Authoritarian Anglicans
July 13, 2012 19 Comments
Writes Fr Dwight Longenecker:
Here is the great irony: the people who dismantled traditional Christianity by the democratic process are now dismantling the democratic process. In other words the tyranny of the ballot box is being replaced by just plain tyranny.
This article analyzes what is happening with the ruling ranks of the Episcopal Church of the USA. The presiding bishop–Kate Schori–sues breakaway churches and dioceses. She refuses to say how much the legal action costs. She presents her own budget to the church ending years of the budget being drafted, amended and controlled by the laity. She and her cronies have pushed through a radical re working of how the Episcopal church is governed–moving from an elected governing body of three houses to a unicameral body in which Schori’s administrative team will design and govern the agenda.
In other words, from those who criticize the Catholic Church for being overly clericalized and authoritarian–from those who trumpet that they are doing the will of the people and that majority rules–we get the most authoritarian and draconian kind of governance.
The article exposes the plummeting numbers in the Episcopal church, the downwardly spiraling finances while observing that the folks are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic by approving funeral rites for dogs and cats, wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples, apologizing to Native Americans for evangelizing them and opening the way for transgendered people to be ordained.
Just sayin’
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Whatever the heresy of the Episcopalians…the Catholics in England and Wales are in free fall..having had poor catechesis and no hell fire from the pulpit for nearly 50 years.
By the way Jefferts Schorri is a former Catholic.
If the same propertion of Tec persons attended regularly in the Church of England , there would be nine million practising Anglicans in the Church of England!
Not sure what point there is in referring to Katherine Jefferts-Schori as a former RC is, het parents left the Church when she wasn’t even 10 years old. Having read your later point, it is mostly RC priests in irregular relationships who joined the TEC so hardly a great theological point.
My parish is a third former C of E who have joined over the years so the Ordinariate is hardly a measure of paople leaving the C of E.
The question is Mr Williams, why are you defending a body (TEC) which is beyond all familiar bounds of heterdoxy
God will take care of His own.
Whatever ECUSA is, it is not at all classic or historical Anglicanism!
And there are indeed certain liberal Roman Catholics, look at some of the Catholic religious nuns and even some priests these days! This fuels the SSPX.
Oh, of course! “No True Anglicans do X!” “But they do X.” “They’re not True Anglicans!”
And those “Liberal Roman Catholics” are still Catholics. Just horrible ones. Because there’s a standard that one can measure their obedience towards.
The moment they become Anglicans, then they’re heretical AND apostate.
Thanks for the welcome Father Robert, I did appreciate it. It is fair to say and this is a general comment that all is far from well with God’s Church here on earth. Reading about the dialogue between the Holy See and Abp Fellay, I am inclined to think that they are better off
staying the way they are.
Have a blessed Sunday!
Father Ed Bakker
Indeed Fr. make no mistake, I cannot side with the SSPX, nor with Rome, but I would at least be closer to Rome generally speaking. As I wish the Ordinariates well, though I cannot go with them personally either.
The SSPX is superior to any Protestants, Anglicans included. The SSPX is certainly closer to Rome than any of you heretics. In fact, I admire them. Of course, based on their disobedience to the Pope, I’m not about to join them. I’m just rooting for them as they preserve what some cardinals and bishops try to suppress.
The Catholic Cardinals and Bishops haven’t suppressed anything. They are in complete accord with The Holy Father. Just because you personally do not agree with Vatican II, is no reason to attack people posting here, and calling names such as ‘Heritics’. The SSPX are in talks with the Vatican, and may soon be re-united into the full Body of the Church. The Latin Mass was never forbidden by The Vatican, and the ‘New/Old’ language of The Mass is in the process of being used in all Catholic Churches, worldwde.
Loannes, you owe some people on this Blog an apology !
@Ioannes: Chatting with you is seemly a waste of time? but I do pray that perhaps someday you might see the difference between heterodoxy and apostasy? According to Holy Scripture the apostate, simply never returns to the real faith, for he/she cannot! (Heb. 6: 4-6, etc.) The biblical reality is that in spite of sin, the true “elect” Christian will persevere unto the end! (Heb. 6: 11-12) The certainty of which is based upon God and His promise ‘In Christ’, (verses 13-20). Yes, the true Christian better know his Bible, especially in these dark days of great church apostasy!
Just a challenge, but how do you “know” you are not in certain heterodoxy? The SSPX is very far from the best of historical Catholicism! Vatican II is certainly not “infallible”, (noting the worst of the Pastoral Constitution of Gaudium et Spes), but in many places it is an advance from the older Roman Catholic Judaization! Here we need to hear that great Reformer Dr. Luther: “The true treasure of the church is the Holy gospel and the glory and the grace of God.”!
I am sorry for NOTHING, to no one, save to God who I always let down, because, in my conscience, I have said and done nothing that warrants an apology. And no one, but God, through His rightly ordained clergy under the authority of the Pope and His Sacraments, can truly forgive me.
The Second Vatican Council is built upon all other councils of the Church, and is NOT the last Council that will ever be held, save if Judgement day comes today or tomorrow or the day before such a future Council will be held. It is abused and misinterpreted by HERETICS, who are rightly called as such because they are, indeed, in error with 2,000 years of Catholic teaching.
As for Cardinals and Bishops. I did not say that ALL cardinals and bishops are disobedient, but I call you a liar if you say that there are NO cardinals or bishops who say “yes” to the Pope’s face and work to isolate and undermine him behind his back.
For Example:
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki stated publicly that the Church must rethink its approach to remarried divorcees and gay relationships, the world’s youngest cardinal has said. He made his comments in an interview with the German weekly Die Zeit and said that while the Orthodox Church considers only the first marriage sacramentally valid, divorce and a second marriage is tolerated. Asked whether this could be a model for the Catholic Church, he replied that the Church should talk about it. Commenting on gay men in relationships he said he tried not to see them as just violating natural law but as people trying to take responsibility for each other in lasting partnerships. “We must find a way of allowing people to live without going against church teaching,” he said.
Another Example:
The newly appointed Cardinal Müller to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith held these views:
* Bishop Müller denies in his book “Die Messe – Quelle christlichen Lebens” [The Mass - Source of Christian life] the real transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Bread and wine remain, according to him, what they are; however, they become tools for integrating the faithful into the living community with the Father and the Son. This resembles the Calvinistic teaching, according to which bread and wine do not transform, but become tools of grace.
* Contrary to Catholic doctrine, according to which the transformation of the gifts occurs with the pronounciation of the words of institution, “This is my body… This is the chalice of my blood”, Bishop Müller asserts that the question of the moment of transformation “doesn’t make sense”.
* Bishop Müller denies in his “Dogmatik” [currently a standard work in Germany about Dogmatics] the dogma of the Virginity of Mary while giving birth, and, therefore, the teaching that Mary gave birth to her son without violating her physical integrity.
* In a eulogy for the Protestant bishop Dr. Johannes Friedrich, Bishop Müller said on 11 October 2011: “Also the Christians that are not in full community with the Catholic Church regarding teaching, means of salvation and the apostolic episcopacy, are justified by faith and baptism and they are fully (!) incorporated/ integrated into Church of God, being the Body of Christ.” This contradicts the integral Catholic tradition and especially the teaching of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis.
* Against the Catholic doctrine of the necessity of a conversion to the Catholic Church, as is still proclaimed in the teaching of Vatican II, Bishop Müller characterizes in the same speech the so-called “ecumenism of return” as being “erroneous”.
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The Latin Mass was suppressed by many bishops or at least tried to suppress and discourage them DESPITE the fact that it WASN’T suppressed by the Council, nor by the Vatican, nor by the Roman Curia, etc.
I owe NO ONE an apology, save by command of a priest or bishop who has the valid authority to teach to me or to preach to me. Protestant ministers do not count, as they do not obey the Holy Father and have their own Calvins and Luthers they worship.
“Judgement is Mine, saith The Lord. Judge not, lest ye be judged!” I see no ‘stigmata’ nor halo on you, Loannes. You mouth excerpts from articles and books you have read, to pump your own ego. This is a Chrisian Blog, not an oratory, and certainly not a place to vent your feelings about all that ‘you’ deem as unacceptable to Catholic teaching. Jesus said that the greatest virtue is Love (Charity). In all things dealing with our brothers and sisters, we must show Charity, not always accepting things contrary to Faith, but understanding that not everyone has been given True Faith, but they praise God as they were taught. Evangelization is the ‘Gift’ of the times in which we live, currently an Age of Great Mercy (Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kawalska). I know of no one who was converted by a person on a soap box spouting-off insults. “You can catch more flies with Honey, than with Vinegar. As Father Benedict Groeschel is fond of saying, “All are welcome here; Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc.” Perhaps, with Charity, we can form dialogues that attract Converts, from all walks of life.
Be Abundantly Blessed !
@Ioannes: Indeed none of us are born into humility, it is really a grace given virtue and desire wrought by the Spirit of God Himself, ‘In Christ’! I pray we might all touch it more as Christians. Btw, if you can bring yourself to read it? There is a nice little paperback book (just 75 pages) by the great South African, Andrew Murray: Humility, The Beauty of Holiness!
Just a note, I read all kinds of different “Christian” people and writers, and I read too certain Jewish writers (Martin Buber for one). Watch out that your narrowness does not make you self-righteous! This can be the bane of all us “religious” Christians, no matter what “persuasion” we are!
*A further note on Andrew Murray, who died at 89 years old (1917). He was a Dutch Reformed minister, and had also gone to Scotland for his Masters in theology, but later he went to the University of Utrecht, also in the further study of theology. He was also in the Hiet Reveil, a religious revival movement that opposed the rationalisms in the Neitherlands at the time. He wrote over 240 Christian books, mostly on Christian spirituality, etc. Just a great Christian soul!
I say what I say and do what I do not because I hate heretics. I hate heresy, but if I were of the opinion “Yes, God loves you no matter what you believe in” not only do I insult those who DIED because they REFUSE to deviate, because they were faithful, it is also a disservice to people who have erred and must be corrected. Why is it a disservice to those who subscribe to heretical beliefs? Because they deserve better.
If I were a man of good will, and I saw another going to the path of certain death and self-ruin, just as these Episcopalians are doing, should I say “Well, that’s the wrong way, but if you think you’re doing great, then good for you!” I would have committed a sin myself, in that respect.
Some of you fellow Catholics may say “You’re being uncharitable and unchristian!” I say to you, I welcome those who come home to Holy Mother Church, but if they prefer to stay out, I will not be complacent and be content and even rejoice, as some do, while they continue the wrong path, by Catholic Standards, not -my- own standards, though I strive to make them the one and the same. I will be charitable, but not permissive. For example, it is an act of charity that the Pope establish Ordinariates. It is NOT an act of charity to say that these churches that allow abortions, sexual perverts to become ministers and bishops, that these churches are “the same” as the Church that God established and left for our generation and the generation of our children, and their children’s children and for ALL generations until Jesus comes back at the End of Time to determine if we did what we were supposed to do, and to separate the sheep from the goats.
Why should I be happy that the atheist has no God? Why should I be happy that the Protestant lacks God’s Sacraments, or have erroneous understanding about them? I seem angry and full of hate and spite, because I pray for Christian Unity, not FALSE Unity, the sort of inoffensive, politically correct sort of “unity” that exists only as a result of half-compromised truths and complacency on the part of those who know better. I am not one of those who prattle about how “We’re all the same” because I know for a fact that we’re not, and if it’s true that we’re all the same, then why is Christendom in many pieces? Why do countries that espouse Islam murder people who fail to obey Islamic Law, while traditionally Christian lands have done things like send men to the moon and invent the Gregorian Calendar? So that’s one fallacy thrown out, that “We’re all the same.”
I don’t want to be in a position where my Judge would ask “Why didn’t you do anything to help these people be in communion with my Church, when you had the capability, the stubbornness, and the understanding and the knowledge given to you by people who know and understand better?” And if Our Lord sends me to Hell for failing to reach the standard that He has set and given us, then I will praise and thank God for His Mercy and just Love.
Well, let’s see. They accept Contraception and Abortion. Women, Openly Homosexual Persons are being ‘Ordained’ in the priesthood. ‘Christian Services’ for ‘Animals. Seems to me they’re more like “Wiken” than a truly Christian Church.
How far away can the ‘serious’ Chastisements be?
Lord, have mercy on them, for they KNOW what they do !!!
As I state TEC is in a far healthier position than the Church of England as regards its membership…proportionately much higher attendance. In TEC there are over 600 former Ctholic priests and at least 200,000 ex laity.
I always raise a smile when protestants talk about the Infallibility of the Pope but disregard the authoritarian bishops of the US Episcopal Church and the general Synod of the Church of England etc. Liberals are nearly always illiberal when they deal with those who do not like their views.