Church of England hits impasse.

[Netty1]

I’ve found a home in the RCC, and I hope those who cannot live with this will be able to as well.

Anyone reading this who wonders what kind of reception they will get from Catholics, I can tell you from my own experience, you will do just fine. I felt right at home the minute I walked through the door. I’ve lost count of the number of Catholics who have said to me “welcome home”.

Too many steps away from scripture by the Anglican church, and so many people are “coming home”.

LONDON — The Church of England moved another step closer to an unbridgeable schism between traditionalists and reformers on Saturday when its General Synod, or parliament, rejected a bid by the archbishop of Canterbury to strike a compromise over the ordination of women bishops aimed at preserving the increasingly fragile unity of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

nytimes.com/2010/07/11/world/europe/11anglican.html?_r=2

 

[curlycool89]

It was pretty inevitable. The CoE claims to be an apostolic church and yet do pretty much anything they can to be untraditional. The traditionalists in the CoE can try but they’re running out of ways to try and explain why they haven’t left yet (my guess it that they’re going to eventually get to the same excuse other protestants have: they don’t like the Catholic Church).

 

[LoyalViews]

Heh - at least he tried. That’s all the (not a real Bishop) “Archbishop” of Canterbury will do to try to get closer to the one true Church. The Anglican Church is not “Catholic and Reformed” it is “Protestant and Liberal”. “Reform” means “to change for the good”, not “make things worse”, the CofE has revulted.

 

[Netty1]

The problem is caused by the fundamental flaw at the root of the Church of England; that it was founded on the whim of a king seeking to out-manoeuvre the established Catholic Church for political reasons. While the Church of England could mirror a lot of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church and make a claim to be “catholic” with a small ‘c’ it could slide by, especially given that England had, at various points, either outlawed Roman Catholicism outright or severely hampered Roman Catholics by baring them from certain roles in society.

Once the world moved on and it was no longer such a social impediment to be Roman Catholics in the UK, a lot of the rationale for being Church of England disappeared. Why would anyone want to be a part of a pale shadow of the genuine article? The Church of England is “neither fish nor fowl” as the old saying goes. It is not “catholic”, no matter how much the Church of England “traditionalists” try to protest that it is, because it came into being via the hands of an adulterous monarch rather than by the hands of God. But by equal measure, and because of that erroneous claim, neither is it fully Protestant.

Individual members, both clergy and laity, have to now make a decision: to become fully Catholic by joining the Roman Catholic Church (or even the Eastern Rite), or to embrace a fully Protestant church with no claim to being Catholic in any way, or to remain within the Anglican fold and endure an ever-increasing departure from Scripture to satisfy liberals who put their own agenda and politics before the will of God.

I watched a debate on television about this a couple of weeks ago and it served to remind rne why I could not even begin to contemplate life in the Church of England. Two women “priests” were arguing for female ordination and for female bishops. Their arguments were totally secular and only touched on Scripture at points where they obviously felt secure enough to bend the interpretation to fit their needs.

While watching them, and also watching clips of women “priests” officiating in church, every fibre of my being was screaming inside, “this is not right”. It felt wrong on so many levels, not just Scriptural ones.

I’m a woman and can argue quite clearly for my rights when needed, but the "right* to be a priest is not in my hands. It was in the hands of Christ 2’000 years ago, and He made His choice. This was something He obviously decided was not to be. He had His divine reasons, so who am I to question His decision?

It’s just my personal opinion, and I hope I don’t offend anyone, but I don’t feel a mere “dislike” of the Roman Catholic Church is a sound enough reason for not coming into line with Scripture as it pertains to the workings of the world-wide Catholic community. Either one follows Scripture, or one does not. There is no middle ground I feel. Christ did not give us the option to “pick and mix” what we wanted from His instructions.

The issues are not going to go away for the Church of England. In fact, it is clear to see the situation will get worse the further down the “liberal” road it gets, hampered by a weak Archbishop of Canterbury and a synod which allows itself to be dictated to by an increasingly secular “interest group” approach.

As I said in my initial post, I recommend any Church of England member who is unhappy with this mess to just walk into a Roman Catholic Church. “Coming home” is a wonderful feeling.