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Diary (1)

by
07 September 2011

by Robert Mackley

Another league

IT IS the time of year when exam results are out, and everyone gets very excited and forensic. For the rest of the world, there is the perennial debate whether A-level students are cleverer these days, or whether standards have fallen. Given the ca­pacity of rioting teens to co-ordinate their movements speedily, it would suggest that the teaching of geo­graphy and IT, at least, is on the up.

But far be it from me to enter into the debate; for, in this university, as in Oxford, there is a more important discussion going on: where is your college on the Tompkins or Norring­ton league tables? Mine has this year forfeited her number one spot to Trinity (bigger, wealthier, and less friendly than us, of course — not that we’re bitter); while in Oxford, Merton — a byword for studious­ness — reigns supreme as usual.

Far more important than even this, however, is the league table of theological colleges. Here, no such thing exists (Westcott and Ridley af­fect to rise above such things); but, in Oxford, it pleased my high-church heart to see Staggers not only beat Ripon College (difficult to write a good exam essay when you’ve walked all that way and have to be back in time to babysit or drink sherry or whatever one does at Cuddesdon), but come in at the very top of the table for permanent private halls, far above Wycliffe, which languished one away from the bottom.

It must be easier to give an in­spired account of the Synoptic prob­lem while still high on Rosa Mystica incense after mass than after a few exhortations from St Paul’s more de trop passages about male headship.

Please note

IT MAY just be the exciting op­portunities that Oxford offers her undergraduates which cause them to be so academically successful. There was a fire-safety sign in Hertford Col­lege a few months ago which in­structed students to “Go to lodge and arouse Porter (break glass in door if necessary).” Presumably, there is no shortage of applications to be a col­lege porter.

Here, in Cambridge, equally in­triguing messages have been going round. One college Women’s Officer sent this email recently: “Dear all: To clarify the message in the bulletin, most women will automatically be on the women’s mailing list. How­ever, if you are male but self-define as female then you will not be on the list.

“Anyone who self-defines as a woman is welcome to join the women’s mailing list regardless of their actual sex — if you would like to do so, please contact me.”

No, I’m not making it up; and perhaps it suggests a way forward in the debate about the ordination of women.

After the tone

ONE way to resolve the debate, of course, would be simply to persuade women that the job is too anger-inducing to want.

A clerical friend, recently returned from holiday, had his calm ter­min-ated rapidly by three messages on his answerphone:

“Hi, my name is Joanne. I’m phon­ing about a wedding, ob­viously.”

“Hi, I’d like to book your church for my wedding.”

“Hi, my name’s Paula and my number is 123456. Goodbye.”

Obviously, Father has nothing else to do but weddings, his church is like any other space to be rented, and he does not need to know your surname or what you are calling about. As his email to me ended, “Please pray for charity.”

Get Carter

CHARITY is what I pray for when contemplating the Ordinariate.

What annoys me chiefly is that it has encouraged Anglo-Catholics of a certain type to live in a make-believe world where they can pretend that they are still Anglicans, and not deal with the psychological consequences of leaving the C of E for the Roman Catholic Church.

It is rather like that well-meant email from the Women’s Officer: if you are an Anglican who self-defines as Roman Catholic, then — despite all the awkward simple physical realities indicating otherwise — you can just join the Ordinariate and pretend that the Church is some­thing other than it is, and be a Roman Catholic who wishes to self-define as Anglican.

My favourite example of this concerns the £1 million that the trustees of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament have decided to give to the Ordinariate — whose trustees are now all, bar one, mem­bers.

They argue that the CBS was never part of the Church of England in the first place (try telling that to the anti-papalist 19th-century Canon T. T. Carter, who founded it), and that it makes perfect sense to give over half the Confraternity’s capital endowment to a Church that regards the sacraments and orders of the Con­fraternity’s priests to be absolu­tely null and utterly void (and demonstrates that by reordaining any cleric who joins it).

But because the Ordinariate allows a few former flying bishops to wear episcopal insignia, and Andrew Burnham is writing them a liturgy with the Collect for Purity in it, that makes it Anglican.

I had always foolishly assumed that this quality might have some­thing to do with being in commun­ion with the Archbishop of Canter­bury; but how daft am I?

Bigger together

FINALLY, more ecumenically and more cheerily, I commend to you the YouTube coverage of World Youth Day in Madrid.

Two highlights to watch out for: first, the expression on the Holy Father’s face after he has blessed a former Anglican deacon to read the Gospel (does it imply “I hope you know what you’ve done,” or “These crazy ex-Anglicans keep popping up everywhere”?); second, the vast monstrance that emerged, Wurlitzer-like, from the ground at Benediction on the last night. It’s a must-see.

It was not only the largest mon­strance, but the most theatrical beginning to Benediction, that I have ever seen. Perhaps reunion will come through common delight in such liturgical paraphernalia. God has used stranger things in the past.

The Revd Robert Mackley is a research student at the University of Cam­bridge.

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