The Blue Flower

I would just like to add a little note to my previous article on ecclesiastical counterfeiting. My Bishop did observe that the use of the term Anglican Catholic by those who are not formally members of The Anglican Catholic Church is debatable. Personally, I use the term by virtue of having been formally received and licensed by Bishop Damien Mead into the Diocese of the United Kingdom of the ACC and continuing to be in good standing. In addition to my documents, the mention of my Chaplaincy and my own name in the diocesan website also establishes more than a little in the way of credentials. However, the site issues a disclaimer saying that such “descriptions do not constitute any canonical recognition of status“. All that being said, it would be known if I were claiming to be something I’m not.

If it’s not known to be true, it isn’t true. If it sounds too good to be true, it isn’t true. Secrets don’t stay secret for long. Sometimes, someone tells me about some wonderful independent church hitherto unknown – and gives me the link to their website. I then see then names of those involved and mutter “I wasn’t born yesterday“. My reaction is to ask myself how stable they will still be in five years from now. Corporate knowledge and long experience can be embarrassing. A person remains bound by his antecedents and cannot “remake” himself just by disappearing for a couple of years!

There are two national parts of the TAC using the title Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia (they will change their site to anglicancatholic.com.au from next month) and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada. This would seem to be for the historical reason that these bodies at some time separated from the Original Province of the ACC and became parts of the TAC when the latter was instituted in the early 1990’s. However, they do not use the coats of arms and other proprietary symbols of the ACC. They have their own and no one is deceived or misled.

There has been a new comment by my Bishop in his Facebook thread:

There are some genuine folk who don’t understand that the ACC is a distinct body in it’s own right and instead think of ‘Anglican Catholic’ as a generic reference to the historic meaning of ‘Anglo-Catholicism’. However, I think the reason that men like this like the name ACC and want to be identified with us is because generally they want the externals but not the internals. By this I mean they don’t want to be under authority (unless it is their own) and don’t want to be subject to any rules (unless they have written them themselves).

Indeed, this is fragile treading ground, and we have a new distinction, not between “I am Anglican Catholic but don’t belong to the Anglican Catholic Church – Original Province” (or to the two member Churches of the TAC mentioned above) but between Anglican Catholic and Anglo-Catholic. Etymologically, there can be no distinction. When I was in the Church of England, I often heard about Anglo-Catholics but never about Anglican Catholics. However, the term is sometimes brought up by Fr John Hunwicke, who is now a priest of the English Ordinariate but who was previously a priest of the Church of England. I would be grateful to know whether members of the Ordinariates in communion with Rome call themselves Anglican Catholics.

My Bishop would certainly prefer the term Anglican Catholic not to be too generic or be used by too many Anglicans not belonging to the Anglican Catholic Church, and certainly not by con-men or wannabes who would compromise our reputation through ignorance or insufficient distinction.

Certainly, our Church is distinctive as well as being a manifestation of what we would like to consider as mainstream Catholicism without any adjective. English ritualists can sometimes tend to focus on details of liturgical rites and other trappings without the theology and spirituality of traditional Catholicism anchored in the pre-Reformation Church with the positive pastoral aspects brought by the Reformation. Examples of those positive aspects are the rethinking of popular piety and the Bible and liturgy in English. Obviously, our roots are in the indigenous English Church, but also in the various Catholic movements in England from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, and this makes us stand apart from Counter-Reformation Catholicism as exemplified by the polemical wake left behind by the Council of Trent and the rise of Ultramontanism. To what extent we are an organic continuation or a grafted-on pastiche is open to question, but I don’t think it matters if the outside matches the inside.

Indeed our Bishop is right in that if we want to be known by the name of Anglican Catholic and identify with the traditions and privileges of the ACC, then we have to be ready to accept authority and follow rules. That was my intention when I made my canonical promises to Bishop Mead last April. It was reassuring as well as painful to be subjected to a good grilling by our Diocesan Board of Ministry, because the standards are high and those people expect priests of quality and loyalty! This is part of the pastoral duty of a diocesan bishop.

What’s in a name? The big problem is when a Christian community finds itself having to break away from its parent Church for reasons of conscience and continue to identify with its tradition. If we were members of the Anglican Communion, we continue to identify with Anglicanism. If we were Roman Catholics, we still call ourselves Catholics, because we understand the term in a generic way without the intention to mislead or masquerade. If we call ourselves Anglicans, the Church of England will accuse us of masquerading. If we call ourselves Catholics, the Roman Catholic Church will accuse us of masquerading. So we use an adjective to distinguish ourselves in a concern for being honest – we identify with such-and-such a tradition but we don’t pretend to belong to the Church that continues to claim a monopoly on the title.

We can go round and round in circles looking for the unique trademark that will set us apart from both the big Churches (which have modernised their liturgies, admitted women into their clergy, weakened doctrinal teaching, etc.) and the charlatans who often turn out to be bogus in terms of their lack of training and never having been ordained. There is always someone to the left and the “more legitimate” to the right. I have seen this kind of juggling for years, which is why I seek to make fine distinctions between the generic (sodium chloride being called salt) and the proprietary (sodium chloride being called Cerebos).

Bishop Damien Mead in his Facebook column tells us about unscrupulous characters using our Church’s name and arms:

From time to time I notice (or have pointed out to me) that people (and ‘organisations’) adopt the ‘Anglican Catholic Church’ name and logo / service mark (shield) as their own, whether or not they are associated with the ACC. I acknowledge that a long debate could surround the legitimate use of the words ‘Anglican Catholic ‘. But when used in conjunction with our ACC shield, I think it is misleading unless the folk using it clearly do have an association with the ACC.

A few days ago I noticed that a ‘priest’ in Italy was using the name and shield so I wrote to him asking him if he was (a) a member of the ACC (b) did he realise that the shield belonged to the ACC (c) and that the name ‘Anglican Catholic Church’ did not, for many of us, translate as ‘Anglican Communion’ which is what he seemed to think. Gosh the email response I had back from him, in Italian, was ferocious and nasty … The only English words he used were the sort of words my mother would say that he needed to wash his mouth out with soap! All very Christian, priestly and ecumenical I must say! He seems to have blocked me now but I think the shield has disappeared from his profile. All he had to do was respond with a simple “oops sorry!”

Periodically I also have people contact me to ask if so-and-so priest, bishop, layman is a member of the ACC because of something they state on their FB profile or website or because of a picture or logo they are using (I was even pointed in the direction of one German ‘priest’ claiming me as his bishop). If in doubt please feel free to check it out with me! I can’t really comment on the ‘validity’ or ‘integrity’ of those who claim episcopal or sacerdotal status on here, my use of ‘…’ in referring to those above is simply because the behaviour of both of these particular ‘gentlemen’ leaves me room to doubt! However, I can, reasonably well, identify those who have communio in sacris with the Church to which I belong.

He makes the point very well, particularly the distinction about the term Anglican Catholic being something generic rather than proprietary. However, the clerics in question were also fraudulently using the ACC’s arms, which are the legal property of our particular institutional Church. Such misrepresentation is a legal offence in the USA and most other countries.

Inventors have patents to protect their property. Composers, film makers and publishers have their copyrights against plagiarists who would steal their work for their profit. All manufacturers and traders have their trademarks and symbols which are protected by law. Camembert cheese, fine wines and champagne are protected by law as appellation d’origine contrôlée. Brands of fashion wear have their reputations in high street shops, and many customers go by the brand to know they are buying a product of quality. This is how it works. Anyone can build up a business if he is any good, and acquire his own reputation and trademark.

It is no different for Churches. Our reputation as clergy or institutions of integrity and trustworthiness can be ruined in no time flat by some fraud pretending to belong to us when he does not. There can be a reasonable amount of tolerance for those who claim to be Anglican Catholics or Independent Catholics or Independent Orthodox. Those are not proprietary trademarks but general descriptions of a type of Christianity which indicate what kind of worship and doctrine people will find. The problem comes in when you get men claiming to be Roman Catholics under the Pope as I described in Vagante Bishops and Aping Rome or men claiming to be priests of the Church of England or the Russian Orthodox Church. There, we find true misrepresentation and an intention to deceive.

I have often been criticised for my tolerance in regard to independent churches when there is some minimum level of sincerity and integrity. The Church can very well overflow the limits we humans try to put on it in our zeal to protect our reputations and our source of living like any business or creator. I support my Bishop in his indignation faced with a German and an Italian, both unnamed, who have been plagiarising our Church websites and symbols. In hindsight, I see very little or no future in clergy striking out of their own away from anything recognisable as an institutional Church.

Where is the line drawn? Anyone can make a car or a van if they have the skills and equipment to produce a vehicle that works and is roadworthy, but only certain people can call it a Ford or a Renault. We Anglican Catholics use these names without being in communion with either the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury, but we don’t do so fraudulently or with the effect of misleading or deceiving. If our faithful know what we are and what we are not, then they have the freedom to choose what we offer them in the way of a Christian life and the Sacraments of Christ. Some would have the terms Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican restricted to the large institutions and claimed as proprietary trademarks, (respectively the Roman Catholic Church, the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Moscow, etc. and the Lambeth Conference) using them. The truth is somewhere in the middle between the totalitarian and liberal extremes.