Brisbane Browsings

The Archbishop of Canterbury

2009-11-20T00:50:00.000-08:00

Those of us who live in the Anglican Church within the Catholic tradition have much to thank God for in being blessed with Rowan Williams as Archbishop. I know he constantly receives a negative press, but in my view he has so much to offer the prayer and thinking of his beloved Communion.

At present he is in Rome, as as always he has given a thought provoking lecture on the issues of Christian Unity. It is so significant that I thought I would copy it and publish it here:

Since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church has been involved in a number of dialogues with other churches - including with the Anglican Communion - which have produced a very considerable number of agreed statements. This legacy has been brought together in a recent publication by the Vatican department to promote Christian Unity, whose first President during and after Vatican II, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, is justly and happily celebrated in today's centenary conference.

Let me give an outline of what I want to say in the half an hour or so available. The strong convergence in these agreements about what the Church of God really is, is very striking. The various agreed statements of the churches stress that the Church is a community, in which human beings are made sons and daughters of God, and reconciled both with God and one another. The Church celebrates this through the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion in which God acts upon us to transform us 'in communion'. More detailed questions about ordained ministry and other issues have been framed in this context.

Therefore the major question that remains is whether in the light of that depth of agreement the issues that still divide us have the same weight - issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the pope), and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance). Are they theological questions in the same sense as the bigger issues on which there is already clear agreement? And if they are, how exactly is it that they make a difference to our basic understanding of salvation and communion?
But if they are not, why do they still stand in the way of fuller visible unity? Can there, for example, be a model of unity as a communion of churches which have different attitudes to how the papal primacy is expressed?

The central question is whether and how we can properly tell the difference between 'second order' and 'first order' issues. When so very much agreement has been firmly established in first-order matters about the identity and mission of the Church, is it really justifiable to treat other issues as equally vital for its health and integrity?

1.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the journals written during the Second Vatican Council by figures like Willebrands and Congar is the record of a struggle for what I shall call a genuinely theological doctrine of the Church. Part of what Vatican II turned away from is a way of talking about the Church as primarily an institution existing because of divine decree, governed by prescription from the Lord, faithfully administering the sacraments ordained by him for the salvation of souls - 'an external, visible society, whose members, under a hierarchical authority headed by the pope, constitute with him one visible body, tending to the same spiritual and supernatural end, i.e., sanctification of souls and their eternal happiness' (Pietro Palazzini, s.v. 'Church (Society)' in the Dictionary of Moral Theology, ed. F.
Roberti and P. Palazzini, originally published in 1957). But what is missing from this account is any real explication of how the nature and character and even polity of the Church are grounded in and shaped by the nature of God and of God's incarnation in history. A theological understanding of the Church would be one that makes this connection.

A striking feature of the current Harvesting the Fruits document from the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity under the name of our greatly loved and respected friend Walter Kasper, is the integral connection between what is said about the nature of God and what is said about the Church, its mission and its ministry. All these dialogues, it appears, have been deeply influenced by the new style in ecclesiology rooted in Vatican II and the work of Willebrands and his colleagues - and it is worth mentioning the way in which this new style is paralleled in other ecumenical dialogues, notably the Anglican-Orthodox document on The Church of the Triune God.

In broad outline, the picture is something like this. God is eternally a life of threefold communion; and if human persons are to be reconciled to God and restored to the capacity for which they were made, they must be included in that life of communion. The incarnation of God the Son recreates in human persons the possibility of filial relation with the Father, standing in the place of Christ and praying his prayer; and only the Holy Spirit, which animates and directs the entire human identity of the Incarnate Word, can create that filial reality in us. To be restored to life with God is to be incorporated into Jesus Christ by the Spirit; but because the gift of the Spirit is what takes away mutual fear and hostility and the shutting-up of human selves against each other, it is inseparably and necessarily a gift of mutual human communion also. The sacramental life and the communal disciplines of the Church exist to serve and witness to this dual fact of communion, with the Father and with all believers. To take only one of the countless formulations referred to in the Harvesting document, in this case from the 1993 Lutheran-Catholic statement on Church and Justification (#6), 'According to the witness of the New Testament, our salvation, the justification of sinners and the existence of the church are indissolubly linked with the triune God and are founded in him alone.'

So there is a clear line of connection between fundamental doctrinal commitments (the doctrines of the creed concerning the Trinity and the
Incarnation) and issues around the shape and mission of the Church. The former lead into the latter; the latter only make sense against the background of the former. But what are the implications of this for our continuing ecumenical engagement? In what follows, I shall suggest some possible lines of further enquiry. But I also want to put a bit of a challenge to some trends across the board in current thinking, trends that might encourage us to adjust our expectations downwards in ecumenical dialogue, given the apparent lack of progress towards institutional or organisational unity. I do so in the hope that if we can recognise the remarkable degree to which what we could call Willebrands' legacy in ecclesiology has triumphed in the life of the dialogues, this may yet stir us to new insights and possibilities.

2.

If the Harvesting document is to be taken seriously, the issues between Christians in the historic churches are not about the essential shape of our language concerning God and God's action in Christ. The common centre is a twofold vision: filial relation with God the Father as the realisation of the human vocation; and, as an immediate corollary of this, communion with other believers, offered to the whole world as promise and hope, a model for human life together in accord with the creator's loving purpose. As the ecumenical statements in varying words agree, the ongoing debate is not about these fundamentals, but about where the fullest realisation of communion is to be found.

Even in discussion over sacramental forms and doctrines, a powerful convergence is evident that takes us well beyond any tired polarities.
The links from trinitarian doctrine straight through to the meaning of the Lord's Supper are strongly affirmed on all sides. The whole discussion of sacramental life is centred upon how the believer is established in filial communion through the act of the triune God; there is little to suggest that outside the Roman fold there is any ambiguity over this priority of the divine act, or any separation between the act of God in salvation and a purely or predominantly human activity of recalling or expressing that act through human practices.

And this is where the difficult questions begin to gather. If the picture just sketched is true, what exactly are the points that still divide us? Harvesting returns several times to a few key matters: I want to pick out three for further reflection. There is an issue over
authority: in several places, continuing disagreement is noted over the nature or indeed the very possibility of the magisterium. Is there a mechanism in the Church that has the clear right to determine for all where the limits of Christian identity might be found? Then there is an issue, naturally connected with the first, about the nature of primacy.
Is the integrity of the Church ultimately dependent on a single identifiable ministry of unity to which all local ministries are accountable? And this relates immediately to a third set of questions about the way in which we think of the universal Church itself. Is it an entity from which local churches derive their life, or is it the perfect mutuality of relationship between local churches - or indeed as the mysterious presence of the whole in each specific community? I want to propose that we now need urgent clarification of whether these continuing points of tension or difference imply in any way that the substantive theological convergence is less solid than it appears, so that we must still hold back from fuller levels of recognition of ministries or fuller sacramental fellowship.

3.

As to authority: the summary on pp.137-8 of Harvesting puts it very well in describing convergence around the belief that 'the ministry and the ministries in the Church are not an end in themselves'; the Church is called to obedience, and thus to the discerning conservation of the authentic gospel in its teaching and preaching. But is that obedience, discernment and conservation in some sense the task of the entire body of the baptised or essentially that of a group designated as having binding power?

A properly theological answer to this would challenge the premise of the question as expressed in those terms. It should rather come from a clear sense that responsibility, the 'authority to become children of God' (Jn1.12) given to all those who belong in the communion of the baptised, is something allocated and distributed in the Church by the leading of the Spirit. If we are not just going to reaffirm the language of rule and hierarchy established by decree, with fixed divisions between teachers and taught, rulers and ruled, then we must approach the question as one that has to do with the way in which the gifts of the Spirit are properly distributed. In the light of the ecumenical ecclesiology we have been outlining, what is the status of differences over how responsibilities are allocated in the Church? How practically deep and non-negotiable are the divisions if what is at stake is not the basic reality of filial holiness? If the issues are less basic than the agreement over the Church's central character, then the future ought to be one in which there is a search for practical convergence in administrative responsibility and visible structures of governance, while allowing a significant mutual recognition of sacramental authenticity in the meantime - perhaps including some sacramental fellowship, as hinted at in #8 of Unitatis Redintegratio).

The question becomes whether we can find ways of creating structures in which ordained authority and conciliar collaboration are properly accountable to each other and to the whole Body. It is about how we look
- at the very least - for joint means of decision-making between churches differently ordered in their systems of authority, as several ecumenical texts propose (not least the IARCCUM documents); and at most for a means of making possible exchange of ministries and sacramental provision (with all that this might entail in terms of requirements for
simple canonical recognition and incorporation).

4.

As to primacy: convergence is probably less clear here, but there is a quite widespread recognition that, just as local ministry serves coherence and mutual openness within a congregation, so there is a powerful theological case for a ministry of universal focusing and gathering cast in the same terms. To put it like this is, once again, to see it in relation to the Church's purpose overall: this is a ministry existing for the sake of filial and communal holiness held in a universal pattern of mutual service - a point worth taking very seriously in the context of a globalised culture.

The disagreement comes over whether existing forms of primacy are - on the one hand - despite all their historic ups and downs, fundamentally unavoidable embodiments of the agreed principle or - on the other - so allied to juridical privilege and the patterns of rule and control I have referred to earlier that they simply fail to do what they say they are there for. This is to put the difference quite sharply, I know, in a way that ignores the fluidity of recent debate and the remarkable initiative represented by Ut Unum Sint and what has flowed from it. But once again, the ecumenical issue for those outside the Roman Catholic fold is whether the necessity of the existing form of primatial ministry is so theologically crucial a matter that the Church's integrity, its faithfulness to its essential purpose, is wholly compromised by a diversity of understanding about primacy. Is there a level of mutual recognition which allows a shared theological understanding of primacy alongside a diversity of canonical or juridical arrangements? The slightly sensitive discussion of the nature of papal jurisdiction outside the historic Western Patriarchate might be a door-opener here.
But it is surprising to find support in another quarter, in the shape of a bald statement (quoted in Harvesting) from the Lutheran-Catholic Report of 1972 'that the question of altar fellowship and of mutual recognition of ministerial offices should not be unconditionally dependent on a consensus on the question of primacy' (#66).

To present the question in these terms is in fact to look back to Cardinal Willebrands' celebrated sermon in Cambridge in 1970 which spoke (using the language of Dom Emmanuel Lanne) of a diversity of types of communion, each one defined not so much juridically or institutionally as in terms of lasting loyalty, shared theological method and devotional ethos. The underlying idea seems to be that a restored universal communion would be genuinely a 'community of communities' and a 'communion of communions' - not necessarily a single juridically united body - and therefore one which did indeed assume that, while there was a recognition of a primatial ministry, this was not absolutely bound to a view of primacy as a centralized juridical office.

It is of course impossible to open up these issues without some brief reference to issues of very immediate interest in the lives of the Anglican and Roman Catholic communions. The current proposals for a Covenant between Anglican provinces represent an effort to create not a centralised decision-making executive but a 'community of communities'
that can manage to sustain a mutually nourishing and mutually critical life, with all consenting to certain protocols of decision-making together. As Harvesting notes, Anglicans have been challenged to flesh out their rhetoric about communion through the crises and controversies of recent years, and this is simply part of a variegated response that will, no doubt, continue for a good while yet to be refined and formulated.

The recent announcement of an Apostolic Constitution making provision for former Anglicans shows some marks of the recognition that diversity of ethos does not in itself compromise the unity of the Catholic Church, even within the bounds of the historic Western patriarchate. But it should be obvious that it does not seek to do what we have been
sketching: it does not build in any formal recognition of existing ministries or units of oversight or methods of independent decision-making, but remains at the level of spiritual and liturgical culture, as we might say. As such, it is an imaginative pastoral response to the needs of some; but it does not break any fresh ecclesiological ground. It remains to be seen whether the flexibility suggested in the Constitution might ever lead to something less like a 'chaplaincy' and more like a church gathered around a bishop.

5.

As to the broad issue of local and universal Christian identity, much that has emerged in discussion involving Roman Catholics, Anglican and Orthodox has had the effect of challenging simplistic opposition between the two poles, as if the choice were between a conglomerate of local and almost randomly diverse communities vaguely federated together, and a monolithic global corporation. The re-theologising of ecclesiology, especially in dialogue with the Christian East, has meant that we are now better able to see the local community gathered around the bishop or his representative for eucharistic worship not as a portion of some greater whole but as itself the whole, the qualitative presence, as we might put it, of the Catholic reality of filial holiness and Trinitarian mutuality here and now. In one sense, it needs no supplement or validation from a wider institutional reality; in another sense, of course, it is itself only as related with other communities doing the same thing in all times and places. To quote from the Roman Catholic-Reformed dialogue, 'It is only by participating in the local community that we share in the life of the universal Church, but the local community without universality...runs the risk of becoming a ghetto or of being arbitrarily dominated by individuals' (The Presence of Christ in Church and World, #62). Or, in the words of the ARCIC statement on The Gift of Authority, 'No local church that participates in the living Tradition can regard itself as self-sufficient' (#37).

So the question here becomes one about what criteria help us establish that the same Catholic life is going on in diverse communities. The facts of corporate reading of Scripture, obedience to the Lord's commands to baptise and make eucharist, shared understanding of the shape and the disciplines of what we have called filial holiness - can these be utilised as they stand or do we need a further test - visible communion, say, with a universal primate? And if that further step is necessary, can it be shown to be theological in exactly the same sense as the rest of the discourse? If not, once again, is it a ground for maintaining the level of non-recognition currently in practice?

An answer to this would have to look at some of the complex and neuralgic issues that arise around local decision-making. To take the most obvious instance in the relations between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches at present, the local decision to ordain women as priests - and as bishops in some contexts - is presented by Roman Catholic theologians as one that in effect makes the Anglican Communion simply less recognisably a body 'doing the same Catholic thing'.

Harvesting records the substance of the early consensus in ARCIC on the nature of ordained ministry and also the acknowledgement that there had as yet been no consideration of who could be ordained (the 1973 Ministry and Ordination text, #17). Since then, this latter issue has been defined by the highest authority in the Roman Catholic Church as one in which the Church does not have the liberty or the competence to license change as regards the historic prohibition against women in holy orders.
This is now presented as a clear obstacle to any further recognition of Anglican orders.

I don't want here to rehearse the arguments for and against the ordination of women, only to ask how recent determinations on the Roman Catholic side fit with the general pattern of theological convergence outlined. The claim of certain Anglican provinces is that the ordination of women explicitly looks to an agreed historic theology of ordained ministry as set out in the ARCIC report and other sources. Beyond that, many Anglicans have been wary of accepting a determination of who can be ordained that might appear to compromise the some of the agreed principles about how ordination relates to the whole body of the baptised. This, by the way, would hold for at least some who believe that a decision within a divided Church about a matter affecting the universal ministry should not be taken by a single province or group of provinces. But for many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women, which in their view threatens to undermine the coherence of the ecclesiology in question.

And the challenge to recent Roman Catholic thinking on this would have to be: in what way does the prohibition against ordaining women so 'enhance the life of communion', reinforcing the essential character of filial and communal holiness as set out in Scripture and tradition and ecumenical agreement, that its breach would compromise the purposes of the Church as so defined? And do the arguments advanced about the "essence" of male and female vocations and capacities stand on the same level as a theology derived more directly from scripture and the common theological heritage such as we find in these ecumenical texts?

Let us take this a stage further. All ordained ministers are ordained into the shared richness of the apostolic ministerial order - or perhaps we could say ministerial 'communion' yet again. None ministers as a solitary individual. Thus if the ministerial collective is understood strictly in terms of the ecclesiology we have been considering, as serving the goal of filial and communal holiness as the character of restored humanity, how much is that undermined if individuals within the ministerial communion are of different genders? Even if there remains uncertainty in the minds of some about the rightness of ordaining women, is there a way of recognising that somehow the corporate exercise of a Catholic and evangelical ministry remains intact even when there is dispute about the standing of female individuals? In terms of the relation of local to universal, what we are saying here is that a degree of recognizability of 'the same Catholic thing' has survived: Anglican provinces ordaining women to some or all of the three orders have not become so obviously diverse in their understanding of filial holiness and sacramental transformation that they cannot act together, serve one another and allow some real collaboration.

It is this sort of thinking that has allowed Anglicans until recently to maintain a degree of undoubtedly impaired communion among themselves, despite the sharpness of the division over this matter. It is part of the rationale of supplementary episcopal oversight as practised in the English provinces, and it may yet be of help in securing the place of those who will not be able to accept the episcopal ministry of women.
There can be no doubt, though, that the situation of damaged communion will become more acute with the inability of bishops within the same college to recognise one another's ministry in the full sense. Yet, in what is still formally acknowledged to be a time of discernment and reception, is it nonsense to think that holding on to a limited but real common life and mutual acknowledgement of integrity might be worth working for within the Anglican family? And if it can be managed within the Anglican family, is this a possible model for the wider ecumenical scene? At least, by means of some of the carefully crafted institutional ways of continuing to work together, there remains an embodied trust in the possibility of discovering a shared ministry of the gospel; and who knows what more, ultimately, in terms of restored communion?

6.

Once again, I am asking how far continuing disunion and non-recognition are justified, theologically justified in the context of the overall ecclesial vision, when there are signs that some degree of diversity in practice need not, after all, prescribe an indefinite separation. I do not pretend to be offering a new paradigm of ecumenical encounter, far from it. But the very quality of the theological convergence recorded, and very expertly and lucidly recorded, in Harvesting prompts the sort of question I have been raising. At what point do we have to recognise that surviving institutional and even canonical separations or incompatibilities are overtaken by the authoritative direction of genuinely theological consensus, so that they can survive only by appealing to the ghost of ecclesiological positivism? The three issues I have commented on may all seem, to the eyes of a non-Roman Catholic, to belong in a somewhat different frame of reference from the governing themes of the ecumenical ecclesiology expressed in the texts under review. If the non-Roman Catholic is wrong about this, we need to have spelled out exactly why; we need to understand either that there are issues about the filial/communal calling clearly at stake in surviving disagreements; or to be shown that another theological 'register' is the right thing to use in certain areas, a different register which will qualify in some ways the language that has so far shaped ecumenical convergence.

Cardinal Willebrands would, I suspect, have been uncomfortable with the latter option and would have wanted (if he had agreed that these issues were critical, unresolved, and in need of resolution) to keep our attention fixed on the former, so that our language and thinking about the Church remained theological in a sense recognised by all involved in the discussion. To say this is not to foreclose consideration of these and other outstanding areas of diversity, let alone to say that they are 'political' matters and that there is no point in approaching them theologically, or that they are 'second-order' questions. But it is important to be clear about just how much convergence there is, as witnessed in the survey offered in Harvesting.

All I have been attempting to say here is that the ecumenical glass is genuinely half-full - and then to ask about the character of the unfinished business between us. For many of us who are not Roman Catholics, the question we want to put, in a grateful and fraternal spirit, is whether this unfinished business is as fundamentally church-dividing as our Roman Catholic friends generally assume and maintain. And if it isn't, can we all allow ourselves to be challenged to address the outstanding issues with the same methodological assumptions and the same overall spiritual and sacramental vision that has brought us thus far?

(c) Rowan Williams 2009

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Having read this sober, intelligent and thought provoking lecture, I was so distressed to find that some newspapers (and others) have labelled this talk as laying down a resistant challenge to the Roman Communion.

I do not see it like this at all. I thought that for those of us who are struggling about the future of our anglican identity it was a magesterial exposition of the issues from a catholic and anglican perspective. I cannot think of a previous Archbishop of Canterbury who could have so intelligently and lovingly exposed the two levels of issues properly facing the Church Universal.

I am far too in awe of Rowans's intelligence to try an analysis now. But this paper will help me to think through my future. Thank you ABC!

Thank God for Norwich

2009-11-15T18:44:00.000-08:00

This statue of St Peter, clutching his keys, and beckoning the faithful to Our Lord, has followed me through my whole life.

As a child all those years ago (I speak of the late 1940's and 1950's) this statue of Peter stood in my home parish Church of St Peter Parmentergate in Norwich, England.

When St Peter's was closed for use as a Parish Church some years ago now, St Peter walked up the hill to the new Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Timberhill. He now stands in an honoured place at St John's keeping an eye on all who celebrate the Holy Mystery of the Mass in this lovely Church right in the centre of this ancient city. In my childhood he was a little less well dressed (!), but in recent years he has gained a cope and mitre, not an inappropriate garb for the first Bishop of Rome.

The other photo was taken in the Shrine of Julian of Norwich. It shows the simple altar within the rebuilt Cell, the actual site where Julian meditated on the Blessed Passion of Our Lord, and wrote her "Revelations of Divine Love". I therefore had this immensely privileged childhood in the company of the Blessed Julian and the Blessed Peter.

As I head further into my 60's I also find myself reflecting on the sheer gracefulness of growing up in a parish which taught the Catholic Faith within the Church of England. It was in this parish and glorious company that I was taught that the Church of England is a sadly separated part of God's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I was also taught that despite the pain of our separation from the rest of our Catholic brethren, I was to be sure that the Sacraments of the Church of England are valid, for the Church I love had maintained the ancient Catholic Tradition of the threefold Orders of Bishop, Priest and Deacon. As Julian would put it "all shall be well".

It was also in this Parish and in these holy places that I discovered the amazing truth that God had called me to be a priest.

It took me about three years to come to terms with this shocking fact, and a very happy five years with the Kelham Fathers in formation. Another day I may tell you of the saga of my life from then on, but not today.

All of this slightly indulgent nostalgia is really just to highlight my empathy with those who again in the last few days in England are struggling with their future in the Church of England.

For many of us have always felt that our calling, whether at home in the Church of England, or somewhere else in the Anglican Communion as I am now, is to witness to the essential Catholicity of the Anglican Church. This has required our brethren who do not hold our views to have a generosity of spirit for their Catholic brethren. There is little sign of this at present in the Church of England, and even less in wider parts of the Anglican Communion.

So those of us who believe that the Anglican Communion and the Church of England will be impoverished without us, struggle in our prayers and thinking. Where is God calling us, and how do we stay faithful to the Gospel in this complex environment.

I have no easy answers, but I do intend to keep struggling away at all this.

May we come to know God's will for us.

Walking in the Right Way!

2009-11-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

I have followed with much encouragement and fascination the first stages of the reflections on the possible Anglican Ordinariate within the Roman Catholic Church.

Perhaps I should begin by affirming that I have every sympathy (and much empathy) with those who have already suggested that they will be seeking this marvellous opportunity to find their true home within the Western Catholic Church. I will pray for them as they walk in the right way.

But I also find myself truly persuaded by those within the Anglican Communion (and particularly within the Church of England) who still feel called to affirm the Catholicity of the ancient Church of those islands. I know that, despite much discouragement and abuse within the Church of England, many of my brethren still almost hope against hope for a true home within the C of E. I know that there comes a moment when the decisions of General Synod, and the tone of the debates, and the failure to ensure a safe haven within the C of E for Catholics will mean that the walk- or possibly the swim -must be across the Tiber.

I have been, like many Catholic brethren within the Anglican Communion, so discouraged by the tone and content of some of those who would be happy to see us go. If you believe with me that the Catholic tradition has so much to offer the Anglican Communion, then you will not wish to see your beloved home Church deprived of the gifts we bring. It is gratifying, and inspirational, that Pope Benedict clearly recognises the gifts we could bring to his beloved Catholic Church.

At the core of these discussions is the prayer of Our Lord that we may be one, as He and His Father are one. If you believe that the disunity of the Church is a grave scandal, so destructive to the mission of the Church in this world, then you will also know that the generous offer of the Holy Father is clearly a response to this prayer.

So you will note that like many catholics within the Anglican Communion, I am uncertain of the way The Lord calls me.

I will continue to pray and to think, and I hope you will join me in this responsibility.

I wish to add just one more crucial issue to this prayerful reflection. As a heterosexual I have always been delighted that many of my priestly and lay brethren who are Gay have found a welcome and home within the Church. I am so distressed by those who have tried to embroil the issue of the Christian welcome to Gay people into the matters we are discussing. I am certain that Our Lord welcomes into the Kingdom people of all sexualities. May we be not found wanting in our faithfulness in ensuring that the Church of God is open to all.

Remembrance Sunday

2009-11-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

It is always seriously distressing to find oneself celebrating the Mass and preaching on this Sunday.

I found this YouTube video that really sums up all I would wish to say.

I hope readers will join me in deep penitence for our inhumanity, deep thanksgiving for the selfless service of so many, and pray for peace throughout our troubled world.

May the Souls of the faithful through the mercy of God rest in peace, and rise in glory

Moreton Bay Fig Trees & St Martin!

2009-11-05T21:59:00.000-08:00

I am immensely enjoying Diarmaid MacCulloch's recently published History of Christianity. It has the virtue of being "a very good read", and I am overwhelmed by his ability to analyse the complexities of Christian history with such a sure touch.

Of particular enjoyment is his ability to use Christian hagiography and legend to make such telling comments on the history and development of Chistian thought and practice.

As we will be celebrating St Martin of Tours next week, I much enjoyed his masterly summary of the significance of this very popular saint.

I have included a photo of a massive Australian Fig Tree (just like the ones outside our Parish Church in Brisbane) as the best story of Martin is that he (as part of his relentless campaign to root out the old Pagan religious traditions) undermined a tree sacred to the old gods, then stood in the path of its fall, but forced it to fall elsewhere by making the sign of the cross. Diarmaid's simple comment is "that the audience loved it".

I will be celebrating Mass on St Martin's Day next week, and am wondering if I should repeat the experiment - possibly with someone else standing under the tree! (but perhaps not).

But if like me, your memory of Church history is a little dim, then I cannot think of a better way of re-enlivening your interest in such a monumental and stunning history.

Read it soon.

Catholics Matter!

2009-10-24T01:31:00.000-07:00

The photograph of Cardinal Newman (John Henry Newman, so influential in the rediscovery of the Catholic heritage of the Church of England) reminds me of my call, and the call of Catholic Anglicans to our beloved Anglican Church.

It is to ensure that the catholicity of our branch of the One Catholic Church is never forgotten.

Our call for 150 years since Newman's great sermons in Oxford is to ensure that the Church we love never forgets its Catholic inheritance.

Any of you, who like me, grew in the Faith through the faithful witness of Anglican Catholic Priests, will always treasure not only the personal influence of this vital tradition, but also its influence in the wider Anglican Communion.

I presently live within the Diocese of Brisbane in Australia, and the influence of Pusey, Newman, and those other great Victorian Catholics is very evident in the nature of the Church here.

BUT I become very distressed when those of Catholic Faith within the Anglican Communion are simply described as "traditionalists", and (as in an Ad Clerum in this Diocese yesterday) the suggestion is made that the departure of Catholics will free up the rest of the Anglican Church!

I have always believed that the Catholic tradition within the Anglican Church has something of vital importance to offer to the rest of our Communion. It is MUCH MUCH MORE than a protest movement against Women as Bishops and matters of sexuality!

Both of these issues demand serious and appropriate attention. BUT so does the call of Anglican Catholics to help recall the Anglican Communion to its Catholic heritage.

Although living at present in Brisbane, I remain a member of the Church of England, so its future Catholicity is of vital importance to the health of the people of England.
There is a moment for all Catholic Anglicans when the sheer lack of understanding of our position makes it impossible for us to remain faithful to Our Lord in this Communion.

I think it is not yet! But I fear the day will come.

I have a Dream!

2009-10-22T20:11:00.001-07:00

What good news this week that Pope Benedict - Bishop of Rome and hence first among equals among the Bishops of the undivided Church - has begun the process of making possible a return to the fullness of Unity for Christians of the Anglican Tradition

Let me explain why this is good news! It is not so that a few of our more traditional - and sometimes outdated - brethren may find their way home across the Tiber. It is rather that for the first time in many centuries there is a possibility of those within the Anglican tradition being in full union with the wider Catholic Church.

For many of us it has been a matter of great grief that developments within the Anglican Communion have pushed the possible re-union of the great western strands of Christendom off the agenda. In fact that is too polite - it is clear that the re-union for which Christ prays is not possible when the Anglican Communion behaves as it does.

But I do have a dream! Is there a way for the Archbishop of Canterbury to respond to this initiative with the same spirit of generosity shown by Pope Benedict? Or more precisely in the English context, will the General Synod under Rowan's leadership respond in kind?

Just imagine groups of Catholic Anglicans in full communion with the wider Catholic Church under the possibly complex arrangements still to emerge from the Vatican - BUT also allowed to retain their honoured place within the Anglican Communion. The "via-media" come to real fruitful expression!

I am certain that many will respond..it is a fantasy..and then list all the very complex legal reasons why this cannot happen.

But I, for one, will carry on praying that more will come of this initiative than simply providing a bolt hole for the (understandably) disaffected Anglo Catholics.

I will watch these developments prayerfully, and with great interest, and continue as all good Catholic Anglicans have always done to pray that God's Holy Church may be one.

Have another cup of coffee!

2009-09-13T01:29:00.000-07:00

I have just realised that it has been a while since I last blogged - must get into the habit of doing this when the coffee is zinging through my veins.

In between celebrating Mass, saying my Offices, and living as fruitfully as I can, my head has been filled with the need to maintain the knowledge that God knows what He is doing in His world (and Universe!).

I find it so easy to get ground down by the sheer scale of the issues facing our world. I look at my grandchildren and wonder what kind of world we are handing on to them? I listen to the news and wonder at the sheer inhumanity of man, and our failure to learn anew the gospel of Love.

And then I find myself Celebrating the Mass, and as I ascend the altar steps - so aware of my unworthiness - I am reminded that the Mass is not only about the spiritual benefits bestowed on the communicants. It is also magnificently about the pledge and promise of hope embracing all humanity and all creation. It reminds us of the bringing together of all things in Christ, and the means of empowerment for Christian discipleship and mission until God's Kingdom comes.

So my heart leaps for joy, and I curse myself for forgetting that God knows what he is doing. That "all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well" (Julian of Norwich).

What would I do without her! I learnt the Faith in the Church in Norwich where she lived. She has followed me around the world, and kept me sane.

So I am going to end this posting with her lovely prayer: God of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself. And if I ask for anything that is less then Thee, ever me wanteth"

Enough said!

Baptisms and Martyrs!

2009-08-30T01:51:00.000-07:00

We had the privilege today at our Parish Mass of Baptising a small baby girl, Jessica.

I use the word privilege advisedly, as it is always part of the ministry of welcome to recieve a child into the Christian Community. In this increasingly secular age it seems to me even more important than ever to ensure that we welcome with the arms of Our Lord any family who make their way to the Church on behalf of their baby. I have no doubt that the heart of God is filled with joy as we receive a small child into the Church.

The Mass was also filled with thanksgiving and joy as we gave thanks to God for the witness of the eight Anglican New Guinea Martyrs. One of them, Margery Brenchley was a member of the congregation at Holy Trinity Margery was a mission nurse who stayed with the people of PNG as the Japanese invaded, and died as a result. The Blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church, so we gave thanks today for our sister Margery and her companions who followed the way of the cross to the end. I have posted the crest of the Church of Papua New Guinea, and invite your prayers for our brethren there.

Mass at an Elderly Persons Home

2009-08-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

Today I have had the great (and regular) privilege of offering Mass at a Queensland high dependency Care Home.

There is nothing more moving for a priest than to discover as you quietly move around these elderly people with the Blessed Sacrament that many of them - while appearing quite off the radar - with great reverence open their mouths or offer their hands to receive Our Lord in His most Holy Sacrament.

I was reminded as I moved around these lovely people of words from a much maligned Church of England Bishop, David Jenkins: God is in reality, He is as He is in Jesus: therefore there is hope in being human.

This Mass was especially important to me, as I spent an evening on Tuesday with our parish Study Group exploring the Christian call to care for the elderly in our community.

We were clear that the call to serve Our Lord through recognising His presence in His people came home with clarity when we found ourselves offering love and care to elderly people, often neglected, in homes of one kind or another.

We also spent some time exploring the way Christians are called to do things: first to offer what love and care we can manage in showing real pastoral ministry to these people. Second to be, where appropriate, involved in the political process of ensuring that elderly people are properly cared for within the structures of the state.

I found it very helpful as my Queensland brethren explained to me the systems which operate in Queensland/Australia in the care "business". I was able to offer the contrasting - but not always better- experience of being involved in the English Care system.

It seems to me that both these "systems" need informed and committed Christians to reaffirm the sheer uniqueness and loveability of all human beings under God as part of His beloved creation. This fundemental understanding of the unique and loved character of every human being is the great gift of the Christian understanding to the world. But as many have suggested in recent years, we are dangerously close to using up the capital on this vision of who all people are. Christians need to reaffirm the reality of God in all human beings, and ensure that this unique vision is not lost to our increasingly unbelieving world.

But for today I give thanks for the joy God gave me in being able to minister to some lovely people.

May they all know the love of Christ as they quietly go on their journey home to the Father.

Feeling the Heat in Brisbane

2009-08-24T02:57:00.000-07:00

It may still be winter in Brisbane - and there goes another pig flying through the air - but today the temperature has reached 35C. Those of us who are used to English weather sigh a deep sigh as we prepare to sweat for England.

Luckily although the temperature has soared today, the humidity has remained low, and therefore the day has been bearable. I wince at the thought of the inevitable increase in humidity sure to inflict itself upon us soon, and quietly resolve not to bore the locals with the usual English obsession with the weather.

But the day has been made bright and sunny by the delight of the Ashes England victory. I know I should be ambivalent as a new citizen of Australia, but blood is thicker in the end.

My wife and I having spent two years here in retirement had the privilege of becoming Australian citizens last Friday. A moving occasion as the majority of those being admitted to citizenship were clearly refugees, and their families were thrilled and elighted to welcome them.

It made me realise how easy it has all been for us. Joining our children who now live here with our grandchildren had been easy in comparison.

The photo on my very first blog is of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. It is this parish that has welcomed Shirley (my wife) and I, and I have been privileged to be given permission to officiate in this Parish. Holy Trinity always makes me feel quite at home, as the building is rather like an English Victorian Church transplanted, however unlikely, in the depths of Queensland.

Friends in England pointed us in this direction when we first said we were on the way to Brisbane, and we are glad they did. They told us the Parish was inclusive, and it is! We feel well at home.

The purpose of this blog - apart from the inevitable ramblings on whatever - is to reflect on the connections between the good news of the Gospel and the world around us.

I tried to preach on this very subject yesterday, and thought you might enjoy (agree or disagree) with my thinking:

so here it is! (and by the way the main ideas for this sermon were stolen from the website of Canon Simon Mein). As he was my seminary head I hope he will forgive my stealing his carefullly thought through images and using them for my own ends.)

In the past few weeks I have had occasion to call a number of businesses. What they have nearly all had in common is the opening response when the phone “in a manner of speaking” is picked up.
Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed!
What-ever the reason for this, I find it highly irritating, especially when the process descends into eternal sub menus, and you work your way through them to the final moment when you are told: Press 0 to speak to one of our staff.
You will already know that if you don’t have 45 minutes to spare, don’t bother pressing 0!
Irritating as all this is, there is however one place where I would be overjoyed to hear the announcement that our menu has been updated.
Just imagine telephoning the Diocese of Brisbane, or Lambeth Palace, or The Vatican, or Sydney Diocese. What a joy it would be to be informed of a new menu!
Just imagine the miracle! Please listen carefully as our menu has been updated to take note of developments in historical research, scientific discoveries, the psychology of human beings, the nature of sexuality etc” What a cause for rejoicing it would be for those of us who wish to be Christians, follow Christ and live in 2009!
This all came to mind when I read the Epistle for today, that hard section from the Letter to the Ephesians.
Especially that bit about wives being subject to their husbands! I thought to myself if I get this sermon wrong, then I might just be like George Bush at that famous Iraqi press conference when some guy started throwing shoes at him. But this time it would be high heels, and you would have to have a really strong arm and good aim to reach me up here!
Paul was writing as a man of his time, a time when the position of women in society was nothing like now. Women/wives were to be seen as the property of their husbands. Of course it is right for us in 2009 to reject without qualification such a view of the position of women in our society and in our relationships. As Christians we should be rejoicing in the significant liberation of women in our society, and working together to increase the expression of the equality of the sexes in any way we can.
And if that International research published a few weeks ago is accurate in identifying Australian men as the most sexist in the Western World, then we have, God help us, a long way to go!
So, if you can bear it, perhaps the best way of working at this is to indicate what the new menu might contain:
So:
Press One if you want to listen to Paul further, and hear how Paul tells men “to love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for it”. What a challenge for us men to so love our wives that we follow the loving self giving of Jesus.
Press Two: if you want to explore how married couples are called to be sacraments of the oneness between God and His Church. What a challenge for us married couples to so live in loving giving relationships to one another that the world may recognise our marriages as unmistakeable signs of the way God loves His Church.
Press Three: if you want to explore how Lesbian, Gay and Transgendered people should be welcomed and affirmed in love within the Christian community. And I fear that this would need a number of sub menus:
Press A: if you wish the Church of God to bless those gay couples in committed stable relationships.
Press B: if you wish to help the Anglican Church to stop getting so hung up over the reality of gay Sexuality.
Press C: if you can find no earthly or heavenly reason why Gay men should not be ordained priest of bishop in the Church of God.
(and if you think I am getting a bit over the top about this, then do some reading and see how our beloved Anglican Communion is tearing itself apart on these very issues)
But back to the main menu:
Press Four: if you can find no earthly or heavenly reason why repentant sinners who have failed in their sexual relationships (come to think of it, that is likely to be all of us) should not be welcomed home to the Church with all the love we can offer. And not just welcomed, but celebrated as those who had once gone astray and come home to God. “Your sins are forgiven: go sin no more”. There’s an agenda for the judgemental Church of this Diocese to work on with passion.
I suppose we better end with a couple of the usual menu options:
Press Five: if you wish to speak to an archangel! (we are sorry for the delay, your call is important to us)
Press 0: and be quiet if you wish to listen to God.