The Bishop of Richborough has published this pastoral letter on his website, following the announcement of his resignation.
Pastoral Letter – 9th November 2010
To priests and people in the Richborough Area
PASTORAL LETTER NOVEMBER 2010
RESIGNATION
I imagine most of you will already know that I have resigned as Bishop of Richborough as from 31st December and will not be conducting any public episcopal services between now and then. I will, in due course, be received into full communion with the Catholic Church and join the Ordinariate when one is erected in England, which I hope will happen early next year. This has been a very difficult decision and has not been taken without much thought and prayer over the last year. For more than 8 years I have enjoyed being Bishop of Richborough; I have particularly valued the many visits to parishes for confirmations and other occasions. I am more grateful than I can say for the warmth, friendship and support I have experienced from so many priests and faithful lay people. I did not deserve it but I thank God for all I have received from you.
I am sure it will be said that I am leaving because of the issue of the ordination of women to the episcopate. While it is true that this has been an important factor in my thinking it is not the most significant factor. The publication of the Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus, just one year ago, came as a surprise and has completely changed the landscape for Anglo Catholics. Since the inception of the ARCIC process, set up by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in the 1960s, most of us have longed and prayed for corporate union with the Catholic Church; union which in our own time has seemed less likely because of the new difficulties concerning the ordination of women and other doctrinal and moral issues affecting the Anglican Communion.
Although we must still pray for sacramental and ecclesial unity between our Churches that now seems a much more distant hope. The creation of Personal Ordinariates within the Catholic Church provides an opportunity for visible unity between Anglicans and the Catholic Church now, while still being able to retain what is best in our own tradition which will enrich the Universal Church. This is a hope which has been expressed many times by Forward in Faith and many others within the catholic tradition of the Church of England So I hope you will understand that I am not taking this step in faith for negative reasons about problems in the Church of England but for positive reasons in response to our Lord’s prayer the night before he died the ‘they may all be one.’
Some of you, of course, will be thinking that I am leaving just at the time when episcopal leadership for our parishes is vital. I have great sympathy with this view but there are a number of ways of understanding leadership. Some may think the leader should stay to the bitter end like the captain of a sinking ship, but the example in scripture is that of the shepherd and every instructed Christian knows the eastern shepherd leads from the front rather than following the flock from behind. This is what I hope I am doing. I am leading the way and I hope and pray that many of you will follow me in the months and the years ahead.
However, I know many of you will wish to remain in the Church of England if that is at all possible and for some they will do so whatever provision General Synod eventually adopts. For those I could not continue to be your bishop with any integrity. My pilgrimage is now leading me in a different direction and I can no longer provide the episcopal leadership you need and deserve. You need a new Bishop of Richborough who has the same vision as you have and one for whom a solution in the Church of England is a priority. My priority is union with the Universal Church.
For those whom I have let down and disappointed, I ask your forgiveness. I am only to well ware of my own failings and inadequacies but I have tried, though often failed, to be a loving and faithful bishop for you. I hope you will continue to pray for Gill and me as we take this significant step in our own Christian pilgrimage, as we will continue to pray for all of you.
May God bless you now and always,
Yours in our Blessed Lord,
+ Keith
Bishop of Richborough
A plus: he’s not going to be “conducting any public episcopal services between now and” when he Popes. Thank you, Mr Newton, for your consistancy.
A minus: Newton refers to Anglicanorum Coetibus, as some sort of fulfillment of “the ARCIC process.” NOTHING could be further from the truth. In fact, Anglicanorum Coetibus undermines if doesn’t totally KILL “the ARCIC process.”
I hope Newton can live w/ the reality that he may have set back, for generations or centuries, his “longed and prayed for corporate union with the [Roman] Catholic Church.”
Upon serious reflection, I think I can say that Bishop Keith has done the honourable thing. He has acknowledged his own inability to live within the church community that has proved itself infinitely more open to the ministry of women than when he first voiced his objections. Even though General Synod had insisted that there was to be a ‘period of reception’ for women’s ministry (and that time may have long passed), he could no longer live with the situation in which his leadership is at serious odds with the polity of the Church who is his employer. The Bishop’s… Read more »
I hope Newton can live w/ the reality that he may have set back, for generations or centuries, his “longed and prayed for corporate union with the [Roman] Catholic Church.”
You don’t think the ordination of women and homosexual activists accomplished this setback to Christian unity long before this latest development?
“One hopes that the system of ‘Flying Bishops’ will not be allowed to continue. Father Ron Smith. And one rejoices that members of the new Synod of the Church of England may well yet prove to have a more sympathetic attitude than you, Father Smith. I presume you are also against the proposed Anglican Covenant? If you are, your comments fall on deaf ears, giving that you come from another Anglican Province, which by your own tenets, I imagine, ought not to have the scope for intereference in the affairs of a different province. By all means, express your opinion,… Read more »
Somehow, I think cradle-Catholics will be less than completely delighted to see him move into the neighborhood.
Ron says: “The only answer for a new era of peace in the Communion is for all to agree to ordained ministry being exercised by each and everyone whom God may call – regardless of race, gender, social position, or sexual difference.”
There it is. The true liberal viewpoint, rarely so clearly expressed: My way, or the highway.
I do wish someone would spell out what it is from the Anglican tradition those who join the Ordinariate are taking….I am still wondering what it is, as Prof Diarmaid MacCullloch did in his recent Times article.
Reference to ARCIC is also odd…since those going are being received on the basis of their belief in Roman Catholic teaching as understood in the universal catechism.ARCIC surely was seeking a different model of “reconciled diversity”.The problem with the Ordinariate is that it may make even friendly cooperation at the local level in all sorts of ecumenical and other areas rather more difficult.
We are frequently reminded that those who are leaving/have left are obeying their conscience and that is probably true. The conscience seems to be supreme. Yet they have used their conscience as their pretext for their words and actions without any real regard for the fact that others have consciences too. You cannot use your conscience to justify yourself while disregarding the consciences of others. Respect for conscience is a two way street. As for blaming “The ordination of women and homosexual activists” for the situation, I assume that aas would prefer that women and gay people go back into… Read more »
Why are “women and gays” always conflated? It does sound much more threatening when it seems to be a conspiracy by the two non-male heterosexual (thus inferior)groups to somehow mess up the patriarchal system we all know and love. if we could just get back to it, they seem to say, the Church would then be mainstream and important and people would flock to it. It’s those gays and women that have wrecked what was so obviously perfect (for heterosexuals, mysogynists, and men who pretended to be straight.)What I have learned is that men who oppose the ordination of women… Read more »
Clive said “There it is. The true liberal viewpoint, rarely so clearly expressed: My way, or the highway.” I can’t see how Ron’s right to express his view is any more “my way” than those who say the opposite. Ron did say that “the only way” was the way he outlined, but that is his view. it wasn’t an ultimatum and it didn’t castigate or anathematise anyone. Why are liberals always treated as if they are committing some crime? Ron’s viewpoint is quite widely held and he entitled to it in the same way that Clive is to his. I… Read more »
“You don’t think the ordination of women and homosexual activists accomplished this setback to Christian unity long before this latest development?” Posted by aas
I think you meant “homosexual honest-ists”, aas. Rome is FILLED w/ priests who are ACTIVELY (sexually) homosexual! ;-/
But in response to your question (and you’re probably not going to like what I’m going to say): inasmuch as I believe that ordination of women and the honestly LGBT is the *work of the Holy Spirit* then, by definition, it can only HELP the cause of TRUE Christian unity. Alleluia!
“The true liberal viewpoint, rarely so clearly expressed: My way, or the highway.” – Posted by Clive
Wow, there’s a radical (radically FALSE) interpretation of what Fr Ron said!
“each and everyone whom God may call – regardless of race, gender, social position, or sexual difference”
Fr Ron’s calling for GOD’s way, Clive. Not his own, or mine, or “the true liberal viewpoint”. God’s way!
“I presume you are also against the proposed Anglican Covenant? If you are, your comments fall on deaf ears, giving that you come from another Anglican Province, which by your own tenets, I imagine, ought not to have the scope for intereference (sic) in the affairs of a different province. By all means, express your opinion, but perhaps not in such a totalitarian way. – Posted by: Benedict on Wednesday – This sounds a little unreasonable – given that the Covenant affects ALL Provinces of the Communion. ‘Inter-reference’ is precisley what should be happening in all matters of Covenantal relation-ship.… Read more »
The difficulty I have with this letter is the notion of “the Richborough Area” – the resolution C parishes round here have been served by the Bishop of Richborough – does that make me in the Richborough Area?
The whole scheme of the Act of Synod was to provide episcopal ministry for parishes which remained within their existing dioceses – not creating extra-diocesan areas on top of a new class of bishop.
“The difficulty I have with this letter is the notion of ‘the Richborough Area.'”
Mark, if you have a problem with that terminology, you’ll have a real problem with Andrew Burnham, who styles himself as the bishop of “The See of Ebbsfleet” – http://www.ebbsfleet.org.uk . I virtually choked the first time I saw that.
Benedict posted, in a reply to New Zealand’s Fr. Smith: “I presume you are also against the proposed Anglican Covenant? If you are, your comments fall on deaf ears, giving that you come from another Anglican Province, which by your own tenets, I imagine, ought not to have the scope for intereference in the affairs of a different province.” I suppose that I might not laugh, or vomit, at Benedict’s words if I could have him answer this question: Benedict, did you comment negatively (and therefore “interfere,” in your parlance) about either the U.S. Episcopal Church, or the Anglcan Church… Read more »
dr.primrose choked on “The See of Ebbsfleet”. But there is indeed a See of Ebbsfleet. That is not an issue. The See of Ebbsfleet is a suffragan see to the See of Canterbury. The Bishop of Ebbsfleet for the time being is the holder of that See. The difficulty was not that Bishop Andrew saw himself as the occupant of the See of Ebbsfleet; rather the difficulty was that he saw the parishes which he had been asked to minister to by and on behalf of their respective diocesan bishops as an alternative episcopal area, a diocese in waiting. A… Read more »
JCF: the whole point is that God’s way in this, as in other matters, is not handily spelled out on gold tablets and delivered by UPS to the ABC. It has to be discerned. Your discernment, and Ron’s, and many others is that the recent innovations are indeed God’s way. But how can you be so certain as to so arrogantly dismiss anyone who does not share your discernment? This is the essential difference between you and the F in F crowd. Since 1994, nobody has tried to prevent the main body of the CofE going full steam ahead on… Read more »
“Ron says: “The only answer for a new era of peace in the Communion is for all to agree to ordained ministry being exercised by each and everyone whom God may call – regardless of race, gender, social position, or sexual difference.”
There it is. The true liberal viewpoint, rarely so clearly expressed: My way, or the highway.”
Yes, because acceptance of all is so *obviously* un-Christlike.
“There it is. The true liberal viewpoint, rarely so clearly expressed: My way, or the highway.”
Interesting.
The Rightwing version that I heard growing up in deeply evangelical and frequently fundamentalist Texas was “My way is the right way; follow it or burn you evil spawn of Satan!” sometimes expressed in just so many words.
Clive: “But how can you be so certain as to so arrogantly dismiss anyone who does not share your discernment? This is the essential difference between you and the F in F crowd. “ Really? Turn the question to full participation of gays in the church and the whole thing gets spun right around, doesn’t it? Here’s the thing, Clive: Nobody’s forcing you to go to a parish with a woman in charge. And if your diocese should wind up with a woman bishop in the future, where’s the problem? If she comes to visit your parish, just don’t go… Read more »
Oh dear goodness. the less than 3% who are against women bishops are making proverbial martyrs of themselves. It’s all so dramatic and tumultuous! The noise coming from a scarce few middle aged/elderly males moving to RC is like a tiny alarm clock in a gigantic biscuit tin. The amplification in volume of this particular, restrictive and exclusive view is incredible. What about the roar of the vast majority of this CofE that works on a synodical structure? the very structure the departing have been happy with since becoming priests and bishops all those years ago?
I feel uncomfortable with too much attribution to the guidance of the holy Spirit with capital G etc implicit. All we can really say, surely,if we are really honest and basic, is that this is how I feel drawn, moved, in some sense maybe ‘led’? To give our inner and outer journeyings and meanderings some kind of imprimatur, seems to go too far. Especially as we all are drawn in various and varying directions (even within say FiF., or TA etc). It’s still worth praying, pondering, hoping, wondering on one’s life and the world within and without, and then from… Read more »
“All we can really say, surely,if we are really honest and basic, is that this is how I feel drawn, moved, in some sense maybe ‘led’? To give our inner and outer journeyings and meanderings some kind of imprimatur, seems to go too far” Laurence Roberts Absolutely! To this outsider, the expression “the Holy Spirit has led me to…” sounds just like “I’ve had an idea” but served with a bit of justificatory religious frosting on the top. It also reminds me of those celebrities who refer to themselves in the third person – it’s as though they are unable… Read more »
Actually you will find it is the elderly who will stay for their pensions, the middle aged who seem a bit timid and remaining behind and thus the younger FIF clergy who are heading, with energy and vision, into the Ordinariate.
Sorry to rain on your dismissive, intolerant and factually inaccurate parade…
Ed,
so far we’ve heard of 3 bishops, 2 retired bishops and 1 priest (whose age I don’t know) and who may be bringing some of his congregation with him.
That’s hardly a group of visionary young clergy.
Or has anyone else announced their departure yet?
Jerry Hanon, in answer to your question, no I did not comment, and I can substantiate that by asking you to look through my previous threads. I think your reaction is rather disturbing, in your reference to vomiting. Frankly, what goes in in the episcopal churches of Canada and the USA is of no interest to me whatsoever. I am concerned with the liberal drift of the Church of England, and it is upon that alone that I have made any contribution to the debates on this site and elsewhere. And in any case, my point was directed at where… Read more »
“Or am I just turning / turned into an olde humanist!” Laurence Roberts
Yep – think you’re pretty much there!
*inserts smiley*
Posted by: Laurence C. on Thursday, 11 November 2010 at 1:18
oh thank you –that’s so sweet !
“Actually you will find it is the elderly who will stay for their pensions, the middle aged who seem a bit timid and remaining behind and thus the younger FIF clergy who are heading, with energy and vision, into the Ordinariate. Sorry to rain on your dismissive, intolerant and factually inaccurate parade… – Posted by: Ed Tomlinson on Thursday – Well, Fr.Ed., thank God for your youth and energy. How soon will you be blogging from the ‘inside’ of ‘real’ catholicism? I look forward to a bit more sparring with you from your new ‘orthodox’ perspective. Sincerely, Ed., I do… Read more »
The whole scheme of the Act of Synod was to provide episcopal ministry for parishes which remained within their existing dioceses – not creating extra-diocesan areas on top of a new class of bishop. Posted by: Mark Bennet on Wednesday, 10 Nov Yes – this expresses succinctly, a vital and largely over-looked point. These bishops were never invited or empowered to carry on like this — they just given a couple of inches by G Synod, and took miles and miles – and a good many liberties along the way, in my opinion. I have been appalled that instead of… Read more »
“giving ‘pastoral care’ (is a bishop really necessary for this ?)”
You seem to have given yourself away, Laurence. Do you actually not understand what bishops are for, or are you just sabre-rattling? Pastoral care is at the heart of episcopal ministry – the shepherd and his flock, etc… Through Resolution C, the PEVs have actually been able to focus on their pastoral and sacramental ministries, which I think makes them very good bishops, whereas most diocesan bishops have simply been turned into administrators and bureaucrats.
I think Simon Kershaw has correctly understood what I was trying to say about the ecclesiology of this.
It is interesting to me how many distinct ecclesiologies seem to be present in the current debate about the consecration of women, and how few of these ecclesiologies have a well integrated synodical component. [In the sense that party views are given precedence over synodical outcomes on pretty much every side – if synod votes against us, it is synod that is wrong].
“Since 1994, nobody has tried to prevent the main body of the CofE going full steam ahead on women’s ordination.” – Clive, on Wednesday – Well, Clive, certainly you and many others must surely have expended your not inconsiderable energies in fighting the measure, which accorded to faithful women called by God into the ministry of God’s Church. The energy of that opposition is still being felt – by at least five suffragan bishops in the Church of England – each of whom has been zealous in opposition to the ordination of women. However, despite some negative comment on the… Read more »
Just for the record, I am not declaring that God (the Holy Spirit) has definitively come down in favor of OOW, ordaining the honestly/partnered LGBT, mass in the vernacular, or anything else for that matter! I AM saying that it is the “liberal viewpoint” to be OPEN to discerning God’s Will in all of this—whereas it the “traditionalist” POV, to try to ***shut God up*** (claiming infallible interpretations of Scripture and Tradition, inc. by way of the Popoid “Magisterium”). Furthermore, I am not persuaded by traditionalist claims to be victims in all of this—when their loyalties have always been implicitly/explicitly… Read more »
Benedict chastises me for using the word “vomit” in my reaction to what I perceived as ultra orthodox hypocrisy. That’s form over substance, but I do apologize if my pinky was not in the correct position. I take you at your word, Benedict, that you did not criticize either ACC or TEC for any of the local prerogatives which they exercised, within their own jurisdictions, which have so greatly ticked off some of the other Provinces of the Anglican Communion. You are commendably different than most of the ultra orthodox within the CofE seem to be. However, I do feel… Read more »
Fr James: “”giving ‘pastoral care’ (is a bishop really necessary for this ?)” You seem to have given yourself away, Laurence. Do you actually not understand what bishops are for, or are you just sabre-rattling?” This is interesting, as the Ordinary of the Pope’s new arrangement will not necessarily be a bishop, implying that pastoral care of the clergy and faithful does not necessarily go with episcopacy. Similarly, in the Church of England, clergy are generally advised not to regard their diocesan bishop in too pastoral a light, as the bishop also potentially sits as judge over them, an unfortunate… Read more »
Fr Mark
Jesus is pastor and judge – how is this an unfortunate conflation of roles?
Mark, Jesus is able to rise above the inherent conflict. Most bishops, in my experience, are not quite as good as Jesus.
Mark B “Jesus is pastor and judge – how is this an unfortunate conflation of roles?”
Well, in a religious community, for example, a member is never allowed to go for confession or spiritual direction to a person who is their religious superior. Similarly, in a boarding school, the chaplain must not stand in a disciplinary role vis-a-vis those to whom s/he provides pastoral care… isn’t that fairly basic good practice when it comes to any kind of professional pastoral care?
I’m going to continue the drift to develop the point on pastor and judge – no Bishops are not as good as Jesus, nor am I – if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. What I want to challenge is any unreflective idea that pastor and judge must be separate roles – it is an ideology which permeates our society and which is not the only option. It seems to me to prioritise functional relationships rather than personal ones. A couple of examples. Once upon a time a jury of your peers meant people who were from… Read more »
Mark B: it’s an interesting diversion, though. Don’t you think there would be abuses of power if, in my examples, a religious superior or novice master were hearing the confessions of their subordinates? Or a school chaplain were expecting pupils to own up to things or shop their fellows to him/her if the chaplain were also in a disciplinary role? I remember too, doing jury service when the case we heard concerned things which had happened in another part of the country. The crime must have been reported in the local press, but we had never heard of it before… Read more »
Fr Mark Yes, it is interesting. My main point, before I get into details, is still that dividing these things renders justice procedural rather than personal – and that Christianity has always stressed the personal nature of God’s justice. Power, where people have it, can obviously be abused – in fact it is almost inevitable that it will be. But power exists, and different ways of doing things merely redistribute power, sometimes so that it is unclear who has it. When “the system” has impersonal power injustice can be almost impossible to challenge or correct, and it is easy for… Read more »