Just one question.....

It must be difficult being a media religious affairs and having to cover this story from Saudi Arabia while keeping a straight face. Luckily, female correspondents on Saudi TV don't have to worry about keeping a straight face on air, because no one will see their faces at all. Just one question though......if these women prefer not to be seen by men outside their immediate family, why not just ditch the "-vision" part of television and just broadcast the sound?

Advent II

Here are one or two photos from the Mass of Advent II on Sunday.

The Asperges collect

The censing of the altar at the introit

Censing of the celebrant

The Gospel is proclaimed in the body of the church

During the Canon. As you can see, the Deacon wears a 'broad stole', representative of his folded chasuble worn over the shoulder, while he fulfills his diaconal duties at the altar.

Advent I

Just to share some quick snaps from the Sacristy after Mass last Sunday, where the new folded chasubles were premiered. The Mass was celebrated by Fr. Aidan Harkers, assisted by Fr Philip as Deacon and Br Andrew as Subdeacon.

Just to steal an observation made by Rubricarius, as any Bishop who uses his vesting prayers should know, the dalmatic is the "garment of salvation, and the vestment of joy" and the tunicle is the "tunic of joyfulness". Surely then, the use of the Dalmatic and Tunicle in Advent is entirely inappropriate?

'The Same Catholic Thing'

Here is some of the text of the Archbishop of Canterbury's address yesterday in Rome, the full version of which is available here. I've taken out three paragraphs which I find particularly interesting, because in them, the Archbishop cuts to the chase and asks the questions we ought to be able to answer. As for the sections that I have highlighted, I ask readers to ponder them in the light of the Gospel wisdom of Luke 6:44 "For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush."

I don't want here to rehearse the arguments for and against the ordination of women, only to ask how recent determinations on the Roman Catholic side fit with the general pattern of theological convergence outlined. The claim of certain Anglican provinces is that the ordination of women explicitly looks to an agreed historic theology of ordained ministry as set out in the ARCIC report and other sources. Beyond that, many Anglicans have been wary of accepting a determination of who can be ordained that might appear to compromise the some of the agreed principles about how ordination relates to the whole body of the baptised. This, by the way, would hold for at least some who believe that a decision within a divided Church about a matter affecting the universal ministry should not be taken by a single province or group of provinces. But for many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women, which in their view threatens to undermine the coherence of the ecclesiology in question.

And the challenge to recent Roman Catholic thinking on this would have to be: in what way does the prohibition against ordaining women so 'enhance the life of communion', reinforcing the essential character of filial and communal holiness as set out in Scripture and tradition and ecumenical agreement, that its breach would compromise the purposes of the Church as so defined? And do the arguments advanced about the "essence" of male and female vocations and capacities stand on the same level as a theology derived more directly from scripture and the common theological heritage such as we find in these ecumenical texts?

Let us take this a stage further. All ordained ministers are ordained into the shared richness of the apostolic ministerial order – or perhaps we could say ministerial 'communion' yet again. None ministers as a solitary individual. Thus if the ministerial collective is understood strictly in terms of the ecclesiology we have been considering, as serving the goal of filial and communal holiness as the character of restored humanity, how much is that undermined if individuals within the ministerial communion are of different genders? Even if there remains uncertainty in the minds of some about the rightness of ordaining women, is there a way of recognising that somehow the corporate exercise of a Catholic and evangelical ministry remains intact even when there is dispute about the standing of female individuals? In terms of the relation of local to universal, what we are saying here is that a degree of recognizability of 'the same Catholic thing' has survived: Anglican provinces ordaining women to some or all of the three orders have not become so obviously diverse in their understanding of filial holiness and sacramental transformation that they cannot act together, serve one another and allow some real collaboration.

Civil Unions

I was following a train of thought this morning on public transport, and decided to note down my feelings on the back of a shop receipt for bagels and plant food, when I suddenly realised I'd inadvertently composed a Haiku. Here it is:

Civil Unions,
For Heterosexuals;
Why would you bother?

Traunstein

One quote from the brilliant book "Martin Travers: an appreciation" has always stuck in my mind, something about the interior of S. Magnus the Martyr looking, after it had been restored by Travers (and I'm paraphrasing) something like an Austrian country parish church that has been washed over by the counter-reformation. Well, in an idle moment today I got to looking at Austrian and Bavarian parish churches, and so compare the image of S. Magnus at the head of this page which the above image of the church in Traunstein, Bavaria, where a certain Fr. Ratzinger said his first Mass........

The Monarchy

I always seem to be shooting my mouth off about something or other these days; Anglican Controversial. Well I just read something very interesting the news. A Labour candidate has apologised after calling Queen Elizabeth II “vermin” and “a parasite”. It’s very fun and lefty, undergraduate PPS etc to be either virulently anti-Monarchist or to talk affectionately but patronisingly about the British monarch. The arguments against maintaining our monarchy normally centre on their finances, and the details of their “cost” to the nation. They often also moan about the sexist system of succession, and the fact that the monarchy is hereditary, not meritocratic.

Against those charges, backed up with facts and figures and the constant demands on public finances, the arguments in favour of the monarchy often fall down, because they centre on the unquantifiable: the sense of continuity the monarchy offers, the tourist draw. Things that are almost impossible to express with statistics, but which nonetheless, parts of society maintain are important for our national life.

It is precisely this unquantifiable benefit of the monarchy that interests me, partly because it reminds me of the situation in the church. Those who support the monarchy would openly concede that the Queen’s role is almost entirely ceremonial, but they would also argue that this is ceremonial is an integral part of our nation. It’s what makes Britain what is really is. To me, the monarchy is about maintaining a particular historical discourse of statehood which is the authentic expression of the historical, national and cultural character of the United Kingdom. Britain is not a republic, and the day that we start swearing-in a President on the fume-choked lawns outside the Houses of Parliament with music by a veteran soul singer is the day we stop being British. By contrast, Venezuela is a Republic founded by “the Liberator” Simon Bolivar, and as such, the ceremonial life of the Republic revolves around the struggle against the Spanish and the symbolism of Bolivar’s public persona. They celebrate the victory of the Battle of Carabobo, not Waterloo, and when their leaders wander around in tri-colour sashes in military parades, they are continuing the authentic ceremonial of statehood appropriate to a young nation, forged during the high-tide of Republicanism by a military figure. If president Chavez were to declare himself Emperor of Greater Bolivaria (something he would probably quite like to do), he would be rupturing the ties of continuity with how a nation, and those who feel they belong to it, perceive themselves, and have continued to perceive themselves throughout history. He would be doing something inauthentic and inappropriate to Venezuela as she is, and has been for two hundred years.

All of this reminds me of those in the church who do not recognise the value of ceremonial and ritual, the ephemeral and unquantifiably beneficial aspects of the visible life of the church. There is such an urge to re-form, to re-shape the church in a way which is subjectively deemed more appropriate, and this tendency reached a tragic zenith in the Reformation. Even now we have a Bishop in Peterborough who has written that the Eucharistic services of the church should not be treated any differently from Mattins and Evensong, and as such could be “presided over” by laypeople. Orthodox Anglicanism, which teaches the Real Presence and the role of the Sacraments in Salvation, is viewed as too “superstitious” by such extremists and must be brought up to date. I don’t believe this teaching has any place in the Church of England, when it owes no loyalty whatsoever to the Church of S. Augustine, and defiles the precious continuity which the Church of England has claimed with the pre-Reformation church.

The word “heresy” comes from the Greek word that describes a “choice” of beliefs particular to a faction opposed to Orthodoxy, and it has been used over the centuries to refer to those who have willingly cut themselves off from the family of the faithful. Whether it’s the Sacraments or the Monarchy, we would be making a huge mistake if we gave ourselves over to the “heresy” of innovation. Those who love the Church, love Her Sacraments, the “mysteries of Salvation” which we can’t quantify or put into statistics to justify their role in our lives. Likewise, those who love Britain should think twice before resigning the monarchy to history. Let us not forget what the monarchy means, and has meant to generations, and reflecting on the prospects of Britain in the coming years, we might realise that we need Queen Elizabeth now as much as we ever did.