We receive some wonderful emails from our Root & Branchers.

We welcomed this thoughtful and enlightening contribution from Edwin Rankin.

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APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA (At 94 it could well be my last)

 

I was ordained in 1956 and about 1970, after lecturing in Oscott (the local seminary), a petition was being prepared by archbishop Dwyer to have me promoted to auxiliary bishop. This required, on my part, some hard thinking about the ministry of the church. I eventually formed the opinion that the present discipline of the Church is guilty of 5 wrongdoings.

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1. Since women have achieved their equal standing with men in law, there is now no excuse for excluding them from the sacramental and other ministry of the church. St Paul’s vision of the Church is now ripe for fulfilment: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”(Gal. 3:27f) The New Testament does not mention a special sacramental ministry confined to men. St Paul assigns ministries according to gifts not gender.

2. The Church’s treatment of divorcees fills me with horror. Jesus was a Jew and so accepted divorce. He was condemning the abuse of divorce for trivial reasons rife in his day. He specifically said that he was not speaking about serious sexual sins.

3. The church pretends to uphold the Declaration of Human Rights and yet as an employer withholds the human right of marriage from some of its employees.

4. Where does the church get the power to impose mortal sin for the infringement of merely church law? The power of the keys given to Peter was to help people get to heaven not keep them out like the Pharisees.

5. By tacitly agreeing a price for mass stipends, the church fosters the idea that people are buying a mass. This is the sin of simony. Post Vatican II, when all of us offer the mass, are mass stipends a good thing?

 

The upshot was that, unable in conscience to enforce this discipline, I applied for laicization. The archbishop said he thought highly of me and offered me a place as priest in his diocese. Two years after leaving the priesthood, I met and instantly fell in love with Joan MacDougall amid the dreaming spires of Oxford. It was mutual. The good Lord blessed us with an outstanding son, and nearly 50 years of married bliss – the happiest years of my life.