What If Facebook Got Deleted?

Contemplating the idea here.

Archbishop John Hepworth To Quit Over ‘Dissent’?!

Dissent?

Anglican breakaway archbishop John Hepworth, who alleges he was raped by a Catholic priest nearly 40 years ago, has resigned as the global head of the Traditional Anglican Communion.

Mr Hepworth said “considerable dissension” among members of his breakaway church had forced him to write to all archbishops and bishops to announce he would stand down as primate on Pentecost in May.

“There has been considerable dissension in our midst in the past year,” he said.

“Profound doctrinal and moral differences have grown between us.

“It is my intention, provided the membership of our college is substantially clarified in the next few months, to tender my resignation as primate at Pentecost.”

But a vote last week in the TAC House of Bishops called for his immediate removal from office, with two-thirds of all eligible voters asking for his immediate resignation, according to Anglican website Virtue Online.

Mr Hepworth’s adviser, Cheryl Woodman, said yesterday the vote had not been sanctioned by the church.

“This is an illegitimate act and seems to be some sort of plot by people seeking power for themselves,” Ms Woodman said.

“They have included people who are not members of the college and have not informed the secretariat.”

She said she would write to the College of Bishops this week to seek clarification on the vote.

Mr Hepworth took his allegations of clerical rape to South Australian police last month after a church investigation found “no substance” to allegations he had made against Adelaide priest Ian Dempsey, who has vigorously denied the allegations.

Mr Hepworth said his decision to resign followed the acceptance by Rome of the Anglicanorum Coetibus, a declaration by the Pope that will allow the TAC to be included as an ordinariate of the Catholic Church.

“I have achieved what I was requested to do by those who elected me, and the proclamation of Anglicanorum Coetibus remains for me a cherished moment,” he said.

‘… illegitimate act and seems to be some sort of plot by people seeking power for themselves’?! What utter rubbish! I wrote in a personal capacity on this blog of what I believed to be the obvious reasons (and the truth) behind the call for Archbishop Hepworth to step-down (here), namely, his dragging the Traditional Anglican Communion as a whole into his private sordid past and well into the ensuing open conflict between himself and the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide. He was really making a public spectacle of himself, not consulting with his fellow Bishops, following only the ill advice given by Lay Canoness Woodman, and running to the media first (as they again have done here). This course serves only to bring the Traditional Anglican Communion into disrepute, and by furthermore not dealing with matters internally (i.e. within the Church) but opting to hang out the ‘dirty laundry’, they are acting only as attention seeking individuals (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:1).

‘the vote had not been sanctioned by the church’ – only by the College of Bishops, yes, who govern the Church collegially – the way it is supposed to be – not by an Archbishop and a Canoness going solo to the secular media.

‘I have achieved what I was requested to do by those who elected me, and the proclamation of Anglicanorum Coetibus remains for me a cherished moment,” he said’. So then do follow that ‘cherished moment’ into Anglicanorum Coetibus Archbishop.

When will this mess end?! Must the TAC be totally destroyed before Archbishop John Hepworth turns to the College of Bishops (as a whole) and seeks the love, support and counsel of his fellow brother Bishops?

Catholic World News reports on the above here.

UPDATE:  Press Release by the signatories of the petition to Archbishop John Hepworth here.

 

Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks: Has Europe Lost its Soul?

Every so often a sermon or lecture is delivered which merits being published in its entirety. In truth, the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks delivers them all too frequently, but the pithy brevity of the blog is hardly the optimum medium for dissemination. This one, on the question of ‘Has Europe Lost its Soul?’ was delivered today at The Pontifical Gregorian University. It is replete with wisdom and insight (for those who don’t have the time to read it, His Grace highlights some salient points). Lord Sacks’ grasp of history, theology, philosophy, politics and economics is profound. His address is to the Roman Catholic Church, and his appeal is to their partnership…

Do read on here.

For the task ahead of us is not between Jews and Catholics, or even Jews and Christians in general, but between Jews and Christians on the one hand, and the increasingly, even aggressively secularising forces at work in Europe today on the other, challenging and even ridiculing our faith.

If Europe loses the Judaeo-Christian heritage that gave it its historic identity and its greatest achievements in literature, art, music, education, politics, and as we will see, economics, it will lose its identity and its greatness…

When a civilisation loses its faith, it loses its future. When it recovers its faith, it recovers its future. For the sake of our children, and their children not yet born, we – Jews and Christians, side-by-side – must renew our faith and its prophetic voice. We must help Europe recover its soul.

 

Traditional Anglicans and the Nordic Catholic Church?!

The Nordic what?! Anglican expatriates; wither now?

Fr. Anthony Chadwick has posted an interesting piece on his excellent blog English Catholic.  It is an invitation from Bishop Roald Flemestad of the Nordic Catholic Church for those traditional Anglicans seeking a new home to consider his church. Now I have no real objection to anyone tooting their own church’s horn and putting out the welcome mat. But I do find it interesting that this piece which was originally published by Forward in Faith, a highly regarded Trad Anglican organization, is being treated as seriously at is. Here we have huge numbers of people who have slaughtered entire forests and filled up gazillions of Gigabytes online with the endless debate over the merits of entering communion with Rome, and now there is serious discussion among some of the PNCC or the Nordic Catholic Church? And yet there has been one thing notable for its absense in all of the discussion among disaffected Anglicans on the subject of where to go, which I addressed in the following comment.

I find it curious that so many Anglicans who come to the realization that their communion is self destructing, fail to consider one of the most obvious potential answers to the question “wither now?” For those with a Protestant mindset and who seek “a church” there are no shortage of options. Pick one. But for those possessed of a catholic mindset, which is to say those seeking “The Church,” I would think one’s choices are essentially limited, Rome or Orthodoxy. And yet for all the debate (ad infinitum) of the pro’s and con’s of entering communion with Rome, it is passing far beyond rare to see an even remotely serious discussion of Orthodoxy. All of which leaves me to wonder why the more or less universal dismissal of the the world’s second largest communion, one with a credible claim to catholicity at least as sound as Rome’s? A dismissal, that again, appears to be so universally accepted as to not even warrant sober discussion.

Looking for a new home? can be read here. And even if I were, a Church of Norway?! My how confused, disoriented and far we (as Traditional Anglicans) have fallen. But then, I suppose that hopping to the ‘next best thing’ has always been characterstic of the more ambitious, unstable and theologically befuddled of our number. Schismatic, they come and go…

 

Church of the Nativity Being Cleaned for Christmas

Yesterday: