This weekend the Church of England starts its General Synod and will
determine whether or not they will ordain women bishops. I see multiple news stories and lots of concern. What happens, what
happens, what happens when this occurs from concerned conservatives in the church.
The answer is simple. The Church of England continues to cut its own throat.
While the
Church of England claims 1.7M members per month, their own internal reports show that
attendance is half what is was forty years ago for adult church goers. I do not need to belabor the obvious point that the population has grown significantly in the same time. That's right. While the Church of England, and its American counterpart, have chased after every societal fad to make it popular, its popularity has continued to dwindle.
It reminds me of politicians like Mitt Romney and Eric Cantor whose nicknames should be waffle. They will stand for almost anything as long as they continue to be prominent, but the faithful know this to be false as do voters.
It is critical to remember that the Church of England was formed because of a spat with Rome where King Henry VIII was not granted the divorce he sought from Catherine of Aragon. The church has great resemblance to the Roman Catholic faith - because it continued to use most of her traditions and liturgy - except perhaps the most important, obedience.
I realize obedience is a dirty word in modern America, but the hundred years divorce had laid the framework for today's crisis. The Church of England believes - as Henry did - that they can continue to morph into whatever they want, whenever they want - without concern for God's Will. Naysayers will tell you the Holy Bible is wrong on the issue of ordaining women. They will say that Jesus only ordained men beause that was the custom of the day, but this is nonsense pure and simple.
Christ who overturned the money changers tables and preached forgiveness could have ordained women. If you believe Christ is in fact God and that the miracles he performed are true, do you actually believe he would have had any trouble ordaining women? Christ - the all powerful Son of God - who took on the high priests directly would fear them over the ordination of women? This is folly.
Regardless of the arguments though, the facts are the Church of England and Episcopal Church of the United States is in decline. Moreover, given the generous offer of Saint Pope John Paul II by providing the
Anglican Use form of worship, disaffected episcopalians can come to the Roman Catholic Church much more easily than they might know.
I fought the idea for years, telling a very good friend who pressed me on the matter at Sunday Baltimore Orioles games I would never be Catholic. He had all the reasons I could provide, ut it was when Episcopal Bishop Jeffrey Steenson left to become a Catholic priest that it started to make sense. His argument to conservatives in ECUSA was that we were going in the wrong direction. Rather than trying to stem the tide of another ECUSA reform or branching off the branch that came from the Roman Catholic trunk, we would be better served by returning to the trunk itself - the Roman Catholic church.
For me, it took some consideration, but my conversion was much easier than I could have ever imagined. It was a coming home of a prodigal son so to speak. I suspect as the Church of England continues its march towards whatever its marketing gurus suggest it will find a great deal of its membership finding solace in the Roman Catholic Church...solace they do not find in their own walls now.
So...while I do not support the ordination of women priests, much less bishops, proceed with all haste Church of England. As Joe Clark is said to have mentioned in the movie
Lean On Me, "...if you want to kill yourself, go on and be expeditious about it." If indeed the Church of England intends to cut its own throat, please hurry so that those souls in need of refreshment might find it in the Roman Catholic Church as I have.
