Lessons from The Catholic

Picture with thanks to the Telegraph

Many in my parish would think me a Roman Catholic, and for a number of reasons. First I am known as Father; secondly, I wear some semblance of clerical uniform and only in the colour black; thirdly I know what a cassock is and make use of one from time to time; fourthly, I know when it is better to wear a cotta and not a surplice; fifthly, I can tell my amice from my pumice; and lastly, I wear a small courgette upon my head at odd times during the week (if courgette = zucchetto). Indeed, when I pitched up at church last year wearing a black skull-call there were those who thought I was about to swim the Tiber, drag the parish with me, or else do that strangest of things, and become a member of the Ordinariate! 

No, brothers and sisters, I am a catholic, not a Catholic! 

That all said, what a time to be Roman. I have to say, out and loud, that I am a fan of Pope Francis I, Bishop of Rome - known to himself as Father Bergoglio. He strikes me as a man from whom we could all learn a great deal on a whole number of fronts.

As I cast my world-weary eye across Christianty, I see evidence of much in the way of admonition. There is much that we shouldn't do, mustn't do, ought not do, must never do, or else can't do. In the press today, Christians are telling off atheists for having a view of their own that is not supportive of us. As a result of our Scriptures we have lots of rules (let's call a collection of rules a law, shall we) and we will work tooth and nail to apply those rules to the societies of which we are part. Our Christian Lore is now applied behind the smiling facade of caffe latte, but nonetheless with convicted vitriol. If you don't claim a full personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you are somehow delinquent. 

So back to Pope Francis. I would go so far as to say that among the 'famous' Christians of our time, he is by far and away the most Christ-like. I even think he would shudder to read such words, which is sign yet further of the truth of them. He seems, in his early ministry as Pope, to have moved away from the Christian appetite for admonition - setting aside Christian Lore for what Jesus called us all to do first - and to love our neighbours as ourselves. 

An article in the press today tells of the Pope ringing up an Argentinian woman to tell her, in person, that she may receive Holy Communion. Yes, this is a story subject to validation and has a myriad theological questions at the heart of it, but what struck me was not so much the article itself (which was wonderful, if it is true), but the Lore-makers in the Comments section below. They will have knotted their digits trying to pontificate as urgently as they seemed to want to. Instead of preaching grace and love in their comments, they belched dogma! On one hand, you have this smiling grandfather figure allowing a faithful woman into the sacrament of God - and on the other, some pinch-lipped poe-faced theological types in their birettas stomping their sanctuary slippers in a temper. 

Which would bring you to faith?

Yes, Jesus set out guidelines for us to follow, but the first is this - that we love. The Pope, a man who takes a bus, washes the feet of Muslim prisoners, telephones parishioners, owned a Harley and does so with a beguiling smile is, I believe, doing more good for Christendom than

so many Lore-types. I doubt that he would stomp up to me and check my passport for entry in the borderlands of personal-relationships with Jesus, but rather exhibits a joy in his relationship that would convert me to faith in a breath, were I not already there. Put another way, Pope Francis has taken upon him that quality of Jesus Christ that was the greatest gift to humanity, his own humanity. 

Circles and Straight Lines

The lasting effects of the glossolalia 

There are times in my standard Earth week when I find myself hanging with the dudes from the funky charismatic churches. The great joy of our Church of England, apart from the joy and solace to be found in the wording of draft amendments to draft bills for draught excluders is that we are a broad church.

At one end of the spectrum you get the funkies in their open-neck shirts, perma-smiles and and prayers that are two-thirds the word "just". At the other end, you get us old dears, in our black suits and white collars, quaffing gin and stinking of burned resins. And I think that it is a remarkable and wonderful organisation that can house us all. 

In wider society, there is talk of high and low, or else of candles and the upper or lower placings thereon. In other words, one would imagine that my brothers and sisters from the bean-bag edifices of the Holy Stage-Set were the furthest end of the continuum from us from the "if it ain't prehistoric it just ain't cool, man" wholly cluttered-up edifices. Nothing in common, differing emphases on the persons of the Godhead, different outfits, different language and all that. 

I used to think that too. I am the first to say that much of the charismatic wing is a complete mystery to me and I fit into it like my feet do my daughter's fluffy slippers. Equally, I know that my mates from the charismatic wing think me basically papist and a throwback to times before churches had electricity. And that is fine. Actually, it presents a perfect balance - I think. 

Rather than a straight-line with ends - us on one, them on t'other - I have now come to the point of view that despite previous best-efforts to deny this thrice until my cock crowed, we are actually a lot closer. I think the whole thing is a circle, not a line. What charismatic Anglicans and Anglo-catholics have in common is a deep sense of engaging physically with the worship in which we are part. The truth be told, we all wave our arms around and I could no more not cross myself at a Blessing than they elevate arms in praise songs. It isn't contrived - it is just who we are. You look at a picture of a large act of worship at the cathedral church of the Holy Trinity in the Archdiocese of Brompton, and you would see as much smoke, light and effect accompanying the music as in the spikiest of High Church shrines. Perhaps the music is different and we use different linguistic styles, but in the end, we tune ourselves into the bit of God we understand most of all in a physical and specifically tactile way. I sort of get it, truth be told. 

In the end, I think we are all a lot more similar than any of us would have courage to admit. There is always the danger that particularism will prevail and "mine" becomes better than "yours" which does nothing but stifle this wonderful breadth of ours. The more that "we" can be "us" and "you" can do the same, I think that the balance achieved is the best in the world. However, for now I will leave it that in the great circle of church existence, only the accidentals stop us from being rather alike. 

On Being Insulted Nicely

As one of your common or garden liberal Anglo-Catholic types, there are things I do well and things I do less well. I come with my own story and as priest, it is a story that contains (in large italicized print) the whole Calling Thing and in my case one that was within my consciousness most of my life.

As one of your common or garden Christians, I have me a relationship with God that is reciprocal, fruitful and yes, life giving. This Christian appreciates a bit of ritual, regard the Sacraments as central to my faith's expression, enjoy the beauty given by things like music and practice that (probably for very good reason) have survived the test of time and can now be regarded as old. I have been ordained in Holy Orders and as one who regards those orders as sacramental, endlessly wrestle with worthiness and and my place in such a precious ministerial and spiritual place. 

The Triduum - I can do that like a pro. You want liturgies emotional roller-coasters born of ancient ecclesiastical practices? I can do that. Tenebrae? Yup! Stripping of Altars after the Pange Lingua? Yessum! The unfolding light of Holy Saturday? No problems! Want pathos squeezed from familiar and ancient words? I'm your man! Want to sense the Passion, not just rock it up? My place, please!

Pentecost? Less sure of that, actually. For I am not your common or garden born-in-the-spirit charismatic Christian c1960s. Baptized in water and glad for it, but in the Holy Spirit? Can't claim that as a fact of my past in the way meant by so many. Do I find myself speaking in tongues on demand? No, not me. am I open to the possibility? Absolutely, but the Holy Spirit of the Charismatics seems not to want this meagre Christian man. 

After this Sunday's main service, a delightful women (and I mean that, her presence here is cherished) said to me that she wished I knew the Holy Spirit better. Now - that may sound like a nice thing to say and it was certainly said with love. However, the net result was that I felt like a stinking fraud. For the rest of the day. I regard the Spirit to be God as the Son is God and so on - so this was received as the gravest accusation delivered with such grace and without a scintilla of malice or desire to offend. 

The problem is (if 'problem' is the right word) that I am made as I am made. I am the disciple I am. I am not another sort of disciple, and if being Charismatic is what God wants, and that I need to be more richly imbued with God's Holy Spirit, then I am not the man for this job. Is being Charismatic the only way? Does the Lord only want people who speak in tongues? Why not me? I love God too, in my own way. If I am part of a wing in the church that God wishes reformed into oblivion, then God will lose my ministry and he will lose me - because he will have been stringing me along for long enough. 

I am what I am, and I cannot start to feel bad about it now. It's far too late for that. 

Towards a Contemporary Catholicism

I am unashamedly Anglican Catholic, and in that there will be no surprises for you, dear readers. It isn't that I was raised in a particularly Anglo-Catholic environment either, because I wasn't. My church life, before ordination, ranged from membership of a modern church in an 'urban priority' area, through what could be construed or labelled as middle-of-the-road, all the way to Roman Anglo-Catholic (as distinct from the English Anglo-Catholicism of Percy Dearmer). Only the latter of these was my personal adult choice, the others being as a result of where we lived as a family in my formative years. 

I know what I like, and what enlivens and nourishes my encounter with God. By choice I seek it out when I am not the 'one at the front', but I have also experienced a quantum shift in what I believe the wider world wants. What I want and what the world wants are, I am fast learning, very distinct - even if there are some overlaps. 

Part of the 'problem' of Anglo-Catholic worship (which I will reiterate - I love with my whole heart) is that is it stuck in about 1845 if they are of the 'Romanising' style, or c1900 if they are of the Dearmerite 'English' style. In a digital on-demand age, such liturgical expressions are become much loved, revered and but sacred museum pieces. In my heart I crave a way in which the Sacraments can meet the world in which they are given by God, and at the point in time where we meet God in this age. 

You can cast your eyes around church websites or articles and find labels such as 'modern-catholic' or 'liberal catholic', 'traditional Anglo-Catholic', or a mix of them all and then you will quickly see the tell-tale markers of where that community is rooted in the context of the debate concerning women in ministry. They will display Resolutions or not, and the priest will be be suffixed 'SSC' or not. In short, the labels are contextual and in a fairly limiting way. My issue with 'modern' is that the rest of world will claim a 'post-modern' existence, with 'traditional' that it is regarded as the anti-women camp, and with 'liberal' that it is a little bit and pink and wishy-washy. None of these is the case, but they bring their problems as all labels do, including the one I am about to speak about (and may possibly be of my own invention, who knows): Contemporary Catholic. 

This is fast becoming the label that I apply to myself. The failing of present Anglo-Catholicism is that it is often received as the celebration of a former glory, as old, as out of date, arcane, fussy, strange, 'not for beginners' - and in many ways this is all true to a certain degree. I seek an Anglo-Catholicism that speaks of the moment, of now. This is not to suggest that I am proposing a poor mish-mash of incense and Matt Redman, because that would lack integrity in the hands of most of us. Our experience of God is found in the sensory, in beautiful  music, visual feasts, the counterpoint of silence and and exuberance, and in the adoration of God through the Sacraments. In that, it is the best of things, in my opinion - a position lost in political hang-ups and historical battle-lines. There must be a way that we can return to our Sacramental roots and still be children of digital 2011. The two are not, and cannot, be mutually exclusive. If they are, we are dead already.

I am not positing any answers or a new church order. I just express a developing and deepening sense in me that Anglo-Catholics need to find a new relevancy of the order achieved by Newman and Pusey in their day. It might even be a 'back to the drawing board' thing, I don't know - but something needs to happen. I know that I am not any breed of evangelical because I wasn't made that way or called to be. I am what I am, and so are many others, which is to say that a modern catholicism shouldn't be a slightly spiced-up evangelicalism. The world needs both to be done well in partnership. 

As I move towards incumbency and a whole world of fresh opportunity and potential, I place these thoughts here as I grow in new directions. If you saw me in action, you would already sense that I am unlike any Anglo-Catholic you have ever seen, liturgically - but change and development doesn't and shouldn't mean that the quality and integrity of the encounter with God be lost. 

* If you were wondering what the practical out-workings of the distinctive Anglo-Catholicisms were, be they Roman or English, it is to do with simplicity in the case of the English. English Anglo-Catholics, in being guided in some part by the Parson's Handbook will not favour the Roman taste cottas, myriad buttons on cassocks, umpteen candles on altars etc and will cherish a hymnody that is closely allied to that of Methodism, in the favouring of Vaughn Williams's versions of Wesley's hymns, for example. English catholics regard Romanisers as fussy and as a breed of lace-wearers!!

Ecclesial Anxieties

 What I am about to write is nobody’s fault (I think). It is probably part of the warp and weft of church life and also the fact that tides ebb and flow over decades. It is also because of some events in recent years and recent weeks, and I hope it is not a thing that will calcify into something permanent.

The brand of priest and Christian that I am is in the decline and under serious threat. I speak, of course, as a liberal Anglo-Catholic (as distinct from one who would apply the word ‘traditionalist’ to himself these days). I am a dog-collar wearing, black clad, sacramental, open-minded, priest, and I must report, dear readers, that I am nearly the last in a nearly extinct breed of Christian. I can offer a couple of examples from my present circumstance.

1. Deanery Chapter – this is a gathering of the local Anglican clergy in the town. They are lovely warm and wonderful people, but in their company, I am very much the odd-one-out, ecclesially. Not their fault, nor mine. I am the only one in that gathering (normally) who would be referred to as ‘Father …’ and there is actually a considerable distance between where I am where they are. Not their fault, nor mine.

2. My curate peer-group – this is a gathering of those of us who were ordained in the same academic year. Here, I really am the last of a dying breed. Very often I would be the only one in a collar (and would be gently ribbed for so doing), and very often the only one in the room not to know the words to the song in question, for example. Not their fault, nor mine.

The fact of it is, it’s hard. It is hard being different, the odd-one out. Not only that, but now those of us who are this way are incorrectly labelled as the next coach-load to be leaving for the Ordinariat. We are not. We support the ordination and consecration of women. We always did; we just love our ceremony ritual and focus on the sacraments. We delight in the priesthood of all ordained people – be they male female gay or straight. The thing is that when stood alone in a large gathering feeling a little like the one who rolled up in fancy-dress, it starts to gnaw away at one’s confidence. When I worship among those for whom the Eucharistic is out-moded and passé (and frankly wholly unfamiliar) it causes me to wonder if I somehow missed a bus in my mid-twenties and that I have been left behind.  It is hard at times. I also feel that I have to be on the defensive all the time, to try and justify who and what I am.

I write this post after a gathering of a good proportion of the diocese curates and in which we enjoyed a wonderful act of worship, among other things. That act of worship was a fusion of the traditional (meant in the traditional sense) with the very contemporary, with ‘old’ words and ‘new’ music. For me (and I believe others) it was a wonderful time, holy and Spirit-filled, and I have no aversion at all to it. Yet what an effort to bring us to a point of commonality (speaking as the one who ‘designed’ the liturgy). As I commented at one point – how did we ever become so polarised?

I am not sure how I want to end this post, except to say that at times I feel sad, and at times I feel under siege. I don’t want to feel or be irrelevant, and I want to be or feel like a vestige of something long forgotten and wholly irrelevant. I didn’t like having fun poked at me by other priests because of the uniform I wear, but I put up with it.

So I will fight for my survival and that of my breed of Christian, for that is all I can do.

The Example of the Cross

I am almost in the market for a job! The little curate has a little while left to cook before *ping* - post of first responsibility. Put another way, I watch for vacancies on websites, in Jezebel's Trumpet, in the eavedropped conversations of others - so that I know what is out there when the time is right for the Vernacular Curate to be let loose on the unsuspecting world. 

I saw such a vacancy yesterday which I will not name, but which made me shudder to the very core. 

Let me remind you that I am one of your Anglo-Catholic types who wears a black shirt and that odd little strip of white plastic (or starched silk when I can afford it). I like anything 'Eucharist', I know how to wear a biretta, know what a maniple is all about, am not afraid of the threat to my masculinity that wearing a little lace might bring, can articulate the differences between a Romanzier and Dearmerite and parp incense from some furrible or other. Yes, dear reader, I am one such type of bloke!

Well, I saw a vacancy for a post: it wanted Jesus but the improved liturgically sound version. It wanted Nelson Mandela in a biretta; it sought Mthr Teresa but didnt want the oestrogen or the breasts; it aimed way beyond perfection; it wanted the Archbishop of Canterbury plus a little more experience in church leadership. In other words - it was a normal advert for a Rector, Anglo-Carflic style. So I ventured to its website, as you do in such instances. Listen to this (cut and paste from its Homepage):

To find out more about Forward in Faith and to find 'safe' parishes in your area please follow the links below

The history of S. ****  has led to a strong identification over many years with the catholic tradition in the Church of England. The church occupies part of the currently uneasy territory between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church and longs for reconciliation between them. We believe that the Church of England needs catholic witness and understanding to fulfil its mission as a national church, and S. ****  sees its role as an upholder of what is sometimes mockingly called the traditionalist' faith, believed by all at all times. 

Is it me? I am from a stable like this, but I look and I wonder what kind of disease ridden beasts this church offers safety from - oh yes, wimmin - in all their grotesque menstruating filthiness - or so they would leave you thinking. 'Safe'? Is there a woman-zapper on the door; a hormone-sniffing hound in the pews; a skirt alert posted in the porch? They base this on biblical principals like so many people do when they want to exclude and marginalise normal God-fearing Christians. 

No, no, no, no and no!

This is probably a church-shattering thing I am about to say, but we need to contextualise the Bible in how it deals with people. St. Paul tagged along with the murder of Jews but I doubt a word of chastisement has ever been uttered from a pulpit - because he saw the light. The nativity shepherds were a little lower than scumbags in NT times - then the biggy: it was kind of normal to crucify in Bible times. I have never read or heard a clear condemnation of crucifixion, just lots of platitudes about how horrid it might have been. Yes, cross-born murder was quite normal at the very same time that women were being cast to the fringes. We cannot take one without the other. You cannot uphold an anti-female stance 'cos the Bible tell me so' without introducing the state sanctioned murder of criminals and itinerant preachers at the same time. 

The Cross upon which our Lord died is the very reason why we have to learn from the Bible, not recite  and live it verbatim. 

Needless to say, I shan't be applying - I know which Bishop is mine.