Category Archives: Catholic Tradition

Authority?

06 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Catholic Tradition, Church/State, Early Church, Faith

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The Council of Jerusalem

One of our commentators, Cath.Anon raised the issue of ‘authority’ in a searching and penetrating comment on my post of ‘catholicity’; it’s a jolly good question and one to which I had been (sort of) coming. He has encouraged me to get my skates on and brace myself to do it – so thank you Cath.Anon, both for the excellent comment and the nudge!

He is right to say that there needs to be authority. The quickest survey of church history shows this has been a problem from the start. However one wishes to interpret the claims of Rome that its Bishop is more than primus inter pares that is not how things operated for most Christians for most of the history of the faith.

We know from Acts and Paul’s letters that when Peter drew back from table communion with Gentiles under pressure from the church in Jerusalem, the matter was resolved only by what we have seen as the first council – and there Paul told Peter he was wrong – and the majority agreed with him. That set the precedent for the next four hundred years or so.

No one seeks to deny that the Bishop of Rome had a prominent place in terms of authority, but that authority was as a presiding bishop over those bishops in the western part of the Roman Empire. Alexandria, the most fertile intellectual and cultural centre of the Roman Empire was far more prominent in terms of the development of doctrine and theology, and its Bishop, like his counterpart in Rome, had authority over bishops in north Africa and to the south. The Bishops of Jerusalem and Antioch also had an authority which stemmed from their historical importance, and with that a right to be heard. The establishment of the new imperial capital at Constantinople created a tension and a dynamic which became important once Christianity was recognised by the Emperor.

Prior to that, in cases of theological controversy, local bishops did what the Apostles had done, got together, when they could, to sort things out. The establishment of the See of Constantinople and the official recognition of Christianity changed things decisively – as we see at Nicea and after. As C451 has written extensively on this (just follow the link), I shall confine myself to the question of authority.

The decisions reached at Nicae followed the template of that first council – except for the presiding of the Emperor. Rome sent representatives, but no one asked the Pope whether he approved or not. The pattern which developed across the next few councils is interesting. Rome and Alexandria had a common interest in trying to contain the upstart claims (as they saw them) of Constantinople. We see the apogee of this alliance at Ephesus in 431, where Cyril of Alexandia’s alliance with the Bishop of Rome saw off Nestorius. This alliance broke down in the unskilled hands of Dioscorus at Chalcedon in 451, where Constantinople was able to win the support of Rome. But the dynamic was the same.

None of this is to deny the theological and doctrinal issues that were at stake, but it is to suggest that the church dealt with them by dialogue and discussion as between equals; the Pope in Rome mattered greatly, but his imprimatur was not decisive (or even, sometimes needed), and ecclesiatical politics often resembled coalitions in countries with a system of PR. Where there were three major sees, two against one would always win, and Rome was skilful. The demise of Alexandria, first after Chalcedon and then the Muslim conquest, left only Rome and Constantinople. The latter refused to recognise the claims of the former to primacy, and indeed tried to claim the same for itself (follow the link to C’s posts). This led to the schism of 1054, which was never healed, and helped lead to the downfall of the great imperial city.

In the four centuries which followed, both Sees faced encroachments from secular power, but where Rome was dealing with kings who were Christians and, while sometimes disputing the extent of it never denied its power, Constantinople was dealing with Islamic invasions which were to leave it a shadow of its old self, a decline not helped by the Catholic Venetians sacking the city in 1204 in an act of disgraceful vandalism.

After 1453 Rome alone remained of the old five major Sees of Christendom, at least in terms of freedom from Muslim domination. However, within a century, it managed to create schisms within its own domain by its ham-fisted response to calls for change. Of course, further east, and as far as China with the Nestorians, there remained Christians who had never acknowledged the claims of Rome. In the end, Rome reformed itself, but not before the unity of Western Christendom had fractured.

In terms then of ‘authority’, where should a Christian wanting certianty look. Rome? I look acros the Tiber and see warring tribes, with many Catholics claiming not only to be more Catholic than the Pope, but that the Pope is not even a Catholic. If that’s ‘authority’ I can have that, without the nastiness, in my own Church. Of course, you can decide to convert and take the view that the Pope is right on matters infallible, but you can do that anyway, and as I understand it, there is even dispute on how many infallible pronouncements the Popes have made. I am sorry, none of that would be comfort if I needed the security of a single voice of authority.

What then, is the alternative for those of us who do not find the claims of Rome convincing? In a way it is the same as for those who are Catholics but do not find the Pope very convincing oin the environment or what some wags call “tutti frutti”, which is to make up our own minds – reason and scripture working on how we interpret authority. I suspect most of us do that anyway.

In terms of ecclesiology, there are bishops and a synodical system with lay participation for Anglicans which are our equivalent of that meeting at Jesusalem – and the Archbishop of Canterbury, like Peter, can find himself challenged. Its better for all of us than a system where the Pope is challenged only by some bishops, priests and laity after the event, and where people genuinely spend weeks and months trying to work out what he actually said and then what he meant by that.

In the end, we make up our own minds as guided by the Spirit which moves us. I respect those who find their destination in Rome and ask no more than respect for those of us who find it in Canterbury – even if the architecture is not so grand and ancient.

Catholic?

04 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Bible, Catholic Tradition

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Every now and then in the comments section, someone will tell me that this or that is what the Catholic Church teaches, as though I am a Protestant. That’s either kind or unkind of them according to taste, but to put it beyond doubt, like most Anglicans I consider myself a Catholic, and so let me explain a bit.

To start with, the Church is an organic institution and in its visible form, it changes. Thus, prior to the French Revolution and the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church was a loose federation of churches under the headship of the Pope in Rome. The precise extent of his powers were not defined, and one of the effects of the changes in Europe in the nineteenth century was the need to make explicit what Pius IX and the Ultramontanes claimed had always been agreed – that the Pope was, in certain matters, infallible. I don’t have a dog in that fight, but use it as an example of how the visible church here on earth changes in response to events. At Vatican II it acknowledged, for the first time, that the visible church had some deficiencies: ‘This empirical church,’ it stated, ‘reveals the mystery [of the Church] but not without shadows, and it does so until it is brought into the full light of Christ, who also reached glory through humiliation.’

My own Church, in repudiating Rome’s jurisdiction, already, in the sixteenth century acknowledged this problem; indeed it was one of the difficulties which precipitated the Reformation, that Rome regarded itself as not in need of reform because what is taught was ‘once delivered’ to the saints, not acknowledging that difference which those wanting reform saw. The English bishop, John Jewell expressed this well when he wrote: ‘The general or outward Church of God’s elect is visible and may be seen; but the very true Church of God’s elect is invisible and cannot be seen or discerned by man, but it known to God alone.’ [Works, Pt. 4, p. 668]

Hooker elaborated on this. The Church of England was, he stated in his Ecclesiastical Polity, only part of the Catholic Church, existing for the preservation of Christianity in which ‘consideration as the main body of the sea being one, yet within divers precincts has divers names; so the Catholic Church is in like sort divided into a number of distinct societies, everyone of which is termed a church within itself.’ The Church had its faults, and, unlike some of those with a more sectarian mind-set, Hooker could consider that Rome was a ‘church’ too: ‘we have,’ he wrote, ‘and do hold fellowship with them [Rome] for even as the Apostle doth say of Israel, that they are in one respect enemies but in another beloved of God; in like sort with Rome we dare not communicate concerning her gross and grievous abominations, yet touching those main part of Christian truth wherein they constantly still persist, we gladly acknowledge them to be of the family of Jesus Christ.’ For the time and the circumstances, this was a remarkably irenic view.

For Hooker, what the New Testament envisages in its imagery about the Church is, to some extent, visible in the Church of England and in the Church of Rome and, I am sure he’d have agreed, the Orthodox Churches, but it is imperfect. The mystery is present but imperfectly revealed. The catholicity of the church is to be found by those who are attentive to the Gospel’s message and who are being formed in its image through that attention and through the Eucharist. This formation in Christ is the real tradition and is the dynamic part of a triad formed by reason, scripture and the church.

For Hooker, and for most Anglicans, the way in which we represent the Gospel and the forms through which we do it are framed within the context of the ‘place and persons for which they are made.’ Nations, and peoples, are not all alike and, as Hooker sagely remarks: ‘the giving of one kind of positive laws unto only one people, without any liberty to alter them, is but slender proof that therefore one kind should in like sort be given to serve everlastingly for all.’ It is simply not in the human condition for the form of the church not to change. It did so from the time of Christ, it will do so to the end because the Holy Spirit leads us into truth, and as truth is infinite in the person of Jesus, and as our understanding is only ever ‘as through a glass darkly’ it has to be so. Living things grow and respond to their enironment and the promptings of the Spirit. One can enjoy an ecclesiastical museum, but it’s unwise to live in it; life forms preserved in aspic and amber can be pretty, but they are dead.

Rome caught up at the time of Vatican II. At the heart of our Anglican understanding of catholicity is the acknowledgement that the universality of the visible church is impaired because communion is incomplete, but in its local expression the Catholic Church is there, even if, as Vatican II finally acknowledged it is not ‘without shadows.’ That is my own understanding of what my church teaches and of catholicity.

Hooker

03 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Catholic Tradition

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Today the Church of England commemorates the memory of Richard Hooker (25 March, 1554 – 3 November 1600), whom many regard as the founder of Anglicanism. Ah, I already hear cries of ‘that was Henry VIII’. It was certainly Henry who broke with Rome but the nature of the Church of England was not decided then, or indeed across the next century and a half; it was contested.

In Henry’s reign the break with Rome was complete in terms of politics and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but well before his death, theologically he had rowed back against some of the more extreme claims made by those who saw themselves as disciples of Luther and Calvin. These Protestants made greater strides under the young Edward VI, before being decisively checked by his half-sister Mary, who returned England to obedience to Rome. But her half-sister, Elizabeth I, steered a way between the two extremes. But that was in many ways a political strategy rather than an ecclesiastical solution.

Oddly, Hooker’s great eight volume “Of the Laws of Ecclesiatical polity”, only four volumes were published in his lifetime, and then toward the end. They were taken up by the Laudian party in the Church, who wanted to emphasise the catholic heritage and saw his arguments against the Puritans as great ammunition – which indeed they are. It was during this period that the other volumes were published, but it was not until the Restoration of Charles II that Hooker came into his own, as his work was cited by those wishing to establish a middle way between papism and puritanism.

I am not even going to pretend that I have read the eight volume, but I have read and would encourage anyone interested to read the selection edited by Raymond Chapman. Once you get used to sentences with 200 words, he makes great reading, and his style is very much the man – and the Church. He treats his opponents with respect, and dismantles extremism very skilfully. He represents the temper of English Christianity, not too much emphasis on individual reason, and not too much emphasis on docility to authority.

Hooker’s legacy, like Newman’s, was his work, and it is what has been received by posterity which has marked him out. He was a man of faith who steered his way through parlous times. His legacy is one all Anglicans should treasure. Let me finish with the Collect for today from Common Worship:

God of peace, the bond of all love,

who in your Son Jesus Christ have made the human race your inseparable dwelling place:

after the example of your servant Richard Hooker,

give grace to us your servants ever to rejoice in the true inheritance of your adopted children

and to show forth your praises now and ever;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

A family affair?

02 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Bible, Catholic Tradition, Faith

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The Church is a living body rooted not only in tradition but also in society, and one of the characteristics of living things is that they grow; that does not mean that society should shape the church, but if the church is to do its work as the leaven in society, it needs to be able to interact in a constructive way with it. One obstacle to this in our own societies in the West is that when it comes to sexual practices. On the whole the Church and society have not interacted in constructive ways. Those in the Church who think that the secular world has gone to hell in a handcart on sexual matters may well have a point, but I dare anyone to say that this attitude has, a) had any effect at all on society, and b) that it has had any positive outcome for the churches. In short, it’s as perfect example as a car crash as you could wish for; no need for the enemies of Christianity to move a finger, we’re perfectly capable of wrecking our own show – thank you, and good-night Vienna! Was there, is there, a better way?

Christians are a family, and Jesus often uses examples from family life to illustrate how we ought to be conducting ourselves. It is no accident that he refers to God as father, any more than it is that he is the son. A father (or mother for that matter) will often regard the ways of their offspring, not least when they become teenagers, with some bemusement, and very few of us will not have heard a parent say “it wasn’t like that in my day.” They are right, but that does not mean that a wise parent tries to corral their daughter (or son for that matter) into the way they behaved when they were teenagers; a wise parent remembers their own parent saying just that to them when they were teenagers. That’s the point. The world now is not the same as it was then.

When my late father was a young man in Austria, the government, in 1938, insisted that all Jews wear a yellow star of David, and they had a precise definition of what a “Jew” was, and the local churches went along with this. When his father took him and his sister to the UK, he no longer had to wear a star. But as his sister, my aunt, grew older and people wondered why such a pretty girl was not married, she could not say that it was because she preferred to be with women. It was not illegal in the way that male homosexuality was, mainly, it seems because when the latter was criminalised in the reign of Queen Victoria, no one could muster up the courage to tell the Queen that lesbianism existed.

In part, the bar on male homosexuality came from Scripture via the rulings of the Church. No one could say that Scripture had much to say about the subject of same-sex physical relationships, but then no one could deny that what was said was hardly favourable. Tradition, resting on a reading of those parts of Scriptures and the old Jewish law, along with the law and the mores of society all went in a direction which meant women like my late aunt had to live secret lives if they wanted, as she did, the companionship in the fullest sense of the woman she loved. As my late father used to say in the late 1980s when this was a hot political issue, “it wasn’t like that in my day”. He was right, it wasn’t, it was horrid for women like his sister, and worse for men who could be, and were, imprisoned. Certain parts of Northern Ireland and Islam apart, is anyone now advocating a return to those times? Even if they were, and in the vast majority of countries they aren’t, it isn’t going to happen. Most countries have enshrined into their legal codes protection for people with a same-sex attraction. Like it or not, that’s the case.

The Churches have, for the most part, handled this poorly, some seeming to make concessions only when under great pressure, and belatedly, and quite obviously doing so as a sop to “the times”, and others parsing the issue with a skill that deserves the adjective “Jesuitical”, whilst still others have reiterated their teaching as though times had not changed; but few, if any, serious Christian Church has persevered with the full force of the attitudes in place in the 1950s.

What would the example of “family” suggest? My own father was not a Christian, what he saw in Austria of the cooperation of the churches with the Nazis left a permanent mark on him. He doubted, to put it mildly, whether an institution which cooperated at a local level with the Nazis had any moral authority to pronounce on anything that mattered. But his sister, my aunt, became a Christian, indeed she became an Anglican. My grandfather, her father, knew that she preferred women and lived with one, his view was simple, I am told: ‘she is the flesh of my flesh, she is my beloved daughter, how she lives is her business unless it hurts others.’ He continued to love his daughter and made no distinction between her and my father. Her church? No one asked questions, so no one got any answers, but I know that for her it prevented a closer relationship with a congregation she attended for twenty years or so; which is sad, as she had a lot to give.

Some churches take that same 1950s attitude, others, many Anglican churches among them, take the view that as “family” what matters is the person and they sound a lot like my later grandfather. They do not ignore scripture, but they take the view that the tradition which accepted Paul’s strictures is not applicable to times in which we know so much more about sexuality, and when being gay is not identified with paganism or temple practices from paganism. You can disapprove and you can get into arguments about what certain texts mean or don’t mean. Or you can, as my own local church does, take the view that we are all family and what matters is just that.

There is nothing unAnglican in that. All change is uncomfortable for many. Despite Paul being clear that a Bishop could have a wife, the Church decided otherwise, and one can be sure than many people at the time felt upset at the change – but they went with it. However, when the Church in England decided to go back to the older practice, there was no great hoo-hah when priests who had often been living with the woman they loved, made honest women out of them by finally marrying them. Will we reach the same place with people who are gay and lesbian? In some churches we already have, in others, we haven’t. But when even the Roman Pontiff acknowledges that same-sex civil unions are okay, you can be sure of only one thing – things aren’t what they used to be. Maybe you can be of one other thing – that some will celebrate it and some will hate it and complain. The future will roll out, and if the Spirit really is guiding the Church as we believe, we shall all just have to get along as a family, and sometimes, the best families can do at a particular juncture, is to get along by agreeing to disagree in love.

To some, who recieve the tradition from Paul and its reading by their church, this will seem at best “wet” and at worst, contrary to Scripture. To them I would say only that their reading of Scripture is not the only one available, and that even in the Roman Catholic Church no lesser figure than the Pope can see the need for civil unions. I understand their fear that this is no more than the thin-end of the wedge, because they are correct. A traditional reading on sexuality can survive modern scientific research, but it can’t do so for ever. Such a reading can survive a long time, but not without doing damage both to the institution holding it and to people who may be part of it. What it cannot do is survive if the Spirit is guiding us to a better understanding of these things than was available to Paul, or even to my grandfather’s time.

The Church of England holds with a comment often attributed to Augustine, but which cannot be found in his works, though it can in Pope St John XXIII’s Ad Petri Cathedram, “in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.” That is how a real family proceeds. Those who have problems with it, well, we must also take account of their sensitivities even if they sometimes fail to reciprocate. That’s why it takes time. The day will come when our descendants will wonder why we made such a fuss about something which they take for granted – and if any of us live to see that day, our response might well be “it wasn’t like that in my day.”

Widows in context?

30 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Bible, Catholic Tradition, Reading the BIble

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Every now and then the lectionary throws up a reading which, as my old headmistress used to put it, “gives you furiously to think”; this morning’s reading, 1 Tim 5:1-16 is one such. Maybe you have to be a feminist to think that all sounds a wee bit sexist, but then I turned to the (wonderful) Reflections for Daily Prayer 2019-2020, to find Fr Marcus Green commenting:

These verses can seem patriarchal and even plain sexist. However, it’s always easy to sit in judgment on another community in another place in another age, and I am sure that others in future will do it to us too.

There is wisdom, let us attend!

Fr Green reminds us that in Paul’s time attitudes were different, and what Paul was counselling was, by the standards of the day, pretty radical. He also (and his reflections really are super) gets us to pause in our own day by referring to the fact that our first religious duty is to our own family:

In a world where the elderly and the infirm are too often viewed as a burden, and where care is seen as the State’s responsibility (or a business if we can afford to pay) perhaps we might be slower to feel uneasy with anything Paul writes. His solutions may not fit our lifestyles, but behind them lie the simple understanding that every person is a person loved by God

Again, let us attend to such wisdom!

It is also a reminder that context matters.

That said, would we really, even in our day, take seriously the instruction to “refuse to put younger widows on the list; for when their sensual desires alienate them from Christ, they want to marry.” There’s no getting away from the fact that to most modern ears this comes through as thoroughly sexist, and patriarchal. Paul clearly had his problems either with the way some women in the church behaved, or, as some think, with women and sex, full stop. That would hardly make him unique in the history of mankind, my father, who was already an old man when I was born, once said to me that: ‘any man who says he understands women is fooling only himself’.

But, if we can, and should, take Paul’s comments here in context rather than as prescriptive, it raises interesting questions about why we should read some of his other comments about women as definitive? In the Roman tradition there’s a ready answer, which is that the Papacy has accepted that it is so. In my own Church we have long taken a more balanced view of tradition.

As someone who considers herself an Anglo-Catholic, I value tradition hugely. I have written here about the value of the eucharist and how, for me, as for all Catholics, Christ is present in the consecrated bread and wine; I simply have no need for over-precise definitions. Tradition is a crucial check on what could otherwise be a gadarene rush to be on trend. But if it is not held in check, then it can lead to ossification.

Married priests are but one example. No one denies that in the early church and for long afterwards, priests and even bishops could be married, and there is nothing in Scripture against it. Equally, no one can deny that the Church came to take the view that this was not desirable and forbade it. That my own church, like others, came back to the earlier view is also undeniable. Where trouble comes is if a church insists that its view is definitive, when history shows there is no definitive teaching here. There is a view in the Church of Rome that priestly celibacy is a discipline, but it is not one which applies to some of the Easterm Rite Churches or to the Ordinariate. In other words, even there, there is adaptation to circumstances.

In my own church, this acceptance that tradition needs to be balanced with reason and scripture has led some to feel, as they always will, that we have gone too far, too fast, whilst others, equally naturally, feel that we have moved at a snail’s pace and then, only under huge pressure. But here we see another way in which the Anglican Church is a via media – a middle way. We seek to bring to the reading of Scripture the insights of scholarship as well of tradition, and working together, to find how best to preach the gospel to a world which has never really wanted to hear it.

In the tares

27 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Blogging, Catholic Tradition, Faith

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Thinking about the parable of the wheat and the tares, it occurred to me that as a society and civilzation we are all in the tares.

Our search for that right to happiness which lies underneath and above the various ‘liberations’ we have had, seems to have led to the discovery of more chains upon us. As a woman I am liberated from patriarchy, but if I object to being described as a “menstuator” or as a “person who bleeds” I am trangressing against the rights of transgender people. As “rights” multiply according to our identity, we face the question of what binds us together as a society? Here in the UK, since Brexit, that has shown that what unites one part of us also digs a gulf between that part and another part. Yes, 52% was a majority, but when 48% feels desolate, saying, in effect, “tough” does not help, any more than the 48% banging on about it helps. There seems to be no health in us.

And then, on cue, comes Covid19, so there is, literally “no health in us”. The idea of “following the science” was a good sound-bite, but since “science” is no more capable of deciding how a government should proceed than it is of telling us what the purpose of life is, we simply end up more divided. In the public square it’s the most clamant voices we seem to hear.

Some, me among them, have adopted the tactic of cutting ourselves off from the public square; I don’t actually want to know. That’s not because I really do not want to know, it’s because I despair of knowing. The bias, this way and that, of the media seems so obvious that even I can spot it. I’ll do what Voltaire recommends in Candide and literally cultivate my own garden.

But no woman is an island. My other half does not have my luxury. I can stay at home and dig for victory and fill the house with the smell of freshly baked bread. My skills as a seamstress are sufficient to literally make do and mend, and I was never much of a one for shopping – except for books. But my other half does not have this luxury – there’s an important job to be done, Zoom meetings to attend, and trips to London when necessary. In that sense, I am not an island.

But even the community to which I have been closest since recovering from my breakdown – the local church – has changed. For months none of us could attend. For those, such as myself, who know that receiving the blessed sacrament is a critical part of our spiritual growth, even offering it up was not sufficient; the want of it hurt, and there were times I longed to receive communion so much that I would stand outside the church near to where the blessed scrament is reserved and pray. On reflection, that probably didn’t help my neighbours think I’d got better; but I didn’t care.

Now we are back, but separated out and masked. I can’t give or receive the kiss of peace (I know some of you are no doubt relieved, but I love it, so there), and I can’t linger for coffee, biscuits and a chat afterwards. I don’t know about you, but wearing a mask for an hour or so is wearing; but them’s the rules and I obey. I object more than I thought I would to receiving on one kind only – it’s the residual Protestant in me – but am so grateful that I just accept it with gratitude – it’s so much better than lockdown.

Yet, even in my seclusion, I hear if not wars and rumours of war, I get rumours of an escalation in numbers of cases of Covid. In the spring the weather was bright and even if I did not feel like walking, I am fortunate enough to have a garden in which I could sit and sip tea and say my Rosary. I felt then, for those who lacked such luxuries. I feel even more for them now.

Maybe it’s attrition? But with the weather wet and dreary, my spirits go in empathy – the poet’s pathetic fallacy no doubt, but more than that.

Individualism is not enough. It never was and never could be. The very word church comes from the Greek word for an assembly. However much our salvation is personal, its working out is communal. Here we work with the local foodbanks, and as it is school holidays, we work on getting free school meals to those who need them. Some complain that we should not have to do this, that the State should. I have no problem with the criticism of the State, the Government seems a disgrace to me, and not just on this. But as a gathered community, we work where the Lord has placed us, and I, like others, find some relief from the depression settling on us by being able to work as Christ wants us to, with others to bring relief to those who need it.

I am conscious, however, that this is material relief, and I don’t in any way downplay the importance of it. We are fortunate to be among the “haves” and it is our duty as Christians to gove freely. But part of me wants more. As I see hopelessness descend on so many, I wish I could do more to share the faith that, along with my other half, gets me through all of this.

I have found great comfort in this set of prayers from my Church and highly recommend them; the pattern for daily prayer is one I follow and it brings me comfort when I need it. The other prayer I find helpful, apart from my daily rosary, is the old eastern orthodox prayer which C451 taught me years ago and to which I return before bedtime:

Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of the living God,
have mercy on me, a sinner.

May the Lord bless us and keep us all.

Saturday Jess: inclusivity?

24 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Catholic Tradition, Pope

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I see that Pope Francis is in hot water again: first they didn’t like his encyclical on our common home, the earth; then they did not like his encyclical on us all being brothers (and sisters); and now, depending on which mistranslation (or not) you choose to believe, they don’t like his comments on civil unions, or is it civil coexistence? The “they” in question are the super-Catholics on social media who can, literally answer the rhetorical question: ‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’ with the answer ‘no’!

Now, I ought to admit I have what the English call ‘form’ on this. A few years back when I admitted that, after some thinking about it, I had decided to attend the wedding of a lesbian friend, there were some here who thought that was a bad thing to have done. For me it was an expression of friendship. It may be a generational thing. I don’t know how many people in their sixties and over have friends who are gay or lesbian, but for people my age (“thirty erm something …”) it’s not uncommon, and Abi happened to have been a friend since childhood. I think this was the sort of thing the Pope may have been talking about. It’s not necessarily about his approving gay marriage, I am sure he doesn’t because Roman Catholic doctrine forbids it, it’s probably more about how we react to our gay and lesbian friends in what the Pope calls ‘civil society.’

It’s a good question, and it’s good that he is raising it. Certainly where I used to work, and where my other half works, there are plenty of people who are gay, and it would be invidious, as the Catholic Church acknowledges, to subject them to any form of discrimination in everyday life. That’s separate from the fraught issue of gay marriage, and whilst gay people may feel offended by the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, they know what that teaching is, and just as with other sexual acts which are not ‘open to life’ they make a choice. I suspect if every man who had ever masturbated, fancied a woman not his wife and had sex without benefit of marriage, or without the intention of being “open to life” ceased going to Church, attendance would fall dramatically, and maybe it’s worth remembering that. The media goes on, as gay people tend to, about homosexuality as though the Church taught only about that, it’s teaching on the theology of the body goes much further and covers much more – but we hear little of that. But I lost sight of the last press report banging on about sex outside marriage or contraception. Motes and beams come to mind for some reason.

If the Pope was talking about how we treat each other in civil society, then his words are surely in line with Roman Catholic teaching? If they were what some hold them to have been, then that’s a matter for those in his Church. We Anglicans, after all, have our own problems on this one.

I totally “get” why some get het up on this theme, but gay people are not going to get back in the closet any time soon, nor are they going away, and nor are they all atheists or agnostic. In the long history of Christianity the length of time that gay and lesbian people have been able to be open about their sexuality without legal consequences is a short one, and the Church tends to have time scales rather more lengthy.

There have always been Christians who have been homosexual, the problem seems to be that some Christians were more comfortable when they were in the closet and are uncomfortable now they are out of it. But for Christians who are homosexual, there is a cross to be carried, and they want to be in the Church for who they are, not what their sexual preference is, and indeed, for many, their sexuality is very much a secondary issue, however much it seems to preoccupy some others.

After all, what are we really going to do in the modern world? Are we going to excluded all remarried and divorced people from the eucharist? Are we going to ostracise the money-lenders? Should we think again about stoning? Those lacking in sin, can, of course, be first to begin to lessen the pile of stones. For the rest of us, well we might just want to think about what Pope Francis is really saying, which seems to be that we are all human, all sinners, and that in terms of civil society, let’s not discriminate against people who want to have sex with people of their own gender. Naturally, since there would be zero clickbait headlines in any of that, the MSM prefer to big it up. I do wish they’d stop … but that, as they say, is another story. Enjoy your Saturday!

In the beginning was the word …

22 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Bible, Catholic Tradition, Homilies

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One of our best historians, Tom Holland, whose book on the influence of Christianity, Dominion, is well-worth reading (and would make an excellent Christmas present), has written a moving account of his return to the Church of England here. It speaks for itself, and I hope that readers here who have not come across it will be edified by it.

One of the things which struck me was something which has been nagging at the back of my mind for a while, one of those things which, until you suddenly realise what it was, baffles you and can be vaguely irritating, and that is the power of a good sermon. It made me stop and think about the last time I heard a good sermon, and unless one counts (which I am inclined to) listening to Rowan Williams in a church, then I can’t remember. That’s not to say I have not heard interesting sermons which made some good points, but it is to say that what I would call a “good” sermon does more than that.

I usually read sermons after Morning Prayer, and have recently finished those by Austin Farrer, which I would highly recommend; he knew how to pitch a sermon. My usual standby is, of course, Newman’s Sermons Parochial and Plain which can all be found on the internet here. There is a vigour and a charism about them which makes them as compelling now as when they were delivered. In the past here I have included some of by Pusey, which can be a little hard going and, much more than Newman’s, are of their time. For those, like me, who like a good meaty sermon, these, by Gervase Charmley of Bethel, Hanley, I recommend, and they bear hearing more than once, which is usually the sign of a good sermon. My latest reading is Preaching, Radical & Orthodox, which I have recently begun, and which I also heartily recommend.

One question, put to me by a friend, was whether sermons were the same as homilies? I tend to think not, but that may simply be because I find an eight to ten minute talk a little like an hors d’ouvre without a main course.

It is tempting to say that it is the style of the preacher which creates the impact, but by common testimony neither Newman nor Farrer were great showmen. However, there can be no doubt that a great presentation can enhance a good sermon, and here one of those mentioned by Tom Holland stands out for me, and that is Fr Marcus Walker, the Rector of Great St Bartholemew’s in London, whose sermons, though on the short side, do indeed raise one’s thoughts – and mood. Some of them can be found here, and will, I hope, edify others as they have myself and Tom Holland.

In the beginning was the Word, and it is good to be reminded by Tom Holland of the part the spoken word can play in bringing us to Christ.

  • And if you enjoyed Fr Marcus’ sermons, or would like to help maintain Great St Bart’s, there’s a link here towards restoration.

Catholic?

18 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Catholic Tradition, Faith

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I was moved by one of the comments on my last post, the link from Scoop to a friend’s blog wherein the latter, a recent convert to Rome, lamented both the state of the current Pope and the Church, but expressed his joy at being in the right Church, the one founded by Jesus. I felt his pain, as I feel that of Scoop. It can’t be easy to be an orthodox Catholic at the moment. It’s a feeling which I know drove some Anglicans out of the Church of England into Rome, some via the Ordinariate.

I have a sense from those I know that those in the Ordinariate are happier than those who converted and joined their local Catholic congregation, though would be delighted to be wrong on this, as I know, from personal experience, how bitterly awful it can be when you and your church seem constantly at odds, and I can well understand why people change church. But I have also observed how often it does not bring what the person converting hoped it would bring.

At the centre of much of this is the question of the Pope. If you sincerely come to believe that the only Catholic Church is the one headed by the Pope, then the Tiber must be crossed, though quite what you do if you conclude Pope Francis isn’t the Pope, I am not sure. I guess wait out the storm and hope for better days. But, outside the Roman tradition, no one else believes that the one infallible mark of being the Catholic Church is recognising the Bishop of Rome as the supreme authority. It was not so in the Church of the Fathers, and not all the selective cherry-picking of quotations will ever make it so. It would be hard to convict the Eastern or non-Chalcedonian Orthodox of a love of novelty, and neither of them holds the Bishop of Rome in that role. My own Church takes the same view.

I am a Catholic in so far as the Church to which I belong recognises the historic Creeds and the Councils of the undivided Church, and it adheres to the ancient orders of the Church – deacon, priest and bishop. For those who feel that these orders can never be held by women then the Orthodox Church or the Roman Church is the place to be. For those, such as myself, who are unconvinced that such a view is based on more than a patriachal insistence on reading Scripture in that way, the Anglican Communion is the place to be.

Is it perfect? No more than any other Church. But the idea that unless you are communion with the Bishop of Rome you are bound to hell is a confection of late origin, designed by Rome to strengthen its hand against Constantinople. This insistence by Rome helped shatter the unity of the early Church, just as Rome’s insistence on having its own way shattered the unity of the Western Church. This, naturally, is not how Rome reads it, but it is how all the other Catholic Churches read it. It may, of course, be that Rome alone is correct, but its own openness to ecumenism since the Seconf Vativan Council suggests a willingness to move beyond old disputes, which many of us welcome. No-one is happy to see the Bishop of Rome separated out from the other Apostolic Churches, though I doubt anyone much thinks that the way to union is easy, or near.

I can do no more by way of concluding with what that great Christian, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes wrote about the Church of England’s fundational beliefs:

One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period – the centuries that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.

Andrewes introduced two other related features which became characteristic of Anglicanism and which differentiated it from both Rome and Geneva – a reserve about points of doctrine which are not central, and a freedom of private judgement outside these central articles of faith. If you want to make windows into men’s souls, fine, but I have to say that I prefer the Anglican way.