An apostate's view
The Fire Window, Manchester Cathedral
We've heard a number of religious views about the Pope's extraordinary offer to allow Church of England priests who can't stomach women bishops to convert to Rome - even though some of them are married, and even being allowed to keep to some of their Anglican traditions. Some feminists have criticised it as predatory; some have predictably welcomed it, and some bishops look like taking it up. This is everybody's business, though, not just believers' business - just as much as private clubs' membership rules are in my view everyone's business, say, or political parties' candidate selection, or indeed political defections. Anyway, I've never noticed any reluctance on the part of Popes or Bishops to opine on non-religious matters. Here, then, is the view of an excommunicated apostate. Believers are more than welcome to correct me if there's anything I misunderstand.
I agree that the Pope is being predatory here, not to say wholly cynical: you have to admire the old man's chutzpah in trying to annex part of the C of E in advance of his state visit next year. Perhaps he hopes to Newmanise the whole of England.
What is most baffling about this affair though is how any Anglo-Catholic can see the issue of women bishops (perhaps together with a perceived liberal drift on homosexuality - one imperceptible to outsiders) as a reason to turn to Rome. Can any of them really, in conscience, now say they suddenly accept Catholic dogmas, having lived contrary to them all their vocations long?
Let's take the issue of whether scripture contains all things necessary for salvation, as we're told Anglicans believe. That's not Rome's position - it sees tradition as just as important. Do these Anglo-Catholic defectors claim to have changed their mind on this - or did they never agree with what seems the official Anglican doctrine in the first place?
Getting a bit closer to the bone, if the question of whether bishops can be women is so crucial, why do they attach so much less importance to the question whether priests can be married? Some of the potential defectors are themselves married - conduct in their own personal lives that is directly contrary to Roman Catholic belief about the nature of priesthood. And have they been living in accordance with Humanae Vitae? Do they propose to from now on?
Even closer to the bone, for some, is the issue of homosexuality. George Pitcher certainly thinks quite a few potential defectors are themselves gay. It's okay to be a gay priest in the C of E, so long as you don't practice it: as I understand it (from Issues in Human Sexuality, para. 5.19) clergy who come out as "homophile in orientation" but who accept abstinence are to be welcomed and employed; and candidates for ordination will not be quizzed about their celibacy unless there are strong reasons for doing so. But in the Pope's church, men presenting "deep seated homosexual tendencies" cannot be ordained at all, whether or not they practice their sexuality; and it is even prepared to use psychological tests to root out these tendencies. Again, therefore, to be conscious of ones homosexuality seems to this outsider just as contrary to the Catholic idea of priesthood as to be married. On reflection, some of these priests may be forced to conclude they are excluded from Rome just as they would exclude others from their own church. Only unmarried straight or effectively asexual Anglo-Catholics can, it seems to me, unashamedly aspire to be Catholic priests.
Most critically, though, potential defectors have, until now, been happy to be part of a church that rejects papal authority. Indeed, opposition to his authority was the rock on which the Church of England was founded almost five hundred years ago. How can these people now say that just because of women bishops that's all forgiven and forgotten - a little mistake - and that they're now happy to do as the Pope tells them? They may have convinced themselves that he's merely some sort of primus inter pares; but he certainly doesn't see things that way. The defectors have been happy to serve in a church that's at least partially democratic and to argue their case against reform; if they turn to Rome, they'll find they have no say whatever, for instance on whether offers like this should be made, or when some future Pope unilaterally decides priests can be married, or women, after all (as I predict he will within fifty, then within a hundred, years). The Pope in Rome may only rarely be infallible, but he's always the one who decides.
The gulf between Canterbury and Rome seems to me as wide as the Channel and as high as the Alps, and any Anglo-Catholic who defects now must explain why the prospect of women bishops has made him change his mind on other, more fundamental doctrines; or else, if he claims always to have accepted those doctrines, why he hasn't been a Catholic and lived by them before now.
Many atheists will, I think, conclude that in reality this is nothing to do with the details of the dogma of either denomination, and that theological disputation about it is just a thick cloud of incense. Isn't this really about some extremely conservative-minded people's deep-rooted commitment against women's equality - a commitment that transcends and overwhelms all other doctrinal, spiritual and ecclesiastical considerations and loyalties?
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