Sudden Influx

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

For the last fortnight or so, we have have been inundated with people informing us that they are putting their names forward to be elected to represent their respective dioceses in the upcoming General Synod of the CofE to be held in November 2021. It has been really strange because there have been many emails and telephone calls on this matter! The Mhinisteir has of course had people persuading him to vote for them!

I was a little unsure as to why the sudden interest until I realised that last Friday was the closing date for the votes and more importantly there are two very important subjects that will be discussed: Save the Parish and LLF(Living in love and faith). LLF is actually the big elephant in the room; I don’t wish to comment on it because it is an extremely sensitive matter. It is best left to the experts to thrash it out. As for myself, I believe that God is much much bigger than the elephant in the room; I am going to put my trust in Him.

What about the Christians?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I think I am right in saying that for the past fortnight both our print and broadcast media have been saturated with news on Afghanistan. I have started turning off the radio when the news comes on and skip certain pages of the newspaper! There is only so much one can take.

I think I have heard enough but one thing I have not heard about is the plight of the Christians in Afghanistan. What has happened to them? Everyone including the CofE is going on about women and girls right to education etc but no one is talking about the Christians there. They will probably be the most persecuted people even compared to the girls and women!

Surely the CofE must know this and furthermore not all countries will accept Christians as refugees.

Disappointed!

Mouth like a Highland bog, mind like a mitten!

Photo by Neil on Pexels.com

Sadly, this is what I think of the ABY after his latest gaffe! For the uninitiated, this is what he had said.

It is unfortunate when a senior cleric feels the need to utter such things.

By the way, The NHS was founded by Aneurin Bevan, a Welshman while the BBC World Service was founded by John Reith, a Scotsman!

ABY, please get your facts right the next time!

Rebuked

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva on Pexels.com

The Church of England was rebuked at a recent inquest held into the death of a former priest. It mishandled inquiry into false child abuse allegations. The priest took his own life as he could not cope with the investigation. How is one supposed to cope when they are not even told of the nature of the investigation! How cruel! He is not the first priest to have died because of the CofE’s negligence and sadly he won’t be the last!

I think I have said enough on this matter in my previous posts so I won’t say anymore.

However, I would urge all CofE clergy to join the Church of England Clergy Advocates (CECA) who are members of the Faith Workers Branch of Unite the Union. There is a monthly membership fee but I am reliably informed that it will be money worth spent.

The Mhinisteir is a member. If you are a clergy or know of a clergy, please encourage them to join. They will provide clergy with all the necessary support including legal support should (God forbid!) the clergy require it.

By joining, you will also in a small way (through the membership fee) be able to support falsely accused clergy like the Chancellor of Lincoln.

Banns of Marriage

Photo by Marina Ryazantseva on Pexels.com

Now that summer is upon us, almost every other Sunday we hear at least one Banns of Marriage being read out in church.

In the Church of England, it is a legal requirement for Banns of Marriage to be read out in Church. Banns of Marriage are announcements that are made in the church that the wedding couple are due to be married in. They are read so that it will give anyone the opportunity to give a reason why the couple cannot be lawfully married.

The Banns of Marriage of a couple are read for three Sundays, three months before the actual wedding. After the Banns have been read, the congregation prays for the couple.

When I moved to England and started worshipping in the Church of England, I very quickly realised that these couples whose Banns of Marriage were announced were rarely present in Church. I mentioned earlier that the main aim of the announcement is to give anyone the opportunity to give a reason why the couple cannot be lawfully married. If you don’t even know who is getting married, how can you in good conscience say that you don’t know of any impediment?????????

After all these years, I still find the rules of the Church a bit strange but then it is not the rules is it?? The Church and her Vicars need to be more diligent in imposing them. The couple must be present when their Banns of Marriage is being read. If it is too much of an imposition, they should seriously consider why they wanted to get married in a Church in the first place!. Contrary to what senior clerics promote, the Church is NOT a wedding venue! You can’t pick and choose which bits of the church you like and which bits you don’t.

Parishes with no clergy?

The General Synod under the aegis of the ABY is trying to increase the number of lay lead parishes and have services in homes. To put simply they are trying to “kill” the traditional parish churches.

Unless they have all been living under a rock, my observation especially since the first lockdown is that most people still value traditional parish churches and church services which is why there was such an outcry over the closing down of churches during the first lockdown. I also happen to know that not everyone is happy or comfortable with online services.

How about the Eucharist? Who is going to administer that? A traditional parish church is a neutral place that is welcome to anyone and everyone. That cannot be said of these so called home churches because the home belongs to an individual and he/she reserves the right to deny entry.

Joblot

Photo by Alex Green on Pexels.com

I have just discovered to my dismay that the ABC has appointed a new chaplain!

It was only recently that it was announced that both the ABC and the ABY have jointly appointed a Bishop to serve them. My understanding is that this is a brand new appointment. Nobody has previously held this position before. Can this new bishop not do the job of a chaplain as well? This is becoming comical because on top of this, the ABY continues to advertise for a Chief of Staff. How many staff do these two men need to run their affairs while ordinary clergy have multiple parishes in their hands with very little or no help??!!!

Rumour has it that the ABC sees himself as the Anglican Pope!!!!

Hear, Hear!

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Last week, I came across three newspaper articles about the present Church of England that really echoed my sentiments, two in the latest Church Times and the third in the Daily Telegraph.

The first, in the Church Times by Canon Angela Tilby writing about the Dean of Windsor and the manner in which he conducted the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.

The second by The Rt Revd David Wilbourne commenting on the Archbishop’s search for a Chief of Staff! Something which I wrote about recently.

The third and final piece appeared on Thursday’s Daily Telegraph. This article is by their columnist Calvin Robinson. I never read anything by Robinson but this article about the Church of England and its woke culture is quite spot on.

High Cockalorum

Imagine my shock/horror (delete where appropriate) when I saw the ABC on the front cover of the FT Weekend Magazine on Saturday! What was he doing there? Surely not another interview… While their clergy are working their socks off, both the ABC and ABY appear to be sauntering from one interview to another!

I HAD to read what he had to say. It was very obvious that the interviewer was awestruck. I wasn’t at all surprised by all that the ABC had to say but I was shocked that he felt the need to have an adviser present at the interview. As a man of the cloth, does he not think that he has the best adviser in God?

April 2021 | Books by my bedside

I didn’t do a March 2021 books by my bedside only because I hardly found the energy to read anything!

Anyway, this month I have the following by my bedside and hope to get back to some serious reading.

Diary of a Decade by George Allen & Unwinded – This is the diary of Cicely Williams who was a Bishop’s Wife. Pinched from the Mhinisteir’s library!

The Day of the Scorpion by Paul Scott – This is the second book of the Raj Quartet. Another present from the Mhinisteir!

Dear England by Stephen Cottrell – Stephen Cottrell is the Archbishop of York. This was a Easter present from a parishioner