“The End of the British Empire”?

The Age today reprinted a part of an article originally published in The Guardian by Andrew Brown on the Pope’s visit to England. Fr Z. has a link to another one, in which Brown declares:

This was the end of the British Empire. In all the four centuries from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II, England has been defined as a Protestant nation. The Catholics were the Other; sometimes violent terrorists and rebels, sometimes merely dirty immigrants. The sense that this was a nation specially blessed by God arose from a deeply anti-Catholic reading of the Bible. Yet it was central to English self-understanding when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952, and swore to uphold the Protestant religion by law established.

For all of those 400 or so years it would have been unthinkable that a pope should stand in Westminster Hall and praise Sir Thomas More, who died to defend the pope’s sovereignty against the king’s. Rebellion against the pope was the foundational act of English power. And now the power is gone, and perhaps the rebellion has gone, too.

Yes, how very different the Britain of today is. It is also the country where more Muslims go to Mosque on Friday than Anglicans go to Church on Sunday… Catholics and Muslims. Both have been portrayed as “violent terrorists and rebels, sometimes merely dirty immigrants”. In anycase, both have been defined as “the Other”. Here (or rather “There”) to stay.

The End of the British Empire? I wonder…

Why can’t we all just be nice to each other for a change?

So asks the PM in reference to parliament, and so asks the Australian Anglican Primate in reference to the General Synod currently underway in Melbourne.

Tough Talking and Tough Love

Reading Glosses From An Old Manse, I see that the Bearded One of Canterbury is also having ecumenical talks with the Bearded One of Volokolamsk (I wonder what the Holy Father would look like with a beard… Do you think it would help East West relations?). Metropolitan Hilarion was doing some tough talking:

We are concerned about the fate of [the Anglican-Russian Orthodox] dialogue. We appreciate the proposal Archbishop Rowan Williams made this year to exclude from the dialogue those Anglican churches which failed to observe the moratorium on the ordination of open homosexuals. But we regard this proposal as not quite sufficient to save the dialogue from an approaching collapse. The dialogue is doomed to closure if the unrestrained liberalization of Christian values continues in many communities of the Anglican world.

Now, Sentirists will know that I am no supporter of the liberalisation of Christian doctrine, but reading Metropolitan H.’s comments made me realise that there is in fact a difference in the way Catholics do ecumenism compared to the way Orthodox do Ecumenism, and it is basically summed up in my unofficial motto for my day job: “We’re not fussy, we’ll talk to anyone!”

Pope Benedict has just been meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury and recommitting to another round of ARCIC dialogue. This is despite (on their side) the ordination of women and homosexual bishops and (on our side) Anglicanorum Coetibus. In spite of? No! Because of! It is precisely because of our disagreement over these fundamental issues of Christian praxis that we must continue our dialogue with our brothers and sisters by Christian baptism. The Russians, of course (and the Lutherans for that matter, which is why Pastor Mark was so drawn to Met. Hilarion’s comments), utterly reject an ecumenism of compromise, a “kissy-kissy” ecumenism as Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali put it. Well, for the record, so do does the Catholic Church (although I will admit to our shame that there have been plenty of Catholics willing to practice that kind of ecumenism). But we cannot accept proposals such as that which Archbishop Williams has apparently made to the Russians; we cannot dialogue only with those with whom we already agree! What, then, would be the point of the dialogue! Rather, we conduct dialogue as an opportunity to witness to the truth, to attempt to persuade others of the truth as we have received it, and hence to seek the truth together – not on the basis of compromise, but on the basis of the Truth once received by the Church.

You can “talk tough” in ecumenical dialogue, but unless you are also ready to practice “tough love”, it ain’ worth nuthin.

My Enemy’s Enemy is my…Enemy?

ROTFL with this one. HT to Josh.

I gather that at Twickenham on Friday there were two groups of protestors ; the ultra-gay lobby and the ultra-Protestants. The police were out in force to keep them from really spoiling the occasion and managed to herd them together into one corner where they could keep an eye on them.

What they didn’t reckon on was that the two groups spied each other and realized that here was an enemy even more hateful than the Pope; so they then set about having a regular ding-dong at each other and quite missed what they had come to spoil. (Source)

At least Herod and Pilate became friends in their opposition to Jesus…

Communique on the Pope’s discussions with the Archbishop of Canterbury

The Vatican Information Service has released a “communique” (not a “joint statement”) about the meeting of Pope Benedict with Archbishop Williams. My emphases and [My Comments]

“Fifty years after the first meeting of a Pope and an Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times – that of Pope John XXIII and Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher, in December 1960 – Pope Benedict XVI paid a fraternal visit to Archbishop Rowan Williams. [You have to admit that, even though the two prelates are not in communion with one another, a “fraternal visit” is a nice thing among leaders representing two bodies of Christians whose relations, for more than four centuries, had been anything but “fraternal”!]

“In the first part of their meeting they both addressed the Anglican and Roman Catholic diocesan bishops of England, Scotland and Wales, in the Great Hall of the archbishop’s library, before moving to a private meeting.

“In the course of their private conversation, they addressed many of the issues of mutual concern to Anglicans and Roman Catholics. They affirmed the need to proclaim the Gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ, both in a reasoned and convincing way in the contemporary context of profound cultural and social transformation, and in lives of holiness and transparency to God. [That’s nice too. At least we are on the same playing ground, even if it might sometimes appear that we are playing different games.] They agreed on the importance of improving ecumenical relations and continuing theological dialogue in the face of new challenges to unity from within the Christian community and beyond it. [IOW, the more we disagree with each other, the more urgent our dialogue becomes. IOOW, we don’t give up on dialogue when issues arise that divide us.]

“The Holy Father and the Archbishop reaffirmed the importance of continuing theological dialogue on the notion of the Church as communion, local and universal, and the implications of this concept for the discernment of ethical teaching. [A lot of people have been saying that there is no point anymore to continuing dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion – most recently, Bishop Nazir-Ali. However, even though ecclesiastical union is now only a very remote possibility, dialogue on the two issues specified here (ecclesiology and ethics) will obviously help us to isolate the source and cause of the present disagreements.]

“They reflected together on the serious and difficult situation of Christians in the Middle East, and called upon all Christians to pray for their brothers and sisters and support their continued peaceful witness in the Holy Land. In the light of their recent public interventions, they also discussed the need to promote a courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace, especially the needs of the poor, urging international leadership to fight hunger and disease.

“Following their meeting they travelled together to the Palace of Westminster and to evening prayer at Westminster Abbey”.