Church of England moves towards ordaining women

Over the weekend, the Church of England introduced draft legislation putting the country’s Anglican communion on the fast track to allowing women’s ordination, reports Catholic News Agency.

On Saturday, May 8, the Church of England’s revision committee published a 142-page review in favor of draft proposals that support women being consecrated as bishops and priests.

According to Reuters, the church’s revision committee also proposed safeguards for more traditional parishes who have expressed opposition to ordaining women, including the right to request that a male bishop perform blessings and ordinations. However, the committee proposals did not meet the requests by these parishes for new dioceses or a special class of bishops.

“After much discussion the Committee rejected proposals aimed at fundamentally changing the approach of the legislation for those unable to receive the ministry of female bishops,” wrote Church of England officials in a statement Monday.

The draft proposals will now go forward for debate at the Church’s General Synod, in July in York, Northern England. If passed, the Church of England will hold the same position on female ordination as the Anglican Communion in the United States and New Zealand.

Monday’s statement also clarified that the “earliest that the legislation could achieve final approval in Synod (when two-thirds majorities in each of the Houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity will be required) is 2012, following which parliamentary approval and the Royal Assent would be needed.”

The statement added that “2014 remains the earliest realistic date when the first women might be consecrated as bishops.”

This move is likely to increase interest among traditionalist Anglicans in the Pope’s recent invitation for Church of England members to become Catholic. Last November, the Holy Father released “Anglicanorum coetibus,” a motu propio which offered Vatican guidelines for Anglican groups to enter into communion with the Catholic Church.

The Sunday Telegraph in Britain reported on May 2 that several Anglican bishops recently met with Vatican officials to discuss the process of converting to Catholicism.

Despite the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams reportedly urging them not to leave the Church of England, several bishops are looking to break from the Anglican Communion over their opposition to the introduction of women bishops and priests.

According to the British paper, Bishops John Broadhurst, Keith Newton and Andrew Burnham, from the Dioceses of Fulham, Richborough and Ebbsfleet respectively, all met with senior Vatican officials last week.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

First Group of "Traditionalist" Anglicans in Britain Votes to Enter Catholic Church

By Hilary White

ROME, November 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a move that is a surprise to no one, the UK branch of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), the largest of the groups that broke away from the mainstream Anglican Church over the ordination of woman and the latter’s support for active homosexuality, has been the first to formally accept the offer of Pope Benedict to enter into communion with the Catholic Church en masse.

Although the TAC is not large, being made up of only 20 or so parishes, the vote by the group to accept the invitation is expected to be a strong symbolic blow to the mainstream Anglican Church in its motherland of Britain, where it has been a leader in the acceptance of woman clergy and homosexuality. It is widely acknowledged that the Vatican’s decision to extend its hand to traditionalist Anglicans comes in response to repeated requests, made public last year, by the TAC.

In a surprise announcement on October 20, the Vatican said that a document was being prepared that would create “personal ordinariates” that will allow “traditionalist” Anglicans to come into the Catholic Church in groups while retaining their liturgical and pastoral traditions, including the possibility of a married clergy. William Cardinal Levada, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that the move had come in response to many requests from Anglicans around the world, clergy, laity and bishops, who objected to the growing acceptance of homosexuality in Anglicanism, especially in North America and Britain.

The website of the TAC in the UK reported last week, “This Assembly, representing the Traditional Anglican Communion in Great Britain, offers its joyful thanks to Pope Benedict XVI for his forthcoming Apostolic Constitution allowing the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Holy See, and requests the Primate and College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion to take the steps necessary to implement this Constitution.”

The leadership of the Traditional Anglican Community in Canada told LSN in an interview late last month that the life and family issues are a major factor in the attraction of the Catholic Church. Bishop Carl Reid of the Traditional Anglican Communion in Canada, told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN), “When it comes to issues of morality, especially family and pro-life, our membership is very strongly on the same page as are Roman Catholics.”

The pope’s offer to Anglicans who adhere to traditionally Christian moral doctrine has infuriated the left in both the secular and religious worlds. Benedict XVI has been attacked most recently by former Catholic theologian and notorious opponent of Catholic moral teaching, Hans Kung, as well as innumerable journalists and editors who see the move as the Vatican turning back the ecclesial clock towards a pre-1960s traditional style. Kung accused Benedict, his former university colleague, of ecclesiastical “piracy” and said that the move undermines the decades-long work of “ecumenical dialogue.”

John Allen, the leading American “liberal” Catholic journalist in Rome, gave a more sedate analysis, saying that the invitation to the Anglicans who are in agreement on the nature of truth, doctrine and biblical inerrancy, is indeed part of the pope’s greater plan to combat the growing secularist “dictatorship of relativism” that the pontiff has warned is undermining the very structure of our civilization.

“Benedict XVI is opening the door to … traditionalist Anglicans in part because whatever else they may be, they are among the Christians least prone to end up, in the memorable phrase of Jacques Maritain, ‘kneeling before the world,’ meaning sold out to secularism,” Allen wrote in a column today.

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, an American priest-blogger with connections inside the Vatican, has commented that with this decision (one that was fought by many bishops in his own Church), the pope has earned the title, “Pope of unity.”

The Anglicans who may take advantage of the new “canonical structure,” Zhusldorf wrote, “are Christians who are separated from clear unity with the Church. Pope Benedict stresses the importance of his role as Pope as being one of promoting unity. It is not just that they a Christians who tend to agree with him. They are separated. He is trying to reintegrate them.”

“If we are going to fight the dictatorship of relativism,” Fr. Zuhlsdorf continued, “we need a strong Catholic identity. If we are going to evangelize, we need a strong Catholic identity. If we are going to engage in true ecumenism, we need a strong Catholic identity.  Liturgy is the key component in his ‘Marshall Plan’ for the Church.”

This Report from LifeSiteNews.com

www.LifeSiteNews.com 

Anglican Communion of U.K. first to accept Pope’s offer

Members of The Traditional Anglican Church in Great Britain have announced that they will enter into communion with the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans, reports Catholic News Agency.

According to the group’s website, members met on October 29 for their October 2009 Assembly. They scrapped their initial itinerary for the meeting following the Vatican’s Oct. 20 announcement that an Apostolic Constitution was being prepared in response to requests from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful wanting to enter into full communion with the Church. Instead, the assembly focused on what the news from the Vatican meant for the small group of Anglicans who are part of the Traditional Anglican Communion.

Anglican Bishop David Moyer released a statement describing the October Assembly as “grace-filled,” noting that everyone in attendance became “aware of the movement of the Holy Spirit.”

“The bishops, priests, ordinands, and lay representatives were brought to a place of ‘being in full accord and of one mind,’ as St. Paul prayed for the Church in Philippi,” Bishop Moyer wrote.

During the assembly, Bishop Moyer as well as Anglican Bishops John Hepworth and Robert Mercer fielded questions about the Vatican proposal before the Assembly unanimously passed resolutions written to carefully “and clearly reflect TTAC’s corporate desire and intention.”

The resolutions state that the Traditional Anglican Communion in Great Britain “offers its joyful thanks to Pope Benedict XVI for his forthcoming Apostolic Constitution allowing the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Holy See, and requests the Primate and College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion to take the steps necessary to implement this Constitution.”

Bishop Moyer added, “All present realised that the requirement for the days ahead is patience, charity, and openness to the Holy Spirit.”

Though the Apostolic Constitution is not yet available, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine for the Faith announced on Oct. 31 that it will be ready “by the end of the first week of November.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Cardinal: No ‘celibacy issue’ exists in reception of Anglicans into Church

In an extensive clarification released on Saturday by the Vatican press office, Fr. Federico Lombardi made clear, on behalf of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Levada, that there is no “celibacy issue” delaying the publication of the Constitution that will establish the procedure for Anglicans to be received into the Catholic Church, reports Catholis News Agency.

In a statement released in English –breaking the common use of Italian- Fr. Lombardi explained that “there has been widespread speculation, based on supposedly knowledgeable remarks by an Italian correspondent Andrea Tornielli.

The Vatican analyst suggested that the delay in the publication of the Apostolic Constitution on Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church is due to “more than ‘technical’ reasons.”

“According to this speculation, there is a serious substantial issue at the root of the delay, namely, disagreement about whether celibacy will be the norm for the future clergy of the Provision,” Fr. Lombardi’s said.

Responding to other claims that the rule of celibacy for Latin rite clergy would be open to discussion, Fr. Lombardi offered the official comments of Cardinal Levada.

“Had I been asked I would happily have clarified any doubt about my remarks at the press conference. There is no substance to such speculation. No one at the Vatican has mentioned any such issue to me.”

According to Cardinal Levada, Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution will be ready “by the end of the first week of November” and its delay “is purely technical in the sense of ensuring consistency in canonical language and references.”

The Prefect of the Congregation also explained that “the drafts prepared by the working group, and submitted for study and approval through the usual process followed by his congregation, have all included the following statement, which is currently Article VI of the Constitution:

– 1. Those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfill the requisites established by canon law and are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for Holy Orders in the Catholic Church. In the case of married ministers, the norms established in the Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI Sacerdotalis coelibatus, n. 42 and in the Statement “In June” are to be observed. Unmarried ministers must submit to the norm of clerical celibacy of Code of Canon Law 277, §1.

– 2. The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.”

Cardinal Levada further explains that “this article is to be understood as consistent with the current practice of the Church, in which married former Anglican ministers may be admitted to priestly ministry in the Catholic Church on a case by case basis.”

With regard to future seminarians, the Cardinal explains that “it was considered purely speculative whether there might be some cases in which a dispensation from the celibacy rule might be petitioned.”

“Objective criteria about any such possibilities (e.g. married seminarians already in preparation) are to be developed jointly by the Personal Ordinariate and the Episcopal Conference, and submitted for approval of the Holy See,” Cardinal Levada said.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Media speculates: Vatican will receive Anglicans into Catholic Church

Several Italian newspapers speculated today that the Vatican may possibly welcome a large number of members from the Traditional Anglican Communion into the Catholic Church on Tuesday. The group previously separated from the Anglican Communion due to issues such as the ordinations of both women and sexually active homosexuals, reports Catholic News Agency.

According to Giacomo Galeazzi from the Italian daily La Stampa, the press conference to be held tomorrow at the Vatican press office by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, Secretary of the Congregation for the Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, will be the occasion in which the reception of the Anglican group, which claims to have some 500,000 members –among clergy and laity- will be officially announced.

“The news story, already anticipated by some Australian media, could be finally confirmed during the press briefing that was announced this afternoon by the Vatican press office,” Galeazzi wrote on Monday.

Galeazzi also claimed that the Traditionalist Anglicans have already signed a document of adherence to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and have symbolically deposited it at a Marian shrine in England.

“Once reunited with Rome, they may keep most of the Liturgical celebrations according to their tradition, which is closer to the Tridentine Mass,” La Stampa explained, adding that they would also “keep their married clergy but not married bishops.”

The Italian Vatican reporter also noted that since the Anglican priestly ordination is not valid, those who want to remain priests within the Catholic Church would have to be ordained, most likely after passing a theological exam.

The move by the Traditionalists could have a significant impact on other Anglicans who still remain within the communion, but are extremely frustrated not only with the ordination of women as Anglican priests and bishops, but especially with the decision of the American Episcopalians – members of the Anglican communion- to ordain sexually active homosexuals as priests and bishops.

The ordination of Eugene Robinson as the first actively homosexual bishop in 2004, sparked an unprecedented division inside the Anglican Communion.

According to Galeazzi, the group of Anglicans that could be received into the Catholic Church on Tuesday may be erected as a personal prelature, which has the same canonical status held by Opus Dei.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Anglicans who say church is ignoring Scriptures rally in London

A group of Anglicans, who are oppose the Church of England’s stand on matters such as homosexual clergy, have said the formation of their group does not mean it intends to cut its ties with the 77-million strong Anglican Communion, reports Ecumenical News International.

“We are a movement for the renewal and reformation and renewed mission focus of our church. We love our church,” said Bishop Wallace Benn of the southern England diocese of Lewes at the launch of the Fellowship of Confession Anglicans UK on 6 July. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “We believe that we stand for the historic Christian faith.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Conservative Anglicans officially form new church group

Leaders who defected from the Episcopal Church completed the formation of a conservative branch of Anglicanism in North America Monday by ratifying the constitution of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), reports Charisma News Online.

The document was signed during ACNA’s Inaugural Provincial Assembly, which drew some 800 participants to Bedford, Texas, this week. Pittsburg Bishop Robert Duncan, who on Wednesday will be installed as the group’s first archbishop, said the formation of ACNA reflects a return to orthodox Christianity that is happening both within the 77 million-member Anglican Communion and beyond.

“Our God is up to something very big, both with us and with others,” Duncan said Monday. “The Father truly is drawing His children together again in a surprising and sovereign move of the Holy Spirit. He is again re-forming His church.”

On Tuesday, Saddleback pastor Rick Warren addressed the assembly, encouraging them to love one another but not the world’s values, the Associated Press reported. Other non-Anglican participants include Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church, the Rev. Samuel Nafzger of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and Bishop Kevin Vann of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas. The assembly ends on Thursday.

The formation of ACNA, said to represent some 100,000 Anglicans in 700 parishes, is the latest response to liberal moves within the Episcopal Church that culminated with the ordination of an openly gay bishop in 2003. Since then, roughly 200 congregations have left what had been the only U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, ACNA leaders report.

Most of the defectors, including several charismatic parishes, have aligned with conservative dioceses in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, where Anglicanism is experiencing the most growth.

To read the full story, click here.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

RELIGION IS ALIVE AND WELL – CHRISTIANITY ON THE OTHER HAND…

Religion is alive and well in Australia. Christianity on the other hand is not doing anywhere near as well.

If Christianity is to be measured by the Bible and not by mass opinion in churches (or by some other measure such as professing Christians, etc), the Australian experience of Christianity is not too good at all. In fact, most of what goes by the name of ‘Christian’ is anything but Christian in the Biblical sense.

Automatically I would count out all the usual cults and heretical groups, such as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. There is of course a possibility that some within the confines of such heretical groups are indeed saved, but it is difficult to believe that any such true believers would willingly stay inside groups of these types.

Roman Catholicism is often viewed as a legitimate part of historical Christianity, but this is far from the case. Indeed, Roman Catholicism is another grouping that belongs within the category of being a cult. Certainly that is my opinion and this is the historical opinion of Evangelical Christianity and Protestantism.

Sadly, it has been my growing experience that many who profess Christianity, see Roman Catholicism as just another stream of true Christianity. Certainly these people cannot agree with some of the teachings of Rome, but none-the-less they view Roman Catholicism as just another legitimate stream of Christianity that is a bit divergent from Protestantism. These people think that unity with Rome wouldn’t be such a bad thing, even if we can’t agree on anything.

It is disappointing to note that a number of people within the Reformed camp also agree with such sentiment regarding Roman Catholicism. I am stunned by how quickly these people forget the past and the truths that the Reformation sought to establish once again as being the true backbone of Christianity.

Leaving the Roman Catholics aside, let me briefly comment on Protestantism in Australia. There is a good section within this grouping (which would include Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Uniting, etc) that would be equally happy within the Roman Catholic communion and it would be better for Protestantism if they were. These people are merely nominal at best and quite openly hold to Papist ideals and teachings. Let Rome have them if they will not cast off their heretical ideas and take hold of Christ and His teachings.

The majority of Protestants these days are not of the breed of Protestants that brought Protestantism into being. They no longer hold to the Scriptures as being the standard of belief, faith and practice. These days Protestantism is ruled by the leading of sentimentalism, mediocrity and pragmatism, being concerned more for religion and obtaining numbers within the building, rather than Biblical Christianity and salvation of the lost through the proclamation of the Biblical Gospel. This then is the Christianity of today within Australia.

I know of people raised in Christian homes and churches that are openly embracing heresy, believing that they have been misled from their youth. Such expressions of Christianity are being broadcast over social networks, as ever increasing numbers fall victim to every wind of doctrine as a result of poor or even no teaching within churches, having become the victims of chatter from the pulpits that comes nowhere close to being the preaching that the Bible expects to be delivered (if indeed preaching and teaching are regarded as being necessary at all within the church concerned).

In the Reformed churches there are varying issues that are robbing the movement of its potential power to transform the country through the truth that it possesses. There are problems with Lording it over the church and being caught up on matters of lesser importance (if they are indeed important at all), of attempting to match it with the general malaise of religion (but in a more covert manner while trying to maintain the reformed name) and simply imbibing the mediocrity of religion surrounding the churches.

We are in a bad way in Australia and we need God given revival (as opposed to what goes by the name revival in cranked up programs and services throughout the country). We need God given preachers who will preach God given truth with God given power and God given life. We need to go back to Bible basics before religion is nothing more than a man-made shell (if we haven’t already reached that point) and true Christianity is extinct in this country.

IRAQ: GUNMEN KILL CHRISTIANS IN KIRKUK

Clergy believe attacks were religiously motivated.

ISTANBUL, April 28 (Compass Direct News) – Gunmen in Iraq shot five Chaldean Catholic Christians in their Kirkuk homes on Sunday (April 26) in two separate attacks, killing three and injuring two.

Cousins Suzan Latif David and Muna Banna David were killed at 10 p.m. in a suburb of the northern Iraqi city. Within a few minutes, Yousif Shaba and his sons Thamir and Basil were also shot in the same area, leaving the 17-year-old Basil dead. Yousif Shaba and Thamir were in critical condition.

Police have not stated if the two attacks were related, but they confirmed the arrest of nine men linked with the assault, a source told Compass. One of them is from the former insurgent stronghold of Ramadi and has suspected links to Al Qaeda.

Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Kirkuk Louis Sako said the attacks aimed to split the community. Yesterday he presided over the murder victims’ funeral, which the city police chief and provincial governor also attended.

“The main object of these crimes is to create chaos and promote strife and division among the people of Kirkuk,” Sako said, according to Reuters. “I call on Christians not to be jarred by these crimes and stay in Kirkuk. We are sons of this city.”

Kirkuk Province Gov. Abdul Rahman Mustafa echoed the archbishop’s comments, calling on Kirkuk’s citizens to stand united against the terrorists.

Violence has struck the nation’s Christian community particularly hard since the Iraq war began in 2003. Left mostly defenseless in sectarian violence, Christians have been targeted for kidnapping under the assumption that they can garner a large ransom.

Chaldean Christians have been hardest hit in the northern city of Mosul, where thousands of families have fled since an uptick in violence started last October. Some locals believe Kurdish groups are trying to intimidate them into leaving so they can incorporate the city into the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

But Kirkuk has largely avoided the sectarian bloodshed of the region. For this reason clergy believe the five Christians were targeted purely for their religion.

“They were peaceful Christian families, not involved in any political affiliation or such activities,” said Father Emanuel Youkhana of Christian Aid Program Nohadra Iraq, a local humanitarian organization. “What were they involved in that they be targeted in such a brutal way?

He added that most locals believe the two attacks were coordinated in order to terrorize Christians, as they occurred only a few minutes apart from each other.

“It was not just an accident that the two attacks happened in the same city on the same day at the same time,” he said.

The oil-rich city of Kirkuk has been caught in a tug-of-war between its Arab and Kurdish residents. Arabs were resettled there during Saddam Hussein’s regime, and Kurds have been moving back to reclaim the homes from which they were forcibly expelled.

But other groups have criticized Kurds for their massive immigration, charging that it is a means to annex the city – and its oil wealth – into the Kurdish region. Kirkuk has a small population of native Christians, with many moving here in recent decades to work in the oil industry. The Christian population is approximately 7,000.

Local police and officials have blamed Al Qaeda for the murders. Fr. Youkhana said there has been no evidence of Al Qaeda involvement, but that “for sure” it was a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist attack. He said security forces are often quick to blame foreign-based Al Qaeda rather than call attention to a violent, homegrown organization.

An Eastern rite denomination in communion with Rome, the Chaldean Catholic Church is Iraq’s largest Christian community.  

Report from Compass Direct News

“CHRIST DID NOT DIE FOR THE SINS OF THE PEOPLE”: GERMAN BISHOP

According to the chairman of the Catholic bishops’ conference of Germany, the death of Jesus Christ was not a redemptive act of God to liberate human beings from the bondage of sin and open the gates of heaven. The Archbishop of Freiburg, Robert Zollitsch, known for his liberal views, publicly denied the fundamental Christian dogma of the sacrificial nature of Christ’s death in a recent interview with a German television station, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com.

Zollitsch said that Christ “did not die for the sins of the people as if God had provided a sacrificial offering, like a scapegoat.”

Instead, Jesus had offered only “solidarity” with the poor and suffering. Zollitsch said “that is this great perspective, this tremendous solidarity.”

The interviewer asked, “You would now no longer describe it in such a way that God gave his own son, because we humans were so sinful? You would no longer describe it like this?”

Monsignor Zollitsch responded, “No.”

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch was appointed to the See of Freiburg im Breisgau in 2003 under Pope John Paul II. He is the sitting Chairman of the German Episcopal Conference, to which he was elected in 2008 and is regarded as a “liberal” in the German episcopate.

In February 2008 he said that priestly celibacy should be voluntary and that it is not “theologically necessary.” Zollitsch has also said he accepts homosexual civil unions by states, but is against same-sex “marriage.”

He told Meinhard Schmidt-Degenhard, the program’s host, that God gave “his own son in solidarity with us unto this last death agony to show: ‘So much are you worth to me, I go with you, and I am totally with you in every situation’.”

“He has become involved with me out of solidarity – from free will.”

Christ, he said, had “taken up what I have been blamed for, including the evil that I have caused, and also to take it back into the world of God and hence to show me the way out of sin, guilt and from death to life.”

However, Article 613 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the definitive work issued by the Church explaining the dogmas and doctrines of the Catholic religion, describes the death of Christ as “both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through ‘the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’, the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the ‘blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’.”

The Catechism continues, “This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices. First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience.

Report from the Christian Telegraph