Married Bishops in Rome?
The precise detail of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coebitus has been published. (In case you were asleep, this is the opening made by the Catholic Church for Anglicans to become part of the Catholic communion)
Reactions have been offered all over the place. Ruth Gledhill at the Times notices that former Anglican Bishops, even though they are married, may become "Bishops in all but name"; Graham Kings, though, notes the particular differences between Anglicanorum Coebitus and existing arrangements that have been in place for some time in the USA – pointing out that this new arrangement has required a change in Roman canon law. Graham Kings wonders whether the propsect of re-confirmation and re-ordination (implying a non-recognition of Anglican rites) may actually put many people off. But his most interesting comment is this:
The debates in the Church of England in the 1940s concerning the validity of orders of the Church of South India
were too often an externalization of an internal debate between
Anglican traditions: the same may well be happening in the Vatican's
varying responses to the Anglican Communion.
And Bishop John Broadhurst, "flying" Bishop and Chairman of Forward in Faith, made another interesting comment:
"What Rome has done is
offer exactly what the Church of England has refused. Indeed it has
offered the requests of 'Consecrated Women' with the completion of its
ecumenical hopes. We all need now to ask the question 'is this what we
want?' For some of us I suspect our bluff is called!".
Meantime, Carl Gardner, who calls himself an Apostate from Rome, asserts that the whole shebang is about an objection to women and gays; he is in a degree of disbelief that all other issues (like doctrine, or tradition) can be compromised over these two issues.
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Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
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