New Zealand Conservative

As CoNZervative points out , a mere 18 days after marriage was re(un)defined, there is a story of an Auckland man who has taken his Anglican Bishop to court because he was rejected for a priest training programme because he is in a relationship with a man. Eugene Sisneros has described his hurt and humiliation after allegedly being rejected for a priest training programme because he was in a same-sex relationship. A Human Rights Tribunal hearing into the alleged discrimination opened at Auckland District court today. Mr Sisneros is taking the Anglican Bishop of Auckland to the tribunal, claiming he was barred because of his sexuality - a claim the bishop has denied, saying he was simply following the church's doctrines. Here is where it gets silly: Mr Sisneros said his rejection from the programme has had long-term effects. "I am deeply affected by this discrimination as a human being. I am not equal. "My feelings of humiliation and disappointment continue...

This is one of the real problems of mixing Church and State. In Britain, it looks like it's going to get messy. Our rulers hold democracy in contempt. In Parliament yesterday, Sir Tony Baldry announced that the new Archbishop of Canterbury would be summoned to Westminster in the coming weeks and told that MPs will not wait for a new vote on women bishops. He will be instructed to organise another vote ahead of the agreed five-year timetable. The Church of England will be expected to choose women bishops this time, and they will vote again and again until they get it right . As I read somewhere, it's kind of weird that women bishops are a big deal in a church that has at it's head, a woman, ie the Queen. Related link: Parliament has no respect for democracy. The 'people who know best' are taking over our lives

The only way a joint Anglican/Catholic Cathedral would work would be if the Anglicans all converted to Catholicism. There is precedent for large conversions of Anglicans to Catholicism through through the Ordinariate, and that would be the way to go. I was reading an article of an Anglican convert who became a Catholic priest, who has just recently died . He once compared the Anglicanism to “whisky with three parts water”, while saying Catholics were “straight out of the bottle” . With that imagery in mind, a joint cathedral would just massively dilute the whiskey for Catholics, and be far too strong for the Anglicans. The only people that have been talking about this potential plan have been the Anglicans, so I doubt it will get anywhere. Related link: Historic super-cathedral plan

Matthew Warner writes about how the Vatican buying dot-catholic top-level domain will change the Church , while as the deceased Archbishop Cranmer is not happy : Insofar as the Holy Roman Empire of medieval Western Catholicism is past, and the only resonance of the vision of the Emperor Charlemagne subsists in Europe’s latest falling empire, should not the centralising impulse of the See of Rome be challenged once again, and the symbolic bestowal of ‘.catholic’ be subject to a little more scrutiny than “We decided we were best suited to apply for (it)”? The sooner all Anglicans who consider themselves catholic, become Catholic, the less of these sorts of arguments will come about! See these latest stories for conversions of Anglican parishes to Catholic: Pope establishes Australian ordinariate for former Anglicans ~ Catholic News Agency Towson service will bring Christ the King Anglican parishioners into Catholic Church ~ Baltimore Sun

I find myself wondering why the new Catholic translation for the Mass matters so much to an Anglican, who, as far as I an tell, is not thinking of converting any time soon. The catechesis that the Pope requires is that people be taught that “for many”/“für viele” in the Eucharistic Prayer actually means “for all”/“für alle” – but we are not allowed to translate it to be what it actually means . We? Related link: For many or for all? ~ Bosco Peters, Liturgy Blog UPDATE: Vatican Diary / "For many" or "for all"? The right answer is the first Benedict XVI writes as much to the German bishops. And he wants the whole Church to respect the words of Jesus at the last supper, without inventing others like in the postconciliar missals. The complete text of the pope's letter

Election silly season - it's really depressing what is deemed important by our elites. I was reminded of a piece of nonsense from 2005 - the Exclusive Brethren thing. And how they were cast as a "secretive cult" interfering in the democratic political process. Of course they had just as much right to engage in political dialogue as everybody else but their message was not one the elites wanted heard. Fast forward to 2011 And in this silly season a Green Anglican Priest's political discourse consisted of a major billboard vandalization campaign. Unlike "cuppagate" this Greens scandal has been a two day wonder - the elite media has pretty much moved on. Whereas with "cuppagate" they are doing everything they can to keep alive. And so it was with the "EB" thing back in 2005 - kept alive for weeks. But if it suited the needs of the elite couldn't the association of the Greens with Liberal Anglicanism be cast as sinister?

A bit of angst over Christchurch's Anglican Cathedral and its need for reconstruction. One Alan Goss, an ex Presbyterian Minister believes it should arise anew as a Multi Faith Space, rather than an Anglican Cathedral per se . Of course if the Anglican's have the resources and insurance cover to raise their new Cathedral to its former glory there is no issue. But when public money becomes involved, perhaps there is a case to be made for a "people's cathedral" as Mr Goss described it to be used by people of all faiths and creeds, because Anglican's today are a minority in Christchurch I shudder at the thought though - "people's cathedral" evokes the type of edifices raised in the Soviet Union to replace the Churches. One such was Stalin's "people's palace" planned to rise upon the rubble of Christ the Saviour Cathedral, demolished by the Soviets to make way for this grand monument to the new Soviet world. It never h...

Anglicans lead the way back in the 1930's in removing Christian objections to contraception, now they are hopping onto the population growth bogeyman. God's commands to be fruitful and multiply is well truly being thrown out. The church's key advisory group wants the Gillard Government to get rid of incentives that increase the birth rate and also called for a cut to immigration. In a submission to a federal population inquiry, the General Synod's public affairs commission described population growth as a taboo subject and the "elephant in the room". The commission wanted a halt to "any policy that provides an incentive to increase population , notably the baby bonus". Besides wanting the Australian population to stop growing and immigration to drop, the Anglicans also would like the Aussie Government to increase their refugee intake. Probably of the type of people who have multiple wives, very large families and need to be supported by the ...

The Australian has an article titled, Anglicans flee to new faith , a story about how a greater number of Anglicans than expected are converting to Catholicism. It should really have been titled, Anglicans come back to old faith , considering that Anglicanism is a result of England breaking away from Catholicism so that Henry VIII could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Bolyn. The rest, as they say, is history. ABOUT 900 members of the Church of England have quit their parishes and begun worshipping in the Roman Catholic Church, according to figures released yesterday. At least 600 laity were expected to join the new ordinariate, set up by the Pope to receive disaffected Anglicans, but the first official figures showed the number was higher than expected. More than 4700 people gathered in cathedrals across England and Wales last weekend as part of their preparation to be received into the Catholic Church during Holy Week in the run-up to Easter. Anyway, things are mov...

Anglicanism is being rescued by Pope Benedict. Who would have thought! The old ecumenism is dead... The ordination of women, the consecration of women bishops, the rationalization of homosexual unions, the doctrinal apostasy and the open moral degeneracy has led Benedict XVI to conclude that the new ecumenism is not a diplomatic building of bridges, but a bold establishment of a new kind of Anglicanism within the greater fold of the Catholic Church. Fr Dwight Longenecker on Anglican Catholics Then and Now ~ Catholic Online

The Anglican Church [of Australia] wants Australians to have fewer children and has urged the federal government to scrap the baby bonus and cut immigration levels. The General Synod of the Anglican Church [of Australia] has issued a warning that current rates of population growth are unsustainable and potentially out of step with church doctrine - including the eighth commandment "thou shall not steal", Fairfax newspapers say. In a significant intervention, the Anglican Public Affairs Commission has also warned concerned Christians that remaining silent "is little different from supporting further overpopulation and ecological degradation". I'm just stunned. Related link : Anglicans argue for fewer kids ~ Sydney Morning Herald

It's happening. Traditional Anglicans who can no longer remain in the Anglican Communion and desire to become Catholic are coming home. Having done this myself (though as an individual not part of a group), I know what this feels like.

Before Christmas, liberal Anglican Glynn Cardy of St Matthews-in-the-City of Auckland put up an offensive billboard lampooning Our Lady, Joseph and God. With out a doubt, a truly blasphemous billboard. I have just been reading a book on Purgatory , and quite honestly, Glynn Cardy needs our prayers. Blasphemy is a mortal sin, one that severs a person from God, and even if repented for, could quite easily call for a long, long (and very unpleasant) time in Purgatory. (For more, see St Catherine of Genoa: Treatise on Purgatory ) A number of Christians on David Farrar's blog have applauded the consequent vandalism of the offensive billboard, first coated in brown paint and then attacked by knitting needle wielding elderly lady. David Farrar's response, thinking Christians are dangerous fanatics , is almost appropriate, except for the fact that the vandalism was restricted to the billboard itself. It seems I was incorrect in thinking that most Christians would not approve of an...

The following article, written by Richard Dawkins and published in the Washington Post is probably the most aggressive so far of all the attacks upon the Roman Catholic Church over the door being opened for Anglicans . What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders. The Anglican church has at least a few shreds of decency, traces of kindness and humanity with which Jesus himself might have connected, however tenuously: a generosity of spirit, of respect for women, and of Christ-like compassion for the less fortunate. The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast; nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite. It does not send its missionaries out to tell deliberate lies to AIDS-weakened Africans,...

A senior Anglican Archbishop in England has said he is ready to convert to Catholicism, now that the Pope has opened the door for Anglicans to convert enmasse. Bishop Hind said he would be "happy" to be reordained as a Catholic priest and said that divisions in Anglicanism could make it impossible to stay in the church . He is the most senior Anglican to admit that he is prepared to accept the offer from the Pope, who shocked the Church of England last week when he paved the way for clergy to convert to Catholicism in large numbers. In a further blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s hopes of preventing the Anglican Communion from disintegrating , other bishops have cast doubt over its survival . The Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Bishop of Fulham, even claimed that "the Anglican experiment is over" . He said it has been shown to be powerless to cope with the crises over gays and women bishops. [Because they caved in to the world.] For more, with commentary in red, s...

It seems that the Pope has made an offer of full communion in the Catholic Church to Anglicans, many of whom do not like the ordination of women or homosexuals. According to one report, a group of 400,000 Anglicans looks likely to shift right now - 400,000 Anglicans to Accept Pope Benedict's Offer After Benedict XVI made one of the most startling moves since the reformation, 400,000 members of the Anglican church who are in schism over the ordination of homosexuals seek to accept the pope's offer of full communion with the roman church. Archbishop John Hepworth, the Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, said he would ask the members of his group to immediately accept the pope's offer. Anglican's will retain some of their identity under the pope's offer. In 1992, when the Church of England first accepted the ordination of women, 440 clergymen left the church, many fear the offer of a new home will encourage many of the 77 million members to leave the Church ...