Reaching out

At our Diocesan Synod this year, we passed a resolution to reach out to all who consider themselves orthodox or traditional Christians of goodwill with the purposes of establishing the highest degree of fellowship that mutual theological positions would allow. We rejoice in our agreement and seek to show love and respect in those areas where we disagree.

I, personally, find myself on good terms with Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians alike and that is truly wonderful and I hope that we will find common ground and mutual, prayerful support.

There are other groups, too. I do count Archbishop Jerome Lloyd as a friend from the Old Roman Catholic Church. He is one of the successors of Bishop Arnold Harris Mathew, and is doing great things not only in this country but in developing traditional Catholic ministry in the Philippines.

Sadly, there does not seem to be much contact with the Traditional Anglican Church in the UK despite the greater concord among the G3 Continuing Anglican Churches. My worry there is that often the people have moved from one of the TAC or ACC to the other out of soured relationships and so the impetus to establish contact is rather thwarted.

The Free Church of England and the Church of England (Continuing) exist, of course, but they not enamoured of our strictly Catholic interpretation of Anglican liturgy and our distance from the classical Anglican Formularies. Indeed, we have lost two parishes to the Free Church of England: these parishes preferred a more Protestant and less liturgically rigourous environment. Nonetheless, we wish them all well in their conversation with Our Lord.

What we have lost, we have gained in St Osmund's Dudley in which the new parish priest is ministering to adherents of the Sarum Use and those Roman Catholics who have been disenfranchised by recent developments in Roman Catholic order and practice.

My hope, then, is that despite our size, we might prove ourselves as prayerful friends to all who find themselves disenfranchised or forced out by elements that would seek to change the Church according to the winds of politics and poor conceptions of social justice.