The diocese has restarted in-person worship with rigorous restrictions, including demanding vaccination certificates from worshippers without an “approved medical exemption”. Good luck finding a doctor willing to risk his career by writing a medical exemption.
Next step: vaccine passports needed to enter the Pearly Gates.
From here:
Those 12 years old and over must be fully vaccinated (or have an approved medical exemption) and provide proof of the same, in order to attend the gathering.
The Diocese of Niagara’s bishop Susan Bell recently had a chat with Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York. Cottrell, we are told, is “an engaging and sophisticated leader, theologian, speaker, and writer”. The best that the Church of England has to offer; in which case, at least we now know why the CofE is in drastic decline.
Naturally, Susan Bell asked Stephen Cottrell to give us the benefit of his learning on climate change. Cottrell, we can only assume, is a renowned climatologist in addition to being a sophisticated leader and theologian. Here is part of his reply (my emphasis):
What a good question. Is there a more important question facing the world?
I think I would start by…two things…on the big picture level I think we need to teach much more about this. This needs to be not a kind of add-on to the Gospel; this is the Gospel…how we inhabit the world in the way of Christ…this is the Gospel. So, I’d want to preach and teach about it much more… good to hear that Canada is ahead as usual…it’s even in your Baptismal liturgy. It’s those things that start to impress it into our consciousness. This is what it means to follow Christ.
So there you have it: the good news of Jesus Christ is fixing climate change. This is why Jesus died on the cross. This is the cause for which countless Christians have been martyred. This is what gives meaning and purpose to life. This is incoherent tripe.
And Canada is at the forefront in peddling it.
On St. Matthias Anglican Church’s website, you will find this aphorism:
It takes courage to walk through the door of a church for the first time.
It takes a little more than courage to attend St Matthias, though: you must also present your vaccination documentation:
You are welcome at 8am & 10am.
Please mask, distance, and bring documetation (sic) of vaccination.
A letter from the rector was also sent to all parishioners stating, among other things:
Beginning This Sunday January 9th, please bring your proof of vaccination to attend worship (kids excepted) Our goal is to be able to clearly reassure anyone who asks that, yes, everyone who comes to worship is vaccinated.
Like so many things that would not long ago have seemed profoundly bizarre to find in a church, this intrusive medical questioning and resulting division and segregation is liable to become not only accepted and routine but demanded by rule-loving parishioners.
I am waiting for the first church to announce that such actions are prophetic and inclusive.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen as performed by the Proud Anglicans of Huron – with the words slightly altered.
I was shocked to notice the missed opportunity, however: “merry” remains unmolested, despite what surely must have been an overwhelming temptation to unburden the gentlemen of their heterosexuality and make them gay.
The Anglican Church of Canada is more of a crypto-Marxism cabal than it is a Christian denomination, so it isn’t surprising to find a bishop writing this in the Anglican Journal:
The intimate connection of individual lifestyle and global economic and political practices has been revealed in forceful detail. Yes, there are big actors that enflame this crisis—governments and corporations—but it is very clear that the tolerance that lets such deadly misbehaviour continue arises from our personal captivity to comfort, luxury, and wealth. And this tolerance is not just for what is overwhelming our planet. We have also accepted, with no major protest that I can see, the hideous damage that our present greed-related practices have inflicted on the poor, Indigenous peoples, and on the creatures that share Creation with us.
[…….]
Jesus showed us how to make this world and its relations sacred through the ceremony he gave us. This ceremony looks and acts towards his coming again, a time when God “will be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:28) What humanity has done through the global culture of money is the opposite, with the poor bearing the consequence. To make no choice in regard to these realities is an act of violent moral consequences. We must engage in a spiritual revolution, based in Eucharistic discipleship, and move in concert with and activate public policies and practices that will change these things. We must, in a hallowing of the Name of God, choose life.
A few pages further on in the paper we learn that clergy are rejoicing in how much profit (sorry, budget surplus) the church raked in in 2021:
Archdeacon Alan Perry, general secretary of General Synod, said the church was running a surplus for the year, to date, of more than $600,000. “That’s really extraordinarily good news,”
This is peanuts in the overall picture, though: The Anglican Church of Canada has around $1.2 billion invested in church pension funds, diocesan investments and trust funds. Shameless Capitalism.
Presumably, these considerable sums are somehow cleansed of the global culture of money and greed-related practices by virtue of Eucharistic discipleship. Whatever that is. To put it more simply, the ACoC is a major player in ecclesiastical money laundering.
Further on in the paper, we find the new ACoC treasure intoning these words that were clearly inspired by Squealer’s speech in Animal Farm:
“We don’t look at the work we do [as] bringing money for profit,” she says.
“We’re bringing money to help others. This is not the organization’s money, to be honest with you. We look at it as God’s money, and God gave it to us so we can utilize it to the best interests of everyone and to the benefit of everybody.”
Admittedly, it could have ended better.
A very Merry Christmas to all.
Just in time for Christmas.
From here:
Dear friends:
You will have heard by now that I have made the difficult decision to shutter our churches for public worship as a preventative measure against the unrestrained spread of the Omicron variant of concern which is circulating in our midst.
This is a hard time. We are being asked to dig very deep to accede to this moment with strength and maturity. The psalm quoted above, is one of assurance. It’s about trust in the power of God to guide and fortify us in the face of fear. God is called a fortress and a refuge – places of protection and shelter. Well, we have need of both in this moment.
But we are not helpless. Added to this deep trust is the use of the good judgement and common sense gifted to us as God’s beloved children. So, equipped with these abilities and God’s steadfast presence and care, we move forward into this next chapter of the pandemic.
It seems amazing that a scant three weeks ago, the word Omicron was not in our lexicons. Yet as I write to you, the number of cases in Ontario from this now predominant variant are doubling every two or three days, with case counts in our diocese rising to levels we haven’t seen since the third wave of the pandemic.
The extent of transmission in our communities has led many to urgently call for a set of new guidelines to act as a “circuit breaker” to slow infection and buy time to ramp up vaccination efforts. We are doing our part to contribute to this effort even as we place our trust in God.
It seems, the bishop has lost her faith – in the vaccines:
From here:
Worship services
If all participants are vaccinated as determined by the worship service leader, there are no capacity restrictions on worship services and choirs.
If participants are not all vaccinated, worship services and choirs are limited to 50% seated capacity.
Masks are required but can be temporarily removed for ceremonial eating and drinking, and by officiants, readers or for singing a solo where physical distancing is observed.
This, of course, has no effect on the Anglican Diocese of BC, since they struggle to fill their churches to 25% capacity at the best of times.
It does place great responsibility in the hands of “the worship service leader”, though. Who inspects the vaccine passports? The greeters (good morning, welcome to St. Elgiebetea’s, show me your papers)? If the church becomes half full, do you ask only the latecomers for papers, or do you throw everyone out and, in your egalitarian zeal, start again? Must masks be N95? Will an old scarf do? A pair of my wife’s pantyhose? Must churches hire bouncers to eject unclean interlopers?
In comparison to this, the mystery of the Trinity is simplicity itself.
An update from the Diocese of BC as of December 21st:
Unvaccinated individuals over the age of 12 will be asked to participate in worship virtually only for the next few months, while vaccination rates continue to improve, and the threat of the new variant is assessed.
