So the Roman Catholic church is welcoming in a bunch of Anglican clergy who are not happy sharing pulpit and altar space with women and gays.
Not all Catholics are real pleased about this. Frank Skinner in the London Times in "My Church is Not a Safe Haven for Bigots"
I want people to be drawn to the Catholic Church because it travels the road to truth, not because they want to hang out in its dingy cul-de-sacs. I was hoping that the Church’s antipathy to female and openly gay priests would, in time, weaken and dissolve. Now instead, it seems, a whole lot of bigoted reinforcements are arriving to galvanise those more unpalatable aspects of Roman Catholic doctrine.
I have the same thoughts about churches in the ELCA who decide to leave because of the sexuality issue. They are likely to become magnets for malcontents from other churches. Do you really want to belong to a church with the reputation "Here's the place to go if you are unhappy with your present church?" Shudder.
I don't mind it a bit if a person changes churches because they find another church or denomination more to their liking as far as how to worship or believe. I think that is better than just stopping attending. But leaving to get away from something is a different matter is many respects. People church shop because they don't like a sermon or the preacher has a bad habit, etc. I've know people who have moved around to lots of different churches each time they've become disgruntled.
ReplyDeletethis is a great quote.
ReplyDeletePerhaps those fleeing have been so starved of the Gospel, instead fed way to much social Gospel/environment issues from the pulpit, they'll go anywhere for it, even to Rome. The Pope did say this was in response to repeated overtures from Anglicans wanting to be let in to the Catholic church, not just a move made to take advantage of the turmoil in the Anglican Communion.
ReplyDeleteAnd when you look at how the Episcopal Church has behaved in bringing lawsuits against parishes that simply want to leave, so the TEC can keep the property, they'll practically chasing them out.