← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Petr
Thread ID: 16526 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2005-01-31
2005-01-31 23:58 | User Profile
[I]These liberals have really sold their souls for their filthy politics. All real believers better get out of these kind of apostate congregations.
From John Derbyshire's column:[/I]
[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire200501310749.asp[/url]
[COLOR=Purple][SIZE=3][B]Silence of the shepherd. [/B] [/SIZE]
Since I have mentioned the archbishop of Canterbury, let me tell you a story about another senior member of the Anglican communion, Bishop Andrew Smith of the Episcopal diocese of Connecticut.
[B]On February 6 last year a fine lady named Maggy Brimelow died, after a struggle with cancer that had lasted several years. [/B] [B]Maggy was the wife of Peter Brimelow, and was known to many at National Review, where Peter was an editor in the 1990s[/B].
Peter currently co-manages the VDARE immigration-restrictionist website, which posted an obituary notice for Maggy here. Our own David Frum wrote a fine tribute to her, which can be found among the links on that obituary notice.
[B]Maggy was that unusual thing, a convert from the Roman to the Anglican style of Catholicism. Travel in the other direction — "doing a Newman" — is much more common. [/B]
At the time she made the switch, in 1997, the Brimelows were living in Connecticut, and Maggy was actually received into the Episcopal Church by Andrew Smith, at that time a suffragan (that is, a kind of assistant bishop) to the diocesan bishop, Clarence Coleridge. She became an active church member, amongst other things a clear conservative voice on the Bishops' Advisory Committee to Coleridge and Smith.
[B]She was strongly against the ordination of openly homosexual clergymen, and at one point distinguished herself by being one of only 5 parishioners out of 5,000 to vote against the "Year of the Jubilee" initiatives — a series of measures pushed by liberals in the Episcopal hierarchy to usher in the third Christian millennium.[/B]
Maggy established a strong spiritual relationship with a lay healer working in the Connecticut diocese. At his own request, I shall not name this person. A married man with a distinguished combat record in one of the more strenuous branches of the military, he is also a conservative, with views as strong as Maggy's (and mine) against the ordination of open homosexuals. Perhaps for this reason, Bishop Smith, who is a liberal, would not allow this lay healer to qualify for ordination. (He has since moved to a different diocese, under a conservative bishop, and is to be ordained.)
As her cancer advanced and it became clear that the disease would soon end her life, Maggy obtained great spiritual comfort from her sessions with this adviser. Then, a few weeks before her death, she got something of a surprise. Showing up for a counseling session with her adviser, she was told that a new church rule had been implemented that forbade any male church officer from being alone with any female parishioner. She would only be able to take counseling with a third person in the room. (Oddly, considering the condition of the Episcopal Church, this ruling seems not to apply in the case of male parishioners...) This was part of the ludicrously named "Safe Church" initiative that began in the 1990s, with the purpose, of course, of protecting Episcopal clergy from abuse allegations.
Maggy felt, reasonably enough, that a waiver should be made for herself, a 50-year-old married woman in the last stages of a terminal disease. Anyone who has been in a very close spiritual relationship, of the kind Maggy had with her adviser, knows that it cannot be conducted with a stranger present. She wrote a polite letter to Bishop Smith at the beginning of January last year — a month before she died — begging for such a waiver. She pointed out, amongst other things, that the sessions with her spiritual adviser had been taking place in an office with a large window in its door, this window looking out on a busy corridor. (Off which the adviser's wife worked in an adjacent office.)
Maggy Brimelow's letter — Peter has showed me a copy (and has no objection to my airing the issue here) — is only a little over a page, and closes with an expression of regret for having taken up the bishop's time: "I am sure that the volume of your correspondence is enormous, the time to deal with it scarce... A simple nihil obstat would be more than eloquent." The letter — which was sent by certified mail — received no reply.
[B]To this day, Bishop Smith has not acknowledged this very reasonable plea from a dying woman, a communicant he had received into the church himself, but whose views were in conflict with his on a subject which, the bishop apparently believes, is much more important than the spiritual consolation of the terminally ill.[/B]
There, in that unhappy little story, is encapsulated a great deal of what you need to know about the current condition of the Episcopal Church.[/COLOR]
2005-02-01 04:24 | User Profile
This seems to me more about how maddening bureaucracy can be.
A conversion from Catholicism to Anglicanism does seem odd for a conservative (and a sane person).
2005-02-01 15:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Jack Cassidy]A conversion from Catholicism to Anglicanism does seem odd for a conservative (and a sane person).[/QUOTE]
It's not odd. It's idiotic. The Catholic church is in meltdown now, but traditionalist remnants are surviving. Episcopals are even a worse laughing stock. What a horrible way for a lovely girl to die--in the "care" of these circus clowns.
sspx.org
2005-02-01 16:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE]"Truth comes by conflict." --Hilaire Belloc [/QUOTE] This reminds me of a funny line from the funniest show ever made, IMHO, "Strangers with Candy" (occasionally still on Comedy Central, but buy it on DVD). Jerri was going to fight some girl after school and Jellyneck is counseling her, "Jerri, violence doesn't solve anything except conflict."
2005-02-01 16:48 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Buster]It's not odd. It's idiotic. [/QUOTE]
Man, y'all are hard core. I would imagine that the great majority of folks who attend church do so, for better or worse, because of the pastor and/or people at their local church, not because of denominational doctrine. I am certain there are still a few good Episcopalians/Anglicans, despite their problems as of late. I don't know why this lady converted, but I am sure she had her own good reasons.
2005-02-01 19:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident] I am certain there are still a few good Episcopalians/Anglicans, despite their problems as of late. [/QUOTE]
You are indeed right. Liturgically, they have even retained some semblance of order, whereas we Catholics have totally collapsed into chaos. As for our leadership in Rome, it is no better and often worse (though God will ultimately save his Church).
Let me also commend to anyone "The Remnant," a journal of religious news and opinion published by the Matt family of St. Paul.
2005-02-01 19:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Buster]You are indeed right. Liturgically, they have even retained some semblance of order, whereas we Catholics have totally collapsed into chaos. As for our leadership in Rome, it is no better and often worse (though God will ultimately save his Church).
No doubt all of us have some problems with our respective confessions and some more than others. If anything, Clive Staples was an Anglican and that fact alone ought to still count for something. But then again, maybe I'm just too sentimental. :)
2005-02-01 19:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident] If anything, Clive Staples was an Anglican and that fact alone ought to still count for something. [/QUOTE]
In fact, C.S. is my hero, and a man who helped me far more than any priest or bishop. He was more Catholic than most Catholics, though not formally. Too bad he died so young. If Protestants could be made saints, he would be at the top of my list.