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.
In the ultimate sense there is no fence. Christ has only one body, and, if I make the illogical assertion that I am a part of that Body, as is Benedict, as us the Eastern Church, as, for that matter is anyone who is truly a Christian, I am declaring that there is not real division. However, the division that we humans persist in putting into place is all too reaL The Pope does not recognize AngloPapalists as fully a part of what he sees as the one true church, and many of the Orthodox do not see him as part of what they see as that one church. All that needs to change.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, principled AngloPapalists such as you have one set of standards which can sit well, though a bit uncomfortably, with genuine Anglicanism, from the viewpoint of an ongoing process with an end point you are currently comfortable with. However there are AngloPapalists, the ones to whom that quote applies, who wish to pretend that we are currently Roman Catholics and are bound to accept whatever is taught there simply because it is said there. I've been roundly reprimanded for doubting pronouncements of the RCC as if I am refusing to hear the Church. My point is that Rome, and the Anglicans, and the East, are all mishearing the Church in various ways. We need to find out what the whole church has said/is saying, in order to restore true unity.
Those who will condemn me and other AngloCatholics on those grounds, have no viable place in Anglicanism and should swim yeaterday, if not sooner. (I think you know at least a couple of those to whom I refer) By their own expressions they stand condemned until they do. Those, on the other hand, who will try to convince me of the distinctives of the RCC, while endeavoring to bring me and my brethren along that route are valuablre brethren, and needed in this communion.
ed
I agree with you, Ed. There is a distinction between Anglican Papalists who assert that the Anglican Church needs to be reunited with Rome, but by union, not absorption, and there are (technically, Romanisers) who just want to turn the Anglican Church wholesale into the Roman Church.
ReplyDeleteThe Anglican Church has become something beautiful in the four/five hundred years of separation, but she still needs her parent, and her parent is deficient without her.