church has received. Therefore they acknowledge that the Catechism is the most complete and authentic expression and application of the Catholic faith in this moment of time, and that they signed a copy on the altar as attesting to the faith they aspire to teach and hold. None of the bishops would claim to understand every aspect of the faith with perfection, and none would claim to teach perfectly at all times. But they do claim to aspire to teach and to hold the faith that is set forth in the Catechism.

The fourth declaration is in effect the actual petition. The Bishops state that we seek a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See, at once treasuring the full expression of catholic faith and treasuring our tradition within which we have come to this moment. We seek the guidance of the Holy See as to the fulfillment of these our desires and those of the churches in which we have been called to serve.

The petition concludes with an act of trust and faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.


The Response: the Apostolic Constitution

You may recall that Cardinal Levada wrote to me in July 2008 acknowledging that the situation within the Anglican Communion in general had become markedly more complex since the submission of our proposal. At the same time the Cardinal assured me of the serious attention which the congregation for the doctrine of the Faith was giving to the prospect of corporate unity raised in our petition.

An Apostolic Constitution is a document of the highest authority, making a permanent addition to the body of Canon Law. There is also a set of norms, which are in effect the regulations for implementing the Constitution. There is also provision for norms unique to each place where the Constitution is implemented.

It requires and deserves detailed and careful study. As with any body of law, the Constitution must be interpreted accurately and carefully.

Before discussing sections of this document, I would draw your attention to the title. It speaks of Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. There at the outset are the three critical factors: Anglicans, full communion, and Catholic Church

Section 1: the Church

Everything else flows from this section. Once we are clear about the Church that Jesus founded and left to us “until the end of time”, our duty becomes clear. False understandings of the nature of the Church have encouraged the endless creation of new “churches”.

In the second paragraph of the Constitution, there are three statements that set out the reason why the Pope felt bound to respond positively to the petitions of the Anglicans


• The first statement is that of the Church as a people gathered into the unity of God. It is the unity of the Trinity that is the unity of Christian people. Founded by Jesus Christ, the Church is an instrument of communion with God and of unity among all people. Unity is therefore of the sacred essence of our relationship with God. It is not in any way a political option that can be taken or left.

• The second statement is that every division among the baptised wounds the very nature of the Church itself and distorts its ability to fulfil its purpose. There is a telling quotation from the Second Vatican Council (reflecting Saint Paul at his most passionate) that disunity “openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature.”

• The third statement reminds us all that at the most sacred part of his ministry, Jesus prayed to the Father for the unity of his followers.

In the light of this understanding of the Church, the Constitution goes on to speak deeply of the way in which our unity as Christians in the Church is manifested, particularly in the Breaking of Bread. It then speaks, and this is important for Anglicans, of the governments of the Church by the College of Bishops united with the head of the College, the Bishop of Rome.

It then speaks of the many elements of sanctification and of truth – note sanctification, not just truth – that are beyond those visible confines of the bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome. And it states that these gifts which belong to the Church of Christ are forces “impelling” towards Catholic unity. In other words, where we have cherished our traditions and been faithful to the Gospel, we have created a force that drives the unity of the Church!

The gathering of all Christians into a single Eucharistic communion is the imperative of all unity. This section concludes, once again, with a reference to “Anglican faithful who desired to enter into full communion in a corporate manner”.

Section 2: “Ordinariates”

The instrument by which the Constitution creates communities of Anglicans in full communion with the Catholic Church is the “Ordinariate”. This is essentially a new structure created for this purpose, but with some affinity with structures created for military personnel. The integrity of Anglican communities is protected (among other things) by the fact that each of these structures is equivalent to a diocese. Each of these structures is ruled by an “ordinary”. Section 5 of the Constitution spells out the powers of the Ordinary. The Ordinary exercises these powers jointly with the local diocese in Bishop or Bishops. Not under or over, but jointly. In section 6, these powers are amplified. It is the Ordinary who accepts candidates for Holy Orders, including those who have exercised the Ministry of Deacon, Priest or Bishop as Anglicans. It is the Ordinary who can apply to ordain married men to the priesthood. It is the Ordinary who can receive clergy from other Rites of the Catholic Church. It is the Ordinary and the local Diocesan Bishop or Bishops who can create agreements for common pastoral and charitable activities with other local catholic clergy. It is the Ordinary who establishes seminary programs and houses of formation for the particular needs of students to be formed in the Anglican Patrimony. It is the Ordinary who can establish religious houses and other institutes of consecrated life.

The Ordinariates will have governing structures designed to replicate the structures of Anglican dioceses. The governing council, comparable to a standing committee, has the right to nominate the ordinary. This is a major change to the practice in the Western Church, a safeguard to Anglican identity, and an important part of Anglican ways. The election of a bishop has an important bearing on the pastoral relationship of a bishop and his people.

Finally it has provided that admission to an Ordinariate is by application in writing, or by receiving the sacraments of initiation (baptism and confirmation) within the Ordinariate.

The Standard of Belief

The wording of the Constitution is very significant. The Statements of Faith that have previously been used for people coming individually into communion with the Catholic Church have been replaced in this case by Catechism.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the Ordinariate.

This reflects the statement made by the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion in their petition. It is a deeply pastoral solution to the question of statements of faith. Many members of our community have been using the Catechism as a reference and a sourcebook for years. Its language is contemporary and its methodology, based on the Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, and the liturgical Creeds, is already familiar to Anglicans.

Many of the things being denied at this moment in the world have been taken for granted for centuries. The nature of God, the revelation of God in Christ, the nature of holy scripture, the authority of Christian moral teaching about life and sexuality, the attack on the nature of marriage, and the widespread abandonment of holiness of life (especially among some of those consecrated to religious and priestly life), have all posed enormous problems for those who seek to teach and understand the Christian faith. The Catechism is a contemporary document addressing contemporary problems of contemporary unbelief.

Liturgy

The Constitution has a particularly beautiful passage when it speaks of the liturgy that will be practiced within the Anglican Ordinariates.

Without excluding liturgical celebrations according to the Roman Rite, the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See, so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.

In the norms, it is further explained that clergy will have the right to celebrate not only the Anglican liturgy but also both current forms of the Roman rite. A great deal of work has already been concluded in the updating and expanding of Anglican service books. The calendar of saints for instance in the Prayer Book of 1662 has no additions since then, in spite of the manifest sanctity of so many Christians since that date. Much more work needs to be done and will be a very high priority for those engaged in implementing the Constitution.

Questions

Over the past several months a number of questions have been raised. Some of these have been raised in a spirit of controversy and denial of the actual provisions of the Constitution and its norms. I regret this.

Each of our communities, and each person within them, must address the very profound issues that the Constitution raises. These issues include their relationship to Christ in his Church, the needs of the church in our present world of intense difficulty for Christians, the long-standing policy concerning unity of the College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion, which has often been publicised in the official organs of our Communion, the state of global Anglicanism and the possibility of it returning to some resemblance of catholic order which might allow a person professing catholic faith to maintain with a clear conscience life within it. We also need to be aware of the very close way in which the Constitution addresses our petition. As I stated recently, we ought not to rush into a rash or hasty decision, but equally we ought not to delay what is clearly the will of Christ for his Church.

Does the Constitution adequately protect the heritage of Anglicans?

The structures proposed for Anglican Catholics are entrenched in canon law, are governed by Anglican pastors and Ordinaries, and protected by governing councils that have specific rights to give consent to the Ordinary and in some cases to determine matters of policy and to nominate the Ordinary. The clergy elect half the members of the governing councils.

Matters of the formation and admission of clergy, liturgical matters, the establishment and regulation of parishes, and the maintenance and deepening of Anglican spirituality, history, theology and pastoral practice are all within the competence of the Ordinariate.

The establishment and ongoing support of these structures has been left with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, where we have already found a warm and understanding reception.

The Ordinaries will meet as a college since they will visit Rome at five-year intervals as a distinct group to report on their progress, to find mutual support, and to pray at the tombs of the Apostles. I would hope that the Concordat of the Traditional Anglican Communion could be adapted to provide a meaningful structure that supports the Anglican Catholic Ordinaries.

What of those who are not yet ready to make this decision?

I have been discussing this question with national groups of our bishops and with some of those whom Catholic Bishops Conferences have appointed to liaise with us. There is no time limit on the acceptance of this Constitution. It is designed to have a lifetime of centuries. Some people are ready and anxious to move now; others are seeking more time for prayer and reflection. Others are confused by the surge of public argument about the Constitution. We are committed to the pastoral care of all our people, those who will quickly move into full communion and those who are not yet ready. We are already discussing the structures for this. The Traditional Anglican Communion will not disappear, but will endure for the same purpose that it was created to fulfil, and which is so clearly described in the text of our petition.

What of the re-ordination of clergy?

One of the most controversial aspects of the Anglican/Roman relations in the past century has been that of Anglican orders. Rome ruled in 1896 that Anglican orders were null and void.

The Anglican response at the time was a beautifully written argument. More significantly, Anglicans began to seek the involvement in their Episcopal and priestly ordinations of bishops whose orders Rome recognized. This was a tacit admission that there might be value in the Roman argument, while arguing against the Roman argument. A very Anglican position!

In more recent times, because of this involvement of others in Anglican ordinations, some Anglican clergy entering into full communion with the Catholic Church have been conditionally ordained rather than ordained absolutely. In very recent years, this practice has been abandoned and absolute re-ordination has been adopted.

There are several reasons for this. The first is the practical abandonment of apostolic practice and belief in the Anglican Communion in the matter of the sacrament of Holy Order. Not only the ordination of women to all three sacred orders, but the redefining of the Anglican understanding of itself as part of the “Church Catholic” that the ordination of women has necessitated, has introduced more than grave doubt about the validity of any Anglican Communion ordinations. It is now difficult to determine whether any particular Anglican Bishop has any intention to do as the Church has always done, when he (or she) specifically intends to do that which the Church has never done. The almost complete elimination of what was once a dominant Anglo-Catholicism from many provinces of the Anglican Communion has removed the clearest statement of Catholic belief about Holy Orders from the Anglican consciousness.

Our own Traditional Anglican Communion has been very careful to do the best that was available. At that original meeting in Rome, we were encouraged to use consecrating bishops from the Polish National Catholic Church. We already had, and we received an assurance that Rome recognised their orders. We have used Anglican Rites for ordination that have been submitted by Anglican authorities to Rome in the early days of ARCIC.

We have done our best, in the context of an ecclesial body actively seeking catholic unity. Our conversations about the situation regarding Orders that we have conferred are serious and continuing.

The following points are important:

• For some 30 years, Rome has required Anglican priests who are ordained as priests in full communion with the Catholic Church to date their ordination from the Anglican ordination.

• Re-ordination is an issue because the church requires absolute certainty in the matter of future sacramental life. I have been told that the TAC should understand this because we ourselves moved beyond the Anglican Communion in order to ensure the validity of sacramental life. Rome is now seeking the same assurance.

• The present Pope has written meaningfully of the situation of the sacramental life within churches separated from fullness of communion with the Catholic Church. There is no denial of the fact that God acted through our ministry to confer sacramental grace.

• There is quite deliberately not a judgement on the past, which is left to God and His Providence, but there is a demand for certainty in the future. It is my wish, and I believe the wishes of my fellow bishops, that every deacon and priest in our Communion has a certainty of validity that rests, not on the winning of a theological argument, not on the best that was available at the time, but on the indisputable certainty of Catholic practice. I have said to a number of priests that when they are saying Mass in the crypt of St Peter’s on the tombs of the Apostles, I want them to be able to look to one side and the other and to know with absolute certainty that their priesthood has the same objective reality as the priesthood of those on either side.

Finally, I commend this development to your prayers and the deepest parts of your conscience. I believe with all my heart that this is a work of God and an act of great generosity by Pope Benedict. The Anglican tradition that we treasure will only survive, I believe, across the generations yet to come if it discovers the protection of apostolic authority. It is my cherished wish that each of us can stand at the altar with our fellow Christians and receive the same Eucharistic Christ. That is the ultimate test of unity. In the centuries since the church in the West became fractured there has been no offer such as the one that is now before us. For Anglicans, Unity has been a dream beyond reach. Now it is a dream that can be fulfilled. I understood when I became a member of the Traditional Anglican Communion (in a dark period of my life when it became impossible to practice my priesthood in a diocese about to ordain women) that this was a Communion heading towards a goal. It had separated from the Anglican Communion. Instead of drifting at the whim of wave and wind, it had chosen to head towards the only realistic destination, that from which Anglicans had separated centuries before. I was grasped by that vision of those who founded this Communion. We are now in the waves just beyond the harbour entrance. Pray God that we have the courage to enter and make our homes there.

May God bless and cherish each one of you.

Archbishop John Hepworth

Primate

TAC Letter to Rome

The following is the full text of the letter sent to the Holy See in October of 2007 requesting full corporate and sacramental communion with Rome.

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From the Bishops and Vicars General of the Traditional Anglican Communion, gathered in Plenary Meeting at Portsmouth, England, in the Church of Saint Agatha, to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, concerning their desire for unity with the See of Peter.

5th October 2007

Grace and peace in the Name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour!


“A new hope arises that those who rejoice in the name of Christians, but are nevertheless separated from this apostolic see, hearing the voice of the divine Shepherd, may be able to make their way into the one Church of Christ….to seek and to follow that unity which Jesus Christ implored from his Heavenly father with such fervent prayers.”


In these words in his moto proprio, Superno De Nutu, the Blessed John XXIII, responded to the visit of Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher.

A few years later, in the Sistine Chapel, in March 1966, the next Bishop of Rome, Paul VI, told the next Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, that he should look on his journey as an approach to a home:

As you cross the threshold we want you especially to feel that you are not entering the house of a stranger but that this is your home, here you have a right to be.

The Holy Father warned of the difficulty of the task of bringing about the unity of “the Church of Rome and the Church of Canterbury”:

In the field of doctrine and ecclesiastical law, we are still respectively distinct and distant; for now it must be so, for the reverence due to truth and to freedom; until such time as we may merit the supreme grace of true and perfect unity in faith and communion.

The next day, at the Basilica of Saint Paul’s Without the Walls, the Holy Father placed his ring on the Archbishop’s finger. They had just signed the Joint Declaration that was intended to begin a dialogue that would lead to full communion between Anglicans and the See of Rome. The Pope used the phrases “our dear sister church” and “united but not absorbed’. These phrases inspired Anglicans who yearned for the reuniting of the Anglican Communion with the Holy See. They waited in prayerful optimism for the fulfillment of the work of the Anglican – Roman Catholic International Commission. The Lambeth Conference of 1968 powerfully endorsed the approach to the Holy See of the Archbishop and the proposed work of the Commission. The Holy Father noted this acceptance in his homily at the Canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970, when he reflected on the nature of the unity that he anticipated:

There will be no seeking to lessen the prestige and usage proper to the Anglican Church.

These words exchanged between Anglican bishops and the Holy See transformed centuries of profound mistrust and unconsummated dreams of unity.

And yet they were set against contemporary Anglican developments that were already separating the Anglicans who most cherished these new hopes from their churches.

The ordination of women to the diaconate and presbyterate, at first in North America, Hong Kong and New Zealand, and in more than half the churches of the Anglican Communion by the mid – 1990’s, created a crisis of conscience among those who termed themselves Anglican Catholics, and who held the faith of the Catholic Church on matters concerning Holy Order, the primacy of the Eucharist in the life of the Church, and the authority of the Bishop of Rome in teaching with divine authority concerning matters contested in the Church and the world.

The Holy See, in direct and frank communications with the Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as - with increasing finality - in specifically addressing these innovations in its Apostolic Teaching, defined these Anglican innovations as “new and grave” obstacles to unity.


At St. Louis, just thirty years ago at this time, Anglican Catholics tormented in conscience as much by the disintegration of sacramental life in parish and diocese as by the slipping beyond reach of such recent expectations of unity, met and adopted the Affirmation. This was a confession of catholic faith, a determination to maintain the pursuit of unity, and a commitment to create an ecclesial structure sufficient to achieve these desires, while maintaining communion with those churches of the Anglican Communion that remained true to the commitments of only a few years before. It was explicit about unity:

We declare our firm intention to seek and achieve full sacramental communion and visible unity with other Christians who "worship the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity," and who hold the Catholic and Apostolic Faith in accordance with the foregoing principles.

It was just as explicit in its Eucharistic teaching:

… the Eucharist as the sacrifice which unites us to the all-sufficient Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and the Sacrament in which He feeds us with His Body and Blood…

and about the sacramental life of the Church:

…the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, the Holy Eucharist, Holy Matrimony, Holy Orders, Penance and Unction of the Sick, as objective and effective signs of the continued presence and saving activity of Christ our Lord among His people and as His covenanted means for conveying His grace.

And it speaks about the nature of the Church itself:

We gather as people called by God to be faithful and obedient to Him. As the Royal Priestly People of God, the Church is called to be, in fact, the manifestation of Christ in and to the world. True religion is revealed to man by God. We cannot decide what is truth, but rather (in obedience) ought to receive, accept, cherish, defend and teach what God has given us. The Church is created by God, and is beyond the ultimate control of man. The Church is the Body of Christ at work in the world. She is the society of the baptised called out from the world: In it, but not of it. As Christ's faithful Bride, she is different from the world and must not be influenced by it.


At almost the same time, the Holy See agreed to the creation of the Anglican Use, by which parishes composed of Anglicans reconciled to the Catholic Church could maintain an Anglican liturgical and communal existence. It sadly remained only a possibility in parts of the United States, and did not necessarily allow for the endurance of Anglican characteristics over time. Then, and again in the 1990’s, large numbers of Anglican clergy joined the Catholic Church without formal recognition of their Anglican heritage so recently acknowledged in Papal and Conciliar pronouncements.

Following the Congress of St Louis in 1977, the then Archbishop of Canterbury rejected the idea that the ecclesial communities (often small, remote from each other and whose very existence was bitterly contested by local and national Anglican churches) that emerged from the determination at St. Louis could be considered part of the Anglican Communion.

In spite of this, the Lambeth Conference in 1998 called for a new tolerance and understanding of Anglicans separated from Canterbury. In practice, it is our experience of the Anglican Communion at this time that the acceptance of the ordination of women in particular, and a strong conditionality on the acceptance of catholic order in general, has made full and organic unity between Canterbury and Rome a remote possibility within our lifetimes, in spite of the ongoing friendliness of Anglican – Roman Catholic relationships.


In 1990, a group of bishops representing churches of this “Anglican Diaspora” met in Victoria, British Columbia, and agreed to a Concordat establishing the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC). The initial gathering represented churches in the Australia, Canada, Guatemala and the United States. The Concordat sought to establish a single College of Bishops of a single ecclesial communion of local and regional churches, expressly denying (in deliberate contrast to contemporary Anglican praxis) that these local churches have authority

…to derogate from Holy Scripture, or to determine unilaterally any question of Faith or Order, the authority for determining such residing in the College of Bishops of this Communion acting with such competent advice as may be available to it.

In 1991, leaders of the new Communion were invited to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Led by Archbishop Louis Falk, who had been elected the founding Primate, and accompanied among others by Father John Hepworth, who has since been elected Primate in succession to him, they met with the late Archbishop Pierre Duprey. At the conclusion of a day-long consultation, in which the desire to achieve unity with the Holy See was clearly expressed, the late Archbishop gave this advice: “You must learn to grow and show that you can grow; you must show us that you can develop good relationships with the local Catholic Church in the places where you both co-exist; and I beg you to not needlessly amplify your episcopate”.

Since that time, the TAC has accepted and sought to implement that advice.

A substantial part of the historic Anglican Church of India (consisting of bishops, clergy and people who had refused to join the Churches of North and South India in order to maintain an authentic sacramental life) was the first addition, just after the Concordat was ratified.

The TAC has Provinces, Dioceses, Parishes and Missionary Districts worldwide, and has a presence in Canada, the United States, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, India, Pakistan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Torres Strait, Great Britain, Ireland, several European countries, South Africa (including a substantial part of the Order of Ethiopia – the Church of Umzi Wase Tiyopiya), Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Kenya, DR Congo Cameroon, El Salvador, Columbia and Argentina.

The Communion exists only where there is a breakdown of sacramental life and order that endangers the spiritual welfare of faithful people. It has a firm policy of waiting until there is a locally expressed need that cannot be met by provisions made for conscience by local Anglican churches. Very few Anglican provinces have made such provision.

Warm and practical relationships have developed at the personal and parochial level in many places. The Servants of the Sacred Cross, a religious institute for women, approved by the Holy See, with both Traditional Anglican and Roman Catholic women members, has grown strongly and spread from North America to Australia. Other Institutes of Dedicated Life, reflecting the traditions of Anglican history, have been founded and grown with Roman Catholic co-operation and encouragement. Our ordinands in some places have been able to complete theological studies at Catholic Universities and theological institutes. Friendships have grown between our bishops and Roman Catholic bishops.

In these growing relationships, we have been sensitive to the fact that formal processes designed to achieve unity between Canterbury and Rome continue to exist, and our presence can be a source of friction between local Anglican and Catholic bishops, particularly where the Anglican bishop has initiated canonical and legal measures against those whose conscience has driven them towards us. This Communion has active Concordats of Communion with Forward in Faith (an ecclesial body whose membership is largely if tenuously within the Anglican Communion) in Britain, North America and Australia, allowing the fullest possible cooperation with those Anglicans whose faith matches our own, but who have managed to maintain an existence within the Anglican Communion. These Concordats are being actively contested in parts of the Anglican Communion, to the further straining of local ecumenical relationships, loyalties and friendships.

There are presently thirty-eight bishops actively holding Episcopal office in this Communion.

Since 1990, this Communion has sought to form its clergy and people in such a way that the College of Bishops could reach a decision to seek the further guidance of the Holy See in the fulfilment of its desire to come as an ecclesial community into communion with the See of Peter, with confidence that they have the support of their clergy and people.

In the past five years, the Diocesan and National Synods of the Communion have discussed and supported this desire of their bishops, often with a longing expressed with moving passion. We acknowledge that this testing of the depth of our support for unity with the Holy See has often attracted media interest, to the embarrassment of our Roman Catholic friends. We grieve for any hurt that our necessarily open processes have caused, at the same time asking for understanding in our desire not to place before the Holy See a proposal unsupported by our clergy and the leaders of our laity.

During that time, we have taken counsel from a number of Roman Catholics, many formerly Anglicans. In the course of that consultation, which was at once informal and rigorous, descriptions of our Communion have been written by our mentors in the context of our quest for unity. One in particular we have been moved to make our own, encapsulating as it does our desire to accept the catholic faith in all its fullness, while bringing that faith to reality in an ecclesial community faithful to our history and tradition:

Because the Lord has not yet returned in glory, the complete unity and communion of believers for which He prayed has not yet been achieved, but each believer and each church and ecclesial community, recognising the life-changing unity engendered by our shared baptism, is called to make Christian unity a lifelong commitment, just as we are called to spread the Gospel to the whole world.

Recognising that obligation, and with great confidence in the Lord and in the power of the Holy Spirit, a worldwide community of Anglican Christians has united under the name “The Traditional Anglican Communion” for three main purposes:

• To identify, reaffirm and consolidate in its community the elements of belief, sacraments, structure and conduct that mark the Church of Christ, which is one throughout the world:
• To seek as a body full and visible communion, particularly eucharistic communion, in Christ, with the Roman Catholic Church, in which it recognises the fullest subsistence of Christ’s one Church; and
• To achieve such communion while maintaining those revered traditions of spirituality, liturgy, discipline and theology that constitute the cherished and centuries-old heritage of Anglican communities throughout the world.


The Bishops and Vicars-General of this Communion, now meeting in Plenary Session in the Church of Saint Agatha, Portsmouth, England, on the Feast of Theresa of the Child Jesus and in the days following, have reached the following mind which they have asked their Primate and delegates to report to the Holy See:

1. We accept the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter, which is a ministry of teaching and discerning the faith and a “perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity” and understand this ministry is essential to the Church founded by Jesus Christ. We accept that this ministry, in the words of the late John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint, is to “ensure the unity of all the Churches”. We understand his words in the same Letter when he explains to the separated churches that the Bishop of Rome “when circumstances require it, speaks in the name of all the Pastors in communion with him. He can also – under very specific conditions clearly laid down by the First Vatican Council – declare ex cathedra that a certain doctrine belongs to the deposit of faith. By thus bearing witness to the truth, he serves unity”. We understand that, as bishops separated from communion with the Bishop of Rome, we are among those for whom Jesus prayed before his death “that they may be completely one”, and that we teach and define matters of faith and morals in a way that is, while still under the influence of Divine Grace, of necessity more tenuously connected to the teaching voice of catholic bishops throughout the world.

2. We accept that the Church founded by Jesus Christ subsists most perfectly in the churches in communion with the See of Peter, to whom (after the repeated protestation of his love for Jesus) and to whose successors, our Divine Master gave the duty of feeding the lambs and the sheep of his flock.

3. We accept that the most complete and authentic expression and application of the catholic faith in this moment of time is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium, which we have signed together with this Letter as attesting to the faith we aspire to teach and hold.

4. Driven by these realizations, which we must now in good conscience bring to the attention of the Holy See, we seek a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See, at once treasuring the full expression of catholic faith and treasuring our tradition within which we have come to this moment. We seek the guidance of the Holy See as to the fulfillment of these our desires and those of the churches in which we have been called to serve.


With profound expressions of regret for the divisions of Christ’s Church, and for our own failings that may have deepened and extended those divisions, and with the most affectionate regard for the Holy Father, who at key moments has strengthened us by his concern for our plight, and with great hope in the overshadowing power of the Holy Ghost, who can make pliable what has become rigid, we affix our signatures to this Letter and to the accompanying Catechism in the midst of the Holy Sacrifice and commend our cause to Your Excellencies,

Certificate

I certify that I have witnessed the signing of this Letter with the Catechism and its Compendium by each of those attending the Plenary Meeting of the College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion, having also witnessed each of the above bishops and Vicars General vote with unanimity to support the attached resolution taken after a day-long debate on 3rd October 2007.






Lay Canon Cheryl Woodman
Secretary to the College
5th October 2007

The following article appeared in the current issue of The Next Conservatism. It is so spot on that we felt compelled to share it with you.



Come All Ye Faithful

Benedict’s Counter-Reformation

BY WILLIAM S. LIND

When my mother was a young woman, in the 1930s, Cousin Lily, then in her 80s, gave her some sound advice: “Wherever you go, join the Episcopal Church and you will meet all the best people in town.” “Best” in this instance referred not to the Book of Life but the Social Register. The staid, proper, elevated Episcopal Church, the Republican Party at prayer, was respectability’s keep.

Starting sometime in the 1960s, God’s frozen people melted, generating the mother of all theological mud puddles. From the abandonment of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer to the introduction of priestesses in the 1970s and the ongoing election of homosexual bishops, the Episcopal Church forsook traditional Christian doctrine in favor of its own invented religion. Not surprisingly, this apostasy fractured both the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion. The upshot has been a variety of continuing churches that maintain historic ties to Anglicanism, multiple movements within the Episcopal Church to restore orthodoxy, and the breaking away of many Anglican churches in the Third World, where most Anglicans now live.

On Oct. 20, Rome parachuted into this dogfight like a division of Fallschirmjager. In a move that stunned the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglicanism’s titular leader, Pope Benedict XVI, opened the Roman Catholic Church’s door to Anglicans as Anglicans. He invited them to move in—individuals, parishes, whole dioceses—while retaining their Anglican identity. They could keep their Book of Common Prayer, their liturgies, their priests—even married ones.

Importantly, Anglican parishes affiliating with Rome would not come under the authority of local Roman Catholic bishops. In the U.S. and UK, most of those bishops are liberals. They dislike traditional Anglicans as much as they dislike traditional Roman Catholics and the Latin Mass. Given the chance, they would simply close down any Anglican parish that swam the Tiber, telling the congregation to go to Roman Catholic churches. This would leave most former Anglicans unchurched, as few could stomach the snakebelly-low post-Vatican II vernacular Roman Mass. To Anglicans, no sin is more grievous than bad taste.

Not to worry: Anglicans rallying to Rome will stay under their own bishops, or priests acting as bishops, known as “ordinaries.” Pope Benedict knows his American and British bishops all too well. His whole package is neatly wrapped up just in time for Christmas in an Apostolic Constitution, the most definitive form of papal legislation. The rough American equivalent would be a constitutional amendment. It’s not just a bon-bon.

How Anglicans will react to Rome’s offer has yet to be seen. Many details remain unclear. One problem is likely to be the doctrine of papal infallibility, a 19th-century Roman innovation. The Apostolic Constitution stipulates that Anglicans would have to accept “The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church as the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the ordinariate.” This could mean accepting papal infallibility as expressed in the catechism, and if Rome remains inflexible on that point, Pope Benedict’s initiative seems likely to fail.

But should it succeed, Rome’s offer has implications far beyond Anglicanism. Pope Benedict just might have taken the first step toward a second Counter-Reformation. The split within Anglicanism between those who believe the Christian faith was revealed and is to be received and those who think you just make it up to accord with the temper of the times is duplicated within virtually every other denomination.

The root cause is the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School, commonly known as political correctness. Following Antonio Gramsci’s plan for a “long march through the institutions,” cultural Marxists have penetrated every mainline church. Their driving force is political ideology, not theology. They view the church as just one more venue for radical politics.

Their goal is Nietzsche’s “transvaluation of all values,” where the old sins become virtues and the old virtues, sins. In churches where they take power, the Holy Trinity is replaced by a trio of bogeymen: racism, sexism, and homophobia. Every denomination so afflicted is bitterly split between remaining Christians and the politically correct. (No, you can’t be both, as Marxists would agree.)

What is now happening, and what Rome may have discerned, is that the people on each side of this division find they have more in common with those in other denominations who share their basic faith, Christianity or cultural Marxism, than with the people on the other side of that divide within their own churches. A potential is emerging for a vast realignment, one transcending the divisions that came out of the Reformation. That realignment, in which the remaining Christians in every church would gather in a single, new (small “c”) catholic church, needs a leader. Who better than Rome? Indeed, who other than Rome could possibly pull it off?

Seen in that light, the Pope’s offer to the Anglicans takes on broader meaning. Some observers have seen a parallel with the arrangement a number of Eastern Catholic Churches have had with Rome since 1595. Those Churches recognize their own liturgical rites, systems of canon law, and procedures for ordination. Immediately after the announcement of the constitution—before the document was published—Father Dwight Longenecker, a former Anglican now Roman Catholic priest, wrote on the Inside Catholic website:

It has always been Benedict’s view that the way forward ecumenically is to replicate the existing structures that the Eastern Rite churches enjoy, and that this can be done with new flexibility and creativity.

He is willing to take risks to welcome those who follow the historic Christian faith, although separated from full communion with Rome. On the other hand, he sees those who prefer the modern gospel of relativism, sexual license, and a denial of the historic Christian faith that have taken over the mainstream Protestant churches. He knows there are plenty of them in the Catholic Church, and to them Benedict is quietly saying, “There’s the door.”

Yet what the Apostolic Constitution actually offers Anglicans is substantially less accommodating than Rome’s deal with the Eastern Rite churches. While Anglicans could keep their historic liturgical rite, Anglican churches affiliating with Rome would come under what are in effect non-geographical dioceses. That is a long way from the independence of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches.

Here we come to the crux of the matter: is Rome’s offer final, or is it negotiable, an opening gambit? If it is final, it is not likely to draw many Anglicans and would have virtually no appeal to other Protestants. Papal infallibility alone might doom it, and as a vehicle for Christian unity, it would prove, well, fallible. But let us hopefully assume that the Apostolic Constitution is not Rome’s last offer, that something closer to the arrangement given to the Eastern Rite churches could prove acceptable to Rome.

What then? It is possible to visualize not only Anglicans but all Protestants, in a new Counter-Reformation, leaving behind the cultural Marxists in the husks of their denominational institutions and joining in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They could do so while remaining what they are—Lutherans and Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists, even some evangelicals—just as Greek Catholics remain in their Eastern rite. To Rome, they would give formal allegiance, recognizing the Pope as the titular and symbolic head of the Church. What both would gain would be a reunion of Christendom in the West in a church free of cultural Marxism—no small thing.

It is obvious that we are talking about a big leap for the Protestants. While few still speak openly of the “tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities,” that attitude has shaped their histories. Interestingly, however, one of the more enthusiastic responses to the constitution came from the Methodists. A senior official told the Methodist Recorder that “[the constitution] may open up ways in which Methodism, whose origins were as a movement in the Church rather than a separate denomination, may find its place in future, as a Church, alongside others within the universal Church.”

Protestants’ usual Sunday services would have to alter little, if at all, except for communion services, which are infrequent. Less obvious, perhaps, is the height of the wall the Roman Catholic Church would have to vault. That barrier is built largely of beliefs that, in the Ultramontane years of the 19th century, were turned into formal doctrines. Neither Anglicans nor Protestants are likely to swear to any of them, although they ought to be willing to accept them as what they were before the 1800s, long-standing traditions that were widely believed. (Papal infallibility is an exception; it was an invention rammed through Vatican I in 1870.)

For Rome, there is a possible way around this wall rather than over it: status quo ante. Anglican and Protestant congregations and jurisdictions joining in full communion with Rome would not be required to accept as doctrine anything postdating their split from Rome. The Catholic Church would lead a second Counter-Reformation by backing away from some of the first.

Before the Council of Trent (1545-63), which begat the Counter-Reformation, Rome’s hand rested lightly on national churches. For example, we think of the Roman Catholic Church as having a single rite, after Trent the Tridentine Rite and following Vatican II the sad and dispiriting Novus Ordo. Before Trent, Rome allowed a vast variety of rites, as she would again. England alone had three major rites and a host of minor ones in a country of 4 million people. Rome saw no problem as long as the rites for communion services followed what Dom Gregory Dix called “the shape of the liturgy.” Anglicans might again chant in the litany, “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”

Pre-Trent, the same decentralization reigned in other matters as well. Kings generally had a good deal of say in who became a bishop. The Church might “volunteer” to pay some form of tax to a needy monarch. (After all, Church lands might make up a third of his kingdom.) When, occasionally, a Pope would overreach, king and bishops would come together to oppose him.

If Rome’s ambitions for a reunited Western Church go beyond Anglicans, and the Vatican is willing to bend beyond what the Apostolic Constitution currently offers, it may be time for Vatican III. The goal of such a council would be twofold: to sweep away obstacles to Christian unity stemming from the Council of Trent and Vatican I and reverse the disastrous consequences of Vatican II, including the vandalization of the liturgy and abandonment of practices (such as fish on Friday) that buttressed Roman Catholic identity among laymen. Ultramontane doctrinal innovations would all have to be on the table; they might remain for Roman Catholics but would not be required of others seeking full communion with Rome.

Is all this just wishful thinking? The division between Christians and cultural Marxists in every denomination is certainly real: it screams from the religion page of every newspaper. With that division comes the potential for realignment and Christian reunion. Understanding the mind of the Curia is more difficult than penetrating North Korea, but Rome’s offer to the Anglicans suggests that Pope Benedict XVI is looking beyond the usual games. The ice has cracked, and a new spring may be coming.

Pope Benedict is a good German. Perhaps the question he could put to himself is this: who do I want to be, Kaiser Wilhelm II or Bismarck? Kaiser Wilhelm II was a bright and well-intentioned fellow. He was almost always right in what he wanted to do (including not going to war in 1914). But over and over he deferred to his advisers, who were almost always wrong. Bismarck, in contrast, knew exactly what he wanted—the reunification of Germany—and was both opportunistic and ruthless in making it happen. He brooked no opposition. As Kaiser Wilhem I once said, “Sometimes it is a hard thing, being a Kaiser under Bismarck.”

Now there’s a vision to gladden the heart: a German Pope proclaiming the reunion of the Western Church in the hall of mirrors at Versailles. Be a Bismarck, Benedict, be a Bismarck.
__________________________________________
William S. Lind is author, with Paul Weyrich, of The Next Conservatism

Thanks Giving Message

Dearly beloved faithful in Christ,

With Thanksgiving Day approaching, we would like to take the time to evaluate the true essence of the holiday. We found it appropriate to quote from the "Proclamation of Thanksgiving" issued by President Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863. With the issuance of this letter, Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed as a national holiday in the United States of America.

". . . No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union . . ."

Proclamation of Thanksgiving*

Washington, D.C.

October 3, 1863

Therefore, it is our duty as members of the Anglican Church in America , continuing to faithfully follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and as law-abiding citizens of the United States of America to forever remember the true spirit of Thanksgiving: being thankful and praising the Lord not once a year but always. "I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will tell all thy wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High" (Psalms 9:1-3).

Prayerfully,

Bob+

Rev. Bobby C. Hall, SSM

The Chicken and the Egg

The following article was posted by Christian Champbell on his Anglo-Catholic Blog. It is exceedingly well thought out and well worth sharing again here.

Bob+



The Chicken and the Egg

Since the announcement of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, from progressive and traditionalist Catholics alike, concerns have been raised about the commitment of Anglicans who may avail themselves of the Holy Father’s offer and the thoroughness of the “conversions” they will undergo.

The liberals seem concerned that an influx of supposedly “conservative” Anglicans will further undermine their progressive vision of the modern Church and the fading ’spirit of Vatican II’. A recent editorial in The Tablet even suggested that incoming Anglicans must dispense with their outmoded beliefs on the priesthood, liturgy, and devotion to the Blessed Virgin in order to be received into the Catholic Church. For these liberals, Anglicans must be assimilated into the modernist ideal and leave the baggage of traditional piety and belief behind.

Traditionalist Catholics fear that Anglicans may be motivated more by what they are running away from than what (or rather Whom) they are running towards. Do these Anglicans truly submit in every last detail to the Magisterium as expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Do they really accept the primacy and infallibility of the Pope and the recent Marian dogmas? Do they not have mental reservations? How dare they maintain that the Anglican patrimony has treasures to offer to the larger Catholic Church? They speak of being ‘united but not absorbed’. They must abandon their pretensions! They must convert!

As for the hand-wringing of the progressive Catholics, I hate to break it to The Tablet, but we’re coming in and you can pry our antiquated prayer books, missals, and rosaries from our cold dead fingers. We’ll continue to naïvely believe in the Real Presence and all those fairy tales in the Bible, we’ll bow when the processional cross passes by, genuflect at the Incarnatus est, use incense, and say ‘and with thy spirit’ — and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it! Rather, it is the concern of the so-called “traditionalist” or “conservative” Catholics that “former Anglicans” will only convert with reservations that I desire presently to address.

I do not presume to speak for Anglicans in other places and in other circumstances. Certainly, the implosion of the Church of England, for example, creates certain pressures. Faithful Anglo-Catholics are being systematically marginalized and forced out of the Established Church and they must look to other arrangements. Does this impel some of them to seek entry into the Roman Catholic Church as a sort of fallback position and without the full acceptance of the significance of this move? Perhaps. But I can only speak to my experience in one corner of the American Continuing Church.

From its foundation, the Traditional Anglican Communion has been dedicated to entering into full sacramental communion with the Roman Catholic Church. In the adoption of this goal, the TAC was not being particularly innovative; it was simply seeking to pick up where the official Canterbury-based Anglican Communion had left off. The general trajectory of the Anglican Communion throughout the twentieth century was towards unity with the Roman Church, and this goal seemed tantalizingly close in the period immediately following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. It was only the radical innovation of women’s ordination (and the concomitant deviations in historic Christian faith and praxis) in some provinces of the Anglican Communion that lead to the breakdown of the ARCIC process and the prevention of that long-desired restoration of communion between Rome and Canterbury. As the Continuing Church had preserved our traditional Anglican faith and practice, so too did the TAC adopt the ecumenical agenda which had been put on hiatus by the troubles in “official” Anglicanism.

While I have have only had the privilege of being a member of the Continuing Church for several years now (though born and raised in the Episcopal Church), it is clear to me that this mission of unity with the Roman Catholic Church had been assimilated — at least in some vague way — into the identity of my parish (the diocesan cathedral) long before my arrival. From its inception thirty years ago, the parish has had, like many others in the largely Anglo-Catholic Continuum, a decidedly “high church” bent and has enjoyed the leadership of solid Anglo-Catholic clergy. The diocesan bishop (and long-time rector) is a strong Catholic and has never been afraid to teach the Faith. The notion that communio in sacris with the Catholic Church was the aspiration of our church was generally understood.

This is not to say that the traditional Anglican fault lines between Catholics and protestants were absent in the parish (and to some small degree they are still present). Our people come from a variety of backgrounds — many were raised Episcopalian (of all varieties of churchmanship), some grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, and not a few come to us from various protestant traditions. All were drawn to our profession of the historic Christian Faith and to the sublime beauty of the Anglican tradition by which we live it out.

Those of our folks that left the Episcopal Church often did so at great personal cost. They left the churches in which they were raised, where their parents are buried, where their children were christened. The pastors that the Episcopal Church had set over them betrayed them to the Enemy and they were forced out into the Wilderness. While they were thankful to have found a parish home, their willingness to meekly follow their bishop and clergy had often been sorely tested by their painful experiences. Those from the various protestant sects were new to the Catholic Faith and obviously had no tradition of forming their consciences in accordance with the teaching of the Church. Our clergy and their collaborators, with pastoral sensitivity and common sense, met each individual where they were. Without ever denying the fundamental truths of the Catholic Faith and working from within the limited framework of the Anglican tradition, they endeavored, by stages, to instill in our people a genuine sensus Catholicus. And this process remains ongoing.

But herein lies the problem: the Anglican tradition is indeed a limited framework and its ultimate shortcoming is a lack of authority. The hierarchy of the Traditional Anglican Communion have long been committed to reunion with Rome. It is well known that in 2007, the bishops of the TAC solemnly signed the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sending the landmark letter to Rome requesting corporate reunion with the Holy See. Our bishops have proposed the Catechism as “the most perfect expression of the Catholic faith in the world today,” a Faith which they “aspire to hold and teach.” But how effectively can the bishops and their clergy teach the fullness of the Catholic Faith in our communities?

Thankfully in our Continuing Church, we are not officially burdened with the acceptance of certain unfortunate and imperfect formularies from the Anglican tradition such as the XXXIX Articles of Faith. We are bound only by the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer (with the attached Ordinal) and informed by Holy Scriptures, the (first) Seven Ecumenical Councils, and Holy Tradition (though notably professing “that all Anglican statements of faith and liturgical formulae must be interpreted in accordance with them”). Appeal is made to the “ancient catholic bishops and doctors” and presumably thus to the “Undivided Church” of the first millennium. Obviously, on a number of issues, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is at odds both with certain traditional Anglican formulae and, for example, the Orthodox Church’s understanding on a number of key points.

So here we arrive at the Chicken and the Egg. Ours is an episcopal church; our bishops claim the right to teach and govern, it is true, and our people are respectful of that prerogative. But that authority is mitigated — vitiated — by the the lack of an ultimate authority in our ecclesiology. Where the errors or excesses of our past must needs be corrected and brought into conformity with Catholic teaching as expressed in the Catechism, how is this to be accomplished? While any bishop or priest may teach a point of Catholic doctrine, when it is disputed by historic Anglican formularies or otherwise contested in our tradition, the individual layperson often feels that he has justification to resort to private judgment. How can our bishops — and derivatively our other clergy — appeal to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church whilst we are divorced from the unity of that Church?

In our parish, the doctrines of the invocation of the saints, prayer for the Dead, Purgatory, the Real Presence in terms of Transubstantiation, the prerogatives of Our Lady, and other Catholic doctrines disputed — or even explicitly condemned — by historic Anglican formularies are taught to the people. In the past few years, with the expectation of serious developments in our relationship with the Catholic Church on the horizon, great emphasis has been placed on preparing our people — always respectful of the limitations of our current framework and with a mind to meet our folks where they are to be found — to accept the fullness of all Catholic doctrine.

As we receive the gracious invitation of our Holy Father in the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus in our parish, our people have a great devotion to the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Sacrament of the Altar, they are bidden to pray for the Holy Souls in the Intermediate State, our liturgy is replete with intercessory prayer to the saints, at Mass the celebrant prays for the Holy Father in an expression of (as yet imperfect) communion, the Holy Rosary is recited publicly in the church, and we have much of the fullness of Catholic life. Finally, there is a belief that the focus of unity in the Universal Church is to be found in the Successor of St. Peter, though some are yet unsure as to how this will be attained.

We have arrived at this moment as a community. Our pastors have done their utmost to teach the Catholic Faith and their labors have born great fruit already. Is there further yet to go? Most definitely. But we will only make it to our destination — in our integrity — with the shepherds of our small flock leading the way. It seems (to me at least) that there are not a few traditionalist Catholics that fail to appreciate the importance of the corporate dimension of this reunion. (Thankfully, the Holy Father does!) It is all well and good to insist upon catechesis and individual conversion and absolute conformity to the teaching of Holy Mother Church, but how is this to be accomplished?

I do not wish to be misunderstood, for I do not hold that it is a desirable thing that an individual enter the communion of the Catholic Church with mental reservations or culpably ignorant as to the teachings of the Church. I simply desire to point out that it is impossible to expect that, unless they become the definitive teaching of our communities by virtue of a final and absolute appeal to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, certain doctrines will not be fully assimilated and appreciated by our people. And we can not claim this Magisterium without communion.

A New Perspective

Many years ago following the signing of the Affirmation of St Louis, a large number of the continuing Anglican Jurisdictions fragmented into to many Churches. During this period, Arch Bishop Louis Falk, Primate of the Anglican Church in America (ACA), who also served as Arch Bishop of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) for a number of years was instrumental in opening contact with the Holy See. Arch Bishop Falk quickly saw the necessity of opening dialogue with Rome with the goal of coming into full communion with them, but not being absorbed by the Roman Church. The initial contact with the Holy See was made by Arch Bishop Falk on a trip to Rome over 13 years ago. This type of dialogue with Rome has been a continuing effort by many clergy in the Anglican Church from 1534 following the Church of England’s initial break with the Holy See, however due to various political and ecclesiastical roadblocks it has waxed and waned over the years. From that initial contact by Arch Bishop Falk this dialogue had been quietly on going and was continued later by Arch Bishop Hepworth, through numerous contacts involving high ranking members of the Roman Catholic Clergy

The final approach to Rome was made when the College of Bishops of the TAC met in Plenary Session in Portsmouth, England, in the first week of October 2007. The Bishops and Vicars-General unanimously agreed to the text of a letter to the See of Rome seeking full, corporate, sacramental union. The letter was signed solemnly by all the College and entrusted to the Primate and two bishops chosen by the College to be presented to the Holy See. The letter was cordially received at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Primate of the TAC had agreed that no member of the College would give interviews until the Holy See has considered the letter and responded.

One may ask at this moment in time why this movement toward Rome? At the most theological level it was the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate, with its consequent undermining of sacramental certainty and the classical Anglican understanding both of authority and the given-ness of the Faith. More recently the growing ambivalence towards authentic Christian sacramental and iconographic teaching on gender and sexuality, upon which the ordination of women depends, has given rise to the homosexual crisis which threatens to blow the world wide Anglican Communion apart.

As to the current press; the Holy See has responded and most favorably. However numerous articles fail to make clear the status of this announcement. First of all those members of the Anglican Communion who choose to take part in this momentous undertaking will be received in full communion with Rome yet as a complete and separate rite, a so called “uniate” church. These are ritual churches "sui iuris" - in other words, are churches with their own rites, cultures and canon law. And although, as Archbishop Hepworth has pointed out in a previous statement, "most of these rites are descended from ancient churches that have never been part of the Roman or Western rite". There are some twenty-eight of these churches, and they appoint their own bishops by the synodical processes, and since they are in communion with Rome they routinely inform the Bishop of Rome of their actions.

It is evident that the Holy Father has extended to the fractured Anglican Communion a unique rallying point containing a method allowing us to return to our rich sacramental and liturgical heritage which has been abandoned by numerous Anglican jurisdictions worldwide.

What does this all mean? First of all, we know that we will not be converting to Roman Catholicism or otherwise be absorbed. Rather the Apostolic Constitution provides the canonical vehicle for full communion with the Roman Catholic Church while at the same time retaining our Anglican liturgy, spirituality, patrimony and ability to function suri juris. Additionally, we will retain our autonomy in that the Constitution creates Anglican Ordinariates that will exist parallel to the existing dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church. As such, we will have complete autonomy from the local Roman Catholic Diocese. That being said then it is evident, contrary to some press statements, we will not become” Roman Catholics “but as we have always been, Anglicans within our own distinct Church with our very own, Deacons Priest, and Bishops.

There is much work to be done on the parish, diocese, and national level before we will see the fruits of our labour. I am sure that much give and take will occur between both churches before a truly common ground is reached. However the ultimate goal is the bringing together Christ’s Church on Earth. Pray my brothers and sisters that our efforts will be fruitful.

Bob+

Rev. Dr. Bobby C. Hall, SSM

Homosexuality

Now that the Lambeth Conference has closed and all the smoke and mirrors has ceased some revealing statements are being made by the homosexual community.

During the conference there was a open concerted push by the gay/lesbian forces of the Anglican Communion to make their desires known during this event. A real in your face effort causing much discomfort to many of the attendees.

As Christians we know that this life style is diametrically opposed to the Bible and the Christian way of life. Several years ago there was one school of thought that attempted to demonstrate that homosexuality was a genetic causative factor. When this research failed to produce the results wanted, the discussion of this research slowly faded into the mists. It was clear then as it is now that homosexuality is a lifestyle of choice and in opposition to the teachings of Holy Scripture.

Regardless of the causative factors we as a Church are called on to administer to the sinner and hate the sin. To provide counseling and support for those seeking to return to a normal life style.

Below is an article recently published in the Blog Homosexuality supporting these statements?


Homosexual Honesty
August 6th, 2008 Posted in Homosexuality
By Bill Muehlenberg


It is nice to get a bit of honesty on the issue of homosexuality. It does not come our way very often in the mainstream media. And when this honesty comes from homosexual activists, it is even more refreshing. Indeed, when heterosexuals tell the truth about homosexuality, they are dismissed as homophobes. So what happens to homosexual truth tellers? Are they homophobic as well?

A very revealing case of homosexual honesty comes from Peter Tatchell, an Australian-born, British-based homosexual activist, who spills the beans on the “gay gene”. There is none, he asserts, and says homosexual desire is not genetically determined.

Writing for Spiked online, June 24, 2008, he makes some very interesting remarks about homosexual determinism. He in fact sounds very much like, well, me. I have been saying similar things for years, and have been howled down by the homosexual lobby as bigoted, intolerant and homophobic. But it is nice to hear homosexuals saying similar things.

He says there may well be biological influence in one’s sexuality, but nothing more. He argues that “an influence is not the same as a cause. Genes and hormones may predispose a person to one sexuality rather than another. But that’s all. Predisposition and determination are two different things. There is a major problem with gay gene theory, and with all theories that posit the biological programming of sexual orientation. If heterosexuality and homosexuality are, indeed, genetically predetermined (and therefore mutually exclusive and unchangeable), how do we explain bisexuality or people who, suddenly in mid-life, switch from heterosexuality to homosexuality (or vice versa)? We can’t. The reality is that queer and straight desires are far more ambiguous, blurred and overlapping than any theory of genetic causality can allow.”

Indeed, he is honest enough to admit that the jury is still out on the science of all this: “The relative influence of biological versus social factors with regard to sexual orientation is still uncertain. What is, however, certain is that if gayness was primarily explainable in genetic terms we would expect it to appear in the same proportions, and in similar forms, in all cultures and all epochs. As the anthropologists Clellan Ford and Frank Beach demonstrated in Patterns Of Sexual Behaviour (1965), far from being cross-culturally uniform and stable, both the incidence and expressions of same-sex desire vary vastly between different societies.”

He concludes his piece with this interesting remark: “The homophobes are thus, paradoxically, closer to the truth than many gay activists.” Thank you Peter. Nice to have some positive affirmation here. Of course he does not go all the way and admit that people can leave their homosexual lifestyle for a heterosexual one. He says, “For most of us, it is impossible to subsequently change our sexual orientation”. Notice that he does not say ‘all of us’, but ‘most of us’. That is a very telling choice of word usage.

Tatchell is certainly right to debunk the gay gene myth. And he is not alone in such candid admissions. A number of other homosexual activists have also admitted to such truths. Consider Australian activist and Latrobe University lecturer, Dennis Altman, who wrote this in 1986: “To be Haitian or a hemophiliac is determined at birth, but being gay is an identity that is socially determined and involves personal choice. Even if, as many want to argue, one has no choice in experiencing homosexual desire, there is a wide choice of possible ways of acting out these feelings, from celibacy and denial . . . to self-affirmation and the adoption of a gay identity.” “Being gay,” says Altman, “is a choice”.

Another Australian homosexual activist has said similar things about homosexuality and genetics: “I think the idea that sexuality is genetic is crap. There is absolutely no evidence for it at the moment, and I think it is unhealthy that people want to embrace this idea. It does reflect a desire to say, ‘it’s not our fault’, as a way of deflecting our critics. We have achieved what we have achieved by defiance, not by concessions. I think we should be recruiting people to homosexuality. It’s a great lifestyle and something everybody should have the right to experience. If you believe it’s genetic, how are you going to make the effort?” Or as he put it elsewhere: “On the question of recruiting to homosexuality – well, of course, I am in favor of this. I believe homosexuality to be a perfectly valid lifestyle choice. . . . I am naturally keen to encourage people to participate in [the gay lifestyle].”

And a leading Australian feminist and lesbian has also made it clear that choice is a major component of the lifestyle. Melbourne University academic Sheila Jeffreys became a feminist in her twenties, when she was involved in “perfectly good” relationships with men. She then decided to become a lesbian: “At the time,” she says, we “made the decision to become political lesbians, as we called it.”

She says that “you can learn to be heterosexual and you can learn to be lesbian”. When challenged by an interviewer that sexuality is more innate than that, she continues, “I don’t think there’s anything natural about sexuality; you do learn it. And you can unlearn it, go in a different direction, change it.” She says that her own experience proves this, as does that of many other women who decided to switch to lesbianism in the ‘70s.

Other homosexuals have admitted that choice plays at least a partial role in the overall equation. Indeed, there is even an entire website devoted to those who say they have chosen the homosexual lifestyle. The site says it is “a radical gathering place for people who have chosen to be queer” ( http://www.queerbychoice.com ).

However, the tendency is to deny choice, to make it appear that homosexuals cannot help it, and to argue that any criticism of the gay lifestyle is as silly as criticism of being left-handed or red-haired. And this has been a deliberate strategy by homosexual activists. They have done a very good job to convince a gullible public that homosexuals are born that way and cannot change.
But that bluff needs to be challenged. I and others have challenged it. And it is quite refreshing when homosexual activists challenge it as well.

Former Archbishop Carey says Anglican Communion is in crisis

HOUSTON: Carey says Anglican Communion is in crisis
Former archbishop of Canterbury wants U.S. church to give in to demands

By RICHARD VARA
The Houston Chronicle
January 11, 2008

The former archbishop of Canterbury wants the Episcopal Church to support an international agreement calling for a moratorium in the Anglican Church on the consecration of gay bishops and church blessing of same-sex unions.

"The Anglican Communion as such is in crisis," said the Most Rev. George Carey, who was in Houston this week to install the Rev. Russell J. Levenson Jr. as rector of St. Martin's Episcopal Church, one of the largest Episcopal churches in the United States.

The 77 million member communion, including 2.15 Episcopalians, has been in turmoil since the 2003 consecration of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire.

"It has created enormous tidal waves, shock waves around the world," Carey said of the consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson. "It has hindered missions in Muslim countries. It has distressed conservative congregations everywhere. There is no place in the Anglican Communion that has been impervious to the shock waves."

Scores of American parishes and at least two dioceses are asking for foreign oversight because members feel the national church is no longer traditional in biblical interpretation and practice. Asking for such oversight is contrary to Anglican governance.

"If I were in my successor's shoes, what I would be wanting to do is say that the American House of Bishops must commit itself to the Windsor Covenant and be wholehearted about that," Carey said of the 2004 report calling for the moratorium. "Around the Windsor Covenant we can actually find a way to deepen the dialogue and get people there.

"If we don't insist upon that, then I think our number is up and so I worry about that," he said.

Carey served as archbishop from 1991 to 2002. His successor as titular head of the Anglican Communion is Archbishop Rowan Williams.

Despite claims to adhering to Windsor, the American House of Bishops has said that only the denomination's national assembly could speak to the issue. The next General Convention is scheduled for 2009.

Although the bishops have supported a ban on gay consecration and blessing of same-sex unions until then, that has not quieted the furor.

The once-a-decade meeting of the world's Anglican bishops is set for July in Canterbury, England. Conservative leaders, including Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, are calling for an Anglican conference in June in Jerusalem, a move that some say is meant to undercut attendance the following month at the Lambeth Conference in England.

"If the Jerusalem conference is an alternative to the Lambeth Conference, which I perceive it is, then I think it is regrettable," said Carey, a conservative. "The irony is that all they are going to do is weaken the Lambeth Conference. They are going to give the liberals a more powerful voice because they are absent and they are going to act as if they are schismatics. It's crazy."

Ten years ago, Carey presided over the 1998 Lambeth Conference which declared homosexual behavior as not scriptural.

"So what the American church has done by the election and then ordination of Gene Robinson is really actually turn its back on the voice, the moral voice of the Lambeth Conference. That's the problem basically. There is no way out of the problem now."

Still, Carey feels that if the Americans were to come out wholeheartedly for the Windsor Covenant, dialogue and reconciliation would be possible.

"If the Episcopal Church says, 'No, dammit, we are not going to go that way', then there is no dialogue," he said. "They are actually saying they are walking away from the family, they are closing the door. But if they are prepared to say, 'We will fall in behind the covenant,' then we can find a resolution.

"But there is no sign that the American House of Bishops realizes how serious it is," he said.

Carey said he remains active in the church although he is an ex-archbishop.

"What I am trying to do now is make a contribution towards healing the church," he said.

He also is working as head of a British education program and for interfaith understanding. He travels regularly with his wife to Africa, where the "church is strong."

"My problem is that I am probably doing too much," he said. "I need to slow down a bit."

But one thing he won't be doing is leaving the Anglican Communion.

"Basically the Anglican spirit aches for unity and I don't think there are going to be many people who are going to be in a rush to run away from the See of Canterbury."

END


Sadly I must differ with the Archbishop for we see daily a mass exit of the Episcopal faithful to other provinces in the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion as we once knew it and the validity of the leadership of the Current Archbishop of Canterbury as it now exists is morally and theologically defunct All that the faithful is asking for is a return to reason and the time honored teachings of the Church. Any less than this and the bleeding in the Episcopal Church will continue.

Fr Bob

Bishop of London left in dark over secret gay service

December 31st, 2007 Posted Dominic Kennedy

The Archbishop of Canterbury kept a special communion service for gays so secret that he failed to tell the Bishop of London it was happening in his diocese, The Times has learnt.

Dr Rowan Williams inflamed the row over homosexuality which is tearing apart the Anglican Church when it was reported that he had agreed to hold a eucharist for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clergy.

But even his critics have been taken aback to learn that he did so by making an incursion on to the patch of the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, without giving notice or seeking permission.

Dr Williams now risks being seen as, at best, discourteous and at worst, in breach of canon law, for sneaking into a church near the Tower of London under the Bishop’s nose. Canon law says that only a bishop can authorise services in his own diocese and infringements may result in an intruder being removed from office.

The gays’ venue of choice was drenched in symbolism. The stones and beams of the 7th century church of All Hallows by the Tower have borne witness to the persecution of misunderstood, but ultimately vindicated, Christians down the ages. The headless bodies of the martyr saints Sir Thomas More, John Fisher and William Laud were taken there after their executions at the Tower.

Lambeth Palace is justifying the sortie by relying on a rule designed to provide short-term stand-ins for sick or holidaying vicars. But a spokesman made no reply when The Times suggested that the Archbishop’s behaviour might be seen as rude.

The Bishop of London’s spokesman said: “The Bishop wasn’t aware it was taking place.” He described the event as a private function.

The spokesman was asked by The Times if he considered there had been a discourtesy. “I am not able to comment on that,” he replied.

Such security surrounded the communion service for priests, monks and nuns organised by the Clergy Consultation support group that the guestlist was shredded by Lambeth Palace.

The location was changed after the original venue, the liberal St Peter’s Church in Eaton Square, was “outed” on a hostile website.

Dr Williams’s covert methods are a gift to opponents threatening schism at next year’s Lambeth Conference.

The Times emailed the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, a more conservative primate, to ask if such a thing would have happened in his day.

The 72-year-old replied promptly by Blackberry: “I am sure that Rowan was acting for the very best of reasons viz. to show that he cares for all and wishes to hold minorities in the church. What would I have done? I would not have agreed to a private Eucharist; after all, the Eucharist, by definition, is open to all Christians.

“I am surprised to hear that the Bishop of London’s permission was not sought. Check your facts. If that is so then it is a failure of courtesy but it could be a staff member’s fault! Happy Christmas”.

Lambeth Palace at first implied that it was acceptable to bypass the bishop because the invitation had come from an independent group rather than a parish.

Asked where canon law permits services without a bishop’s blessing, a spokesman pointed to Canon C8, paragraph 2 (a). This allows ministers to invite a “priest or deacon” to serve in their church for up to seven days without telling the bishop.

However, a canon lawyer said there was no wording in that rule which mentioned invitations to external bishops.

The Bishop of London now has the drastic option of reporting Dr Williams to the Archbishop of York who could order a tribunal hearing with ultimate powers of removal from office. Nobody is suggesting that the Bishop would exercise these rights but those familiar with him say he would be disappointed to have been kept in the dark.

The Rev Bertrand Olivier, vicar of All Hallows and a former convenor of Clergy Consultation, said: “It’s nothing to do with the Bishop. Why would the Bishop need to be told?”

The Rev Colin Coward, a gay priest at the gathering, said: “The consulation has always met in confidentiality of venue and time to preserve the safety of those who come.”

Traditionalists are dismayed that the Archbishop condoned practising gay clergy by choosing to give communion, instead of just listening to them. Canon Chris Sugden of Anglican Mainstream said: “Obviously they were wanting to communicate that this is acceptable behaviour for those who are at the table of the Lord.”

The Conscience of an Anglican

The Conscience of an Anglican
A man under authority

by Alan Jacobs
Christianity Today
12/24/07

For some time now, people have been asking me why I haven't written anything on the current-or, depending on your point of view, everlasting-crisis in the Anglican world. After all, I have been an Anglican for nearly twenty-five years, virtually all of my adult life; indeed, my experiences in other denominations, before I discovered Anglicanism, were so brief and tentative that I don't even know how to be a Christian except as an Anglican. Nor do I wish to be a Christian in any other way. Surely I have some opinions on the mess the Anglican Communion is now in, on how it got this way, and how it might get out again?

Well, yes, I do have such opinions. But they are worthless. All such opinions amount to little more than the assignation of blame for past events and predictions of the future-the latter usually involving punishments to come for those blamed for the past-and neither of those activities interests me. There was a time when they did, but I have long since learned how futile such pursuits are, and (more important) how powerfully they distract from the core practices of the Christian life. This is the primary reason why, after too long a season scanning the Anglican blogs daily, I now check just one of them, and once a week, at most. This abstinence has calmed my spirit and removed, I think permanently, my taste for such things.

Moreover, I remind myself that the churches of the Anglican world are governed by bishops, and I am not a bishop. One of the chief reasons I have held firm to Anglicanism over the years is that I believe that the threefold order of ministry-bishop, priest, and deacon-is the model taught by the apostles, the governance particularly approved by God. In this model I, as a layman-even though I am also a member of the priesthood of all believers-have a highly circumscribed role. If my pastor asks me to teach, I teach; otherwise I shut up. In the unlikely (and unwelcome) event of a bishop of the Church asking for my thoughts I would share them; otherwise I keep them to myself, at least in public. The decisions that will shape the future of the Anglican Communion will be made by bishops, not by laypeople, nor even by priests; if I care about that Communion-and I do-I had best be praying for those bishops, and not repeating the error of Job in darkening counsel by words without knowledge.

Like the Roman centurion, then, I am a man under authority, and also like him, I have some responsibilities of my own. Chief among them is to raise my son Wesley in the faith of the Gospel. Around four years ago now I left the Episcopal Church because-thanks to various changes in our parish's life that followed the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire-I knew that if we stayed my son would be taught doctrines which I do not hold, and, just as important, would not be taught doctrines which I hold and believe it important for all Christians to hold. People who encouraged me to stay reminded me that, as (relatively) theologically knowledgeable persons, my wife and I could correct any sins of omission or commission when we got home. But the idea that the family holds the full responsibility for forming children in the faith, with the church being nothing more than a place of worship, is one of the ideas that I don't want to teach my son. Another one is this: that bishops can ignore or repudiate significant portions of the doctrine and discipline of the Church-something the Bishop of Chicago did on a regular basis-and still be thought of as legitimate pastoral overseers for their people.

In leaving the Episcopal Church, then, I believe that I acted according to what Cardinal Newman long ago called "the supreme authority of Conscience ... the aboriginal Vicar of Christ." For Newman, conscience is anything but "private judgment": it is, rather, the testing of one's own private judgments, and sometimes those of others, against Scripture and against the long testimony of the whole church of Christ. And if we test those judgments so, and invoke our consciences, we enter perilous territory: as Newman reminds us, the fourth Lateran Council (1215) affirmed that Quidquid fit contra conscientiam, ædificat ad gehennam-Whatever is done in opposition to conscience is conducive to damnation.

But there is no coercing the consciences of others, especially in what Rusty Reno has called "the ruins of the church." One acts according to conscience, but it takes a certain rashness to commend one's own precise course to others. My dear friend Charles Marsh published a book this year called Wayward Christian Soldiers, and while I disagree with much that he argues in it, one chapter of the book has has often come back to my mind in an especially powerful way. Its title is "Learning to be Quiet in a Noisy Nation (and in a Nation of Noisy Believers)." The historical moment Charles invokes, and encourages all Christians to consider, is that of the German church in the Nazi era. I am not, let me hasten to say, casting anyone in the role of Nazi or Nazi sympathizer; the point of comparison between Lutheranism in 1930s Germany and Anglicanism in North America today is simply that both churches are broken, ruined; both present their adherents (clergy and laypeople) with potent challenges to faithfulness. And in the midst of such challenges-so said Dietrich Bonhoeffer, consistently, from the time of the Nazi accession in 1933 to his execution in the spring of 1945-almost the first requirement of the Christian is, simply, silence. "The time of words is over," he said; sometimes words have to be forgone in order to save time and energy and focus for what is more essential than words: "prayer and righteous action."

Not because I am taking a general vow of silence, but for other reasons, I am now concluding this online column. Its title, as you can see, is "Rumors of Glory," from a Bruce Cockburn song I particularly admire. Those of us living in the ruins of Anglicanism might be especially inclined to say that we have nothing more to go on than rumors, a handful of slightly hopeful whispers fading into imperceptibility. This could be deeply worrisome for those, like me, who see in Anglicanism a beautiful and compelling vision, a church that draws together the Catholic and the Reformed strands of the Christian life and thereby brings both of them to their fullest realization. I do not enjoy the thought that the Anglican experiment may be over, since, as I have said, I don't know how to be a Christian any other way; but I do not believe that that experiment is over; in fact, I have hope-I hear certain rumors-that it may be only beginning.

But even if that experiment is drawing to a close, I am not worried-a little sad, maybe, but not worried. I could learn to be a Christian some other way, if I had to, because, after all, there is one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all. Plus, I'm thinking about Christmas, which, among other things, teaches us that all those rumors are true: the Lord of All came once, in meekness and humility, in the form of a servant. And he will come again-but next time in glory.


---Alan Jacobs teaches English at Wheaton College in Illinois; his history of Original Sin will be published in Spring 2008 by HarperOne.
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