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| The newly announced Archdeacon of Bangor will be among the story-tellers |
at an event in St Asaph Cathedral to celebrate 21 years of women priests
in the Church in Wales. Source: CinW Press release
There is to be another celebration of women using the church for 21 years to further their careers at the expense of others when they meet in St Asaph Cathedral to recount stories of "uncertainty, inspiration and creativity".
The occasion is being organised by MAECymru, a self-promoting class of people who claim to have a vision of the Church in Wales as "a community of God?S people where, regardless of gender, justice and equality prevail". It is a vision of a church which misrepresents any opposition with spurious claims of prejudice, misogyny and inequality.
No wonder they are offering a 50% discount to entice new members to their gang.
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| "Welcome ! to MAECymru" Source: MAECymru |
The newly announced Archdeacon of Bangor will be among the story-tellers. Her contribution to the debate on women bishops in the Church in Wales can be found in an essay following her trip to the US where she saw a woman celebrant wearing a pointy hat. That convinced her that she was right about women's ministry and the vast majority of Christians were wrong in their belief that the ordination of women to the priesthood was contrary to scripture and tradition.
The new Archdeacon has much to say about "women's ministry" but she completely misses the point. Women's ministry has become a process for the self-advancement for women in the church. Not ordinary women who worship quietly as they keep the church running but the minority of women who shout the loudest and are content to use the church for political gain at the expense of others.
Compare what she has to say about ministry with this extract fromA Noble Task by Bishop David Thomas who was asked to reflect on his experience of ministry as Provincial Assistant Bishop and how it might change if the episcopate in Wales were opened to women:
"Another dangerous misconception concerns the nature of the objection to the ordination of women as priests. People sometimes assume that the real problem has to do with the ministry of women in the Church. This is not the case. The assumption arises from a failure to differentiate clearly between ministry in general and ordained ministry in particular. Perhaps I can illustrate the point from my liturgical responsibilities. Sometimes, for instance when a document is being prepared for Governing Body, I have to spend hours poring over the minutiae of a revised liturgical text. This was how I spotted that, in the ‘gold book’ Eucharist, the heading of Preface 23 (for use at ordinations, institutions, etc.) was ‘Ministry’. The heading has been corrected in the 2004 equivalent (no. 30) to ‘Ordained Ministry’. This contemporary, very common, tendency unconsciously to allow ordained ministry to get submerged in the much wider concept of ministry, leads to all sorts of mistaken perceptions. All I can say by way of comment is that the wisest (and toughest!) spiritual adviser I’ve ever had so far was a woman; I benefited enormously from working in my last parish alongside a woman deacon; I made it my business to increase the number of female eucharistic assistants in my last parish, and I worked very happily there with a quite outstanding woman churchwarden – added to which, I am well aware that there are some situations, perhaps many, where a woman will be better qualified to give pastoral care than any man. I have very good reasons for accepting, affirming, valuing and rejoicing in the ministry of women in the Church. The difficulty for me, as for others including many women, has to do with that distinctive aspect of presbyteral ministry which we call eucharistic presidency."
Bishop David Thomas was the first Provincial Assistant Bishop (PAB) appointed to provide acceptable sacramental and pastoral ministry to those who, in conscience, were unable to receive the ministry of women priests. He also proved to be the last PAB after Abp Barry Morgan and his bench sitters reneged on the agreement which eased the path to women's ordination in the Church in Wales.
The bench had achieved their objective and that was that despite the overwhelming desire expressed at Diocesan meetings for similar pastoral and sacramental provision to be restored.
MAECymru shares the duplicity of the bench of bishops. They have a vision for a Church in Wales in which justice and equality prevail but it is a cloak under which secularisation has taken hold, advancing minority causes.
They couldn't care less for the countless women and men who find their church has left them.
Justice and equality for those left with no church will be quietly forgotten as the story-tellers relate their sob stories.
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