The imposition of Women’s Episcopal Ministry – Andrew Carey
Andrew Carey writes in the Church of England Newspaper:
The Church of England is giving up no sacred principle by offering the most generous provision to traditionalist Anglicans, so why is it so reluctant to do so? Some Anglicans never wanted to give any quarter to traditionalists in the first place. They opposed the Act of Synod, and they have fought tooth and nail against any accommodation from the very start. But by insisting so dogmatically on the imposition of women’s Episcopal ministry even on those who will refuse it, they risk failing completely to pass a measure for women bishops.
Read the whole article here
After the ordination of women vote in the early 1990s, one of the first wave of converts to Roman Catholicism, Dr William Oddie, wrote a book entitled The Roman Option. In it he argued for very similar proposals to which the Vatican is now offering to disillusioned Anglicans, and he urged Anglo-Catholics to convert en masse. He declared that such a solution would have greater integrity leaving the Church of England to be more fully Protestant and evangelical in its identity.
His vision filled me with horror at the time, and still does today. The Church of England is attractive for its breadth, its tolerance (even for the argumentative like myself) and the sheer diversity of its worship styles. Its glory is that despite the Acts of Uniformity in the 16th Century it eventually became a less rigorous Church than many other protestant bodies, and equally a more catholic one. Yet it retained a strongly Trinitarian theology, with a foundation in the authority of scripture that made it a natural home to evangelicals. I’ve never been one of those evangelical Anglicans who thought that my tradition was the only one there was and that I had nothing to learn from the other strands in the Church of England.
In fact, during the time I’ve been reporting religious affairs I’ve found incredible wisdom in all parts of the Church of England. I’ve learnt more from listening to John Habgood and Richard Harries than I might have expected and found myself just as enriched spiritually from an Anglo- Catholic shindigs in Caister as I was at Spring Harvest.
I could go on, but the simple fact is that I’ve found that to be an evangelical in the Church of England you don’t have to travel miles to go to an evangelical parish, you can go to your parish church. Liturgically and theologically, the Church of England is an easy, but nevertheless challenging, fit. It should be no surprise therefore that Anglo-Catholics have found the Church of England so conducive for so long. And in fact the Tractarian movement had incredible success through the 19th and 20th centuries. In terms of liturgical renewal there were setbacks for the Anglo-Catholic party, but more often than not these were temporary.
It is true that there were many bitter rows and court cases over so-called ‘Romish’ tendencies. Evangelicals often proved themselves to be inflexible in opposition to the Oxford Movement with this newspaper, then called The Record, leading the opposition. Yet conversely, a young clergyman called John Henry Newman was one of the first subscribers to the same newspaper in 1828.
Yet during the latter decades of the 20th century there were fewer rows over vestments, the Eucharist was the central ser vice for most Anglican churches, and talks with the Roman Catholic Church had brought unity tantalisingly close.
The problem is that from winning such centrality in the Church of England, Anglo-Catholics are now being relentlessly squeezed out by an extremely aggressive and illiberal tendency.
I’ve been wondering therefore how I would be feeling, if the General Synod explicitly voted todemote the Bible to a tertiary place behind reason and experience. Could I remain and fight my corner, or would I feel forced out? The opening-up of the priesthood to women is just such a change for the Anglo-Catholics. For the most part they’ve managed to stay with the Church of England despite their profound disagreement, mainly because they have been promised a continuing respect for the integrity of their position. That respect has been manifested within a statutory arrangement whereby ‘flying bishops’ have delegated authority over their parishes.
The trouble is that with the advent of women bishops that space for Anglo-Catholics is squeezed beyond recognition. If you can’t recognise a woman bishop, you can’t accept her authority, or delegated authority. So Anglo- Catholics are vainly seeking a solution that can bypass the authority of diocesan bishops vesting functions in ’super-flying bishops’.
On his blog (www.nickbaines.wordpress.com), the Bishop of Croydon sympathises with the traditionalist catholic dilemma but points out: “If a bishop is a bishop, then he/she must be the bishop with all that means. To do other wise is to negate any concept of catholicity anyway.
“These positions have always been irreconcilable and it is only the desire to keep as many people together as possible that makes the attempt at compromise worthwhile. And that search is worthwhile,” he adds. Surely the Vatican offer of an ordinariate to Anglicans, though, is proof that the principle of catholicity is not quite so inflexible as the Church of England would believe. Unless we’re to believe that suddenly the Pope isn’t a Catholic. The point of these ordinariates is that they are non-geographical so they subtract from the authority of the ordinary geographical diocesan bishop.
And in fact, we know already that there is nothing particularly sacred about geography from an Anglican perspective when we have parallel jurisdictions in Europe, as well as bishops to the armed forces and other examples. Further more, if diocesan bishops can voluntarily delegate their authority to a suffragan bishop why can’t they completely devolve such authority?
The Church of England is giving up no sacred principle by offering the most generous provision to traditionalist Anglicans, so why is it so reluctant to do so? Some Anglicans never wanted to give any quarter to traditionalists in the first place. They opposed the Act of Synod, and they have fought tooth and nail against any accommodation from the very start. But by insisting so dogmatically on the imposition of women’s Episcopal ministry even on those who will refuse it, they risk failing completely to pass a measure for women bishops.
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