ANiC responds to Vatican announcement

The Anglican Network in Canada’s Bishop Don Harvey:

“I need not become a Roman Catholic to be a Catholic Christian. As an Anglican, I am a Catholic Christian.”

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Glebe board sorry for losses

SynodThe 2009 Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney has accepted an apology from the board which administers more than one hundred million dollars in church funds, for large losses associated with the Global Financial Crisis…”

– Russell Powell wrote this report for SydneyAnglicans.net.

Reform initial response to ‘Apostolic Constitution’ announcement

MEDIA STATEMENT 20th October 2009

Revd Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform, makes four points as an initial response to today’s announcement from the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster:

“Anglicans concerned about protecting the basic Christian faith need not go to Rome, because we now have the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA (UK)) which holds together those who want to stop the orthodox faith being eroded. We can remain Anglican. Furthermore, the FCA Primates have recognised that problems with episcopal oversight are arising here in the UK. They have expressed the hope that these will be solved locally, but if not, they are willing to step in.”

“This development highlights the need for robust legislative provision to cater for those who cannot agree to women bishops, such as that recently suggested by the Revision Committee.”

“If priests really are out of sympathy with the C of E’s doctrine (as opposed to the battles we are having over women’s ministry and sexuality), then perhaps it is better they make a clean break and go to Rome. However, when they do, they will have to accommodate themselves to Rome’s top-down approach to church life, whereas the C of E has always stressed the importance of decision making at the level of the local church.”

“It is illusory to pretend that this development is an outcome of ecumenical dialogue. It illustrates the difficulties the C of E faces and the need for stronger leadership, rather than the ‘softly softly’ approach so far taken to those holding liberal views who are splitting the church.”

— from Reform.

What does it mean to be Anglican? IV

Mark Thompson continues his series –

“Anglicanism is both genuinely catholic and unambiguously Protestant. But what type of Protestantism is embedded in the Anglican formularies — Lutheran, Reformed or Anabaptist?…”

– read it all at Mark’s blog, Theological Theology.

Rome welcomes unhappy Anglicans

Pope BenedictThe Vatican has announced a structure to ‘bring home’ Anglicans dissatisfied with the liberalism rampant in many parts of the Anglican Communion –

“With the preparation of an Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is responding to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion.

In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony.”

– Full statement from the Vatican website.

The Archbishop of Canterbury approves. So does Forward in Faith UK.

Update: And Bishop Bob Duncan of ACNA.