August 16, 2006

Frankly

I’ve a suspicion Melchizedek might not be so pleased with the periodic talk in the church of disenfranchising retired clergy. The reason for such is not altogether clear, save to suggest that some might think that when the pension kicks in, the collegial privileges, responsibilities, capacities, and, of course, ordination vows kick out.

Priests are enfranchised in their ordination to take their “share in the councils of the church” and bishops, to “share in the leadership of the church throughout the world” [BCP pp 517, 531]. There’s nothing in the ordinal that retires or curtails those charges at some canonically arbitrary age.

What’s afoot here other than a seemingly inordinate problem with control on the part of some seems to be at base a doctrine of orders. We Anglicans have scruffled with Rome for centuries over our notions about priesthood. Now, we seem to have an internal scrap in hand, as well.

Exercising the franchise [whether lay or clergy] in church councils calls, at least, upon one’s capacities for judgment. For some of us, once a priest, always a priest. Some functions, of course, change, like with everyone, but orders continue. To disenfranchise the clergy at retirement strikes me as an altogether secular appraisal system contrary to the biblical, traditional, and, as well, reasonable priorities one might expect in the church.

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