Posted on 12/25/2005 10:09:32 AM PST by churchillbuff
As the Anglican Communion threatens to break up, one large group of Anglicans is blazing a trail to Rome, and another could follow suit.
The Traditional Anglican Communion, an autonomous group of 400,000 clergy and laity separate from the Anglican Communion, has drawn up detailed plans on how to come into full communion with the Holy See.
After 12 years of consultations, both internally and informally with the Vatican, the group - with the help of a Catholic layman - is preparing a "Pastoral Plan" asking the Vatican for an "Anglican Rite Church" that would preserve their Anglican heritage while allowing them to be "visibly united" with Rome.
The Traditional Anglican Communion's worldwide primate, Archbishop John Hepworth, hopes the group's College of Bishops will approve the plan at a possible Rome Synod in February 2006.
The church's members are so far reported to be unanimous in their desire for full communion. If formally agreed, the proposal would then be presented to Vatican officials.
If Rome approves, the Traditional Anglican Communion, a worldwide ecclesial body based in Australia, could become the largest Anglican assembly to return to the Church since the Reformation.
In a statement released earlier this year, Archbishop Hepworth, a former Catholic priest, said the denomination had "no doctrinal differences with Rome" that impeded full communion. "My broad vision is to see the end of the Reformation of the 16th century," he said.
The denominations has pursued unity with Rome since the Anglican started ordaining women as priests, a move that, Archbishop Hepworth says, was the "ultimate of schismatic acts" and irrevocably "fractured" the 1966 Common Declaration between Rome and Canterbury.
The historic agreement made between Pope VI and then-Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey, obliged both communions to work towards unity through serious dialogue.
Vatican Caution
During recent informal talks, Vatican officials advised TAC to grow in numbers, become better known by forming friendships with local Catholic clergy and laity, and build structures through which they can dialogue with other churches. We've now done that," Archbishop Hepworth said. "By next year's synod, our conscience will have brought us to a certain point - it will then be for the Holy See to decide what to do."
Meanwhile, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have warned the Church of England that going ahead with women bishops risks destabilizing both the Church of England and the whole Anglican Communion, in a report the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales referred to "tremendous and intolerable ecclesiological risk" involved in ordaining women bishops.
The Church of England is considering whether to allow women to become bishops, with a debate expected at its general synod in February.
Ordaining women as bishops is particularly contentious for those opposed to women priests as they would be unable to recognize or accept the authority of all priests, male or female, who were ordained by female bishops.
For Forward in Faith, a worldwide association of Anglican who remain part of the Anglican Communion but are unable to accept the female ordinations, the situation is somewhat different than that of the Traditional Anglican Communion.
They remain committed to being Anglicans, so communion with Rome "is not on the agenda," according to Stephen Parkinson, director of Forward in Faith in the United Kingdom. However, the group is sympathetic to the Traditional Anglican Communion and is likely to move closer to that denomination's position if women are ordained bishops in England and Wales.
Currently, Forward in Faith-UK is negotiating with the Church of England for a "structural solution" that would enable its members to belong to a separate province within the Anglican Communion should the church decide to consecrate women as bishops.
But greater independence for Forward in Faith members might open the way for the group to move unilaterally towards Rome. "We could then pursue our own agenda," said Parkinson. "Ecumenism could then become an imperative for us."
Not if But When?
The Vatican is monitoring the current problems besetting the Anglican Communion. Not only do the communion's member churches have divisions over ordaining women as bishops, but Anglicans continue to be torn apart by the consecration in 2003 of Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire.
At a Church of England synod in London in November, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, was strongly criticized by nearly half the church's presiding archbishops over the issue of homosexual clergy.
In the same week, the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, announced that he was aligning the country's 17 million Anglican with the breakaway United States Episcopal churches. His church has already severed constitutional ties with the Church of England over Robinson's consecration.
For Anglicans like Archbishop Hepworth and Parkinson, it is a question of not if by when the Anglican Communion will fracture. But even if they're right, the Vatican is not inclined to work out precise plans for receiving large groups of Anglicans. Each case is likely to be different, which precludes forward planning.
The Vatican is, however, understood to be urging those groups wishing to come into communion with it to demonstrate they are comfortable with Church teaching, and that they aren't motivated soley by disillusionment with the Anglican Communion.
The two departments responsible for group conversions, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, are keeping a low profile for now.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has been focusing on issues that unite the churches and urging Anglicans to strengthen the bonds that unify the communion, particularly those surround the Anglican Communion's traditional teaching on human sexuality.
In the meantime, both Rome and the estranged Anglicans are waiting to see what the Anglican hierarchy does and how national Anglican churches and individual Anglicans respond.
"If many come over to Rome at the same time, then they're still all treated as individual conversions," said Dominican Father Charles Morerod, a member of the Anglican/Catholic International Commission. "But it is different if a whole province wants to come into communion."
It's Christ's prayer for unity among his followers in the Gospel of John: "That all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in Thee."
Judging by the way the liberals have torn apart and deconstructed the Bible in the centuries following, it's at least arguable whether this was a good or a bad thing.
People still believed what was in the Bible in those days, even if they didn't know Latin...
My namesake, St. Edmund Campion, was hung, drawn, and quartered under the Protestant "Good Queen Bess" (Elizabeth I).
If you're not familiar with the punishment, it involved being first strangled with a rope until semi-conscious, then being cut down, disembowelled (while usually still alive) by a butcher, having one's intestines burnt under one's nose, then having one's private parts cut off, and finally being beheaded and having the dead torso cut into four pieces "to be placed at the Queen's disposal". (Fortunately, she usually chose to bury them, although the head was sometimes exhibited for a time until it got rotten.)
He was technically convicted of treason against Queen Elizabeth I, but the content of his "crime" consisted of hearing Mass and saying confessions, that is, he was a Catholic priest. He swore allegiance to the queen at his trial in every matter except the content of his religious beliefs.
Your move, if you still want to maintain Protestant moral superiority. It seems to me that a dispassionate study of history will reveal plenty of sin on both sides.
In every case I've seen reported, the Church was not the office of execution, it was the State.
"Urban legend rhetoric propagated by the ignorant and dishonest."
Dishonest? You really believe I'm being dishonest? I have a thick skin, but I don't accept a dishonesty charge from anyone.
Prove it or apologize.
Difference of opinion is not dishonesty.
Wycliffe was the first to translate it into English....since we were talking about England I thought that would be clear. My mistake.
Hardly the stuff urban legends are made of.
Welcome home!
"However, I don't recall anyone making the argument. Having been caught in a rather ludicrous argument, you're now deflecting. ;-) "
I think you made the argument to my point.
Regarding Virginia's state religion: "Yes, and interestingly, it WASN'T Catholicism, now was it?"
I never said it was. My point was not that zealotry or the protestant kind is better than the catholic kind......that the matters of the state should be seperate from matters of religion.
"An honest, non-tendentious history of the centuries after the Reformation will admit that there were both Catholics and Protestants (and Islamics and others) aplenty who tried to use the power of the state to coerce consciences. "
Exactly correct. Catholicism, the administrator and political bureaucracy of the state was a great civilizing influence but around the time of the reformation was a disaster - creating the opening for Protestantism. The politics of state and religion no longer functioned together. That's one reason why Protestantism flourished, and one reason why Protestants were kicked out of some of the best countries in Europe to form the USA.
"Apparently, the Protestants who ran Virginia took their sweet time "suppressing religious zealotry." " - Do you have a citation for this? The statute guaranteeing religious freedom was in place at the end of the 18th century - there's even a monument to it.
"You mean like all the Protestants who passed Blaine Amendments to discriminate against Catholics in large swaths of the United States? A hundred years and more AFTER the adoption of the Constitution? "
Blaine amendments - maybe the were originally designed to discriminate against Catholics - I just haven't read up on them, so I believe you.....(maybe you don't know, but some people to this day don't like Catholics - just because) But today, my understanding is that the Blaine Amendment progeny cut across demoninations, not just affecting Catholics.
"State-established Protestant religions flourised throughout northern Europe, and indeed, state-established Protestant religions still exist in Britain, Scandinavia, and other places"
I'm not arguing this.....I'm just saying that state-sponsored religion, and theocracy in general is always a bad idea.
"So much for "Protestant religious freedom.""
I was talking about the US....would you dispute that you have religious freedom (assuming you are Catholic)?
Protestants in the US got kicked out of both Catholic and Protestant Europe. That is one reason why they revered freedom of religion and that is reflected in our Constitution. I didn't blame Catholicism for that.....
Dear RFEngineer,
I know that Catholic Masses were still banned in Virginia beyond the year 1800. I'll see if I can dig up any Internet-based references.
"The politics of state and religion no longer functioned together."
With this I disagree. Rather, a lot of political powers saw an opening in the Reformation to have their own state religions unimpeded by the Catholic Church. The Reformation didn't result in the dismantling of state-established religions generally in Europe, just the imposition of new state-established religions.
"That's one reason why Protestantism flourished,..."
Not really. Rather, sovereigns across Europe found it expedient to have their own state-controlled religions, rather than an independent Church led from Rome. Easier to control, easier to manipulate. THAT'S the main reason why Protestantism flourished, and became the state-imposed established religion of many European countries. It had nothing to do with separating church and state.
"...and one reason why Protestants were kicked out of some of the best countries in Europe to form the USA."
Again, the focus on Protestants is tendentious. The fact is, the entire colony of Maryland was founded because the English crown was killing CATHOLICS, not Protestant Anglicans. And religious freedom in America was started by CATHOLICS, who dedicated AN ENTIRE COLONY to the proposition of religious tolerance. And it was PROTESTANTS who undid that religious tolerance and persecuted CATHOLICS.
"Blaine amendments - maybe the were originally designed to discriminate against Catholics..."
Yes, indeed. That's because at the time these amendments were promulgated (end of the 19th century), Protestants controlled the public school systems and used them to support their own religions and sects. The prayers and bible study thrown out of the public schools in the early 1960s were not Catholic prayers and bible study but rather the prayers and bible study of the dominant Protestant culture. For nearly 200 years after the Founding, in many parts of the country, religion actually WAS informally established in that locally-controlled schools permitted the teaching of Protestant Christianity within them.
Once the courts actually eliminated this informal local establishment of religion, Protestants found themselves harmed by the very same Blaine amendments passed into law by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. A bitter irony, I'm sure, but not a sign of "Protestant religious tolerance" by any means.
"I was talking about the US....would you dispute that you have religious freedom (assuming you are Catholic)? "
Certainly! And I have to thank many men, including many Catholics, who actually gave the idea of religious freedom its first application in what is now the United States. I have to thank folks like Archbishop John Carroll, the first bishop native to English America, and Charles Carroll, his brother, who signed the Declaration of Independence, pushing hard to enshrine religious liberty in the new nation (because at the time of the Founding, his own civil rights in his own native Maryland had been curtailed by... PROTESTANTS).
"Protestants in the US got kicked out of both Catholic and Protestant Europe."
Again, that's tendentious. SO DID CATHOLICS.
"That is one reason why they revered freedom of religion and that is reflected in our Constitution. I didn't blame Catholicism for that....."
Indeed. We Catholics revered the idea so much, we set up the colony of Maryland with religious tolerance. But you Protestants didn't think it was such a hot idea at the time, and you repealed religious tolerance in the one place it existed.
Your initial thesis was that religious freedom was an essentially Protestant idea, and as developed in the United States, was from essentially Protestant efforts.
That's a false argument, a false thesis. Religious freedom developed from both Catholic and Protestant sources and efforts, and at least in the United States of America, CATHOLICS have pride of place of introducing actual religious tolerance to the territory of what became the United States.
sitetest
Dear RFEngineer,
Regarding religious freedom in Virginia, Internet-based sources state that Catholics became free to practice Catholicism in 1785, nine years after the founding of the United States, but before the beginning of the 19th century.
I've visited old churches (post-1800) in Virginia, and been told stories that they were built to look like they did to disguise the fact that they were Catholic churches, because of religious persecution. Perhaps by this point it was no longer statutory, or perhaps my sources were incorrect. Because I can't confirm that Catholics continued to be oppressed in Virginia by Protestants after 1785, I withdraw the statement.
The rest of my post stands.
sitetest
I'm an Anglophile when it comes to Church Music. When I was in New Jersey, our Parish Choir sang from a hymnal that I think was called the Oxford Book of Hymns. It had some of the most gorgeous music written for liturgy I've every heard.
I was born/raised/practiced all my life as an RC. After I was widowed, I moved to FL and shortly thereafter met a widow, a life-long Episcoplian/Anglican. She invited me to a service at her parish, St. Mary the Virgin, in Delray Beach. It was my first time ever in a non RC service, and I was amazed! The liturgy, with a little cutting and pasting, could've been RC. I was made to feel very welcome there; the priest told me that as long as I had been baptized, I could partake of the Body and Blood. We alternated between her parish and mine. We were married in the Anglican church. Since she moved in with me, we attend Mass at the RC church, and she receives the Sacraments. I read in the back of the "missal" that she would not be welcome to receive them. I think I have a bit of a problem with that. Any comments?
Introibo ad altare Dei. Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam.... The last time I served Mass, I had my fatigues on under my cassock and surplice.
"Because I can't confirm that Catholics continued to be oppressed in Virginia by Protestants after 1785, I withdraw the statement. "
I'm not interested in winning this point or not, I'm interested in a citation. Please let me know if you find one - I'm genuinely interested in this particular point and whether it is true.
You've given me quite a bit to chew on, and it will take time to digest/research - I truly appreciate the dialog on the issue - although my posts stand as well!
Thanks-
Dear RFEngineer,
"I'm not interested in winning this point or not, I'm interested in a citation. Please let me know if you find one - I'm genuinely interested in this particular point and whether it is true."
I appreciate your intellectual honesty. But I have mine, too. If I can't document it, I won't continue to assert it.
But if I find documentation for the assertion, I'll let you know.
Please understand that I'm not in any way saying, "All the religious freedom is from us Catholics, and you Protestants are just a bunch of evildoers."
But this is what you initially posted:
"The Catholic church of that era was a political and religious institution. Protestants saw the folly of this and that is one reason why we have the great country we have today in the U.S. - and why Protestant tolerance enshrined in our Constitution allows ALL faiths to be practiced relatively free from government interference."
And this is just baloney.
The concept of freedom of conscience has always been a Catholic idea (even when not honored in practice), and its eventual development into a political civil right owes as much to Catholics as Protestants. Furthermore, folks who stood against this development were just as often Protestant as Catholics, and just as many Protestant regimes engaged in coercion of conscience as Catholic regimes.
And finally, in what eventually became the United States of America, it was we Catholics who actually introduced, in practice, religious tolerance in the governance of society.
sitetest
"....And this is just baloney.
The concept of freedom of conscience has always been a Catholic idea (even when not honored in practice), and its eventual development into a political civil right owes as much to Catholics as Protestants. Furthermore, folks who stood against this development were just as often Protestant as Catholics, and just as many Protestant regimes engaged in coercion of conscience as Catholic regimes.
And finally, in what eventually became the United States of America, it was we Catholics who actually introduced, in practice, religious tolerance in the governance of society. "
....and this is baloney.
We can't both be wrong, can we?
First of all, and a source of the arguments you posted is that Catholicism is somewhat monolithic (not that there aren't interesting differences, but that the authority is centralized). Protestantism is not. It is this decentralized nature (and the impossibility of consensus on "one true path") that is the source of the tolerance that is enshrined in the Constitution.
We can agree to disagree on this, until we can discuss it in more detail.
My main objection to the Catholic Church of the reformation era is the bureaucracy and politics. As repugnant as Henry VIII was personally, he had a legitimate political point against the Catholic Church.
Rome sided against England - overplaying their hand, and losing England to the Church. Let's be honest about Henry VIII.....had he been in better favor with Rome - Politically - they'd have granted him anything he wanted with regard to wives/divorces.
He's no Protestant hero. As I posted before, after his death, England was restored to Communion, and then subsequently fell out permanently.
So Catholics that think they are taking a swipe at Protestants using Henry VIII are acknowledging the corrupt practices in Rome that would allow Henry to even think he had a shot at getting requests such as his granted.
The dispute with Rome was much deeper than Henry VIII wanting a divorce - but I don't feel the insult offends all protestant religions - but this point on Henry was how I got actively involved in this thread.
I've deliberately stayed away from the arguments from which the Catholic Church is especially vulnerable, in my opinion.
But the bottom line on religious tolerance is this: Rome had a millenium and a half to allow religious tolerance. They didn't do it. Why should they? In Maryland, after persecution in England they formed a sanctuary of sorts.....whether they believed in tolerance as a matter of practicality, or as a basic tenet of their founding principles true to their fait in the new world is where I am most interested -and will be focusing my research, when I have time.
I hope we can discuss it more soon.
"It was my first time ever in a non RC service, and I was amazed! The liturgy, with a little cutting and pasting, could've been RC"
This is the irony. It really isn't much of a stretch for "traditional" Anglicans to fit in the Catholic Church. It's almost a non-issue, if those complaining Catholics actually had experience as you have had.
"I read in the back of the "missal" that she would not be welcome to receive them. I think I have a bit of a problem with that. Any comments?"
Talk to your priest.....he'll know. The same might be true for you in some traditional Anglican parishes.
One argument I've seen to justify giving communion is that since someone has received the sacrament, it would be wrong to deny it to them just because they showed up at "your" altar. I like that reasoning because I think God would like it - but your priest would have a thing or two to say about it, no doubt. Talk to him.
The act of receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church is the culmination of belief in the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church is the only one that teaches that at the Consecration of the Mass, Jesus truly inhabits the bread and wine, and they become his Precious Body and Blood. By receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus, one is acknowledging acceptance of the teachings of the Church as passed down from Jesus through his apostles. If one does not believe what the Church teaches, one should not receive Communion, because, after all, with what would one be considered in Communion?
It is not meant to be divisive. Catholics take Jesus at his Word at the Last Supper when he said "This is My Body", and "This is my Blood". I could be mistaken, but I don't believe that the Episcopal Church teaches that the bread and wine are TRULY the Body and Blood of Jesus, but that they are only representative of His Sacrifice on the Cross. That is why non-members, but Baptized persons, are allowed to partake, just as they are in most other Christian churches that have Communion services.
I think it had more to do with the fact that with Latin as the 'universal' language, it didn't matter which peoples were converted, or their native language, the Mass would be said in the same language everywhere, and folks in other countries wouldn't have to chance to put their own 'spin' on the Word of God.
In fact, many Anglicans do accept that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, and they genuflect before the consecrated Host accordingly.
Does "one" have to mean a single ecclesiastical organization all under the same bureaucracy? Why can't it mean "one" in the sense of a general agreement on fundamentals - the Divinity of Christ, for instance - without necessarily everybody in the same organization?
Yes, you are either extremely dishonest or extremely ignorant.
but I don't accept a dishonesty charge from anyone.
Whether or not you accept it is irrelevant. Clinton doesn't accept the fact that he was impeached.
Prove it
Already have. Suggest you actually do some research utilizing an objective reference before you simply regurgitate urban legend crapola.
apologize
Pound sand.
I don't wish my Catholic friends ill, my friend, but I do point out that without great men who operated outside of Catholic Church Doctrine like John Wycliffe, who translated the Bible into the common tongue, the great unwashed masses would not have access to the Word of God - because Rome wanted to control it by keeping it in Latin - which the vast vast majority of people did not understand. That was a bad thing.
If you believe that load of revisionist garbage you are quite simply an idiot.
Given the choice of believing someone like you or St. Thomas More, I'll believe the Saint.
'The whole Bible long before Wycliff's day was by virtuous and well-learned men translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read'
Sir Thomas More "A Dialogue Concerning Heresies"
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