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| WATCH: "To choose a bishop based on one specific view, held by only a small group, can only serve to be divisive." Photo Credit: PA |
Following on from Saturday's entry, Just about Eve, a response from Women and the Church (WATCH) to the announcement of a 'headship' bishop has been published (here) - HT to Anglican Mainstream.
The Chair of WATCH, Hilary Cotton, said: "We have never accepted the appointment of any bishop on the grounds of a particular minority belief: this is distinctly un-Anglican and unorthodox. This goes far beyond disagreement about the ordination of women: it is about bishops recognising each other as bishops. If we lose that, what kind of unity are we demonstrating as a national church?"
This double speak is designed to fool the man or woman in the street who has little if any interest in religion by appealing to their ignorance. According to the Church of England's own estimates of attendance in their self-congratulatoryFacts & Stats, 'one million participate each Sunday'. That is just 1% of Anglicanism. For the vast majority of the 80 million Anglicans who hold to the Apostolic faith of the Church, unity really does matter so selfish desires are put aside in the interests of genuine Church unity.
WATCH, along with ECUSA, the Church in Wales and other marginal, liberal dominated Provinces, hold to a specific, divisive view which gives them dominance in their national church. But that is to the detriment not only of the Anglican Communion but to the unity of the Holy Catholic Church which is again gathering pace following the declaration signed on the feast of St Andrew (20 Nov 2014) by Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. As Erasmus succinctly put it in The Economist -Hello ladies, goodbye Communion?
As feared, these disgruntled feminists cannot help rubbing salt into the wounds which others have been trying to heal. As Erasmus pointed out, to get the women bishops legislation through "the feelings of low-church evangelicals who oppose women bishops have to some degree been assuaged by a promise that one of their number will be appointed to high office". Just as the bishops of the Church in Wales have done these women and their supporters were prepared to go along with any procedure which guaranteed them victory, saying anything, promising anything to get their own way, then renege. The statement added:
"In a separate development, we are keen to know whether the Archbishop of York will consecrate the newly appointed Bishop of Burnley, Rev Philip North, who opposes the ordination of women. It would seem to us bizarre if a suffragan bishop declined to be consecrated by his own archbishop and even his own diocesan bishop, because he did not recognise them as bishops."
Conscience is not a word that has any resonance for the duplicitous. While the Church of England strove to achieve an honourable solution to resolve conscientious differences, WATCH along with Barry and his bench sitters in the Church in Wales remain determined to achieve unity by exclusion.
This is"distinctly un-Anglican and unorthodox".
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