PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE USE
11 July 2006
AFFIRMING CATHOLICISM WELCOMES SYNOD’S DECISION AND PLEDGES TO FIND WAYS TO INCLUDE OBJECTORS WITHOUT UNDERMINING FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES.
The Director of the Anglican organisation, Affirming Catholicism, the Rev’d Richard Jenkins, today welcomed the decision of the Church of England’s General Synod to press ahead with moves to admit women to the episcopate. The General Synod, meeting in York over the last 5 days, voted by substantial majorities to welcome and affirm the view that the development was consistent with Anglican faith and practice and to proceed with drafting necessary legislation for women to be ordained as Bishops. Synod also passed an amendment to endorse the view that those who oppose the move are equally loyal Anglicans.
I’m delighted that the Synod has voted so resoundingly to admit women to the episcopate. It has also underlined its determination to find principled ways to keep the minority who object to the move within the body of the Church. We will continue to engage in the process with charity and theological rigour in order to help craft legislation which admits women to the episcopate on the same basis as men, provides a safe and secure space for those who object, and encourages all of us to encounter and enrich each other in one polity.
In the run up to the recent debates, Affirming Catholicism’s theological group made submissions on the issue to the House of Bishops’ working parties and published a book outlining the Catholic case in favour of women bishops which was circulated to every member of General Synod. The Affirming Catholicism group will reconvene once the official legislative drafting group is created. Affirming Catholics in Synod (ACiS) numbers over 90.
ENDS
Ahh, AF *should* be happy at this progress down that same road that ECUSA took years ago towards “liberal totaliarianism”… Our liberal heirarchy even seems to have borrowed the ECUSA ‘roadmap’ – in terms of the order in which to push issues to slice up traditionalists and evangelicals (few of whom, I understand, were allowed to speak in the debate!) I guess that “*principled ways* to keep dissenters in the church” will turn out to mean that traditionalists can stay as long as the acknowledge women bishops (the very thing that they dissent on) or that existing dissenters can stay… Read more »
Affirming Catholicism is like fornicating chastity. It claims to be supporting a trademark, but manufactures a completely different product–like selling sock suspenders in Famous Grouse bottles. Since one very large body sets the gold standard for what Catholicism actually teaches, one might take a look at some of its recent pronouncements, like: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html from which: “Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is… Read more »
Lets get this clear – the majority of evangelicals in the UK support womens ordination. The more conservative they are, the less likely they are to do so.
However, the move to introduce women bishops is far wider than ‘liberals’ as the voting indicates.
If you wish to have special treatment, Dave, then the same must be made available for the most liberal who are not prepared to discrimnate negatively against gays and lesbians.
Dave bach—-
Breathe! you are alive ! :- )
Dave We had a debate some months ago about one extreme ruling it over the other. The conclusion at the end was that neither side wanted that to happen. The issue about GLBTs and women make it harder, in the sense of a person’s gender or sexuality is what it is and someone who refuses to acknowledge a woman’s authority will have a point blank problem no matter how capable or talented or God blessed she might be. However, the issue goes deeper than that, in that extremists can also refuse to be supervised by people who have a different… Read more »
It is an interesting import from the States, is it not — the hypothesis (often without any supporting evidence) that there is some massive secular/liberal agenda driving the universe and that conservatives are an opressed and endangered minority (which then justifies their intemperate language and extreme reactions). Mr Limbaugh exemplifies the phenomenon, and I wonder whether it’s getting a foothold over here.
“I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” Just up the Trent from here is the place where Canute demonstrated the limitations of his authority when the tide refused to heed him. Just shouting something louder doesn’t make it true, even if the guy with the megaphone’s wearing a white cassock. On top of that, it is a total irrelevance for anyone to pontificate from the official RC position on Anglican ordinations on the grounds that Apostolicae Curae has,… Read more »
Its nothing to do with discrimination. The vast majority of those who believe women should not be Bishops do so because they believe that is NT teaching, and the majority who believe there should be women bishops do so because they believe that is NT teaching. The Bible refers to men and women and episcopos etc, it doesn’t mention or classify people by their sexual desires such as gay and lesbian or straight. And it is for this reason that one must appreciate that the issue of women bishops is merely going to cause a division within the Anglican Communion,… Read more »
You know, Dave, I sometimes get to feeling the same way about Evangelicals. It seems they are becoming more and more powerful and their “my way or the highway” approach to the faith will mean that the Anglican Church will become, sadly, much more uniform. ++Akinola’s an Evangelical, isn’t he? I don’t think it’s all that hard to see the real agenda behind his actions. And while I think it amusing that the conservative Anglo-catholics have made common cause with the Evangelicals over women and gays, when the dust settles, they’ll soon find out the depths of Evangelical intolerance. Then,… Read more »
Is it the fact that there are diocese in the United States where women are not ordained to the priesthood and where they are not licenced as clerics?
I believe there are no such diocese in the UK.
austin I don’t know about ****** for virginity — but I don’t see the RC denomination as a Catholic gold standard — or even specially Catholic, myself. It seems too limited & limiting for that — at the moment.
As an institution (or really as series of them, & voluntary associations loosely strung together) it is pretty disappointing — though some of the bits and pieces stringing off here and there can be lovely — pearly.
One pearl dont make a string and a one string does not make a set. We needn’t let that discourage us for long !…
“Since one very large body sets the gold standard for what Catholicism actually teaches”
…and if you believe that, austin, I humbly suggest you have very little business being on THIS discussion site? (I do believe the Magisterium has yet to place the internet completely on “The Index”? Ergo, there are plenty of Papist websites on which to extoll the BofR’s Infallible Wisdom?! *g*)
Dear Ford et al, You only have to look to ECUSA to see how principled liberal inclusion works… you can be included if you agree – or at least behave as if you do. Liberal tolerance only extends to tolerant liberals ! Evangelical “intolerance” extends only as far as that which can be reasonable proven from the Bible to be what God rejects as “sin”. You only need to visit a few large evangelical CofE churches to see the huge diversity ! ps I am not fundamentally against women bishops, but I am against marginalising people who hold a reasonable… Read more »
Yes, there are three dioceses that do not ordain women to the priesthood or license those so ordained elsewhere. Some others are officially open but far from welcoming and there continues to be concern that the next bishop to be elected will close the door or actually try to dismiss any currently serving.
Martin —
The dioceses of Fort Worth, San Joaquin & Quincy do not recognise the ordination of women to the priesthood (not sure about the diaconate). I understand that women in the Network dioceses are now suggesting that they are having difficulty in accessing the ordination process.
David W wrote: “The Bible refers to men and women and episcopos etc, it doesn’t mention or classify people by their sexual desires such as gay and lesbian or straight.” And then what is not mentioned in the Bible will cause a split? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? That women, who a r e mentioned in the Bible and in no uncertain terms – in deutero-Pauline Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, in the Pastorals and the additions to 1 Cor 11 and 14, in 1 Peter 2:11, not to mention the horrible thäleiai; c***s, in the gloss Romans 1:26-27… Read more »
So, Dave, you use different criteria to adjudge levels of tolerance – criteria that by their very nature will only be acceptable to evangelicals. And then you wonder why we liberals fail to take you seriously and tend to view you as entirely one-sided – expecting you and those like you to be treated according to your rules, and those not like you and who don;t agree with you to also be treated according to your (biased, conservative) views. Thus, you should not be surprised when others use different criteria – but , again, its you conservatives, not us liberals,… Read more »
“… for the Bible tells me so…” Philip Kennedy, Sr. tutor at Mansfield College, University of Oxford, has this to say in his worthwhile contribution of “God’s Good News for Gays” in: Gays and the Future of Anglicanism: Responses to the Windsor Report (2005), pp.301f.: “On sexual relations between males and between females, Jesus as recorded in the Bible is entirely silent–with one possible and remote exception. The very word used for ‘fool’ (Raqa, Rhaka–Mt.5:21-22)in the warning not to say “You fool” to a brother or sister, might have been a term of abuse for an effeminate male in Jesus’… Read more »
“Is it the fact that there are diocese in the United States where women are not ordained to the priesthood and where they are not licenced as clerics?”
Yes. Few but stubborn.
not to mention the horrible thäleiai; c***s
Hm,, ‘pars pro toto’ — but my lexicon associates it with words meaning ‘to suckle’. Maybe I just have a puritanical lexicon to add to my meagre understanding of Greek!
Dave: “Liberal tolerance only extends to tolerant liberals ! Evangelical “intolerance” extends only as far as that which can be reasonable proven from the Bible to be what God rejects as “sin”. You only need to visit a few large evangelical CofE churches to see the huge diversity !” First of all, I know about the intolerance of Liberals, I’ve run afoul of it myself. All the same, the left has not called for the exclusion of anyone from the Church. It’s the Right that wants purity. I have also read about some parishes in the US that have claimed… Read more »
Ford Your posting of 13 July 2.10 BST was excellent. It was interesting to hear that things had degenerated to the point that aome orthodox parishes were testing their liberal bishops and then using some theological point to justify trying to exclude them from their parish. (I wonder if that would happen if Sydney if the Synod were to elect a more tolerant leadership in 2007?) It also reminds me of several Torah studis I’ve read in the last few weeks, where Moses was challenged by others. God’s responses can be found in the book of Numbers and include having… Read more »
Dear Ford, we are saved *from* sin by God’s grace by repentance and the atoning sacrifice Jesus made on the cross; we are saved *to* members of God’s family – believers and followers of Jesus Christ. I agree that Christianity isn’t just a set of rules; it [should be] a living relatioship with God through Christ. And the Bible isn’t meant to be a rule book… but it does contain the most authentic and authoritative teachings of Christ and His Apostles. You have to take seriously what the New Testament says if you want to believe and follow Christ… and… Read more »
Daave, I agree totally with your first statement. As to the Bible, you DO have to attend very seriously to the NT, indeed to the whole of the book, but you also can’t pick and choose what you will and won’t be strict about. You’d probably say that’s what the “reappraisers” are doing, but it’s just as true of the “reasserters”. They’re just reasserting a form of the faith that ignored things other than the things their opponents are ignoring, so they think something awful is going on. You can’t be gay, but you can kill people if the government… Read more »
Göran Koch-Swahne wrote asking me to explain my comments. I am happy to clarify, although I feel it distracts from the specific topic. The Bible refers to men and women and such as Phoebe in Romans 16 and such as Paul’s references to women in 1 Timothy 2:12. As to the ‘horrible’ thelus I disagree I don’t think it particularly horrible, and the point of Romans 1:26-27 is the atimia things that the thelus did. The key point I wished to make in its simplest terms is that the communion will not split over debating passages like Romans 16 against… Read more »
Ford, I found this posting on the NT and being ransomed helpful to my understanding, & moving. My thanks, (Was reading over Dave’s shoulder ! 🙂
Ford, I agree with your comment that one needs to look at not just the crucifixion, but also the whole body of Christ’s incarnation. For example, the resurrection as proof of Jesus’ success, and the transfiguration in the garden being the proof of the cherubim’s prior consent.
“are we assuming this pais was a servant or a child”
Somewhere (and I can’t remember where, probably nothing very elevated) I read the suggestion that ‘pais’ could in contemporary Hellenistic Greek indicate a rather more (ahem) ‘intimate’ relationship.
Austin-
You say ‘Affirming Catholicism’ is an oxymoron. I don’t know whether this is the case; but certainly one does notice an increasing Humpty Dumpty tendency to redefine and have one’s cake and eat it: New Labour, for example.
What does ‘Affirming’ mean here anyway? Everybody affirms some things, and denies everything they do not affirm. One longs for clarity sometimes.
Personally , I find affirming catholicsm a lot better than the usual catholicism of denial, I must say.
I agree with you mynsterpreost pais as a son. for John and for Matthew. My mistake.