12 July 2010

Lacrimae rerum

Listening to Saturday's General Synod debate, and the tearful reaction of some to its rejection of Archbishop Rowan's proposal, I feel very strange. That apparently intelligent men could think that such a proposition, offering so little in terms of a guaranteed discrete ecclesial life, was some sort of Cup of Salvation, bewilders me. Talk about clutching at fig leaves and hiding ones shame with a straw ...

4 comments:

  1. I agree that the lacrimæ make no sense.

    Good for General Synod! You can't be both Catholic and Protestant. You can be credally orthodox, sacramental and liturgical like a Catholic, but if you believe in a fallible church in which essentials are always up for a vote for change, you're a Protestant. The C of E obviously is. So it ought to act on that boldly: women bishops with no exceptions for naysayers and stop treating Jeffrey John so badly. Either make the changes or - like Catholics - don't. Likewise Anglo-Catholics have to choose which side they're really on.

    I defend the Protestants' rights to govern themselves and to their property. Case closed.

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  2. Anonymous12 July, 2010

    In truth, "Res libertatis". However, the situation does remind me of Rhett Butler finally taking up arms against the Yankee invaders: "Maybe it's because I've always had a weakness for lost causes once they're really lost."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56QC3Syo8D0&feature=related

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  3. But surely Dr Williams' proposals were always aimed at the Evangelicals, not at the Catholics? They worked if you believed that a bishop was just a higher ranking dorm of ministry, but were incompatible with the idea of a sacramental priesthood and episcopate.

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  4. "I defend the Protestants' rights to govern themselves and to their property. Case closed."
    Very good of you, and thank you for closing the case.

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