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The Lord be with you, but not with her -or- Pastoral care for neanderthals

edited March 2019 in Dead Horses
Let's accommodate a traditionalist guy. Should anyone care what people like him think?

Here's a media article. Craziness abounds.
Cathedral 'should help conservative worshippers avoid women priest-led services'
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Gong!
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Comments

  • RublevRublev Shipmate
    Other churches do the same thing for the same reason. It's very sad. It isn't necessary to feel yourself to be excluded by the gender of the priest. There are a number of ways to participate in worship and fellowship at a service. So why walk out in protest?
  • Rublev wrote: »
    Other churches do the same thing for the same reason. It's very sad. It isn't necessary to feel yourself to be excluded by the gender of the priest. There are a number of ways to participate in worship and fellowship at a service. So why walk out in protest?

    Perhaps his sensibilities are such that he feels unable to remain present while a woman celebrates? Perhaps he's just miffed that he prepared himself for communion and is now (by his lights) unable to receive?

    The fact that he walked out is, I think, secondary. He wants to receive communion on a regular basis, as do many people. It's not uncommon in these days to find churches offering communion on alternate weeks due to a general shortage of priests. Nobody (as far as I know) thinks it unreasonable to publish in advance whether the Sunday service will be communion or morning prayer, and nobody looks askance at people who prefer to travel elsewhere for communion on days where there is no priest and morning prayer is offered.

    The gentleman in question seems to be in rather this position (albeit by his own choice/conscience to doubt the orders of female priests) and it doesn't seem unreasonable for him to want to take himself elsewhere for communion on days when a woman is presiding, and so (for him) communion would not be available.

    Should we accommodate him? The C of E has explicitly stated that it's going to accommodate those who doubt the validity of women priests. It allows parishes to pass resolutions A, B, and C, and so on. In that context, asking a Cathedral to indicate whether the president would be acceptable to those of a strain of thought that the C of E declares as reasonable to hold seems fair enough.
  • RublevRublev Shipmate
    Is it reasonable for one person to impose their preferences upon the rest of the community?

    And should prejudice be acceptable, just because it is historic prejudice? If someone wanted to boycott a service being led by a disabled or an ethnic minority priest, would that be regarded as equally reasonable?
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Sexism by any other name....
  • The way the CofE agreed to women priests was with a concession that they would provide a home for those who did not feel comfortable with this arrangement. After the vote went through, the local church offered a service on a Friday lunchtime that was guaranteed to have male celebrant and this continued for several years. There's also a FiF church a couple of villages away, some people moved there, some moved to the RC church when the vote went through.

    Move on a decade or so, and the curate and other team ministers were all female, so the male rector consulted this service and said that he was no longer able to guarantee a male celebrant at this Friday lunchtime service, was this going to be a problem? And by this time, that congregation accepted a female celebrant.

    What seems to have happened here is that Wakefield Cathedral has imposed a change without consultation with the interested parties. including this gentleman. As the CofE guidelines does still say that provision needs to be made ...
  • RublevRublev Shipmate
    edited March 2019
    What concerns me is the impact this will have upon the female clergy of the cathedral team. Will they now be advised that it is inappropriate for them to preside at the major festival services because of this single objection? They are bound to feel devalued and marginalised in their ministry by this action.

    The objector could have requested home communion from a male member of the team instead of imposing his own agenda. It's not best practice to advise named clergy for services because it can lead to followings emerging rather than community fellowship at services.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    edited March 2019
    We have had women ministers at our Church for years now. But several people (all women) left when our first woman minister arrived in 1996.
    @Rublev said - The objector could have requested home communion from a male member of the team instead of imposing his own agenda. It's not best practice to advise named clergy for services because it can lead to followings emerging rather than community fellowship at services.

    I’m a Methodist so we have a plan which is published and distributed to all members. We know who is preaching 3 months ahead.
  • MaryLouise wrote: »
    Sexism by any other name....

    Which should not be accommodated. Neither racism. And if you're racist or sexist you don't get accommodated. Soft headed to do so. There's a peculiar culture of church land which sometimes lives decades and sometimes centuries behind.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    edited March 2019
    To be fair to the person who originally raised this concern, AFAICT his request was not that there should always provision for him to attend a service with a male celebrant, but that in naming the celebrant they should enable him to know in advance whether he would be able to receive communion according to his conscience.

    From his point of view, the cathedral’s argument about the centrality of the offering of the Eucharist ignores his belief that what is offered by a woman is no Eucharist at all. (However wrong I may consider that belief to be.)

    I can understand the cathedral wanting to avoid a situation where worshippers are saying ‘I don’t like Canon X, I’m not going if he’s celebrating’ or ‘Canon Y’s liturgical style sets my teeth on edge, I’m not going if he’s celebrating’, or ‘Canon Z always comes across as so superior, I’m not going if she’s celebrating’; and agree with them that the offering of the Eucharist is what matters, not the personality of the priest.

    OTOH I have a degree of sympathy with someone who may have diligently prepared themself for communion, and perhaps fasted, and then comes and finds themself at a service which they do not regard as communion at all.

    I don’t believe that the cathedral should have to make special provision at festivals etc. by ensuring that men preside on those occasions because others may be equally concerned because they wish to be able to receive from a woman on such occasions. But I don’t see a problem with simply enabling a person to know whether the president is male or female,
  • MaryLouise wrote: »
    Sexism by any other name....

    Which should not be accommodated. Neither racism. And if you're racist or sexist you don't get accommodated. Soft headed to do so. There's a peculiar culture of church land which sometimes lives decades and sometimes centuries behind.

    The CoE decided that it would accommodate this belief/opinion so it can now either repudiate its accommodation, or just post the name of the celebrating priest. That they might not want to do either is the sort of thing we are seeing at Westminster-- trying to have it both ways while denying that they are doing any such thing, and all in the hope that it will go away someday, or that something may turn up. Perhaps it's an ethnic English characteristic?
  • One of the reasons I believe that accommodations should be made is that the CofE refused to ordain women for 500 plus years, saying they could not be ordained - as the RC and Orthodox churches still do. The Church then changed its mind, but said it would still provide for those who could not accept women priests.

    I have a big problem with people offering themselves for ordination refusing to accept that women can be priests, into a church that ordains women, but not accommodating the people in the pews for whom the goal posts were changed.
  • Cathedral 'should help conservative worshippers avoid women priest-led services'
    .

    Gong!

    Absolutely. The least they could do is hold them inside a building, preferably a conspicuous building. And with a door. Then there's no chance of the guy accidentally stumbling on one while shopping or walking in the park.
  • Rublev wrote: »
    Is it reasonable for one person to impose their preferences upon the rest of the community?

    And should prejudice be acceptable, just because it is historic prejudice? If someone wanted to boycott a service being led by a disabled or an ethnic minority priest, would that be regarded as equally reasonable?

    Will we apply the same rules in the future to those who have serious reservations about the validity of LGBT priests either in or celebrating SSM or SSB's?
  • Will we apply the same rules in the future to those who have serious reservations about the validity of LGBT priests either in or celebrating SSM or SSB's?

    That depends on whether there is a serious theological argument for the invalidity of the orders of gay priests, and on whether the C of E makes a commitment to accommodate people who hold that opinion.

    As far as I am aware, there are plenty of people who think gay priests are scandalous, but nobody who thinks they aren't priests. So I think the situation will not arise.

    I'll add that I'm usually interested in knowing the name of the celebrant - if it's Fr. Longwinded, I'll know that the sermon will be half an hour or so, and I can plan the rest of my day to accommodate that.
  • stonespringstonespring Shipmate
    edited March 2019
    As for gay priests, wasn't Donatism, the belief that sinful priests have invalid sacraments, declared a heresy long ago (not sure if all anti-Women's Ordination Anglicans, especially the more evangelical ones, are that concerned with non-biblical sources of doctrine like that).

    Now, you could argue that a gay person who believed that gay sex, gay relationships, and gay marriage are all not sinful and in fact good things could not have the valid intent to do as the Church teaches/does needed to validly receive Holy Orders. But so many priests are ordained who have beliefs abut key issues of faith and morality that others consider heretical that there would be a whole lot fewer validly ordained priests left if this were true!
  • I would refer the fellow in the linked article in the OP to Article 26 - that the "unworthines" (assuming that being non-male constitutes "unworthiness" or "wickedness") of the minister does not diminish the efficacy of the Sacrament. Efficacy is a function of the faith of the recipient. Perhaps, as a self-described "traditional Catholic", he should just swim the Tiber to his more comfortable shore.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    ExclamationMark--
    Will we apply the same rules in the future to those who have serious reservations about the validity of LGBT priests either in or celebrating SSM or SSB's?

    What's an SSB, please? I can only think of baptism or burial, but I can't see why those would be problematic.

    Thx.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    ExclamationMark--
    Will we apply the same rules in the future to those who have serious reservations about the validity of LGBT priests either in or celebrating SSM or SSB's?

    What's an SSB, please? I can only think of baptism or burial, but I can't see why those would be problematic.

    Thx.

    Blessing perhaps?
This discussion has been closed.