Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Changing Attitude resumes campaign for full equality of LGBTIQ+ people
Joanna Winn-Smith OneBodyOneFaith Living in Love and Faith
Nicholas Henshall ViaMedia.News Are ‘Leaders’ Biblical?
Richard Moy A Reasonable Enthusiast The Myth of Episcopal Oversight in the UK Church
Colin is right. Nothing less than full equality would be acceptable. Nothing less would be Biblical. None of the opt outs for parishes like we have seen for women priests and bishops should be tolerated. Any LGBTI person or couple should be able to walk into ANY Church of England church and be fully and unreservedly welcome. Any minister should be welcomed to every parish.
I believe that priests and PCCs should have a right to ‘opt out’, and equally a right to ‘opt in’, but I would favour church property being available for weddings for couples in the parish where one of them lives, providing they can find an affirming priest to carry out the ceremony. . Conscience matters, and people can believe that gay marriage is wrong because of genuine theological convictions that I believe the Church of England should respect. . But equally, in those parishes where the priest and PCC affirm gay marriage on similar grounds of conscience, I believe they… Read more »
Thank you, Susannah, for figuring out a useful, but unobtrusive way, of separating paragraphs in the comments on Thinking Anglicans.
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I also find the elimination of lines between paragraphs that I insert annoying in my own comments.
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And when I see the same thing in other people’s comments, particularly when they are long, I am very tempted to skip it entirely rather than try to wade my way through a huge wall of unseparated text.
Leave a natural break and within it type . See the example…
Paragraph One text
Paragraph Two tdxt
I would fight such a proposal as vigorously as the present system because universal welcome and acceptance is essential. Change is needed so that LGBTI people are safe and safety can never be a postcode lottery. The foibles of priests must in the modern Church of England take second place to safety. If they can’t offer safety to LGBTI people, which means unquestioning acceptance, they have no business being priests and the Church of England shouldn’t license them.
Susannah, I think you are saying that priests should be able to choose whether or not to officiate, and if a priest chooses not to then the couple can marry in their parish church but must find another priest. – The part of your suggestion I don’t understand is the role of PCCs. What difference would it make what the PCC thought? Would the PCC be able to instruct the priest one way or the other, or could they ban weddings from their church altogether even if the couple find their own priest? I can’t see how they fit in… Read more »
Thank you for your question. . My thinking is that if a priest wants to take a particular position in the local church, then it is great if the PCC endorses that. Then, if there are any interventions from the bishop, he knows that it is not only the priest but also the PCC who are behind the affirmation or repudiation of gay marriage. . I think, in a time of change, it is good if both priest and PCC let the authorities know where they stand. . This may be particularly relevant where a priest and church go UDI… Read more »
You are arguing that priests should be allowed freedom of conscience in terms of what actions they do or do not perform but saying that a PCC can make a declaration that same sex couples aren’t welcome (which is what this amounts to) is a gratuitous declaration of discrimination. The PCC isn’t affected in any way. Simply wrong.
Thanks for the shout out. Wrote that post a long time back and have since taken down the richardmoy.com blog so was surprised to find the site still existed under another name… nevertheless was glad to read this again. Reads better than my doctorate dissertation anyway (which I suppose might have been finished if I hadn’t down 100,000+ words of blogging in the same timeframe!)
Excellent posts from Nicholas Henshall and Richard Moy. I particularly enjoyed Nicholas’ reminder that whenever he puts on vestments what he’s actually putting on are not holy clothes but the clothing of a Roman civic official. Good reminder of how long and how deeply ‘leadership culture’ (of the kind Jesus mentioned when he warned his disciples about how in the pagan world their leaders ‘lorded it over’ others) has infiltrated the Church. (Of course, an evangelical leader in a business suit is not necessarily any better than an Anglo-Catholic leader in alb and chasuble!). But thoughts of vesture aside, the… Read more »
The latest C of E Canons, although in archaic language, are flexible about the attire of clergy while performing the divine office. A surplice and scarf or stole is perfectly permissible, and was probably the norm until 100 years ago, or thereabouts and still is in many C of E churches including the two which I attended until recently. It’s up to the incumbent, although the Canons imply that local custom and tradition are to be respected. At another church where I was part-time organist about 20 years ago, the Vicar wore the chasuble and Eucharistic vestments. On his retirement… Read more »
In Canada we have no national canon governing what clergy should wear to lead worship, and in the Diocese of Edmonton we don’t either. Tradition, however, is very strong.
But I don’t think that’s the main point of Nicholas Henshall’s article, and I perhaps shouldn’t have highlighted that aspect of it. What did you think of the article as a whole, Rowland?
I don’t have a public view of Church leadership, so my comment was deliberately neutral about that. But I am surprised that Nicholas Henshall seems not to appreciate the significance of Eucharistic vestments. I don’t accept any current-day analogy of them to Roman ‘pagan’ clothes. A full set, including amice, alb, girdle and maniple as well as the chasuble (which can come in a number of different styles and shapes), are all quite different and each has a significance unrelated to secular Ancient Rome. Particularly relevant are the liturgical colours and their symbolism. In other words vestments may have their… Read more »
Yeah, I definitely should not have highlighted that comment from Nicholas Henshall. Off we go down a rabbit hole again.
I don’t know why I should receive this reply. I feel your reference to the rabbit hole is discourteous and unwarranted. Having raised the issue, (which you say you regret doing), why should Geoff McLarney and I be rebuked for responding to it? I’m going to gently suggest that perhaps we have an appreciation of Eucharistic vestments and their symbolism. I recall our earlier correspondence about mitres and pectoral crosses. I simply don’t understand your hang-up about these things. I won’t make any further comment on this subject.
Rowland, the fault is mine, not yours. The point about clergy robes was a relatively minor one in the Dean’s article. I was the one who highlighted it and started the trek to the rabbit hole. I use that term because arguments about clergy robes seem to be a regular thing at TA.
And yes, you are quite correct; clergy robes have absolutely no significance for me. It’s not a hang up. It’s a different set of priorities.
In Canada we have no national canon governing what clergy should wear to lead worship
Well, we have the ornaments rubric in the BCP. Its precise meaning of course has long been disputed, but it certainly precludes suit and tie!
I think the most important question is always ‘What is helpful in this situation?’ But as I just said to Rowland, I regret highlighting that passage. I think Nicholas Henshall is addressing a bigger issue, of which clergy robes are just one symptom.
Nicholas Henshall nails it, and is a good piece to read in conjunction with “Church Times” article this week on the same subject. I’m afraid the obsession with leadership, along with a number of other obsessions at present, is one of the symptoms of an institution in crisis.
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/12-march/features/features/vocations-can-leadership-be-taught
Spot on Shamus
Episcopally bled, synodically drivel best describes the real Church of England model. I have seen my bishop once in 4 years, he has no interest in my parish (whilst I keep paying) and I have no interest in his latest diocesan “strategy” and that is fine. Perhaps if we accept the reality we might all be happier and probably more fruitful.
What a sad state of affairs Paul.
It’s worth remembering that when the Church Assembly was set up in 1919, taking away some of the power from Parliament, Major Harry Barnes MP said: “It is a most extraordinary thing … to find that if there is a model in any part of the world upon which the proposal for self-government by the Church has been built it is only to be found in Russia. As far as I can understand the political principles embodied in this constitution, they are purely Bolshevist … I am not suggesting that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been in consultation with Lenin… Read more »
Many thanks for unearthing that splendid quote, Prof. Monkhouse! Ronald Jasper once remarked that nothing happened to the Church between 1907 (following the publication of the report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline) and the passage of the Enabling Act 1919. However, apart from the Great War, two big things did happen to the Church: (i) the report led to the preparatory work on a revised prayer book, with first drafts being largely complete by 1910; and (ii) there was the cataclysm of Welsh disestablishment. With respect to (i), Randall Davidson hoped that a revised prayer book (for which… Read more »
No comments here on Joanna Winn-Smith’s useful reflections on using the LLF materials? I would agree with her point about how Deanery Synods can feel a long way from what’s been discussed at national level – which, as they are the electorate for General Synod, is rather unfortunate.
on the subject of Church vesture, a friend of mine was within this month Consecrated a Bishop in the Greek Orthodox Church, and I phoned him to congratulate him on his appointment and later in the evening this friend phoned me and we had a very long conversation over an hour and this friend told me that the Crown like Mitre he was expected to wear as a Bishop would cost over thousands of Pounds and I remarked to my friend that been given a Mitre Crown to wear could be like being given a crown of thorns to wear,… Read more »
Jonathan: I didn’t intend to comment further on the subject of vestments, but out of curiosity I checked from a Roman Catholic website today whether my recollection of the chasuble being a symbol of the virtue of charity was correct – bearing in mind that the symbolism of the vestments was explained to me all of 65 years ago, or more. According to ‘Catholic Vestments Explained’ the chasuble is “the final vestment of the priest which is worn over all the others and symbolises the virtue of charity and the yoke of unselfish love.” The priest’s corresponding prayer as he… Read more »
Rowland, what you say about the Tradition of the Chasuble is true. With the Second Vatican Council one Vestment that ceased to be used was the Maniple, although my father as an Anglican Priest wore the Maniple. Generally very few Roman Catholic Priests, say the traditional prayers in putting on the Vestments, except Traditionalist Priests, particularly Priests who are in the Faith Movement, the Roman Catholic counterpart to the Anglican Forward in Faith founded in recent years by Father Edward Holloway and his mother, and any Faith Priests in this movement have a traditional approach to Vestments and devotions. I… Read more »
Interesting to note the difference with the French Catholic scene. Vestments are never a matter of great concern in my experience — esp. when compared with A-C’s in the Anglican way. Clergy are not allowed to wear collars in schools, due to laicisation. Many carry that over into daily life in general. People know who they are. It isn’t all that necessary. Pere M in the boulangerie is mon bon Pere. Busily hustling from parish to parish on Sunday AM, the vestment is the last thing anyone is worrying over. I like the vested simplicity and energetic lay involvement in… Read more »
I know several C of E clergy rushing from church to church (four in a combined benefice with which I am associated, and some in rural areas with vastly more), usually in cassock and with surplice carried over the arm. Inevitably Eucharistic vestments are going to be a problem for peripatetic priests and it would be rare to find them in rural village churches anyway.
CRS: that accords with my experience in Ireland (Republic) too. It was rare for Catholic clergy to wear the collar in public. In the big towns and cities there was a time when it would attract abuse. It still does occasionally. If you saw a cleric in dark clothes, collar and stock, or shirt and slip-in, it was a Protestant (I’ve been jeered at there and here when dressed in canonicals – I smiled sweetly and wished them “good day”). As to Catholic eucharisic vesture, the chasuble was by no means universal – alb and stole often enough. A PP… Read more »
As one of TA’s more ancient correspondents I have vivid memories of Dublin about 63 years ago. RC priests were everywhere, always in cassock and, similarly, nuns in traditional habits and headdress (coif and wimple, the habit reaching the ground). I remember meeting a C of I clergyman at Ennis and he was soberly dressed in black suit and dog collar.
The maniple was worn at my church all those decades ago. I have only seen it worn once in more recent years, on a visit to the London Oratory. I think it’s generally accepted that Vatican II passed the Oratory by!
I understand the clergy studied the novus ordo very carefully and determined that celebrating the Mass ad orientem was still permitted.