Anglican Mainstream

By Leon Podles

The Pope welcomed a gathering of altar servers in Rome. As John Allen notes:

First, for the first time this year, the female altar servers in attendance outnumbered the males. According to organizers, the balance was roughly 60-40 in favor of females. The official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, pointed to the turnout as a symbol of “the massive entry in recent decades of girls and young women into a role once reserved exclusively to males.”

This predominance of girls was predictable (anyway I predicted it in my book The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity). Western Christianity has for a long time been regarded as unmasculine. It has been difficult to keep men, especially young men, connected to a church which seems to want to lessen their masculinity.

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By George Conger, CEN

Last month’s vote by General Synod on the consecration of women bishops is a departure from the apostolic tradition of the catholic church, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said. However, Bishop Brian Farrell declared the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion continued to have a duty to engage in ecumenical dialogue.

In an interview with the ZENIT news service, Bishop Farrell said would women bishops would present an “enormous obstacle” to Anglican-Catholic talks. “All the Churches of the first millennium, Catholic, Eastern and Orthodox, state that only men can be ordained. These Churches see the ordination of women as an illegitimate abandonment of authentic Tradition.”

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By Diogenes, Catholic Culture

• The major television networks led their morning news coverage with the story?
• The New York Times launched a 5-part series of front-page reports on sexual abuse in the Episcopal Church?
• SNAP held a press conference demanding that the Diocese of Pennsylvania turn over files on all clerics accused of abuse?
• Time questioned whether the whole mess would forever mar the legacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury?
•                    or
• Nothing. These are Episcopalians. Sexual abuse by non-Catholics is a non-story.

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By George Conger, CEN

Catholic leaders in Scotland have denounced the coalition government’s plans to leave intact the 1701 Act of Settlement, which bans the monarch from marrying a Roman Catholic.

“When a monarch is free to marry a Scientologist, Muslim, Buddhist, Moonie or even Satanist but not a Catholic, then there’s something seriously wrong,” said Scottish Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph Devine of Motherwell.

In a written answer given to the House of Commons on June 30, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Cabinet Office, Mr. Mark Harper stated “there are no current plans to amend the laws on succession”

Bishop Devine, who during the General Election had urged Catholics not to vote Labour due to their social policies, expressed outrage over the Cameron government decision.

“What trust and confidence can we have in such a leader? He is barely two months into government and is already showing alarming signs of the arrogance and disdain so often associated with power,” he said according to the Scotsman.

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By John Smeaton, SPUC

When I was in Rome, earlier this month, I met Hilary White, the well-known writer for LifeSiteNews.com

[.....]  "There are things about being a Catholic that make it possible (though never easy) to stand against the whole tide of the world and refuse to sway. It is this absolutist stand that so infuriates the world. Why are the world’s media so doggedly pursuing the Catholic Church on the sex abuse scandals? Why only the Church when there are assuredly whole oceans of fish to fry in the Anglican, Lutheran and Baptist communities? Or for that matter, among teachers, scout leaders and librarians?

"It is because the Catholic religion proposes absolute and unchangeable teachings on life, the universe and everything, and claims for them the infallible authority of God. Catholics grasp the concept that truth is simply what it is, and no amount of 'consensus', 'social progress', or committee-think will change it. It is why Catholics laugh (though somewhat darkly) when media experts demand that the pope change the teachings on homosexuality or abortion or contraception to become accepted by the modern world. The World cannot grasp, no longer has the intellectual capability to grasp, that the Catholic Church presents the truths of religion in the same way as a mathematician presents a mathematical axiom.

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By Peter J Smith, LifeSite News

With the Vatican reeling from another sex scandal, this time in the heart of the Eternal City, the Vicar of Rome is sending an unequivocal message to homosexual priests: come out of the closet, and get out of the priesthood.

Hat Tip: Virtueonline

ACCC will establish Canadian Anglican Catholic Ordinariate

The Dean's Report on Synod 2010

The Eighth Provincial Synod and Thirteenth Diocesan Synod of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada were held simultaneously at the Rosemary Heights Retreat Centre in Surrey, B.C., July 12 to 16, 2010.

In attendance were the Canadian House of Bishops (Bishop Peter Wilkinson, Metropolitan and Bishop Ordinary; Bishop Craig Botterill, Suffragan for Atlantic Canada and Chancellor; Bishop Carl Reid, Suffragan for Central Canada and Apostolic Commissary; Bishop Robert Mercer, Assistant Bishop; along with the TAC Primate, Archbishop John Hepworth); eighteen members of the House of Clergy; and thirty members of the House of Laity; together with a number of observers and guests. The first evening began with Evensong, dinner, and then a wine and cheese reception hosted by the ACCC Parishes of the Lower Mainland.

While there was ample time for fellowship, much of our time was dedicated to the business of Synod. The Synod delegates received an address from the Primate, Archbishop John Hepworth, on the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, together with a discussion of the various issues involved and a time frame for the implementation of a proposed Ordinariate for Canada (as well as other Provinces within the Traditional Anglican Communion).

In order to facilitate open and free discussion among the Houses of Synod, each member of the House of Clergy and the House of Laity was asked in turn to speak their mind and provide their thoughts, questions, and concerns about unity with the See of Peter and the proposed Canadian Ordinariate. Following a day and half of discussions, a vote was taken in each of the two Houses as to their support (or not) for unity and the establishment of a Canadian Anglican Catholic Ordinariate.

The result of this vote was unanimous support from the House of Clergy, and an overwhelming vote of support from the House of Laity (with only two opposed and three abstentions out of 30 lay delegates).

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MercatorNet

The Vatican prosecutor for sex abuse cases has presented the new Church rules to combat sex abuse and to judge priests who have committed crimes more quickly.

Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's Promoter of Justice, said at a press conference: “I think it gives the signal that we are very very serious in our commitment to promote safe environments and to offer an adequate response to abuse.”

The new Vatican rules against sex abuse are a set of processes and sanctions exclusively internal to the Church. The rules are not intended to replace state laws, which the Vatican insists must be respected as well.

"If state law requires reporting, we must absolutely obey. No excuses. If the law allows the victim to decide whether to report or not, we must respect the legislature's decision," said Msgr Scicluna.

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Damian Thompson comments here

Kenneth Howell was told after the spring semester ended that he would no longer be teaching in the UI's Department of Religion. The decision came after a student complained about a discussion of homosexuality in the class in which Howell taught that the Catholic Church believes homosexual acts are morally wrong.

Howell has been an adjunct lecturer in the department for nine years, during which he taught two courses, Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought. He was also director of the Institute of Catholic Thought, part of St. John's Catholic Newman Center on campus and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria. Funding for his salary came from the Institute of Catholic Thought.

One of his lectures in the introductory class on Catholicism focuses on the application of natural law theory to a social issue. In early May, Howell wrote a lengthy e-mail to his students, in preparation for an exam, in which he discusses how the theory of utilitarianism and natural law theory would judge the morality of homosexual acts.

"Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY," he wrote in the e-mail, obtained by The News-Gazette. "In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same."

He went on to write there has been a disassociation of sexual activity from morality and procreation, in contradiction of Natural Moral Theory. Read Greg Griffith here
 

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph

In a move designed to stress a commitment to the Catholic Church, the Coalition has decided that the former Conservative MP would represent a suitably high-profile appointment.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, is understood to have endorsed the nomination, which will be sent to the Vatican for final approval before an announcement is made later in the summer. 

He is a long-standing supporter of Miss Widdecombe, having made her shadow home secretary when he was Tory leader.

She would be the first Roman Catholic woman to be appointed to the post and would succeed Francis Campbell, the current ambassador, who will step down in the autumn after the Pope's visit to Britain.

"There is nothing imminent to be announced," she told The Sunday Telegraph.

The post, which comes with an official residence in Rome, was created after the Reformation, yet was not given ambassadorial status until 1982.

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From New Directions

[.....] my readership might include many who were going through a real personal sense of anguish, because as Anglicans they had for some years been witnessing the destruction of an Anglican heritage that had brought them to God, and the joyful certainties of a Roman Catholic riding the crest of a glorious wave of Catholic momentum, might perhaps have only added to that heartache. While Rome in joyful sunshine celebrated a Papal Mass, in Britain the CofE continued to get headlines for division, tension, breakaway groups, the apparent unravelling of former certainties on doctrine and morals.

Now, five years on, Catholics who love Pope Benedict are experiencing anguish too. The revelations of hideous sexual abuse on the part of clergy bring heartache. They have naturally also been used in vitriolic attacks on the Pope, and it has been a time of gleeful opportunity for all who hate the Catholic Church.

It is virtually impossible to get a fair discussion, because of course the fact that any priests, at any time, sexually abused young people, and that this abuse was not punished and was even covered up, is a dreadful thing. It obliterates the next part of any discussion, even if that next part is something crucial such as ‘But Pope Benedict was not part of that cover-up’ or even more crucially ‘But it was Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Ratzinger, who stopped the cover-up culture and launched an effective campaign to eliminate what he rightly described as ‘filth’ from the Church.’

This is all happening with a Papal visit to Britain planned. The visit itself has been a source of anguish. It somehow began in a way that was all wrong – a leaked initiative from the Prime Minister in what was widely seen as an attempt to gain ground on the world stage. Prime Ministers do not invite Popes – such an invitation is either a formal State one, done through the Head of State (in this case, the Queen), or a pastoral one done through the local Bishops. Rome delayed in its response. When the final official announcement was made, the possibilities for a sense of joyful momentum were diminished.

Then, and not coincidentally, the concerted attacks began – with extraordinarily effective use of the Internet, where rumour and truth are blended, where blogs and comments swarm with smutty jokes, and nasty innuendoes, and calumny and detraction of every kind. And now here we are, with a Papal visit planned for September, anti-Papal demonstrations promised by gung-ho  atheists, and vile behaviour on the part of our own government officials, with a team of officials at the Foreign Office clearly seeing the whole thing as a ridiculous event worthy only of ignorant sneering.

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By Martin Beckford, Telegraph

Francis Campbell said that politicians are usually aware of the importance of faith because of their “lived experience” in constituencies.

But he claimed that government officials are less knowledgeable, and suggested they try to find out more from devout colleagues.

Mr Campbell, Britain’s first Roman Catholic ambassador to the Holy See, said that the Western belief that religion was in decline had been proved wrong and that faith should be an important consideration in foreign policy.

It comes after he was forced to apologise to the Vatican on behalf of the Foreign Office after diplomats wrote a memo mocking Pope Benedict XVI and traditional Catholic teaching. The document suggested that during the pontiff’s forthcoming state visit to Britain, he should launch a brand of condoms, open an abortion clinic and bless a civil partnership.

Giving a lecture on Tuesday evening to members of the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust, which debates politics and Europe, Mr Campbell did not refer directly to the scandal over the papal memo.

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By Jeff Walton, Inside Catholic

An announcement that the Roman Catholic Church was creating a new structure for Anglicans to convert en masse grabbed the media's attention last year. Married Anglican priests could swim the Tiber all while keeping their liturgies and worship forms mostly intact, affiliating with new Roman Catholic "ordinates" of their own that looked strikingly similar to Anglican dioceses. Many conservative Anglo-Catholics, especially those in Britain, were delighted with the offer

The developing story of the new Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans continues to unfold in the media, boosted by the Anglican Communion's instability due to the Episcopal Church and their co-revisionists in the Anglican Church of Canada. Less reported has been the equally well-trafficked path away from Rome and toward the Episcopal Church.

In 2009, Episcopal bishop and gay celebrity Gene Robinson crowed that his New Hampshire diocese was brimming with disaffected Catholics, drawn to the promise of a more inclusive church. While Bishop Robinson's celebration was premature (his New Hampshire diocese reported 1 percent growth in membership that year, after a decade-long decline of near 20 percent — but continued to lose weekly attendance unabated), he was not misrepresenting the source of some new pew occupants. Read here

by Richard Owen, Timesonline

There is growing speculation that the Pope’s visit to Cyprus next month for talks with Orthodox leaders could lead to a long-awaited summit between the pontiff and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I to heal the 11th-century schism between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity.

In a move toward reconciliation today Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, the head of external affairs for the Moscow Patriarchate, delivered a message of greetings from Patriarch Kirill at a concert of Russian music in the Vatican attended by the Pope.

Chrysostomos II, the Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus, said this week that he hoped to arrange a summit and offered Cyprus as a possible venue. His previous attempts to arrange a papal meeting with the late Patriarch Alexei II were unsuccessful.

However, diplomats said that the death of Patriarch Alexei and the succession of Patriarch Kirill had given the reconciliation process “new impetus”.

Metropolitan Hilarion said that there were still outstanding issues between Rome and Moscow, including tensions over the role of Greek Catholics in western Ukraine. “The theological dialogue still has a long way to go,” he said. However a summit meeting was “our desire, it is a hope, and we must work for it”, he said, adding that “People and times have changed”. Read here

By Peter J Smith, LifeSite News

Homosexualist activists belonging to the Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM) are planning to demonstrate at Catholic Cathedrals and parishes across the United States this Sunday. They have targeted particularly Cardinal Francis George of the Chicago Archdiocese, since he is the head of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has publically engaged in promoting and preserving the natural definition of marriage and family in civil law.

The RSM is an organization of activists that link together and coordinate through the internet. Ordinarily they wear a 2-inch wide ribbon of rainbow colors across their shoulders, and on Pentecost Sunday they present themselves to receive Holy Communion in Cathedrals and parishes across the nation while wearing the sash.

The protest challenges the Church's teaching that engaging in homosexual behavior is harmful and constitutes a “mortal sin.” Under Church teaching, a Catholic cannot receive Holy Communion while in a state of mortal sin, and must first repent of the sin and confess it to a priest before he can be re-admitted to the sacrament.  Read here

By Charles Lewis, National Post

By Stephen Hough, Telegraph

By Deacon Keith Fournier, Catholic Online

(Clip)  "The promulgation of Anglicanorum Coetibus by Pope Benedict XVI is prophetic. The early fathers called the Church the 'world reconciled': She is God's plan for the whole human race. The Pope of Christian unity has opened the door for the coming full communion of the Church. 2010 will be a year of amazing progress toward that end. Benedict has offered a Catholic vision for legitimate diversity within authentic orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The entry of these convinced Anglican Christians into full communion will contribute to the authentic renewal of the Catholic Church. It will hasten the accelerating move toward communion between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. This work of the Holy Spirit will change the church – and the world into which she is called – in a way which we have not seen in our lifetime."

This latest movement undertaken not only by members of the Traditional Anglican Communion (who have already signaled their "Yes" to the invitation) but now by prominent Church of England Bishops, underscores the magnitude of the historic nature of this ongoing story. However, it may also be the beginning of something even bigger, the coming full communion of the Church and the healing of some old divisions in the broken Body of Christ.

I conclude with a "tease" to a future story on Catholic Online. We are on the trail of another historic turn of events in this move toward full communion with the Catholic Church. The story we are pursuing – with much prayer and research – indicates that it is not only Anglicans knocking on Rome's door. I am in the middle of a series of interviews with an Archbishop which will lead to at least one article on a group of Lutheran Christians who are following a similar road as the Anglicans who blazed this trail.

Ironically, just when some in the media are attempting to write obituaries on the Catholic Church, she seems poised to make an historic resurgence, becoming a safe harbor for many Christians who long for historic Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Stay tuned, Church history is unfolding.

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By Philip Jenkins, The American Conservative

The truth about “pedophile priests”

(Clip) Very few of the accused priests were pedophiles, in the sense of having abused a minor under the age of puberty, say 12 or 13 for a boy. In the U.S. at least, the great majority of cases of sexual misconduct by priests involve older boys, often aged between 15 and 17, or even older. This behavior is illegal, harmful, and sinful, but it is not pedophilia. The technical name for this kind of act is ephebophilia, but many would call it pederasty or even homosexuality. Drawing this distinction certainly does not excuse or minimize the behavior, but it is critically important for understanding the statistics. Pedophiles are compulsive offenders who are highly likely to repeat their acts, often claiming hundreds of victims. The fact that true pedophile priests formed such a minority of offenders meant that the overall number of victims was mercifully far smaller than it might have been.

Pedophile priests certainly did exist, but in tiny numbers. At the heart of the clergy abuse crisis was a core of highly persistent serial pedophiles, who massively “over-produced” criminal behavior, and some were the targets of hundreds of plausible complaints. Out of 100,000 priests active in the U.S. in this half-century, a cadre of just 149 individuals—one priest out of every 750—accounted for over a quarter of all the allegations of clergy abuse. These 149 super-predators also explain the surprisingly large number of very young victims that the study reported. The average age of offenders for the whole era has been gravely distorted by counting the sizable number of child victims assaulted by these reprehensible serial pedophiles.

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