In the latter stages of this week my mind has been set working by the news that Cardinal John Henry Newman is about to be declared Blessed. My mind was set to working all the more by the news that a former youth worker for the Diocese of Peterborough and now a "minister for underpants" (according to some of the more humorous blogs) is calling for clergy to be more open to blessing Civil Partnerships in an article for Time Out magazine which was looking at the calls for Gay "Marriages" to be celebrated in church.
Why was my mind linking these two matters? Well, it wasn't so much the news that Cardinal Newman was about to be declared "Blessed" that caused me to think as the fact that this was announced so soon after the former youth worker's remarks were reported, albeit incorrectly in some publications.
I got to recalling Newman's view that the Church of England could only reflect the culture of the day and would always have to follow the Establishment line. So, for example, a Government makes a divorce far easier to obtain and so the number of second marriages rockets and then pressure grows for the Church of England to follow suit, and eventually it caves in and permits this. Mind you the poor parish priest has to act as judge and jury leaving the bishop to worry about lesser matters.
So Newman's view is demonstrated in the matter of "remarriage" after divorce. What then if we are now seeing pressure for the Church of England to allow the blessing of civil partnerships between two people of the same sex? Will this pressure lead to capitulation and will Newman's view be proved true once again, but this time far more seriously so for the unity of the Church and ecumenical relations? Only time will tell... but it makes you think!
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