Church of England joins Roman Catholic Church

[johnfás]

If such an event did take place how do you think it would change England's view of the northern protestants

Read please?

Very little I would imagine given the general apathy towards the Church held by the majority of people in England. Furthermore, the most stringent unionists in the North tend to be Presbyterians who would be unaffected by what the COI does and even less by what the COE does. As I said, this is all very hypothetical, it will not happen.

[Cloigeann]

As I said, this is all very hypothetical, it will not happen.

Obviously and nobody mentioned the CoI before you did, please read the first post before you come blundering in.

[johnfás]

As I said, this is all very hypothetical, it will not happen.

Obviously and nobody mentioned the CoI before you did, please read the first post before you come blundering in.

Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning clearly.

Obviously decisions made by the COE affect the COI. They are arguably the closest of the two communions within the global Anglican family. Any decision to join the Roman Catholic Church would have serious ramifications for the global Anglican Communion given that the Archbishop of Canterbury is its titular head.

Furthermore, the idea that unionism is distinctly linked to the Church of England demonstrates a misunderstanding of the issue.

[Cloigeann]

Someone got out of the wrong side of bed this morning clearly.

One side of my bed is near a wall, quite impossible.

Obviously decisions made by the COE affect the COI. They are arguably the closest of the two communions within the global Anglican family. Any decision to join the Roman Catholic Church would have serious ramifications for the global Anglican Communion given that the Archbishop of Canterbury is its titular head.

Yes but I thats not what this thread is about I don't care about the CoI.

Furthermore, the idea that unionism is distinctly linked to the Church of England demonstrates a misunderstanding of the issue.

Nobody was saying that, byebye johnfás

[RBinge]

the anglo catholics are gone already . what is left is just a group who like smells and bells but have nothing in common with Pusey or the Oxford Movement .

the evangelicals are the only part which is growning or dynamic ,they wont leave but rather they will ultimately force the question on ECUSA and with the church in the south force them out of the communion .

at that point a real dialogue with rome could take place but not on the basis of merger.

Not correct.

There is a tiny group called the Traditional Anglican Communion that is Anglo Catholic but are mainly based in the States. They have a small presence in England but the Alternative Episcopal Oversight provisions, where an auxillary bishop provides oversight for those congregations who do not want women as priests. For this reason, conservative A-Cs have mainly stayed within the CofE.

Anglo Catholics in the CofE fall within two categories - those who group under the Forward in Faith banner (those who disagree with the ordination of women) and Affirming Catholicism - the grouping of liberal Catholics.

Forward in Faith's website:

http://www.forwardinfaith.com/

Affirming Catholicism's website:

http://www.affirmingcatholicism.org....ault.asp?sId=0

The Traditional Anglican Communion:

http://www.thetraditionalanglicanchurch.org.uk/

To prove that there are more flavours of anglicanism than there are Walker's Crisps (a good thing IMHO) have a look at the following links:

Anglo Papalists:

http://www.thecatholicleague.org

Anglican Franciscans:

http://www.franciscans.org.uk

Reform: Protestant Evangelicals in the Church of England

http://www.reform.org.uk/index2.php

Ridley Hall: An Open Evangelical training college in the CofE and the Evangelical equivalent of Affirming Catholicism

http://www.ridley.cam.ac.uk/general.html#1

The Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius: A group where mainly Anglicans and members of the Eastern Orthodox Church meet.

http://www.sobornost.org

Things are a bit more diverse out there than we were taught in school.

[scotusone]

i would never say that anglicanism doesnt display a love of diversity .

from the split in the indian subcontinent over the merger with other denoms to the current debates over ordaining women priests and bishops or gay clergy it has produced traditional continuing real anglicans everywhere the communion exists .

my point was simply that once upon a time in england we had the anglo catholics , the latitudinarians , the evangelicals and the ordinary rector in the middle.
the anglo catholics are a post oxford movement/tractarian phenomenon as a block in the church.while never a majority after the 1840s they represented an important perspective within anglicanism and did so for the next 150 years . however the last 20 years has seen the a massive decline in their numbers and influence as leading voices like Graham Leonard and Bill Oddie have gone romeward .

of course there are some left but in terms of clergy (esp bishops) and parishes they are a long way from the force they were .the debate in english anglicans today is dominated by the evangelicals and the liberals .however i would say that Rowan Williams does occasionally have a spikey aura about him.
though catholic sacramentals are liturgically popular we shouldnt mistake them for a commitment to any profoundly anglo-catholic theology.

[FutureTaoiseach]

Can we plz have a clampdown on factually untrue assertions being posted as thread-titles?

[RBinge]

A number of ex Anglicans who had quit over the ordination of women joined my old North London (RC) parish - the Church's activity shifted well to the Right - Latin Masses, disapproval of Altar Girls, sermons on contraception and obedience.

People like me who had mistakenly believed that since Vatican II the Church wanted its members to be thinking and intelligent people engaging as Christians with the issues around us no longer felt welcome. If that was the Conversion of England the pietists were welcome to it.

Traditionally Irish Catholicism denied the spiritual value of the other Christian Churches - the vast sea of Eastern Orthodox spirituality was wholly unknown to my teachers and priests, all members of the reformed Churches were effectively dismissed as being politer versions of Ian Paisley in their theology and certainly nothing like the Anglo Catholics that I met on my travels in places like Walsingham, All Saints Margaret Street and St. Bartholomews in Ballsbridge didn't exist. Much easier to dismiss them altogether.

I've found the mixture of Catholic and Orthodox spirituality rooted in a Celtic background with the freedom to believe far more spiritually nourishing than much of what I was brought up with. Meaningless bans on contraception, the purely disciplinary imposition of celibacy on diocesan clergy, the dismissal of Anglicans and Lutherans in particular as "not being churches in the proper sense", the dependence on bizarre spirituality like the Divine Mercy devotion, pressure to declare Mary as Co-redeemer from the Right, the Pope's concession to the ultra conservatives over the restoration of the Tridentine Missal and the refusal to properly engage with the Orthodox East's objections to RC doctrine alienate me from the tradition that I was brought up in.