ragon
THE
P RTAL
June 2018
Page 5
Telling The Beads
An alternative view of the Whitsun octave
W hat a
week and a half we’ve had, what with a Royal wedding and the Whitsun
octave: punctuated in my case with a trip to Milan to get enough hats to see me through
the season. I had no idea that so many of the smarter sort of cleric get their headgear run up
at the really lovely ateliers on the back side of the cathedral. Most disconcerting watching
what was clearly an archbishop being measured up for evening wear. Wondering about this
in the city of St Ambrose got me thinking about bishops and more precisely for what they
are called to be.
The eve of Pentecost thrash in St
George’s Windsor was undoubtedly
a wedding: the officiant is licensed to
conduct ceremonies according to the laws of England
and Wales and neither the bride or groom was suffering
from any legal impediment such that they could be
prevented from marrying one another. magistrate trying the case at least was good enough
to find that the Archbishop’s evidence was simply
unbelievable. I guess that those who had been with the
Lord Jesus Christ from the baptism of John until his
death and resurrection, would have remembered his
teaching about children and millstones: but apparently
not this Archbishop.
]The problem, at least it clearly wasn’t a problem for
the most senior of the Anglican bishops in this country
and the USA, is that she is divorced and neither of the
Most Reverend Gentlemen had any business being
there. One of the most difficult things is to remain true
to the clear teachings of Christ when our own personal
circumstances make it infinitely easier to be nice and
look absent-mindedly the other way. The Irish referendum on the killing of those in utero
has been a triumph for the church militant. The kindest
thing one can possibly say is that the Irish b ench of
bishops, realising that their credit is shot when almost
all of the population thought that doing and saying
not very much would do the least damage. Telling the
truth to those who do not want to hear it used to be the
duty of bishops: now let’s hear it for damage limitation.
I expect the Holy Father will much enjoy his trip
Bishops, following the first election criterion set by St
Peter after the death of Judas, are called to be witnesses to Ireland in August. Perhaps he can find another
of the teachings of Christ and faithful guardians of the progressive couple to marry on the flight back. After
all who am I to judge if God made us like that? The
doctrines of the Church.
obvious answer is that the Pope, like all bishops, is
The ludicrous platitude, no matter how breathily given the terrible charge from Christ himself that
repeated, “that all you need is love” does not quite get ‘whosoever sins ye forgive are forgiven and whosoever
round the fact that one of the happy couple had broken sins ye retain are retained’. That, I should have thought,
was pre-eminently a case for a spot of judging.
what even Anglicans persist in thinking of as vows.
As for the Archbishop of Canterbury, I guess even
the horror of the Gafcon reaction to his leading role
didn’t outweigh the fuzzy sense of pleasure of being up
front and on message. There are, I understand now, 1.1
million people attending Anglican services in England
at least once a month (down from 10 million a week
in 1960 which is obviously progress of a sort and well
worth reinforcing).
Still it hasn’t been altogether a bad month. One of
our bitches had puppies and there have been a couple
of really good invitations. The weather has been terrific
and so far as I know none of our own dear bishops has
done anything other than be entirely faithful to their
charge.
Well done to the single English bishop and the single
Scottish bishop who were able to take time out to rally
From Adelaide comes the cheering news that the only to the support of the catholic MP Jacob Rees-Mogg,
slightly demented catholic archbishop has taken steps being given a very hard time by the BBC for insisting
to ensure the smooth running of his diocese in case on the truth of the teachings of the church.
he goes to prison for absent mindedly forgetting to let
Thank goodness for the rest of the season when we
the police know that a clerical molester had been at it
even more prolifically than even they suspected. The can plunge into a riot of good taste and hats.