Calculating the Cost of Infallibility II: Fogey forces the fence.

Well, first a thank you to Young Fogey who has forced my hand on this issue. I do need to think about it because it is a central and difficult claim that is made by the Holy See. Am I an Anglican Papalist if I do not accept the Infallibility of the Pope?

I confess that I find it difficult. Infallibility means that when you ask for the Truth in a matter, the correct answer is always given, like the calculator I describe below. Thus Papal Infallibility means that when a question arises about the truth of doctrine, the Pope is capable of uttering that truth without error.

I don't see that as much of a problem. The Church is infallible, and there must be a way for that infallibility to be expressed definitively. It makes sense then that the definitive and united voice of that infallibility should be the head of the Church, the successor to St Peter. I accept it because I accept the Holy See as being the One True Church. I am therfore bound by the teachings of the Church. This does not mean that I do not have doubts and difficulties with what she teaches - I am only human, despite what my pupils may say!

So why am I vacillating as usual?

To be honest, the source of my indecision lies in my Anglican scepticism. Non-Papal Anglicanism and the Orthodox churches do not accept this doctrine of Infallibility, and Anglicanism is very much a part of me. As I intimate below, it is the conditions of Infallibility that perplex me. If Anglican Orders are null and void then clearly Papal Infallibility works because (as Young Fogey comments) members of the Anglican Church are still members of the One True Church but not as a corporation, rather as individuals, thus Rome does not have to consult Canterbury in order to establish whether a doctrine has been truly established by the Church and thus may be Infallibly pronounced. If Anglican Orders are not null and void then there is a problem. And quite where do the Orthodox Churches whose orders are recognised fit in?

On the real face of it, the practicality of Papal Infallibility is not problematic. There have only been two Infallible statements, both concerning the nature of Our Lady, namely the Immaculate Conception and her Assumption, neither of which cause major problems with in Roman and Easter relations, and I suspect that the majority of Anglican Catholics (or Catholic Anglicans) may only really disagree with them on the grounds that they were Infallibly pronounced. Another cause for me to doubt is the authentic faith and theological integrity of the Protestant Catholics like Fr. Hart, who ask difficult and challenging questions, and challenge the claims of Roman Dogma.

It is only the idea of Infallibility that is irksome, that one Bishop has a precedence over the rest. I would certainly be more comfortable if there were twelve Patriarchs each holding a See founded, like Rome, by one holding a direct succession to one of the original Twelve which held council and then Infallible statements uttered by their chief, the successor of St Peter. However, the Church doesn't exist to make me comfortable, but rather to ensure that I keep awake and thinking.

So critics of Anglican Papalism will say "Aha, you hold to Papal Infallibility. That means unless you secede immediately, you are in mortal sin." I have already confessed my need for Rome. I am repenting, meaning that I am turning around and making my way there, dragging behind me the entirety of my Anglican tradition which remains utterly valid in the faith, and possesses an integrity that Rome needs. It is heavy and my progress will be slow, and like an ant trying to make off with the Shroud of Turin singlehandedly, I'm going to have a tough time. But confess, repent, and be absolved, that is the Catholic formula for reconciliation which I believe I am following.

Calculating the cost of Infallibility

Situation A: Your calculator has a missing digit, the number 9. The number does come up on the display rather well, but you can't press 9 to bring it up because the button isn't there. You can make any calculation you like still, and the calculator will still give you the right answer. You might just have to store 8+1 in the memory or something like that. It works perfectly well. It tells the full truth, to all intents and purposes it is intact, but clearly there is something missing.

Question 1: is the 9 key necessary?
Question 2: is the calculator complete?

Situation B: Your calculator has all its keys intact, all the digits, all the operations including the mysterious button marked "!" (Perhaps you know what that's for.) However, the 9 key offends you in some way. Perhaps it's sticky or squeaks or calls you "big nose" every time you press it. Perhaps it offends you to the extent that you refuse to use it. The calculator is absolutely complete. Again, it will do any calculation you give it. Again, perhaps you've even stored 8+1 into its memory so that you do not have to press that disgusting 9 button. It is a working calculator and gives the true answer.

Question 1: is this calculator any different from a calculator without a 9 button?
Question 2: how infallible is a calculator when there is an objection as to which buttons can be pressed?

It's this last question which intrigues me here. A calculator is always reliable - it is the operator who is not. The calculator will only ever answer truthfully the question it is asked, but if you ask the wrong question, then the answer the calculator gives you will be of no use, and indeed misleading. If one then has an objection as to how that calculator is to be used then that will limit both the questions that can be asked and the interpretation of the result.

Now consider:

(From the First Vatican Council,)we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when:in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable.

There's an issue here that bugs me. Is there an equation of church and christianity here or not?

As an Orthodox Anglican, am I part of the Church? I know that the Holy See regards me as a Christian from paragraph 818 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, the same paragraph suggests that I am not regarded as a member of the Church, but a "brother in the Lord". It looks rather ambiguous to me. If the (Orthodox) Anglican Church is Christian and included within the Holy See then the Holy Father is indeed our teacher and shepherd and thus his infallible statements apply to us, but then are we excluded from Communion because there is no uniform acceptance of the Infallibility (not authority) of the Pope? That was not why the Schism happened, and Infallibility has only been expressed since Vatican I. So why are we excluded from Communion?

If we are excommunicate then we are not part of the Body of Christ, i.e. the Church. But then we cannot be Christians, because a Christian necessarily belongs to the Church. However, the Catechism calls us Christians, so are we in the Church?

If we are in the Church, then the Pope is not infallible because that is not what the Anglican Church or the Orthodox churches have accepted following the Vincentian Canon.

If we are not in the Church, but are Christians (though how that works escapes me) then the Pope cannot make Infallible statements which apply to all Christians because they only apply to the Church according to the statement of the first Vatican Council.

If we are not Christians, then Rome contradicts herself in her own Catechism.

The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is indeed infallible. It is only when we start to disregard parts of it because they offend us that the answers to our search become distorted and lose coherence, just like taking umbrage against the number 9 on the calculator. If the Pope is infallible (I certainly accept his authority, but I have yet to be convinced of infallibility) then he can only be so when he regards the (Orthodox) Anglican Church and the Orthodox Church as part of his consideration as and when he makes infallible pronouncements. There have been only two which I consider within my conscience to be very much the correct doctrine. That's not private judgement, Cardinal Newman spoke very highly of the importance of the individual conscience.

Infallibility of the Pope after consultation?

Possible.

With respect to respect.

I'm missing preparing sermons. I'm on Sabbatical, and truth be told, it will be sometime before I'm preaching in church again. Preparing a sermon is important for me as I find another way of getting close to God. So, here's one yet unpreached.

Sermon based on St Mark xi.27-xii.12


Which is the most respectable profession?


Indeed, do we have respectable professions anymore?


A stomach complaint.


A trip to a large Victorian house,
spending half-an-hour sitting
in a bleak waiting room with ancient posters
extolling "Digging for victory"
or "Keep Mum, she's not so dumb."


A nod from the receptionist.


An invitation into a large wood-panelled room
smelling vaguely of carbolic soap.

In the chair behind the desk sits the doctor
- a formidable gentleman dressed in
three piece suit,
fob watch,
half-moon spectacles.

"What seems to be the problem?"

A lolly-stick down the throat and an "aahh" later,
you are sent out with a piece of paper
bearing indecipherable hieroglyphics which
would tax the most ardent of Egyptologists
to the chemist,
who obviously has a skill for translation
far surpassing
the most ardent of Egyptologists!

There is no quibble with the diagnosis.

There is no "can I have a second opinion?"

There is no threat of a lawsuit because the
medicine tastes like bluebottles in meths.

A doctor used to have respect.

Gone also are the unquestionable judgements
of the teacher clad in mortarboard and gown.

Gone is the pious parish parson
whose life has now been turned upside down
by the demands of petulant parishioners
for this that and the other.


Why has respect for these folk evaporated?


[PAUSE]

"More disrespect!

Won't they ever understand?"

Kesil helps Rachab back to his feet,
trying to wipe the blood from his nose
and see just how badly his friend is hurt.

"They just keep coming," says Rachab
dazed and distressed by the whole experience,
"there was nothing I could do to stop them.
They won't listen to me!"

"There's no reasoning with such people, Rachab,"
says Kesil sitting his badly beaten friend
on a convenient rock
while binding
a large cut on his arm with a strip of cloth
torn from his robe.

"They work to a different agenda.

They just do not see the truth of the matter.

If they would just let us do what we have to do,
the vineyard would be so much better
for everyone.

They have no respect for our authority."

"I don't know why.

It's not as if we're being unreasonable.

We’re just doing our job.

We’re good at our job, aren’t we?

Indeed, this is how the master wants it to be.

You saw the letter,
you read his words didn't you?"

Rachab nods,
"Most of it is as clear as day,
though some bits are a bit vague on the details,
but we managed to work it out.

It said that we had
the master’s full authority in the matter.

We’re in the right, so don’t doubt it, Kesil.

However, that's seven servants who have
been shown the door in unpleasant ways.

Don’t worry my friend,
they’ll get what’s coming to them
for their disrespect.”

“Indeed,” says Kesil, “only next time,
don’t try and throw them out
of the vineyard single-handedly.

Wait for the rest of us to get there
so that we can give them the hiding that they deserve.

When will they understand that
we know what’s best for the vineyard?

We run the show and
we do not need anyone else to
tell us how to raise our good crop
or interfere with it in anyway.

The master is abroad and he has left us in charge.
That’s what the letter says…
our way or the highway.”

“Oh, look. Here comes another one!

Isn't that the master's son?”

[PAUSE]

Does this help us understand
why professions which once had respect do so no longer?

Where was their authority
and where is it now?

There are those who demand respect,
and those who deserve respect.

And in this situation, the Lord Himself says
"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's,
and unto God that which is God's."

Give respect to those who demand it,
but at the end of the game all the pieces
go back in the box
and what do they have left?

Give respect to God,
and that will be eternally
recognised.

Where is God's authority in our society?

Is it evident in your parish?

Romancing the Catholics?

What is the difference between an Anglican Papalist and a Romaniser?

Fr. Brooke Lunn explains that a Romanizer is "a person esp. an Anglican, who favours or adopts the practices of the Roman Catholic church... Thus Anglican Papalism is not to be confused with Romanizers. The former belongs in the realm of ideas, the latter in the real of phenomena. The phenomena of Romanizers are relatively easy to perceive. The idea of Anglican Papalism requires much more application in order to begin to comprehend it."

He goes on to mention, "Anglican Papalists recognise both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in England as rightfully claiming descent from the undivided Church in England before the sixteenth century schism." (emphasis mine)

I don't pretend to be learned enough to understand all the fine theological wranglings of the 16th Century - to be honest I don't have all that much time. I believe strongly that there are some very strong orthodox threads which connect pre-Reformation and post-Reformation Anglicanism. However, that doesn't justify the split that occurred, nor keeping the split going. As I say, Anglican Papalism shouldn't exist; we are merely a means to an end.

Below I post the Tridentine Creed. Tridentine Anglican Papalism sees this as the document containing the essentials that need to be discussed and debated over before doctrinal agreements are made. Modern Anglican Papalism would take the key text to be the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It's a text that I intend to study at length and I hope in the future to post one or two of my musings on the teachings therein.

The Tridentine Creed.

How far can you go with this?

Ego N. firma fide credo et profiteor omnia et singula, quae continentur in Symbolo, quo Sancta Romana ecclesia utitur, videlicet:

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium. Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula. Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri; per quem omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est, et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, et ascendit in caelum, sedet ad dexteram Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis. Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas. Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam. Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.

Apostolicas et ecclesiasticas traditiones reliquasque eiusdem ecclesiae observationes et consitutiones firmissime admitto et amplector.

Item sacram Scripturam iuxta sensum eum, quem tenuit et tenet sancta mater Ecclesia, cuius et iudicare de vero sensu et interpretatione sacrarum Scripturarum, admitto, nec eam umquam nisi iuxta unanimem consensum Patrum accipiam et interpretabor.

Profiteor quoque septem esse vere et proprie Sacramenta novae legis, a Iesu Christo Domino nostro instituta, atque ad salutem humani generis, licet non omnia singulis, necessaria: scilicet Baptismum, Confirmationem, Eucharistiam, Poenitentiam, Extremam Unctionem, Ordinem et Matrimonium, illaque gratiam conferre, et ex his Baptismum, Confirmationem et Ordinem sine sacrilegio reiterari non posse.

Receptos quoque et approbatos ecclesiae catholicae ritus in supradictorum omnium Sacramentorum solemni administratione recipio et admitto.

Omnia et singula, quae de peccato originali et de iustificatione in sacrosancta Tridentina Synodo definita et declarata fuerunt, amplector et recipio.

Profiteor pariter, in Missa oferri Deo verum, proprium et propitiatorium sacrificium pro vivis et defunctis, atque in sanctissimo Eucharistiae Sacramento esse vere, realiter et substantialiter Corpus et Sanguinem, una cum anima et divinitate Domini nostri Iesu Christi, fierique conversionem totius substantiae panis in Corpus at totius substantiae vini in Sanguinem, quam conversionem Ecclesia catholica transsubstantiationem appellat. Fateor etiam sub altera tantum specie totum atque integrum Christum verumque Sacramentum sumi.

Constanter teneo, purgatorium esse, animasque ibi detentas fidelium suffragiis iuvari. Similiter et Sanctos, una cum Christo regnantes, venerandos atque invocandos esse, eosque orationes Deo pro nobis offerre, atque eorum reliquias esse venerandas.

Firmissime assero, imagines Christi ac Deiparae semper Virginis, necnon aliorum Sanctorum habendas et retiendas esse, atque eis debitum honorem et venerationem impertiendum.

Indulgentiarum etiam potestatem a Christo in Ecclesia relictam fuisse, illarumque usu christiano populo maxime salutarem esse affirmo.

Sanctam catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam romanam omnium ecclesiarum matrem et magistram agnosco, Romanoque Pontifici, beati Petri, Apostolorum principis, successori, ac Iesu Christi Vicario, veram obedientiam spondeo ac iuro.

Cetera item omnia a sacris canonibus et oecumenicis Conciliis, ac praecipue a sacrosancta Tridentina Synodo, et ab oecumenico Concilio Vaticano tradita, definita et declarata, praesertim de Romani Pontificis primatu et infallibili magesterio indubitanter recipio ac profiteor; simulaque contraria omnia, atque haereses quascumque ab Ecclesia damnatas et reiectas et anathematizatas ego pariter damno, reicio, et anathematizo.

Hanc veram catholicam fidem, extra quam nemo salvus esse potest, quam in praesenti sponte profiteor et veraciter teneo, eamdem integram, et inviolatam usque ad extremum vitae spiritum, constantissime, Deo adiuvante, retinere et confiteri, atque a meis subditis, vel illis, quorum cura ad me in munere meo spectabit, teneri, doceri et praedicari, quantum in me erit, curaturum, ego idem N. spondeo, voveo ac iuro. Sic me Deus adiuvet et haec sancta Dei Evangelia.

I, N, with a firm faith believe and profess each and everything which is contained in the Creed which the Holy Roman Church maketh use of. To wit:

I believe in one God, The Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God. Born of the Father before all ages. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. Begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father. By whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven. And became incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary: and was made man. He was also crucified for us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was buried. And on the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, and who spoke through the prophets. And one holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

I most steadfastly admit and embrace Apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other observances and constitutions of the Church.

I also admit the Holy Scripture according to that sense which our holy mother the Church hath held, and doth hold, to whom it belongeth to judge of the true sense and interpretations of the Scriptures. Neither will I ever take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

I also profess that there are truly and properly Seven Sacraments of the New Law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and necessary for the salvation of mankind, though not all for every one; to wit, Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders, and Matrimony; and that they confer grace; and that of these, Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders cannot be reiterated without sacrilege.

I also receive and admit the received and approved ceremonies of the Catholic Church in the solemn administration of the aforesaid sacraments.

I embrace and receive all and every one of the things which have been defined and declared in the holy Council of Trent concerning original sin and justification.

I profess, likewise, that in the Mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; and that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there is truly, really, and substantially, the Body and Blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood, which conversion the Catholic Church calls Transubstantiation. I also confess that under either kind alone Christ is received whole and entire, and a true sacrament.

I constantly hold that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls therein detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful. Likewise, that the saints, reigning together with Christ, are to be honored and invoked, and that they offer prayers to God for us, and that their relics are to be venerated.

I most firmly assert that the images of Christ, of the Mother of God, ever virgin, and also of other Saints, ought to be had and retained, and that due honor and veneration is to be given them.

I also affirm that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people.

I acknowledge the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church as the mother and mistress of all churches; and I promise true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ.

I likewise undoubtedly receive and profess all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred Canons, and general Councils, and particularly by the holy Council of Trent, and by the ecumenical Council of the Vatican, particularly concerning the primacy of the Roman Pontiff and his infallible teaching. I condemn, reject, and anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies which the Church hath condemned, rejected, and anathematized.

This true Catholic faith, outside of which no one can be saved, which I now freely profess and to which I truly adhere, inviolate and with firm constancy until the last breath of life, I do so profess and swear to maintain with the help of God. And I shall strive, as far as possible, that this same faith shall be held, taught, and professed by all those over whom I have charge. I N. do so pledge, promise, and swear, so help me God and these Holy Gospels.

The mark of Anglican-Papalism

It's the Anglican Papalists' week of the year! Yes, this is where we made our mark on the Liturgical Kalendar. Hooray for Frs. Coutourier, Jones and Wattson!

As an Anglo-Papalist, I do feel that the past year has proved very taxing, after all a) there aren't many of us left, b) our theology could stand some tidying up and c) we do not seem to be particularly well thought of either by Rome or by Anglo-Catholics who would rather we got off the fence and actually chose our jurisdiction. Personally, I'm not even sure the fence exists.

Against Anglo-Papalists, the main comment runs along the lines of:

"If you believe that the Roman Catholic Church possess the fullness, then according to their teaching you are in a state of mortal sin by delaying your Tiberian plunge yet another minute."

It's a good point, however to my unlearned mind, sin of any kind requires repentance - a turning back of the soul to the right path. One confesses and repents and is absolved. I have argued that Anglican Papalism is less a Community and more of a Movement in both its literal and communal terms. Thus the repentance that Anglican Papalism offers is that of the active striving to move the Anglican Church closer to Rome. Our absolution may not be immediate, but surely it will come when the Barque of St Peter is finally lashed to the dinghy of the C of E (what's left of it) and the chipper little coracles of the Continuum.

Fr. Spencer Jones argues that it was the objective of the Oxford Movement, especially its leaders - Froude, Keble, Pusey and Newman - to show that the Anglican Church needs reunion with the Holy See. I am also of the opinion that, although she may not say it, the Holy See needs the Anglicans, especially at the moment where the Pope is avowedly traditional and the bishops of America and the U.K avowedly liberal. They need a bit of English tolerant conservatism to help them put their house in order! ;-)

However, all disunity is a sin. I feel that most in my parish in which I seem to be the sole element of disunity because of my stand against the dumbing-down of the Mass. Nonetheless, whatever barriers have been thrown up, or whatever barriers the truth appears to throw up, the only way we can move forward is not by an opening of the mind, but of the heart because it is within the heart that the ways of making the barriers vanish (if they ever existed) can be found. Academic Theology will only provide ammunition to tell our opponents how wrong they are. Conviction will only occur in the heart.

I do believe that the Holy See possesses the fullness of Truth. However, the fullness of Truth is infinite in extent, and no man can fully know the Truth if he can know anything at all apart from shadows. The point is that the Holy See is bigger than she knows herself to be. The only being that truly knows itself is God, as St Thomas Aquinas said. Thus there is more to the Church than she can understand. It's as we gather these filaments and fibres that Rome and England get pulled together. Arguing theologically is fine, but if we are in addition seeking that Truth in our hearts as well, then we can find it together, as long at it is the Truth and not a truth that we want to find because it suits us.

If we seek the Truth then we will come up against contradictions and controversies. As a professional mathematician, like my colleagues, friends and betters, I spent the majority of my time stuck on a problem - no movement, no thoughts, no ideas, yet I often knew that the solution existed. Anglican Papalism is a contradiction in some ways, but that is only a testament to the fact that human beings have come to their limits of their understanding of what the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is. I know that the solution exists because its existence is testified in the Holy Scriptures; finding it is a job for all of us together.

In this week of Christian Unity I offer my prayers for all Christians, and pray that they may all come together and live in the Truth of God.

The ins and outs of the Mass

The Church of England, being these days in it's majority, is a faddish church, and one of the biggest fads that has been part of management training and self-help seminars is the Myers-Briggs Type indicator which deals out to everyone four letters that describe their preferences of behaviour:

• defining the self via externals or internals;
• making perceptions using intuition or sensation;
• making judgements using thinking or feeling ;
• preferring making decisions to making perceptions.

The theory is quite powerful, and does allow the individual to begin a foray into that classical objective of "Know thyself". It is but only one theoretical way, and the big danger for anyone using MBTi is that they get their four letters and are told that this is their personality type with which they were born and is somehow immutable. The temptation is to assume that one cannot change preferences, although an introvert can "learn" to become extravert et c. The implication is that once an ENFP, always an ENFP at heart.

It is one thing to know oneself, and a good thing too, but this is one of the root causes of the malady that is afflicting the Church of England. In the past, people were content with coming to church and saying the Mass as it was constructed by the church. However, it is the result of this "Know Thyself" phenomenon that people are now saying that they "cannot" do Mass in the traditional way because the Mass is geared to introverts and not extraverts or some such like. People object to the traditional Mass because it doesn't fit them.

Laziness!

It's sheer laziness. Rather than work at finding away of relating with the Mass, which is after all an engagement of the human personality with that of the divine, these folk demand that the Church changes its liturgy, its prayers, its expressions to fit all people. And the Church of England, in its desire to upset noone but to facilitate the notion of "meeting the people where they are" change the traditions to suit. It's never engaged with society on this level before, why should it have suddenly done so inthe 20th Century. Philosophies of the self have existed long before Freud, Jung, and MBTi, why suddenly engage with the individual now and thus run the ship off course?

This "priesthood of all believers" oft quoted by liberals to supplant the Catholic notion of priesthood is that the layfolk go out into the world and live Christian lives through which the world might see the Light of Christ. Then, having worked long and hard at this coal-face, they find nourishment from the Mass that has been celebrated in the same way since time immemorial.

"Boring!" say the ENTPs (to stereotype a type(!)), " I want a Mass that suits me, that changes every week, that engages my extraverted ideas." If it suits you, O stereotyped ENTP, then how will the same Mass suit an ISFJ? "Oh, they can have their own Mass." So how is the Mass a sacrament of Unity if you won't attend the same Mass as your INFJ neighbour? "Well, it's the same God that we worship, the Mass is still the same." Well, no it isn't - you are not there, effectively, though not in jurisdiction, you are creating another congregation. The Masses will still be valid in the eyes of both ENTP and ISFJ, but there is still an excommunication this time along the fault-line of personality - more purification, more diluted ethnic cleansing.

No, ENTP and INFJ should go to the same Mass and work hard to engage their selves into the traditional liturgies, and the Church should not have indulged them. Back to the Traditional Mass we should go.

"Why? Isn't that just an expression of your personality? Isn't that your preference, O thou self-righteous INTJ?" My preference is immaterial. My desire to serve God is that which is universal to all Christians. If the Catholic Church instituted and used a Mass largely unchanged for centuries (indeed, totally unchanged in the Orthodox Tradition) then it was adequate for all types of person regardless of who, where and when they are. The Traditional Mass is a lingua franca across Time displaying the Sacrament of Unity across the Ages. No matter who you are or where you are in the world, you could walk into Mass and be assured that it is the same Sacrament.

"But you're using your preference of intuition when you say that."

No, I'm stating a fact voiced by St Vincent of Lerins that the Catholic Faith is quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est. (that which is believed everywhere, always and by all). If there is no link with the theology of the past, then there is no Catholic Faith.

Now, O argumentative ENTP, go out into the world and minister to it as the Christian that you are using all your personality as God has given you. Pray to God in your own offices, in your own manner, but when you come to Mass, be prepared to celebrate it with all people in the Traditional way. Engage with it in your own way by all means, but don't force that way upon others. If you are bored, then that's your challenge, not a problem with the Liturgy.

How might I carry on this conversation with another personality type?

Blogday 2007

Youngfogey coined a rather useful term when describing the anniversary of setting up a blog, and 29th December 2007 marks this bloglet's second birthday!

So what did I say last blogday?

Well, I don't call myself an Anglo-Catholic these days except only as a rough guide to where my churchmanship lies since few people have heard of the Anglo-Papalists. Indeed, if I'm asked, I always say that I am Catholic. If anyone is astute to notice my Church of England Readers' badge then I have some explaining to do. I've certainly learned more about my Papistical leanings and the fact that Anglicanism does need the Church of Rome for guidance in its doctrine. This position has been ratified for me by the rati-zinger himself , His Holiness Pope Benedict, who demonstrates the importance for the Church to be faithful to its Tradition. Following the C of E's declaration that women in the Episcopate is consonant with Anglican Understanding, I am at present waiting to see what the "brief from Hell" is going to propose before I make my decision whether I need to swim or not. I am constantly reviewing this situation which is far from ideal. I certainly do not consider myself to be an Anglican if Anglicanism is consonant with women "bishops". As for my Benedictinism, well, that's on hold for a little while as I get used to my new job. I continue to develop my relations with Elmore Abbey in the hope that some more formal affiliation may result. I have found St Benedict very useful for balancing my life out. So one year on sees some growth and some change but still the same problems and irritations. We are stuck with the -isms, including the Neo-Arianism that Dan Brown seems to be selling as well as Gnosticism. These can only be fought by working on our beliefs as set down in Scripture and communicated through the Church. History does not fight the Church, it is modern historians who are trying to make it look as if the Catholic Church is responsible for cover-ups and conspiracies. I cannot see what it would gain from doing so. This year I do need to do more study, my Latin is horrible, my Greek worse and my Hebrew appalling. As I settle in my new job then hopefully I shall find the time to work on some things that I've laid aside for a while such as the proper ministry of Women and the "Natural Sacraments" that I proposed last year. No - I hadn't forgotten. Perhaps you wish I had! Well here's to another twelve months.

Well, events have taken me away from the theology of the "Natural Sacraments" more's the pity. At the moment, I appear to be in some self-imposed exile from my parish celebrating only the Morning Office until the Mass is treated with some respect. It's a bit of a bind when the only other parishes within walking distance (and since I don't drive, this is necessary) are an Aff-Cath church where things are done decently but the theology dodgy, and a Roman Catholic Parish which seems to treat the Mass with about as much reverence as the parish I'm trying to leave.

So I end this blogyear in some kind of ecclesiastical limbo - certainly not a perfect arrangement, and I hope that this is going to be entirely temporary. Now that I receive communion on a much more sporadic basis, I believe I appreciate the spiritual nourishment better.

Whatever state the C of E may be in, I still maintain my links with Elmore Abbey - the only place where I've really felt spiritually uplifted in past years, and it's partly for them that I am loathe to leave the C of E. The Abbey has always represented a weak link between the C of E and the Roman Catholic Church. I find that I need them and on some level they need me, and I find that this is enough for me to remain in a church whose establishment is falling around my ears.

I seem to have spent my year building up my (lack of) understanding of Anglo-Papalism which gets mentioned every other post making me sound like the stuck record of a monomaniacal parrot. It's important because of the confused nature of the discipline. Every Anglo-Papalist is confused on some level and that's because the Church is a confusing place to which to belong. I now have friends like Marco Vervoorst trying to draw me into the Holy See, and others, like my friends from the Continuum trying to call me into a Continuum parish. It just shows what good friends they are, caring about me like that, and it is very much appreciated even if their attempts are not proving successful. However, I pray about the situation nightly, and despite my pressing for a decision, I still feel that I am told to wait for the path to become clear. Perhaps I must wait for the inevitable fragmentation of the C of E - that would make sense (at least to me). I have to be patient, and so must my friends. Intellectual arguments are not enough at the moment.

My Latin is passable, Greek even worse, and Hebrew infinitesimally better, but at least I've settled into the school which is providing spiritual stimulation of an intriguing kind. Having to defend your beliefs to young adults is very bracing and I heartily recommend it.

Thanks for reading over the past year. I hope that you will stay with me and pray with me for the Holy Estate of the Church of God, whatever state she's in.

Catholic Cartoonery

I found this wonderful blog, which I'll now append to my links on the side here.

I've already used this cartoon at my church. Considering that, at Midnight Mass, instead of the intercessions we had a poem about Father Christmas praying for help delivering the presents, I think it's applicable to both the Liberal wing of the Roman Catholic Church and the present mush of the C of E.

A splitting headache

San Joaquin has withdrawn from the Episcopal Church of the United States. Of course the media proclaims a split in the Anglican Church. On the other hand we have the Traditional Anglican Church seeking reunion with the Holy See and an end to nearly 500 years of separation. We seem to be reaching a time in history of a reshaping and remoulding of the Church, or a further fragmentation, and it is Anglicanism that is bearing the visible brunt of this.


Only within the Canterbury Communion can we find a church with a Catholic heritage and yet which deems heresies as being consonant with the faith. What can one reasonably do when the institution on which you have relied makes the wrong move? There seems to be only two things that can be done: stay or go.

Who stays?

1. Those complicit in the heresy;


2. Those who are elderly or infirm;
   
3. Those who are too frightened or tired to undergo such upheaval;


4. Those who intend to fight from within;


5. Those who intend to honour a commitment despite the heresy.

Who goes?

1. Those who want to send a clear signal that heresy is wrong;


2. Those who feel that the integrity of the church has been irrevocably compromised;
   
3. Those who wish to preserve the purity of the church;


4. Those who cannot associate with heretics;
   
5. Those who believe that the grass is greener on the other side.

These lists are neither exhaustive or exclusive, but merely representative of the feelings and thoughts of those whom I have met. There are deep passions blazing within the chest of the Anglo-Catholic and the Anglo-Papalist which only manifest themselves after too great an imbibing of port or the sight of a woman who appears to be wearing a dog collar, but maybe it's just a roll-necked jumper.

The main trouble is that the Bishops are constantly presenting us with choices, notably the preference of Schism over Heresy. When one side cries "schism", the other invariably cries "heresy" and the two sides get further apart.

What is clear from the Lord's teaching is that He will send his angels to separate wheat from tares. What is not so clear is how this separation wil take place and how the agents of this separation will be. From the Apocalypse we are aware that each Church has its angel, and it may possibly be that it is these guiding angels who will draw away the righteous from the payers of lip-service. However, we still do not know!

For me, it is important that members of the Anglican Continuum and Communion at least engage in some prayer together in an attempt to heal the rifts. I see in myself too great a desire to withdraw from those with whom I disagree. The temptation is always there to demonise and to allow the memories of others to become bitter in the soul. While Mrs Jefferts-Schori, Gene Robinson, Bishop Spong, and others may hold heretical beliefs - which they do when measured up to the Catholic Faith however much they try to justify their learning - they are still deserving of kind words, loving gestures, gentle discussions and holy prayers, not because of themselves but because of the God who desires to sit and eat with us.

The Benedictine Rule advocates the idea of excommunication - the setting apart of folk who have erred from the way.

Capit. XXVI

Si quis frater praesumpserit sine iussione abbatis fratri excommunicato quolibet modo se iungere aut loqui cum eo vel mandatum ei dirigere, similem sortiatur excommunicationis vindictam.

If any brother presumes without instruction from the Abbot in any way to associate with an excommunicated brother or to speak with him or direct a command to him, let him be issued with the same punishment of excommunication. [My translation]

In this, we see that there is a definite need for the separation to be distinct. The abbot must make sure that the offender is kept apart from the community, and that the community is protected from the damage caused by recalcitrants. However St Benedict makes it quite clear that the Abbot is still responsible for the excommunicated, and indeed that the excommunicated is still part of the community.

Capit. XVII

Omni sollicitudine curam gerat abbas circa delinquentes fratres, quia non est opus sanis medicus sed male habentibus (Matthew ix.12). Et ideo uti debet omni modo ut sapiens medicus, immittere senpectas, id est seniores sapientes fratres, qui quasi secrete consolentur fratrem fluctuantem et provocent ad humilitatis satisfactionem et consolentur eum ne abundantiori tristitia absorbeatur (II Corinthians ii.7), sed, sicut ait item apostolus, confirmetur in eo caritas (II Corinthians ii.8) et oretur pro eo ab omnibus...

With every solicitude, the Abbot must show concern about offending brothers, because they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. In in this way, as a wise physician, he must use all skill to send senpectae, that is, older and wiser brothers, who console the erring brother as if in secret, and guide him to a satisfation of humility and to console him lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow but as the Apostle also says that ye would confirm your love toward him and that all might pray for him ... [My translation interspersed with the bible references from the AV]

Dialogue must therefore continue across a schism, but only between the wiser and more senior. This need not be the best educated - indeed it may be preferable that this not be the case particularly with those filled with intellectual pride! It should include those whom the whole church would regard as living a holy and spiritual life.

Indeed it is the person of the Abbot who has the authority to inspect and adjust an issue of excommunication. It is therefore important that the Abbot himself should closely follow Benedictine principles as laid down in the Rule. In practice however, there has been many an Abbot go off the rails. Likewise, in this day and age, we see Bishops - sources of Unity - rely on the integrity of their own belief rather than the Faith of the Church and use their roles of unification to damage and rend the Church.

This is in part why I have developed into an Anglo-Papalist. In viewing the Pope as the Vicar of Christ following in the succession of St Peter, he is an object of unity in obedience to the Catholic Faith. He is also, I believe, the one who could heal the rift of the Reformation quite easily. As successor of Peter and keeper of the Keys, he is able to bind to himself branches which have become severed. As the Vicar of Christ, he can graft together that which has been torn apart for whatever reason. Apostolae Curae (whoever this is more problematic for) can easily be circumvented through such a binding - a Papal declaration of regularity conditional on communion with the Holy See. Whether it has been broken off at the Reformation or not, there is a temporal branch of ordination which links every Anglican Bishop, Priest and Deacon and which can be made to be valid in the eyes of Rome by binding that branch to the living branch of the Holy See, just as the Lord himself spoke about grafting branches onto Himself as the true vine.

I'm an idealist. I apologise. Indeed there are still many obstacles of doctrine and jurisdiction. It is not enough to say "Why can't we just all try to get along?" particularly if there is a wave of heretics muddying the waters. There must be a greater level of trust built up between the Holy See and the Anglican Continuum - both sides must realise in full the others' concerns and work at addressing those barriers together in love and prayer.

I'm afraid the Anglican Communion will never be able to enjoy such a relationship on her present course because she does not perceive that what she is raising are indeed almost insurmountable hurdles to reconciliation. But nonetheless, the Continuum must act, sending senpectae to this ailing body. The distance of excommunication must remain until the recalcitrants are brought back, but there must be this level of ongoing dialogue!

Excuse me while I wallow in my idealism!

The Feast of the Nativity 2007

I often wonder how the Christ-child would have appeared in this day and age. Forgetting the details of our lives (something I'm good at) that would be different, can you imagine the Angel Gabriel declaring the message of the Annunciation to a teenage girl in an industrial estate in Birkenhead? A teenage pregnancy there would not be unusual, so the example would not exactly be of any great effect or produce great wonder. Imagine:

And there were security guards abiding in the malls, keeping watch over their flat-screen tellys by night, and the Angel of the Lord appeared to them and said, "@*£# off to the Sondheim Estate and there you'll find a kid in the dog's basket who has come to cheer you up, you miserable #*&$£5s!"

It's just so commonplace! So ordinary! The birth of a baby is important to families and friends but you don't cross town just to see the child born to a teenage mother who's probably given been put in that state following a binge in Bermondsey, however cute the baby, unless you're in social services.

What made those shepherds and those magi, travel to stop and stare at the simple sight of a young lady and a tiny baby in the oxen's trough in a stable?

Well, if you believe modern church thinkers (and it's often wise not to), it probably didn't happen. All this Nativity business is sheer literary window dressing on the part of the writers of Matthew's and Luke's Gospels, just to enhance the Lord's reputation.

Why the need to enhance the Lord's reputation? Surely the accounts of His years of ministry, his miracles, His death and resurrection, His teaching, His "wild claims" of being the Son of God, surely that spells it out quite adequately without needing a fabrication of the Nativity. Mark doesn't need the Nativity for his Gospel, and neither does John, the life of the Lord stands well enough without the stories of the baby in the manger. So why did Matthew and Luke feel the need to include these passages? Why did the Church feel that these parts of the Gospels were necessary? Why were they not edited out, as some modern folk think the Early Church was very good at?

I suppose the message of the Nativity means for me that people can react very differently to the very ordinary. Professor Dawkins would have seen the child in the manger, probably paid compliments to the mother and charitably handed over a five pound note to help the baby (he is, after all, a decent human being), but he would have seen nothing other than a rather pitiable state of humanity. He does not attribute any further significance because there is no scientific test for metaphysical significance. However, some see the significance in their science, others are told about the significance from strange agencies. The meaning is deeper than mere physicality: the ordinaryness of a mother and a new born baby forced to take shelter in a stable is just so human.

Yet we can easily see the Lord's humanity without the Nativity, so His ordinaryness is not dependent upon the circumstances of His birth. The Nativity tells us to look, and to keep looking for the Christ-child in our day and age, to see the significance of our humdrum and monotonous existence without the need for a man to point it out to us using miracles and teachings. We can find God in our lives if we look for Him, even if it gets difficult, confusing and a bit depressing. It's a bit like looking for one particular baby in a Middle Eastern town.

"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God..."

May you find the Christ-child this Christmas, and know His joy and peace.

Away in an old orange crate found at the back of the cupboard

Homily preached at Eltham College on 10th and 11th December 2007.

What would you say was your most
embarrassing Christmas ever?

One of the greatest sources of seasonal embarrassmentof memories of injusticethat really curdles the memory when you tryand picture it,
the school nativity play!

Did you take part in one?

What role did you get?

[PAUSE]

According to Junior School custom
in allocating roles,
the most popular girl in the school
should be chosen to play Mary
and the boy least likely
to stick his finger up his nose
to play Joseph.


Then of course there are
the other roles to be fought for.

The Angel Gabriel will be given
to the one with the voice that can split granite

The other angels are going to be
those of you who have access to
a job lot of tinsel and wire coat hangers.

It’s no good telling mentioning
that there is no biblical record of angels
ever having wings,
you’ll just be ignored
and relegated to the cattle.


Then there are
the Three Kings/Wise Men/magi/whatever
from the East.



To be qualified for these roles,
you have to have parents willing
to sacrifice the best bedspread
to the ravages of glitter and glue.

Knowledge of the fact that, again,
nowhere in the Bible
does it ever mention three kings
means automatic disqualification
and a summary demotion
to second sheep on the right.

To be an innkeeper,
you have to be trustworthy enough
to say the line in the script and not say
“Yes, Mary and Joseph,
there’s plenty of room in here,”
thus giving the teachers a fit
trying to sort that one out.

And then there are other roles
– the ones which you’ve been hoping to avoid.

These days,
you’re not allowed to exclude any child
from being in the play.

Thus there are a plethora of
snowflakes, sheep, oxen and donkeys
consisting of those who aren’t allowed
for whatever reason to have a speaking part
– untrustworthy innkeepers
or biblically correct magi.

If you are one of these unfortunates,
then you are then forced to wear
some grotesque concoction of cereal box,
cotton wool and card,
which,
despite assurances that it is a sheep,
looks more like a disastrous attempt
to splice genetically Shaun the Sheep
and the Coco Pops Monkey.


There are behind-the-scenes folk as well:
the cereal box geneticists responsible
for the sheep-monkey hybrids,
the providers of tired old dressing gowns,
and the housekeeping team
who has to mop up afterwards
– not a pleasant job if the angels
get over-excited.

It’s a lot of work for everyone!
So why do it?

Why does an ever-decreasing number
of Primary and infant schools
subject themselves and their students
to such an ordeal?

[PAUSE]

Somehow the parents think that it’s wonderful!

Despite all the naffness,
there is something
that draws a parent
out of Christmas shopping
to see their child in a Nativity Play.

It’s a fact that all this dressing up
and acting actually makes a Christmas
for a parent whether or not
they actually believe in the story
that is being told by their children.

They see their children
going through the same traditions,
the same story,
the same dressing-gowns and tinsel
as they did when they were that age.

It may not mean much to you,
but to a parent,
it is a sign that their child is playing
an active role in making Christmas
a special time of year
not just for their family,
but to the community of the school.

However,
what happens to a child’s participation
in Christmas when it outgrows Nativity Plays?

How do you participate?

[PAUSE]

If you’re a chorister,
then your role is clear.

You are doomed to spend November
learning carol after carol
and tediously jolly bits of tinkly music
insipidly arranged by John Rutter
after a quick buck.



By December 26th,
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
makes you want tell those herald angels
to go away in no uncertain terms.

But, however many times you sing it,
there may be just one time
that you make someone’s Christmas.
You’ve been through Christmas
at least eleven times in your lives,
and there’s a chance that you may find it all
a bit run-of-the-mill.

When Christmas day arrives,
what more to it is there beyond
the wrapping paper,
the new Wii golf game, the latest gore-ridden murder on Eastenders
the over-eating and resultant indigestion,
and forgetting to listen to the Queen.

Isn’t it just another day of the year
albeit a day when it doesn’t actually snow?


Well, this surely depends on what you make of it.

Is Christmas a special time of year for you?

It is only a time different from
the other days that just blur into one big mass of
school books,
chapel addresses,
and tucked-in shirts
if we work to make it so!

This is why we have Advent to help us
prepare for Christmas.


If you’re a Christian,
then Advent offers you a time to reflect
on the meaning of the little baby
born in a manger who grows up
to save the world.

It offers you a chance to engage
with a God who not only lives
but seeks to live among us.


If you’re not a Christian,
then you have to find out the meaning
of Christmas for yourself.

It offers you the opportunity to go out
and give of your time
and abilities to others,
to make their Christmas more enjoyable.

It’s down to you, then,
to figure out the point of it all.


Either way,
you have a role to play
in making Christmas more special for yourself,
your family and your community
- preferably not in that order.


The question is: what is that role?

Well, only you can answer that one!

Homosexualism and Holiness

The debate rages within the Anglican Church about the acceptance of practising homosexual priests and my friends on the Continuum blog continue to elucidate the orthodox line about how the issues of the female "priesthood" and acceptance of homosexuality are in fact the same thing. They are both concerned with the corruption of the Natural Order.

The main trait of Anglicanism seems to be what the Young Fogey calls Tolerant Conservatism, and I wonder just how well that is being brought to bear in this argument which is turning out to be quite bitter. Archbishop Akinola seems to be the proponent of Conservatism, and Dr Jefferts-Schori claims to be "tolerant". It seems clear to me that Dr Jefferts-Schori is certainly not conservative (nor is she especially tolerant, but then what did you expect?), and Archbishop Akinola certainly not tolerant. Both, in my honest opinion, have attitudes which are quite repugnant to the word of God.

I cannot accept that it is any way loving for an Archbishop not to shake the hand of a homosexual just because he is a homosexual. Christ ate with sinners. He would eat with me, with Hitler, with Mother Theresa, Gene Robinson, Akinola and Mrs Jefferts-Schori preferring not one of us above the other, all this despite our vileness. Yet clearly we have to respond to His reaching out to us for the Grace to be efficacious, and this means complicity with the rule of His Kingdom that lies within us. The Kingdom within Robinson and Mrs Jefferts-Schori seems very much like the British idea of Constitutional Monarchy in which the Queen is the nominal head, but the realm run by bureaucrats and politicians geared more to pleasing the people rather than running a healthy country. That's true of all of us, but only the leaders of the extremes in this matter are exhibiting this most clearly.

For Akinola, he should look and see what would happen if the roles were reversed. What if the Natural Law was homosexual, and he remaining firmly heterosexual? What then?

Perhaps Akinola needs to walk a mile in Dr. Jeffrey John's shoes. He, if you remember, is the homosexual Dean of St Albans who maintains a celibate relationship with another man, and who had to withdraw from the race for Bishop of Reading. While the ramifications of Dr John's relationship are dangerous and contrary to Divine Ordinance, I believe that Akinola needs to look at the situation like a doctor examines a tumour and see where the malignancy lies, not shunt the patient straight to the hospice. We should be trusting our bishops to behave like spiritual physicians as St Benedict says with skill, firmness, love, patience and complete orthodoxy.

It must be desperately hard for homosexuals who are, after all, as human as every other sinner. The human being was created to be loved, and that is precisely what all of us crave, except everything is skewed by Original Sin, and thus do not recognise that at the heart of this yearning is that of wanting to be loved by God. Most of us feel that strange sensation that occurs when we see someone utterly desirable, but we can't pinpoint what it is about them that we desire. That desire can burn and burn unless it is acted upon, but the question remains - how?

This desire can be utterly selfish - a lust, a desire to make the object do what we want and be powerless to exercise any of their desires in the matter. The trouble is that this lust comes clothed in much more acceptable terms. The lust is augmented by a desire to please, to protect, to comfort the object. There is no desire to hurt or to harm, only desire for what is holy and good, but it still comes tainted with this lust which offsets the balance and threatens to take away the humanity of the other.

This is if the desire is unrequited, so imagine the joy when the object feels exactly the same way about us! It is therefore quite reasonable to think that it is meant to be, that there is some Divine approval for the end of this deep-seated lonliness.

But God, while blessing the love, does not approve when it becomes the excuse for sex outside of marriage.

Yes, it seems evilly unfair, and I myself struggle to believe that there is no way that homosexuals can in anyway express their love for each other in a physical sense. However, the Natural Law is quite clear, the Holy Scripture is quite clear, the Holy Tradition of the Church is quite clear, homosexuality is not physically expressible.

Why? I used the phrase in my previous post below: sexuality is the beginning of life for someone else. As Fr Robert Hart kindly pointed out to me, there is no way that there can exist a love that is both holy and erotic (in the proper sense of the word) without there being a sexual dimension, and a sexual dimension is necessarily geared to beginning a life. That's what it is there for. Thus there is no sexuality-free version of romantic love.

This doesn't address the passion within each one of those unable to express themselves physically. I believe that it is to these individuals that a great commission has been given, namely to find new expressions of love in holiness. Since so many people of this orientation are gifted with new visions, artistic skills, sensitivity and creativity, surely they have been invited to a great and wonderful calling to find ways of expressing love beyond the confines of human physicality and yet within the Divine Ordinance.


As for the Anglican Church, well, parts of her continue daily to leave the path of Tolerant Conservatism, i.e. keeping faithful to the Catholic Faith yet bearing in love the humanity of others. But there is a true and faithful remnant both in the C of E but mainly in the Continuum where the stance is made clear. Is that stance made lovingly? Perceptably so?

With thanks to Fr Robert Hart and Ed Pacht from the Continuum.

Personal Patristics

Found this little piece of silliness.

Which Church Father are you?

You’re St. Melito of Sardis! You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

Of course, I am(!) How silly of me!

An orthodox apology.

I have to make an apology to Alana Asby Roberts who very kindly commented on my post about excellence in worship and who asked me a few questions about my experience of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Now that life is leaving me alone for five minutes, I shall answer her here in the main blog in the hope that she is able to read it without hunting for it among the comments.

I have to honestly answer that my experience with the Eastern Orthodox is limited to the musical and the theological. While there are Orthodox Churches in Blighty, they don't appear to have any parishes near me, but then I'm not a driver so that has limited my vision. Of course what marks me out among Anglicans is my view of the Holy Father in Rome as the Successor of St Peter and the Vicar of Christ.

I have a great love of the Orthodox Tradition and applaud the fact that they do have the excellence in worship that is being torn out from Faddish-Anglicanism. One only has to just read through the Liturgy of St James with that call of "Sigesato pasa sarx..." by the Deacon to know that the whole Mass is devoted to the heavenly comes into contact with the earthly. I believe that the old Anglo-Papalists contemporary with Fr. Patten were able to bring that same electricity into our humdrum existence. Both Orthodoxy and Anglicanism have unique musical schemes centred around their liturgy, something which the Roman Catholics have sorely lacked even in recent years.

From the point of view of Christian Unity: if it is possible for the Eastern Orthodox Churches to regain communion with the Holy See and keep their unique identity then it is, in theory at least, possible with the Anglicans who have remained true to Holy Tradition. I do agree that the unity which Anglo-Papalists have been praying for may only be possible because of the Orthodox Church. There would be nothing to lose and all to gain there! I pray that Orthodox Catholicism would become complete once again, and may it start by mutual oecumenism of the dynamic sort.

The oldest thirty-something in town.

As I watch my hairline sweep backwards across my head as if it were mortally afraid of my nose, and see my students ask that dreaded question "Who?" when I mention Wilson, Keppel and Betty, I begin to see something of the love affair that the world has with the young.

The epithet beauty is almost exclusive to the young, and there is a good reason. We watch their vitality, freshness, newness, and see our old ideas beget new thoughts in their heads. In each young man and woman there is a power and a potentiality that we find frightening.

It's easy for us to be filled with twinges of regret and envious loathing as they remind us of the southward drift of the stomach and the stiffening of the joints that result in pistol shots emanating from under the cassock every time we genuflect.

The love affair with the young is vicarious in nature, we can live our hopes and dreams through our sons and daughters and yet we can forget that they are people in themselves. None more so is this evident with the sexualising of the young by a desperate society trying to stave off the ravages of time with more and more impossibly handsome young men and women. Society has forgotten that sexuality is the beginning of life for someone else: it is not something for the individual to possess, not a pleasure to indulge in, not for ourselves as a pastime.

This attraction that exists is a desire to possess and to live one's life over again, trying to mend all those faults that we have incurred, trying to find pleasures that we have now lost. I see so many children cleverer than I am/was, and it's a shocker to see that the intellect that I was once proud to possess eclipsed by my students. Do I regret it?

No. Not one bit. It is sobering, but "at the end of the game, all the pieces have to go back in the box" as John Ortberg says. So it is pointless to dwell on past glories. We have to be prepared for this, and allow these youngsters to play their game - use their time and chance to make this world better. To steal time from them is vanity and a form of violation. Nonetheless, we do have a duty to help them avoid the pitfalls that caught us, to help them exercise and train their skills and encourage them into thinking new thoughts built upon the foundations of the old.

My only hope is that they are shown that true life is not something that can be taken apart and analysed, but rather a God-given gift given to each one of us to do with what we will, and that also comes with responsibilities and duties, for they too will reach this stage with half a life lived and wonder, as I do, "where has it all gone?"

What about for us whose life is half lived?

Well, there is still the other half to go...

Kaluza-Klein theology

Okay, what I'm not going to put forward is an actual Kaluza-Klein theory. Kaluza-Klein theory properly done is an attempt to unify the forces occuring in nature by extending the gauge group of electromagnetism into a product of possibly non-commutative Lie groups. The necessity outcome of this is that we find ourselves finding more hidden symmetries of nature, and this points to the existence of higher dimensions.

Now higher dimensions ar rather interesting for me in several ways. Four dimensional space (and by space I mean an abstract space which requires four coordinates to describe it rather than the void between stars and planets) can be endowed with many interesting structures which are unavailable in higher dimensions.

It's when we consider Time as part of the fabric of the Universe that things become fascinating. If we step outside of Time, then we find ourselves investigating a static universe in which the common housefly has turned into a string which interweaves the universe. People turn into long ropes with human cross-section which grow and then shrink and then dissipate into frayed ends as our particles disperse to the dust. The Universe consists of Space and Time together mixed inseparably. It's like holding the reel of a movie. You can see each moment in space and time in one vantagepoint.

God has created the universe and we are powerless to see his existence. We cannot see Him act precisely because His creation involves Time. From His point of view, Creation is complete, He doesn't need to continually fiddle with it. It sits in His hand and from His indescribable Eternity, He gazes upon it. For those whose existence is contained within this Universe, the Maelstrom of complex forces and changes and chances of Time veil our perceptions.

Now this is not a "God of the gaps" argument for the existence of God, that God only acts where Science cannot see Him, but rather that He acts definitely where Science can see His actions, but attributes His acts to other causes because God gives it the freedom to do so. It's perfectly possible for the miracles of Christ to have a Scientific explanation. That doesn't stop them from being miraculous provided that we get away from the idea that a miracle is an occurrence which science cannot explain. The hand of God is still in the rising and setting of the Sun, because from our point of view the Universe is not yet fully created. This Creation is not yet perfected, but it will be! One needs to step out into the extra-temporal dimensions to look.

As a scientist I do look for explanations for why things happen. There are some wonderfully glorious sets of coincidences which people attribute to supernatural occurences. However, a miracle does not need that sense of dumbfounding science. A miracle is any occurrence that causes us to reflect on the presence of God, any event that has that numinous quality that touches our lives and brings us closer to Him.

The overreaching principle that God has had in creating Humanity is that Humanity should be free to choose, to have a will of its own. Only then can a gesture of true love be meant. Thus the atheistic scientist is free to interpret an occurrence in a rational way, and quite honestly, that occurrence is indeed rightly described rationally. It is the claim that a scientific explanation naturally rules out the direct influence of God that is questionable. Scientific explanation and Divine intervention are not mutually exclusive terms. Scientific theory is not absolutely correct but it does have a verisimilitude that makes its explanations compelling. Evidence is not proof, but it makes good sense. The Sun will rise tomorrow (barring Divine Intervention). However God, being bigger and existing outside the dimensions of the Universe, does not Himself create a Universe without order and sense. We can attribute every action to His Divine Intervention, but we cannot break down our observations into determining His Divine Will in any particular matter. A sparrow falls to the ground because it is tired and due to the force of gravity. This doesn't exclude the action of God in the matter.

At the Wedding in Cana, water was changed to wine. It caused people to reflect on the person of Christ, the God Who chose not to be remote but rather to make His presence known to mankind; the God Who chose to be seen to act and intervene but yet allows others the freedom to attribute His actions elsewhere. Whether the miracle was performed by a spectacular act of legerdemain, by a miscalculation and misdirection of the servants, or by the molecules of water suddenly finding themselves interspersed with molecules of fermented grapes isn't really the issue. It's the fact that Christians see in this act the first public act of a contraversial figure in history.

Of course the atheist question is then: how can we build a societal structure on the personal revelations to a few people of an unprovable God? Surely Society must be governed in such a way as reflects only that which can be observed and scientifically demonstrated.

Again, here I see the desire of God that mankind should be free to govern itself. At the moment the Church does not wield the power that it had in the past. Perhaps this is a good thing and prevents leaders of the church from becoming corrupt. (Well that's the theory!) Our society's moral and ethical code is, in the West, largely built up from the morals and ethics inherited from past theistic government. However, there is much evidence to show that the Church has, more often than not, been under the thumb of secular government.

As Christians, we do not (indeed cannot) coerce anyone into doing our bidding even if we believe that it is for their own good. Abortion will always remain despite the Church's protestations to the contrary. The Ten Commandments will be broken no matter who is in charge. The point is, that no matter which government runs the show, Christian ethics will remain and be kept by some and rejected by others.

Atheists believe that organised religion is dangerous because it causes people to separate and object to reason on the grounds of belief in an unprovable God. Religious symbols should be banned from public areas because they cause offence to too many.

What has this all got to do with the extra dimensions? Well, that's half the problem. Atheists cannot see that solutions are possible in a way that passes their understanding. They have a need to understand. Actually, I have a need to understand, but I accept while I struggle to understand that reality, morals, ethics and ultimately the questions of life and death have elements that point out perpendicular to the sense of the Universe. As an Anglo-Papalist, I live in a contradictory world full of confused jurisdiction and disjointed ecclesionlogy. However, I have the overriding promise of God that the Church is One, despite denomination. That gives me something to look for, pray for, live for and work for.

Contradictions exist in this Universe, the problem of evil, the reconciliation of an active God with a rational explanation, and their solutions may expressible in terms of this universe but I believe only partially so. It is only looking out in Hope beyond our understanding that I obtain the conviction to work at a solution within our understanding.

Up with the gauntlet!

So here it is, my somewhat inadequate ten minute defence of my faith. Next week speaks our resident atheist, and I'll try to blog something about that then.

Homily preached at Eltham college on 14th November 2007

How old were you
when you stopped believing in the tooth fairy?

What about Father Christmas?

Of course,
you realise how to prove that neither exist.

For the tooth fairy,
you just wrap up a lego brick in tissue,
and see how that is replaced at night
with a 50p piece.

It’s tried and tested!


To show that Father Christmas doesn’t exist
– sorry, he doesn’t except as an embellishment
of the character of St Nicholas of Myra
– just write two note to Santa.

In the first,
you are nice and polite
and ask for your Dr Who action figures
or new Bratz Skiing outfit
– this one you show to Mum and Dad.
In the other,
you call Santa a fat weirdie-beardie
who smells of dead reindeer
– this one you secretly post
to the North Pole.

You’ll know he doesn’t exist
if you still get presents this Christmas.

If he does, then you’ll have to be
very apologetic next year.

Are these really sufficient proofs of non-existence?

What about God?

Does He exist?

After all, you can’t see Him,
touch Him,
you can’t test for existence by sticking Him
in a test tube and holding Him
over a Bunsen burner.

If we cannot make
any observations about His existence,
then does that necessarily mean
He cannot possibly exist?

Well think about it!

Indeed, a thought is not material,
chemical,
biological,
atomic,
or a force.

There is much that is non-material and yet exists
- the number one,
for example.

We understand the number one is,
and yet it has no dimension.

No mass,
no height,
nothing measurable.

It cannot be tested,
touched tasted or smelt,
yet we know what it is.

It is just one.

The question “what is it made of?”
is utterly meaningless.

You can see one apple,
but if you take the apple away,
it’s just one.

So it is possible for things
to exist without having an observable presence.


It is the same with God.

His is an existence completely other than our own.

Like the number one,
to ask what He is made of is meaningless.

God is the Creator,
and by that we mean the being
who causes all other things to be.

He is the first cause
– how can He be made of anything
if there is nothing from which He can be made?

If He is the first being,
then He doesn’t change,
because there is no material for to change.


But matter changes.

Throw a lump of sodium hydroxide
into a vat of hydrochloric acid
and all you get,
by and large is salty water.

But how does the sodium hydroxide
know how to change into salty water?

How do we know that this always happens?

How do we know that one day,
your chemistry teacher is going to throw a lump
of sodium hydroxide
into hydrochloric acid and instead of salty water,
the result is a vat of Carlsberg?

After all we haven’t finished all our opportunities
for doing that experiment yet!


Mathematical and scientific theories
only describe what happens when
sodium hydroxide meets hydrochloric acid.

They have been honed by years and years of discovery
and improvement.

We now have models which can make
some very accurate predictions,
but there are always some gaps,
and the models don’t explain
how the chemicals know how to behave.

How does sodium hydroxide know that there are rules to obey
so that it makes brine rather than
a refreshing pint of ale?


The universe does seem to conform to rules,
and if modern cosmology is correct,
then these rules appear to be being made up
as the universe continues to be.

But where do these rules come from.

If God exists as the first cause,
then He made up the rules.

Perhaps these are the only rules
that would make this universe exist?

But why does this have to be the case?
– after all these are the only rules we know.

How can we even imagine things being different?

When theists say God created the Universe,
we don’t necessarily mean that He is like
some cosmic Design and Technology teacher
gleefully carving human beings
out of a lump of 2 x 4.

It’s a horrible thought
– what would the universe be like
if a certain Design and Technology teacher
created the Universe?

It wouldn’t be just the one Big Bang, would it?

When we say “God created…”,
we mean that He caused it to be.

It’s why many scientists can believe in God
and the Big Bang and Evolution.

If God created the Rules,
then He created our existence
through Evolution,
through a Big Bang,
if indeed that’s how things did begin!




Some Scientists in an attempt to get rid of God,
say that the universe was created when
two 10 dimensional membranes collided and formed this universe.

A necessary result of this collision
is the existence of parallel universes.

The trouble is,
because we cannot break out of our Universe,
the existence of parallel universes is just
as unprovable as the existence of God.

Superstring theorists have merely replaced
one debatable being with another,
and even then this doesn’t answer the question:
where did the parallel universes come from
in the first place
and what caused them to collide?


The fact that God has created the rules
shows that He has a will and an intention
for the existence of the Universe
- how He wants it to be.



However scientific we want to be,
because we have no way of
stepping outside the universe,
or of being present at the Big Bang
we have no scientific means
of proving or disproving
the existence of God.

Thus we have no way of knowing that God exists,
we can only believe.


If Science is not the tool to use
to talk about the existence of God,
then what about ethics?

If God exists and is good, why has He created evil?

Why create a world in which we have so much,
and yet others die a pitiful death
from starvation and disease,
uncared for,
unloved?

Why create a world
where your own followers and people
who believe in you tear each other
to pieces in ever more ingenious and pathetic ways?


This has more to do with free-will
– our ability to choose
to believe in God
or not to believe in Him,
the ability to make our own decision
for ourselves without being forced
to do something.


If God doesn’t exist,
then surely we have no free-will
and are merely clusters of atoms
obeying arcane laws of the universe.

In which case what meaning does life really have?

What hope for justice is there
for the Sudanese mother who loses her baby
in a military attack?

If God exists,
and, as Christians believe,
seeks to give justice to the oppressed
in a new life if not this one,
then doesn’t that offer us some hope
for our own existence?

No, it gives us no answers now,
and to others belief in God
seems like wishful-thinking
but then the existence of God
is not something that we should expect
to give easy answers
to the big questions of life.

God is absolutely unlike any other person
that we experience.

We still have to think,
argue, and wrestle with things
that we cannot understand
in the hope that our attempts
lead us perhaps a little closer to the Truth.


But what is the Truth of the matter?

Can you be so sure?

Visions of the Future?

Lazar stands on the edge of the cliff looking over the metropolis watching the distant computer-organised vehicles weaving impossibly around each other from a thousand possible directions, each conveying a single occupant a hundred miles in a matter of a few minutes.



He looks up at the star shining redly over the landscape. Soon, in the next hundred thousand years, the metropolis will be uprooted to the next solar system. Lazar himself has had to endure that five or six times now. Each time, he has been responsible for ensuring that the servile classes in his area obey the directives that involve the regulations for packing away. The serviles just don't have the intellect required to follow the complicated sequences of digits formed by high modulus values of polylogarithms encoding population distribution data. Lazar can manipulate these in sequences in his 30 second sleep period. This reminds him that next week he is having genetic modification in order to reduce his necessary sleep to 15 seconds.

As Lazar looks into the distance, his eyes firmly focussed on a winged creature preening itself with one of its three appendages a kilometre away. he tries to find one good reason why he shouldn't take that one more step forward off into oblivion. His genetically perfected eyesight scans the figures in the citadels of the metropolis, each one moving aimlessly at their work - making sure that the computers self-regulation systems are still self regulating. What else is there for them to do?

They've dreamed their dreams. They fly among the stars visiting new planets, but when you've see 5,000,000 new planets, you've seen them all. Alien species have they met, but since most of them don't really resemble the life that human beings can really converse with (like the gas vortices living in the surface of the star above them) there is not much more mystery left in meeting them. Indeed alien life doesn't seem to recognise human beings as being living things.

Lazar realises that it has been 50,000 years since he last looked into a mirror. His enhanced memory remembers it well. However, since Lazar hasn't changed in 50,000 years, he hasn't needed to check his appearance. Nothing changes about him. his life goes on. His pleasures have been fulfilled a thousand thousand times over. He has had sex a myriad times with a myriad people of several genetically enhanced genders, and has fulfilled his quota of 3 children per planet that he has visited. He remembers his 5,000,000th educational stage that he reached last month with top marks. What pleasure does education have for him now? He remembers every word that he has ever read in his life, plus there is all the information that he has downloaded directly into his brain via the computer interface.

What else is there for Lazar to accomplish? So he shrugs and takes the final step off of the cliff into the lava flow below. Bessed oblivion?

The central computer of the metropolis recognises that Lazar has ceased to function. It then sends a signal to the biological reproduction centre which authorises a clone to be generated from Lazar's DNA. The clone is prepared in seconds. The computer interface is inserted into its neck and all of Lazar's memories are downloaded into it.

On the table, for the 4,000th time, Lazar awakes. Looking up at the ceiling above him he reads the words: "Science: mastery of the universe."

Excellence in worship

While I've been on Sabbatical, I've been visiting various churches of various denominations. It's interesting that in each parish, all I've found is an attitude of "well that'll do, won't it?" People will do enough to make the Mass work and/or a vaguely pleasant experience, but no more. I often wonder what's going through the head of the average congregant. What are they expecting to happen when they come to church? What are they expecting to do themselves?

Most of the time, the liturgy, the music, the sermon, and subsequently, the whole ethos is geared to accomodating the "comfy chair" syndrome that pervades most of society and panders to what the congregation wants rather than what forms an adequate expression of our love of God. It's interesting that these two concepts of "what the congregation wants" and "adequate expression of our love for God" are either totally discrepant or only common at the lowest level. I was most distressed to walk into a Roman Catholic Church and find the same vision of the Mass as entertainment (guitars, flutes, trendy songs with lowest common denominator lyrics) as exists in Anglicanism.

As a Church, we need to strive for excellence in worship. No, of course we are not going to end up with the perfect Mass. There will always be a flaw or imperfection in the way that we do things. However, spiritually, the West is rapidly reaching the point where God will say as He does in Amos (v.21-27):

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.

The quality of belief comes only from the quality in which we are prepared to invest in Worship of God, and this is a notion that each member of the congregation needs to be met with head on. We have to work to remove insincerity that affects even the best Mass.

To this end I'm making a start on trying to answer the question: What makes Excellent Worship? In view of the fact that all our worship is imperfect, we have a great scope for working for improvement in each act of worship that we do. We need:

1. Excellent Liturgy:
   I've written on this before. The purpose of the liturgy is to form a process from the temporal world to the Divine. It needs language that will strive to reflect on that transcendent nature and provide an adequate springboard for the soul to dive off into the Eternal Source. Excellent liturgy points the way univocally to God for the humblest soul, yet challenges the position of the most exalted. Excellent liturgy opens the way to the refreshment of the Soul, and needs to reflect on the pitiable state of humanity encouraging and drawing them into that Spring of Living Water.
   
   
2. Excellent Catechesis:
   I've also written about liturgy as having a didactic role, that it should not pander to the lowest common denominator in order to draw up the understanding of the Faithful. However, further than that, we now have entire generations who are unchurched and unlearned in the faith, the Church needs to focus its instruction on the Traditional faith. This can only come with an Excellent Catechesis. Excellent Catechesis has only one aim: - to pass on the beliefs of our Fathers to the next generation fully and faithfully. Each Parish must have a full educational programme of catechesis directed at the young. This is exceendingly difficult as it means that each Parish effectively needs to take on the role of School in educating infants, children and adolescents in the ways of Christ. A parish that does not invest in a full, planned, and thorough catechesis of the young, but rather a scrappy, hit-and-miss, vague and impromptu Sunday School will lose.
   
   For the Adults, this Catechesis needs to continue also. This is why house groups are vital. One should not remain a member of a Parish without being part of a housegroup which meets during the week to read Holy Scripture or to discuss Doctrine. The individual needs to be challenged by the sound teaching of the Church so that points where the individual disagrees with that Doctrine can be investigated and that the individual can truly grow.
   
   
3. Excellent Participation:
   In the CofE,traditional liturgy has been deemed "not inclusive enough" and leaves little scope for the Congregation to play a part. The consequence is that many of the Eucharistic prayers in Common Worship are interspersed with refrains like "To you be glory and praise forever" or "it is right to give thanks and praise". The sentiment is fine, but it's like scratching Michelangelo's David to insert precious jewels. The jewels are beautiful but their insertion into something else that's beautiful, but in a different way, is damaging to both. Likewise the process that draws the human being to the Incarnate Word present in the Host is interrupted with a repeated refrain. It's a fact that if you repeat a word or phrase frequently it loses meaning particularly in an environment in which one's attention is being drawn in several different directions. It is a good thing to pray the Jesus prayer repeatedly in time with one's breathing because it is an act of personal devotion and private prayer in which an individuals attention is locked on one purpose - namely an interior search for proximity with God. At Mass, however, the search is exterior and in communion with others, and with one's attention being diverted out to the consecration, it takes an effort beyond most of us simultaneously to give meaning to a repeated refrain.
   
   The result of this "inclusion" of the congregation into a CofE liturgy produces a confusion of roles and practices. What is the real purpose of the vicarious nature of the priest if the Congregation are expected to divert their attention away from the altar in order to make a response which is well-meaning but not necessary.
   
   Excellent Participation removes confusion. Each congregant knows why he is going to Mass and what his role is in that Mass. If he is "just" (there is never "just") a congregant, then he must realise that He is to give glory to God and to receive nourishment from Him in an organised way. There must be a submission of the individual to the liturgy so that Communion is full and God glorified by each person acting unity with the parish and the whole Church. This will mean the individual prays the Eucharistic prayer attentively and devotedly as an individual, but allowing the priest as alter Christus to be his voice. The participation need not be vocal, and it certainly should not intrude on the central voice of the priest. Excellent Participation must also remind the individual that his duty towards God is to live a Christian life daily, and to work hard at serving God in everything, so that the Mass becomes his observation of the sabbath in which he rests. It is only people who encounter Christ once a week who cry out for something more to do in the liturgy.
   
   Excellence in worship can only come about if the Church impresses upon the individual that he must participate in a Christian life daily, and strive to make the Kingdom of God real in the world around him. How is the Church making and equipping new disciples? If a parish has no plan to turn congregants into effective and participating disciples then how is it still a part of the Church?

These are only a few preliminary thoughts on how we can try to strive for excellence in our worship of God. They are ill-formed and have gaps in, and I intend to keep looking for ways in which I can make some of these ideas more precise, and realisable. The Church's main enemy is that voice within that cries "inclusivity". A person can only really be included into the Church if he is willing to be changed into a Christian. The Church can but only minister to one who wants his own way, and he can never enter it until he submits to the teachings of Christ that the Church has received from the beginning. A parish that tries to change to become "more inclusive" will only remain a Church if by "more inclusive" it means broadcasting the message of God so that more people feel called to be changed into Christians and submit to His kingdom.