New bishops of Ebbsfleet & Richborough

Fr Jonathan Baker SSC

The Archbishop of Canterbury has seen fit to appoint new bishops to the suffragan sees of Ebbsfleet and Richborough. Downing Street made the announcement on Thursday that the next Bishop of Ebbsfleet is to be the Revd Dr Jonathan Baker ssc, Principal of Pusey House, Oxford and Secretary of Forward in Faith, and that the next Bishop of Richborough is to be the Revd Norman Banks ssc, Vicar of Walsingham, Houghton and Barsham, Rural Dean of Burnham and Walsingham and Chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen. Both priests will now become bishops administering sacramentally to Anglicans unable in conscience to accept the innovation of women in holy orders, particularly the priesthood and episcopate.

Fr Norman Banks SSC

The announcement has been welcomed by traditional Anglicans, those who have moved to the Ordinariate under Rome, those without in the continuing churches and those in Forward in Faith. Other Anglicans are also expressing warm respects, even if they are not so traditional. But some have spoken with a sharp tongue.

Jean Mayland is a lady for sharp words. On Thinking Anglicans she says "These appointments are despicable. In response to an advert from his Appointments Secretary many of us wrote asking that that he wait until next year when the new legislation will, God willing be approved and hopefully such posts disappear. He has nevertheless appointed them - maybe in the hope that next time he and Sentamu will push through their heretical amendment. It is a slap in the face for faithful women priests".

Heretical? Despicable? Ms Mayland is herself a lady cleric and church person. However, as with all liberals, she has taken to expressing her will as God's Will. Not content to accept that the overwhelming majority of sacramental Christians believe the three-fold ministry is male in creation as given to us by Tradition and Scripture. That majority, made up of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran Christians, rejects the notions of those who desire innovations based on presumed fairness and equality of the modern world, as being inconsistent with the faith of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Whilst sacramental Christians may be divided yet are praying and working for unity, it is beyond doubt that Ms Mayland's approach is hellbent on perpetual division.

She thinks Rowan Williams is a heretic! There is a hymn - "God moves in mysterious ways" - and it is hard sometimes to fathom what some people really want. It's a mystery to me what goes on in Ms Mayland's mind. I bet she'll have us out of the Church of England at the point of candlestick if she could. Heretic, indeed! Some cheek, I'd say.

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US Church drops gay bishops ban - tatty bye, Mrs Schori!

The Episcopal Church in the United States is heading for a divorce from the Anglican communion. Hell-bent on creating new dogmas and doctrines to fit in with the fleeting chances of this world, the bishops of this church have decided to drop the ban on bishops living in homosexual relationships. Archbishop Rowan Williams, trying to keep communion with Canterbury alive, says, "I regret the fact that there is no will to observe the moratorium in such a significant part of the church in North America." There was fat chance of such observation lasting.

Ever since Mrs.Schori took over, the Episcopal Church has become a libertine's haven where those in charge spend every waking hour trying to root out traditional belief and adherence to biblical teaching. A knock at the door, a rude letter, a shifty telephone call - all ways to keep the new morality bouncing along.

So it looks like the Episcopal Church will drift away from Anglicanism to run a sect offering an a la carte menu of beliefs with a kind of doctrine of the day to attract new believers. Sad, but there it is. No use getting too worked up about it. There are worse things in the world to be bothering about.

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Bishop stoops to conquer swine flu!

One wonders if this swine flu epidemic is not so much about the virus itself more about ourselves. Ever since the Mexicans decided that several of their badly kept pigs were somewhat off colour we have been given as many mixed messages about the wretched disease as there are germs making the stuff up.

It has been a godsend to the Murdoch press. They can conveniently forget "underlying health problems" and trumpet the ghastly deaths in as much gory detail as their fevered imaginations can allow. And if Sun readers do not know what swine are, emblazon the rag with "PIG FLU!" - that leaves no misunderstanding.

Of course, if it hadn't been pigs it could have been some other animal. "Cyril's got mouse flu!" doesn't quite hit the same panic buttons. We are told that this flu is marginally worse than so-called ordinary flu, which also kills people. We love a good panic it seems.

Weighing into this ten cents debate comes the Bishop of Chelmsford. He has suddenly developed an aversion to stoups in churches. He thinks the holy water may infect the faithful. The Daily Telegraph has some wonderful quotes from the bishop and his demuring chaplain. Now let's put it into context. Reading the report you would think that this is a grave problem for his diocese and those beyond. The truth is that few Anglican churches have stoups or use holy water in a sacramental way, apart from baptisms themselves.

The bishop opines, with some severity, "The water contained in stoups can easily become a source of infection and a means of rapidly spreading the virus. This practice should be suspended." I doubt that it will. Bishop Gladwin is what is called an open evangelical. Such Christians of this tradition rarely use stoups or believe in such things. No, he is suggesting that Catholic Anglicans should think again. I doubt if my priest will be running to church this morning, toolkit in hand, to remove our stoups. Perish the thought.

The bishop also discouraged pastoral visits and said if a visit was necessary priests should wear sterile gloves, an apron and a face mask. "Is that you, father? Or matron? Or doctor?" Can you imagine a priest on a pastoral visit looking like nuclear weapons inspector?

No, the bishop needs to get a grip of himself. He should be far more concerned by the introduction of bogus doctrines and secular fantasies into the church. Oh, and he needs to be on the look-out for presbyterian prime ministers bearing gifts. One of which may be a poisoned chalice as far as the consitution is concerned!

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As the woman vicar said to the bishop!

For those who say the Church should get modern I suppose adultery and infidelity are not what they are thinking of. The real world has both in spadefuls it seems. It is therefore very sad when such things encroach on the lives of Church members and clergy. Not that those of us in the Church are less capable of falling short. Far from it.

In the Church in Wales, the Right Rev. Carl Cooper resigned as Bishop of St David's yesterday. He had apparently been having an affair with a married woman who was also the bishop's chaplain and communications officer. The Daily Mail erroneously described her as a vicar, but then all priests in the Anglican Church are vicars to the popular press, even if they are curates, chaplains, rectors, assistant priests or priests-in-charge.

This is a sad state of affairs, literally. What I find difficult is that both sides seem more attuned with the ways of the world rather than trying to reconcile their actions with their faith. With the modern approach to a more laissez faire version of Anglicanism, the "moving out" and "splitting up" comes before trying to maintain marriage vows.

The New Testament (1 Timothy 3:2, 12) says, "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach. . . ." Not all live up to that and one should never judge, but giving in quite so easily seems to me to suggest a lack of willingness to try again.

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Bishop loses gay employment case

A gay man has won his case for unlawful discrimination after he was refused a youth official's job by a Church of England bishop. The man in question, John Reaney, had told the tribunal hearing his case that he was left "very embarrassed and extremely upset" following the meeting with the Bishop of Hereford and said he felt like "a total waste of space". Those were his thoughts, but he knew very well before he went for the job what the position of the Church of England is. Whilst some Anglicans may blur the boundaries of faith, the traditional teaching is that a homosexual lifestyle is incompatible with adherence to the Faith.

This is very much a battle of secularism against the professed claims of the Church. The floodgates have been opened by New Labour, that paragon of all things muddled. I liked Germaine Greer's recent remark about Tony Blair's attempt to ingratiate himself with the Pope. She claimed, as a self-style "atheistic Catholic" herself, that the Roman Catholic Church saw Blair as "doctrinally confused".

New Labour is giving us confusing laws, which when interpreted by the legal system, leave one side feeling bruised. The Bishop of Hereford should appeal, otherwise the secularists will come knocking for another issue to wrestle with.

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David Cameron's Bishops?

A new opinion poll, according to BBC Newsnight, gives the Tories a winning streak, enabling them to muster a majority of just 6 in a new House of Commons should a nervous New Labour leader run off to the palace seeking a fresh mandate. David Cameron would be Prime Minister, with all that the position holds, including juggling two names in a hat when it comes to the choice of a new bishop in the Church of England.

In these current elections due on May 3rd, a hapless Conservative candidate in Wales has got into a spot of bother by apparently be caught saying that homosexuality is a sin. No sooner had he uttered the words, then the Conservative leadership swung into action denouncing such talk. Mr Cameron, touring the Vale of Glamorgan today, said, "He's already clarified and made clear that we should not discriminate against people on the ground of their sexuality. That is the position of the Conservative Party, we're a party that doesn't believe in discrimination." Well, Mr.Cameron, nobody I know in the Church wishes to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality. What the candidate, Darren Millar, said was that some texts in the Bible said homosexual activity was a sin. A difference!

It seems in the New Blue Party of today that remarks, which follow orthodox Christian teaching, are to be condemned, and condemned in a rather patrician manner. This all leads me to wonder what would happen, some time in the future, when Dave is sitting behind Blair's desk, and a civil servant enters with the names of the two candidates selected for appointment to a diocese. One is a liberally-minded but effective pastor, the other is a traditional cleric with a background in serving the inner cities. Both outstanding candidates it would appear.

Question is, does Dave boot out the man of traditional belief because in the New Blue Paradise the rules are now written that say such orthodoxy has no place in positions within the State?

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