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A prominent Anglican cleric and gay rights campaigner known for contentious gestures has urged believers to pray for Prince George — age 4, and third in line to the throne — to find the love “of a fine young gentleman” when he grows up so as to advance the cause of same-sex marriage in church. Coming just days after Prince Harry — George’s uncle, and fifth in line — announced his engagement to Meghan Markle, a divorced American actress, the suggestion by the Very Rev. Kelvin Holdsworth seemed to illuminate once more the role of royal romance in Britain’s imagination...

An influential seminary affiliated with The Episcopal Church has announced that it will no longer issue degrees starting next year, and is reporting a net loss of $7.9 million in assets since last year. The Episcopal Divinity School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced in July that they will stop granting degrees at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year. Last week, the divinity school sent out an update to supporters and members of its campus community wherein they noted that the net assets of the seminary had declined rapidly over the past couple of years. "At our meeting, we also accepted...

LONDON — Britain is no longer a Christian country and should stop acting as if it is, a top-level inquiry into the place of religion in society has concluded, provoking a backlash from politicians and the Church of England. A two-year commission, chaired by the former senior judge Baroness Butler-Sloss and involving leading religious leaders of all faiths, calls for public life to be systematically de-Christianized. It says the decline of church-going and the rise of Islam and other beliefs mean a “new settlement” is needed for religion in the U.K., giving more official influence to non-religious voices and those...

David Virtue's website, VirtueOnline, www.virtueonline.org recently reprinted a blog post by Joel Wilhelm, entitled "FiFNA vs. Anglicanism." http://tinyurl.com/n5soffq Readers of Anglican blogs may remember that, in June, the Stand Firm website ran an article: "What is Going on With the ACNA and the Filioque?" which cited another post by Wilhelm, entitled, "ACNA Vs. the 39 Articles," in which he challenges the ACNA for considering returning to the original form of the Nicene Creed, which does not contain the Filioque. I don't know about you, but I am beginning to sense a theme with these "versus" articles: Take an organization that...

In the wake of the narrow defeat of the women bishops measure in the Church of England's General Synod by six votes in the House of Laity, a torrent of criticism has been unleashed on evangelical and Anglo-Catholic Anglicans who opposed the measure. From the Archbishop of Canterbury, members of Parliament, and down through the ranks, the consciences and reasons of those who voted against the measure have been belittled and even vilified. This vilification is most obvious in the editorial in The Guardian (London) from Friday, Nov. 23 by Canon Giles Fraser. Until recently, Canon Fraser held a senior...

The first thing to be said about Dr. Rowan Williams is that he is by common consent a subtle theologian, a sensitive pastoral priest, and a genuinely good and holy man, because a great many less flattering things will be said about him in the next few months, some of them further down this column. Dr. Williams announced last Friday that he intended to resign at the end of the year as Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore as spiritual leader of the Church of England and, by extension, of the 77 million–strong Anglican Communion around the world. His announcement came...

The Washington National Cathedral, in its commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, has deliberately and carefully excluded evangelicals from their multi-religious commemoration. The service includes Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims, but not evangelical Christians. Mind you, I am opposed to interfaith services in any shape or form and that is why, in a previous blog, I stated that I was relieved that the mayor of New York spared us the agony of watching the One, True God of the Bible “worshipped” alongside false gods. National Cathedral (Washington, DC)The National Cathedral is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation. Having...

The headline on the July 14, 2011, edition of the British paper, The Telegraph, heralded some very bad news for British Anglicans. It declared, “Aging Church of England 'will be dead in 20 years.'” They buttressed their argument in two ways: 1. The average age of a Church of England attendee is 61 (you do the math).2. In the last 40 years, church attendance has been cut in half.You would think that the Archbishop of Canterbury would wake up and smell the coffee. Instead, a few weeks earlier, he finally came clean. Well, he was forced to come clean. For...

(American Catholic Magazine) - The 1230 Mass today at London's Westminster Cathedral looked like any other. But for the hint in the booklet for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, that after the homily would be a "Rite of reception and confirmation", there was nothing at all to indicate the significance of what was to happen. The celebrant, an auxiliary bishop of Westminster, Alan Hopes, said nothing at the start of Mass, and it wasn't until the end of a lengthy homily on Mary as Theotokos, or God-bearer, and the controversies of the fourth-century Council of Nicea which led...

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are to make a dramatic intervention in the long-running row over women bishops this week by demanding that opponents of female clergy are not driven out of the Church. Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu are so concerned thousands of traditionalist churchgoers will quit when women become bishops that they are to risk the wrath of liberals by calling for major reforms in Church legislation. Sources said their statement will spell out a legal formula that will give traditionalist clergy and parishes the right to reject the authority of a woman bishop. The...

Why I Left Anglicanism I'm often asked why I left the Anglican Church to become a Catholic. Was it women's ordination or some other issue? Well, the debate over women's ordination was an influence. It made me re-examine the question of authority in the church. I have written about my conversion several places, and these articles can be found on my website under the 'articles' tab. However, the more I think about the reasons for my conversion, the more I realize that the real problem was not women's ordination, nor was it, at depth, the question of authority in the...

The Church of England has survived the Spanish Armada, the English Civil War and Elton John performing “Candle in the Wind” at Princess Diana’s Westminster Abbey funeral. So it will probably survive the note the Vatican issued last week, inviting disaffected Anglicans to head Romeward, and offering them an Anglo-Catholic mansion within the walls of the Roman Catholic faith. But the invitation is a bombshell nonetheless. Pope Benedict XVI’s outreach to Anglicans may produce only a few conversions; it may produce a few million. Either way, it represents an unusual effort at targeted proselytism, remarkable both for its concessions to...

Anglicanism 272. Did the Anglican Church have anything to do with the Diet of Spires?The Anglican Church did not exist then. But when later established it gradually adopted Protestant principles, and is a Protestant Church.  273.    The Church of England repudiates the term Protestant, and, as far as I am aware, has never used it. I myself was brought up as an Anglican, and in the firm belief that I was a Protestant. An Anglican paper. The English Churchman is subtitled A Protestant Family Journal, The King of England is an Anglican, and in his coronation oath uses the words,...

In what is being called a victory for Islamism, the Anglican Church's only ethnically Asian bishop is stepping down. The Right Reverend Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, bishop of Rochester, announced that he is retiring next September in order to work on behalf of "endangered or beleaguered Christian minorities." Regrettably, his most important work defending Christianity will need to be inside the United Kingdom. The bishop is a controversial figure in Britain. In January 2008, he published an article in The Sunday Telegraph stating that Islamic extremists had created "no-go areas" across Britain where non-Muslims entered at their peril. In calling attention...

In what is believed to be a first, a father and son, both former Anglican clergy, have been ordained as Catholic priests and are now working for the same archdiocese, Birmingham. Father Dominic Cosslett, 36, and his father, Father Ron Cosslett, 70, were both ordained by Archbishop Vincent Nichols, pictured above by Peter Jennings. Nichols is the favourite to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as Archbishop of Westminster when he steps down early next year and the latest ordination of Father Dominic on 20 December shows he is continuing in the tradition of true Catholicity to which the British church has...

LONDON, September 15, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The great grandson of 19th century naturalist Charles Darwin, told media that he was "bemused" at an apology offered by a prominent Anglican cleric to his long-dead ancestor. Andrew Darwin, called "pointless" an article written by a prominent Anglican cleric that apologised for the 19th century Church's response to the publication of the Origin of Species, the book that began the debate over evolution. "Why bother?" Darwin said, "When an apology is made after 200 years, it's not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organisation making the apology...

Source: Episcopal News Service May 12, 2008 The Most Revd Henry Luke Orombi Archbishop of Uganda and Bishop of Kampala PO Box 14123 Kampala UGANDA EAST AFRICA My dear brother, I understand from advertising here that you plan to visit a congregation in the Diocese of Georgia on 14 May of this year. The diocesan, Bishop Henry Louttit, has not given any invitation for you to do so, nor received any information from you about your planned visit. I must protest this unwarranted incursion into The Episcopal Church. I am concerned that you seem to feel it appropriate to visit,...

N.T. "Tom" Wright is one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought. As Bishop of Durham, he is the fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England and a major player in the strife-riven global Anglican Communion; as a much-read theologian and Biblical scholar he has taught at Cambridge and is a hero to conservative Christians worldwide for his 2003 book The Resurrection of the Son of God, which argued forcefully for a literal interpretation of that event. It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn't believe in heaven — at...

The following came from my answers in private correspondence. It struck me as I had completed it, that parts of it may be useful. The identity of the person to whom I wrote is confidential. The first answer is not to a Non-Anglican difficulty, just a modern one. About contraception: The fathers were not silent. What they wrote condemns it as sin. I do understand your circumstances very well, because we have four (now grown) children, and at times my one and only source of family income seemed to be no better than desperate poverty. My health was not good,...

A letter from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to Bishop John W. Howe of Central Florida has changed nothing for the rectors and wardens of seven parishes and two church plants in that diocese, said a spokesperson for the group. “We remain committed to disaffiliation from The Episcopal Church and continue in discussion with Bishop Howe over that process,” said the Rev. Don Curran, rector of Grace Church, Ocala, and president of the standing committee. “We want to handle this as expeditiously as possible, but there is no established deadline.” Fr. Curran said he and the other clergy were shown...