I’m absolutely appalled by the development at Blackburn Cathedral in England where they allow those who do not recognize their female priest as legitimate to receive from the reserve sacrament previously consecrated by a man.
One has to ask at what point we are respecting one another’s honest differences in a classically Anglican manner, and at what point are we directly enabling people to do violence to the “dignity of every human being” we promise to respect in our baptismal vows?
In addition to enabling congregants who have contracted an apparently lethal case of misogyny, you have to wonder if they have given a moment’s thought to the theology of the Eucharist. The priest’s role is simply to point to Jesus present in the sacrament of the wine and the bread, but it is the Holy Spirit that does the consecrating. My goodness or lack thereof, my gender, or my political party as a priest does not affect God’s ability to make holy. To argue otherwise is pure Donatism, an archaic heresy that said if you found out later your baptizing priest was a scallywag, you were never really baptized.
It’s been said, “In bad times there is a run on the little gods". What a small god such folks must have.
Read the entire article in the Times Online here.
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