Is this Anglican Bishop crossing the Tiber a bit mistaken?

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Hmm… he could have simply mixed up his terms and misspoke.

He could have also meant that by her Immaculate Conception, Mary was made able to conceive Jesus. Although, if this is the case, the way he wrote it is rather confusing.
 
It is possible he may have revealed that he thinks that when Mary said yes to the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation that it was then that the Immaculate Conception occurred.

I know of a Catholic who thought that as well and she was quite surprised and happily corrected when I told her that her “Immaculate Conception” means that Our Blessed Mother was born without original sin and was full of grace at the moment of her conception in her mother’s womb.
We celebrate that on December 8th every year.
 
FiveLinden said:
Muddling up the Immaculate Conception and the virginal conception of Jesus? Will he go to RCIA?
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It is a common mistaken for the people who are not close to the Catholic faith. In their minds, immaculate conception= virginal conception of Jesus.

Maybe the vocabulary is not the same in is Church’s origin?

Anyway, he will need to correct his vocabulary if he became a priest in the Catholic Church.
 
Dorothy said:
It is possible he may have revealed that he thinks that when Mary said yes to the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation that it was then that the Immaculate Conception occurred.
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Yeah, it’s definitely possible. Even many Catholics mistakenly think that the IC refers to Jesus’s conception at/after the Annunciation, not Mary’s conception.

I’m surprised that such a presumably learned clergyman who’s converting would make that mistake though.
 
The main idea I retain from this article, is again, his crossing the Tiber was made because of current state of the Anglican Church who approoves, or remain silent to the new “totalitarism”, or “political correctness” - he call that “Marxism 2.0” over transgender issues. Everybody should approved and raised no dissenting thinking over the possibility of loosing job, social exclusion, judicial penalties.

Very sad.
 
I think one of the things causing the confusion with what being immaculately conceived is the lack of understanding of original sin. The lack of something you are not familiar with would not seem special.
 
First of all, as others have said, many Catholics do confuse the “Immaculate Conception” of Mary with Jesus’s conception, and we are frequently reminded from the pulpit that the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception. If Mr. Ashenden has any confusion on this point, it will no doubt be remedied quickly by priests and knowledgable Catholics “correcting” him. And if he is as much into Marian devotion as he states, he will be reminded of this through his Mariological readings, which focus very heavily on aspects of the Immaculate Conception.

Second of all, the way the sentence is constructed is confusing. It reads: “that Jesus was the Son of God and was born of the Virgin Mary thanks to the Immaculate Conception, which we celebrate at Christmas”. It is unclear from reading this whether Mr. Ashenden’s “which we celebrate at Christmas” refers to the celebration of Jesus being “born of the Virgin Mary” (which would be correct) or “the Immaculate Conception” itself. The Immaculate Conception has its own feast day approximately 2 weeks prior to Christmas, so he could even be thinking of that as somehow part of the Christmas season.

In any event, I am sure he will go through some kind of preparation process whether it’s RCIA or some process specially tailored for himself. I wouldn’t worry about it, the main thing is that we rejoice that he is “coming home”.
 
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Have to admit – based on the wording it looks like he made a rash and uninformed decision to cross the Tiber.

He’s right that the Catholic Church has and will continue to be the standard bearer for it’s teachings on morality in the Christian life, though. And that seems to be his biggest reason for conversion. So he did the right thing. But he should know our teachings do differ from the Anglicans and be prepared to accept them.
 
I can’t read the article because of the print, but it looks to me like he’s made a great decision for the right reasons. The Anglican Church has long been taken over by secular culture, and many more people would leave for Catholicism, except they don’t have the nerve, so keep persuading themselves that things will be OK in the Anglican Church. This man has found the nerve and make the move. Only those of us who’ve done it can understand what a nerve-wracking decision it is once you realise that you many have to commit to it.

His mistake is quite understandable, especially when he’s got other, more important details on his mind. It’s just a slip of words, as he’s dealing with a whole new religious framework.
 
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Edmundus1581 said:
It’s just a slip of words, as he’s dealing with a whole new religious framework.
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Yes, I think it’s just an innocuous mistake due to some confusing wording.

In any case, he actually left the Church of England in 2017. He joined a continuing Anglican church (that is, one that is not in communion with the Abp of Canterbury) for two years before deciding to be received into the Catholic Church.
 
Lenten_ashes said:
Have to admit – based on the wording it looks like he made a rash and uninformed decision to cross the Tiber.
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I really wouldn’t trust just the wording of an article. This guy knew his decision would be a big deal and likely consulted with a lot of clergy before he made the decision. I doubt he just woke up one day and decided he was converting. He also is probably not used to expressing himself in print, and we all know that the press likes to twist words.

What “different” teaching of the Catholic Church do you think he’s going to have trouble accepting, based on the article?
 
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Well, not basing anything off the article…but Papal infallibility was a stickler for me, personally. Also, the propitiatory sacrificial nature of the Mass, which they have a different understanding of. Accepting our Sacred Tradition, etc.

Of all the Protestants, they are the closest to us, but there are those points we differ on.
 
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He’s a FB friend, and I know he’s receiving both support and abuse. I pray he becomes a priest in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham or the OCSP.
 
Some Anglicans have a different understanding of. Some have the propitiatory sacrificial nature of the Eucharist understanding.
 
It would seem he’d fit right into the Ordinariate. The people I’ve talked to in the Ordinariate here in USA express pretty much the same sentiments as him.
 
I am appalled that he uses the term “cultural Marxism”, which was a Nazi conspiracy theory. Apart from that, it sounds like typical alarmist right-wing culture war stuff.

His failure to understand the Immaculate Conception shows staggering ignorance. He was educated at the Jesuit Heythrop College and was a member of the Society of the Holy Cross and Forward in Faith (which are both Anglo-Catholic organizations) and was a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus, which is ecumenical but as I understand it has roots in the Catholic Church. The Immaculate Conception is not some obscure doctrine that only highly expert Catholic theologians understand. He was an Anglican priest for about 37 years, a university lecturer in theology, a cathedral canon, a chaplain to the Queen, a member of the General Synod of the Church of England, and a delegate to the World Council of Churches. The words “Immaculate Conception” should have come onto his radar at some time.
 
Well, the quote was written by a human being, who may have transcribed it incorrectly, or maybe it’s just a mixing up of words. In any event, someone at that level entering the Church will be subject to more scrutiny than you or I.

How wonderful that we have such leaders entering the Church. I think that Saint John Henry Newman* was involved in this!
  • Newman Newman Newman. Typos. Ugh.
 
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do_justly_love_mercy said:
I am appalled that he uses the term “cultural Marxism”, which was a Nazi conspiracy theory.
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Yes. Thought that was odd too. But as well as being a well-debunked conspiracy theory with at the least Nazi equivalents it is now a fairly common termed by conservatives and right-wingers as a synonym for ‘things I am opposed to’. So maybe that’s all it was.
 
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