In Communion with Canterbury or the Church Commisioners

The Church of England now has its first female Bishop.  This is a source of great joy for most of its members and of much grief for a significant minority.  The major kerfuffle has oddly not been over the consecration of Libby Lane but over the forthcoming consecration of Philip North as Bishop of Burnley.  The proposed service has the unusual innovation of the consecration not being performed by the relevant Metropolitan (in this case the Archbishop of York) but by Bishops to whom he has delegated the task. While this is absolutely York's prerogative, it is being seen as enshrining a "theology of taint" in as much as only bishops opposed to the ordination of women will actually lay hands on Philip North.

As someone who was Fulham Jurisdiction/FiF at one point, I have to say this is a description of conservative Anglo-Catholic theology I don't recognise. The objection was never phrased in terms of taint but of broken communion. Stuff about "taint" so prevalent on "liberal" websites is as far as I can see fairly hysterical and mainly American.  I think the proposed arrangements are deeply peculiar and un-catholic.  Flying bishops (Provincial Episcopal Visitors) have been ordained in the C of E before but the Archbishop in whose Province they will serve always led the laying on of hands.  This new "hands off" approach seems to solidify the reality of there being a Church within a Church that has been hinted about for years but never before explicitly acknowledged.  References within Anglo-Catholic to things like "the See of Ebbsfleet" or "Apostolic Districts" have built his up, ignoring the legal position of the PEV's as Suffragans of the Archbishop.  That I find un-catholic and a bad idea.  If a portion of the Church is allowed to function with a totally parallel structure of bishops deeply disconnected from their metropolitan, then it is not so much being in communion with Canterbury as being in Communion with the Church Commissioners who pay stipend and pensions.  It's not so much ecclesial communion as administrative communion. And that is a sad state of affairs.

It also begs the question of who are we as Scottish Episcopalians in Communion with in England? The whole C of E or just most of it?

To the Bishops of the Church of England: thanks for nothing guys!

The English Bishop's have got themselves in a fine old mess haven't they?  Having (just about) recovered their reputation after the fiasco over women bishop's legislation and their resounding defeat in the House of Lords over same sex marriage, they seemed to doing OK with Archbishop Welby pointing out that their attitude to LGBT people is being seen as morally equivalent to racism and the Pilling Report suggesting very gently that some form of service to celebrate a Same Sex Marriage might be a half-decent idea.  Then they lost it.

It is never a good idea to issue a press release at 2am in the morning.  It looks as if you're trying to bury bad news or sneak something in "under the radar.  You look shifty and duplicitous.  The restating of pretty much the line of "Issues in Human Sexuality" (1991) was a disaster.  It was widely critiqued at the time as a sop to vocal  Conservative Evangelicals, especially following the suppression of the Osborne Report (I remember it well, I was at Theological College at the time).  20 years on and social and public attitudes have moved on massively, so recycling "The Laity can have partners, but the clergy can't" is deeply stupid as more people then than now see it as inconsistent, cruel and unfair.  Which it is.  It is pure stupidity to tell your clergy that the laws says they can marry but they can't unless you have a long establish tradition of compulsory clerical celibacy like the Roman Catholic Church.  It has boomeranged badly, especially as 1 Conservative Evangelical Bishop has already called in his civilly partnered clergy for "a chat", sparking fears of witch hunts in dioceses with Evangelical leadership.

I'm glad I'm in Scotland.  But also hope we don't get too much of a flood of refugee clergy job hunting up here.  We already have a fairly high proportion of imports who don't know the province or it's unique style.  Too many is not good for our identity.

Of Synods and stupidity.

I'm slightly at a loss to explain what happened in the English General Synod this week.  As a PR exercise it was a disaster and there is much understandable screaming for disestablishment/ removal of exemptions from equality legislation.  The former might be as good an idea for the Church's spiritual health (it was the making of the SEC in 1689) - but the Established Church is so wired into our unwritten political Constitution that has dismantling of it's current status would probably be a lousy idea if done in haste.  The latter begs the tricky question of having to do it for all religious organisations in the UK and that includes not only the RC church but also the vast majority of Muslims and the Orthodox Jewish - it's a minefield I strongly suspect HMG has no intention of wandering into.

The calls for Parliament to sort it out are I think misguided.  Anglicans in England are not established and funded like the Lutherans in Scandinavia and the legislature has no authority to change Church polity without the support of Synodical structures.  And if change isn't the mind of the Church, then imposing it on the Church is a recipe for disaster.  Women Bishops thus created would be seen as possessing legal authority but utterly lacking spiritual validity.  As were the "Tulchan Bishops" of Reformation Scotland.  No, sadly the slow and messy procedures of Synod are the way to go.

what it might mean is that the Episcopate of Women in the C of E is now utterly inevitable and that provision for the dissenter might well be radically reduced by will of Parliament who I reckon will be less inclined to pass generous provision than previously.  This may be neither the disaster liberals lament nor the passing victory some think it.  This may be a moment where the Church does a transformation no one suspected was possible into a much more inclusive body.  Perhaps we will have cause to thank God for the stupidity of Synod 2012.

Wifie bishops and Metropolitical Embarrassment!

Much yowling on the Wifie Bishops vote in Engerland. What from the traditionalist point of view went wrong?

1) The Abp's solution was identifiably ecclesiological mince that would have stuffed the Cyprianic concept of territorial episcopacy. And everyone knew it. But the possible goodwill that might have lived with that for the sake of charity had gone since 1992. Pourquoi?

2) The fact that the last time generous provision was made (not least financially) , a goodly number took the money, joined the RC's and came back when they found they really didn't care for being men under authority without handing back the moolah, meant that there there was a lot less willingness to be generous. One Rip Off is enough.

3) SEVERE umbrage was felt over Pope Benny's announcement of the Ordinariate and the way it was done. The C of E was dissed and that REALLY rankled. Payback time - your Convert Aid Societies can pay the fecking bill!

4) The Leadership of Forward in Faith's "secret negotiations" with my old friend Mgr Patrick Burke absolutely incensed the Anglican clergy. This was duplicitous p****ng around and really evaporated sympathy.

and of course...

It was the Archbishop's idea. The 2 Double crossed dudes interfered in the deliberations and conclusions of a Synod committee and Synods do not like being down graded by prelates. Also, Rowan's centralising/authoritarian tendencies could here be checked and rebuked. Warning signs for a covenant vote. This result was no surprise.