THE P RTAL
June 2015
Page 24
Is the tail
wagging the dog?
Geoffrey Kirk asks the question,
“Is the Catholic Church undergoing an
insidious programme of Anglicanisation?”
A
week, they say, is a long time in politics; and wasn’t it just. Now that the dust of the General
Election has settled, I suspect that you, like me, have got back to the pressing issue of the Church and
in particular for members of the Ordinariate: is the Catholic Church undergoing an insidious programme
of Anglicanisation?
Provincial Autonomy
The indications are ominous. First, there was the calling of the extraordinary Synod on the family – with the
unspoken implication that a gathering (albeit of bishops) might interpret scripture contrary to the tradition.
Very General Synod, that! Then there was the declaration by Cardinal Reinhard Marx that the German bishops
reserved the right to act as they thought fit, whatever the Synod decided – what Anglicans call ‘Provincial
Autonomy’.
moral and ethical questions
Then there was the subject for debate at the recently reconvened ARCIC III (‘the relationship between the
universal Church and the local Church, with particular reference to processes for discussions and decision
making regarding moral and ethical questions’)
Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham
– grist to the Marx mill, I would say, and a
under the patronage of Blessed John Henry Newman
debate in which the Anglican members of the
2015 PILGRIMAGE TO WALSINGHAM
Commission could offer only one opinion.
If discussion of marriage, the family and gay
relationships goes on beyond the scheduled
second Synod, I hear you ask, will there be
‘facilitated discussions’ and ‘indaba’ meetings
and all the sorry paraphernalia of the liberal
hegemony?
SATURDAY 27 JUNE
It could all so easily get worryingly nasty.
And we ex-Anglicans know that when the
djinn is out of the bottle and the toothpaste is
out of the tube it is impossible to put it back,
The liberal salami slicer takes everything in its
stride. And almost any other metaphor you
care to employ.
watch and wait and hope
There is nothing we can do, of course,
apart from watch and wait and hope that the
untenable ecclesiology and incoherent mess
which is the worldwide Anglican Communion
acts as a cautionary tale for traditional
Catholics. Meanwhile, there is always the
severe danger that the European tail may yet
wag the global dog.
contents page
LED BY THE ORDINARY MGR KEITH NEWTON
11.45 a.m. Sprinkling in the Anglican Shrine Church
12.15 p.m. Procession to Slipper Chapel with rosary
1.15 p.m. Welcome at Slipper Chapel
Confessions followed by lunch, candles, shop etc
3.00 p.m. Sung Mass (according to the Ordinariate Use)
4.00 p.m. Tea and depart