Saturday 28 May 2011

What a shame

The Catholic church have decided to pull the plug on one of our ordination services taking place at the Liverpool cathedral and a thread on the Catholic Herald website makes for very sad reading.
There are lots of comments made there which make extremely sad reading and have led me to comment there pointing to John 11 v 35.

6 comments:

Ben Trovato said...

I would like as a Catholic, to apologis for the tone, and indeed content, of some of the comments on the Herald website. Charity and Truth should never be presented as conflicting!

However, I should also be clear that I think the decision to withdraw the invitation was the correct one, form a Catholic theological perspective.

But it should have been a moment for teaching, not for tub-thumping!

Fat Prophet said...

I do agree about the ordination venue being ill advised both from the Methodist and Catholic perspective but I believe it was originally done with the very best of intentions.
I am sorry to say that the extreme adverse reaction on the Catholic Herald site can have done very little for better working relationships between the two groups.
I know that there will be many Catholics who are disappointed at the comments that have been made and you are right it was an opportunity for teaching, but sadly the moment has been lost.

Ben Trovato said...

If it is any consolation, or at least by way of context, I should point out that the intensity of reaction has far more to do with the unease of some Catholics with a local hierarchy that seems to them to make many flawed decisions than it has to do with any animosity or ill-feeling towards Methodists or any other Christian bodies.

Fat Prophet said...

Thanks Ben I think to a degree I had worked that out but it is always unfortunate when we wash our dirty linen in public. While the local 'politics' may be the major issue on this occasion it has stretched to a wider audience and been picked up in the blogosphere by a number of commentators.
It seems to me that although your explanation is quite reasonable it would be fairly easy to misconstrue the intention of the comments and some of them have been aimed at Methodists as well.

Ben Trovato said...

Yes, I am afraid we have a fair few hot heads, and even people of ill-will. But then we always have had, from the tempestuous Peter; James and John, the sons of thunder; to Judas, who betrayed Him. And so on through the centuries and doubtless till the Second Coming.

mrhedad said...

I will be an assisting minister at that service & i am annoyed but more so with us for asking in the first place. i did the old oscott course with RC priests alongside us Queens folk while training & though there were a couple who gave me hope, i was more often than not left cold & insulted. i encountered superstition on a level that shocked me.
i dont get why we would think they would want us or why we would want to be there.
enforced celibacy, women's ministry, the way wealth is used, & the damaging advice about condoms , sex & divorce too all make me incredibly uncomfortable.

they are of course free to live & lead as they feel God leads, but that is the difference between us i guess because they wouldnt say the same to us.

In my experience many RC's dont actually even think we are brothers & sisters at all & the way i am treated by priests in particular is similar to the rubbish on this site - not said with such aggression or semi hidden loathing, but ignored & treated as not part of the team none the less.
sadly some of our anglican friends are the same too.
so not surprised that some of the comments are vile, offensive & a disgrace to the living Christ.

it is so sad that people just dont understand that part of why jesus came to confront Pharisaic attitudes & 'religious' people who cared more about rules than grace & love.
he confronts us all about accusing others while failing to see the log in our own eyes.
the tribal nature of denominations & groups within them is pathetic given the huge mission God has called us to. there really isnt time to waste on this kind of pettiness.
our own house us far from in order of course.

its annoying that the ordination has been moved to chester too, when so many of us have booked & paid for hotels etc - they should have found a venue in liverpool. i was ordained in birkenhead & we are blooming driving right past there to get to chester!!
couldnt organise a p+++ up in a brewery