The Roman Church has set up a structure so that groups of Anglicans can cross over from the Thames to the Tiber and keep their Anglican "ethos", as they like to call it, while they become part of the Roman Church.
I am told that in Peru, the Anglicans there have impishly set up a mirror structure for Romans who want to cross over in groups.
I think this is a great idea.
If you tally up most of the issues that drive the Catholic liberals, the sum of it is The Episcopal Church: serious undogmatic and non-rigid theological diversity; married, female and gay clergy; sacramental and liturgical worship in good English; super-friendly ecumenical policies; no hang-ups about contraception or divorce; democratic structures that include laity, priests and bishops; the correct liberal attitude toward any social question you can think of. I mean really, what's not to like?
I mischievously made this case on a liberal Catholic website a while ago, carefully couching my language so that no one would bridle at a "Rome: love it or leave it" message. It worked. The most regular foot-stamping lover of Vatican II admitted that my case was "unanswerable", but that it was a matter of "blooming where you are planted" and the ties of habit and attachment that kept him and others in the Roman camp.
For the eternally dissatisfied children of the Sixties, the thing they want is already there: so why don't the Episcopals, whose numbers have plummeted, set up a Coetibus Romanorum for folks like these?
4 comments:
Yes, unanswerable rationally, but apparently irrelevant to 'ethos.'
I remember talking with disaffected RCs in Boston who had try'd attending Episcopal churches. They just couldn't feel that they were really worshipping or attending church or whatever the experience should be call'd. The RCC is still "the" Church for them. It's mysterious how this occurs. (Tillich attributes it to the exposure of the sacrament in RC sanctuaries.) Evidently this connection still happens even after the Spirit of Vatican 2 'stripping of the altars' etc.
Besides, more practically, I guess they could say that since they want a broad change in the culture generally, transmodulating the RCC in "Episcopal" directions makes sense as a project. They aren't only trying to change the RCC in ways they want, but also to prevent Ratzinger et al from influencing Catholics and the population generally.
P.S. The Episcopal Church's "democratic structures that include laity, priests and bishops" don't really mean inclusion, as you know. Inclusion means excluding bad attitudes, e.g., conservative Anglicans.
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I also considered the Episcopals but had a nagging feeling I discussed with an old prof of mine, a Texas Episcopalian, an Anglo Catholic priest and liturgist. I told him that while I could sense the divine in Catholic or Orthodox church buildings, regardless of how tacky, I never felt it in Anglican ones, no matter how high church they were. In his thick Denton accent, he said, "Boy, I've been a priest in this church for thirty-five years and I can tell you that in most Anglican churches there is a complete and total absence of the divine presence."
! ... Yet we must concede that achieving »a complete and total absence of the divine presence« is no inconsiderable achievement. ... I still feel -- even smell -- an oppressive sense of desolation in most mainline church buildings -- a remembrance of my own 'conviction' that I had to find my fulfilment in such things, plus an intuition that this conviction is still instil'd into youngsters in such cultural space?
I love your deviousness. Produced quite the belly laugh.
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