IT WAS MORE FUN WHEN WE RAN THE MISSIONS FOR THEM

A Denomination Called Anglican (Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, November, 2004)

If a new Anglican papacy is both pointless and impossible, Anglicans may be rescued from impending death by the existing papacy. But, Cornwell observes, “If the papacy is really to serve unity, then Catholics have to make sure that it is more clearly a gift which can enable Anglican gifts to flourish and not be crushed.” Much as John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint, with primary, but by no means exclusive, reference to the Orthodox. By the time this sees print, the Eames Commission may have issued its report. It is to address, inter alia, the fragmentation of the Anglican communion precipitated by the unilateral action of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. in installing as bishop of New Hampshire a married man who left his wife and children to live with his male partner.

I recently had dinner in Europe with a UK bishop who serves on the commission. He opined that the entire “unpleasantness” was due to the fact that bishops in Africa and elsewhere had not yet caught up to the Americans, and the cultural laggards would have to be told in no uncertain terms that they can’t hold back the entire communion. He predicted that the commission would “come down hard” on bishops from the Southern hemisphere who are engaged in “outrageous irregularities,” such as offering episcopal oversight to “fundamentalist Anglicans” in the U.S. What was striking in his conversation is that there was not a single reference to the possibility that the New Hampshire matter might entail questions of theological or moral consequence, never mind truth. It was entirely a matter of some slow learners making themselves a bother. Advised that, if he is right about the commission report, it almost certainly means the end of the “special relationship” between Canterbury and Rome and the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue’s hope for ecclesial reconciliation, the bishop seemed quite untroubled. Having abandoned even nominal adherence to Scripture and tradition, Anglicanism would likely be viewed by Rome as simply one more Protestant denomination. The prospect appeared to faze the bishop not at all. It would be a very nice denomination in which he felt very much at home. I hope, and rather expect, he was wrong about the report of the Eames Commission. We should know in short order.

Whether in religion, science or politics, progressives are having a harder and harder time stifling racism and snobbery.