The Blue Flower

I have written to Bishop Brian Marsh of the ACA and asked him in these terms:

It would be very useful for me to be able to publish a testimony in retrospect about what the TAC bishops understood when they (I think you were not among them at the time) when they went up and signed the books and the letter.

The good Bishop replied and emphasised that he is giving his personal reflection, and others may take issue with him.

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Thank you for your good email; I am pleased that you are attempting to discuss the issues of the Portsmouth Petition, the Apostolic Constitution and the Ordinariates in a reasoned manner. A full understanding of this aspect of the church’s history will need the gift of time. Until then, however, we can – and should – offer our provisional understandings of the events that have unfolded since the Portsmouth Petition of 2007, just over five years ago. I would emphasize that this is a personal reflection and represents my own views on the matter. Many of these thoughts have been published elsewhere.

Portsmouth Petition. Although I was not present at the signing of the Portsmouth Petition, Bishops Langberg and Williams signed for the ACA. The text of the petition was not publicized until months later. I did not know of the contents of that petition until it was delivered orally by Archbishop Falk at a meeting of several ACA bishops in 2008. That meeting was held in Fort Worth. Also present were bishops Iker and Wantland of The Episcopal Church. Upon hearing the text, it was my impression that the petition sought “organic unity” with the Roman Catholic Church on a corporate basis. Indeed, that is what I and others had been led to believe was in fact on the table. Archbishop Hepworth had encouraged the belief that the Traditional Anglican Communion would remain intact and that the various national churches would maintain their corporate identities.

The Portsmouth Petition was just that – a petition. To suggest that it was a contract of any kind would be to misrepresent the intent of the document. The Portsmouth Petition was a request on the part of some members of the College of Bishops, a request for a means whereby the TAC might enter into unity with the RC Church.

The fact that members of the TAC College of Bishops signed the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church has caused many to believe that the bishops present were ready to enter the Church of Rome. This is not the case. The signing of the Roman Catholic Catechism as the most complete statement of the catholic faith was simply a statement of fact. The subsequent statement that the bishops aspired to teach that catechism in no way implied their full acceptance of the catechism nor their intent or desire to become members of the Roman Catholic Church. While there were undoubtedly some bishops present who wished to do just that, the simple signing of the catechism does not imply their wish to become Roman Catholics.

Apostolic Constitution. The issuance of Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009 was greeted initially with great rejoicing on the part of many within the TAC. It seemed that our dream of organic unity would be realized. Indeed, Archbishop Hepworth declared that it was a direct response to the Portsmouth Petition and that the TAC should move immediately to accept it. He lobbied extensively for the acceptance of the Apostolic Constitution.

While there are many threads in this part of the story, it became clear to several of us that the Apostolic Constitution did not offer the kind of organic union we had hoped for. Indeed, the Apostolic Constitution offered individual conversion. The corporate integrity of the TAC would not be a consideration. This was not what the Portsmouth petition had requested in its perhaps naive request for corporate unity.

The College of Bishops of the TAC needed to discuss and debate the matter of the Apostolic Constitution. As the highest legislative body of the TAC, such discussion and debate would be required before the AC could be acted upon. Archbishop Hepworth did not immediately call such a meeting. When he did plan a meeting for 2011, he abruptly cancelled it. Finally, in February, 2012, a majority of members of the College of Bishops met in Johannesburg South Africa. By unanimous vote, the TAC College of Bishops rejected the Apostolic Constitution. A petition had been sent to Rome. Rome responded. The response was not accepted.

Ordinariates. Ordinariates were established in the UK in 2011. On January 1, 2012, an Ordinariate was established in the United States. A few hundred “former Anglicans” have entered the Ordinariate established here, along with some former Episcopalians.

The Anglican Church in America has continued as an orthodox Anglican body. It has developed strong relationships with other continuing church jurisdictions and has entered into an agreement of reconciliation with the Anglican Province of America.

Although individuals are welcome to seek membership in the Ordinariates, until now few have chosen to do so. We certainly wish those who have entered Ordinariates godspeed! We pray that they will be happy with the choices they have made. We believe God has called us to labor in another part of the vineyard and we will attempt to do so as best we can.

Again, please know that this is a personal reflection. Others may well take issue with what I have written.

+Brian Marsh

I am approaching a tender subject, and some of the communications I am receiving suggest that I need to handle this with kid gloves. Some have paid a high price for following Archbishop Hepworth’s ordinariate scheme. Consultative bodies were established during the College of Bishops meeting of October 2007, and seem never to have been convened. There should have been a College of Bishops meeting to discuss and “receive” Anglicanorum coetibus of November 2007. It never happened, either because there was no money or because it was feared that there would be serious conflict between bishops who were “for” and bishops who were “against”. We could speculate on this subject until the cows come home, and I just don’t think we are going to get anywhere.

It seems best not to go over the past, but rather to take stock and look at what can be of value in the future. One thing impeding progress for some of us is the lack of computer literacy, basic technology or awareness of the use of the Internet to communicate beyond one’s own diocesan and parochial boundaries. The admissibility of using the Internet to get the TAC’s message out seems to be acquired. The most computer-savvy are the Americans, and the Canadians give monthly news of what is going on there. The English are presently working on The Traditional Anglican Church, though there still are a few frustrating things to clear up. I have the impression that the site is a standard model designed for business and commercial applications, and the person running the site is learning how to use it.

Very few of us are blogging. It’s really just Fr Smuts and myself. There used to be Christian Campbell of The Anglo-Catholic, but he went off at a tangent and has put the blog into hiatus. Deborah Gyapong posts in support of the Ordinariate movement, which is understandable. The South African website seems to be another standard business template job run by a kind soul with love in his heart but little experience with Internet work. I don’t know that much about html design, so I find the blog format most convenient, and have used the ultra-simple format of Civitas Dei for years. Old-fashioned websites take a lot of will and dedication to keep them up to date and relevant. My site usually gets about one major overhaul a year. This blog updates itself, and its template formula is user-friendly and adaptable for church work as business templates are not. For someone who has not been trained in web design, I don’t think I do too badly. The other thing is enjoying writing.

It’s going to be difficult to evaluate numbers in the TAC. There has been quite a lot of what the Americans would call bullshit! The problem is knowing which arsehole it came out of, and I’m not going to speculate here. Some of my more realistic correspondents estimate that the TAC at its peak (around mid 2007) may have numbered around fifteen to twenty-five thousand in all countries. For the moment, there seems to be no way of getting accurate figures, though I’m open to new information. Perhaps a little less than half the number of clergy and laity in the USA, Canada, England and Australia have remained in the TAC, the others having gone to the Ordinariates or disappeared off the map. South Africa, Torres Strait and India would not have changed substantially in terms of numbers between the pre-ordinariate era and now. For anything like a reliable estimate of numbers, I will have to find informed persons I can trust, and that won’t be easy, especially in the local Churches where the Internet is not used.

Personally, I would like to see Bishop Michael Gill emerge as Primate, as his location in South Africa puts him midway between the western and English-speaking world and the mission territories of Africa, Latin America and India. Above all, we need modern communication and reactivity of the kind one finds in modern business. Another very positive omen is the desire of the Americans to grow into unity with the other Continuers. I have heard nothing but the highest praise for Bishop Paul Hewitt of the Diocese of the Holy Cross. If all those serious churches can be brought together without being dogged by unwise moves or excessive numbers of episcopal consecrations, then Continuing Anglicanism has a future.

It is of paramount importance to let go of the ghosts of the past, try to stay together and perhaps recover some of the “crumbs” that didn’t go to the Ordinariate. My information tells me that the TAC is not in ruins. Far from it! But, damage has been done, and the lack of modern communication is partly to blame.

The most useful sites presently available are (in all modesty), this blog and Fr Smuts. Among the official TAC sites, the most updated are that of the ACA and the American diocesan pages. As mentioned, the Canadians are giving regular and relevant news. Efforts are being made by the Brits, and Fr Gray’s new Advent Pastoral Letter is most uplifting and appreciated. The centralised site, The Traditional Anglican Communion is not bad, giving fairly regular news bulletins and official documents. But, we do need more blogging and interaction, more interpretation and more encouragement to foster a positive and optimistic vision of the future.

You readers can help Fr Smuts and I, and anyone else who decides to launch out into the exciting world of the blogosphere.

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Update: Fr Stephen Smuts has just weighed in with The TAC Presence on the Internet, and his thoughts are most appreciated. To resume, someone commenting on his blog had mentioned how information and communication were strictly policed under the previous regime. I do remember being something of a “scarlet pimpernel” with blogging, and being “negative” and “disruptive“, as some of those ex-Anglo-Catholic commenters still are banging their drums, clinging like accretions to Fr Smuts’ blog and that of Deborah Gyapong. I tend to be stricter with moderating people who lack courtesy or who are outright bores, so I have have had fewer problems with “trolls” as of late – yet my volumes of traffic are little changed. It is strange how those people never thought of setting up their own blogs, as the blogosphere represents free speech within accepted limits.

Blogs do hold people accountable and “bullshitters” have a harder time with it all. There have been Wikkileaks, Vatileaks and even Tradileaks! The Web is a double-edged sword, and every post is a five-minute wonder before it is forgotten.

We can spend our lives denouncing corruption and bullshit, or we can try to use our writing abilities for the Ministry of the Word and re-enchanting the Christian message. All this writing is indeed taxing, time-consuming and often unappreciated work, but people do write to say how they appreciate being informed and encouraged in this long dark night of the spirit.

Deborah Gyapong has written this clarification as a comment in her blog. I reproduce it here in a spirit of fairness.

My concern is not so much trying to convince people of a belief in the One True Church—which is far more nuanced as Norm can explain or the Catechism teaches than the black and white pronouncement “there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church—but to respond to what come across to me as misrepresentations of my position, that of Anglicanorum coetibus and of the Portsmouth event. All I’m trying to point out is this: The Catholic Church defines Catholic in a certain way. Those who call themselves Catholic who are not visible members in communion with the Catholic Church have another definition of “Catholic.” I hold the Catholic Church’s definition. But that does not mean I think those who hold the other position are masquerading, or fakes for their deeply-held beliefs. However, if one wants to come into communion with the Catholic Church, one must hold to what the Catholic Church teaches, not make up one’s own view of what it means to be Catholic. These teachings on ecclesiology were the last to click into place for me, as I still find the “mystical Body of Christ” view persuasive and personally feel more of a Christian bond with devout evangelical brothers and sisters than I do with cafeteria Catholics who may have the membership in the Church but not the faith.

Yes, I do believe she is trying to be nuanced, to her credit. It is evident that if a person freely chooses to become a Roman Catholic, it is on the terms of the Bishop concerned and the Roman Curia. For those who have made this unconditional commitment by actually being received into the RC Church, they are stuck with the conditions offered to them.

What I object to are suggestions that those TAC bishops who did not go through with it have lost all honour and credibility, and that their clergy and faithful are fair game. That is the bottom line.

In short, I do not believe that the TAC bishops in some way contracted the moral and ecclesial obligations of those who have voluntarily gone through with reception into the Roman Catholic Church. Signing the catechism and a letter asking Rome to come up with some corporate solution was not a “consummated” commitment. I believe the message to Rome was the effect of “We take away all doctrinal reasons for you considering us as heretics, and we are open minded to what you as the Roman Catholic Church come up with as a solution, but we reserve the right to pull out if we find we are being taken for a ride.” Therefore, the moral obligation is contracted by those who have actually gone through with it and have been received. Clerics cease to be clerics. Those in Anglican orders are treated as though they had never received orders. Those in valid [ie: Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, Orthodox, vagante, etc.] orders were stricken with canonical irregularities. They accepted the conditions when they went though with it. Not so with those who did not go through with it. The remaining bishops in the TAC have no such moral obligation. They went into the shop, examined the goods for sale and judged that the quality of the goods was not equivalent to the asking price. They had merely expressed an interest in the goods and asked for the price. No contract was ever consummated, and we must all be clear about this.

Perhaps we outside the RC Church need not use the term Catholic, but perhaps the term Sacramental Christian as suggested in other postings on this blog. People are ignorant, and we do need to be clear. Personally, it is no skin off my nose. Protestants and Evangelicals don’t use the term Catholic either, except in a general way as they recite the Creed. What’s in a word? What does “being Catholic” mean? That’s the subject of a very big book!

We have all to do what our conscience bids us to do, and then to assume what we decide. That would seem to make sense.

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Update: Deborah Gyapong weighs in with The conversation continues at Fr. Chadwick’s blog. She is being subtle and making a great effort to navigate through the morass of all the things that have been hacked to death over the past couple of years.

Interestingly, I think, looking back in a spirit of calm reflection, I believe the Catholic Church treated the TAC as if they assumed the TAC bishops were signing with their fingers crossed behind their backs, or at the very  least they exhibited extreme caution towards the TAC and Archbishop Hepworth and drafted Anglicanorum coetibus more with the Church of England groups in mind than with concern about the ecclesial bonds of the TAC.  Thus, Anglicanorum coetibus and its parish-by-parish model of corporate reception was in itself destabilizing for TAC churches.  The Catholic Church did not treat the Portsmouth letter or the signing of the Catechism as a done deal either, but wanted to ensure that every single individual lay person made a choice to become Catholic.

One bishop (not an American) did say to me on the bus between the hotel and St Agatha’s that he was going along with it, because Rome would take fifty years to respond and another twenty years to translate the letter into Latin if it wasn’t all lost in some bureaucrat’s drawer somewhere along the line. There was no will to oppose what Archbishop Hepworth was doing. In other words, for that bishop, it was a meaningless and expensive charade! But, I don’t think all the bishops had the attitude of the particular prelate I spoke with. Perhaps a few really did in their inmost selves make a commitment to accepting whatever came from Rome. There are many questions which I don’t think will ever be answered. God can always bring good even out of human weakness and evil.

Deborah and I agree on the issue of solidarity, and how lightly that communion we had with each other was abandoned, supposedly for a higher level of communion. I also have to agree that much of the TAC is going to be “ragtag” in matters like valid Orders and doctrine. I am personally a (generic) Old Catholic in terms of ecclesiology, and my theology has been shaped by my scholastic and neo-patristic training, but I am personally a one-off. Deborah does bring out some issues that need attention over the coming years. Proper training of priests and the doctrinal formation of the faithful are not the least of them.

To what extent are we still equivocating between the 39 Articles and the more neo-patristic and Anglo-Catholic teachings in the Affirmation of Saint Louis? To what extent is the TAC allowing doctrines to be negotiated and bartered like in the Canterbury Communion. That is also a subject for survey. There are issues of moral teaching, but Deborah holds particularly “conservative” views on contraception, homosexuality and sex outside marriage. These are delicate issues, and become obsessive ideological points.

I remember when I joined the ACCC, Branch Ecclesiology was still taught 12 years ago…

Why did she not swim the Tiber then or go back to the Orthodox or the Evangelicals? Why did we have Archbishop Hepworth on one side with a few bishops devoutly following the agenda, and most being so morally weak they would accept anything?

How Catholic—however this is defined by the TAC now—does its College of Bishops aspire to be from now on?  What does it mean by Catholic?  Episcopal structure? Apostolic Succession?  Sacramental Theology?   Who decides, bishops?

How is it going to go? In the ACA, Canada, England, South Africa? Perhaps it matters less than we think. If some want to be Protestant, why not? Anglicanism since the Reformation has always been “comprehensive” and has placed harmony, peace and “getting on together” over doctrinal unity. That might seem to be a terrible indictment, but tolerance and dialogue have always been a hallmark of Anglicanism as has human freedom itself. Perhaps humanity in general would be better off under a totalitarian regime. Perhaps Hitler was right, but just got “carried away” by killing people!!! I would prefer not to be around if / when that happens. We English are natural sceptics, and perhaps God has his own way of dealing with us! Who knows?

I also hope that in the years to come, those of us in the Ordinariates and those in the TAC will be the best of friends because there will be far more that we share in common than what we disagree upon.

Perhaps ecumenism can be revived and take on a new meaning.

I would like to send my warmest wishes to all my readers on this holy day of Christmas. Since yesterday evening, I celebrated Midnight Mass with my wife after having blessed the crib and placed the infant Jesus in the manger. We sang the Mass with simplicity and joy.

After that, we ate a dozen of our local oysters from Veules les Roses. We had been to buy them on Christmas Eve morning from la criée on the edge of the sea. With a south-west wind, the sea was to lee, and therefore only with waves from the sea swell. The sailing club lay forlorn with the doors protected by heavy wooden planks, and only the fishing dory on its launching trailer. We yachties take our boats out when the weather is clement. The fishermen go out to make their living in everything other than the most dangerous conditions – and in mid winter.

This Christmas Eve was also a time for some to and fro between things I said on this blog and a series of responses from a diverging point of view. As some reminded me, it was a pity that such things had to come up on the Vigil of Christmas. The clash brought me to think about a number of things. I have written enough on ecclesiological questions not to want to go over the same boring old things time and time again. I was dealing with a new convert, who, I remember, applauded the idea of a “Eucharistic fast”, which would underline the rupture between one spiritual life and a new one. All within the logic of an inner and outer conflict I myself went through for much of my adult life.

This notion of rupture has been the most painful for many of us, and what made Rome’s propositions suspect in our eyes. Pope Benedict XVI has gone on for years about hermeneutics of continuity and organic development, but such cannot apply in some spheres. There has to be rupture. This observation also causes intense pain to some of those who felt morally obliged to run this particular gauntlet.

As I celebrated the Mass of this Christmas morning, the thoughts raced through my mind. Should this Mass be the last Christmas of my priestly life, or even as a Christian? I am not so cock-sure about the TAC as to defend it or its bishops unconditionally. My former blog collaborator attaches great importance to men sacrificing their vocations for the truth. Indeed, if that is the truth, and the only truth, then you give everything with heroism and utter generosity. I sometimes find the priesthood a terrible burden, and I often think how good it would be to share the lot of most humanity – and spend life as a spiritual seeker. There are many different spiritual and religious traditions on this earth like Gnosticism and a few shards of the Celtic tradition, and new ones are emerging as men of science begin to discover that materialism is a false understanding of our world, and quantum mechanics point to a spiritual understanding of all things we know and still don’t comprehend. I’m not concerned with “playing church”, but I am concerned with keeping sacramental Christianity going in some way, however futile it might seem.

Also, many members of the TAC are former Roman Catholics, who left for what they believed to be serious reasons. Some of them became priests in the TAC or joined the TAC as priests ordained in the Roman Catholic Church. Archbishop Hepworth was the highest profile of clerics in this category. There were others, including yours truly, ordained a deacon after having been a convert from Anglicanism and ordained in vagante land.

The history of the TAC over the past five years is of Byzantine complexity, but whatever went wrong with the aftermath of the bishops’ meeting in Portsmouth in October 2007, one thing that lacked was solidarity in the body of the clergy. I had many conversations with Archbishop Hepworth about what would happen to the irregulars in view of the complementary norms of November 2009 that clearly stated the categories of me would not be considered for the priesthood in the Ordinariates. I think he believed what he said to me – he was expecting special rules from Rome to cover the irregulars. There were none, not even for himself. By the time the Archbishop thought of setting up a Fraternity of Saint Benedict to create a pastoral provision for irregulars for the years it would take to make canonical appeals to the Roman canonical law courts, it was too late.

All that is left of the TAC, poo-pooed by the new converts, is what was regrouped in March 2012 under Archbishop Prakash and the organisational skills and energy of Bishop Michael Gill of South Africa, together with input from the American bishops and Bishop Botterill. What is more or less affiliated to this regrouping is difficult to fathom, in particular the TAC in Australia, Torres Strait and many local Churches in Africa and South / Central America.

There are ongoing attempts to define the regrouped TAC. Some are far from being impartial or laced with bitter reflections. The way Archbishop Hepworth was dealt with (at least what we know) has caused a lot of pain. The whole process of the ACA splitting away from the Ordinariate movement in 2010 was also painful and confusing. People are wounded and would like to settle old scores. It has almost become a blood feud. Is God anywhere in all that? Is there anywhere where God would feel at home?

Should I leave the TAC and go back to my ecclesial life (or lack thereof) of before August 2005 when Archbishop Hepworth took me into the TAC? Have I to begin negotiating with men who don’t know me and to whom I am just an administrative unit? How do I deal with this blood feud, maintained also by some of the new converts who are still smarting after having been “persecuted” by the ACA bishops? Where in the Church is there not a mixture of saints and sinners? Is there not still something good and ecclesial in the TAC alongside the sins and failings of human beings? This is going to be a major question this coming year. Either the TAC is cursed and everything should be done to destroy it and squeeze the toothpaste tube dry, a few more converts for the Ordinariates and the rest relegated to the abyss – or there is something to be rebuilt and put to the service of the Christian mission. That is the essential choice each of us has to make. The choice each of us will make will bear consequences.

I am not going to go on with the blood feud or seek guilty persons to settle scores with. There may be some despicable clergy in the TAC, as there are in all churches and ecclesial communities. We either reject the faith or ecclesial life, stick our heads in the sand, or come to terms with the human reality. Alongside the sin, there is also ecclesial communion in Christ and a sense of solidarity, loyalty and obedience to those we believe are more likely to be right than ourselves.

So, what do I propose? I am going to try to make a survey of the TAC and find out what we have and how many we are – bishops, dioceses, parishes, priests, laity, religious communities. In places, there may be pitifully few as our critics underline in their writings. Where two or three are gathered together in my name… In other places, there may be entirely intact communities judging by pre-Portsmouth 2007 standards like in South Africa, and – as far as I can tell – in Torres Strait. One thing is sure, we are not 400,000! We may well not be a hundredth of that number.

Some information is available on the various official sites of TAC local Churches. There are the names of the bishops and local parishes, and in many cases the names of the priests and parish websites. I plan to write an article about each local Church of the TAC once I can find reliable information. It’s likely to be a tough job, and the recent events have driven heads into the sand and made the weak of heart retreat into silence and fear.

I intend writing articles on the present state of the local member Churches of the TAC in the United Kingdom, Australia, Torres Strait, Canada, the USA, the African continent, the Central and Southern American continent and India. I expect there will be a small and scattered diaspora in other countries, like myself in France. I will look for official communications, information bishops and vicars general are prepared to share with me for publication and other information from private persons if I am convinced of its reliability. I intend to perform this task in the spirit of casting the TAC in the most favourable light possible. I believe this would be of service to the TAC and would help complete and close the painful separation process between it and the Ordinariates.

I would appreciate all the help I can get for the preparation of each of these articles. You can write by way of comments or privately by e-mail (anthony.chadwick AT wanadoo.fr). Thank you in advance, and wishing you a happy Christmas Octave, celebration of the New Year and a holy Epiphany.

It has been a few days that I have been aware of An Appeal from the Continuing Anglican Churches to the ACNA and Associated Churches. This text is now to be found in a number of websites and blogs. Perhaps we are given a historical reminder of the Affirmation of Saint Louis movement in contrast with those dissident Anglicans whose single issue seems to be homosexuality. Here we find the agreeing signatures of Bishop Marsh of the ACA together with the leading prelates of the Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Province of America, the United Episcopal Church of North America and the Diocese of the Holy Cross which keeps close ties with Forward in Faith in England. This issue is proving to be a point of unity between the various acronyms of the so-called “alphabet soup”. It is one of identity and an answer to the questions – Why are we here? and What are we doing?

Was our purpose, from the beginning, providing human resources to bolster up someone else’s deal with Rome? I won’t go though it all. Just open The Anglo-Catholic and read through its 2010 postings, many of them written by yours truly! As the narrative goes, our bishops signed a solemn promise to become Roman Catholics and those who failed to do so reneged and lost any claim to honour or integrity. There is no provision for those “not ready at this time”, and there never was. No matter how thick the sugar coating was, the cold shower was just as cold for those who had been welcomed into the TAC but were canonically irregular for being received into the Roman Catholic clergy in any shape or form. Rome was up front about that.  Archbishop Hepworth was chivalrous enough to sacrifice his own vocation, but he was wrong in sacrificing the vocations of others. The deed is done and the consequences have been suffered. Now we have to try to repair as best as we can, forgive those who have wronged us or led us into illusions, and just get up.

Only a couple of days ago, in response to the TTAC in England doing something to pull itself out of the rut, one neophyte and apparently happy convert pointed out to us that the only ones to have a right to call themselves Catholics are in union with Rome. Challenge that person, and it comes out “I didn’t mean it so absolutely. I wish those who stayed in the TAC God’s blessing and all good wishes“. But the knife still goes back into the wound to inflict more pain and anguish. But, the more one suffers, the less one becomes sensitive to pain. One goes from polemical to survival mode, and then to an effort to rebuild in earnest.

What have they set out to rebuild? That is a very good question.

Obviously, the common goal is continuing the Anglican way of Christianity. What the term Anglican means depends on churchmanship, whether you are high or low church, whether you seek to underline the values of the English Reformation, an English variety of generic Old Catholicism (the ideal and not just the Union of Utrecht) or a spiritual rendering of the Enlightenment. Generally, continuing Anglican communities broke with the Canterbury Communion out of an idea parallel with Roman Catholic sedevacantism and the notion of replacing what is no longer legitimate, or the idea of some kind of survival whilst waiting for better days. The Continuum is also a reaction to the modern secular tendency of reconstructing society without Christian faith and purely on the values of the Enlightenment and other anti-Christian ideologies. I have no need to repeat the comparing and contrasting of the 1977 continuing movement and the newer schism from the American Episcopal Church dating from only two years ago, meaning that the latter accepted many of the things refused in 1977.

The catalysing issue in the 1977 movement is the ordination of women, but encompassing a number of other related causes and effects, whilst for the 2010 movement, the issue is purely homosexuality.

What is most significant is that the Saint Louis movement is that the Continuing Church has failed to present a united front, has failed to grow as we should, and in general has failed to present an attractive alternative to the growing heresy and absurdity of the Episcopal Church. At the same time, the continuing bishops affirm a new will to unite and settle the historical conflicts. The ANCA contains the same fault lines as Continuing Anglicanism ever did, but affecting more fundamental aspects and that much more difficult to resolve.

We have all to examine our understanding of classical Anglicanism and how the high-church vision fits in to provide the basis of the old agreements between Anglicanism, Old Catholicism and parts of Orthodoxy. One aspect of Anglicanism that is difficult is conciliating the idea of the “classical Prayer Book tradition” with the desire to restore the shape of the Eucharistic rites to the best of their pre-Reformation usages. This notion of “prayer book tradition” is something that needs to be clarified by comparison with its own liturgical background. The American 1928 Prayer Book and the Scottish Prayer Book of 1929 represent partial restorations according to Anglo-Catholic principles. Interestingly, the Prayer Books have retained the old medieval liturgical calendar with its Sundays after Trinity and Ember Days.

I would like to see more serious consideration given to the revival of the Sarum Use in the place of the English and Anglican missals based on Counter Reformation Roman Catholic usage. There are two complete translations of the Sarum missal in Prayer Book English, of which the better one is the Warren version of 1911. The two translations share the same sequences. A Eucharist celebrated according to the Sarum Use in English would be perfectly compatible with the Offices of Mattins and Evensong from the Prayer Book as a practical and pastoral alternative to the medieval Breviary. An American 1928 Eucharist would be better supplemented by Warren / Sarum material (English Hymnal of 1933) rather than the Roman material with its tendency to reinforce Anglo- Papalism and the movement in the TAC that led both the joy and heartbreak through a screen of illusion and deception. Anglicanism has, at least over the past hundred years, learned to tolerate a healthy level of liturgical diversity – and that needs to continue.

But Anglican identity is not merely a question of liturgy and what is done in churches. It is also a mentality that involved tolerance and an English sense of fair play. How Anglicanism took off in other countries, I fail to understand. That spirit of respecting diversity has now died in England. Discussion and dialogue are things of the past, and I mourn the passing of many of our English ideals that I had believed to be eternal. There is the pastoral sense and that character of “tolerant conservatism” coined at one time by Archbishop Peter Robinson – which both seem to be on the way out. I sometimes believe that the best place to be would be at sea, as far away from inhabited land as possible! But yet, when all hope seems to be lost, there is a new twitch on the thread, to misquote Chesterton.

Taking note of these difficulties represents a step forward and a reason to hope for revival and renewal in the place of cynicism and decline, attrition and despair. If we want things better for ourselves and our posterity, it is up to each of us not only to rebuff the cynicism, scoffing and naysaying of others, but also to be committed to a positive course of action to offer the world what we consider as sacred and precious. I believe it is possible with this renewal of good will between our bishops.

We may be reserved and sceptical, as we wait for these first New Year resolutions to bear fruit and draw down God’s blessings on the afflicted Christian people. This appeal from our leading bishops is welcome and a bringer of hope.