Challenge to the news
In an excerpt from one of the FiF Working Party reports,
Philip North calls for Anglo-Catholic renewal through
focusing on evangelization rather than internal arguments
T
he post-modern culture which we throw many parishes into years of inter- Anglo-Catholic movement. While there
are called to evangelize in twenty- nal turmoil about what position to take. It are some examples of good practice within
first century Britain is profoundly would remove the financial structures that Catholic parishes, there are far too many
challenging. The relativist mindset turns subsidize the ministry of a large majority where priests are content to manage gen-
truth into a matter of opinion, resists of Catholic parishes. It would be a massive teel decline or simply coast towards retire-
commitment and mistrusts institutions. distraction from the work of the Gospel. ment. There is little youth or children’s
In a world fat with the riches of consum- Furthermore, we must not fall into the work, and in many parishes the most basic
erism, faith is simply not a serious option temptation of thinking that ‘freedom’ will strategies for growth are lacking.
for most people. It is not that people hate somehow of itself enable evangelization. More sinister is the widespread ten-
the Church (it would be rather easier if New disciples are not automatically made dency for Catholics to run down or rub-
they did). In fact, many rather like the because the church has got its structures bish enthusiasm or new initiatives. Where
fact that it is around to educate their chil- right. While it is God’s work, we need to Evangelicals praise, celebrate and seek
dren and remind them of their heritage. cooperate in his mission to the world. We to emulate new evangelistic methods or
Beyond this, it simply has no relevance need to plan and execute growth strate- strategies, Catholics seem immediately
for them. They are largely bored by it. gies and commit resources. hostile and suspicious. This hostility is a
Moreover, the paranoia following the major factor in the lack of church plants
terrorist attacks in New York and London or new evangelistic initiatives of any kind
has raised a new suspicion in people’s
we must not think that
within most Catholic parishes.
minds about faith and its consequences,
and popular writers such as Christopher
‘freedom’ will somehow of
Amongst some priests (often, perhaps,
younger ones), there may be appearing
Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have
itself enable evangelization
a worrying tendency to retreat into a
been able to cash in on this by portraying mythic past, a world of curé hats and east-
religion as an enemy of human life. The ward-facing High Masses, where recreat-
astonishing sales of books such as The Culture of negativity ing the world of Fortescue and O’Connell
God Delusion point to the considerable Should such a province be established, seems to be more important than true
challenges of those seeking to proclaim there will be enormous issues of viability inculturation. It is unclear whether they
the Gospel in such a context. and perception. A new structure is likely believe that this constitutes an evange-
It is frustrating beyond words that, at to be made up of fewer parishes than listic approach that will engage a new
a time of such virulent secularism, the there are in many dioceses, most of them generation with the Gospel or whether it
Church appears to offer little more than small, most of them with elderly congre- is simply a desire to retreat into a place
internal arguments and seems able to gations, many of them in areas of acute of safety from a frightening world and a
do little to re-engage imaginations with social deprivation, most of them depend- complex evangelistic problem.
the truth of the Christian revelation. For ent on subsidy to meet the cost of their
Anglo-Catholics, the most pressing inter- ministry. In some areas of the country, Mission-shaped church
nal issue is the consecration of women to we are fairly strong. In great swathes of The other aspect of the context that
the episcopate. middle England, we barely exist. And this report cannot ignore is the Church
what will our message be to the world? of England’s strategy for evangelization.
‘Freed’ for mission? Who will we be to secular twenty-first- Mission-Shaped Church was published in
The most coherent proposal for a struc- century Britain? 2004, calling for radical new approaches
ture which would contain the fallout from The problem here is that we will have to be taken to evangelizing a fast-chang-
women’s consecration is provided by the formed ourselves on the basis of opposi- ing and disparate culture, and the ideas
draft legislation in Consecrated Women. tion to something, and it is notoriously within the report have been developed
There seems to be a fairly widespread hard to turn that round to the extent that by the agency Fresh Expressions. Anglo-
assumption amongst Anglo-Catholics we are seen to be a group of people with Catholics have been quick to con-
that the creation of such a structure will positive things to say. The formation of a demn the report, pointing out its lack
somehow ‘free’ Catholics up for mission. free province might make perfect sense of a coherent ecclesiology, its failure to
The theory is that, liberated from dioc- to us, but what is our raison d’être for understand Catholic or Eucharistic evan-
esan structures that don’t understand us those who don’t have quite our grasp gelization, its over-simplified sociologi-
and in control of a province whose theol- of ecclesiology? Many Anglo-Catholics cal analyses and its tendency to dismiss
ogy and priorities we can agree for our- who are heavily engaged with the minis- the effectiveness of the traditional parish
selves, we will be able to focus wholly on try of evangelization point out that those as a vehicle of growth and change. Very
the work of evangelization, energies will whom they are nurturing in the faith few Anglo-Catholic parishes have set up
be released, ideas will be formed, syner- have very little concern for or interest in ‘fresh expressions’ of church or appear on
gies will emerge and growth will come. denominational divides, let alone inter- the agency’s website.
However, it does not take a great deal of nal wrangling. While much of this criticism is
analysis to see that this is highly unlikely The issue of the need to manage percep- undoubtedly valid, Anglo-Catholics have
to be the case. tions is heightened by a prevailing culture failed to put in place positive strategies of
The passing of such legislation would of negativity within many strands of the their own. The debate around Mission-
January 2008
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newdirections
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