First woman bishop to celebrate the Eucharist at Llandaff Cathedral

Photo: Islam Times                                                           Bishop Geralyn Wolf

You couldn't dream up a story like this. Before women bishops are legal in the Church in Wales, the near bankrupt Llandaff Cathedral (where, as acting Dean, the Archbishop of Wales tore up the notion of twin integrity) is to host a celebration of the Eucharist where the President will be a converted Jewish, Episcopalian woman bishop who defrocked another female priest in the US Episcopal Church for being a 'Christian Muslim'. While the Archbishop himself is partial to a spot of clergy discipline he is more inclined to matters of the flesh than the spirit where more or less anything goes. Nevertheless he may have some explaining to do with his Muslim friends for welcoming a cleric who in their eyes will be guilty of Islamophobia because Jesus would be regarded as a lesser prophet in Islam.

In another step towards nonconformity the celebration is the culmination of  "Crossing the Threshold!", a "day conference to mark the opening of the Episcopate to women in the Church in Wales". Other participants are the Revd Dr Jenny Hurd, Chair Wales Synod Methodist Church and Jane Williams, "Theological writer and educator" - better known as Mrs Rowan Williams, now Lady Williams of Oystermouth, the sort of honour feminism still has to suffer.

The story appears as the very last item  in the Pentecost 2014 edition of the Monmouth Diocesan Newsletter [bottom of page 12]. Page 8 has a report on the April meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales. Most prominent are Assisted dying [killing] and Same-sex marriage: "the Bench of Bishops asked the Standing Doctrinal Commission to look at the issue of blessing of civil partnerships". The Chairman of the Commission is the Reverend Canon Dr. Peter Sedgwick, Principal of the failed St Michael's College, Llandaff. His wife is the Revd Jan Gould, organiser of "Crossing the Threshold!", who tried to get a previous meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales to agree that no candidate could be presented for ordination if they opposed women’s ordained ministry.

Conspicuous for its absence from the Newsletter's GB report is any reference to the discussion on the Code of Practice. From Highlights:

4. In approving this Canon, the Governing

Body entrusts the Bench of Bishops

without delay to agree a Code of Practice

which commits the Bench to making

provisions such that all members of the

Church in Wales, including those who in

conscience dissent from the provisions

of section 1, may have a sense of

security in their accepted and valued

place within the Church in Wales.

The "Crossing the Threshold!" celebration takes place at St Michael’s College, Cardiff on 4th September 2014 ending with a Eucharist at 7.45pm in Llandaff Cathedral, a week BEFORE the 12 September 2014, the date from which it will be possible for women to be ordained as bishops (details here) and well before the next meeting of the Governing Body which takes place on Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 September 2014 where further dissent is possible if the bishops renege on their pledge.

This is unacceptable in any democratic organisation and another example of how Barry and the Bench have used the Church for political ends.

As for the Governing Body, the Bishop of Monmouth was spot on when he wrote (page 5), "People seem to nod approval (or congregations are just too polite!)".

The message is clear: WAKE UP GB!

Read More

Women bishops 2 : 0 Jesus Christ

In a previousentry (in May) I gave details of arrangements being made for the Rt Rev'd Geralyn Wolf to be the first woman bishop to celebrate the Eucharist in Llandaff Cathedral, one week before women bishops become legal in the Church in Wales on the 12 September 2014 and while the Code of Practice which is part of the Women bishops legislation remains a closely guarded secret among the Bench of Bishops until it is presented as a fait accompli to the next meeting of their Governing Body - see here.

Unable to control their enthusiasm for seeing a woman bishop at the Altar in the Church in Wales the Bishop of St Asaph has upstaged the Llandaff event by arranging for the Rt Rev Gayle Harris to celebrate in St Asaph Cathedral on Sunday 31 August 2014 when she will become the first Anglican woman bishop to preside and preach at a Welsh cathedral. Story here.

Out-manouvered by St Asaph, apparently Swansea and Brecon could not find a one-legged a**e kicking transgendered Episcopalian woman bishop who was free and so trump the PC Jewish and black guests to make it 'Women bishops  3 : 0  Jesus Christ'.

But 'Crossing the threshold' has little to do with Jesus Christ, other than as a vehicle for political ambition. It is about equality of opportunity in the workplace. As the Rev'd Jan Gould, priest-in-charge of Glan Ely benefice in Cardiff puts it: "This conference is about how we ?Cross the threshold? To a transformed leadership with the Church in Wales. Anglican women bishops in the USA have a huge amount to share and this is a unique opportunity to engage with their experience and to see together what that might mean for the future of the Church in Wales".

True, the leadership of the Church in Wales needs to be transformed but the Episcopal Church in the United States where 'Integrity' is the current driving force is far from a contoh of Christian orthodoxy. The Church in Wales, and indeed the Church of England, need to be informed by the tradition of the Holy Catholic Church, not adapt the Catholic faith to reflect the whims of society. That path has done wonders for feminism but at the expense of the Anglican Church as explained by Alice C. Linsley, a former woman priest in the Episcopal Church, in "The Feminization of Anglican Orders"(here).

Read More

Personal cost

Photo: Nathaniel Ramanaden

From the Church in Wales web site (here), "History was made in St Asaph on Sunday 31 August as Bishop Gayle Harris from the United States became the first Anglican woman bishop to preside and preach in a Welsh Cathedral.

Bishop Gayle, who is Suffragen (sic) Bishop of Massachusetts, led the service at 11am, both preaching and leading the Eucharist. She is in Wales to attend the “Crossing the Threshold” conference in Cardiff – a conference to mark the change in church law in Wales which means women can become bishops.

Invited by the Bishop of St Asaph to preach at the Cathedral, Bishop Gayle spoke about being a follower of Christ in her sermon, explaining that discipleship isn’t easy and involves personal cost."

She can say that again!

Read More

Abdication

Mesdames Gould, Wigley, Wolf, Jackson and Ford   Photos: Church in Wales

On the evening of Thursday 4th September instead of sitting down to dinner with President Barack Obama at Cardiff Castle on the first day of the Nato summit in Wales the Archbishop of Wales sat in the congregation of his cathedral which he had given over to a group of women to act out their feminist fantasies that the ordination of women is accepted in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of which they claim to be part.

As the article correctly states "The legislation to ordain women as bishops in Wales comes into effect on September 12, exactly one year after it was passed by the Governing Body of the Church in Wales. The delay was built in to allow the Welsh bishops time to prepare a Code of Practice to accompany the new law."

Since the Archbishop has abdicated any sense of responsible governance in his church the door is now open to ignore him.

Readers can read the report (here) and make of it what they will but I thought the preacher at the evening celebration made an interesting point when she said, "There is frequently an unholy scramble to claim the status of victim inside the church, which completely misses the point of Jesus’ message. The lost, according to Jesus, are not the insiders or the privileged but the genuinely vulnerable, the poor, the dependent, the young and the frail."

I wonder if she had paid any attention to the keynote speaker, Geralyn Wolf, who endlessly portrayed women as the victims when "she warned about the prejudices that face women bishops", or perhaps she was elsewhere during the day!

As for +Wolf's comment "Anglican women bishops in the USA have a huge amount to share and this is a unique opportunity to engage with their experience and to see together what that might mean for the future of the Church in Wales", perhaps the least said the better (here)!!

Read More