Today I was the principal celebrant at St. Augustine’s Rush Green. As most readers will know, yesterday +Keith Newton, +Andrew Burnham and +John Broadhurst, together with the three Sisters from the Community at Walsingham having formally left the Church of England on the 31st December, became Roman Catholics at a ceremony in Westminster Cathedral. This morning at Mass I remembered them in the Eucharistic Prayer as they now begin the next stage in their spiritual pilgrimage. Hopefully we should now hear more news about the beginning of the Ordinariate and the appointment of the Ordinary and please keep them all in your prayers.
Whilst all has been quiet on the Ordinariate for a while, there has been a deafening silence about SWISH ever since it’s inauguration at the Sacred Synod in October. We still don’t know what it intends to do or how it intends to do it. Also, whilst various names have been rumoured for appointment as the new PEV’s, there has been nothing from the AofC. Is it, perhaps, a case of no news is good news? Unsurprisingly WATCH have been campaigning that there should be no further appointments as PEV’s. Their take it or leave attitude is appalling and hardly what one should expect from a Christian organisation.
REDBRIDGE & HAVERING ORDINARIATE GROUP
We meet next on Tuesday 11th January 2011 at St. Augustine’s, Rush Green for Mass at 7.30 p.m. followed by the Evangelium Course. These meetings are open to anyone who would like to come and do not, in any way, making joining the Ordinariate obligatory.
SSW&H is deliberately keeping a low profile to give the Ordinariate a clear run (those that allege it is an attempt to sabotage the Ordinariate are thus wide of the mark). I expect we shall here more from it soon, once the Ordinariate is formally established and it becomes (moderately) clear what is happening on that front.
ReplyDeleteThe Archbishop of Canterbury is working on the appointments to Ebbsfleet and Richborough, as is the Bishop of London on Fulham. It will probably take a couple of months for the process to be completed. In the meantime any rumours about who the new bishops will be are no more than that - rumours. They may correctly identify (some of) the men being considered, but the only certainty at this stage is that appointments will be made, and as soon as is humanly possible: WATCH, thankfully, have no influence over the Archbishop in this matter.
'The Archbishop of Canterbury is working on the appointments to Ebbsfleet and Richborough, as is the Bishop of London on Fulham. It will probably take a couple of months'.
ReplyDeleteThe legislation for Women Bishops will be won or lost in General Synod in less than two years from now...the clock is ticking and if the vote goes in favour of WBs then no more PEV's..no resolutions etc etc. The 'couple of months' that anonymous suggests wipes precious time away. I ask you; which cleric in their right mind would put themselves forward to succeed such pioneers? Please wake up and smell the coffee...you are either Catholic or not. The Ordinariate offers us everything. Those who remain, merely high church protestantism, so stop fooling yourselves and worse still, stop hoodwinking your congregations? Please take down pics of the Holy Father from sacristies and make sure you are using Common Worship...that's called integrity!
I was at Westminster Cathedral on 1st Jan and it was beautifully low key. Our former Bishops are waiting for us. In the immortal words of the late Rodney Dangerfield,'Let's go while we're young'!
With all good wishes for an extra ordinary New Year!
Cephas x
Happy extra ordinary New Year
And, your point is, dear Cephas?
ReplyDeleteSurely one of the virtues of the Ordinariate is that it is open ended.
As clocks tick, and as clergy and laity wake up and smell coffee they can move across to it with no great fuss (as the 1st January so beautifully showed). Why the urgency? Why the divisive language? Why the hysterical tone? They will only harden hearts and put people off. (Are you a fifth columnist working for WATCH?)
The complete collapse of Catholic faith and order in the Church of England, and the consequent growth of the Ordinariate, will take place over a lengthy period of time.
Anonymous of 2 January 2011 18:08
Our brothers who are desperately scrambling for the Ordinariate and rubbishing (only some of them, I know) those who are staying behind do themselves a very great disservice and must be more considerate and considered in their comments.
ReplyDeleteI, for example, know full well that, when women are finally elevated to the position of bishop, the CofE will no longer, legitimately, be able to make any realistic claim to being part of the Holy and Apostolic Church.
But think of the laity - even in A,B,C and FiF parishes the majority do not care, nor understand what the fuss is about. But they need to be ministered to. Some of us feel unable, at present, at least, to abandon them and to leave them behind.
The fact is that not everyone who is staying is doing so because they're scared. Some of us are staying despite the fact that we're scared. Some of us are staying despite the fact that it means sacrificing communion with the Holy Catholic Church!
Please, think on.
Oh, please...
ReplyDeleteIs that a violin I can hear with the onion peeler close at hand!!!
That's the sort of moving, caring, Christian response I would expect.
ReplyDeleteWell done.