It being a long time since I was fed Catholic dogma I’ll probably get some of this wrong myself but Simon Jenkins does seem to have grasped the wrong end of a number of sticks:
Who is this joker in Rome claiming supremacy via the greatest con in
Europe’s intellectual history, the 1870 Vatican council’s invention of
papal infallibility. Listen, Pope, I am inclined to say, two can play
at infallibility.
Well, if our Benedict were indeed claiming Papal Infallibility on this matter that might be a fair comment but I’m pretty sure he’s not. Do correct me if I’m wrong here but I think that the only time Papal Infallibility has indeed been claimed was back then in 1870, when Papal Infallibility was used to insist that the Pope could indeed speak Infallibly on various subjects. I’m really not certain that since then any Pope has stated that he’s speaking Infallibly on any other subject than that Papal Infallibility is possible.
The Pope drew a distinction between the Orthodox churches, which he calls sisters (surely brothers?),
No, obviously not: Mother Church, remember?
While Roman Catholics scurry off to their modern sheds, it is the
Anglican vicar who might reasonably imitate Benedict, sit atop his
gothic steeple and proclaim his to be "the one true church".
Something of a touchy subject there: the jexting arm of lapsed Catholics (of which I am one) has been known to argue that the architecture of Roman Catholic churches would be vastly improved by hte Church of England handing back those ones built by Catholics: you get to keep St. Paul’s for example, but we get Westminster Abbey back, along with all those built before about 1550 or so.
And as a special bonus:
I would not disestablish parish churches, rather the reverse. I would
"establish" them, as in Germany and other continental countries, as the
formal responsibility of parishes and municipalities, a charge on local
rates and a religious and secular amenity for all local people, as in
the middle ages. Everyone paid to build them. They belong to everyone
and should be open to everyone. They just need the product of a penny
rate to prop them up – and need it ever more desperately.
We get the return of the Church Tithe! Well, I suppose that when you give someone a knighthood there is always the possibility that he’ll get all feudal on you.
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