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Bishop Ross Bay New Zealand became the 13thcountry to legalise same sex marriage two weeks ago. This week the Anglican Bishop of Auckland is being taken to the Human Rights Tribunal over allegations he is discriminating against a gay man who wants to become a priest. Right Reverend Ross Bay (pictured) has been accused of preventing a gay man entering the Anglican Church's training or discernment programme for priests because he is unmarried and in a sexual relationship with his male partner. Bay denies the allegation. The complainant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he had been signalling his desire to train...

It took me fifty years to find my way home (to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church), though only twenty-three to get pointed in the right general direction. This is my tenth year “inside,� corresponding thus to my sixtieth biological. My question for today: What takes people so long?One begins, naturally, by answering for oneself. But I can’t coherently answer. Starting just after my Christian conversion, then moving forward patiently through memory, I recall many occasions when the idea of being received into the Catholic Church occurred to me. Several of these were somewhat dramatic.But the drama was for...

The Church of England yesterday gave a green light to wedding-style services for couples in civil partnerships despite its official opposition to same-sex marriage.A report from the Church’s doctrine watchdog urged priests to devise “pastoral accommodations” for gay couples” and to be “flexible”. It said the aim was to enable them to enjoy a “closer approximation” to marriage. The senior bishop who drafted the missive to priests insisted that it did not amount to a policy u-turn and that an official ban on formal "blessings" for civil partnerships remained in place. But he said it was clear there was a...

Within moments of Pope Benedict’s announcement that he was abdicating the Chair of St. Peter, secularists began demanding that the College of Cardinals choose a less rigid, more progressive pontiff; in other words, a pope who would repudiate Church teachings on chastity, same-sex “marriage,� divorce, contraception, abortion, and priestly celibacy.Leading the charge was The New York Times, which devoted plenty of front page, above-the-fold space to castigating the Church and Benedict. The op-ed editor published, ad nauseam, the usual tired-old Catholic critics, including Garry Wills and Hans Küng.And the moment secularists realized that Pope Francis is not a South American liberation theologian, but...

What a difference a decade makes. In 2002 the BBC broadcast a documentary on the Virgin Mary characterizing her “as a poor and downtrodden girl, who might have conceived Jesus as a result of being raped.� This Life of Brian view of the birth of Jesus prompted outrage -– letters, editorials, statements from church leaders leaders condemning the broadcast.A documentary broadcast on Good Friday by the BBC entitled “The Mystery of Mary Magdalene� that suggests Mary Magdalene and Jesus were sexual partners has provoked a complaint from a retired bishop but little else. The Telegraph reports: The Rt Rev Michael...

Acts such as showering the Princess’s hearse with flowers show that the public is reverting to a “Catholic” approach to death after centuries of protestant reserve, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols suggested. He said that the Princess’s funeral in 1997 marked a watershed in British history and would be remembered as the “end of the Reformation in England”. Catholic practices such as prayers for the souls of the dead and a belief in saints, which were dismissed by protestant reformers in the 16th Century, are now being rediscovered, he said. The recent growth in unofficial roadside...

Bishop Labels Church of England 'Hypocritical’ Over Civil Partnerships The Church of England is facing fresh divisions over same-sex unions. Its leadership has come under attack from one of its own bishops over its refusal to bless homosexual couples. By Edward Malnick 23 Mar 2013 The Bishop of Buckingham, the Rt Rev Dr Alan Wilson, said the Church’s ban on offering blessings for civil partnerships was being flouted by several parishes across Britain. He said this was because some felt the blessings were “logical, natural and compassionate”. His comments come amid tensions within the Church over its opposition to the...

You thought there couldn’t be a law and religion angle to today’s news—fascinating for us history nerds—that archaeologists have discovered the mortal remains of Richard III beneath a parking lot in Leicester? Think again. Plans are underway to re-inter the bones in the city’s Anglican Cathedral. Not so fast, say some: the hunchback king wasn’t a Protestant, but a Catholic, and he requires a Catholic burial. In fact, as Shakespeare fans know, Richard died at Bosworth Field (“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”), defending his throne from Henry Tudor. Henry went on to reign as Henry VII;...

Anglican leaders in Africa have expressed their outrage over the Church of England's decision to approve gay bishops in its order, saying that the decision could put an end to hopes of healing broken relationships in the Communion. Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria, one of the world's largest provinces of the Anglican Communion with 17 million members, said that the affirmation of gay bishops "could very well shatter whatever hopes we had for healing and reconciliation within our beloved Communion," Reuters reported. Okoh added that the Church of England has given into "the contemporary idols of secularism and moral expediency,"...

I have had, as we all have, many good moments in my life as a Catholic (greatly outweighing the inevitable bad ones); but yesterday was one of the very best. Have I ever, I try to recall, had such a vivid sense of how glorious it is to be a Catholic, of the transcendent splendor of the Catholic life? Probably, but I wonder if any liturgy ever passed off with such an exultant sense of joyful celebration? I am referring, as some of you who read my last post may have surmised, to the reception of 11 sisters led by...

The Church of England has decided to drop its ban on gay clergy in civil partnerships seeking to become bishops, as long as they make a promise to remain celibate. Conservative Anglicans, however, insist celibacy would be difficult to enforce, noting that the decision undermines church doctrine on marriage. "The House has confirmed that clergy in civil partnerships, and living in accordance with the teaching of the Church on human sexuality, can be considered as candidates for the episcopate. There had been a moratorium on such candidates for the past year and a half while the working party completed its...

There is a story at CNA/EWTN that made me chuckle a little.What for what is wrong with this (including the terminology). London, England, Jan 4, 2013 / 06:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Church of England has decided to permit gay male clergy in civil partnerships to become bishops, provided that they promise to be celibate. [First, let's work to get Catholic news services to stop playing into the hands of the homosexualists by using the word "gay". Next, do they mean "celibate" (unmarried) or "continent" (not sexually active)?]“The House (of Bishops) believed it would be unjust to exclude from consideration...

The outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, talked about the recent Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn., discounting the argument put forward, including by many Christians in the United States, that "it's not guns that kill, it's people." "People use guns. But in a sense guns use people, too. When we have the technology for violence easily to hand, our choices are skewed and we are more vulnerable to being manipulated into violent action," the leader of the world's 80 million-strong Anglican Communion said, delivering BBC Radio 4's "Thought for the Day" on Saturday.

LONDON (Reuters) - The leader of the Church of England on Tuesday said a vote last month that struck down proposals to allow women to become bishops had been "deeply painful", but that Christianity was still relevant in Britain despite falling numbers of believers. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who leads the global 80-million-strong Anglican Communion, said in his Christmas day sermon that the answer to the question of whether Christianity had "had its day" was a "resounding no". The Church of England narrowly voted against allowing women bishops last month - to the dismay of Williams and Prime Minister...

The Church of England and Church in Wales will be banned in law from offering same-sex marriages, the government has announced. Other religious organisations will be able to "opt in" to holding ceremonies, Culture Secretary Maria Miller said. But she added that the Church of England and Church in Wales had "explicitly" stated strong opposition and would not be included. In her statement, Mrs Miller promised a "quadruple lock" to protect religious freedom, involving: No religious organisation or individual minister being compelled to marry same-sex couples or to permit this to happen on their premises Making it unlawful for religious...

Push for an Anglican Covenant overtaken by the dissolution of the communionThe Archbishop of Canterbury has conceded defeat in the battle over the Anglican Covenant. In a 2 Dec 2012 Advent letter to the primates, Dr. Rowan Williams said the Anglican Communion had become “corrupted” and could no longer be considered a communion of churches but a “community of communities.” Dr. Williams’ somber appreciation of the state of the communion today, contrasts with his past letters to the leaders of the Communions 38 provinces. Nothing now bound the church together apart from good will. In 2009 Dr. Williams rejected calls...

TO ENGLISHMEN of Roger Scruton’s generation (he is 68), religion was “as unmentionable as sex or love or hygiene”. The clumsy soul who stops by a country church in Philip Larkin’s 1955 poem, “Church Going”, speaks of an “awkward reverence”. This seems to be what Anglicanism means for many: God, as depicted in church services, is an Englishman, “uncomfortable in the presence of enthusiasm, reluctant to make a fuss, but trapped into making public speeches”, .. Mr Scruton’s work has a spurtive, poetic quality to it. Justifications of Anglican doctrine lie beside the author’s thoughts on his village church. Literary...

The vote against women bishops at the General Synod by the House of Laity may be puzzling to some; perhaps even more so if you are told (correctly) that a significant number of those who voted against it are themselves in favour of women bishops. Tom Sutcliffe has written a balanced and helpful article for Anglican Ink which explains things well. See: A "liberal" member of Synod explains his "no" vote on women bishops. (H/T The Deacon's Bench) Essentially he and others considered that the proposal was misguided in its approach to those who opposed women bishops, and would over-ride...

Being cruel to Anglicans is about as low as kicking a puppy. The Anglican Church does a lot of good for a lot of people and its presence in British public life forces debates about politics and social policy to be a bit more reflective than they would otherwise be. It is also capable of profound beauty. Village churches are arks of Englishness: neatly stacked Books of Common Prayer, hard wooden pews, a perfume of human breath and burning wax, a Union Jack hung above a shrine to the fallen. I pray that the Church of England is never disestablished,...

We, of all people, ought to know better. "Progress" gave us modern medicine, liberal democracy, the internet. It also gave us the guillotine, the Gulag and the gas chambers. Western intelligentsia assumed in the 1920s that "history" was moving away from the muddle and mess of democracy towards the brave new world of Russian communism. Many in 1930s Germany regarded Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his friends as on the wrong side of history. The strong point of postmodernity is that the big stories have let us down. And the biggest of all was the modernist myth of "progress". What is more,...

"When the Church of England narrowly defeated a measure to allow women to be appointed bishops this week after a dozen years of legislative effort, many observers were surprised. After all, the group has ordained women as priests since 1994-what's the big deal with letting female priests become bishops? The answer helps explain why the measure failed. The Church of England is known for the graciousness with which it accommodates minority theological opinions. Since the 1990s, parties that disagreed about female ordination merely had to tolerate each other's presence. Female bishops, on the other hand, would hold significant ecclesial and...

The Church of England just recently said no to women bishops. There were howls of outrage from all the predictable quarters, for whom such a troglodyte move is just smack-the-forehead baffling. Now I can understand a vote against women bishops as a preliminary move to try to undo the ordination of women priests. And I can understand a vote for women bishops as the next logical step after having established the practice of ordaining women priests. What I don't get is the affirming the ordination of women priests and opposing them as bishops. The pig, once swallowed by the python,...

And so it came to pass that the laity in the Church of England rose up and declared they would not have women bishops to reign over them. The vote was admittedly only six votes, but six votes are six votes. The issue cannot be revisited until a new Synod is elected in 2015. Liberals and progressives along with homosexuals and lesbians are in "tears" and "agony" over this defeat. So is the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the soon to be Archbishop Justin Welby who both spoke up in favor of the measure. It was a bitter pill...

Men and women are equal but different. I pray the Church of England will respect this. The question of whether women should become bishops can be boiled down to one word: equality. And it is because I believe in equality that I am against women becoming bishops. Opponents of women bishops in the Church of England are often dismissed as being incurably dusty and out of date. That in 2012 - 12 years into the third millennium - this issue is being argued about is taken as proof that the Church is hopelessly behind the curve. But if you listen...

The Church of England's governing body blocked a move Tuesday to permit women to serve as bishops in a vote so close it failed to settle the question of female leadership and likely condemned the institution to years more debate on the issue. On Wednesday, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron told the Church of England to "get on with it" and reverse the decision now, not five years from now. And the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said on Wednesday: "We have – to put it very bluntly – a lot of explaining to do," he said. "Whatever the motivations...

(Photo Credit: The Telegraph) Today, the General Synod for the Church of England rejectedthe ordination of women bishops by a mere handful of votes. So ends for now a nearly 12 year legislative process to upend standards for episcopal office. Much of the controversy surrounded the provision of stand-in bishops for parishes opposed to women’s ordination.Passage of the ordination innovations required a 2/3 majority in all houses. The votes were 44 for and two against in the house of bishops, 148 for and 45 against in the house of clergy, and 132 for and 74 against in the house of...

London - A retired Church of England priest has been jailed for four years after admitting that he sexually abused three boys between 1983 and 1991. The case against 75-year-old Rev. Ronald Johns revealed that the bishop of Carlisle had responded to another boy's complaint in 1993 by moving the priest but taking no further action.

A 71-year-old retired priest has admitted six indecent assaults on two youths dating back to the 1990s.Father John Haley Dossor, of Kirton, near Felixstowe, denied a further eight indecent assaults – including one on a third male, and another charge of sexual assault by touching.Three of the assaults Dossor pleaded guilty to were on a victim aged between 13 and 15.

Dr Rowan Williams is retiring as the Archbishop of Canterbury to take up the post of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. His “valedictory” book, Faith in the Public Square, is attracting considerable media interest. I was prompted to buy it after reading Dr William Oddie’s particularly colorful review in the London Catholic Herald. Oddie concluded that the ideas promoted in the book are the sort of impractical nonsense one only hears on Oxbridge high tables and in senior common rooms. I have never met Dr Williams but I once quoted him in a paper I delivered in Italy, a short...

Rev Alan Wilson, the Bishop of Buckingham, suggested accepting same-sex unions could “potentially enrich” the institution of marriage. His comments further inflamed the debate between church leaders after he called on them to “get our head around blessing gay people’s relationships.” Dr Wilson, who has been an outspoken advocate of the Prime Minister’s plans to legalise gay marriage, broadcast his message in a three-minute clip on YouTube...He said: “It all comes down to how we see gay people and how we see God "We don't actually believe gay people are sick or stunted or criminal. We don't believe God is...

It should be apparent by now that the Anglican Communion, torn as it is by "heresies distressed", will not experience a full-blown schism. It is not in the cards. Perhaps it never was. Hysterical religion writers for secular newspapers ran headlines for years on the imminent demise of the Anglican Communion. It never happened and probably never will. (For the record, there is no such thing as the Anglican Church. There is the communion of Anglican churches that forms the Worldwide Anglican Communion.) A no show by 230 bishops, mostly from the Global South, at the most recent Lambeth conference...

The year 2018 will mark the 50th, or Golden, anniversary of Humanae Vitae (HV), in which Paul VI restated what had been, until 1930, an unbroken and universal Christian teaching. Today, on HVÂ’s 44th anniversary, the Bellarmine Forum is launching The Campaign for Humanae Vitae. Our goal is to gather a million signatures on our petition conveying to the Holy Father and our bishops our prayerful gratitude, encouragement, and support for their efforts to preach and to defend this vital teaching of the Magisterium.Why now? Consider this: my colleague on the Notre Dame faculty, Professor Gary Gutting, has proclaimed in...

New numbers reveal that the collapse of the Episcopal Church dramatically accelerated in the last ten years. The denomination is literally falling apart, with attendance down 25% between 2000 and 2010. For a link to the PDF file with the numbers, and for Rod Dreher’s comments on them, look here; but it’s important to note that the effect of these numbers on the life and the well being of local churches is even greater than the raw figures might suggest. Many mainline Protestant congregations today are stuck with an infrastructure built in the 1950s and 1960s. There are buildings to...

The Episcopal Church's 77th General Convention concluded Thursday with the adoption of a long list of resolutions, from one that calls on the U.S. Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act to another providing rites for pet funerals. Episcopal leaders, who met in Indianapolis for over a week, considered dozens of resolutions – the most controversial being the approval of transgender ordination and rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. In protest, leaders from the Diocese of South Carolina, including its bishop, left the convention early after expressing clearly their belief that the decisions mark a departure from Scripture...

The relationship between the Jewish community and the Church of England has taken a downward turn following its decision to strengthen ties with an anti-Israel group. The Jerusalem Post has learned that the Board of Deputies of British Jews has pulled out of meetings this week with Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the archbishop of Canterbury. A motion is also set to be raised at the board’s monthly meeting in which the deputies will call on the organization to sever all ties to the Church of England. At its General Synod in York on Monday, the Church’s highest legislative...

The headlines coming out of the Episcopal Church’s annual U.S. convention are stunning — endorsement of cross-dressing clergy, blessing same-sex marriage, the sale of their headquarters since they can’t afford to maintain it. The American branch of the Church of England, founded when the Vatican balked at permitting King Henry VIII to continue executing any wife who failed to bear him sons, is in trouble. Somehow slipping out of the headlines is a harsh reality that the denomination has been deserted in droves by an angry or ambivalent membership. Six prominent bishops are ready to take their large dioceses out...

Breaking news: House of Bishops affirms gay commitment ceremony Posted on July 9, 2012 by cherie Cherie Wetzel reporting from the 77th General Convention in Indianapolis July 9, 2012 This afternoon, the House of bishops voted in roll call vote, to affirm A049 the resolution endorsing the same-sex commitment ceremony. The vote was 111 yes, 41 no and 3 abstained. As I listened to the 1:45 minute discussion prior to the vote, I continued to have hope as clearly 19 bishops stated they would vote no that I had not expected. At the end of the process, after announcing the...

Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson. Washington D.C., Jul 4, 2012 / 02:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Holy See has announced the first liturgical texts approved for use around the world by the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans who have become Catholic. “We welcome with gratitude these texts, which bring into Catholic liturgical life some of the most beloved and memorable texts in the Book of Common Prayer,� said Msgr. Jeffrey N. Steenson, head of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. “These texts have blessed and comforted generations of English-speaking Christians and will be deeply appreciated in the Ordinariate communities,�...

The Archbishop of Canterbury is writing a book in which he lambasts the government for shrinking the State. In its current ‘shrunken’ form, the state accounts for around half of the UK economy. This is evidently sinful. It should be bigger, presumably like the economies of the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. Anglicanism has become extremely political. The Archbishop's Council has just reprimanded the government for vetoing changes to the EU treaty last December and warned them not to think of leaving the EU. In his speech at the St. Paul’s service to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee, the...

...This former Protestant Archbishop knew that coming home to the fullness of the Catholic Church meant selling all to buy the treasure in the field.(Matt. 13:44) He laid aside a thriving ministry of many years with no assurance of any possibility of ordination to either the diaconate in Christ or the Holy Priesthood. Over the years that followed his entry into the Church he humbly offered his multiple gifts in many ways, including serving as the Associate Editor of Catholic Online. He has been a model in his love for the Lord and fidelity to the Church. The fruit was...

Featured Term (selected at random):ANGLO-CATHOLICISM Popular name of most Catholic sections of the High Church movement among Anglicans or Episcopalians. It stresses some form of acceptance of the papacy, the seven sacraments, and a sacrificing (not merely functional) priesthood. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Henry Entwistle appointed Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate for Australia, Our Lady of the Southern Cross. The Ordinariate was erected June 15, 2012.

The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) are vying for ecumenical partners as each jockeys for recognition by the wider Christian community. TEC recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Episcopal-Lutheran Concordat wherein the Episcopal Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) entered into full Communion. While this was initially met with much enthusiasm and idealism in the hope that the two denominations would usher in a new era of inter-denominational cooperation, the occasion went mostly unnoticed. In February of this year, the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in...

A group of leading Anglicans says the Church of England has "nothing to fear" from the prospect of gay marriage and it is should be a cause for rejoicing. In a letter to The Times, prominent figures including five former bishops say statements by church leaders give a false impression of popular feeling. "We believe the Church has nothing to fear from... civil marriage for same-sex couples," it says. "It will be for the churches to then decide how they respond pastorally." A leading signatory of the letter is Dr Jeffrey John, the openly gay dean of St Albans, whose...

Featured Term (selected at random):   BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER See: ANGLICAN COMMUNION All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The early favourite to become the next Archbishop of Canter-bury - spiritual leaders of the world's Anglicans - is the victim of "naked racism" by critics who are trying to besmirch his name, one of his closest sup-porters said. ..Arora's accusation of an "anonymous whispering" campaign against the archbishop has the potential to be hugely damaging to the church. It recalls the last time the Church sought a new Archbishop of Canterbury, in 2002, when the Michael Nazir-Ali, then Bishop of Rochester, was described as a "Paki Papist" by an unidentified cleric...., two bishops who spoke to the Sunday Telegraph...

EASTER HOMILY Preached by the Most Reverend Robert Duncan at the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh Vigil, in St. Peter's Church in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on Easter Eve, 7th April, A.D.2012. They were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb? [Mark 16:3] In the Name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Blessed and Praised forever: Amen. In all four gospels it is women who come first to the tomb. Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell us the purpose: to anoint Jesus'...

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - A sixth former Anglican bishop was ordained to the priesthood in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham at St. John's Cathedral in Portsmouth on Monday, the Feast of the Annunciation. Robert Mercer, 77, was ordained by the Right Reverend Alan Hopes, the Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, who is also a convert from the Church of England. During his homily, Bishop Hopes was quoted by the U.K. Catholic Herald as saying: "Robert, your life has been one of profound commitment and witness. Your formation and ministry within the Anglican tradition have provided you with...

The Church of England cannot sign up to a plan aimed at preventing the global Anglican Church from splitting up after half its 44 dioceses voted against it. The Archbishop of Canterbury backed the Anglican Covenant in a bid to ensure divisive issues - such as gay bishops - did not cause the Communion to split. A vote by the diocesan synod of Lincoln meant 22 dioceses had opposed the plan. The covenant had already been rejected by conservative global Church leaders, whom it was intended to placate. Outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams had said the covenant was about...

The first thing to be said about Dr. Rowan Williams is that he is by common consent a subtle theologian, a sensitive pastoral priest, and a genuinely good and holy man, because a great many less flattering things will be said about him in the next few months, some of them further down this column. Dr. Williams announced last Friday that he intended to resign at the end of the year as Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore as spiritual leader of the Church of England and, by extension, of the 77 million–strong Anglican Communion around the world. His announcement came...