Tuesday 23 May 2006

Vicars or lack of them

Apparently the parish priest's post at our church is not going to be replaced because the diocese can't afford to.

Now consider there is a shortage of Liberal Catholic parishes in this city. Of the three that I know of, one is now being church planted by Evos. One is going to have to share clergy with the other (non Liberal Catholic) parishes in its benifice and who knows who is going what is going to happen to us.

Obviously provision for "non FiF" Anglo-Catholics is not of interest to the diocese.

10 comments:

  1. And the diocese is doing what about this church planting across parish boundaries?

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  2. Absoulutly nothing. Indeed it is an official partnership arrangement.

    Of course a Liberal Catholic parish is going to get on really well with a Charismatic Evangelical shoving his brand of developing the parish on them

    But hey what does it matter how many leave so long as we get higher numbers.

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  3. Maybe be lumped together with another (non-liberal) Anglo-catholic church might work for the best. If there are enough numbers to balance out the different extremes, you might help that parish become less extreme. I'm not totally convinced that most people who went to your last church were really anti women priests, just went there out of habit.

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  4. It is unlikely that will happen.

    At my last parish Resolutions A & B had been passed by a majority of the parish and renewed every year by the PCC. I also know the majority of people at that parish would move elsewhere if recsinded the resolutions.

    Equally with Orinocco's vocation it would be impossible for us to attend a parish that had the resolutions in place.

    We have a resonable sized congregation attending the main 10:00 Sung Mass, normally in the region of 50 or so plus another 5-10 who attnd the 08:00 Low Mass. Orinocco & I are not the only members in our 20s there. (OK I am 30 now but you get the point.)

    My concern is that the diocese, like you, will not understand the major differences in some big areas that exist between FiF leaning Catholic parishes and AffCath leaning Catholic parishes and will try to merge us with one.

    My other worry is there will merge us with an MOTR parish who will then complain that we are too high and drag us down the candle.

    I'm not too worried that Fr John Irvine will try church planting us as he is doing at Saint Francis of Assisi, North Radford as we have a larger congregation than them.

    The fact remain though, after Canon Petifer at Holy Cross, Wyken retires there will not be a single Liberal Catholic parish in this city with a full time priest.

    That is unacceptable, and confirms suspicions I have had about this diocese for a long time.

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  5. What about S. Margaret's?

    Richard

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  6. Ball Hill?

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  7. Yes. They're a parish that was in the Catholic tradition for many years. I understand that they still use incense, and their Vicar (P-in-C?) is addressed as Mother.

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  8. What about St Margaret's Ball Hill, i thought that they were catholic and with a ordained woman. There is also St Matthew's in Warwick. There are other parishes within coventry who certaily call themselves liberal catholic. Perhaps you need to look harder!

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  9. I had never come across the parish before and nobody had every recommended it to me as worth attending.

    Even if this is the only one in the city with a full time PP it is still a bad show, and does not really nullify my point.

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  10. See comments about St Margaret's above.

    St Matthew's in Warwic, is of course, not in the City of Coventry and not particularly relavant to point.

    If you believe that I am mistaken about the dearth of Liberal Catholic parishes in Coventry perhaps you might like to suggest them rather than just saying "Look Harder!"

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