Signing things

Some admirable American clergymen have got rolling a Letter to the Synod Fathers in which they express their support for what the English Clergy said in our letter. Despite some alleged intimidation, nearly 500 English Clergy signed it; considering how large the American church is, surely they will get thousands? Last time I looked, 775 and four bishops.

And where is the rest of the world?

This is the sort of matter in which bulk breeds bulk. It needs to roll and roll. We have an intransitive verb 'to snowball'.

Perhaps in America also there may be pressure or intimidation. I have been told that Catholic clergy generally are more nervous about getting on the wrong side of their bishop than we of the Anglican Patrimony have grown up to be. Our great Patrimonial Dom Gregory Dix deftly said that "the historian grows accustomed to the idea that even the best and most energetic of bishops will one day have rest from his labours and that the lance of his successor often delivers the diocese from the menace of some different windmill." You will remember his quip that, heraldically, the symbol of a Bishop is a crook; of an Archbishop, a double cross.

But, of course, that was in the Church of England, where there were deeply held conscientious differences, often between bishops and the Inferior Clergy, about 'what the Church teaches'. In the Catholic Church, however, things are of course totally different. Mercifully, it is clear what the Church teaches; and, helpfully, dear Pope Benedict laid down that, for the Ordinariates, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is our doctrinal standard. As long as we simply stick to asserting, "in season and out of season", its lucid teaching, Catholic bishops will only applaud us and thank us for doing so.

The Holy Father himself expects us to do this with Parrhesia. Nowadays, scarcely a day seems to go past without him praising Parrhesia!