So how does Michael Sean Winters at America Magazine react to the good news of the Traditional Anglican Communion comning into full communion with the Church?
There are members of the Anglican Church who have come to question the catholicity of their communion, and like John Henry Newman before them, their questioning is leading them to turn to Rome.
It is a fair question – and one that I worry these new structures are designed to obfuscate – why now? Were they not disturbed by their communion’s indifference to papal primacy all these years? When John Paul II sought some way to establish the validity of Anglican orders, but came up empty because the apostolic succession was clearly broken, why did they not seek incorporation into the Church of Rome then? I am sure that many of those who are now motivated to seek communion with Rome do so now primarily because the fractured nature of their own communion has become so manifest.
No doubt that is indeed part of the reason since it is rather hard to maintain the three branch theory with one of the branches branching off into so many other branches. Also glad to see that he recognizes that apostolic succession was clearly broken.
But, I worry, too, that some of these newcomers will also be nostalgists, anti-feminists, and anti-gay bigots. The ordaining of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire is not something I would have advised, but after all these centuries of schism, I am not sure why that should have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Yikes!!! Though I get the felling that is how Michael Sean Winters looks at many people who are actually faithful to the magisterium and the full range of Catholic thought. The word nostalgia has been tossed around a lot in reference to the TLM, regardless to the fact that many of us were never raised on it. Catholic truth never changes and you can never be nostalgic to what is an ever-present reality. Anti-gay bigot of course means anybody who actually think that homosexual activity is gravely immoral and anti-feminists are those who actually agree with the constant teaching of the Church that women can’t be ordained. Certainly Mr. Winters if he would have thought about it longer would find a way to see the newcomers as racist also just like he was able to discern the reason for the 9-12 Teaparty protests.
Maybe Mr. Winters can screen these converts to the Church for his brand of ideological purity. That they may be one – unless of course they actually believe in all the Church teaches. Though after he manages to worry about some of these newcomers he manages to say “It is a big church and there is room for everybody as I never tire of saying.”
The first email I received this morning was from a Jewish friend who saw this aspect of the development when he wrote: “Do you think Pope B- might set up a Jewish rite if we asked him? We could call it Judaism. He could call it unity with church. Everyone’s happy.”
What? I am not sure what this is suppose to mean?
Father Z catches this tweet from the National Catholic Reporter.
Pope okays new structures to absorb disgruntled Anglican conservatives
I guess ecumenism that actually leads to union with the Church is not the right approach. We must endlessly dialog and talk and never get anywhere. We can’t have ecumenism with an actually end to union.
Though it is rather ironic that the dissident National Catholic Reporter which is nothing but angry and dissatisfied when it comes to the Church would have this complaint of others.
