MCJ on the Personal Ordinariate Announcement

Popped over to MCJ for his take on the developments. Plenty of stuff there from someone who welcomes the news and who can't write a bad sentence nor one without the perfect measure of wit.

So start off with Bombshell which contains the great line: "Odd, isn’t it, how the hidebound, reactionary church was the one that took the revolutionary step?" Over 100 comments on that one.

Then he posted yesterday, Day Two, which I just skimmed. He also links to a quote from Father Rutler.

[The Vatican's Anglican provision] is a dramatic slap-down of liberal Anglicanism and a total repudiation of the ordination of women, homosexual marriage and the general neglect of doctrine in Anglicanism. Indeed, it is a final rejection of Anglicanism. It basically interprets Anglicanism as a spiritual patrimony based on ethnic tradition rather than substantial doctrine and makes clear that it is not a historic “church” but rather an “ecclesial community” that strayed and now is invited to return to communion with the Pope as Successor of Peter.

The Vatican was careful to schedule simultaneously with the Vatican announcement, a press conference of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and the deeply humiliated Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury to enable the Anglicans to save some face by saying that this recognizes the spiritual patrimony of Anglicanism and that ecumenical dialogue goes ahead. That is like George Washington at Yorktown saying that he recognizes the cultural contributions of Britain and hopes diplomatic relations flourish. The Apostolic Constitution is not a retraction of ecumenical desires, but rather is the fulfillment of ecumenical aspirations, albeit not the way most Anglican leaders had envisioned it.

Oh, man. The George Washington analogy―ouch. That's got to hurt dear Mr. Williams.

Today's offering from Christopher is a high-larious smackdown delivered to several alabandical reactions to the news from liberal quarters.