Posted on 10/16/2010 8:13:15 PM PDT by marshmallow
An Anglican bishop has attacked his Church as "vicious" and "fascist" as he explained his decision to defect to the Roman Catholic Church.
The Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Bishop of Fulham, accused the Church of England of breaking promises to make provisions for opponents of women's ordination.
He warned that the Pope's invitation to disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic Church would appeal to traditionalists dismayed at their treatment.
His comments came as a parish in the Archbishop of Canterbury's own diocese became the first in the country to announce that it would defect to Rome, with one parishioner declaring: "The Pope's offer was the answer to our prayers."
St Peter's Church in Folkestone, Kent, has decided to join the Ordinariate, a system designed by the Vatican to allow Anglicans to convert while maintaining parts of their heritage.
Bishop Broadhurst, who announced his decision to resign on Friday, predicted that many more would leave the Church of England in the months ahead.
"I think the Ordinariate will cause a huge shock," he said.
"A lot of people have said it won't happen and have underestimated the impact that it will have.
"I don't feel I have any choice but to leave the Church and take up the Pope's offer. The General Synod has become vindictive and vicious.
"It has been fascist in its behaviour, marginalising those who have been opposed to women's ordination. We have not been given any space."
The bishop, who was one of three prelates at a secret Vatican summit earlier this year, said he was disappointed to be leaving the Church of England, but that the concerns of traditionalists had been ignored.
"The Pope generously made an offer providing a home for our Catholic heritage at the same time as the Church of England............
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I say there..........steady on, old chap.
Seriously, recriminations and bitterness won't help the Ordinariate. Close the door quietly behind you when you leave and move on.
I'm not Catholic or Anglican but I respectfully disagree with what you said. I think that a very public rebuke to the leftists who have wormed their way into positions of power and then abused that power by "changing" society, is always appropriate. I hope that this "message" is sent loud and clear, over and over again... as large numbers of parishes leave the Anglican church.
A church lives and dies on it's donations, here's hoping that the Anglican lefties lose a LOT of their money!!!!
This appears to me to be Old Testament “Legalism”. It is all completely irrelevant according to the Gospel. I assume these people are saved if they believe in Jesus as the Son of God. If they do not, then they will go to hell.It is all right here.http://antinomianism-salvation.blogspot.com/
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There are serious issues here of which you seem unaware.
I don’t see it as recriminations and bitterness, really. He is speaking the Truth, and they have been bullied and side-stepped. He is drawing a line in the sand, and he is right to do so. They have been talking about it since 1992; the time has come.
Being neither Catholic nor Anglican, I don’t have a dog in this fight. But speaking generally it’s always been my observation that a woman is more likely to be a genuine believer then a man is. In an era of spiritual decline, all hands on deck seems sensible.
The Bishop should be less concerned about woman ministers and more outraged his Church for some time now has pretty much abandoned belief in God and Christ as defining and essential for its (male) clergy. His priorities seem skewed.
A person so obsessed with sh*tting on their former church is just as likely to do the same when things don't go their way in their new home. Most religions will overlook this type of thing because they are confident of who they are and their roots. But try this with Islam and you could wake up dead.
What are they? Are they series?
I had a friend who believed in once saved always saved. He went to bed with every other married woman in the church. He does not believe in any "legalism" either. He has no conscience any more.
You need to talk to him and remind him that those of us who love the Lord for his sacrifice and propitiation of our sins respond in ways to please the Father, not to grieve him. (Of course we are totally saved if we don’t.) Read about the greatest and most famous Sinner in Romans chapter 7.
My ancestor was the first Archbishop of Canterbury under the Church of England. He broke the old Catholic rule for a priest and married. The decision to allow the ordination of women would seem to be in the same continuum of recognizing healthy human relationships.
And a lot of these older parishes are stuck with 100-150 year old churches that are very expensive to maintain, apparently with little help from their local bishops...
The English “listed buildings” laws don't help either - updates are hard and expensive to make.
That's true but this is the same crowd that keeps pushing the envelope. Next comes support for "gay priests". Best to get the heck out of dodge and take your money with you... IMHO
Your ancestor, (Cranmer, I assume?) would roll over in his grave at the abuses of the Church of England today. Men like this bishop WERE promised, at various times in various ways, not to have to violate their closely held religious consciences by being under the authority of female bishops (this isn't about mere ordination-to-the-ministry, it's about supervising the whole church, in the office of Bishop) and that's all been suddenly taken away from them, by fiat, in a fascist way (just like liberals always seem to work, when others aren't looking).
The religious reformation of the 1500s, which Archbishop Cranmer was a leader in, was about the authority of the Bible....whereas the feminist push here is just about modernist/liberal/social issues--in league with homosexual ordination too, having nothing to do with the Church trying to follow the bible more carefully.
This man was forced out, because of his reliance on conscience, and the CofE has moved to crush him.
Bravo that he's standing up for his principles--even if that means going back to Rome.
Satan believes that. It takes more than just intellectual assent.
Saint Paul disagrees.
I usually agree with you, but respectfully disagree in this case. It’s a bishop’s job to speak the truth, so that his flock may know it. This could possibly be a wakeup call to others who have stuck it out in the Anglican Church as it departs from the teachings that all Christians, Catholic and Protestant, have followed—for instance, that abortion and homosexual acts are wrong.
When a church hierarchy departs from the truth, then they are only too likely to become like Nazis, interested only in power and ideology and repressing all those who speak up for God and the truth.
I was born into the Anglican Church myself, and converted in college. I am very sorry to see the terrible things that have been happening in that church, pushed by the hierarchy itself. I would hope that somehow they could straighten themselves out. But in the meantime, the individuals in that communion deserve to be told the truth and be given a chance to decide for themselves.
You think that indulging in homosexuality and women’s ordination have nothing to do with violating the gospel?
I don’t think “fascist” belongs in an intelligent conversation — unless someone is discussing Italian politics of the first half of 20 c.
It is unusual for a convert to Catholicism to be bitter toward his prior confession. Typically, one converts because he find a fuller faith in Rome, but not a different faith. I haven’t met a convert who would not say about the Catholic catechism: “Wow, that is what I always believed!”.
But the bishop’s situation is different. I think, in his case, and in the case of many orthodox Anglicans, it is a bitterness toward the formal structures of modern Anglicanism, which, it should be evident, betrayed their own flock. I detect the same bitterness in several interviews Markus Grodi had with the Anglican converts. They are just dismayed at the treatment the Church of England gave its conservative wing.
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