Is it Embarrassing to Provide a Refuge for Abused Wives?

From the Daily Telegraph comes a story about plans for the defection of Church of England clergy to Rome by Jonathan Wynne-Jones.

When hundreds of Church of England clergy defected to the Roman Catholic Church nearly 20 years ago, it dealt a damaging blow to Anglican unity and strained relations between the two Churches.

These relations will now be stretched to breaking point with the revelation that the Vatican is secretly plotting with English bishops over plans for a new wave of converts.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has already expressed his dismay at the way Pope Benedict XVI last year made his offer to disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic Church He would have been encouraged by the lack of clergy who have so far responded to the invitation, but The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that schemes to allow for an exodus of Anglican priests are being discussed at the highest levels of the Vatican.

This is likely to prove highly embarrassing for the Pope and deepen suspicions that he is preparing to poach clergy from England only months before he visits Britain.

If the initial offer was described as a move that parked his tanks on the lawn of Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop's residence, one bishop said last week's Vatican summit would be seen as "a declaration of war".

I don't understand how on earth this embarrasses the Pope, but it sure seems to be an embarrassment for the Archbishop of Canterbury. Surely the source of the problem here is the utter failure of the Church of England even to make accommodation for orthodox, traditional bishops who simply want to maintain what the Church has always believed. It seems to me that if Williams and his friends want so much to be part of a liberal Protestant denomination, they should become Methodists.

A comment on a thread on Virtue Online sums it up well. It says:

The Pope's not poaching anybody's clergy. The C of E is like some bullies I knew as a kid. They attack you, beat you up, and then go running to their father's crying about how you hit them first. In the end the bullies' fathers phoned your father and complained about what a rotten kid you were for hitting their precious boys first. This is the same scenario. The C of E walks all over everyone's rights and then cries "Foul!," when the victims seek solace from another party.

It seems to me that the liberal Anglicans should just suck it up. If they want to go against catholic tradition they are free to do so, but they should stop pretending to be "catholic" while doing so and they should understand that not everyone is going to go along with them. Liberal Anglicans have done more to undermine ecumenical dialogue than anyone else, so their wounds are entirely self-inflicted.

I would have used a stronger image. They are like wife-abusing husbands who are indignant when the long-suffering wife moves out for her safety and that of the children. Everyone else is to blame - the Pope, the Anglo-Catholic bishops and priests - everybody but them.

Coptic Bishop Rips The Episcopal Church

At the meeting of Global South Anglican bishops, theologians and others in Singapore, the recent actions of the Episcopal Church USA have hardened attitudes and stiffened the resolve of the Global South to resist the pansexualist agenda of the American and Canadian Anglican Churches.

In case anyone was wondering what the Eastern Orthodox thought of it, here is a part of a report of what a Coptic bishop observer to the conference had to say:

A Coptic Orthodox Church observer to the Fourth Global South to South Encounter ripped into the Episcopal Church, stunning some 130 archbishops, bishops, clergy and laity, urging them to say "no to ordination of homosexuals, no to gay marriage, no to such immorality, and that it is time to purify the sanctuary of the Lord from this abomination that causes our God to suffer, bleed and be crucified again everyday."

"You are martyrs without the shedding of blood because you are upholding the teaching of the Gospel handed down once and for all to the apostles," Bishop Anba Suriel told the stunned delegates.

"An army of sheep led by a lion is more powerful than an army of lions led by a sheep. I really pray that you lions here, the primates of each of the provinces of the Global South will stand united with one accord against the heresies of The Episcopal Church.

"I want to share with you a saying of Saint Anthony the Great, the father of monasticism. This great Egyptian saint said, "There will come a day when the mad people will look at the normal people and say, 'Look at these mad people because they are not like us.'" I think this prophecy has been fulfilled in our day and age. Abnormality has become the new normality. Certain factions of the Christian Church are becoming desensitized to the truth of the Gospel. I call it the frog in the kettle syndrome.

"If you place a frog in a kettle at room temperature the frog will be comfortable, if you raise the temperature slightly, the frog will quickly adapt. If you continue to raise the temperature very gradually the frog will continue to adapt to its new environment until finally the water is boiling and the frog is fried inside the kettle and loses its life. This is what today's Post Modern society is doing; it is pushing the limit of immorality further and further till it tries to make some lose their spiritual life and die."

The bishop blasted New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson. "He was a married man and had two daughters. He divorced his wife and left his daughters to live this unthinkable life of abomination. Is this the holiness and perfection and the image and likeness of God? How then can such a person be ordained to the highest level of authority in a Church, the episcopate? What example does he give to young people, what long term effects will such a decision by The Episcopal Church USA (TEC) have on the North American Episcopalians in generations to come?" . . .

"Today's heresy often becomes tomorrow's orthodoxy. Well, let me say the orthodoxy of God will never allow for these heresies.

"That is why TEC allows a heretic like Bishop Spong to promulgate his poison all over the world and publish books advocating a cocktail of heresies ranging from denying the divinity of Christ to a complete and shocking attack on the inspired Word of God. And yet at the same time they depose an orthodox Episcopal bishop for upholding the true faith of the Scriptures that marriage is between one man and one woman... I cannot even begin to get comprehend that."

Anyone who thinks that this is only about homosexuality is very much mistaken. And anyone who thinks that all the conservatives will either die out or come along with the liberal agenda is dreaming. What we are witnessing is the global re-alignment of Christianity.

The Orthodox Church in America broke off ecumenical relations with the Episcopal Church years ago and now is in dialogue with the Anglican Church in North America, the continuing Anglican witness to Anglican tradition.

Ecumenical relations of the liberal Anglicans with the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy grow shaky by the day. Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism vastly outnumber liberal Protestants and have better relations with the Roman Catholics. Liberal Protestantism is increasingly looking like a dying rump. Pentecostals are more ecumenical than they are.