Anglican ordination of women leads to two types of Communion at cathedral

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Comments: 9

Canon Andrew Hindley

Reception of Holy Communion by the Divorced and Remarried Members of the Faithful.
Reception of Holy Communion by the Divorced and Remarried Members of the Faithful.
Meeting with benefactors and organizers of the 23rd World Youth Day at the Reception Hall of Cathedral House and in the Chapter Hall of St. Mary's Cathedral
Old Testament Canon

Lancashire, England, Jul 30, 2009 / 03:17 am (CNA).- An Anglican cathedral is trying to accommodate those of its faithful who do not accept female clergy by allowing parishioners to decide whether to accept communion bread blessed by its female canon or by a male priest. Blackburn Cathedral in Lancashire recently installed Rev. Sue Penfold as a residential canon. Cathedral canon Andrew Hindley explained the decision to This Is Lancashire, saying it was agreed by all the clergy that it was the best way to handle what they called a “mixed economy.”

The congregation can choose whether to receive communion bread blessed by Rev. Penfold or bread blessed by a male priest at the main cathedral service on Sundays at 10:30 a.m.

“This situation is not ideal, but we are trying to be inclusive,” Canon Hindley said, adding that Rev. Penfold had been appointed to Blackburn Cathedral to reflect the “board views” of the Church of England.

The communion practice was announced to worshipers when it was introduced last year but it is reportedly implemented in a “very discreet manner.”

The practice was attacked by Sally Barnes of the Anglican feminist group Women and the Church. She said it was “unacceptable and disgraceful” to turn communion into “a buffet.” She claimed the practice labeled women as “tainted” and that many people in the area have complained about it.

The traditional-leaning Anglican group Forward in Faith, which opposes women bishops, said the practice was unusual. According to This Is Lancashire, group spokesman Stephen Parkinson called it “bonkers” and said he did not understand why the women priests put up with it.

The Church of England began ordaining women to its priesthood in 1994. Some Anglicans have broken with the church on this issue, forming their own associations, while others have left the Anglican Communion for the Catholic or Orthodox Churches or Protestant denominations.

The Catholic Church does not recognize Anglican ordinations or communion ceremonies as valid. Neither the Catholic nor Orthodox Churches recognize the ordination of women as valid.

Comments: 9

Subscriber comments:

Published by: Clare B.
Newport RI 10/20/2009 03:53 PM EST

The Anglican Church, or the Anglican Orders remain as always..invalid, as Pope Leo XIII declared. Why should it be different today?

Published by: H.J.D"Cruz
karachi 08/03/2009 12:37 AM EST

The Queen of England is the head of the Anglican Church and defender of the Anglican faith.It is also the established church in the U.K.It won't be long when Islam will be the leading religion in the U.K. and athiests and anglicans will convert for some reason eg money, wealth, marriage , love or secutity.

Published by: George McCartin
Astoria, OR, United States 08/02/2009 05:49 PM EST

Rate: Regular

As a validly ordained RC priest I am incensed that CNA is publishing misinformation galore here. Episcopal ordinations have been valid since the founding of the Anglicans. And just as the schismatic catholic LaFebrites ordinations are valid, so too are the ordinations of women in both the RC and Episcopal denominations. Look up your church history and Canon Law The ordinations are valid, but illicit.

Published by: Sr. Catherine Hagaba
Uganda 08/01/2009 02:50 AM EST

I wholly agree with Bob from Brooklyn NY, USA that the so-called Protestant church is getting stranger and stranger! And that the saddest thing is that some Catholics see Protestants as the best example of inclusiveness which the Catholic Church aught to imitate. However, the so-called Catholics who think along these lines that inclusiveness has its limits and does not constitute the ultimate point of reference in the scheme of redemption. Those who refuse to believe that the structure of redemption has been set by the Holy Trinity end up in the situation as the so-called-Protestant Church. It is impossible to understand the theological premises on which protestant operate. That is what happens when you found "church" on hatred for the Catholic Church. By their fruits you will know them.

Published by: John A. Hollister+
Mandeville, Louisiana USA 07/31/2009 09:40 PM EST

The inconsistencies and irrationalities inherent in this "two-track 'communion'" concept illustrate just the sort of craziness that the people called "Continuing Anglicans" fled from.

They are the folk who, when the purported "ordination" of women was approved 32 years ago in the US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, realized they had to form an independent church jurisdiction, unconnected with the Lambeth Communion (the current state of which would not have been recognized by past generations as Anglican in any meaningful way). Those who set out on that trek foresaw, accurately, just where the changes proposed in 1976-77 would and did lead: directly to Vickie Gene Robinson, since 2003 the notoriously evil-living "Bishop" of New Hampshire.

Published by: Roberto
brighton 07/30/2009 05:36 PM EST

I feel so sorry for the Anglican Church. It is no longer Christian because it has been taken by the sinners that it should have converted.

Published by: dAVID LARSEN
scituate Mass 07/30/2009 11:42 AM EST

Mary is the Mother of the Eucharist because at the Annunciation she became the "MOTHER of GOD",there can be no other woman capable of acting in her place. Mary is the Virgin Mother of God's most Holy Church. Mary doesn't act in the person of Christ,all of her actions are in obedience to Christ and in fidelity to the will of God. Mary is the Virgin of God and the pinnacle of an abiding Faith in God,as She is the arch of the Covenant. Women become great through obedience,faith in God,their abiding love and their devotion to their families and the family of God,which is God's most Holy Church. Women don't need to be priest. By the nature of their fair sex they were created by God to be Holy and to be given to a Holy Man in a Holy Sacramental Christian Marriage! They are virgins for God,so that when they get married,they raise the children that they birth,to be Holy servants of God. All good vocations make all servants for God. There is no glory for a servant except that in service to God,for a Holy Love of one person to serve the other,with an extreme love. No none can say Holy Mother without referring to Mother Mary,"Holy Virgin",as she represents perfect obedience to God. As Mary is the example of obedience,all of God's Eucharistic people must also learn and be obedient to God. This is the way all learn to serve God and one another with an ever abiding love now and forever.
Women were all created to be Holy to God,never violated by any man and cherished in Holy Matrimony.

Published by: Bob
Brooklyn/NY/USA 07/30/2009 09:01 AM EST

The Anglican "communion" just keeps getting stranger and stranger, a community of compromise after compromise. What sense of communion is there when people are encouraged to believe whatever they want to believe, to celebrate in whatever manner they want to celebrate, to interpret the Scriptures in whatever way they want to interpret them, equally to accept or reject what the Church has held and taught as a matter of faith and morals down through the centuries? This is not a "communion", no less a church in the truest sense of the terms, but rather a constantly changing, undefined and undefinable, loose confederation of individuals claiming unity under an impotent figurehead who has no authority and no tool except the hope of persuasion to maintain some semblance of unity and order.

What sense of concelebration do they have when one might receive what is blessed by one minister as opposed to what has been blessed by another minister at the same altar at the same celebration? What is their understanding of the consecration of the bread and wine? Small wonder neither Roman nor Orthodox Christians recognize the validity of what the Anglicans purport to effect.

What is also sad is the number of Roman Catholics who would have us look to the Anglicans (and in the US, to the Episcopalians) as a sign of inclusivity and hope for all that the Church of Rome could be. God help us! Seek to enter by the narrow gate, for the way to perdition is broad.

Published by: DAVID LARSEN
scituate Mass. USA 07/30/2009 08:19 AM EST

A man is by his sexual nature is a minister as he inseminates the woman and provides seed for a woman. When she conceives and becomes pregnant,he becomes the father. Two become one and baby makes 3. The bonding that takes place during the 9 month gestation period makes this experience sacred and in a Sacramental Holy Catholic Marriage a Catholic Couple knows that they have God's Grace. The woman who carries a child for a full 9 month gestation is administer of God;s Holy Will as she gives a baby it's birth into the world. The woman is recognized as the chief administrator in family matters as she by the nature of her sex is the mother.
The Priest is the minister and has gone to seminary to learn how to be the minister of the word of God to the congregation. He is Christ in Persona and minister to consecrate the accidents of the bread and wine into the body and blood or our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus and the apostles were all male. Men have the gift of mobility to carry out God's redemptive plan. They have the advantage of their sex as they a Father.
Woman are Mother as they administer to the needs of those they care for so they are administers to God's will through obedience and that is what they teach best is obedience. Mary is Mother of the Eucharist because at the Annunciation she accepted in obedience the will of God and the Virgin conceived and gave birth to a Holy Son of God. As Mary is Mother we are her Holy Children or GOD's Eucharistic Children.

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