A friend has sent me a cutting from his parish bulletin alerting me to the fact that St Michael's Church in Bishops Cleeve in Gloucestershire is now "legally" a joint Catholic-CofE Church.
He has also pointed out that the current Catholic PP is somewhere in the Basil Loftus wing of the contemporary Church in England and Wales.
But things change, and Clifton is a Diocese with a rather large number of Extraordinary Form-celebrating priests.
You are probably beginning to get my drift ...
An Ordinariate-rite Mass might be considered to be an ecumenical "step too far": so might "conjectured Sarum". But the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite is freely available to all priests and should be considered uncontroversial. I wonder what happens when the PP is away and the Diocese provides a supply priest? I wonder what will happen when "fr Peter" moves?
4 comments:
In the Archdiocese of Liverpool there is at least one shared church with a "split tabernacle" (one with a shelf).
Can you tell me if this horror will be present in Bishops Cleeve?
It is quite hard to undo such things once they take root, it is better they never happen at all in the first place.
Hmmm....my guess is that if a visiting priest wants to say an EF Mass there will be all hell to pay (metaphorically speaking).
My Clifton Diocese parish church is "low church" Catholic, where the PP has CofE a accretions during Mass. He criticises bot Pope and Magisterium, looks for greater lay participation and is great on having Deacons. He does not preach the Real Presence. When a locum priest is required, we get another of the same ilk, and the previous PP was also of the same inclinations. All this, of course, a copuy of the position within the CofE, the Bishop would be unlikely to place a Traditionally leaning priest in parish, but perpetuate the position.
And then there's the Methodist "ordinations" in Liverpool Cathedral on 3rd July!
I liked (in a perverse sense) the reference to the Basil Loftus wing of the contemporary Church in E &W. There's a strange fellow if ever there was one. Although I have not laid eyes on him in many a year, we were actually at school together!
God help us!
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