The trouble with ARCIC always was (as a former Catholic member of it once explained to me) that on the Catholic side of the table you have a body of men (mostly bishops) who represent a more or less coherent view, being members of a Church which has established means of knowing and declaring what it believes. On the Anglican side of the table you have a body of men (and it was only men, on both sides, in those days) the divisions between whom are just fundamental as, and sometimes a lot more fundamental than, those between any one of them and the Catholic representatives they faced: they all represented only themselves.
And they all, Catholics and Anglicans, quite simply belonged to very different kinds of institution. It isn’t just that Catholics and Anglicans believe different doctrines: it’s that there is between them a fundamental difference over their attitude to the entire doctrinal enterprise. I remember very vividly, in my days as an (Anglican) clergy member of the Chelmsford Diocesan Synod, a debate on one of the ARCIC documents followed by a vote on whether to recommend to the General Synod in London that it should be accepted. The document was accepted overwhelmingly. At lunchtime, standing at the bar with a number of clergy, I asked how they had voted; they had all voted affirmatively. I then asked them if they had read the document. None of them had; and most of them, it became clear, had little idea of what it contained. “Well”, I asked, puzzled, “why did you vote for it, then?” “The point is,” one of them replied, “the important thing is unity. The RCs are frightfully keen on doctrine. You have to encourage them: so I voted for their document”. There you have it: what the late Mgr Graham Leonard, when he was still an Anglican bishop, once called “the doctrinal levity of the Church of England”.
For more, see:
And now, ARCIC III: isn’t it time to bring this ecumenical farce to an end? CatholicHerald.co.uk
So there one has it, "doctrinal levity" with Anglicans. We've been saying that for years as the modern "Huffington Posters," e.g. David Virtue, opine about sodomists, pluralists, indifferentists, mysticists and ignoramuses amongst them. The Anglican "Huffington Puffers" do have a point. The Romanists, on the other hand, have the robust CCC and the Anglicans have--well, what do they have? They can't even uphold let alone update their Articles. "Doctrinal" lite-weights. The former Anglican-turned-Romanist Bishop, Leonard Graham, gets at it: "doctrinal levity." We quite agree with Leonard, the Monsignor. As to the ARCIC, it has always been a one-sided affair in Rome's favour...always has been, but the muddlers and mushers have never seen it. The Romanist writer above has it quite right. Perhaps some will understand why we've headed to "Higher Ground," rather than the swamp-low-levels. Tough-minded, for sure, but--as a Marine--quite right.
And they all, Catholics and Anglicans, quite simply belonged to very different kinds of institution. It isn’t just that Catholics and Anglicans believe different doctrines: it’s that there is between them a fundamental difference over their attitude to the entire doctrinal enterprise. I remember very vividly, in my days as an (Anglican) clergy member of the Chelmsford Diocesan Synod, a debate on one of the ARCIC documents followed by a vote on whether to recommend to the General Synod in London that it should be accepted. The document was accepted overwhelmingly. At lunchtime, standing at the bar with a number of clergy, I asked how they had voted; they had all voted affirmatively. I then asked them if they had read the document. None of them had; and most of them, it became clear, had little idea of what it contained. “Well”, I asked, puzzled, “why did you vote for it, then?” “The point is,” one of them replied, “the important thing is unity. The RCs are frightfully keen on doctrine. You have to encourage them: so I voted for their document”. There you have it: what the late Mgr Graham Leonard, when he was still an Anglican bishop, once called “the doctrinal levity of the Church of England”.
For more, see:
And now, ARCIC III: isn’t it time to bring this ecumenical farce to an end? CatholicHerald.co.uk
So there one has it, "doctrinal levity" with Anglicans. We've been saying that for years as the modern "Huffington Posters," e.g. David Virtue, opine about sodomists, pluralists, indifferentists, mysticists and ignoramuses amongst them. The Anglican "Huffington Puffers" do have a point. The Romanists, on the other hand, have the robust CCC and the Anglicans have--well, what do they have? They can't even uphold let alone update their Articles. "Doctrinal" lite-weights. The former Anglican-turned-Romanist Bishop, Leonard Graham, gets at it: "doctrinal levity." We quite agree with Leonard, the Monsignor. As to the ARCIC, it has always been a one-sided affair in Rome's favour...always has been, but the muddlers and mushers have never seen it. The Romanist writer above has it quite right. Perhaps some will understand why we've headed to "Higher Ground," rather than the swamp-low-levels. Tough-minded, for sure, but--as a Marine--quite right.
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