Hear, hear!

"The Church of Ireland affirms, according to our Lord’s teaching that marriage is in its purpose a union permanent and lifelong, for better or worse, till death do them part, of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all others on either side, for the procreation and nurture of children, for the hallowing and right direction of the natural instincts and affections, and for the mutual society, help and comfort which the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity."

The resolution further states, "The Church of Ireland recognises for itself and of itself, no other understanding of marriage than that provided for in the totality of Canon 31. The Church of Ireland teaches therefore that faithfulness within marriage is the only normative context for sexual intercourse. Members of the Church of Ireland are required by the Catechism to keep their bodies in ‘temperance, soberness and chastity’. Clergy are called in the Ordinal to be ‘wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Jesus Christ’."

By this resolution, the General Synod declared very clearly that heterosexual marriage was and is the God-ordained sphere for sexual relationships and is alone the ‘normative’ context for such relationships.

Hookerian

What he actually said: “What Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience are due; the next whereunto, is what any man can necessarily conclude by force of Reason; after this, the voice of the church succeedeth.”

The following mash-up borrows from here, there, and elsewhere, in order to attempt an application of the principle given above. Not much original, I am afraid.

SCRIPTURE, or the ACTUAL:

• "Anglicans recognize only one dogma about Mary: that she is the Theotokos, the Mother of God. All other doctrines, beliefs, or legends about Mary are secondary to her role as Mother of God."
• "Anglicans recognize Mary as an example of holiness, faith and obedience for all Christians; and that Mary can be seen as a prophetic figure of the Church. As the Gospel of Luke (1.48) states 'henceforth all nations shall call me blessed', she is often considered to have a unique place of importance within the Communion of Saints."
• "The Anglican Communion observes all the traditional Marian festivals of the ancient Catholic Church."

Given Mary’s centrality in the economy of salvation it could hardly be seemly to give her neither pride of place amongst all the saints nor the title of Theotokos.

The Feasts of the Purification, Annunciation, and Visitation are and will continue to be celebrated.

Given a scriptural basis, no Anglican could reasonably forswear traditional chants and hymns, nor the uttering of such, as a pious ejaculation:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Saint Mary the Virgin, Mother of God, all generations shall call thee blessed, for thou hast borne the saviour for all the world.

REASON, or the DEMONSTRABLE:

• "Some Anglicans agree that the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary is sound and logical, but without more scriptural proof it cannot be considered dogmatic."
• "Most Anglicans reject the idea of Mary as Co-Redemptrix and any interpretation of the role of Mary that obscures the unique mediation of Christ. Anglicans typically believe that all doctrines concerning Mary must be linked with the doctrines of Christ and the Church."

An ascription such as “Blessed Mary, Ever-Virgin” is coherent with a possible reading of scripture. Hence, theological espousal of such is (strictly speaking) ‘reasonable’ yet scarcely to be mandated [= very weak proof].

Any and all proposals that Our Lady be deemed the 'co-mediatrix of all grace' or 'mediatrix of all grace' or 'co-redemptrix' are utterly impossible and must be repulsed as they militate strongly against our received creeds and our doctrines of salvation [= very strong disproof].

TRADITION, or the POSSIBLE:

• "Most Anglicans generally believe that the Roman Catholic dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary are merely pious beliefs or legends, since there is no clear reference in Scripture to support them ..."

Scripture is completely silent and no true proofs are possible. Given our completely uncertainty about both, the palpable Orthodox apprehensions about the former, and, yet, the relative antiquity of the latter, I would think that the Scottish Prayer Book yields the best example:

The FALLING ASLEEP OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY [August 15]

O GOD, who as on this day didst take to thyself the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of thy Son: Grant that we who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of thy eternal kingdom; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Gore-d

In this defence of the English Church, I have frankly admitted all the faults of undiscipline, doctrinal compromise and reaction which we think can be fairly laid to our Church's charge. I believe that these are to be set over-against the arrogant claims, the exaggerations of truth, the falsifications of history, the accretions of error, which must be laid to the charge of Rome. Which set of faults is the greater which Church is more guilty in the eyes of God it is not for us to determine, it is not our business to attempt to determine. The evils of a Church into which by God's providence we were new-born, granted she be a Church, are not an excuse for leaving her, but a spur to action. And I am sure that we Anglicans feel a hearty thankfulness to Almighty God, that He has caused our lot to be cast in a Church, which, however deeply she has sinned, can acknowledge her sins; which, however great her defects even in her authoritative formulas, is not prevented by any arrogation to herself of what belongs to a greater whole, from confessing them and openly seeking to reform them. Better anything than to be unable to bear the light: better anything than to be unable to face the facts of history and frankly accept them: better any evils than to have to speak deceitfully for God.

Further than this, however much there may be to be regretted and reformed in the teaching and practice of the Anglican Church at the present day, I must in fairness say that there is no even unauthorized practice of the English Church which I had not as soon be responsible for, as for that withdrawal of the chalice from the laity, to which the whole authority of the Church of Rome is committed:-- that I have never heard a sermon in an English Church more to be regretted than one it was once my lot to hear in Strasburg Cathedral, in which Christ was preached as the revelation of Divine justice and Mary as the revelation of Divine love: I have not read in Anglican biography anything which I should more desire to disown than Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan's description of the Pope saying Mass:-- "When I heard him sing Mass I cannot express what I felt: it was the God of earth prostrate in adoration before the God of heaven"! I have not been confronted in an Anglican book of devotion with any prayer more impossible to pray than

Soul of the Virgin, illuminate me;
Body of the Virgin, guard me;
Milk of the Virgin, feed me;
Passage of the Virgin, strengthen me;
O Mary, mother of grace, intercede for me;
For thy servant take me;
Make me always to trust in thee;
From all evils protect me;
In the hour of my death assist me;
And prepare for me a safe way to thee;
That with all the elect I may glorify thee;
For ever and ever.

Thus, all things considered, we Anglicans thank God that He has put us elsewhere than in the Roman Church, though we would fain give her an ungrudging recognition of her glories, and are very far from believing that all even of her educated members need be conscious of that temper in her modern theology which to us is so intolerable.

Beautiful Losers

The news appeared in my Twitter feed yesterday that St. Paul’s K Street has gone through a process of discernment and is welcoming women clergy to their altar as well as same-sex blessings. I know with regard to the first that this was a move that had been in process for a while.

And there is no future
In England's dreaming

No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future,
No future for me

No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future
For you

The Kool-Aid

Don't drink it.

I admire Father Hunwicke's erudition but I must respectfully dissent from S Pius V: the BIG MISTAKE, THE UNIVERSAL MYTH. The new Missal is imposed, and the following is a completely ambiguous afterthought, buried somewhere in the details:

nisi ab ipsa prima institutione a Sede Apostolica adprobata, vel consuetudine, quae, vel ipsa institutio super ducentos annos Missarum celebrandarum in eisdem Ecclesiis assidue observata sit:

[EVERYBODY] unless approved by the Apostolic See from the very beginning of institution, or by custom, which, if that be not the very institution of those churches over the two hundred years old, is constantly to be observed in the Masses so celebrated;

This is bureaucratic speech -- as well as a fairly harsh criterion -- and the ambiguity is designed to insure that most will be completely unclear about whether the exception actually applies to them: therefore, the only safe thing to do is ....

Let's imagine something different. The question then to be put (and answered truly) is:

What is truly a mark of catholicity and of ecumenical significance? Leave out the ARCIC declarations for a moment and the patsy status of the Church of England; if you meet an old-fashioned Anglican on 1st May and you have a conversation about faith, you're already on common ground in celebrating the same feast day. This is how bridges are built! Something substantive and traditional is a predicate. Do not insist upon the latest papal fiat simply because of what Mediator Dei declares about the liturgical authority of the Roman see. That is what leads to estrangement and hatred.

Let's start from a tradition of practice.
First the cake. Then, the theory for cutting it.

The Sheffer Stroke

A real choice -- yes, that would be nice. I am nominally a member of the Democratic Party and yet I completely abominate it, in its present incarnation. But that doesn't mean I am going to become a Republican.

Let's review the Professio fidei Tridentina. It's actually gotten a bit longer since but ....

I think what is highlighted in yellow points more towards areas of difference in emphasis and terminology. I don't see these as 'make or break' issues, where compromise is just plain impossible.

The red? That's another story entirely. And who stands precisely where ... now?

Erat homo ex pharisaeis

Although the Octave of Pentecost is very ancient, Rome and the Papal court never kept the first Sunday after Pentecost as part of it. (This forms another parallel with Easter, since the liturgy of Low Sunday differs in many respects from that of Easter itself.) In northern Europe, as noted above, the Octave Day was a proper octave, repeating the Mass of the feast, but with different readings: Apocalypse 4, 1-10 as the Epistle, and John 3, 1-16 as the Gospel. Both of these traditions were slowly but steadily displaced by the feast of the Trinity, first kept at Liège in the early 10th century; but there was a divergence of customs here as well. When Pope John XXII (1316-34) ordered that Holy Trinity be celebrated throughout the Western Church, he placed it on the Sunday after Pentecost, a custom which became universal after Trent. But even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries and several major dioceses in Germany still kept the older Octave Day of Pentecost, and put the feast of the Trinity on the Monday after.

Others compromised between the older custom and the new by keeping the readings from the Octave of Pentecost, but inserting them into the Mass of the Trinity; this was observed at Sarum, and by the medieval Dominicans and Premonstratensians. After the Tridentine reform, however, as part of the general tendency to Romanize liturgical books, this compromise was retained only by the Old Observance Carmelites, leaving the first part of the Nicodemus Gospel only on the Finding of the Cross for all the rest of the Roman Rite.

In 1960, the feast was suppressed from the general Calendar, and relegated to the Missal’s appendix “for some places”, causing the effective disappearance of the crucial Gospel passage from the liturgy of Easteride. This defect been partially remedied in the Novus Ordo; the reading is broken into two pieces, assigned to the Monday and Tuesday after Low Sunday, but not to any major feast of the season.

So, in Rome, the dominica vacat was observed, which was never the case in the north of Europe. Given the disappearance of the Pascha annotinum and the suppression of feasts of the Holyrood (goodbye, Roodmas!), this seminal reading vanishes completely from the central Roman Rite, only to miserably re-appear in the RCL, where it will be encountered by no one. No. One.

Now that's progress! "Tanks, Holy Fadder!"

The real "losses" and the supposed "gains" of such liturgical fascism are truly encompassed in the story of what happened to our venerable May 1. True progress would be total suppression of almost all post-Eleventh-century "feasts" (of Trinity, Corpus Christi, and the utterly ascriptural "Conception" and "Nativity" of the BVM, inter alia, along with all Franciscan-style devotion and outright fetishism, such as the "Holy Family" and the "Immaculate Heart").

(Because Transubstantiation overthroweth the "nature of a Sacrament" -- i.e., its function as sign, which pointeth not to itself but elsewhere, to its true reference (to heaven) -- if we really need to avail ourselves of such fetishism, I have always favoured the Most Precious Blood over all other contenders, precisely because it is much more difficult to "iconify" and, thence, to superstitiously worship the fluid 'creature' of wine.)

When that rubbish is cleared out, give me a call!

"Tradition"

... or, the Rumpus Room.

Click to enlarge its hideous splendour.

Augusti

Imagine for a moment, that Jerome, or Musaeus, or Alcuin, or Bede formed such a collection of lessons, covering not only the Sundays of the year, but the feria, and festivals and martyrdays, when nothing of the kind had fixed itself in the general habit of the Church before! Who cannot see at once how impossible it would be to introduce such a collection from diocese to diocese throughout the Church, when Catholic tradition and custom had all the authority of common law, and to accomplish this too without one syllable of earnest protest, or without any intimation of resistance? It is absurd. These Lectionaria could not, of themselves, have introduced the practice as something before unknown, but rather the general custom already existing necessitated their formation to serve its own ends. The Lectionaria themselves, as we shall see, give clear evidence of this.

Augusti, in his valuable work on Christian antiquities (vol. vi. p. 211), has given a carefully prepared synopsis of part of the four works just mentioned above. From an examination of this synopsis, the close uniformity of the pericopes and other Scripture readings connected with the ancient and leading festivals of the Church, is plainly observable. Take for example the Epiphany festival, undoubtedly of extreme antiquity, which, while referring back to the Nativity and Circumcision of Christ, included the adoration of the Wise men led by the miraculous star, the baptism at Jordan, and the first miracle at Cana. Here the uniformity is complete in all the general features. The pericopes for Circumcision are in the Menologium, Luke ii. 21-40; in the Liber Comitis, Luke ii. 21-32; in the Lectionarium Gall., Luke ii. 21-40, including an Epistle, 1 Cor. x. 14-31; in the Callendarium Rom., Luke ii. 21-32. For Epiphany, in the Menolog., Matt. iii. 13-17 (the Baptism); in the Lib. Com. Matt. ii. 1-12 (the adoration of the Wise men, with an octave, however, taking up the Baptism); in the Lect. Gall., Matt. iii. 13-17, combined with John ii. (the first miracle); in the Callend. Rom., Matt. ii. 1-12.

It is plain that the uniformity here manifest has its ground in the early and wide spread custom of the Church, and not in any individual and arbitrary compilation imposed by this one or that one—a custom too contemporaneous, we may say, with the observance of the festival itself, which grouped around it a cluster of pericopes of uniform character, as seen above. This is further and more fully confirmed the moment we examine the homilies of the early Fathers.

Among the sermons ascribed to St. Ambrose, there is one which shows at once how it came that the singular epistle selection, 1 Cor. x. 14-31, found its way into the Lectionarium Gall. for Circumcision. This selection, as may be seen by examination, brings into view the striking contrast between the Gentile sacrificial and idolatrous festivity, and the Christian's communion through the Eucharist, with the sacrifice of Christ. There seems to be here no connection whatever between the Circumcision of Christ, and this exhortation of St. Paul; and what custom of the Church could have made such a selection of any general force in reference to the day? Just this. Around the opening of January there was quite a cluster of Gentile feasts. Among the Romans were the celebrated Saturnalia, covering some seven days, followed by the Laurentalia, and then again after the Calends, the Agonalia. On the Calends itself there was a wild riotous festival in honor of Janus, and Strenia, the goddess of presents, and the day was given up to feastings and banquetings, and revelry. Christians were guarded against all this by very severe canons of several councils, and by the earnest watchfulness of their Pastors. In the sermon referred to, as also in one for the same season from Augustine, the hearers are at once reminded of the necessary contrast between their festivity and that of the Gentiles, and are told that those who wish to be partakers of the Divine, should hold no fellowship with idols, for the portion of idols is drunkenness, gluttony and dance. Augustine, indeed, in bringing out the same contrast, refers to this very chapter in Corinthians. There can be but little doubt that just this need of enforcing such contrast in view of the surrounding heathenism originated, long before Ambrose, the use of such a lesson as this as well as that one of kindred character in the same Lectionarium for Epiphany, viz., Titus i. 11 to the end.