Wednesday 28 October 2009

De rigueur

It is difficult to turn the news on and not be struck by the fact that we are obsessing once again about refugees.
I was even interested to hear John Hepworth rattling on to a recent meeting of Forward in Faith (FiF) in England, FiF is a reactionary organization within the Anglican Communion principally opposed to the ordination of women priests and bishops.
Hepworth is not a member of the Anglican Communion, but leader of the TAC, a rag-tag group of former Anglicans. He is talking to these "Fathers" (for such they were) shortly after the Vatican has told the Anglican Church that it will set up an "ordinariate" for Anglicans which will allow the disaffected to become members of the Roman Catholic Church whilst looking ostensibly Anglican.
There are certain ironies about this. While some FiF members are absolutely delighted to be allowed to be Anglicans in the Roman Church, many...perhaps most .....of them have practised being more Roman than the Romans whilst Anglicans. We used to joke to Romans that if you actually wanted to see how Mass should be celebrated well, then go to your local Anglican Church if they happened to be Anglo-Catholic in persuasion.
Anyway, the point of this blog! Is that Hepworth's little peroration (audio of 3 different continuing Bishops including Hepworth here) is highly infused with the language of refugees.
His imagery is that the Vatican has issued refugee visas to Anglicans, and he insists that such visas will be operational for quite a long period...he suggests 300 years.
What of course he also neglects to mention is that it has taken the Curia 300 years to get round to issuing them in the first place.
Ahhhh! Interesting times....for some!

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