The Church and Pick-Up-Stix

You may remember a game from childhood called 'Pick Up Stix'? A collection of colourful sticks that looked like big toothpicks would be dropped on the table and each player had to remove them one by one and place them back in the can. You had to pick up the stick in such a careful and delicate manner that you would not disturb any of the other sticks. This is not a bad analogy for the Vatican's attempt to pick up the increasingly disordered chaos that is the Anglican Communion.

It is common to think of the Worldwide Anglican Communion as a Protestant form of the Catholic Church. Catholics have their HQ in Rome. Anglicans have theirs in Canterbury. Catholics have the Pope. Anglicans have the Archbishop of Canterbury... and so forth. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Anglican Communion is more like a confederation of contradictions than a communion of the saints. At one point Anglicans worldwide were united in their shared understanding of the historic Christian faith and their shared ancestry in English language and culture. As time has progressed like an ever rolling stream the Anglican Communion has become more and more disparate. Now there are Charismatic Anglicans, Traditionalist Anglicans, Catholic Anglicans and Protestant Anglicans and New Age Anglicans and Liberal Anglicans.

In the developing world native cultures and separate political development has meant that the African, American and Asian Anglican Churches are now more African, American and Asian than Anglican.The structure of the Anglican Communion is that each national church is an independent province. They look to Canterbury for a figurehead of unity, but the Archbishop of Canterbury has no more than symbolic power.

In addition to the autonomous national churches Anglicanism has been torn apart over the last 30 years (but at an ever increasing rate) with a bewildering array of 'Continuing Chuches.' For all sorts of reasons Anglicans (and their American cousins the Episcopalians) have done the Protestant thing and quarrelled and split and quarrelled and split and quarrelled and split. Now there are over 125 independent 'Anglican' churches.

A neat list can be found here: http://anglicansonline.org/communion/nic.html with a fascinating selection of names and abbreviations: Anglican Catholic Church, Catholic Anglican Church, Anglican Church in North America, Anglican Mission in North America, Anglican Catholic Church in North America, Anglican Orthodox, Orthodox Anglican.

These churches include some that can be taken seriously: their bishops and clergy are learned and their congregations are growing and their structure is sound. Then there are those that cannot be taken seriously: their clergy are educated online. They have one or two congregations meeting in someone's basement or garage. Some of the schism churches have been around for over a 100 years, others were founded yesterday. Some reacted against Anglicanism because it was too liberal, others because it was not liberal enough.

Amazingly, the Vatican has decided to take the breakaway groups seriously. This does not mean they are going to accept the Right Reverend Phineas D. Snakeoil with his online degree, his mail order miter and crozier and his group of 'faithful' old women who meet in his attic in Podunck Tennessee for Solemn High Mass. It does mean, however, that they are willing to talk to the Bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion , 'a worldwide association of orthodox Anglican Churches working to proclaim the Catholic faith and resist secularization.' Even closer to Canterbury - they are willing to talk to the 'flying bishops' who have carefully and gently led the traditionalist Anglicans in the Church of England over the last 20 years. They are also continuing to talk to the former Anglican priests and their congregations who have already been living and worshipping in full communion with the Catholic Church through the pastoral provision and the 'Anglican Use' parishes in the United States.

What will the Vatican do with all the other eccentric ecclesiastics in the many different 'continuing Churches'? That's where the game of pick up stix comes in. They will have to pick and choose carefully. Some of the groups are Protestant in their theology and want nothing to do with the Catholic Church in the first place. Others will look to the Catholic Church and be unsuitable for leadership. The trickiest of all will be the members of the established Anglican Churches who seek to 'come home to Rome'. The Vatican's skills will need to be exercised with delicacy and tact for the good of each person and group, but also with a view to the unity of Christ's whole church.

Fr .Dwight Longenecker is a former Anglican priest. He was ordained under the Pastoral Provision for married former Anglican priests and he now serves as Chaplain to St Joseph's Catholic School in Greenville, South Carolina. www.dwightlongenecker.com