Your answers to last week’s questions:
Would it be legal, from an Anglican point of view, for a Roman Catholic priest to preside at evensong in an Anglican church?
The Church of England recognises the orders of Roman Catholic priests as being as valid as our own. One does not need to be ordained to officiate at evensong, however; so it is perfectly acceptable and, indeed, wonderful for a Roman Catholic priest to officiate.
In a similar way, I have officiated at services, including Stations of the Cross, in Roman Catholic churches on many occasions.
(The Revd) Geoffrey Squire SSC
Goodleigh, Barnstaple, Devon
Can anyone find a word or several words which describe same-sex unions which will be acceptable to those involved? . . . [Answers, 12 January]
It is disingenuous of the questioner to say that “marriage, by definition, is the union of a man and a woman,” as though word-definitions were fixed and eternal. One of the words in the term “gay marriage” has changed its meaning considerably over the lifetime of many of us. It’s what words do.
Humphrey Clucas
Sutton, Surrey
Your questions:
As much of the problem regarding the furtherance of Christian unity seems to be about doubts concerning succession, would it not be possible for a male bishop of the Old Catholic Church to participate in all Anglican ordinations for a period of time?
R. W.
Is there a definition of what is the officially “traditional” form of the Lord’s Prayer? One of our local clergy starts up with “Let us pray as our Saviour taught us, in the traditional words,” but they are those of the Alternative Service Book 1980, not the 1662 Prayer Book, which I grew up with (I am 65).
A. H.
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