De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Cherry Vann has spoken and the BBC have reported her words. She articulates one of the most common yet erroneaous assumptions of our age: That authenticity means doing what we feel comes naturally to us. Christianity has never agreed. Conversion to Christ is not the baptising of our preferences, desires, or instincts. It is the slow, often costly reordering of our lives to a truth that stands outside us. Jesus does not say “express yourself”, but “follow me”. That is why this debate matters. When Church leaders frame moral teaching as an attack on identity, something essential has been lost. The Christian life is not about doing what we fancy and asking God to bless it. It is about learning, sometimes painfully, that our desires are not our destiny. Explaining the goodness of that calling is not cruelty. It is not exclusion. It is the very heart of pastoral leadership. And it is precisely the task entrusted to bishops and archbishops. In our latest Catholic Unscripted article, we...

  Why did you decide to become a Catholic? I’ve often said to people that my decision didn’t so much have to do with this issue or that, but how decisions are made, on what basis, and by what authority. I think that the Lambeth Conference [an international gathering of Anglican bishops every 10 years], although it had no legal authority over the provinces, had moral authority. Repeatedly on questions of church order, on questions about marriage, the Lambeth Conference would make one decision and then the provinces would go and do something quite different. I understand the Archbishop of Canterbury said recently in Egypt that “we make decisions by consensus, and even then people are free to do what they like.” Well, this doesn’t work. We need a way of making decisions that have universal importance that stick universally. Otherwise, chaos results. My second reason was that you need a body of teaching to which the faithful can refer when they need to do so, and indeed clergy as well ...

Michael James Nazir-Ali ( Urdu : مائیکل نذیر علی‎; born 19 August 1949) is a former Anglican bishop who was the 106th Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England from 1994 to 2009. He is now director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue, and was Visiting Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina , in the United States, from 2010. Today, Dr. Jules Gomes of Church Militant (himself a former Anglican minister) broke the news that this intellectual giant and highly competent theologian is to be received into the Catholic Church and ordained priest later this month. Nazir-Ali, who holds a master of letters from Cambridge University, an earned doctorate from the Australian College of Theology, and six honorary doctorates from universities around the world, was one of the final two candidates for archbishop of Canterbury in 2000. He was pipped to the post because of his authentic Christianity & failure to adhere to the zeitgeist. Opening the Synoda...

I know what you're thinking..."What, another one?" The Church of England seems to be consuming itself over various issues which ultimately boil down to the capitulation of the Gospel to the whim of temporality. The headlines today, Palm Sunday, sadly, instead of reflecting on the powerful message of sacrificial love that is the Christian story, reflect the selfishness of one man who puts himself before his duty as a minister of religion, an employee of the Church of England, a servant of the Word, and even God. Jeremy Pemberton has been a priest since 1981 and has worked in the north of England, DR Congo and Cambridgeshire. He was an honorary canon of Ely Cathedral and is a canon of Boga Cathedral. He is divorced, has five children, and now lives and works in Nottinghamshire as a community healthcare chaplain and a lay clerk at Southwell Minster. Yesterday he became the first to defy his church's ban on gay clergy marrying. I don't want to appear j...

Fr. Ed Tomlinson posted this little video on FB today: I have to say my feelings are of dismay rather than anger or disappointment. This is Anglican, but that's not to say things like this haven't happened in the Catholic Church.  Apparently, the Diocese of Exeter held a 'taster' for the Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage, which included Mass celebrated by 'bishop' John Ford of Plymouth. The explanation is that 'Having used bubbles earlier to consider their beauty, uniqueness and specialness - just like us - filled with breath which ultimately goes right back to God, we were encouraged to blow bubbles as the holy elements are raised, and fill the sacred space with light, airy prayer-filled bubbles...' The Anglican Blogger Cranmer has commented  as follows: His Grace is so convulsed with incredulity, he can scarcely type. He is so used to writing about those who inhabit the metaphorical Westminster Bubble that it had completely escaped hi...

The Second Vatican Council distinguished between “Churches” and “Ecclesial Communities” separated from the Roman Apostolic See ( Unitatis Redintegratio , chapter 3). What is the basis for this distinction? Why is it important? What implications do degrees of communion have for reception of the sacraments in the Catholic Church in union with the Apostolic See? ~Auctore Deo~ Introduction Today Christianity resembles the one garment of the Lord torn between disputing parties. As much as anything else, this of itself forms a major obstacle for many to belief. Without a proper ecclesiology; if we don't understand Church, what, or where the Church is, then the whole proclamation of the faith goes awry. Over emphasis on the wrong kind of ecumenism leads to a relativist ecclesiology which equates the One True Church of Jesus Christ to Protestant theologies which don’t even hold to the divinity of Our Lord. The sacraments are denigrated and lose their potency because they b...

Although I have known that there was an Anglican Church since my history studies of the Tudor age in school, I wasn't ever hugely aware of the importance and value of an established church in our country until, probably, the first influx of Anglicans came home to Rome back in 1992. That was on the back of the ordination of women; if you want to understand what the Catholic position is regarding that I would suggest you have a look at this wonderful exposition by Megan Hodder . More recently (January 2011), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a Decree which formally established a ‘Personal Ordinariate’ in England and Wales for groups of Anglican faithful and their clergy who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. The establishment of this Ordinariate was the first fruit of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus , issued by Pope Benedict XVI on 4 November 2009. The purpose of this was to respond to petitions received “repeate...