Again, Fr Anthony's detractor has laid into him in an appalling personal attack and character assassination. I doubt that Fr Anthony will dignify this person with a response. The main problem is that crucial facts that this person has published on his blog are manifestly not true.
It seems that this detractor may have degrees in English but, quite frankly, he has seemingly little education in logic, argumentation or Christian charity. Preoccupied with a quixotic (though with less chivalry) obsession with destroying the Ordinariate and Continuing Anglicanism, he has forgotten people and the love of his neighbour. I mentioned him at the altar this morning so that he might receive God's grace of sight.
The fact is that this person does not know Fr Anthony; he knows only the dreck that is reported to him through his "correspondent". I do know Fr Anthony. I have not only met him, but I have served High Mass with him, eaten with him and conversed with him. Once lines of communication are established one really begins to understand the depth of who Fr Anthony is, and it is worth taking that time.
With regards to his spiritual journey, Fr Anthony will be the first to agree that it has been a complicated path. I am aware of some issues in his ordination history but, by and large, he brings with him a wealth of experience and wisdom that few possess, and which he has acquired through hard graft. His ordination history does not bother me. If he is saying Mass and contributing to our Diocese, is it really any of my business what there is in his past?
His detractor would have none of this. All he sees is hearsay and fake news and uses it to disregard all arguments that are put forward. I notice that he does this to everyone who challenges his point of view.
And what if he tries it with me? Well, he will dismiss me wholesale. To him, I am a heretic with invalid orders. That's his problem, not mine. If he tries to assassinate my character, it would be a waste of his time. I am small fry, of no reputation, of no significance in the Church whatsoever. To God, I am worth something or I would not exist. The same is true about Fr Anthony and his detractor, though the latter forgets this in spades. I'm not speaking as a priest, though that is what I am - Apostolicae Curae is flawed as even Roman Catholics are beginning to see - I am rather speaking as a Christian first and foremost. I'm afraid that it the attitude of this detractor that makes me disinclined ever to swim the Tiber. That won't matter to him, though. I am clearly not his neighbour, nor is Fr Anthony.
As a former schoolmaster, Fr Anthony's detractor disappoints me intellectually in providing posts which are as much beneath his dignity as they are beneath Fr Anthony's. I suggest that he learns to be a human being again.
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Many thanks, Father, for this apologia. Bruce doesn't have a fraction of the intelligence or creative writing of Charles Kingsley, but a little under the level of bigotry and hatred of anything Catholic. He projects his Protestantism (Presbyterian) onto the RC Church and must be rejoicing that the Reformation is completed. That seems to be the basis of his ideology, and my having "outed" him has made him furious, and his only response is an "ad hominem" attack which is pathetic.
I gave up the episcopate for precisely the reason of wanting to serve the Church - in 2005 when I joined +Hepworth. For JB there is no forgiveness. I hope his paradigm wins out and brings about a dystopia like the Republic of Gideon, and then there would be the hope that the Church would rise gloriously from the New Goliards who will have revolted against the system. He would have his Topcliffe and torture chambers. From his writing, I see a psychopath set on destruction, nothing loving or consoling, nothing human or spiritual, just The Book. That is John Bruce. May he be a lesson to us all.
I leave him with my blessing and prayers, that he may face Karma for his own words and acts, and that God will judge him as he judged others. I am sure he is petrified by the thought of death!
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