[.cnI redruM]

The Babylonian Capitivity did the same thing to Catholicism. It was ended when the plague struck Avignon and killed with reckless abandon as The Avignon 'Pope' prayed for God's forebearance.

This schism is in a way more entropic and harder to bridge. Not because so many feel so strongly, but probably because so few really care at all. As the churches split into smaller and smaller groups, they will argue smaller and less signifigent points to the bloody hilt. As Mahomet II sacked Constantinople, noone could quite agree how many angels would dance on the head of a pin.

[ccmay]

As the churches split into smaller and smaller groups, they will argue smaller and less signifigent points to the bloody hilt.

Very true. My parents are members of one of the small conservative splinter Anglican churches that broke with Canterbury after the ordination of women and the overhaul of the 1928 prayer book. Their journey over the past twenty-five years has been a sad tale of schism begetting schism, with ever-smaller and ever-older parishes that disagree over minor points of liturgy and splinter again.

I am coming to think my spiritual home is in the Anglican Use movement within the Roman Catholic Church. Whatever their problems with gay infiltrators, at least they formally stand for unity and steadfastness in opposing heresy.

-ccm

[ccmay]

As the churches split into smaller and smaller groups, they will argue smaller and less signifigent points to the bloody hilt.

Very true. My parents are members of one of the small conservative splinter Anglican churches that broke with Canterbury after the ordination of women and the overhaul of the 1928 prayer book. Their journey over the past twenty-five years has been a sad tale of schism begetting schism, with ever-smaller and ever-older parishes that disagree over minor points of liturgy and splinter again. I enjoy visiting and hearing the beloved cadences of 1928, but they seem totally lacking in the spirit of Christian unity.

There are at least four traditionalist Anglican church organizations in this country, and a number of unaffiliated churches like my parents'. If they could come together with traditionalists left behind in the Episcopal church, as well as the overseas Anglican provinces that are considering breaking with the American Episcopal Church, perhaps there would be hope for a traditionalist province that parallelled the main church in this country and yet remained in communion with Canterbury.

Otherwise, the only option for those who value both unity and orthodoxy will be reconciliation with Rome and adoption of the Anglican Use liturgy.

-ccm