The Church of England being what it is, no Archbishop of Canterbury can succeed: but Rowan Williams has failed more disastrously than most | CatholicH

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Well!!! William Oddie is a bit cruel in some places, but the sad truth is that his articles basically right. Its taken almost 500 years for the inevitable to happen, but the chickens have finally come home to roost. 🤷
Cut yourself off the vine and eventually there`s no more life left in the cut off piece.
Build your own style of house on sand, and eventually…:eek:

Of all of the Apostles, the See of Peter is the only one remaining. Our Lord prayed for Peter alone that his faith wouldn`t fail, and that he would “strengthen the brethren”. [Luke 22:32]
 
Where are the other sees? Scott Hahn and some others would like to know as well. i`m not being facetious.
Peter died in Rome, and Benedict XVI is the current successor of Peter. The other sees mentioned in Scripture and elsewhere eventually failed.
 
Slow down!!! Give me time to edit.
You might be a quick thinker and a speed typist, but i`m certainly not!

im referring only to the sees founded by the 12 Apostles (including Matthias), not all of the others. [Eventually, all but one of the original 12 (?) failed: more or less Scotts words.]
 
From the article:
All Archbishops of Canterbury fail, quite simply because the Church of England isn’t a Church at all, it’s a theme park: you wander about and choose the rides you want to go on. It’s not there to change you but to reflect what you already are. It has no consistent theology; it has a portfolio of theologies, each one inconsistent with the others. We all know that. But Rowan Williams has simply avoided the theological dimension, and used his prestigious position as a platform for whatever philosophical or political musings his restless mind comes up with. One minute he is praising Cameron’s vision of the Big Society: a few weeks later he is attacking it, presumably having forgotten what he previously said. His mind ranges endlessly over the possibilities for our society; nothing will deter him from voicing the most eccentric and potentially divisive views. He has behaved not like a pastor but like an academic. The most notorious example, of course was the World at One interview in which he said that the adoption of Sharia law in this country was, wait for it, “unavoidable”.
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That is why Christianity in England is practically extinct.
If Thomas Cramner had foreseen this he would have remained Catholic.
 
JustaServant said:
From the article:

That is why Christianity in England is practically extinct.
If Thomas Cramner had foreseen this he would have remained Catholic.
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In some article or other (forgotten where), an author described** present day **Anglicanism as “a husk without a creed”. It fits. 🤷
 
Its too late in the night to be arguing about this. Its getting on for 11:00 pm. None of this alters the fact that Anglicanism is in a state of collapse because it severed itself from the True Vine!

Saints Paul, Mark, Barnabus et al werent among the original 12 (as you know), and **the** **original 12 **are the only ones ive been referring to.

Anyway, it`s time to call it a night.
 
That article sort of made me cringe. Regardless of the issues I don’t think a sarcastic sort of glib assessment of it helps in promoting unity. Talking about it sensitively and seriously would be better. I’m sorry my Anglican brothers and sisters on here for this attitude.
 
asd72 said:
That article sort of made me cringe. Regardless of the issues I don’t think a sarcastic sort of glib assessment of it helps in promoting unity. Talking about it sensitively and seriously would be better. I’m sorry my Anglican brothers and sisters on here for this attitude.
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Unity with what? Why should the CC or even conservative Anglicans be unified with unbelief? Tell me one untrue statement in the article. Many times truth is unpleasant, it hurts. We shouldn’t avoid it or gloss it over in the cause of ‘unity’. Even orthodox conservative Episcopals are made sick by the leadership of the COE. Even THEY don’t want to unite with liberals who in essence destroyed the church in England.
Unity is not the end all in everything. As the COE dies off it NEEDS to be replaced with a church whose foundation is solid.
If not, that vacuum will be filled with Islam.
And in fact, already is.
 
JustaServant said:
Unity with what? Why should the CC or even conservative Anglicans be unified with unbelief? Tell me one untrue statement in the article. Many times truth is unpleasant, it hurts. We shouldn’t avoid it or gloss it over in the cause of ‘unity’. Even orthodox conservative Episcopals are made sick by the leadership of the COE. Even THEY don’t want to unite with liberals who in essence destroyed the church in England.
Unity is not the end all in everything. As the COE dies off it NEEDS to be replaced with a church whose foundation is solid.
If not, that vacuum will be filled with Islam.
And in fact, already is.
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I think he makes unkind insinuations about Archbishop Williams motivations for his next appointment. He does not know the Archbishops reasons but seems to imply “pastoral work” is an unpleasantness which the Archbishop will be pleased to avoid. And he is seeking prestige and pleasant surrounding? How does he know?

He glosses over the issues of Dr Jeffrey John, without even noting his Civil Partnership. It was surely a more complicated issue than pandering to evangelicals.

I’m not saying there aren’t issues in the Anglican church, or with the leadership, just that I don’t particularly like way this writer approached it.
 
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asd72:
I’m not saying there aren’t issues in the Anglican church, or with the leadership, just that I don’t particularly like way this writer approached it.
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I agree. In the US, we have our own Bulldog (so to speak) who is not hesitant about speaking up when he sees anything amiss, meaning of course, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League in NYC.

But from his bully pulpit, I’ve never seen him attack another Christian, Jewish or Islamic church. He denounces political moves that undermine freedom of religion, or Atheists and other forms of godless liberalism which permeates society. What he says benefits people of any religion.

William Oddie, on the other hand is slamming another Christian and his religion. Who benefits from this? Not Catholics. As you say, it makes us cringe. Anglicans? I don’t see how. So who? Potential Catholic converts from Anglicanism? I don’t think it would impress me favorably if I was wavering in the CofE. I just don’t know. 🤷
 
asd72 said:
That article sort of made me cringe. Regardless of the issues I don’t think a sarcastic sort of glib assessment of it helps in promoting unity. Talking about it sensitively and seriously would be better. I’m sorry my Anglican brothers and sisters on here for this attitude.
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I agree completely but then I have come to expect this kind of snide assesment from The Catholic Herald. It has a poor reputation amongst educated theologians. The facts are that Catholic mass attendance has fallen proportionally faster than the CofE, and the recent recovery only due to immigration. And the numbers leaving for the Ordinariate …800 last year and 260 this. It would be more productive for the Herald to focus on how to stem this decline, and how to improve the reverance and music at our masses which are frankly a joke.
 
liturgyluver said:
I agree completely but then I have come to expect this kind of snide assesment from The Catholic Herald. It has a poor reputation amongst educated theologians. The facts are that Catholic mass attendance has fallen proportionally faster than the CofE, and the recent recovery only due to immigration. And the numbers leaving for the Ordinariate …800 last year and 260 this. It would be more productive for the Herald to focus on how to stem this decline, and how to improve the reverance and music at our masses which are frankly a joke.
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This is a good point. Now that immigration in the U.S. has slowed due to the recession, the Catholic Church has joined in on the contraction of church membership experienced by mainline denominations and Southern Baptists. This doesn’t even consider the decline in church attendance and the fact that most churches probably inflate their numbers in official tallies. Will this decline ever be addressed? If so, how? It’s a problem common to almost all Christian churches in the West, perhaps Pentecostalism excluded.
 
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