YOUNG traditionalist ordinands with greater than 40 years of ministry before them are one sign that their tradition just isn’t ossifying, the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Revd Jonathan Baker, said this week, on the chrism mass for parishes to which he ministers.
While expressing a reluctance to “engage with any controversy”, Bishop Baker addressed towards the tip of his sermon remarks made by the Bishop of Croydon, Dr Rosemarie Mallett, during last month’s WATCH conference (News, 4 April). Within the Church there had been, she said, an “ossification, if not growth, of the viewpoints purported by those that feel unable to receive the ministry of ladies bishops or priests or those male bishops who’ve ordained them”.
“I even have to say to my sister in Christ and fellow bishop who used that term — not by name, but by association — of me and all of you — very firmly: No!” he told the congregation at St Andrew’s, Holborn, in London, on Tuesday. “Why? Because the lifetime of the Church Catholic — her scriptures, her sacraments, her creeds, her ministry — embodies and expresses the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led living Tradition received and handed on in every generation — living water, ever fresh, ever renewing itself.”
Among a series of examples, he spoke of the 50 young adults who had attended the launch of Fidelium, a recent lay-led network of Anglo-Catholic Christians aged 18-35 in London under his patronage earlier this 12 months. And of candidates for ordination with “40 — 45! — years of full-time ministry to provide to this Church”.
“There isn’t any ossification here,” he said. “The Spirit of God is at work, respiratory life, renewing the Church. To all who love the Church, and the Church of England particularly, but who see some things in a different way from the way in which we do, I say: Let us be partners: we don’t desire, and there isn’t any reason, for us to be at enmity.”
Among those that attended the mass were three women priests from the diocese of London, including the chair of WATCH, the Revd Martine Oborne. In an account published online, “Making the pain of our exclusion present”, she wrote: “we were pleased that we were greeted with smiles, despite wearing clerical dress that indicated our priesthood. Nonetheless, it is tough to feel truly welcome after we weren’t in a position to robe for the service, nor to process into the church with our male colleagues, nor to sit down with them — as priests together. We sat as a substitute within the congregation in the back of the nave.”
During the renewal of ordination vows, she and the opposite women priests had stood with the male priests to affirm their vows, “regardless that only ‘Beloved sons’ had been invited to accomplish that. We also prolonged our hands with theirs through the blessing of oils and concelebration, as one would normally do in such a service, though painfully aware that our actions could have been viewed there as either hostile or ridiculous.”
It was a “beautiful service”, they usually had been “warmly invited to remain for drinks” and “engaged in quite a lot of nice conversations”, Ms Oborne wrote. “My two colleagues and I got here away from the service pleased that we had attended but, at the identical time, deeply saddened that ladies and men usually are not treated equally within the Church of England and that we’re out of communion with our male ‘Fulham’ colleagues who is not going to receive the sacraments from female clergy or from clergy ordained by female bishops.”
Also in attendance was the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally. On Wednesday, she said that she was “committed to the flourishing of all our clergy” and spoke of a “close and positive partnership with the Bishop of Fulham within the spirit of the Five Guiding Principles”. Her attendance on the mass was “a visual witness to this partnership and, after all, its personal cost for myself and others”. She looked forward to the diocesan chrism mass on Maundy Thursday, attended by the Bishop of Fulham and others who had attended the service on Tuesday, “in a beautiful celebration of our shared calling to bring hope to the world”.
Bishop Baker also spoke of looking forward to this service, and said that he had been “delighted” by Bishop Mullally’s attendance on the Fulham service.
Speaking to BBC Woman’s Hour last week, the associate director of the Church Society, Dr Ros Clarke, said that many conservative Evangelical churches were “really thriving and flourishing”, with the typical variety of under-18s in these churches standing at 33. Ms Oborne told the programme that many churches weren’t transparent about their position (News, 4 October 2019).
