Eric has an excellent post on a Telegraph article by Peter Mullen fuming about the terrible dreadfulness of the C of E in the matter of women bishops and priests. One thing in Mullen’s article snagged my attention right out of the gate.
There is now no doubt that the Church of England will consecrate its first woman bishop within the next couple of years. This will happen without any statutory provision for those who in conscience cannot accept women’s episcopacy. The significant minority of clergy and laity who oppose this innovation will simply be told to like it – or lump it and go elsewhere. Thus tens of thousands of traditional and faithful Anglicans will be unchurched.
What a ludicrous thing to complain of. When was it ever otherwise? Was the Church of England until recently run like a democracy? Were significant minorities of clergy and laity who didn’t like something the church decided until recently not told to like it or lump it?
Of course bloody not! It’s a church.
Funny that someone who makes such a point of being reactionary and kind of oblivious should have fallen for this trendy modern idea that Everybody is Special and no one should ever be told to like it or lump it (except people who think there should be women priests and bishops, of course).
Mullen is whining because he’s going to have to lump it and he don’t wanna lump it.
How do they reconcile their objections with the fact that the head of church is a woman and has been women for about 186 out of the 472 (39%) years since it split from the RCC?
But it’s OK to tell women, and anyone else who has had to tolerate their mysogyny for centuries, that well-er-no women can’t be priests and bishops..? My only question is why would any woman not have left this moribund slag heap of a ‘church’ years ago.
From the Peter Mullen article:
I think this is the point where we have consider either insanity or comedy. Do any of these groups have any representation in the church’s governance? Do they even want it? As far as I know, for “non-believing secularists” or “intolerant feminists” to get any power in this organisation they would have to join, preach ideas that oppose their own and then get promoted several times for being good at it. It’s not a likely scenario.
mywall, are you seriously suggesting someone having a good whine be bound by mere facts and logic?
This will simply kill off the C of E faster since those opposing the ordination of women will likely do what some anglican congregations in America did when faced with the same issue; they’ll become Roman Catholics.
It’s just an observation, but those churches that do ordain women tend to have very small congregations, so what happens is that these ‘progressive’ initiatives almost always end up alienating those ( far more numerous congregants)who are more conservative and traditonalist in outlook.
This happened in New England about two years ago. The Anglican Church approved the ordination of women, and whole Anglican parrishes, all of them more conservative, better attended and therefore wealthier, became Catholic in just a matter of weeks.
Anyways, the CofE no longer has any influence or importance to begin with, so what will it change?
Heh, I got momentarily confused and at first thought the quote was from the Good Guy post and not from the Bad Guy article. I was nodding my head saying, “Yes, what great news!” Didn’t even realize until the final sentence that it was meant to be a complaint.
‘Tis Himself, OM
Of course not. The Telegraph has been a fine journal of surrealism for the entirety of its long history, I would not expect it to change.
An old comic description of the British national daily newspapers (from memory, not necessarily completely correct):
The Times is read by those who run the country.
The Financial Times is read by those who own the country.
The Guardian is read by those who would like to run the country.
The Daily Mirror is read by those who think they will run the country one day
The Morning Star is read by those who think this country should be run just like another country
The Daily Mail is read by the wives of those who run the country.
The Daily Express is read by those who think the country should be run the way it used to be.
The Daily Telegraph is read by those who think it still is.
Oh forgot final line:
The Sun is read by those who don’t care tuppence who runs the country as long as there are big bare boobs on Page 3.