{"id":79,"date":"2019-11-18T13:07:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T13:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/?page_id=79"},"modified":"2020-02-06T09:13:52","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T09:13:52","slug":"two-theological-college-principals","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/two-theological-college-principals\/","title":{"rendered":"Two theological college principals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\nTwo educators of Anglican\nOrdinands were invited to speak at this Symposium: the Revd Canon Dr\nRobin Ward, Principal of St Stephen\u2019s House, Oxford, and the Revd\nFr Peter Allan CR, Principal of the College of the Resurrection,\nMirfield. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE CHAIRMAN<\/strong><\/em>\nintroduced them as follows:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhen I was starting out, I\nremember that I saw my diocesan director of ordinands once, for ten\nminutes, before going to a selection conference. It was so\ndifferent 45 years ago. After my selection conference I saw my\ndiocesan bishop, Cyril Easthaugh, Bishop of Peterborough, of blessed\nmemory, who I think was out of time even in those days. He told me I\nwas going to Cuddesdon. Well, I did not have any views on anything,\nso I went there. I think he thought it was the same as it had been\nwhen he was there, many years previously. He had not realised that\nit had got into the grip of liberal theology in the meantime! It was\nvery soon after that that I paid my first visit to the Shrine of Our\nLady of Walsingham, which I\u2019ve got to know rather well over the\nyears. There, I was told by another ordinand, who became an\narchdeacon in the end, that Chichester was the only Catholic college\nbecause it was the only one \u2013 whether this was true or not \u2013 that\nhad votive candles in the chapel. They are now everywhere in the\nChurch of England. I saw them in a Methodist church the other day. \nIt suggests that Catholicism really has altered since then. The\nprocesses of discernment, selection and all the rest seem\nlabyrinthine nowadays. Having been chair of the Ministry Division,\nI have probably contributed to that \u2013 or at least was not able to\nstop it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI suppose the majority of us\nlook upon St Stephen\u2019s House and Mirfield as the colleges today\nwhich are most distinctively Catholic; but I do know, through\nordinands from my diocese who have gone to both, that there is an\nextraordinary mixture of people who go to these colleges, compared\nwith some years ago. We are privileged to have Robin Ward and\nPeter Allan with us to reflect on what Catholicity means to their\nstudents when they arrive, and how they may perhaps have changed when\nthey leave. Robin has now had eleven years at St Stephen\u2019s House. \nAlthough Peter has had a shorter period of time as Principal of the\nCollege of the Resurrection at Mirfield, many who trained there,\nincluding perhaps some of you, will have known him over the years as\na teacher and tutor. So Robin first, and then Peter. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\t*\t\t*\t\t*\t\t*\t\t*\t\t*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE REVD CANON DR ROBIN\nWARD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPrincipal of St Stephen\u2019s\nHouse, Oxford<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThank you very much. I want\nto start off by talking about the ways in which the experience of\nCatholicity has changed, looking back at my own experience when I\ntrained at St Stephen\u2019s House in the 1980s, but I also want to talk\nabout some of the ecclesiological issues that the Catholicity<\/em>\nReport proposes, and how one can posit a Catholic ecclesiology for\nthose training today for ministry in the Catholic tradition in the\nChurch of England today. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nFrom my own experience, I\nwould say it is much easier now to give a holistic Catholic account\nof the Catholic ascetical life and liturgical life in colleges. In\nthe late 1980s, two things, I think, made that quite difficult to do.\n The first thing was a tremendous paranoia about Roman things. The\npoint about the votive candles that Bishop Graham mentioned is\ninteresting; but liturgical life in colleges was very much \u2018sat\nupon\u2019 in case anything perceived as being Popish should put off\nsponsoring bishops. It was often quite difficult to tell what these\nPopish things were. They did not include vestments, although it\nseems to me that these are quite Popish; and it probably did not\ninclude incense; but there were other things \u2013 too much Mariology,\nand things like that. People are much more relaxed about all this\nnow, and that makes it much better. The second thing, of course, was\nthe undigested nature of the relationship of Anglo\u2011Catholicism\nwith homosexuality, and a tremendous paranoia that if somebody lit a\ncandle for the office or saw a nice vestment, then unnatural vice\nwould break out on a tremendous scale and everything would fall\napart \u2013 sort of Unguarded\nHours<\/em>.1<\/sup><\/a>\n My word! They know nothing! I take the view that the best people\nto wear lace cotters are overweight, middle-aged, married men who are\nrunning theological colleges, and then any erotic aura that might\nattach to these things rapidly disappears! So those things are much\neasier today than they used to be. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe great French confessor and\nspiritual director Huvelin2<\/sup><\/a>,\nwrote of the first seminary founded in France in the seventeenth\ncentury, Saint\u2011Nicolas\u2011du\u2011Chardonnet: \u2018I would\nnot have liked to have been at the seminary, but I would have liked\nto live in the street opposite so that I could go to the services\nthere\u2019. Nobody in the late 1980s would have lived in Marston\nStreet to go to the services at St Stephen\u2019s House! I\nthink people do now \u2013 so that, too, is rather different \u2013 and\nit\u2019s possible to offer a quite fulsome and lived experience of the\nCatholic tradition in colleges today. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nLiving the Catholic Life<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nHow bishops perceive this is\nan interesting question, because although I think bishops are often\nsympathetic to having Catholics around, it\u2019s a bit as if their\ndioceses were zoos, and \u2013 as zookeepers \u2013 they like to have a\nflamingo house. They are pleased that there are flamingos in it. \nThey would not like the whole zoo to be full of flamingos \u2013 that\nwould be too much \u2013 but if the flamingos were to fly away or die\noff, then penguins could probably be put in the space that was left. \nSo I think Catholics are valued as a minority, as people who have a\nparticular liturgical expression that makes them a bit difficult to\ndeploy, but interesting to have around, partly for heritage reasons\nand partly because it adds to the flavour of the mix. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSo I think introducing people\nto what you might call the Catholic ascetic, the Catholic life, the\nlived Catholic life, is now rather easier to do than once it was,\nbecause particular issues to do with how Anglo-Catholicism was and\nhow the Church of England was have become more relaxed. I still\nthink there is a difficulty in presenting the Catholic lived life as\nsomething coming out of doctrine, something coming out of the\nencounter with the person of Jesus Christ, rather than as simply a\nparticular preference that can be introduced to people as an option \u2013\na bit of incense and a candle one week, a bit of Charismatic the\nnext, and so on. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThat is the experience of\nteaching people and introducing people to the lived Catholic life,\nbut I want to touch now on ecclesiological issues. What does one\npropose to candidates who come looking for a strong Catholic\nidentity? How does one give a theological account of what it means\nto be the Church? This, I would say, is much more problematic, much\nmore complicated. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nCatholic Life rooted in\nDoctrine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn 1947, if you were a\nCatholic-minded young man going to a theological college, I think you\nwould have had three options of ecclesiology to take off the shelf,\nso to speak. Most obvious would have been the Branch Theory. \nIf you arrived at Cuddesdon, you would have read Bicknell\u2019s\ntheological introduction to the 39 Articles. If you were a bit more\nhigh church, you might have read Vernon Staley\u2019s Catholicism<\/em>.\n Such books propose a branch theory of the Church \u2013 that\nis, that certain churches preserve Catholic order: the Roman Church,\nthe Russian Church and other Orthodox Churches, and the Anglican\nChurch. These are the three branches, together with the various\nlittle Oriental branches, that make up Catholicity. Although we\nmight be sympathetic to some strands of non-conformity, these are the\nreal thing, because these have Catholic order and Catholic practice.\n \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOf course, this relates very\nclosely to Empire. For Latin-speaking nations there is the Roman\nCatholic Church. For Slavs and Greeks there are the Orthodox\nChurches; and for the bits of the map painted red there was the\nChurch of England \u2013 Anglicanism as a Communion corresponding to\nEmpire, corresponding to Commonwealth, with the very attractive\nfeature that, away from the sort of dank Protestantism of England,\nchurchmanship actually shapes up in a rather more Catholic way. \nIf you look at Vernon Staley\u2019s early editions of his book on\nCatholicism, there are long lists of bishops to convince one that\nthis is a great international communion, an aspect of Catholicity. \nThis view comes to its peak in Lockhart\u2019s biography of Cosmo Lang,\nwhere one of the chapters is entitled Alterius\nOrbis Papa<\/em> \u2013 Pope\nof the Outer Isles. It is almost inconceivable to think of a\nterm like that being used now in relation to the Archbishop of\nCanterbury. Perhaps it would be quite good to revive it! I do not\nknow. It would send us back in the right direction. Alterius\nOrbis Papa \u2013 <\/em>a\nvision of a branch of the Church, authentically Catholic throughout. \nI have to say that this now appears fantastical, because there are\nall sorts of doctrinal issues that have made for what seems to be a\nrescission from Catholic faith and order in various ways. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nConfirmation<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWithout touching on\nparticularly controversial issues, I draw attention to the\nquestion of Confirmation. Confirmation figures very strongly as a\nsort of Anglican delineator in this 1947 Report, mentioned on several\noccasions. Lionel Thornton, of course, was very firm about its\nimportance. But the number of confirmations in the Church of England\nhas halved in the last ten years, and is becoming increasingly\nassociated, I am afraid, with the sort of\nzareba<\/em> of\ntraditionalist Anglicans demarcated by alternative episcopal\noversight. The Bishop of Fulham, the bishop who offers that\noversight in London and Southwark, confirmed 256 people last\nyear. That is not a spectacular number. It is five each week. This\nis not some great boast for the efficacy of alternative episcopal\noversight; but he confirmed more people than were confirmed in\nfifteen dioceses in the Church of England. There are dioceses\nwhere confirmation figures hover at around 100 \u2013 not just one or\ntwo dioceses, but many. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSo the branch theory, with its\nvery clear-sighted idea of the Catholicity of the Church of England\nbased on the three-fold ministry \u2013 on Confirmation, on the\nSacraments, on the visible church \u2013 is much more difficult to\npropose today, when you look at the way in which the Anglican\ncommunion has become more Protestant in its self\u2011understanding,\nmore Evangelical, Charismatic Evangelical \u2013 where the American\nchurch calls itself the Episcopal Church and defines itself over and\nagainst being part of the Anglican communion in some ways, and also\nappears to be very theologically liberal and rather fading away. So\nAlterius Orbis Papa<\/em>\nis not easy to propose to people as a means of defining themselves\necclesiologically. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPatristics plus Hegel<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSecond, for the more\nintellectually-minded ordinand in 1947, you had the classic Anglican\nfusion of patristics plus Hegel. The report is rather scathing about\nHegel, but actually it contains all sorts of Hegelian suppositions. \nPeople who are Catholics in Papua New Guinea, rural\nPortugal, Ghana and places like that do not say to themselves:\n\u2018I look forward to my Catholicity coming to fruition in a\nsynthesis in the future\u2019. They say: \u2018I\u2019m either a Catholic or\nI\u2019m not\u2019. But for the second generation of the Oxford Movement\n\u2013 particularly those who were influenced by the Hegelianism of\nBailey, Jowett, Charles Gore, the Lux Mundi School \u2013 the Hegelian\nphilosophy of movement towards synthesis was very appealing. It gave\na very clear account of how it was that the rather unpromising\nmaterial of the Church of England could be seen in a very ideal\nCatholic sense; and so we have kenotic theology, kenotic\nChristology. If Jesus did not know during his earthly life that he\nwas God incarnate, so the Church will not have a proper\nself-knowledge of herself until the life of Heaven. This has been a\ntremendous influence on Anglican ecclesiology. We see it in William\nTemple, a classic Hegelian, and of course in Rowan Williams, who is\npatristics plus Hegel par\nexcellence <\/em>for our\nown age. This is a tremendously strong part of Anglo-Catholic\nself-identity, but one evidently in eclipse. We had a Hegelian\nprimacy for ten years, and the synthesis took a long time coming. I\nam not actually sure we now look for synthesis in the same way \u2013\nthe aspiration that, out of conflict, a synthesis leading to a higher\nlevel of consciousness will arise. So that model, I think, is not\nquite discredited, perhaps, but waiting for a better age. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is also the case, I think,\nthat the Anglican attachment to patristics as the sort of \u2018definitive\ntheology\u2019 that \u2018top people\u2019 do has taken a great knocking. \nThere was a very astute book written by a French scholar on the\nChurch of England and Christian antiquity, published about five years\nago, which talks about the way that patristics was used after the\nRestoration to sort of whack dissenters around the head, because the\nknowledge of Greek and Latin required to be an effective Patrologist\nwas only acquirable in Anglican educational establishments, so\nAnglican education privileged itself in that way. Quantin says that\nboth in Roman Catholicism in the 1950s, with the resource movement,\nbut also in the Church of England, what was considered a means of\nenforcing a conservative outlook back to patristics actually shook\nthings up in all sorts of different ways.3<\/sup><\/a> That whole sense of people\nin Oxford libraries saying, \u2018I\u2019m sure there is something in\nPhiloxenus of Mabbug about\nthis which will resolve our issue about confirmation or whatever it\nmight be\u2019, is a rather outdated way of doing theology. It is not\nsomething that, in the academic world or in Christian dialogue, is\nparticularly pertinent any more as a means of resolving ecumenical\nquestions. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAnglo-Papalism<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe third sort of\necclesiological self-definition is, of course, Anglo-Papalism. It\nwas always a much smaller movement, but I think it did nevertheless\nreflect a key insight of the Oxford Movement from the beginning \u2013\nthat the Oxford Movement was a movement.\n It was designed to go somewhere. In going somewhere, it needed to\nhave reunion as part of that picture. To a certain extent, the\nHegelian high summer of the Church of England between about 1890 and\n1914 seriously knocked that off the agenda, so we were not able to\nbenefit, for example, from the Thomist\nrevival. It is very interesting that Eric Mascall was not included\nin the theologians who wrote the 1947 Report, although he mentions\nthe process of writing that Report in his book of memoires, Saraband<\/em>.\n \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nOf course, Anglican Papalism\ntoday, with the Ordinariate, is a very dissipated movement. People\nlike to patronise the Ordinariate a bit. It is, of course, made up\nof Anglicans, so perhaps we should be a bit more sympathetic. We can\nsee that some themes of Anglican Papalism have come to their\nconsummation in the Ordinariate, small as it is; but it is very\ndifficult now, given the way we have a very fractured ecclesiology\nwithin the Catholic movement, to give an account of Anglican\nPapalism that serves as a means of giving self-definition to a\npriestly ministry for an ordinand in the way it did in the 1980s,\nwhen reunion did really seem just around the corner, with the Pope\nand the Archbishop of Canterbury kneeling together in Canterbury\nCathedral. This option now seems much more difficult to articulate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe situation today<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nHaving been through those\nthree options by which Anglo\u2011Catholics used to define\nthemselves, we come to where we are now. I think it is very\ndifficult. In 1917, the British Army used to sing: \u2018We\u2019re here\nbecause we\u2019re here because we\u2019re here.\u2019 There is an element in\nwhich this is our ecclesiology as Catholics in the Church of England\ntoday. This is the place in which we have received the faith. This\nis the Church into which God has called us to work. Anything more\nthan that, I think, is quite problematic. That may seem a\npessimistic conclusion for the Society of the Faith,\nbut I think there is a real ecclesiological deficit. I think it is\none of the reasons why, proportionately, Catholic ordinands in the\nChurch of England are at quite a low ebb. We shall see what happens.\n Perhaps this will be the beginning of something different\u2026. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\t*\t\t*\t\t*\t\t*\t\t*\t\t*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE REVD FR PETER ALLAN CR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPrincipal of the College of\nthe Resurrection, Mirfield<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is something of a challenge\nto follow Robin, but I will do my best. I want first to say a\nhuge thank you to Robert Gage and Stephen Tucker for inviting me to\nbe part of this Symposium, because I am aware, day by day, just how\nmuch is at stake. I have to say that, for me, the whole issue of\nCatholicity is very much bound up with where our understanding of the\nhuman person has got to in the beginning of this third millennium,\nand as yet I see little serious intellectual engagement with that. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThere is, to my mind, a\nmagnificent television series. If you happen to have access to\nNetflix then you should watch Ainsi\nsoient-ils<\/em>. (The\nEnglish version is titled The\nChurchmen.)<\/em> It is\na quite extraordinary telling of a story of a seminary, the\nexploration of French Catholicism in the contemporary French state\nand the tensions between the French church and the Vatican. The\nwhole thing is there. The ordinands\/seminarians are very\nrecognisable. I say no more. If you have not seen it, then you\nshould. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI am also very conscious of\nstanding, in a sense, where Lionel Thornton stood. At the risk of\nsquandering my few minutes, there are two memories of Lionel in the\nCommunity which are cherished. One is when, at a very busy Saturday\nafternoon tea some guests saw a brother sitting all by himself at the\nfar end of the refectory and asked: \u2018Who is that?\u2019, somebody\nreplied, \u2018Oh, that is Fr Lionel Thornton. He is writing a book on\nthe common life\u2019. The other story is that, at the end of his life,\nLionel had a great horror of anything at all liberal and had fallen\nout with Geoffrey Lampe over his book God\nas Spirit<\/em>. The\nInfirmarian, not knowing whether Lionel was dead or not, said:\n\u2018Lionel, Geoffrey Lampe is here to see you\u2019. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWhat can Mirfield offer?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI want to begin by setting\nout, in a slightly formal way, but only very sketchily, my hopes for\nwhat students take away from Mirfield, and then to fill it out with a\nlittle more anecdote and autobiography. The formal part consists of\nthree ingredients, with one presupposition and one implicit\nconsequence. My presupposition is that there has to be an acceptance\nof the Church as the divinely constituted extension of the\nIncarnation into which the baptised are incorporated by grace. It\nsounds very uncontroversial, but the fact is that so many elements of\nthis are a bit tenuous at the moment. One of the things that saddens\nme daily is the loss of our appreciation of baptism as the absolute\nfoundation of Christian life. This makes talk of discipleship so\ncomplicated. The three ingredients are (i) confidence in the\nsovereignty of God, (ii) confidence in the sacramental economy,\nand (iii) confidence in the liturgical celebration of word and\nsacrament as participation in the missio\nDei<\/em>, again utterly\nuncontroversial but extraordinarily difficult to convey in our\ngeneration. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAgain, just to try to give\nsome context, I was very struck some years ago by a book by Reinhard\nH\u00fctter, Suffering\nDivine Things<\/em>. \nH\u00fctter is a German-American Protestant theologian struggling to\narticulate an ecclesiology, and finding that in the end it was\nprobable that you could only have a satisfactory ecclesiology that\nwas essentially Catholic. It is a fascinating book \u2013 a very dense\npiece of work, but fascinating. H\u00fctter\u2019s work is paralleled in a\nsense by the way in which so many of the German Lutheran religious\ncommunities have found themselves being drawn more and more into a\nCatholic ecclesiology in order to sustain their\nself-understanding. So then, just a word or two more about these\nthree ingredients. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nConfidence in the\nsovereignty of God<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThis is of course reminiscent\nof the Barthian insistence on God as the subject of theology,\nbut not even Barth had anticipated the success of the project of\nmodernity in undermining our need for God to the extent that, whereas\nAquinas can include the human inclination for God so effortlessly,\nsearch for the truth about God is now put in question. Inevitably,\nthis has led to an anthropocentrism driving much theological writing\nand much of the life of the Church. Further, as the spotlight\nfocuses ever more narrowly on the human being, so the experience is\nof fragility, vulnerability, isolation and inadequacy. It is not\naccidental that there is great talk about the need to give ordinands\ntraining in resilience. Any tendency to separate the creating and\nreconciling work of God runs the risk of increasing polarisation and\nalienation. Confidence in the sovereignty of God can only be found\nin a profoundly Catholic appreciation of the unity of God\u2019s\ncreating and reconciling work. As creatures fashioned out of love by\nthe good God, utterly dependent on God\u2019s grace and compassion, we\nare invited to find life through what James Alison memorably calls\n\u2018the joy of being wrong\u2019. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nConfidence in the\nSacramental Economy<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe second ingredient \u2013\nconfidence in the sacramental economy \u2013 begins for me with the\napparently effortless simplicity with which Charles Williams\nunderstood Christian life as life in two dimensions \u2013 life here and\nnow, and life in the Kingdom \u2013 summed up in his memorable response\nwhen somebody saw him coming and said: \u2018Williams, how are you?\u2019 \n\u2018In the city and under the protection.\u2019 This continues in the\nsense articulated so unambiguously by Nicolas Zernov 45 years ago,\nthat at the heart of sacramental theology is the recognition that\nmatter can be spirit\u2011bearing. Symbols are not open to human\ndefinition and interpretation, but are divine gifts, direct\ncommunication by divine initiative. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nConfidence in the\nLiturgical Celebration of Word and Sacrament<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe third ingredient is\nconfidence in the liturgical celebration of word and sacrament as\nparticipation in the missio\nDei. <\/em>Alas, this\nvital element is at risk of being pushed out by the emerging dominant\npicture of worship as mediocre entertainment. Worship is not\nentertainment, nor is it anthropocentric didacticism. Rather, like\nthe disciples on the Emmaus road, worship is the recognition of, and\nencounter with, the risen Lord in word and sacrament. In parentheses\nI should say that 35 years of monastic life has profoundly changed my\nunderstanding of liturgical life. I am aware that this is not a\nperspective that is readily available to all, but I am thankful that\nin some sense it is available to our students at Mirfield. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe implicit consequence of\nthis is that I hope to see persons going from Mirfield to serve the\nbody of Christ in the ordained ministerial priesthood and diaconate\nwith a deep\u2011rooted sense of the intimate connection between\nresponse to the holiness of God and commitment to social justice and\nthe transformation of society. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nMaking this more\npersonal<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSo then (though not with quite\nthe same verve as Robin managed) let me add a little anecdote and\nautobiography to that. In the course of the 30 years I have been\nteaching at Mirfield, the picture has changed dramatically. Going\nback even earlier to the 1970s, when I was a student, I shared the\nsame experience as Bishop Graham, only meeting my Diocesan Director\nof Ordinands once \u2013 but that was in a lay-by on the A23. I never\nmet the bishop. When I was at Mirfield in the 1970s, Mirfield, with\nKelham, was viewed with some suspicion by the pucka Catholic\ncolleges. We were altogether too monkish, and our embracing of\nCatholic practices was thought to be unsound and altogether too\nmuch coloured by the Book of Common Prayer. There were, it\nwas thought, too many floppy, so\u2011called Prayer Book\nCatholics and incipient liberals amongst us. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nBy the late 1980s, with the\nincreasing polarisation in the church, Mirfield joined with\nChichester and St Stephen\u2019s House in seeking to claim and\ndefend the Catholic territory \u2013 a territory that\nbecame disastrously contested with all the events that followed from\n1992 onwards.4<\/sup><\/a>\n Ordinands at that time were more uniformly black\u2011suited and\nmuch more likely to end up as priests of the Roman Catholic Church \u2013\nso much so that one former student, who had become\nsecretary to the Archbishop of Birmingham, brought his Archbishop on\na visit to Mirfield to see the seminary where so many of his priests\nwere trained. There was one slightly tricky moment when we were\ncoming back down the corridor, and I suddenly realised that one\nstudent had the Papal arms on his door. Seeing it, the Archbishop\nsaid: \u2018Does the young man know what that is?\u2019 I said: \u2018I am\nafraid he does, Father.\u2019 Although in that period it seemed easier\nto identify the elements of a Catholic identity, I am not at all\nclear that there was a shared participation in the life\u2011giving\nmystery of Catholicity, but rather a sense of Catholicity as a means\nof excluding from communion and fellowship those thought to be\nlacking in a few or in many ways. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe new millennium:\nstudents\u2019 lack of Church background<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSince then, coming into this\nmillennium, there has been another big shift. It is now common for\nordinands to arrive with little or no experience of the liturgical\ncalendar, the basic practices of Catholic Christianity or the\ndisciplines of the spiritual life. On the other hand, there are\nstudents from a great range of backgrounds and church experience who\ncome with a curiosity and an openness that is deeply attractive. \nThis entails a substantial problem of time. Inhabiting a way of\nlife, learning a culture, takes time and persistent attention. \nOrdinands are characteristically with us for 18 months, despite the\nfact that we attract a higher than usual proportion of young\ncandidates, some of whom have three years in training. This is a\ndesperately short time for acquiring the elements of the\nspiritual life, as Harton called it, or an understanding of\n\u2018practick divinity\u2019, as the Caroline Divines would have it. \nMost are drawn by the spirituality of the shared liturgical prayer of\nthe Monastic community and the stability that equates to the\nsteadfastness of God. They hanker after such a disciplined life, but\nare rarely able to lay aside so much of contemporary culture that\ninhibits the kind of radical and mutual interdependence on which it\nis founded. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nWrapped up in all of this is\nwhat for me is best described as epistemological fragility, something\nacutely significant for the very notion and practice of Catholicity. \nWhen I was about 12, I found myself with a group of young teenagers\nbeing taken around Chichester Cathedral by a friar. We\nyoungsters were peering at this and that in a typically desultory\nfashion and, unknown to us, had sauntered past the Blessed Sacrament.\n Our watchful guardian corralled us, and taught us with no ifs or\nbuts to genuflect in the presence of the Sacrament. Way back then,\nover 50 years ago, there was a large enough reservoir of meaning and\npractice for that instruction to resonate, and for us to be confident\nthat it came from more than one friar\u2019s peculiar habits. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, that reservoir of meaning has gone. We want perhaps to believe that gestures and practices have deeper meaning but, for all that, we are bound to spend much effort on persuading ourselves of the meaning we choose to give to the choices we make. Now, as I observe students, guests and monks arriving for evensong, there is evidence of devotion, but it is first of all expressive of individual need, feeling, capacity. Some do still genuflect. Some make a profound bow. Some scamper past slightly guiltily. Some stroll nonchalantly past. I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with this diversity, but the demands of post-modern authenticity have taken away the possibility of a shared action that encourages and deepens acceptance of the mystery, except when that shared action is in some sense agreed by a group for its own purposes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is just a very small illustration of something that is, for me, profoundly problematic about the way in which not just Catholicism but the communication of the Gospel is being challenged in our generation. I find it an immensely exciting moment. The way students are willing to engage with this gives me hope; but, as I suggested at the beginning, my anxiety is that at the moment our theological thinking is too narrow. I have been struck by the challenges posed, for instance, by the writings of Noah Harari, and I think there is much there that we need to take on board if we are to share with the whole of the Catholic world a message of good news for our generation.5<\/sup><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe International\nDimension<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For us at Mirfield, there is one dimension that we have lost over the last 15 or 20 years: the international dimension. Because of the policies of the present Government, the restriction of visas has had a disastrous effect. One of the great things about Mirfield was that its Catholicism was always international \u2013 it was the Catholicism of the Anglican Communion with the Community in South Africa \u2013 but it was also deeply fed by the Community\u2019s relationship with the Benedictine Abbey of St Matthias, Trier and German Catholicism, with whom we have shared communion and a recognition of ministries, with the knowledge of the bishops, since the 1970s. It has also extended into our relationships with the Romanian Church and the Armenian Church. The loss of this dimension is, I think, a very serious one for reflecting on what it means to be a Catholic Christian. So I fear our own students are now slightly restricted in what they are able to achieve in the time; but I am happy that we still have some. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There then followed a time of discussion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Footnotes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/em>. A novel by A. N. Wilson published in 1978, about the \u2018goings on\u2019 in an Oxford theological college.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/em>. Fr Henri Huvelin 1830 \u2013 1910.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3<\/em>. Jean-Louis Quantin: The Church of England and Christian Antiquity. The Construction of a Confessional Identity in the 17th Century<\/em> 2009, published by Oxford University Press.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4<\/em>. 1992 was the year in which women were first ordained as priests in the Church of England.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5<\/em>. Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind<\/em> 2011, and Homo Deus. A brief history of tomorrow<\/em> 2015 \u2013 both published by Vintage, London.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two educators of Anglican Ordinands were invited to speak at this Symposium: the Revd Canon Dr Robin Ward, Principal of St Stephen\u2019s House, Oxford, and the Revd Fr Peter Allan CR, Principal of the College of the Resurrection, Mirfield. THE CHAIRMAN introduced them as follows: When I was starting out, I remember that I saw … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-79","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/79\/revisions\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}