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I don’t belong to a Church which makes decisions about something as fundamental as the ordination of women priests by voting in a quasi-parliamentary General Synod. But, if I did, and if that Church then prepared to take the logical step of ordaining women bishops, I’d ask myself a simple question. Will these ordinations be valid? Then I stay. Invalid? Then I go. I am not saying that if you are an Anglo-Catholic who opposes women’s ordination then you must now seek to join the Ordinariate that Pope Benedict has set up for ex-Anglicans. Lots of conservative “Catholic Anglicans” don’t...

Anglican Bishop Nigel McCulloch London, England, Feb 10, 2010 / 02:08 am (CNA).- As the Church of England’s General Synod begins, some Anglo-Catholic leaders have said if their concerns about the introduction of women bishops are not addressed they will withdraw their resources from the Anglican Church and focus them on ministries outside the formal church structure.The Church of England introduced women to its priesthood in 1994. It is committed to the consecration of female bishops as well, The Telegraph reports, but controversy continues about the implementation.Many of those who favor female bishops argue they should be introduced on...

Vatican City, Feb 10, 2010 / 11:05 am (CNA).- After today’s general audience, the Holy Father met with a delegation from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) in which he expressed hope for the “continuing Lutheran-Catholic dialogue.”The Lutheran delegation was led by the ELCA’s Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, who is also President of the Lutheran World Foundation, the global Lutheran partner to the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. The Holy Father addressed the delegation in English, saying that he hoped “the continuing Lutheran-Catholic dialogue both in the United States of America and at the international level will...

Anglicanism in Canada could disappear within a generation, says a report that recommends closing churches in B.C.The Anglican Church in Canada – once as powerful in the nation's secular life as it was in its soul – may be only a generation away from extinction, says a just-published assessment of the church's future. The report, prepared for the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, calls Canada a post-Christian society in which Anglicanism is declining faster than any other denomination. It says the church has been “moved to the far margins of public life.” According to the report, the diocese – “like...

February 9, 2010 Rowan Williams Issues 'Profound Apology' To Gay Christians Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent The Archbishop of Canterbury issued a “profound apology” to the lesbian and gay Christian community today. In a powerful address to the General Synod, Dr Rowan Williams warned that any schism within the Church would represent a betrayal of God’s mission. But he made clear that he regretted recent rhetoric in which he has sought to mollify the fears of the traditionalist wing of the church. The Archbishop is from the Church’s liberal wing and a man who once espoused equal rights for gays within...

Catholic Biblical Apologetics Apologetics without apology! What does the Roman Catholic Church teach about ...? ... and why? This website surveys the origin and development of Roman Catholic Christianity from the period of the apostolic church, through the post-apostolic church and into the conciliar movement. Principal attention is paid to the biblical basis of both doctrine and dogma as well as the role of paradosis (i.e. handing on the truth) in the history of the Church. Particular attention is also paid to the hierarchical founding and succession of leadership throughout the centuries. This is a set of lecture notes...

 Book looks at family disconnect December 14, 2008 7:53 AM MARK BARNA We've all heard about red states and blue states.Sometime next year we will learn about "red families" and "blue families" in a book that's bound to be controversial."Red Families, Blue Families" (Oxford University Press), written by two family law professors, turns the whole family-values mantra on its head.Based on numerous studies and surveys, coauthors Naomi Cahn and June Carbone found that red families - or socially conservative evangelicals aligned with the Republican Party - have higher teen pregnancy rates, more shotgun marriages, marry earlier and have higher divorce...

The Archbishop of Canterbury today issued a "profound apology" to the lesbian and gay Christian community. In a powerful address to General Synod Dr Rowan Williams warned that any schism within the church would represent of a "betrayal" of God's mission. But he made clear that he regretted recent rhetoric in which he has sought to mollify the fears of the traditionalist wing of the church. The Archbishop is from the Church's liberal Catholic wing and a man who once espoused equal rights for gays within the Church. More recently he has adopted a conservative line for the sake of...

Conservative clergy have warned of a mass exodus from the Church of England and a sharp drop in its income unless divisive plans for the introduction of women bishops are changed.On the first day of the gathering of the Church’s governing body, the General Synod, Anglo-Catholics claimed that “large numbers” would leave for Rome if their demands for concessions are not met. Meanwhile 50 serving priests belonging to Reform, the evangelical group, signed an open letter saying that the situation could force them to cut off funding for dioceses and spend their money on training new vicars outside the Church...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Vatican official has floated the idea of a shared "ecumenical catechism" as one of the potential fruits of 40 years of dialogue among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the Reformed churches. "We have affirmed our common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity as expressed in our common creed and in the doctrine of the first ecumenical councils," Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told representatives of the churches. Opening a three-day symposium at the Vatican to brainstorm on the future of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper said...

Losing her religion Anne Hathaway left the Catholic Church after her brother opened up about being gay. "The whole family converted to Episcopalianism after my elder brother came out," says the actress. "Why should I support an organization that has a limited view of my beloved brother?" So what religion is Anne now? "I'm nothing," she admits. "F- it, I'm forming. I'm a work in progress."

Driving in my car the other day, I turned on the radio and came across one of the local Protestant stations. A preacher was expounding on John 3:5 where Jesus says, “Unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” In his exegesis, he was absolutely sure that John did not mean physical water. Instead, he proposed that John’s water referred to the “word of God.” He cited Ephesians 5:26 and claimed that because Paul referred to “washing her with water by the word,” water was a symbol for Scripture. He transferred...

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, says those Anglicans who respond to Pope Benedict's invitation to join the Catholic Church under the provisions of the new Apostolic Constitution, would not be "proper Catholics". You can listen to the interview in full on this week's Sunday Sequence (Sunday, from 8.30am). In the same interview, Dr Sentamu also called for the banning of the British National Party and says he is "surprised that Parliament doesn't want to do it." He also says he has "every hope" that [Robert] Mugabe will be gone very soon." Here's part of the exchange I had...

AT their November Meeting, 2009, the members of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference appointed me their Delegate for the Australian project of establishing “a Personal Ordinariate for Anglicans who wish to enter full communion with the Catholic Church”, to use the words of Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus.Before I explain what this involves, I should introduce myself. I was born into Anglicanism, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. My father, Rev. Leslie Llewelyn Elliott, was for some time President of the Australian Church Union. While studying theology at Oxford, in St Stephen’s House, I followed my conscience and was reconciled to...

Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson Washington D.C., Feb 5, 2010 / 03:20 am (CNA).- The first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop, V. Gene Robinson, has claimed that the Bible does not address the ethics of “monogamous, lifelong” homosexual relationships. He suggested that the people of St. Paul’s times did not realize that some people were “affectionally oriented” to their own sex.On Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., CNSNews.com spoke to Bishop Robinson about St. Paul’s condemnation in the Book of Romans of “unnatural” relations and “indecent acts” between members of the same sex. CNSNews.com asked if St....

The cooperation between Rev. Franz Meurer and Iranian Navid Kermani illustrates how far Germany has gone in accepting its booming Muslim minority.The recent Swiss ban on minarets reflects a climate gone sour between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. But here in Germany, two people have taken a stand to promote a dialogue that goes far beyond symbolics. Not long ago, the Rev. Franz Meurer, a Roman Catholic priest in a rough Cologne neighborhood, led his parish to raise funds for the construction of a controversial mosque there, slated to be Germany’s biggest in a city most famous for its Catholic...

When Pope John Paul II arrived in Britain in 1982, he famously kissed the ground and declared: “Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, once a distant outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ’s vineyard.” He went on to preach in Canterbury Cathedral and during the visit became friends with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie.... But that was in a different century, and that Pope and that Archbishop are dead. This Pope will walk...

The Anglican Ordinariate may well help to solve the vocations crisis.These priests will also be authorized to celebrate Mass according to the Latin rite. GREENVILLE (Catholic Online) - Some time ago I attended a conference for Catholic priests. As a married, former Anglican priest, I felt honored and humbled to be numbered among them. The topic of our conference was the vocations crisis, and I could not help but notice that I was one of the younger priests, and I am in my early fifties. It is not enough to look forward and say that in a few years we...

In a surprising departure from protocol, the Queen has sent the Lord Chamberlain, the most senior official of the Royal Household, to see Archbishop Vincent Nichols, leader of the RC Church in England and Wales, to discuss Pope Benedict XVI’s offer to Anglicans wanting to convert to Rome en masse. My source says Her Majesty – who is expected to meet the Pope when he visits Britain this autumn – was “unhappy” about aspects of the scheme as she understood it. So, late last year, she dispatched Lord Peel with a list of questions for the Archbishop. The nature of...

Moscow, February 2, Interfax - When it comes to fighting today's challenges, the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church stand side-by-side on a number of issues, said Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. "We [together with the Roman Catholic Church] have similar positions on many problems facing Christians in the modern world. They include aggressive secularization, globalization, and the erosion of the traditional moral principles. It should be noted that on these issues Pope Benedict XVI has taken a stance close to the Orthodox one," the Patriarch said at the Bishops' Meeting in Moscow on Tuesday. There are...