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[kisekileia]

A very, very interesting decision by the Catholic Church.

I think this is a good thing. It'll allow conservative Anglicans to become part of a church that fits with their beliefs, and therefore free up the Anglican communion to be progressive.

Comments

[dustthouart]

If you're thinking of the situation I'm thinking of, you're either being unfair or you don't know the whole situation. She could get her marriage regularized; it's just that the father refuses to cooperate with anything RCC. And this is only one symptom of this particular father's spite and desire to prove that he's boss of his family, even to the point of denying people things truly important to them. But she chooses to bow to it.

This particular mother is now claiming that gee, they just don't know if they'll be able to make their child's wedding, y'know, time conflicts and stuff. I think she's trying to shield her kid from the fact that the kid's father just doesn't give a shit about the kid.

So they're not really a good example.

Back to Anglicans: It would be a mistake to think that all conservative Anglicans will join the Church. This is a very specific group, the so-called Anglo-Catholics, who are probably the smallest group within Anglicanism. Basically you can divide Anglicans into those who lean towards liberal and modernist interpretations of worship and scripture, eg, relativist, tolerant, academic, withdrawn; those who lean towards conservative Protestant and evangelical interpretations of worship and scripture, eg, conservatism, probably but not necessarily no women religious leaders, traditional sexual morality, praise and worship music, evangelization; and those who lean towards Catholic interpretations of liturgy and scripture, eg, smells and bells, definitely no women priests, plain chant, the awe aesthetic in buildings and music.

The noisiest people ain't the Anglo-Catholics, they're the Anglo-Baptists, if I can coin the phrase. They don't want the Pope, and they're not the kind to go quietly to a conservative Protestant group. They think of Anglicanism as their home and they just wouldn't fit in as Catholics without radically changing.

The Anglo-Catholics do, and that's why a big group of them approached the Holy Father (I don't know why this detail always gets overlooked by so many, but that was the initial order of events, reading some people rant about how those Papists are attempting to poach innocent Anglicans makes me furious), and the Holy Father then approached the Archbishop of Canterbury and said "Let's work through this." This is in fact nothing less than a marvelous example of ecumenism. But that doesn't fit the BIG EVIL PANZER POPE motif so it gets scrapped. Blah.

[kisekileia]

Oh...I didn't realize it was possible for that marriage to be regularized if the father were to be cooperative. I apologize. And WOW--I'm disgusted that they would even consider not going to the wedding unless they absolutely could not afford it..

I think you're right that a lot of the Anglo-Baptist types wouldn't go over to the Catholic Church. However, I'm not sure those types are as big an influence outside the U.S.

And yeah, I think the coverage of this has been overly unfavourable towards the pope.

[dustthouart]

The Anglo-Baptists are more than anything a dominant force in the global south. This makes the progressive Anglicans squirm because it brings out so much latent racism. A lot of the Anglican leaders have put their feet in their mouth with statements like that the African Anglicans just don't know any better because they're still oppressed by colonialism and that's why they foolishly believe such silly things, poor dears. Whereupon the African bishops say things like "I've got a Ph.d from Oxford, I am not the superstitious caricature that you think I am. STFU."

The ECUSA is liberal as all get out.

[kisekileia]

I don't think the claims that the African Anglicans are influenced by colonialism are as bogus as you do. U.S. evangelical and charismatic churches continue to have a major missionary presence in Africa, which has resulted in some of the more negative aspects of those churches (homophobia, prosperity doctrine, fear of demons and witchcraft) combining in very toxic ways with African culture. I think it's reasonable to conclude that the laity, at least, in the African Anglican churches are unduly influenced by U.S. evangelical beliefs. (See this article).