Archbishop John Hepworth: ‘We tend to associate Christian life with Methodism and wowserism’
May 11, 2012 11 Comments
Following some good news Down Under earlier this morning, some rather not so good news:
Junior priest Peter Slipper is just a wine-loving larrikin, says Archbishop John Hepworth.
Okay? But then he gives what passes for his assessment of what constitutes the Christian life in Australia.
PETER Slipper, junior priest, political turncoat and former parliamentary Speaker, is “not naughty” but a “classic larrikin” who likes a second bottle of red, according to the archbishop who ordained him.
John Hepworth ordained Slipper as a deacon (subordinate clergyman) in the Traditional Anglican Communion in 2003, before his elevation to a priest five years later.
Hepworth, a former priest in both the standard Anglican and Catholic folds, created a storm last year when he revealed that as a seminarian and junior cleric, he was subjected to repeated rapes by Catholic clergy.
The Archbishop has suspended Slipper from his dual roles as priest and chancellor or senior legal officer of the TAC, pending the outcome of the current claims against him. (Slipper, while denying all allegations, has also stood aside as Speaker on full pay of $323,750.)
But Hepworth’s instincts are to defend him.
“I’ve always said that Peter is not naughty, but the classic larrikin,” Hepworth says. “He likes a good night out and he certainly likes a second bottle of red. It’s just an interesting phenomenon in Australian life with the Christian who drinks and is happy and so on.
“We’re uncomfortable with devoutness, and we tend to associate Christian life not with the exuberance of say, European Catholicism and Mozart high mass. We associate it with Methodism and wowserism.
“He had wanted to be a priest, I think, from university days. And as a bishop, I thought, ‘Yes, he does have the makings of a priestly vocation’. What I saw was a depth of faith and a commitment to a devout life, beyond the average.”
If Slipper is cleared of his latest trials, Hepworth believes plans will continue for a life after politics as a fully functional priest.
Can I say two things… Or make that three:
- If this is what it means to an Australian Christian, then I’m… Actually, no, scratch that thought…
- Thank goodness there is a coming Ordinariate (!) - to sift such erroneous teachings, the people propagating them, and to stop the wild Ordaining of unqualified men.
- It is not very hard to see (and understand) why the man making the above statements will be received back into the Catholic Church only as a layman.
‘Methodism’?! Good grief! What’s next?
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Second bottle of red? I have enough trouble holding a second glass. I think I must have capacity issues.
You Australians
Devout but can’t resist a second bottle of red. Am I missing something here?
“the wild Ordaining of unqualified men”. I think you’re spot on there. Hepworth has a habit of doing that, hasn’t he?
Fr Smuts says “2.Thank goodness there is a coming Ordinariate”. I’m not sure how an Ordinariate will cure this problem here or anywhere. The Ordinariate will not supplant the TAC, which itself is so small as to be of comic-opera dimensions, and only a fraction of the TAC will ever go into the Ordinariate anywhere. No Ordinary will ever have authority over either Hepworth or Slipper, who will continue to have whatever prestige they had (or not) after the Australian Ordinariate is erected. I’m scratching my head here at the idea, not limited to Fr Smuts, that an Ordinariate anywhere is going to change the world — which seems to be Fr Smuts’s implication. Again, I’m wondering if there’s a tendency here to want to find the same certainty that Stalinists were seeking in the 1930s, including (something that’s popped up since I originally pointed the Stalinist parallel out) a Cult of Personality. But the enemy of faith, as I heard in a Low Sunday homily, is not doubt, it’s certainty.
Look, I get it. You’re disillusioned and all that but come on, get a grip. This blog – in case you missed it – is about the TAC, the Ordinariate and Biblical Archaeology, plus, whatever else I think may be of interest to the reader. It is Christian in ethos. Where you draw your Stalinist parallels from is simply beyond me.
And since you are a guest here, you may wish to behave as such. I don’t ask you to come here, you do so of own free will. But please don’t presume on tolerance in bearing with your now regular insults. Your comments are really becoming increasingly wearisome, unhelpful and, as I said yesterday, quite uncharitable.
Indeed these lines are drawn because we all have different conclusions! Especially those of us that have “problems” with Roman Catholicism. But, we all really do need to dialogue, but again not easy when we disagree so, both theologically and historically. In time, I suppose we will all see where these now “Ordinariate’s” will end? Though I am not sure I will be alive to see them? Rome does move slow!
The problems in the western church today are huge! As we really all know (or should). The Christian and so-called Catholic Faith is surely under grave trial!
I appreciate Fr. Smuts longsuffering here, I know he has his own desire for the Ordinariate, but is a South African, and they have yet to join in? Sometimes I forget myself his frustrations here! Btw, we have but a few people here (this blog/blogs) like myself, that take the more classic and historical Anglican Evangelical positions, noting the often overlooked and now even maligned, Thirty-Nine Articles! (I am quite amazed again to see the overall ignorance – forgetfulness? – of many Anglican rectors here, myself! But I will not press this. This was part of my surprise with Fr. Steenson!) Today of course Evangelical Anglicanism is now small, but it surely has been historical, and even mainline (past). The great names here (Anglican), would be too many to list!
Finally, I care somewhat about the now Ordinariate coming with the Aussies, but I could now care less about Hepworth and Slipper, myself! The latter two are close to showing themselves simply unfit for any ministry, Anglican or otherwise! And whatever the problems I see in Roman Catholicism (and I see much), save the sexual issues with the Roman priesthood, they are really foremost to my mind! R. Catholicism is certainly more stable than the mass of English (CoE) Anglicanism. I will not speak on the American ACUSA, I am sure our friend John Bruce could do that, perhaps? But, we all know something here, if were Anglicans.
Again, in the Spirit and Name of Christ, I hope and pray!
Fr. Robert
Fr Smuts, you’re welcome to ban me, but please understand that my intent is not to be insulting. I think a parallel between Staliists of the 1930s — naive people who wanted to idealize a distant place and an unfamiliar ideology, and see in it a solution to all the world’s problems — isn’t all that far-fetched, when we look at a tendency, which I certainly see here, to idealize Ordinariates in distant places and see in them a solution to problems like the public stances of John Hepworth. I was simply pointing out above that it was hard to see a basis for your anticipation that the establishment of the Australian Ordinariate would do anything in that regard. An Ordinary ain’t a Messiah, after all. As Irishanglican says, we ought to be able to debate here. My impression of the US Ordinariate, as seen from a much, much closer perspective than nearly everyone posting here, is that it’s beginning to look like something out of Trollope, what with its Plumstead Episcopis and an apparent queue of proteges lined up to receive their cures at them. This is a reasonable, indeed a charitable, view of the world, especially in that it mostly wants to laugh at folks rather than burn them at the stake. If folks find this irritating or insulting or whatever, I’m not at all sure where the defect lies.
@John: “Trollope”, thats good, and indeed to laugh and mock “truth” is the way of it now, even in many of the churches. The Church is always itself in submission to the Holy Scripture. And scholarship and the academy are also in submssion here. The last are handmaids to truth. The Anglican Communion has given the Church some riches here historically. My prayer is that we Anglican Churchmen know our biblical history, and remind the Church, often!
The “once a Catholic, always a Catholc” principle applies with especial rigour to those who have been in Catholic Holy Orders. Hepworth must always have kown there was only one way back into communion for him which was most unlikely to involve any question of resuming his priestly functions for a considerable period if at all. He is nonethless deserving of our prayers that he will one day be reconciled and find peace in the Lord.
As for the “two bottles” issue, I am rather glad to be old enough to remember the days when the French Ministry of Transport road safey poster campaign message was: “Santé, Sobrieté! – Jamais plus d’un litre par jour!”
Also in those days, drunk drivers in England were tried at quarter sessions before a Jury. I recall one barrister who regularly begin his speech to the Jury along these lines “Gentlemen of the Jury, the police allege that my client was drunk in charge of a motor vehicle having consumed 10 pints of Theakston’s Old Peculier Ale [5.6% ABV] in the Goat and Compasses public house. Gentlemen, only 10 pints – I ask you!” As often as not the jury would aquit his client.
Eheu! fugaces labuntur anni.
Theakston’s Old Peculier! Now that was a man’s drink! Memories, memories.
Ye virtues of ye Ordinariate. The Ordinariate taketh many years off thy purgatory, stoppeth thee going blind, maketh thee prosper in worldly affairs. Enableth thee to reape a good harvest, and it will improve a pious man’s digestion. From the Expositiones Ordinariatae 1453, Vatican Library incunables.