FEATURE STORY

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Anglicans Seek To Reverse World-Wide Decline

by Christopher S. Johnson

LONDON – News that approximately 600 Anglicans recently joined the Roman Catholic Church’s new Ordinariate has thrown the Church of England into turmoil.

An anonymous source close to Lambeth Palace who swears he isn’t Kenneth Kearon but gets told all the time that he looks like Kenneth Kearon said, “You’d be panicked too if you’d just lost a third of your active membership at one stroke.”

According to the source, who wishes to remind you that he isn’t Kenneth Kearon, the atmosphere during an emergency meeting of Church of England bishops at the palace was tense. “Archbishop Rowan walked in swearing something in Welsh, I think.

“You all better figure something out and figure it out bloody fast or we’re all going to have to throw in with the bloody papists,” the source, who still isn’t Kenneth Kearon, says the Archbishop of Canterbury told the gathering.

Some bishops have been proactive. N. T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham, unilaterally resumed the princely powers the bishops of Durham used to have.

“Dr. Wright went the distance,” said a Times of London reporter who wished to remain nameless and who may or may not have been Ruth Gledhill. “Recusancy fines, jailing Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants who held services, all of it.”

What happened? “It was a bloody disaster. There was only one rack left in the diocese to torture heretics on, the damned thing didn’t work and no one knew how to use it anyway. And the recusancy fines had to be paid in shillings which annoyed everyone.

“‘Where am I supposed to get bloody shillings?’ a man asked me. ‘That idiot Wright does know Britain stopped minting those, doesn’t he?’ Absolute bloody nightmare.”

Other bishops tried more positive approaches. Dr. John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, recently authorized nude liturgies “particularly in those parishes served by female priests.”

And the result? Don’t ask, said another anonymous source who bears an uncanny resemblance to theTelegraph’s Damian Thompson. “Among the C of E’s female clergy, there are far more Dawn Frenchs than Kate Middletons. And a naked Dawn French is not something that anyone anywhere wants to…let’s just drop that whole idea right now.”

But Great Britain is not alone.

North American Anglicans have also experimented with programs to halt the precipitous decline in the number of Canadian and American Christians who call themselves Anglicans.

So far, results have been mixed. In Canada, the Diocese of New Westminster partnered with Hershey’s Canada to promote its “Golden Ticket” contest.

Five golden tickets were hidden in Hershey’s candy bars sold in the diocese, the lucky recipients to receive title to Anglican churches that conservative Anglicans had been sued out of, provided that they agreed not to sell them back to the original parishioners.

According to an anonymous Church House insider who swears on a stack of Bibles that he or she isn’t Captain J. M Heinrichs, the results “were less than optimal.”

No golden ticket was exchanged for a church building. Since they were literally made of gold, all five were auctioned off on eBay for considerably more than the assessed value of the parishes.

The Diocese of Toronto’s “Bishop for a Day” promotion turned out to be quite lucrative for Michael Daley, 28, of Etobicoke. During his 24-hour tenure as bishop, Daley ordered the Diocese to buy him a Toronto Maple Leafs luxury box and three Tim Horton’s franchises in locations of his choice.

“Ka-ching!!” Daley told the Toronto Globe & Mail.

In the United States, similar approaches have been tried with varying degrees of success. The Diocese of Missouri instituted an ethnic outreach program to, as a spokesperson put it, “pay tribute to the various ethnic communities that contribute so much to our church with their colorful ceremonies and languages and whatnot.

“For example, last Sunday’s ‘Salute to Italy’ day at Christ Church Cathedral, here in St. Louis, was a great success. Instead of vesting, the clergy dressed as Mafiosi, the liturgy was said in delightfully comical fake Italian accents and communion wafers were replaced by Chef Boyardee ravioli.”

Last spring, University of Minnesota philosophy major Edward Romanowski of Fergus Falls, Minnesota found himself in Delray Beach, Florida and won the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida’s “Bishop for a Day” contest when someone entered his name as a joke.

Romanowski traded Trinity Cathedral and the bishop’s residence for six kegs of Budweiser Select, three cases of Jim Beam, eight ounces of something called Cambodian Red and rolling papers.

“Best spring break I ever had, dude,” he told the Associated Press.

The Diocese of Nebraska instituted a “Bishop for a Day” program of its own which greatly benefited one Donald Janousek of Grand Island, Nebraska. “One Sunday morning, my wife and I were in Omaha on the way home from visiting her sister,” Janousek recalled. “We dropped into Trinity Cathedral to ask for directions to the Old County Buffet.

“Next thing I know, bells are going off and people are crowding around shaking my hand and congratulating me on being named their Bishop of the Day. Mrs. Janousek and I thought it might be fun so we stuck around.”

Janousek’s sermon during his brief tenure as Nebraska’s chief Episcopalian was an order for the Diocese to make a $50,000 contribution to his Grand Island Orthodox church. And he instructed Trinity’s ushers to put the collection plate money in a bag for him.

“Next day,” the former Episcopal bishop remembered, “I put all that money on a longshot filly named Ugly Chasuble in the fifth race at Fonner Park and that gorgeous nag won by six lengths. Let’s just say that thanks to the Episcopalians, Mrs. Janousek and I are sitting pretty these days.”