Posted on 02/10/2013 11:03:35 AM PST by marshmallow
The new Archbishop of Canterbury is facing a showdown with senior church leaders over the Church of England’s decision to allow the appointment of gay bishops.
In the first major test of his leadership of the worldwide Anglican Communion the Most Rev Justin Welby will be warned that the Church’s move risks alienating millions of traditionalist Anglicans in Africa and Asia.
Leaders of churches around the world are flying to Britain for Archbishop Welby’s formal installation at Canterbury cathedral next month, when some of them will meet the Archbishop for the first time.
Many want the new spiritual head of the 80-million strong Communion to call for an end to “divisive” moves away from traditional church teaching on sexuality, such as the ordination of gay clergy as bishops.
Nine of the Communion’s 38 most senior leaders, or primates, have said bishops in the Church of England were “wrong” to approve new rules allowing gay men to become bishops at a time when the Anglican Church faces “major challenges of disunity”.
Leaders of the Global South - a grouping of the Anglican churches in Africa, Asia and South America - have also condemned “revisionist” moves by the Episcopal Church in the US, which has ordained openly gay bishops and blesses same-sex relationships.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Yes! ‘Gotta love the third world church leaders. Right now, they’re the only ones with any spine.
I think Welby showed some spine here as well.
The third world church leaders are no amateurs. They are generally better educated than the homegrown British prelates.
I am leaving the Episcopal Church on Easter Saturday, for initiation as a Roman Catholic at an Anglican Use Ordinariate Roman Catholic church. The Episcopalian Diocese of Texas has decided to have a same-sex blessings / gay-lesbian marriage liturgy, and the national Episcopalian church already has gay bishops and clergy. The Anglicans completely lost the thread and their minds, and now the gay transgendered lesbian bisexual activists smell blood, are moving in for the kill. The Anglican Communion worldwide, including in England, is toast, due to its failure to stick to scripture, doctrine and tradition, in the face of contrary cultural relativism - they gave up, and went PC, now their church will evaporate. It is really sad for me, as I have been a member for more than 50 years.
It is interesting that I remember reading about a year ago that three Anglican bishops and 500 Anglican parishes in England have asked the Pope to permit them all to enter the Church. That report did not include the many singular people like yourself who have enough of gay-sanctioning.
I certainly share your disgust with the way things have been developing in Episcopal Church and Anglican spheres over the past 50 years.
Here in San Antonio there are at least two independent, conservative Anglican congregations with ties to African bishops. Thus, here, at least, it is still possible to worship as an Anglican without having to “overlook” the excesses insisted upon by the liberals.
Certainly, you are free to do as you see fit, and I have to admit that the Roman Catholic Church has done a great job of “packaging” its Anglican Use Ordinariate.
However, when all is said and done, an Anglican Use Roman Catholic Church is.... simply a Roman Catholic Church — something in distinction to which the Anglican Church had its very genesis.
Frankly, not sure why any true Anglican would ever join the Roman Catholic Church: One reason being, I should think, that any true Anglican would hold dear the 39 Articles.
I for one do not see how one can reconcile holding to the 39 Articles with being a Roman Catholic.
Again, you are obviously free to do as you see fit, and I can understand your conviction that you need to take action. I would just go in another direction, if I were in your shoes.
I should think, however, the Roman Catholic Church would never be the correct answer for a convinced Anglican. I value the Reformation. I respect Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. I have also read of the martyrdom accounts in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
Unfortunately, carrying Cranmer’s torch faithfully has proven too much for the leaders of the Episcopalian churches in the US and Canada as well as of the Anglican Churches in England.
If/when the (domestic, conservative) Anglican Church ceases to exist, I would point Anglican refugees look to the (conservative) Presbyterians or Lutherans for a home.
Full disclosure: I am not an Anglican by membership, though I am an Anglican-ophile and worship frequently in Anglican churches.
The reason that the African and Asian bishops are holding to the faith is simple. They are the ones who have had to suffer for their faith, through political persecution, poverty, disease, etc.. The well-fed clerics of the west are philosophers who, in their arrogance, believe they can second guess the Word of God.
You're right about that, but I think you may be a little hasty in thinking your views on the Reformation are shared by the entire Anglican Church. Plenty of Anglicans have never liked the 39 Articles, or adhered to them only insofar as they did not conflict with the catholic faith--whatever they thought that was.
Obviously, the folks who will be attracted to the Ordinariate are in the AngloCatholic camp already. The low churchers will naturally find refuge elsewhere.
WELCOME Home!
By their suffering for their faith they show how a Christian is to live.
Man-in-Tx is right about the 39 articles, and many are compatible with the RC tradition, many are not. For example transubstantiation, which i do happen to believe. It seems the the USEpiscopalian Church is hardly focused on the 39 articles, in fact, the Lord Christ as a path to salvation is up for debate in ECUSA. So I have gone back to the Pre-reformation, and see that in the creation of the Church of England, there was an element of cultural relativism and political expediency that persists to this day. How can the Episcopal Church endorse death of 55 million babies by abortion in this country? Life, marriage, the dignity of the individual, and freedom are non-negotiable in my book. The Roman Catholic church preserves those principles. I am going there for the same reasons that John Cardinal Newman did over 100 years ago. He was a defender against secularism and the “New Enlightenment”. The doctrine and tradition of the Anglican Communion is simply not cohesive and robust enough to resist twisting to heresy (the same old ones, by the way, such as Arianism and Universalism, God is not doing a new thing). I have had enough of moral relativism. And by the way, my mother Baptisted me as Catholic before later raising me in the Episcopal church she chose with my Methodist father. There is Catholic tradition in my family too. I lived in England 5 years and travelled there heavily during the last 20 years, and mostly attended Catholic services there. So I am familiar with the Anglo Catholic tradition. In fact I went through Instruction in the mid-80s but did not convert at that time. The final straw for me is this whole gay thing, Episcopalians focus on that and neglect the spirituality. All homosexuality did in my life is kill one gay married brother, from AIDS, and another gay brother is taking chemo for AIDS. The Episcopalian clergy and bishops never talk about that untidy aspect of the behavior, never mind the crystal clear scripture and tradition, and doctrine opposing such as an abomination.
this catholic welcomes you. It must be very sad for you to leave your home of 50 years
Foxes has a lot of fiction in it. And don’t forget the reverse — the way Catholics had no legal rights in the UK until the 1800s, so persecution ran both ways. No point in talking of what both sides did hundreds of years ago.
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