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Mystophilus
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Think about how that applies to ideas about metaphysical things, things which neither side can ever prove because we lack the capacity to gather sufficient testable data.
Think also about analogues, including one rather nearer to you. Do all Catholics agree on everything? No, but you do agree that it is a good thing to continue to be Catholic, even though those Catholics over there think things which you could never, ever think.
It works like that: we agree on a sufficient number of things important enough to hold us together as a worldwide group, and, significantly, we agree that it is a good idea to continue being a worldwide group. We then disagree on a whole array of details, but we agree to maintain those disagreements within limits not only of civility but of active cooperation with one another on other tasks. Much of this is founded upon the necessity of the the humble recognition of the fact that, as imperfect humans, we have to acknowledge that we could be wrong, instead of (or as well as) them being wrong. This means that we remain together as a complex body in which the differences are constantly be re-examined and analysed.
At some level, there is some degree of apathy about it: some people just want to go to church, and really do not care. Other people care very passionately about ideas which are polar opposites, and it is the stress of those disagreements which places the greatest strain on the communion. However, yet other (and I suspect more) people care at least as passionately about keeping those poles in polite and respectful dialogue with one another, and about reminding all of us to recognise Christ in each other. That is the glue.
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manualman
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That makes plenty of sense if we’re talking about issues of preference and taste. I respect the high mass latin purists, but have no desire to see the Church return to liturgy entirely in Latin.
I even comprehend how differences in emphasis and coexist and benefit from one another, for example those whose vocation involves spreading the gospel through service to the poor and sick learning to mutually benefit by living in community with those whose ministry focus is in liturgical music or marriage counseling or whathaveyou.
But I sure lose you when you suggest that people can be in communion when one faction clearly sees that Scripture and Tradition consider action X to be inherently immoral and another faction considers that same action to be potentially a manifestation of God’s love and presence among man. Forgive me, but that’s borderline schitzo, isn’t it?
I even comprehend how differences in emphasis and coexist and benefit from one another, for example those whose vocation involves spreading the gospel through service to the poor and sick learning to mutually benefit by living in community with those whose ministry focus is in liturgical music or marriage counseling or whathaveyou.
But I sure lose you when you suggest that people can be in communion when one faction clearly sees that Scripture and Tradition consider action X to be inherently immoral and another faction considers that same action to be potentially a manifestation of God’s love and presence among man. Forgive me, but that’s borderline schitzo, isn’t it?
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gus
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Didn’t their bishop in New York order same sex ministers (priests)living together to marry. After it was approved in that state
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Mystophilus
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Have a look at this couple of sets of people:
dignityusa.org/category/site-index-terms/gay-catholics
womensordination.org/
These are Catholic organisations which consider particular activities to be manifestations of God’s love and presence amongst humanity, while other Catholics consider the same activities to be inherently immoral or wholly forbidden, and yet all of the people at both of those poles in each case identify as Catholic. They quite possibly attend some of the same parishes, and accept the Eucharist side-by-side (or one after another).
That stuff, however, lies in the complex territory of philosophy. Let’s try something more basic, like physical science: there are Catholics who understand that evolution is the best explanation which we have of the data available to us, and Catholics who believe that evolution is a lie of the devil. Well, evolution is still a theory which some people find complicated, so let’s try something even simpler: there are Catholics who understand that the Earth goes around the sun, and, as I discovered recently, Catholics who believe that the sun goes around the Earth.
“How do you allow these people to continue to all pretend to be Catholics when they all disagree with one another on such fundamental facts?!?”
It’s a ridiculously naive question, because it fails to understand that Catholicism is not about heliocentrism, or evolution, or even the sex of priests. To an extent, it is instead about how you decide such questions. Quite simply, you recognise that they are all Catholics because the beliefs upon which they agree are more important than the beliefs upon which they disagree.
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vsedriver
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manualman
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Thanks, I think I comprehend what you are trying to say. I think you’re trying to point out that since people are hopelessly fractured on a nearly endless number of issues, one must simply identify a few main crucial points of unity and the rest is up for grabs? Is that close?
- Have a look at this couple of sets of people:
dignityusa.org/category/site-index-terms/gay-catholics
womensordination.org/- These are Catholic organisations which consider particular activities to be manifestations of God’s love and presence amongst humanity, while other Catholics consider the same activities to be inherently immoral or wholly forbidden, and yet all of the people at both of those poles in each case identify as Catholic. They quite possibly attend some of the same parishes, and accept the Eucharist side-by-side (or one after another).
- That stuff, however, lies in the complex territory of philosophy. Let’s try something more basic, like physical science: there are Catholics who understand that evolution is the best explanation which we have of the data available to us, and Catholics who believe that evolution is a lie of the devil. Well, evolution is still a theory which some people find complicated, so let’s try something even simpler: there are Catholics who understand that the Earth goes around the sun, and, as I discovered recently, Catholics who believe that the sun goes around the Earth.
- “How do you allow these people to continue to all pretend to be Catholics when they all disagree with one another on such fundamental facts?!?”
I do still have some problems wrapping my head around some of these ideas where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. I added numbers to your quote to address them individually.
- So if a local chapter of the “North American Man-Boy Love Association” wanted to identify with the Episcopal Church, that would be OK too? Perhaps maybe just with the modifier that none of the boys complained about it? Catholicism obviously has plenty of problems with this behavior, but we at least have a mechanism for objectively declaring it to be morally wrong (and repugnant). Does TEC? Will TEC be unable to resist this movement if it gains any sort of mainstream backing in society or is TEC now just a social club unable to assert a claim of moral authority over its members?
- Well, yes. Jesus said quite clearly that the weeds would grow up alongside the wheat and this was inevitable. But I’m not sure I recall him treating this as a diversity to be celebrated or encouraged. Rather to the contrary, as I recall, the weeds are going to end up in a burn pile! Yikes! Maybe fidelity IS important after all.
- Science is not within the mission of the Church. The faithful are encouraged to use reason to address the “what, where, when, how” questions that science is admirably suited to illuminate. Science fails miserably to deeply answer the “who and why” questions that arise in life. It’s perfectly normal and acceptable for catholics to have a diversity of opinion on matters of science since there has been little to no revelation from God on those questions. (Though I personally find the young and flat earth contingents to be a bit, um, odd.)
- Well, first of all, you need to categorize issues into those in which the church has a competence to decide versus those in which she doesn’t. While you will certainly find catholics that claim that heliocentrism is a biblical issue, those catholics’ opinions are irrelevant because the BISHOPS in union with the pope have determined that that issue is NOT one that revelation addresses. No jurisdiction (until and unless ‘scientists’ tresspass on religious turf and claim that empirical data somehow disproves the religious content of revelation). The meaning and purpose of the priesthood, on the other hand, is rather a specifically catholic issue that IS within the authority of the bishops to discern. And I suppose we are now getting back to the core of the problem. It seems like in Anglicanism, there is ever less unity even among the bishops on matters of faith and revelation and nobody who can bring it about. Functionally, this means people can simply pick the bishop they like best according to what they want to believe. In essence, eliminating the pope means everybody is the pope. Oops. That’s how it seems from this side of the fence, anyways.
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GKC
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No problem. I’m opinionated too. And yes, the issue of Holy Orders, and the validity of the sacraments depending thereon, is certainly the elephant in the sanctuary, for many orthodox Anglicans. My, yes. Unity breaker right there.
GKC
Anglicanus-Catholicus, posterus traditus Anglicanus
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manualman
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GKC, Shuck, I’m not worried about offending YOU! If I think you’re a schmuck, I’ll just tell ya’, OK? (thankfully I don’t!) 
I just didn’t want to turn off Mystophilus before I was sure I understood her perspective.
I just didn’t want to turn off Mystophilus before I was sure I understood her perspective.
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GKC
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You’re right. You know me, and that it’s next to impossible to offend me. But as I said before, you do get it, IMO.GKC, Shuck, I’m not worried about offending YOU! If I think you’re a schmuck, I’ll just tell ya’, OK? (thankfully I don’t!)
I just didn’t want to turn off Mystophilus before I was sure I understood her perspective.
GKC
potential schmuck
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Mystophilus
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Pretty much, although there is also a complication regarding the consensus upon how many points are crucial, and which ones they are. That particular discussion has been running through the Church as a whole for two thousand years now, and is far from over.
As far as I am aware, most social clubs do have codes of ethics, although not necessarily written ones. Certainly, if someone suddenly made paedophilia legal, I expect quite a few would start adding that prohibition to their own rules.
I should also point out here that, as my user affiliation says, I am Anglican, not Episcopalian, and I have been talking about the Communion, all 80ish million of us, not just the TEC.
There is, however, a very significantly hierarchical idea here in the church being able to “assert a claim of moral authority over its members” which is very foreign to Anglicanism. As it happens, that sort of centralisation was recently attempted via something called The Anglican Communion Covenant, and it got shot down in flames: the idea that Lambeth should control Anglicanism was not well received worldwide. For us, the church is its members; consensus fidelium, as in the Catholic Church, but writ even bolder.
So, on the wider level, the Communion is a confederation of 44 provinces, each of whom is autonomous. If one, for example TEC, does something which others, for example various provinces in Africa do not like, then those ten provinces in Africa can break communion with TEC (and then reinstate communion to the ACNA who splinter from TEC), while the other two provinces in Africa do not break with the TEC. That sort of refusal to talk to another, however, works about as well as the Rome breaking communion with SSPX: the latter go on their merry way, unconvinced by all the fuss.
On a narrower level, each individual province has its own specifics of structural organisation and control, but the basic instrument of legislation is the synod, which is regularly composed of clergy and laity. Thus, if the majority of a particular province did decide to that Young Earth Creationism were the truth, something hugely improbable and yet still far more likely than any such population wholly deciding that paedophilia were not inherently abusive, it is through the synod that the movement would be able to make it part of the rules which govern the province.
Where did he define the weeds as anyone who held a different opinion to The Authorities? The discussions in Anglicanism are not about whether or not people can freely perpetrate wickedness, but about how we identify what is wicked and what is not. All are (at least publicly) in complete agreement about promoting good and ending evil.
As you mentioned, “since people are hopelessly fractured on a nearly endless number of issues, one must simply identify a few main crucial points of unity and the rest is up for grabs”. Science is a form of understanding of reality, as is religion. When religion cedes authority to science, religion is admitting that those particular areas are not crucial points of unity, and are thus up for grabs. That process of admission, and it has been a gradual process over the Church’s history, has been about how we identify what is wicked and what is not.
This is where we get back to the synod issue: bishops govern, but it is really the synods who legislate. Still, potentially, one could emigrate from a province which ordains gay people to a province which does not, although I have never met anyone who has gone that far. Usually, Anglicans do what Catholics do: they shift to a more-conservative or more-liberal parish in the same city. In part, this is because even the greatest points of difference still tend to be embedded in huge swathes of agreement: we might disagree entirely with that bunch about the ordination of gay people, but we are in complete accord about the liturgy, about the structure of the church, about the church’s role in society, etc.
It’s fine: it took me quite a while to get any kind of handle on Catholicism; I am hardly going to expect you to understand our very-different ways automatically. The most crucial point is the hierarchy, and this fact that Catholicism traditionally has a “top-down” form of legislation and governance, whereas Anglicanism is much more democratic.
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manualman
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Your description of Anglican sources of authority makes it sound like authority is ultimately derived from the people (presumably who all get it from listening to the Holy Spirit). Fair description?
Do Anglicans not agree with catholics on the Fall of Man? That humans are good, but fallen and in need of a Savior to redeem and sanctify us? It seems rather inconsistent that the very people who are fallen and in need of Salvation are corporately the most reliable source of God’s will and revelation. Wouldn’t it be more in character with the rest of Salvation history if God continued His repeated pattern of miraculous intervention at the minimum level needed for us to be saved, while still having the free will to choose or reject Him? I certainly don’t see the model you just presented anywhere in the New Testament. One can argue that the word ‘pope’ doesn’t appear either, but it’s a lot harder for me to see what you describe there than it is for me to see Jesus granting his apostles authority to teach reliably and those apostles beginning the process of delegating that office upon the death or expansion to a new city. Where do you see this change in teaching authority happening from the apostles/bishops to the people?
I also just realized that I’ve been calling you “she” and am not sure where I got that assumption! You she or he? I’m probably offensive enough without getting that wrong…
Do Anglicans not agree with catholics on the Fall of Man? That humans are good, but fallen and in need of a Savior to redeem and sanctify us? It seems rather inconsistent that the very people who are fallen and in need of Salvation are corporately the most reliable source of God’s will and revelation. Wouldn’t it be more in character with the rest of Salvation history if God continued His repeated pattern of miraculous intervention at the minimum level needed for us to be saved, while still having the free will to choose or reject Him? I certainly don’t see the model you just presented anywhere in the New Testament. One can argue that the word ‘pope’ doesn’t appear either, but it’s a lot harder for me to see what you describe there than it is for me to see Jesus granting his apostles authority to teach reliably and those apostles beginning the process of delegating that office upon the death or expansion to a new city. Where do you see this change in teaching authority happening from the apostles/bishops to the people?
I also just realized that I’ve been calling you “she” and am not sure where I got that assumption! You she or he? I’m probably offensive enough without getting that wrong…
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andrewstx
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I really don’t know since I am EX Episcopalian. The only way I have of keeping up with them is this Catholic forum, and THE LIVING CHURCH magazine and the Anglican Digest.
Seems the LIVING CHURCH would have mentioned it since it is a very conservative publication.
Order?
And those likely would be civil and not church marriages, the BCP has no liturgies for SS marriages.
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Mystophilus
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You have actually answered yourself here: read the question at the end of this second paragraph again, and then the bracketed part in the first paragraph.
In Catholic ecclesiology, this means that the Holy Spirit protects the Church from error, when the Church is itself a collection of people, and the Tradition is a collection of the things which people have written: you do have an ultimately-democratic ecclesiology, just a diachronic one (over time, since the beginning) rather than a synchronic one (only currently).
In Anglican ecclesiology, there is no such definition of infallibility, no claim of a guarantee against error. In general, we hope that we are not wrong, but there is a lot of trusting in God’s mercy and God’s patience and God’s ability to eventually lead us to the right place.
Liberals, in particular, can depend upon modern views of things, whereas conservatives can be very thoroughly traditionalist and thus take that sort of diachronic view: “It was always right before, and so will always be right.”
In formal, structural terms, it is actually very recent, and most obviously dates from the nineteenth century, when the Church of England started to have to deal with the provinces overseas. There is, however, the inevitable fact of the “Reformation” schism: having once broken with the central authority (Rome, at that point), we have necessarily validated the possibility (which does not necessarily imply advisability) of doing so. We thus have to deal with being a church founded upon the precept that the governing authority can err.
We are not (generally) sola scriptura, however, and so we can look at things like the processes which the Early Church developed for the appointment originally of presbyter councils (e.g. Acts 15), the later centralising move of having singular bishops, and then those being brought together as equals in the ecumenical councils, as providing a much broader pattern of church governance.
I would point out, however, that the “monarchical” system of the Roman church has also developed over time, and your hierarchy now is much more structured than anything in the first century. We all develop according to what we understand to be the best way to follow God’s will.
The -us inflection at the end of my username is the masculine one, because I happen to be male, but you have not been at all offensive: frank, yes, but you want to avoid being deliberately insulting and that, IMO, is what prevents you from becoming so.I also just realized that I’ve been calling you “she” and am not sure where I got that assumption! You she or he? I’m probably offensive enough without getting that wrong…
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manualman
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Thanks for the explanation. You might not be surprised that I don’t agree, but at least I can hear you out.
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GKC
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CMatt25
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Indeed it is very compelling that diverse folks, with their differences on other matters, can be united in the One most important of all. The One who breaks down walls. United in worshiping Him. Peace.
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Mystophilus
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I would be very surprised if you did agree, since I was presuming that you are Catholic because you believe Catholicism is the best way.
Thanks for hearing me out.
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Izdaari
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I would not be ok with NAMBLA affiliating with TEC. Children cannot consent, even if they might think they can, so it’s inherently wrong because it’s inherently rape. Victimizing someone else for one’s own gratification is a clear moral wrong. If, hypothetically, TEC were to accept NAMBLA’s affiliation, that would impel me to leave immediately, and no question about it.
True, but what’s your point?
I agree with you on the role of science.
Doesn’t really work for me, too top-down and authoritarian. I agree with Mystophilus on eccesiology. Which, I guess, is why I’m not Catholic.
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manualman
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Forgive me, but I suggest you really think about this one more and make sure you’re not overestimating the degree to which you reason based on natural law and underestimating how much influence the culture around you has upon you. Almost exactly the same arguments used to rationalize gay sex can be used to lower the age of consent to 12 or so. Objectively speaking, humanity has a MUCH broader history of culturally tolerating and endorsing child brides than it does gay relationships. It’s an extremely recent cultural phenonmenon to consider a 14 year old girl far too young for marriage. And natural law arguments about inherent incompatibility are rather much more obviously true in showing why two men can’t be married in the real sense of the word than it is in demonstrating why a 35 year old and a 14 year old can’t be. (Btw, that’s probably around the ages of Mary and Joseph when Jesus was born).
I might suggest that if cultural influence has been enough for TEC to cast off very clear biblical and natural law reasons that two men can’t be married, it will be a comparatively simple matter to cast off restrictions against a middle age man romancing a pubescent teenage boy once gay relationships are firmly established as ‘culturally acceptable.’ The forces of cultural manipulation simply haven’t targeted this one yet (especially because it is a scandalously useful issue with which to bludgeon catholicism in recent years, to our shame). When the time comes, they’ll use all the same methods to put a human face on those who prefer them young and tender. It will work because it’s true - evil DOESN’T remove the humanity of those who commit it, it just damages it. They remain good, but fallen men in need of a Savior. Beware those who seek to use their goodness to justify their evil as a package deal. That’s a dangerously successful strategy.
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