She has been bashing this one for a long time, but I have always treated her as a lady and have sometimes tried to “negotiate”. Personally, I am fond of her, but her decreasing tolerance has made me truly wince.
Here is the latest to take me up on some of the things I write: Fr. Anthony Chadwick’s response to that letter from Continuing Bishops.
I lay it on the line. Here it goes: Anyone calling himself Catholic without being formally in communion with Rome is masquerading. Unless we have converted as she has done, we are bogus and worthy only of contempt.
I have noticed this increasingly intransigent attitude for some time. Fine by me. There would only be sour grapes on my side if I really believed the “one true church” sales pitch, but I don’t. At the same time, the way Anglicanorum coetibus was implemented in the early days deeply hurt her, and we had many discussions – but then she accepted it. That’s fine by me, but I now protest against her intolerance of the continuing existence of some of the Anglican community she once belonged to.
I do give her credit for trying to be reasonable with such men as Bishop Botterill who managed the division between continuing Anglicans and Ordinariate-bound in a more peaceful way than the more heavy-handed Americans. But there comes a time when some of us are going to make an effort to survive or go under. There is no more paste in the tube for the Ordinariates. But she is handling this quite ineptly and pouring more oil on the flames.
Deborah Gyapong is the true reason I closed the old English Catholic blog, since she was on it as a contributor. I didn’t want a bust-up at the time, and I still don’t. But I am now forced to come clean with it.
It is now seems to be the parting of the ways. May God bless her in doing and writing what she feels to be right, but the limit is reached when she began trashing others. And that I cannot accept.
The Blue Flower 
Sadly, Mrs Deborah Gyapong has taken the high ground since having become ‘fully Catholic’ and is now simply looking down with disdain on those souls who have been left behind (for whatever reason) in the Communion she once worshipped in. I have, on previous occasions, asked her to get on with being a good Ordinariate member (blogger) and leave the TAC behind, in peace. Some of us are simply trying to pick up the pieces (in a post-Hepworthian Church) and get on with the Lord’s work unimpeded. Her constant rehashing and obsessing on the chaos and confusion of the past is not helping anybody.
Me? I thought of posting a response but then again I’m getting so tired of all the fighting and honestly, come on, it’s Christmastide! Surely there is something far better she could come up with and post on this wondrous and hollowed Eve?
I felt guilty about my response to the trashing having to be on the holy night of Christmas.
I would have been happy for the Ordinariate people to be happy and for the post-Hepworthian TAC to pick up the pieces and no longer to be a source of spare parts for Ordinariates and the rest to be thrown into the trash like an empty toothpaste tube – squeezed dry.
I make every effort I can be be a gentleman in this thing and not ad hominem. What I protest is this general attitude of intolerance and saying that those who have not swum the Tiber do so because they are bogus Catholics and without integrity.
She might think she is doing a service, as a continuation of her previous life as an Evangelical and doing her duty of “witnessing” and getting people to be “born again”. No, she is doing harm.
I certainly think it’s time to give this business about the TAC a rest. As a potential member of the Ordinariate, I have never considered myself to be on “the high ground”, since I entered the Roman Catholic Church many years ago. Of course, as a Franciscan, I have never been on the high ground, taking a position of “minority”, so such a thing is quite foreign to me. I only have the profoundest respect towards those in the TAC who have decided to remain as continuing Anglicans. As Christians, we should not be in the business of trashing anyone. Rehashing the events of the past few years only serves to open old wounds and rub the proverbial salt in them. It simply serves no purpose. To those who were in the TAC/ ACCC etc. and are Ordinariate bound, my only advice to them is to move on and look to the future without having one foot in the past. To those who have decided to remain in the TAC or any other continuing Anglican group, my prayers are with you and, as St. Thomas More once said, ” May we meet merrily in Heaven.”.
Father,
While I disagree with Ms. Gyapong on many things, and while I thoroughly dislike the “new convert” attitude evident in her writing, I can’t take quite so negative an attitude toward her. She is making an effort to avoid ‘ad hominem’ argumentation, and to steer away from bashing anyone, though not always successful in either. I differ with her intensely about the ‘one-true-church’ pretensions of Rome, since I regard such claims as entirely false and she regards them as entirely true. But still, she is one of the more reasonable and, yes, charitable voices from the Ordinariates. May God bless her in her efforts to draw nearer to His will. However, I do wish that she, and other similar voices, would be less energetic, and, yes, less meddling, in their efforts to bring the rest of us around to their thinking. Perhaps it is true that she is doing harm, in spite of her intentions, but could it also be said that we also do harm is we react to that with anger and take the chance of increasing polarization? I’ve had to recognize that with some things I’ve said in the past, and have had to learn to moderate my own expression. Disagreement in this world is inevitable, but disagreeableness needs to be avoided at all cost.
I agree with you, Ed, but she can’t call us phoney Catholics (or the equivalent in other words) without expecting an answer. I agree that she is a good and charitable person, and it would be good to take up the conversation again in 5, 10 or 20 years when the perspective of all of us will be different.
In the meantime, I bid her the peace of Christmas and ask God for healing for us all.
Brothers and sisters, let us love one another, for love is of God. And a Hapy Christ-mass for us all.
What a surprise! What’s someone like you doing in such a low place as this? Anyway, Father, have a happy Christmas…
Fr. Anthony,
I have also noticed the change in Mrs. Gyapong’s attitude and approach in the last couple of months. I have put it down to ‘new convert’ syndrone. I wonder how she feels about the Orthodox, who are every bit as ‘catholic’ as she is although, like myself, they do not accept the jusidiction of the Pope. Like yourself, Father, I am a cradle Catholic who switched to Anglo-Cathoicism because of the dreadful things that were happening (and still are) in the Roman Church in the 70’s and 80’s. Deborah is a personal acquaintance of mine so I hope that she settles down and enjoys being Catholic as much as I have over the past 60 years. Sign me a non-Papal Catholic!
I would say that those who join the Roman communion have forfeited any claim to catholicity they once had. Roman hauteur and monopoly on the word ”catholic” is one of my pet hates – incidentally one of the reasons I put a ”What is the Catholic Church” text in the sidebar of my own blog.
I once heard about an Evangelical preacher who arrived in Rome from the USA, and apparently spoke Italian. He took a taxi from the airport to his hotel and set about converting his taxi driver. The taxi driver said, “I don’t believe in the one true Church, so why should I believe in yours?” Perhaps it would be a good thing for the light to go out, for us to experience absolute nothingness, and then perhaps something might come out of it.
At the present I just believe in an ecclesiological ”idea,” which is in line with Orthodoxy, though I haven’t experienced Orthodoxy for the whole of this year, and much of last. All I need now is to be in communion with a bishop and there we are – I can rest in peace.
I think anyone with any common sense wouldn’t be converted by a protestant sitting in the back seat of a car!
I think you missed my point. The point I made is that the “true church” stuff is so engrained that it is held by people who don’t believe in God.
As for the Orthodox, attend one of their churches and stick at it for at least a year before deciding that this would be the thing for you.
Thinking the Lutheran pietist P.J. Spener wrote something along the lines of “Better a good Roman Catholic than a bad Lutheran.” Has taken me a couple decades to more fully appreciate the wisdom. Sometimes it is along the lines of liberal cafeteria style RCs who undermine their Church but would make great Episcopalians. Or Anglicans who really believe in Rome but can’t quite cross the Tiber yet work against their communion. Or anyone who isn’t quite at home wherever they are and realize there is a “better” home for them but who just can’t go there so they are always agitated about something and never at peace. No one should ever join any denoimation without spending a significant amount of time just worshipping with them plainly and simply with no greater expectation.
I would agree with you, and something the “new converts” say to their credit is that it would be wrong to become a Roman Catholic without believing in it and being prepared to accept the conditions. That doesn’t exclude bishops negotiating terms and “horse dealing”. For an individual, one can go to a parish and stick with it for at least a year, then he could make a decision.
Knowing that this is the game, we need to look at things soberly. Rebuild our own camp or go out into the desert as a “spiritual seeker” knowing that the “promised land” may never be attained in this life. There are many choices, good and bad, altruistic or selfish, and we just have to discern as adults.
The issue I emphasise is that people who do not believe in the Roman claims have a right not to be trashed for staying in the church they belong to. That is the real issue.