UK Kool-Aid - Robert Hart
Date 2009/11/5 17:30:00 | Topic: As Eye See It
| UK Kool-Aid
by Robert Hart
http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2009/11/uk-kool-aid.html
November 5, 2009
The Resolutions
"That this Assembly, representing the Traditional Anglican Communion in Great Britain, offers its joyful thanks to Pope Benedict XVI for his forthcoming Apostolic Constitution allowing the corporate reunion of Anglicans with the Holy See, and requests the Primate and College of Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion to take the steps necessary to implement this Constitution." --From the website <http://www.thetraditionalanglicanchurch.org.uk/newspage.htm> of the Traditional Anglican Church in the United Kingdom.
Here we go. Some have lectured us that we ought not to criticize the impending constitution from Rome, and that therefore we should pretend we know nothing despite Cardinal Levada's official detailed announcement on October 20. Nonetheless, the Synod of the Traditional Anglican Church in England, the national UK church of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), has voted to accept it sight unseen-whatever it may say.
Upon what does this one TAC body base such absolute trust? The obvious answer can be ascertained easily with some logic: If they so trust Rome now, that must mean that whatever Rome comes up with will be acceptable. This means that they may believe that Rome cannot err, not only in matters of Faith, but even in establishing a polity; furthermore, establishing a polity with no input from those who will be allowed to submit to it. In law this is called a unilateral contract. Every insurance policy is a unilateral contract, written strictly by the insurer. The policy holder may enter into this contract for a premium, but only as written with all of its details firmly established. At least most unilateral contracts may be read ahead of time; not so with what Rome "offers."
We, on The Continuum blog, have already gone into matters of doctrine, and why any positive response from Anglicans to Rome's offer is impossible without abandoning principles of the Catholic Faith that Anglicanism adheres to with more fidelity than does Rome. In matters of polity, how has the See of Rome earned such absolute blind trust? Did they earn it by their treatment of "Eastern Rite" or "Uniat" churches? Ask the Byzantine Catholics in America why their priests, in contradiction to Rome's guarantees and promises before the merger, cannot be married. For anyone who wants to make that act of betrayal into simply a historical matter, I ask why this violation of promise continues to this day? Is that not an abuse of power, or at least serious neglect? How has Rome earned our trust in matters of polity regarding the sexual abuse of children by their clergy? The fact that they send Cardinal Levada as their spokesman to the invited Anglicans, a man who was as notorious as Cardinal Law in shielding and reassigning known predators, demonstrates how much the See of Rome does not even care to put on a good face. Are they naive?
That Rome cares to respond to an emergency created by Canterburian heresy is laudable. The intention seems to be from charity, a truly pastoral motivation. That we do not deny. But, like everyone, they have a record. Their recent history has demonstrated that their reach exceeds their grasp, and they are incapable of performing even the best of what they offer. Nonetheless, the English TAC has demonstrated something worse than blind trust. With all of the facts that show Rome's weaknesses, and with the obvious flaws already evident in the October 20, description of the constitution, the TAC in England are blind by choice.
----Robert Hart is Priest in Charge of St. Benedict's Anglican Catholic Church in Chapel Hill North Carolina, and a Contributing Editor of Touchstone, A Journal of Mere Christianity. He contributes regularly to the blog, The Continuum.
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