Monday, July 14, 2008

The Bishop of Beverley on General Synod

This letter from the Bishop of Beverley on General Synod is outstanding. The man writes with such clarity, it makes one wonder how he ever became a bishop! I especially like this bit of truth-telling:

There is something near hypocritical about folk who abolish one Catholic practice after another within our church and then seek to hide behind the fig leaf of each territorial diocese and its bishop needing to be sacrosanct, as at present, in order to maintain Catholic faith and order.

His view of the near future of English Anglo-Catholics is also clear-eyed – and not as pessimistic as some (including mine):

What then for the future? Presumably legislation will be introduced into Synod offering a way forward by means of a Code of Practice. In due time such legislation will work itself through the synodical process and return to General Synod for final approval in two or three years’ time. Judging from the voting figures in the recent synod at York, I find it hard to believe that such legislation will then command the two-thirds majority required within each of the three houses of General Synod for it to be enacted. There will probably be, too, a new General Synod elected by then, in 2010. It is more important than ever that we organise well for those elections.

I hope English Anglo-Catholics persevere and follow his good counsel.

3 comments:

Andrew Teather said...

Dear Mark,
I quite agree with your sentiments in this post, as you will have read in my blog. Forgive me for approaching you in this manner, but I do not have your email. I am surprised at the timbre of your comment on my blog, as you will be aware I have been attempting to give some hope recently to the many readers we have, which has been appreciated in the flood of emails I have recieved thanking us for just that. I read all sorts of things I do not agree with, both here and elsewhere but I would never have the bad manners to say so.
Thank You.

Mark said...

Andrew+, thanks for visiting. And although I appreciate your blog overall, I stand by my comment. My e-mail is mark at godknows99 dot com.

Readers, the subject of his comment may be found here: http://anglicanwanderings.blogspot.com/2008/07/bishops-everywhere.html

wannabe

Mark said...

And, btw, I'm not known for being very mannerly. I'm Texan, don't you know. ;)

mark