This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 05 Jul 2008, by Jan Gondol.
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05 Jul 08
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If there is one man not taking an unholy pleasure in the fragmentation of the Church of England, is the leader of England and Wales's Roman Catholics, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.
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“Really, we don't rejoice at all. It diminishes the standing of Christianity.”
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Even to me, a mildly sectarian Catholic, it is obvious that the effect of all this wrangling about woman bishops and gay vicars is that people will start to think that sex is pretty well all that Christianity is about. And, to put it crudely, that undermines the brand.
As the Cardinal observed: “Life isn't all about homosexuality and women priests.”
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if you tried to put the value of the Church of England's charitable work into money terms on the basis of paying its volunteers the minimum wage, you'd be talking about hundreds of millions of pounds.
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They are organised directly from the heart of congregations without judgment or conditions attached.” You can't buy that kind of commitment.
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48 per cent more likely to be regular volunteers than their secular counterparts. So if more Anglicans drop out of organised religion and join the ranks of cultural Christians - ie, people who can't be bothered to go to church - as a result of these unedifying rows, it is bad news for everyone.
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If the Church of England is bent on tearing itself apart, it is sad for the nation. But the options now for intelligent conservative clergy are to head for the long grass - or Rome.
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In my view, anything that weakens religion can only be a good thing.
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Its right that the C of E discusses these thorny issues - it is not a church stuck in the past after all.
Spot on about volunteers.
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