Bishop Gill's Motives Are Difficult To Fathom

After all, since he knows the Catholic Church has no plans for an Ordinariate in South Africa, he's never been under the direct threat that his US colleagues have seen, with parishes (and much of a diocese) leaving the denomination. All he has to do is sit tight, and nothing's going to change within his see.

Yet in November 2011, Gill spoke to a world conference of Anglican continuers in Brockton, MA. Clearly Ordinariates were on his mind.

The Rt. Rev. Michael Gill, Bishop of Pretoria and Southern Africa, told his listeners that trouble makers who come in to destabilize parishes, those who proselytize from other churches, and the Pope's offer of Anglicanorum Coetibus were little more than "cunning plans" that "never won a single soul for the Lord Jesus Christ nor did it add one soul to the Kingdom of God."

The bishop shredded the Pope's offer saying, "We are all aware of the furor it has created in Anglican circles and of the people who have been polarized by the various, and usually naïve interpretations given to the document. The blogs have been the most hysterical and creative by far, with some fascinating views on the future liturgies that will be used and just who the Ordinaries will be."

Gill said the offer was little more than an attempt by Rome for Anglican Christians to "swap allegiance" and join the Roman Catholic Church - to "convert" as individuals or groups and become Roman Catholics.

"That the arrangement is entirely on Rome's terms should have hardly been a surprise to anyone who has read any Church History."

The only thing we seem to be missing here is Jesuits plotting behind curtains! But as I said yesterday, I simply can't understand why he's so exercised that things would be "entirely on Rome's terms". That was the whole point of the Portsmouth Letter, which he signed after all, and notwithstanding any blue-sky estimate by John Hepworth of 500,000 in the TAC, he must surely have recognized that even half a million wouldn't be an inducement to the Pope, much less 5,000. The Pope has the Orthodox in his sights, then the Lutherans. Somehow I've got to wonder if Gill is way above his paygrade here, and that even has me wondering about his mental balance.

But let's go farther into Gill's motives (though as someone remarked about someone else in a different context, "Who would want to?"). From the same Brockton meeting:

Gill said he had a face to face meeting around Anglicanorum Coetibus with Roman Catholic Archbishop George Daniel who is in charge of Anglican/Roman Catholic dialogue in Southern Africa. Gill was told that not only would there be no Ordinariate in Southern Africa, but that the conversion to Roman Catholicism required, would in many cases, go back "as far as Baptism" depending on the original church background of the convert.

"This was fizzed over by the blogging community. Archbishop Daniel (a former Anglican) is a highly sophisticated man, someone I have known and respected for more than 20 years, and he was as gentle as possible in breaking the news that we (all the Continuing Anglicans in Southern Africa) were an immature lot, and a long way away from the levels of theological education expected for acceptance as Roman clergy.

His real objection -- though again, it's theoretical, since there's no Ordinariate planned for South Africa -- is that some priests aren't going to make the grade. Perhaps by extension too, nobody's going to be grandfathered in as a bishop. And I don't know why he should be disturbed that care would be taken with conversions: Catholics in the US who want to become Episcopalians or any other Anglican flavor still have to take the Anglican confirmation class and be "received" by an Anglican bishop. Why would he expect Catholics to be less punctilious with Anglicans?

Considering the style of baptism that may possibly have occurred in rural parts of Africa, if it wasn't done with the correct elements or in the name of the Trinity, it might indeed need to be redone. For heaven's sake, this is the 21st century, and people who grew up in Scientology or as Unitarians or whatever else in the US are baptized as adults into Christian denominations every week with no qualms at all. For that matter, a very snooty Los Angeles Episcopal parish put an ad in the paper saying they'd baptize all comers at the Easter Vigil "no questions asked" -- would a Catholic bishop be correct in accepting even that baptism? Where is Gill's problem here?

He doesn't even have a dog in this fight. No South African Ordinariate means he doesn't need to bother his head aobut this stuff. He remains a bishop, his priests stay priests, his parishioners stay baptized no matter what. So why is he going to Massachusetts -- to buck up his fellow TAC bishops, Strawn and Marsh, who do have a dog in this fight? In that case, he's simply stirring up trouble. He may well have felt insulted on behalf of his colleague Strawn in particular, whose formation at an unaccredited seminary would certainly disqualify him for the Catholic priesthood.

It may well be, too, that he's simply bristling at the implied comparison between the Catholic Church and the TAC -- as we've been seeing here, the TAC is tiny, its priests and bishops are almost always marginal and sometimes just disreputable, and the prognosis for its continued survival is not good. It's a bad sign that he seems to be so lacking in humility or simply realism that he should become so defensive and upset about the situation. On the other hand, he's not unique within the TAC.