Foundations of the Anglican Church CIX

Religious Dissenters at the time

of the English Civil War

Well, I want to continue on with the threat of schism that is emerging under Francis, but first let’s go back for a posting or two on the history of the Church of England.  My readership always falls when I do straight history instead of commentary on present situations and their historical impact, but I do have a small but devoted following on this Church of England series and I do think there are lessons we can learn from that history.  Not the least lesson is just how many readers, including Anglicans and Episcopalians, have forgotten (or never known) that the Church of England was decidedly Protestant in both theology and praxis (and that means liturgical praxis) in the second half of the sixteenth century and pretty much right straight through until the early 19^th century.)  I guess I should give a spoiler alert about that. 

We left our saga of the Church of England after talking about the Seekers and the Quakers, groups that rejected both clergy and sacraments in favor of a more interior approach to religion.  (We had already treated the more traditional—by comparison—Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Baptists.   The Quakers, as I said, rejected any trappings of traditional Christianity such as Baptism, Holy Communion (they viewed true Communion as an interior and highly personal experience, perhaps somewhat akin to the pious custom of “spiritual communion” among Catholics) as well as any structured liturgy or Creed.  While originally quite orthodox in their doctrines about Christ and about salvation, over time Quakerism has developed a breadth of opinions that range from orthodox Christian to Unitarian and even Universalist.  They are to be commended on their holding fast to the key principles of charity (brotherly/sisterly love) and pacificism which are needed values for all Christians to recover.  We Catholics could do a bit better on this, and might perhaps if it weren’t for the Krazies among us who keep insisting on baptizing their Tea Party whimsies into a sort of pseudo-Catholic orthodoxy.  This by the way is why Pope Francis drives them krazy as he just isn’t on their page.  But I digress. 

As radical as the Quakers were, there were plenty of groups off to their left.  One of these groups were the Fifth Monarchy Men.  They took their name from the Book of Daniel that spoke of the four ancient monarchies that would precede the reign of Christ.  (These were the Babylonian, Persian, Greek (Alexander the Great), and Roman Empires.)   The Fifth Monarchy Men, devoted to the Fifth Monarchy—that of Christ—took the “Number of the Beast”, 666, and believed that in 1666 Christ would return and establish an earthly kingdom.  The Fifth Monarchy Men initially cooperated with Cromwell in his overthrow of the Stuart kings, but they rejected the idea of any earthly government save of that of “King Jesus.” 

Another group which emerged at this time were the “Levelers” or, as they were often popularly known, the “Diggers.”  The Diggers were influenced by the writings of Gerard Winstanley (1609-1676) and believed that God’s plan was for the land, from which all derived their sustenance, to belong to all and not to be private property of the landowners.  This was at a time when much of the “common land”—the open pastures and fields which did not belong to any one person and to which all had access to pasture their sheep or cattle—was being increasingly appropriated and “enclosed” (fenced in by stone walls or by shrubbery) by great landowners.  The Diggers began themselves to cultivate the common land and even land left fallow by the wealthy, and the powerful owners in an attempt to establish small agrarian communities where property was held in common after the example of the Acts of the Apostles.  Like the Fifth Monarchy Men they were anarchists. 

Then there were the Ranters.  The Ranters rejected all religious authority over individuals—not only that of the Church and the clergy, but even of the Bible.  They believed that individuals should surrender themselves to the Divine Spirit within themselves.  Under the influence of this “Divine Spirit” one could not sin—there were no boundaries set on behavior other than those set by the Spirit on an individual.  They got a bit of a reputation for sexual immorality and they also rejected private property. 

The Muggletonians were a breakoff group of the Ranters led by one Lodowicke Muggleton.  Muggleton taught that there is no Divinity but Jesus Christ, the glorified human man; that the devil is the illogical use of reason; that heaven is a realm of light beyond the stars; hell is this earth with the sun and moon extinguished; angels are beings of pure reason; and that the soul dies with the body but will be raised with the body at the end time.    Muggletonians survived into the mid-twentieth century before dying out. 

There are numerous other groups, but along with the entries on the Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers and others already mentioned, this gives a good spectrum of the variety of sects and cults into which the Church of England devolved during the English Civil War.  This is always the problem with schism: keeping a movement united and from shattering into a variety of ever more extreme groups.  We have seen that in our entries with the Lefebvrists , with the sede-vacantist groups and others who reject the authority of the Second Vatican Council and how they divide and subdivide into new and more extreme groups.   

The Heart of A Shepherd and the Heart of a Lion

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone
Cordileone translates as "heart of
a lion." Lions have been known
to eat sheep.

I had the opportunity not too long ago to visit friends who have recently moved to Dallas Texas and bought a lovely home in a rather posh suburb.  Not that the house was overdone, but it was a bit like staying with J.R. and Sue Ellen Ewing.  While the cook prepared dinner, we settled into Andy’s “Den”—a book lined room with Persian rugs, walnut paneling, and a brass chandelier that looked like it had been stolen from Hampton Court.  Andy pressed a button and the bookshelves slid back to reveal a fully-stocked wet bar.  “It’s called a ‘Baptist Bar’,” Andy told me, “because when the Pastor or one of the church deacons would come to dinner, it would be hidden by the ‘books.’  They aren’t real books, you see” he said pointing at the shelves,” just blocks of wood pointed to look like old books.  What would a Southern Baptist do with books anyway?  Down here, books are for burning.” 

A ‘Baptist Bar;’ I loved it.  I was relating this story at lunch when one of my colleagues—a priest—mentioned that he had once done a wedding between one of his then parishioners, a Catholic,  and the daughter of a Mormon Bishop.  “The Catholic family had to pay for the band and for the booze,” Father said.  “But the groom’s father—an immigrant from Italy—said that he couldn’t invite his friends and relatives to a ‘wedding’ where there was no dancing and nothing (alcoholic) to drink.  In the end, the Mormons were out there on the dance floor having a great time.”  But did they drink, I asked.  “Well, let me tell you,” Father responded.  “I got to be friends with the bride’s uncle and his wife and they were knocking back gins and tonic all evening.  They said that gins and tonic are the Mormon beverage of choice because you can always claim that you are drinking club soda, and who’s to know.” 

This led another colleague of mine to tell of his experience at Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian College in the Chicago suburbs that has some very strict policies set forth in its ‘Community Covenant’ to which all students, members of the faculty, and employees must conform.  These policies are not unreasonable for a Christian institution and they limit the use of alcohol both on and off campus and proscribe use of illicit substances, non-marital sex (gay or straight), pornography, withcraft, plagiarism, obscene or vulgar language, as well as more difficult things to pin down such as pride or jealousy.  In 2004 Wheaton terminated the teaching position of Joshua Hochschild when Hochschild, a professor of Medieval Philosophy, converted to Roman Catholicism.  Wheaton President at the time, A. Dwayne Litfin, said that Roman Catholicism was incompatible with Wheaton’s dedication to Evangelical Principles on the sovereignty of Scriptural Revelation.  (Hochschild disagreed but moved on to teach at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg Maryland—a Catholic equivalent of Wheaton’s sectarian fortress.  By the way, while both Wheaton and Mount Saint Mary’s are somewhat closed-circuit institutions, unlike some other “bubble schools” they have respectable academic reputations and should not be short-sold on that account.)  Four years after Hochshild moved on, tenured professor Kent Gramm left Wheaton for Gettysburg College rather than disclose the reasons for his divorce to school officials.  All this is to demonstrate the strict standards that Wheaton sets for the members of its academic community.  But the reality of where people are at and what they do under the dark of night, according my colleague, is quite different.  To find out more, I called a friend of mine with whom I used to teach and who is a Wheaton alumnus, whose elder son also graduated from Wheaton and whose younger boy is currently a student there.  “I think there is less promiscuity on the campus there than there is at most schools, but it’s no “virgin territory.”  Whether you are gay or straight, there is plenty of opportunity to make connections.  As for the alcohol, I think it is well hidden, but as much, if not more, than at a place like Princeton.  Drugs—I don’t know.  From what I hear there are some—there are always some—but it is pretty much in the shadows and not talked about much.”

At the end of the day, it is all about the mystery of sin and grace. Where there is sin—and there will always be sin—there will also be grace and in ever greater measures.  We don’t sin so that grace will be prevail, but despite our moral principles, the reality of life is that there are—at the end of the day—no blacks and no whites.  As attributed to Cardinal Newman: “none of us are as good as we should be or as bad as we could be.” 

I am not writing about Baptists or Mormons or Wheaton College—or even Cardinal Newman—but about Archbishop Cordileone and his insistence that all faculty and staff at the four High Schools run by the Archdiocese of San Francisco both agree and, in their personal lives, conform to a policy statement that declares same-sex marriage, sex outside of (heterosexual) marriage, masturbation, pornography, artificial insemination, and other forms of “artificial reproductive technology” are “gravely evil.”  We need standards to be set.  I don’t have a problem with that.  It is up to the Church to set the standards for its members—and for those engaged in its mission even if they are not members.  I have no problem with that.  These are Catholic teachings and I have no problem with that. 

What I do have a problem with is when we expect people to live up to the standards.  Some of us will, some of the time.  All of us will, at one time or another, fall short of the standards.  That is the sin part of the equation.  But this isn’t Wheaton College; this is the Church of Jesus Christ.  When a person falls short of the standards, we accept the grace to get back up—and that can only be done with the help of a loving community—and brush ourselves off, and get back on track until we fall again.  That’s the grace part of the equation.  So when an Archbishop teaches the Church entrusted to his care: this is right, this is wrong, that is his job.  (He may, of course, get it wrong and that is another problem, but it is his job to teach the truth as he understands the truth.) But it is not his job to arm himself with a club to beat down the sinner who stumbles and falls. The policy statement set forth by Archbishop Cordileone is precisely that.  It gives him the grounds to fire anyone who fails to live up to, in his personal life, the ideals set forth by the Catholic Church, when a Bishop’s mandate is for the Shepherd to bring the sinner safely home.  But what about the person who falls over and over and over again?  The person who just doesn’t get it.  The person who just keeps sinning?  “And how often must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Seven times?”  I think we all remember the answer to that question. 

A priest I know, a man of good heart but a congenital idiot when it comes to theology, gave a sermon some years ago about “The Good Shepherd.”  “A Shepherd,” he told his flock, “when confronted with a lamb that will not heed his directions, must sometimes break the leg of the lamb.  He then carries the lamb on his shoulder until the leg heals and this creates a bond of dependency that ties the sheep to its shepherd.  There are times,” this worthy priest said to his parishioners, “that I will have to break your leg to teach you to follow me as I lead you home to safe pastures.”  Whooo boy, where do we even start?  I don’t recall Jesus using that particular example in his teaching about Good Shepherds.  We don’t need Shepherds—mitered or otherwise—who go around breaking the legs of their sheep: even if for good purpose.  If only we could make people be good!!!  But we have the more difficult task of calling one another to the change of heart without breaking a leg or firing the lost sheep.

Our Complicity In Evil

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher,

Jerusalem

Last week—Thursday, February 26,--arsonists set fire to the Greek Orthodox Seminary in  Jerusalem and wrote, in Hebrew, insulting remarks about Jesus on the walls. 

Over the last five years or so Israeli settlers who have moved in to occupy Palestinian villages have not only forced out the occupants, but vandalized Christian Churches, monasteries, and cemeteries.  Two years ago the monastery of the Sisters of Bethlehem was firebombed in a midnight attack, the perpetrators of which left graffiti on the outside walls saying “Price Tag,” “Death to Gentiles,” and “revenge” in Hebrew.  The same terms were painted on tombstones in the Greek Orthodox cemetery in Jaffa.  Israeli settlers vandalized the car of a Catholic human rights lawyer in Jerusalem. 

Vandals left graffiti—in Hebrew—stating that “Jesus is a monkey” on the walls of the Dormition Abbey, a Benedictine monastery that marks the traditional site of the death of the Virgin Mary.  “Jesus is a Son of a Bitch” and “Price Tag” had been sprayed on the Abbey’s walls the year before. 

“Price Tag” refers to a campaign initiated four years ago by Israeli settlers on Palestinian lands to intimidate Palestinians and other non-Israelis into leaving the Holy Land.  It refers to the “price” that Palestinians must pay for their opposition to the expansion of Israeli territory into the towns and villages which they have occupied from time immemorial. 

Now the Israelis want to extend their “security wall” into the Cremisan valley and then expropriate the land there that currently belongs to Palestinian Christians.  The mayor, Vera Baboun, met with Pope Francis to ask his help in preventing this land-grab. 

Why don’t we hear more about these atrocities?  CBS reporter Bob Simon who died last month in an automobile crash in New York did a story back in 2012 on the plight of Palestinian Christians.  Then Israeli ambassador Michael Oren put pressure on CBS to squelch the story before it was even completed.  Simon recalled the incident:

According to Israeli government figures, tourism is a multi billion dollar business there. Most tourists are Christian. Many of them are American. That’s one reason why Israelis are very sensitive about their image in the United States. And that could be why Ambassador Oren phoned Jeff Fager, the head of CBS News and executive producer of 60 Minutes, while we were still reporting the story, long before tonight’s broadcast.  

 Don’t misunderstand me.  I have been to Israel four times.  It is an amazing country.  The Israelis have made the desert bloom.  But there is also tremendous human suffering there, a suffering that former President Jimmy Carter compared to the Apartheid of South Africa until its termination in 1994.  Had Mr. Carter wanted to hit closer to home he could have compared it to the plight of African-Americans in Mississippi or Alabama in the first half of the twentieth century.  The Palestinian peoples who are descended from the biblical inhabitants of Canaan and lived there through the kingships of David and Solomon, through the invasion of the Assyrians, who remained in the land when the Jews were taken to Babylon and when they returned, who survived Alexander and his Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Arab invasion of 636 as well as the Turks in the 12^th century, are now being driven out—Christian and Muslim alike—by policies that want to purge the land of all who are not Jews. 

Today the Master Builder of this racist theocracy is addressing the United States Congress as the invited guest of Speaker Boehner.  I am not in favor of denying any one Holy Communion, but if I could make an argument that the Eucharist should be withheld from any Christian, it would be for John Boehner’s betrayal of his Palestinian brother and sister Christians.  Don’t misunderstand me, Prime Minister Netanyahu is not personally interested in driving all non-Jews from the land of Eretz Yisrael.  I would have some respect—profound disagreement but still respect—for him if this was a matter of something in which he truly believed.  But the Prime Minister, to keep his Likud party in power, courts support from those nationalist and those ultra-orthodox parties and individuals who want to make Israel 100% an Orthodox theocracy.  (note: not all ultra-orthodox wish to make Israel a theocracy; there are many who believe that the political questions need await the Messiah who will decide. And, of course, the majority of Israelis are secular Jews who have abandoned the idea that the land is theirs by a “divine right.”)  Tragically our own nation has involved itself in Israel’s racist agenda by our unqualified support for Israel both politically and militarily.  It is time that we reexamine our policies toward Israel and come to a more balanced and just stance. 

Pope Francis, Two Churches, Potential for Schism, and Bridges Too Far

I have done several postings over the past two years on the Franciscans of the Immaculate, one of the new communities that has sprung up in the Church in the post-conciliar years.  When living in Rome, I would often see the friars and sometimes the sisters of this community in their bluish grey habits, especially near the little church of the Annunziatina at the foot of the Borgo Santo Spirito just as you cross the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II on the way to Saint Peter’s.  The Friars of the Immaculate were established by Father Stefano Manelli and Father Gabriele Pelletteri, Conventual Franciscans, and in 1998 were separated from the Conventuals into their own independent congregation.  In July 2013, just four months after his election, Pope Francis stepped in and replaced Father Manelli, the superior general, with an Apostolic Commissioner, Father Fidenzio Volpi.  Father Volpi is not a member of the Franciscans of the Immaculate—the whole idea of an Apostolic Commissioner is to appoint an outsider to the group to correct the problems that are beyond the ability of an internal administrator.

This is not the first time that the Holy See has removed a religious superior of general rank.  When the Jesuit General, Father Pedro Arrupe—whom John Paul II deeply distrusted for the direction in which Father Arrupe was leading the Jesuits—suffered a debilitating stroke in 1981, the Pope appointed Father Paolo Dezza to head the Order in place of the Vicar General, the American Father Vincent O’Keefe, who would have followed Father Arrupe’s line of action.  Father Dezza governed the Society for two years until a General Congregation was called and elected Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach to succeed Father Arrupe as General.   A key difference, of course, is that Father Dezza, while appointed over the Society by the Pope, was himself a member of the Society of Jesus.  Father Volpi, while not a Franciscan of the Immaculate, is, as a Capuchin, a member of the Franciscan family and from a branch of that family that has a long and established Franciscan heritage. 

When Father Manelli realized he was about to be removed from office he apparently moved some portion of the community’s financial assets—both property and liquid assets—from the community’s control to the control of members of his own family to prevent Father Volpi having access to them.  Father Volpi reported this in a confidential memo to the members of the community as was both his right and his obligation.  Someone leaked the memo, however, and the Manelli family sued Father Volpi for defamation of character.  The moving of community assets to outside sources is, after all, embezzlement and so the memo could be read to accuse Father Manelli and his family of embezzlement. 

In Italian law, before a lawsuit can go to court, there must be recourse to an arbiter who will try to settle the matter without a formal judicial process.  Father Volpi explained to the arbiter that he had merely reported the transfer of assets, made no accusations against the family (though anyone can see that  1 +1 does = 2), and agreed to clarify the matter on the Congregation’s website by publishing a joint statement with the Manelli family explaining the facts.  All well and good.

No, not all was well and good.  The Manelli family, through a family friend who remained anonymous, published a press release that Father Volpi “had admitted his slander and lies” against them in court, was found guilty, and had been sentenced to pay a fine of €20,000.  Father Volpi has since come out and denied the rumor that he admitted guilt and was convicted and fined, and has, in turn, sued the Manelli family for defamation. 

OK, OK, so we have a tempest in a Roman teapot.  Why should this be seen as revealing a fault line for possible schism?  The barque of Peter is navigating far more tempestuous seas than the struggle for control of the assets of a small community of friars and nuns.  We have phase II of the Synod on the family and the Francis faction is fighting for some drastic changes in the discipline of who can who cannot receive the Eucharist.  Indeed there is a conflict brewing over the indissolubility of marriage and the integrity—or lack thereof—of same-sex unions.  Meanwhile, there is a shift in the sort of men Rome is naming as bishops and not all are confident in the “orthodoxy” of the Francis men.  The Dogs of War have been called off the American Nuns who are busy again riding around on buses agitating for the forgotten and overlooked in our society.  Francis himself says that it time for us to get over our “obsession” with the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage and that we need to look at a broader spectrum of todays’ issues: like climate change and immigration.  Who cares about the Franciscans of the Immaculate.  They are supposed to be poor anyway.   Why do they need any assets?

The plight of Father Manelli and his Congregation have galvanized the right-wing not because of the particulars of this case, but because of what Father Manelli stands for.  What brought on the removal of Father Manelli and the appointment of an Apostolic Commissioner is that even before Francis was elected, Friars from the Congregation had appealed to Pope Benedict against Father Manelli’s leadership. Father Manelli had imposed the usus antiquior (the “old Mass”) on the Congregation as its normal liturgy and while the Friars of the Immaculate tend to the conservative, this was too much for some of them who wished to continue using the Novus Ordo (the Vatican II Rite). But it was not only the liturgy.  Father Manelli was turning the clock back to a pre-conciliar era across the board.  The initial formation of the friars and their theological education were also being reorganized to bypass the Second Vatican Council.  The Congregation’s customs and constitutions too were being pushed in a direction more and more divergent from the rest of the Church.  This proved too much for many of the Friars who feared that they were drifting into the Lefebvre schism.   They saw Father Manelli’s program  was not a matter of being conservative or traditionalist, it was becoming a repudiation of the Council in everything but word.  The visitation of the community ordered initially by Pope Benedict led to his successor appointing an outside commissioner to put the congregation back on track with the Church.  So what you have here in Father Manelli and his faction is a clear symbol of “Here I stand (in opposition to Vatican II); I can do no other. God help me.”  And in Father Volpi you have a surrogate for Pope Francis—by whose authority Father Volpi has taken on Father Manelli and his faction—and everything Francis stands for in his Vatican II march to the sea.  The Vatican II Church and the Resist Vatican II Church which has grown within the belly of the Vatican II Church have, in the saga of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, a clear field of battle. 

One of the groups which have led the charge of the Resist Vatican II Church is the Lepanto Institute and its founder, Michael Hichborn, formerly of Judy Brown’s American Life League.   Michael Lofton, a convert to Catholicism affiliated with the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter (The Anglican Usage Ordinariate in the United States), has written a scathing attack on the Francis pontificate published on the Lepanto Institute Webpage.  Lofton considers the Church under Francis to be in its “Babylonian Captivity” and he begins his attack with Father Volpi’s governance of the Franciscans of the Immaculate and then moved on to attack Archbishop Bruno Forte’s work as Special Secretary of the Synod on the Family, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldiserri as Secretary General of the Synod and Father Thomas Rosica as press-liaison for the Synod.  Lofton accused Father Rosica and  his betters of having advanced the “Kasperian” agenda that would permit a change in the Church’s discipline regarding admitting divorced and remarried persons to the Sacraments.  Lofton’s outspoken attack on Francis’ leadership puts the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in an awkward position for though he has no official standing in the Ordinariate such opinions make this group of ex-Anglicans appear less than fully committed to their new Catholic family,

Lofton is only one of several writers for the Lepanto Institute that is pulling at the leash that holds the Resist Vatican II Church to the keys of Peter.  Recently Italian Catholic writer and historian Roberto de Mattei, an outspoken critic of Pope Francis, published an article on the website of his Lepanto foundation asserting that developments since the election of Francis, including his famous “Who am I to judge?” remarks about gays, risk “a road that leads to schism and heresy.”  De Mattei should know better.  Pope’s don’t lead to schism.  A Pope can go into heresy, but he can’t go into schism.  The schism is with those who reject his authority. De Mattei’s anti-Francis rhetoric has grown so strong that even very conservative Catholic sources such as Radio Maria have begun to distance themselves.  But not the bloggers—the Katholic Krazies on the blogosphere like Rorate Caeli love de Mattei and quote him frequently ever widening the divide that is growing in the Church in the controversies over Vatican II.  The Krazies have picked up the Volpi incident and had a field day with it.  Some—and here is credit to Rorate Caeli—have published Volpi’s defense and let the readers decide but many others have only published the Manelli family’s version.  All in all it leaves a very sour taste and certainly undermines the credibility of those who are trying to advance the Resist Vatican II Church agenda.