Sydney Anglican Customs

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  • Pomona wrote: »
    Sorry, not so liberal is what I meant! I know clergy at an Anglo-Catholic church in Blackburn diocese and was under the impression that it's uncommon due to it being a traditionally Roman Catholic area, and Anglicans being more low church in response. But they are in the part that borders Liverpool diocese so maybe that's why.

    I seem to recall Burnley having a reputation for harbouring the sort of ACs who sneer about "priestesses" but they may well have died or swum the Tiber in recent years.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    It's suffragan is a bit that way. He's the one who was 'persuaded' to turn down the offer of preferment to Sheffield when a large number of his prospective diocesan clergy took offence at the thought of getting a bishop who wouldn't recognise that they were ordained.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    The suffragan is far from being one of
    the sort of ACs who sneer about "priestesses".
    AFAICT he’s very respectful of them as colleagues, and of their ministry - even though he doesn’t believe they [should] have been validly ordained to it.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    AFAIK, only one priest in Sydney is (or by now perhaps was) a member of Forward in Faith. It's a bit strange, as his deacon is is wife - priested elsewhere but of course not licensed as that in Sydney. The rest are liberal.

    Sydney is now the only diocese which does not accept women as priests. Strongly catholic Murray and Ballarat have both accepted them over the last couple of years. ++Perth is a woman.
  • BroJames wrote: »
    The suffragan is far from being one of
    the sort of ACs who sneer about "priestesses".
    AFAICT he’s very respectful of them as colleagues, and of their ministry - even though he doesn’t believe they [should] have been validly ordained to it.

    Yes, I wasn't suggesting anything about the current +Burnley; my knowledge of Burnley predates his appointment in any case.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    Interesting, Arethosemyfeet. Definitely not current +Burnley's style - my friend is a woman who trained under him while he was still running the ministry training scheme in London, and he ordained her as deacon (I was at the ordination). Her dad is also a priest and Forward In Faith, and they are extremely close and respectful of each others ministry. However, sneering about priestesses wouldn't be tolerated - actual women who work and have worked with +Burnley have nothing but praise.
  • I know a previous DDO from Burnley: at the time of Forward in Faith, there were two DDOs, one for FiF and the guy I know. The DDO for FiF reckoned his job was to work himself out of a job.
  • DDO?
  • Diocesan Director of Ordinands - the Diocesan Officer who approves and trains new priests
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Well, more shepherds them through the selection and training process. S/he may do an initial filtering, but the decision about whether to accept for training is made by the Bishop on the advice of an advisory panel, and the training is done by a theological education institute - a college or course.
  • Yes, but the other part of the role is meeting with ordinands in training and continuing to support them when back in training posts.
  • Diocesan Director of Ordinands - the Diocesan Officer who approves and trains new priests
    Thanks.

  • PeterYPeterY Shipmate Posts: 2
    Gee D wrote: »
    AFAIK, only one priest in Sydney is (or by now perhaps was) a member of Forward in Faith. It's a bit strange, as his deacon is is wife - priested elsewhere but of course not licensed as that in Sydney. The rest are liberal.

    Sydney is now the only diocese which does not accept women as priests. Strongly catholic Murray and Ballarat have both accepted them over the last couple of years. ++Perth is a woman.

    The Murray does not have women priests, nor do Armidale and North West Australia.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks - I understood that The Murray now accepted them, despite the Chancellor. Their new bishop used be the rector of a parish quite near us. Many years ago, after we moved back to where we now live, we were looking for a new parish. We looked at that one and it did not feel right for us and the only times we've been since were for weddings and baptisms. Good sound liturgy though. As for the other 2, they are basically now outposts of Sydney.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Almost half a century on, one could hope that we'd be past the Girls Have Cooties bigotry. Evidently not...
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    You'd hope so. The diocese of The Murray is very catholic - indeed a decade or so ago, the then bishop resigned and was received into the Catholic Church so if women are still not priested there it's understandable. What's not understandable is why Sydney and its dependencies still won't. Harry Goodhew, who retired as Abp 20 years ago, was in favour but could not persuade the Anglican Church League, the dominant party in Synod, to go along with him.

    ++ Glenn, the present incumbent, is clearly in favour also. He gave the Bishops Farewell at the funeral of Bp Barbara Darling, the first Australian Anglican bishop; he had previously stopped the practice of some in St Andrew's House of referring to her as "that woman who think she's a bishop". He has said publicly that subject to the usual checks, he will license as a deacon any woman priested elsewhere and that it's then up to the rector and wardens of the parish to decide what she can do. Anything further would require an Ordinance, and he does not think that would get through Synod.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I should have read my post. "The first Australian Anglican Bishop" should of course have read "one of the first Australian Anglican women Bishops". Too late to edit
  • Lloyd HaroldLloyd Harold Shipmate Posts: 11
    I have come late to this (long) thread but have read with interest so here are a few late comments. I am a MOTR priest from a rural diocese but have worked as an associate and locum at St Luke's Enmore (an AC parish) and have always been welcome. Am also a chaplain with the Order of St Luke which began in Sydney in 1960, the mover was Fr John Hope at CC St Laurence in association with Canon Jim Glennon at St Andrew's Cathedral (CCSL is still the guild church of OSL and the healing ministry at the cathedral is still very active). Healing ministry, in my experience, cuts right across issues of worship style or churchmanship, but I have found a greater support from ACs rather than evangelicals in Anglican circles. The strict line taken by Moore College on many issues seems to be a recent development but there are many MC trained clergy outside and within Sydney who do not take the MC line on all things (eg Bishop Genevieve Blackwell in Melbourne). Ex-MC staff include Bp Greg in the NT Diocese and the principals of St Mark's College (Canberra) and Ridley College (Melbourne). Both these colleges train women for ordination. The division between Sydney and other dioceses is not as clear or as wide as often assumed!
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks for you very interesting post and recollections. Bp Barbara Darling was an evangelical, from Sydney but trained at Ridley. As I remember it, ++Phillip anointed her at her request when she was in extremis. I don't think you'd get either a request or an anointing in similar circumstances in Sydney.
  • What is the current status of past attempts in the Archdiocese of Sydney to allow laypeople, including women, to preside at Holy Communion? If they are still trying to make it happen, would it be possible for a woman who was ordained a priest elsewhere, perhaps a retired one, to quietly join a parish as a normal member of the congregation and quietly preside at Holy Communion as a non-member of the diocesan clerical staff? Or does this decidedly non-Anglo-Catholic Archdiocese believe in the indelible mark of the priesthood on a person's soul, even a woman's :smile:? I know it would probably still be against the rules, and maybe the Archdiocese isn't trying to do lay presiding anymore, but I would find it hilarious if somehow someone got away with it.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    That seems to have dropped away quietly.

    BTW, Anglicans don't have Archdioceses. They have dioceses, some with a bishop, others with an archbishop. The Catholic Church has Archdioceses.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    ...Or does this decidedly non-Anglo-Catholic Archdiocese believe in the indelible mark of the priesthood on a person's soul, even a woman's :smile:? ...
    I know that the standard for male conservatives everywhere is that Girls Have Cooties. My understanding is that, in Sinny, those are megacooties. (One would think that, if women could not pursue their vocations, the boys could at least have chasubles - but no...)


  • angloidangloid Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    That seems to have dropped away quietly.

    BTW, Anglicans don't have Archdioceses. They have dioceses, some with a bishop, others with an archbishop. The Catholic Church has Archdioceses.

    interesting if nerdy point. Is that universally true of all Anglican provinces though? Some of course don't even have archbishops.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    I have never run into it, and given my knack for remembering trivia I would have

    1. Noted it
    2. Expressed horror at someone not doing it the usual Anglican way causing me to note it once again.
    3. Told myself to file it away as a useful piece of trivia with which to impress the impressible.

    Let's just say that if there are any Anglican archdioceses they are of very recent coinage. The one place I might expect to find such a thing is at the LARP-ing end of the Anglo-Catholic Continuum.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    @PDR I think you may have to explain what you mean by LARP-ing. The only context I've encountered it was in a recent reference to kit used by people who re-enact the past like The Sealed Knot.

    Tangent Alert

    @Rossweisse please could you explain what "Girls Have Cooties" means and what it references? It's appeared frequently in threads. I've tried to work out what it means, both by trying to work it out from the context and by research on the internet, but I really can't get it. The explanations don't make any sort of sense, yet the expression obviously has a clear meaning to those that use it.

    I've got that it's US slang for lice, but it's clearly being used idiomatically to mean something else, and not even just some sort of metaphorical lice.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    edited June 2019
    Rossweisse wrote: »
    ...Or does this decidedly non-Anglo-Catholic Archdiocese believe in the indelible mark of the priesthood on a person's soul, even a woman's :smile:? ...
    I know that the standard for male conservatives everywhere is that Girls Have Cooties. My understanding is that, in Sinny, those are megacooties. (One would think that, if women could not pursue their vocations, the boys could at least have chasubles - but no...)


    I'm not quite sure how it follows that if Sydney does not ordain women, they should allow chasubles. I disagree with the official Sydney stance on both of those issues, but the arguments against women's ordination and chasubles are quite separate. The Church of Ireland has no chasubles but was one of the first Anglican churches to ordain women.

    I think it's worth pointing out that many evangelicals who oppose women's ordination (which is a pretty small group nowadays) are women. Certainly the most vociferously opposed Anglicans that I've encountered in the UK are lay women. I wonder if being clergy makes someone more likely to recognise those gifts in others, even if it is not comfortable to do so.

    [edited by request ... we hosts are nice like that 😘]
  • Enoch wrote: »
    Tangent Alert

    @Rossweisse please could you explain what "Girls Have Cooties" means and what it references? It's appeared frequently in threads. I've tried to work out what it means, both by trying to work it out from the context and by research on the internet, but I really can't get it. The explanations don't make any sort of sense, yet the expression obviously has a clear meaning to those that use it.

    I've got that it's US slang for lice, but it's clearly being used idiomatically to mean something else, and not even just some sort of metaphorical lice.

    It's a way of highlighting the childishness of anti-women positions by likening it to the playground excuses for boys not wanting to associate with girls. My understanding it's that it is American in origin.
  • @Enoch, this is what Americans mean when we talk about “cooties.”
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Yebbut @Arethosemyfeet , even if I get that it's criticising mysogynistic dogma, why does it work as criticism? It's what is the expression is referencing in the first place that I can't work out? I've tried. I've done the research. But I don't get it.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited June 2019
    It’s a way of saying that girls are inferior, and that if they’re allowed to “play with the boys” at church, they’ll contaminate everything. As @Arethosemyfeet says, the expression is used in this context to suggest that the position is childish and completely lacking in actual fact.

    BTW, I’ve never heard “cooties” used as slang for lice. Cooties are a totally imaginary bug/disease.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    edited June 2019
    LARP = Live Action Role Play
    SCA = Society for Creative Anachronism

    I use both to poke gentle fun at those clergy, parishes, people, and/or jurisdictions whose views or the reality of their everyday operations has a slight to distinct air of either unreality, poorly understood history, or both, to it. As opposed to plain old Oddballs like me who stick with an old-fashioned or minority way of doing things - e.g. holding reformed-Evangelical views and being in TEC, or the black gown and 35 Articles folks in the REC.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    Ach, could a friendly Host or Admin remove the stuff before the quote in my previous post? It was from a draft of a separate comment and not intended for this thread at all 😳

    I'm surprised Enoch has never heard of cooties before! It was a common playground insult when I was at primary school, definitely known about in the UK. It is as Nick says a made-up thing and doesn't refer to lice or anything. Just like 'urgh boys/girls/whoever have cooties, I don't want to play with them'.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Pomona, Sydney will ordain women as deacons. The celebration of 30 years deaconing women was held about 6 weeks ago. Until then, women had been ordained as deaconesses, a very different ministry.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Pomona wrote: »
    ... I'm surprised Enoch has never heard of cooties before! It was a common playground insult when I was at primary school, definitely known about in the UK. It is as Nick says a made-up thing and doesn't refer to lice or anything. Just like 'urgh boys/girls/whoever have cooties, I don't want to play with them'.
    It's a long time since I was at primary school. The dates had '5's in them. It's quite a long time since my children were. But as an adult, I've never encountered the expression until recently on the Ship.

    So, is it a sort of general accusation like 'you smell' or something?

  • Enoch wrote: »
    .

    So, is it a sort of general accusation like 'you smell' or something?

    Pretty much.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Eeurgh, you’ve got germs
  • Enoch wrote: »
    [So, is it a sort of general accusation like 'you smell' or something?
    Sort of, but with an additional layer of “and if we touch you or get to close to you, we’ll smell too.” Unless, of course, one has undertaken, in one of the methods known to all children, to get cootie protection.

    This article from The New Yorker describes cooties and cootie protection very well. (And this is a cootie catcher, as mentioned in the article.)
  • Lloyd HaroldLloyd Harold Shipmate Posts: 11
    Gee D wrote: »
    Thanks for you very interesting post and recollections. Bp Barbara Darling was an evangelical, from Sydney but trained at Ridley. As I remember it, ++Phillip anointed her at her request when she was in extremis. I don't think you'd get either a request or an anointing in similar circumstances in Sydney.

    Anointing (on request) is a regular practice in the healing ministry at St Andrew's Cathedral and in many Sydney churches but is done with a view to healing rather than specifically as preparation for death. This is consistent with current Anglican understanding (and I think the Catholic church also).
  • BroJames wrote: »
    Eeurgh, you’ve got germs
    .

    Some boys close to me would not sit near their girl cousin when they were small in case they caught girl germs. Thankfully , they grew out of this nonsense. They did not mean they opposed them or thought they were inferior. To a six year old, girl germs were to be avoided. I guess this is another expression of cooties.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Lloyd Harold, I was aware of anointing in healing services, but not that to one in extremis.
  • When I first heard about cooties as a kid I thought they were real. I didn't hear anything about them being associated with girls or boys. I don't remember what it is that I thought had cooties. But I was scared, germaphobe that I am. By the time I heard about a cootie shot, though, I think I had figured out that they were not real.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    Ah ... the (questionable) advantages of home schooling* followed by single-sex boarding school for ten years 🙄 ... on the other hand 🤔 I have six daughters and they and I have survived ... 😘

    (*My sister was at boarding school when I was home schooled so minimal cooties risk there)

    Explains why I'm so normatively normal I guess 🙃
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    edited June 2019
    Enoch wrote: »
    ...@Rossweisse please could you explain what "Girls Have Cooties" means and what it references? It's appeared frequently in threads. I've tried to work out what it means, both by trying to work it out from the context and by research on the internet, but I really can't get it. The explanations don't make any sort of sense, yet the expression obviously has a clear meaning to those that use it. ...
    Others seem to have posted (thanks especially to @Nick Tamen) plenteous background for "cooties" in general.

    I started using the phrase in this context because the explanations I was hearing from the (almost entirely) male opponents of women's ordination all seemed to boil down to "But we've never done it this way" (at best) or (more commonly) "Girls have cooties!" Both are illogical; the second is outright misogynistic.

    "Girls have cooties!" was a frequent cry of entitled boys on the playground in my childhood. (I don't recall ever hearing anything about "boy cooties," but they would have been included in generic cases of cootie infestation.)

    The more I've studied and read on this subject, the more I've learned about just how incorrect claims that women weren't leaders in the early Church really are. (Here's a brief guide to some of those mentioned in the New Testament.) Sadly, misogyny has long been a problem in the churches - but now, in at least some churches, women are being allowed to reclaim their ancient roles.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I don't remember hearing the word used here - what about others?
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    I don't think Rossweisse means it is literally used by opponents, but that a lot of anti-OoW arguments boil down to 'urgh girls'.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Pomona wrote: »
    I don't think Rossweisse means it is literally used by opponents, but that a lot of anti-OoW arguments boil down to 'urgh girls'.

    Yes. No, many opponents have been offended to have their carefully thought-out rationalizations summarized as "girls have cooties."

    This is particularly true of those who believe that there was a group known as "deaconnesses" in the early Church. They don't like hearing that the Greek word "diakonos" was used for both women and men who carried out that ministry.

  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    Nice to see some Sydney clergy on.

    I attended an Anglo-Catholic parish for a while...as has been said we just got on with it. CCSL was a bit rich for me for a weekly diet, but the occasional visit cheered my spirits.

    On the cooties, this was only one person and I do not believe in no way indicative, but while at Cabramatta*, returning to church in my uni days, we somehow got a female who was permitted to preach on occasion -- but not do much else. On these weeks the Moore College catechist would disappear at the appointed time, and at a pre-church Bible study informed us we were free to walk out too if we felt it was appropriate. As I wrote, I do not believe it was indicative -- but he must have got it somewhere. And the senior minister seemed powerless to stop it.


    * the English-speaking congregation had moved to another suburb, with the Chinese-speaking congregations (3) remaining; but an English "youth" service was retained, with visiting clergy -- the archdeacon, someone from missions...
  • Jengie JonJengie Jon Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    Technically the walking out during the sermon is a Reformed thing. Only it should only be done when heresy is preached from the pulpit. It is also a Reformed thing to argue with the preacher or even to have two competitive preachers (although that is outlawed in the CofE). Though the Reformed from Victorian times is as guilty as any of sitting mute* under a great preacher, the historic practice encouraged audience participation.

    *Actually, it has just been privatised, if you had your doubts it was dealt with by a letter, phone call or email to the preacher. If you were aware of widespread doubts within the congregation that could not be so resolved it was then taken up with the eldership which dealt with the subject in private. Normally that meant no further invites to preach.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    I have done the Reformed walk once - on a clergyman who was dangerously close to, or actually, preaching Modalism. In my 'catholic phase' I also managed to do the Anglo-Catholic flounce, but that is a totally different thing altogether.
  • PDR wrote: »
    I have done the Reformed walk once - on a clergyman who was dangerously close to, or actually, preaching Modalism. In my 'catholic phase' I also managed to do the Anglo-Catholic flounce, but that is a totally different thing altogether.

    Surely one has to be reasonably tolerant of heresies relating to the trinity otherwise one would rarely get through a service on Trinity Sunday?

    Generally I'll grit my teeth through more technical heresies, and only get really angry with hate being preached from the pulpit.
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