Thank you all for your emails and comments here and on other blogs.

Today went well, a lot of people came from all over the area and beyond in horrid weather to pay their respects to my Grandfather. College roommates of my Mother, friends of her and my Uncle traveled several hours to be there. People came from all over the community to tell us how special he was to them.

He never met a stranger, welcomed all at his door and loved freely. He was a spare father and extra grandfather to many people, as well as confidant and friend to many more. One man said that he always knew that he had a home at the Leasure's. My Grandmother quipped that he could have the floor in her room at the nursing home if he ever got that desperate.

He was a man of deep and quiet faith. He loved How Great Thou Art, and Rock of Ages since they reflected his personal theology the best. He was raised a Methodist, he was quick to point out that he was never an EUB. He became a Presbyterian for my Grandmother and served as an Elder for decades. I was told today he was involved in the ordination of over one thousand people of at least 4 denominations. When controversy rocked the local Presbyterians, he drank out of a common cup with an African American woman who he later helped ordain to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. He had but one quibble with the RSV. His favorite passage was altered from "Many Mansions" to "Many Rooms." He had been in rooms alot. He wanted a Mansion in Heaven. I'm sure arrangments have been made.

She later told me that she figures that she and my Grandfather had been together for 68 years, 63 of those as man and wife.

Thank you for your prayers.

Some of my down right sharpness of late is due to the illness of my Grandfather.
He passed into larger life on Monday evening and I would ask, in your charity, that you pray for the repose of his soul. My Family also stands in the need of prayer as we begin that strange ritual called "visitation" tomorrow.
His funeral is on Monday, and we could use with prayers then as well.

And Another Thing

Those of you who think that all is well for the neo-Donatist Arminian schismatics this little post from Katie Sherrod's blog should cause some pause.

It seems that those who wish to stay loyal to TEC are the only parishes who show real growth.

Due to the craven behavior of a few there will be no more anonymous replying allowed. Apparently, to be British and (presumably) Anglo-Catholic not only lets you ignore your own fault in asking for trouble, it also empowers cowardly and infantile ad hominem attacks.

Then again, it fits. They do lionize Newman.

As Promised, a few weeks late.

The following is a second draft to a the opening part of a longer work. This is still very much a work in progress, and I'm unsure of where it is headed. Here it is though. I'll update with a bit about the terminology I'm using in a bit.


The story of the Oxford Movement is, in many ways, the story of friendship and loss. It has, at its center, four remarkable, but flawed men and their one grate devotion. They were, in order of age: John Keble, Edward Bouverie Pusey, John H. Newman, and Hurrel Froude. It is within the matrix of these four men that the other players moved and it is the focus of their love of and devotion to God’s One, Holy and Apostolic Church that will provide the reason and aims of the Movement. It is in their losses that all of these men will experience that will not only give it its character but will bring it to an end. It is the endurance of their remaining friendships and those of others that the Movement will give birth to a new and different life outside the bounds of the University.
The term, “Oxford Movement” is, actually, a bit slippery. Historians tend to be quite precise in their meaning, but others tend to use “Oxford Movement”, “Tracterian” and “Anglo-Catholic” as synonyms. To be precise the Oxford Movement was a renewal movement in the Church of England centered on the great University of Oxford. Its life span runs form July 14th 1833 with the preaching of John Keble’s National Apostasy sermon before His Majesties Assize Court in St Mary’s Church, to October 9th 1845 when the Passionist father Dominic received John H Newman into the Roman Church under the “sere and yellow leaves” of Littlemore. While the Tracts for the Times were a major and most public part of the Movement, not all members of the latter were directly involved with the former. As for the term “Anglo-Catholic” that is a term that has far too much baggage in its current usages to be of much use to us in this study. I’ll return to it later, but it is sufficed to say that much of what would come to be called “Anglo-Catholicism” has as much to do with the Cambridge Gothic Revival movement and the eccentricities of the Ecclesiastical Society as it dose the more staid, Oxfordian scholars.
Another issue is, as Georgette Basscomb puts it in her biography of Keble, that there was a Party before there was a movement. The roots of the party are to be found at a “reading party” John Keble hosted at the parsonage in Coln St Anwin in Gloucester during the Long vacation of 1823. In attendance were Hurrel Froude, Isaac Williams, and Robert Wilberforce (the son of the British emancipator of the slaves). During the several weeks of the party all three young men were moved from the somnambulant High Church, like Williams, or the rationalist and fashionable upper-class Evangelicalism of Wilberforce to the more lively High Church of Keble through his genial and unpretentious piety. Additionally, this would cement the friendship of Froude and Keble and mark the beginning of the intellectual spade work of the Party which would bring forth fruit in the publications of the Movement ten years later. One of the outcomes of this party was the introduction of Keble to Newman by Froude. This, Froude would claim at the end of his life, was the “one good thing” he could claim before the Judgment seat. Also, it would start to form the nucleolus of disaffected scholars and clergy that would later become the Movement in its full flower. It is because the Party existed before the Movement proper began; it has been labeled a “conspiracy.” Froude himself would describe it as such, with more than a little bit of humor and because there was a certain lack of terms to actually explain what it was. It should also be noted that the term “Oxford Movement” never seems to have been used by the participants during the Movement itself. Newman, for example, would call it the “Movement of 1833.”
For the purposes of this work I’ll refer to the “Oxford Party” to differentiate it from either the Tracterians or the later Anglo-Catholics. This party was quite hazy at this point, it could barley be differentiated from the more standard High Church position. It was mostly defined as a “we’re not that.” The other factions or schools of thought in the Church of England were as follows: The High Church, the Erastians, and the Evangelicals.
The term “Evangelical” is, like “Protestant”, “orthodox” or “Catholic,” a tricky one. The exact meaning shifts over time and its connotations tend to reflect the prejudices of the writer or speaker than they do the subject. Strictly speaking, the term comes from the very early days of the Reformation. It was a label applied by Johann von Staupitz to the embryonic Lutheran movement to define their vision of the Church and their school of thought. It derives from the Greek word that we translate “Gospel.” They used to emphasis their belief in the need for the Bible to be the true and proper measure of both belief and practice in the Church. They also made use of the Biblical Greek to provide a contrast to the perceived corruptions of the Latin Church. It would also serve as a watch word to point to the pre-Schism Church of the Councils.
At this point we need to clarify the term “Protestant” because of the subtly of meaning. After the rather disastrous second Diet of Speyer in 1529, a group of Lutheran Princes and Bishops appealed to the Emperor to continue the promised settlement of the First Diet. In particular they wished for the continued toleration of both Lutheran and Roman Churches in the Empire, and to keep the Calvinists and Anabaptists out of any form of recognition. Their “protest” lent it’s self to the Magisterial Reformation of the Lutherans who followed the leadership of Phillip Melanchthon. The two words are used almost interchangeably, with the so called “Old Lutherans” preferring the term Evangelical and the High Church Lutherans the term “Protestant.” Eventually the term came to be applied to those Lutherans who would object to the recognition of the Reformed Church’s legitimacy within the Empire and the toleration of Anabaptists. These “Protestants” would insist upon the use of the Tradition of the Church, most particularly the Patristic writers before Gregory I, in the interpretation of the Scriptures. They would also cling more or less tightly to the Apostolic succession and the liturgies of the Church. These Catholic and Evangelical Christians would establish themselves in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Russia and Poland. The Evangelicals would take shape in Southern Germany and Switzerland.
In England, it is this idea of Evangelical and Catholic would take root, with a significant shift. Due to the Platonic focus of the University of Cambridge, there are those who took a slightly more Calvinist approach to the Reformation and so could be said to be more Reformed and Catholic. That is a very fine academic distinction, and one that is outside the exact lines of the work, but it will work it’s self out in the long run. Broadly speaking, by the rein of Elizabeth I there were four competing camps: The Protestant High Church, the Puritan Zwinglian/Reformed, the Lutheran Evangelicals, and the recalcitrant Roman Catholics.
This state of affairs would be fairly much the status quoe until the English Civil War of 1642-1651. When both the hard line Puritans and the Episcopalians leave the Westminster conference, the remaining Presbyterians continue their work and eventually absorb the few remaining Lutherans into their ranks. This would lead to the general idea in the English speaking world of an equivalency between the Lutheran and Reformed theological positions. It would also lead to the weird usage that allows us to speak of a Calvinist Evangelical. These Evangelical hybrids would be the Party in the 19th century. They would set the default “Low Church” position for centuries and would be known less for their doctrinal purity as on it’s firm attestation of the Lutheran maxim of “per venia unus per fides unus propter Sarcalogos unus” (“by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone”) as well as an adaptation of some basic Lutheran piety. While it has been argued that the Evangelicals where, and are, distinctly anti-intellectual, that was not the case. While there was a bias towards an experiential and affective life of faith, the 18th and 19th century evangelicals derived a tremendous amount of satisfaction and use via an embrace of Aristotelian models of logic and rhetoric, while scorning the attending metaphysics and out right abhorring the scholastic theology of the middle ages derived from them.
The Evangelicals were also notable for being the only part of the church that had any real energy. William Wilberforce, the British emancipator of the slaves, was an evangelical. It should be noted that the Wesley brothers came from the evangelical tradition of the Church of England and, merged with a more fully Lutheran appreciation of the Sacraments as means of grace, would attempt to renew Anglicanism from the inside.
The label Protestant was still fiercely clung to by the “High Church” party. It had been the label with which Arch Bishop Lawd would defend himself against the Puritans in his trial before the Rump Parliament. Indeed, the High Churchmen were convinced that this Protestant identity was part of the English life and liberty and it was essential to not only those ideals, but to the propagation of God’s Kingdom as well. They felt that they were the continuance of the Catholic and Apostolic faith, while the Bishop of Rome with his detestable enormities was the leader of what was, at best, an erring sister. The High Church looked to Hooker and Lawd for their theological positions as well as to writers such as Jeremy Taylor or the community Nicholas Ferrar and his family formed at Little Gidding. The poetry of George Herbert and the prayers of Lancelot Andrews were sprinkled in their sermons and devotions. This was a tradition that looked askance at strong emotions and held the affective and passionate suspect.
Additionally, the High Church was the Tory party at Prayer. Where as the ideas of reform were always Evangelical, and thus Whig, the High Church was firmly in the camp that supported the status quoe. Indeed, the early devotion to the Stuart line expressed by the Tories would find ultimate expression in the exodus of the non-jurors after the glorious Revolution. Early on, the High Churchmen would find themselves wandering in the wilderness as the House of Orange and the later Hanover monarchs would always hold them suspect. That the cult of King Charles the Martyr was always very popular with the High Church would never make them very popular with the Dynasty that replaced his grandson on the thrown.
Starting with the rein of William II and Mary II, and the subsequent emptying of much of the Episcopal Bench, the desire of the Crown was for a more or less docile Church that would operate as a department of State. Tot hat end Bishops were chosen less for their spiritual attributes as for their proven political loyalties and academic abilities. More oft than not, favorite tutors or professors of Prime Ministers and Kings would make their way to the House of Lords as Bishop if for no other reason than he threw a good end of term supper. This gave rise and shape to the Erastians. Named for an obscure Swiss theologian named Thomas Erastus, the principal idea was that the Church was subordinate to the State. Indeed, sin, dissension, and even heresy were to be defined by the State and punished under civil laws.
Theologically, they saw the authority of the Church as resting not upon scriptures, as the Evangelicals said, nor upon authority inherited by the Bishops from the Apostles, but upon the Crowns granting it. In other words, the authority in England to preach the Gospel and to celebrate the sacraments came from the king and Parliament. The questions of the proper order of the Church or upon theology were to be set by those authorities chiefly in accordance with the standards they saw fit. Some of the authority for this rested upon the idea of the Divine Right of Kings. Since God Himself had placed the monarch on the thrown the monarch had authority over God’s Church.
It was this Church and Nation that Keble addressed on that humid July afternoon in St Mary’s Church. She was rent by deep divisions and in some ways her members were more interested in refighting the theological and political battles of not so much the previous generation, but of the previous two centuries. She was also unable to face the world that was changing faster than anyone could have imagined. In its fundamental structure English life was pointed towards the agrarian population in the countryside. In theory, every village had a Parish Church and there would be an educated, married Priest in charge of each. In reality, many villages had to share a vicar and many more seldom, if ever, actually saw their clergy. An underpaid, over worked curate would tend to be the actual worker in the Parish, sending reports and the like to the holder of the living once month or so.
That term, “living,” may require some explanation. The term dates from the middle ages and refers to the moneys that existed to pay for the upkeep of the clergy in an area. Often these were very old endowments, dating back to the foundation of the parish church. More often than not, control of the appointment of the clergy to the local cure resided with the family or organization that had founded the parish Church, or some sort of heir. This meant that out of the roughly twelve thousand Church positions in the Kingdom, only about one thousand five hundred were under the direct purview of the local Bishops. In more than one place, in Wiltshire for example, there was a living, but neither church nor village. In cases such as this, a tent would be set up and the lucky clergyman would be inducted and say the office here, once as required by law, and would leave, never to visit that particular sheep pasture again. Families also had given livings to schools and colleges in order to fund their son’s ability to attend those institutions into posterity. Thee parishes would then be served by graduates of the school in question. The single largest holder of livings in the Kingdom was, much to people’s surprise, Eton. Old Etonian clergy could be found in every diocese and in many Cathedrals at least one cannon’s stall was owned by the school. There was neither rhyme nor reason to how anyone was paid as it depended upon the endowment, and the tithing, or taxation, of the locals. While non residency and the complications were bad enough in the country side, this paled in what they, and other issues, did in the growing cities.
The cities held, and in some ways still hold, a lesser place in the English mindset. The stereotype of the urban dweller was of a dirty, hurried person dishonest in his dealings and lazy. This was contrasted with the image of the honest, hard working Yeoman and peasant. Cities were alien and different. If one takes a careful look at the literature of the day, one discovers that cities are the settings for scenes of suffocating hypocrisy, vice and or deception. Additionally, there were very few parish Churches in any of the cities, in the industrial slums in particular. The parish churches of London, for example, were concentrated in and around the older and more established parts of the city. The newer tenements that grew up around these areas had no church unless they were in an area that already had a church when the neighborhood grew up. These Parishes were often unable to deal with the now overcrowded districts and were inadequate to deal with the influx of people. The rural bias of the Upper and middle classes, as well as the disproportionate power held by those in rural areas would ensure that there would be little attention paid to the conditions in the cities for several generations. While there was a small movement to provide livings for clergy in new parishes, the Bishops and local priests were resistant to dividing up the already scarce resources in the cities.
The entire Parish system was in need of repair, as was the entire vision of the Anglican Church as its self. The assumption was that if you were English you were a part of the Church of England. There was little to no reason for any sort of mission work since people would do their duty and go to the nearest Parish church just as their ancestors had done. This theory continued even in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary. To many the Church of England had stopped having any meaning, in particular in areas where there was little to no pastoral care. Methodists, Quakers, Baptists and to a lesser extant Presbyterians and Roman Catholics were all seeing a surge of membership because they offered more than duty and were actually reaching out to the people.
And so we find the Church of England in the mid nineteenth century: divided within, hidebound, intellectually inadequate, and spiritually bereft of meaning. The time was ripe for a renewal, or even a full on reformation of the Anglican way of doing things. Most people would admit that much, but no one was sure what to do. As we shall see the Whigs in Parliament would initiate several reforms and actions with an eye towards repairing the Church, but there was no real theological or philosophical direction. No one within the Church knew what to do, or could draw upon a principal to change things. The ship was becalmed as it where and you cannot steer a ship that isn’t moving. The first breeze of change would be found on July 14th 1833 when John Keble steps into the pulpit of St Mary’s Church and lobs a boulder into the still, almost stagnant, pond of the Anglican Establishment.

Newman's death uncovered

As we reported in The Sunday Times and on a previous blog, attempts to exhume Cardinal John Henry Newman have failed because there is no body there to exhume. Libby Purves is among those who welcomed the end they hoped this would bring to a 'ghoulish side-show'. All that remains of this great churchman are a few tassels from his cardinal's hat. This picture shows the sarcophagus that has been built in Italy and can no longer be used to house a non-existent body at the Birmingham Oratory, as had been intended. It has been built, it is in Italy and the Cause will announce next week what is to become of it.

Peter Jennings is the press officer for the cause and you can keep up to date with developments in the exclusive column he does for The Times faith page. He dug up the original report of the funeral from The Birmingham Post, the paper where I was indentured more than 25 years ago, which goes a little way towards explaining why the body had so completely decomposed:

The Post's report from Wednesday August 20 1890, ended: "When the rites had been achieved, the crowd without the gates was suffered to enter by batches and see the grave; and then the coffin was covered with mould of a softer texture than the marly stratum in which the grave is cut. "This was done in studious and affectionate fulfilment of a desire of Dr Newman's which some may deem fanciful, but which sprang from his reverence for the letter of the Divine Word; which, as he conceived, enjoins us to facilitate rather than impede the operation of the law 'Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return'."

At The Times, one of the senior editors Rose Wild has also been working on this in her role as online archivist. She has dug up, as it were, the original Times obituary on Cardinal Newman, and the report on his funeral which we carried. She has written about this on her new archive blog.
Read the rest here.



At least we know that his final wishes will not be violated, in particular since it is all a part of the move by B16 to help undermine the Anglicans. Newman was never treated well by Rome, the Cardinal's hat was a consolation prize. The callus calculation to bring his cause out of the ecclesial backwater it had been regulated to at this juncture only underlines the fact that Newman still only serves as a way to prick the souls of Anglicans than be a model of any real devotion. It now looks like God has denied the Papacy to include the desecration of Blessed Newman's grave to the many indignities heaped on him, or the list detestable mendacity's of Rome.

"Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves; he was right about that, if about little else,"

- Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

I'll have more on his unfortunate words at Lourdes later. This almost makes me forgive him for such a slip.

Watch this Spot!

I'll be posting my first essay on the Tracterians here within the next 24 hours!

Let the Recriminations begin!

HOB Thursday


House of Bishops Daily Account Thursday, September 18
The House of Bishops is meeting in special session in Salt Lake City, Utah
(Diocese of Utah) September 17 – 19, 2008.
Today, the House of Bishops by a vote of 88 yes, 35 no, 4 abstentions
consented to the removal from the ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church Bishop
Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, by authorizing the Presiding Bishop to “depose”
Bishop Duncan.
The House of Bishops voted after lengthy deliberations, reflections and
discussions in both the morning and afternoon business sessions. This followed an
open discussion session on Wednesday evening. Throughout the discussions,
the gathering was quiet, prayerful and respectful as the bishops listened to
one another. There was a great appreciation for the beliefs and viewpoints of
the bishops from all perspectives. Ample time was provided for all bishops to
speak. It was clear that the bishops were aware of the weightiness of their
decision.
The vote to depose was not based on speculation about what might occur at
Pittsburgh’s upcoming diocesan convention. Rather, it was based on the evidence
of Bishop Duncan’s record of actions and statements, and was the culmination
of a process that began in 2007.
The evidence that was presented pursuant to Title IV, Canon 9 of the Canons
of The Episcopal Church, which provides that “an open renunciation of the
Doctrine, Discipline, or Worship of this Church” constitutes “Abandonment of
the Communion of This Church.”
By the action of a majority of the House of Bishops, it was agreed that
Bishop Duncan was actively attempting to remove the Episcopal Diocese of
Pittsburgh from the Episcopal Church in violation of the Constitutions and Canons of
the Diocese and the Episcopal Church. The majority concluded that Bishop
Duncan’s actions constituted a renunciation of the Discipline of the Episcopal
Church.
Evidence of abandonment of communion was presented to a Church body known as
the Title IV Review Committee from clergy and laity of the Diocese of
Pittsburgh and the Presiding Bishop in November 2007. On December 17, 2007 the
Title IV Review Committee presented its report to the Presiding Bishop.
As a member of the House of Bishops, Bishop Duncan was expected to attend
this HOB meeting and had the opportunity to address the assertion that he had
abandoned the communion. However, he chose not to do so.
This daily account was prepared by bishops who cast their votes on different
sides. Their personal comments are noted here. Those available for media
interviews are noted.
Bishop Dorsey Henderson of Upper South Carolina is available for phone
interviews. “This is one of the most somber, sober experiences I’ve had in the
House of Bishops. It is a time for all of us to be praying for each other—
especially for Bishop Duncan and the Episcopalians of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
”
Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia is available for phone interviews.
Bishop Gary Lillibridge of West Texas
“As difficult as this decision is for me and many others in our Church, it
is important to realize that the decision in the House today was not based on
the theological convictions of Bishop Duncan, but rather on the evidence
presented regarding statements and actions concerning moves to take the Diocese
of Pittsburgh out of the Episcopal Church.”.

Bishop James Mathes of San Diego
“Today’s decision was difficult and emotional but a necessary action to
care for the order of the Church, the people of the Episcopal Diocese of
Pittsburgh, and the collegiality of the House of Bishops.”
Bishop Porter Taylor of Western North Carolina
“Our decisions today were very difficult and came out of our deep love for
our Church, a commitment to honor our ordination vows, and a desire to
strengthen the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

In your mercy, please pray for the repose of the soul of Margret Fielding, one of Wes' "spare" sisters.
She lost her battle with cancer on Wednesday and is being buried this afternoon.
We are on our way to Texas this evening for the memorial service tomorrow.

Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

We may have Spoken To Soon.

It seems we spoke to soon about good ol' Benedict XVI.
Now, I am not one of those who thinks that he is evil. Rather I think he's playing the radical traditionalists (Rad Trads) in the Roman communion like a fiddle.What he doesn't say is far more telling than what he dose. He has this tendency to give to the rad trads with one hand and take with the other. For example:

"You all want the Tridentine Mass? Fine, but you can only use it under these rules, and it is now defined as NOT the normative Mass."

"No women clergy!" But no reason other than Papal authority in the statement. No mention of the "fitness" of women or anything like that. The question has been freed up for future Popes.

He has also, finally, thrown a lasso around that bucking bronco that is the American RC's tendency to act as if the Mass ala a Peter Paul and Mary concert will pack the kids in. If nothing else, we may have seen the end of Polyester Butterfly chausables. If for no other reason, he may have earned canonization.

With that said, Damian Thompson, the editor in chief of the catholic herald, has this to say:

The Catholic Church will expand its provision of "Anglican Use" parishes in the United States in order to allow whole communities of traditionalist Anglicans into the Roman fold, a senior Catholic archbishop has announced.

The Most Rev John J Myers, Archbishop of Newark and Ecclesiastical Delegate for the Pastoral Provision, told a conference of ex-Anglicans on Friday that "we are working on expanding the mandate of the Pastoral Provision [of Catholic parishes using Anglican-inspired services] to include those clergy and faithful of 'continuing Anglican communities'.

"We are striving to increase awareness of our apostolate to Anglican Christians who desire to be reconciled with the Holy See. We have experienced the wonder of several Episcopal bishops entering into full communion with the Catholic Church and we continue to receive requests from priests and laity about the Pastoral Provision."

You can read the rest of his thoughts on his blog here.

This makes me wounder exactly what the old boy is playing at? I still have a hard time with the idea he takes Anglo-Catholics all that seriously, in particular those who come over. If you read the rest of Mr. Thompsons Blog you'll see what I mean about a distrust and distaste for these guys in the Roman World.

Things are going to be interesting.

Anyway, happy Our Lady of Mt Carmel day. Don't watch the EWTN Mass on the repeat tonight if you'd like to hear a good sermon on the feast though.

Pope rides to Rowan's rescue

Exclusive: Vatican shuns defectors and backs calls for Anglican unity

By James Macintyre, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Wednesday, 16 July 2008


The Pope is leading an unprecedented drive by the Roman Catholic Church to prevent the fragmentation of the worldwide Anglican Communion ahead of the once-a-decade gathering of its 800 bishops, which begins today, The Independent has learnt.

In his first public comments on the Lambeth Conference, Pope Benedict XVI has warned Anglican leaders that they must find a "mature" and faithful way of avoiding "schism". On top of this the Pope has:

* Sent three cardinals to the conference in Canterbury, including one of his top aides from the Vatican, to act as personal intermediaries between the two churches;

* Let it be known that he does not support the defection of conservative Anglicans to the Roman Catholic Church;

* Given behind-the-scenes support to the Archbishop of Canterbury's attempts to hold together the conservative and liberal wings of the Anglican Church, including at face-to-face meetings in Rome.

Read the rest here

One can imagine that this will not be well received in some quarters. I also think that this is in no small part because he's already facing complaints about married Clergy in the Latin Rite. I also think that what ever plans he really has for the future of the Roman Church would only be complicated by a pack of priests who have a proven track record of not wanting to go along with a program if it doesn't match what they want exactly.

Cardinal Newman to be reinterred in preparation for sainthood

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

The Vatican has ordered that the body of Cardinal Newman, the Church of England’s most renowned convert to Roman Catholicism, be exhumed and reinterred in a marble sarcophagus, where it can be more easily venerated by the faithful.

The Causes of Saints wants the remains of John Henry Newman, who died in 1890, to be moved from a secluded cemetery and placed in the Birmingham Oratory, part of the English Oratory movement that he founded.

The declaration, expected in December, could coincide with the announcement of a new deal for English traditionalists who want to “go over” to Rome with their congregations in protest at moves to consecrate women bishops in the Church of England.

The Cardinal, already a Venerable, is expected to take the next step up the ladder to sainthood this year when Pope Benedict XVI declares him “Blessed”. He would be the ideal saint for converts to Rome. He was the founder of the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement revival in the 19th century and advocated a “via media” for the Church of England. But eventually he could no longer walk it himself and was received by Rome in 1845, and created a cardinal eventually.

read the rest at the Times.

Well, the homophobia and need to gaudy display by Rome as it pens it's doors to their soon to be converts overcomes poor J.H. Newman's wish to buried in the same grave with Ambrose St James.

Assize day

175 years ago today the Rev. John Keble preached a sermon to Assize Court while it was sitting in Oxford.
This was not an extraordinary event. The Church of England is the Establish Church of the Kingdom and the preacher was one of the most renown Churchmen of his era. He was only the second person in the History of Oxford to achieve a "Double First" and was the Professor of Poetry.

What was exceptional was the content of the sermon. He, against all precedent since the 17th century, preached a sermon with content.

The first two paragraphs of the Sermon follows:

On public occasions, such as the present, the minds of Christians naturally revert to that portion of Holy Scripture, which exhibits to us the will of the Sovereign of the world in more immediate relation to the civil and national conduct of mankind. We naturally turn to the Old Testament, when public duties, public errors, and public dangers, are in question. And what in such cases is natural and obvious, is sure to be more or less right and reasonable. Unquestionably it is mistaken theology, which would debar Christian nations and statesmen from the instruction afforded by the Jewish Scriptures, under a notion, that the circumstances of that people were altogether peculiar and unique, and therefore irrelevant to every other case. True, there is hazard of misapplication, as there is whenever men teach by example. There is peculiar hazard, from the sacredness and delicacy of the subject; since dealing with things supernatural and miraculous as if they were ordinary human precedents, would be not only unwise, but profane. But these hazards are more than counterbalanced by the absolute certainty, peculiar to this history, that what is there commended was right, and what is there blamed, wrong. And they would be effectually obviated, if men would be careful to keep in view this caution:—suggested everywhere, if I mistake not, by the manner in which the Old Testament is quoted in the New:—that, as regards reward and punishment, God dealt formerly with the Jewish people in a manner analogous to that in which He deals now, not so much with Christian nations, as with the souls of individual Christians.

Let us only make due allowances for this cardinal point of difference, and we need not surely hesitate to avail ourselves, as the time may require, of those national warnings, which fill the records of the elder Church: the less so, as the discrepancy lies rather in what is revealed of God's providence, than in what is required in the way of human duty. Rewards and punishments may be dispensed, visibly at least, with a less even hand; but what tempers, and what conduct, god will ultimately reward and punish,—this is a point which cannot be changed: for it depends not on our circumstances, but on His essential, unvarying Attributes.

I have ventured on these few general observations, because the impatience with which the world endures any remonstrance on religious grounds, is apt to show itself most daringly, when the Law and the Prophets are appealed to. Without any scruple or ceremony, men give us to understand that they regard the whole as obsolete: thus taking the very opposite ground to that which was preferred by the same class of persons two hundred years ago; but, it may be feared, with much the same purpose and result. Then, the Old Testament was quoted at random for every excess of fanatical pride and cruelty : now, its authority goes for nothing, however clear and striking the analogies may be, which appear to warrant us in referring to it. The two extremes, as usual, meet ; and in this very remarkable point : that they both avail themselves of the supernatural parts of the Jewish revelation to turn away attention from that, which they, of course, most dread and dislike in it: its authoritative confirmation of the plain dictates of conscience in matters of civil wisdom and duty.

The entire text is here.



This is generally seen as the beginning of the Oxford Movement. It would trigger the Tracts for the Times under the editorship of John H. Newman and caused a stir that lasts to this day. The Movement was defined by it's belief in the catholic heritage of the Church of England and her daughter churches, it's adherence to the Church Fathers and a distrust of evangelicals and "enthusiasts" alike. They were dedicated to expanding the missionary impulse of the Church and to reenergize the moribund Establishment. The current shape of the Book of Common Prayer for the Episcopal Church relates to the work of the Movement, as do the Prayer Books of most of the Anglican communion.

In light of the anniversary and the upcoming Lambeth Conference (another piece of the legacy of the Movement), many are spending an hour in prayer for the continuance of the Movement and the health of the Anglican Communion.

The Hidden History of Women's Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West

Hat tip to Mark Harris over at PRELUDIUM

I want this book!
I also suggest that anyone interested in the topic do so as well. A few of my readers might want to send it to colleges of theirs.

The Blurb on the book follows:

"The Roman Catholic leadership still refuses to ordain women officially or even to recognize that women are capable of ordination. But is the widely held assumption that women have always been excluded from such roles historically accurate?

In the early centuries of Christianity, ordination was the process and the ceremony by which one moved to any new ministry (ordo) in the community. By this definition, women were in fact ordained into several ministries. A radical change in the definition of ordination during the eleventh and twelfth centuries not only removed women from the ordained ministry, but also attempted to eradicate any memory of women's ordination in the past. The debate that accompanied this change has left its mark in the literature of the time. However, the triumph of a new definition of ordination as the bestowal of power, particularly the power to confect the Eucharist, so thoroughly dominated western thought and practice by the thirteenth century that the earlier concept of ordination was almost completely erased. The ordination of women, either in the present or in the past, became unthinkable.

References to the ordination of women exist in papal, episcopal and theological documents of the time, and the rites for these ordinations have survived. Yet, many scholars still hold that women, particularly in the western church, were never "really" ordained. A survey of the literature reveals that most scholars use a definition of ordination that would have been unknown in the early middle ages. Thus, the modern determination that women were never ordained, Macy argues, is a premise based on false terms.

Not a work of advocacy, this important book applies indispensable historical background for the ongoing debate about women's ordination. "

I'm thinking, and if anyone out there is reading this, do respond, what exactly is the nature of "catholicity?"
I mean is it to be Creedal? Or is it more along the lines of the Lambeth Quadrilateral? Or is it something else?

Give me a hint folks! Or am I back to speaking into the void?

Somebody explain to me why the English Anglo-Catholics think Rome is going to welcome them with open arms?
I mean I now understand that they have adopted a magical realism view of Apostolicae curae and can eve side step Ad Tuendam Fidem and wear blinders when it comes to the recent statement from the Vatican about them being the only "true" Church. What gets me is the desperation when you bring it all up and present it as a seamless garment, as it were. The anger and wild eyed denials is beyond me.

Dr Rowan Williams stands tall in the Church

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones
The Guardian


It was a little after half past ten when the Archbishop of Canterbury shuffled up the steps of the pulpit in York Minster to address the hushed congregation.

After six years in the post, this could well become a defining moment for Dr Rowan Williams - the time when the real Archbishop appeared before his Church.

He has been weighed down by the crises that have engulfed the Anglican communion virtually ever since his arrival at Lambeth - pulled this way and that by the warring factions in the battles over homosexuality and women bishops.

Today, however, he grew in stature as the sermon went on, emerging by the end of it as the leader that the Anglican communion so desperately needs - compassionate yet direct and vulnerable yet firm.

Referring to the story of Joseph being thrown down into a waterless pit and left for dead by his brothers, the archbishop attempted to reach out to all those, in and outside the Church, who feel deserted.

In a sermon charged with emotion and feeling, but delivered with poise and unflinching stoicism, he set out his inclusive, all embracing vision for the Church.

"What would Jesus do is a good question to ask," he said. "Where would Jesus be is just as good.

"Who would Jesus be with? He is going to be with those who feel the waterlessness of their position.

"With those traditionalists feeling the Church is falling away from them.

"He will be with those in a very different part of the landscape who feel that things are closing in, that their position is under threat, that their liberties are being taken away by those anxious and eager to enforce their ideologies in the name of Christ."

There has been much grandstanding and posturing, talk of defection and challenges to the archbishop's leadership, but in a couple of sentences he rose above all of that.

He was reassuring the traditionalists opposed to women bishops that they would not be isolated and offering his support to those who feel threatened by fundamentalism on both sides of the different debates.

But he went further: "He will be with the gay clergy who wonder what their future is in a Church so anxious and tormented about this issue."

It is a shame that extending support to homosexuals in the Church should be a bold move, but it was and the Minster's congregation knew that; particularly considering that conservative Anglicans have just formed a rival church in response to the liberal attitude of the Western churches on the issue.

However, Dr Williams is not going to be cowed anymore into trying to appease everyone. That was what came across from his sermon.

He has done his best to keep everyone within the Anglican fold since he was made Archbishop, but now he is going to say what he thinks. And what he feels.

The Church shouldn't be just about issues, but about people, he seemed to say.

In what many read as a poignant tribute to his best man, a journalist who recently committed suicide, he made this case powerfully.

"He [Jesus] will be with those people in the press gallery who are trying to keep their minds on their business while dealing with any number of complex personal issues, who may be afflicted by private anxieties, grief, and losses that will never be noticed by those who take them for granted as they go about their business."

By the end of his sermon many of the congregation were close to tears. Others were celebrating that the archbishop seemed like a man transformed.

Yesterday, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, rallied to the defence of his friend and colleague, saying that the "ungracious" attacks by conservative Anglicans on Dr Williams had "grieved" him deeply.

He was offering him a hand to climb out of the "waterless pit" that his Anglican "brothers" have put him in.

Today, the Church saw a leader, who seemed freed and who is now standing tall.

Feeling Grumpy.
I'm trying to work around a thought for a book about the Tracterians and the Spirituality of Carmel. I think I've got a good "in" with Therese and Keble. Working from there.