Sunday, June 11, 2006

Kairos: The Big Week in Romanism and ECUSA

This week the National Conference of [Roman] Catholic Bishops in Los Angeles votes to appove or alter the new much-improved English translation of the third typical edition of the Novus Ordo Missae and its Missale Romanum.

Simultaneously, the Episcopal Church USA will decide at its 75th General Convention in Columbus, Ohio whether or not to accede to the requests of the Windsor Report and thus remain within the Anglican Communion.

For the former, let us pray for a restoration of Catholic liturgical integrity and the doxological tradition of the Western Church; for the latter, let us pray for genuine conversion and a restoration of orthodox Christian moral and theological teaching...

http://www.usccb.org/index.shtml

http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/53785_ENG_HTM.htm

1 comment:

Ecgbert said...

I'm not holding my breath waiting for the RC bishops to do the right thing. More likely they'll try to fudge on obeying Rome's commands, claiming 'pastoral sensitivity' or some such to keep their status quo.

(Flash a huge 'Historical irony!' sign here: they certainly didn't sing that song when they were ramming the Novus Ordo down parishioners' throats 35 years ago.)

As for ECUSA, part of me would like to see what you want for the good of the few sound Episcopalians left but another part wants me to see Lambeth act for the Communion's sake (Rowan Williams seems to be making those noises, not following his own opinions) and expel ECUSA, which obviously doesn't want to follow the lead of the Global South or of Lambeth if it sides with the South (Third World) for unity's sake.

So part of me would like to see Lambeth make good on the threat and cut ECUSA loose, perhaps making the AMiA its American province. Maybe the few sound dioceses and sound parishes could switch to it.

Which would be ... a modern reconstruction of the Elizabethan settlement, Christian but disagreeing about the nature of the Eucharist and on the attempted ordination of women. The Broad Church Episcopalians would be pushed out of the Anglican Communion but the other three Anglicanisms, Catholic, Central and Low, would still duke it out eventually. The Episcopal Church, Mk II... just waiting to fall apart all over again.

Archbishop Donald Arden

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