Yeah but yeah but yeah but

One must begin from the Little England Series, and recall that in these days of changing ways and changing discourses, many of the Church of England icons of the older kind would often wax lyrically about those poor old RCs over yonder who had a problem with boy abuse in a gay clerical subculture, gayness assumed, much like the two boyos who fathered children in America just for abuse purposes, sentenced then to 100 years of prison time, but the Lord Nolans and Baronesses Camberlege and Baronesses Scotland though these were nice, used to preside in splendour over the tommy rot and tommy riddle of many RC monastery public schools where allegedly parties were endemic and monks were accused of approaching rich boys by rich boys keen to make up their measeley subs and allowances from Daddio with a quick compo case. These cases involved buying ice creams for the boys. But here we must digress and make a distinction between boy abuse routinely alleged for political purposes, like the much bemoaned Anne Boleyn circulating such rumours about abbots and priors because they clung onto papal loyalism in an Age of the absolute monarch, and then the real thing of frolicking in the quads with young men and their boys. Because so many executions took place against papal loyalism the charge of boy abuse was routinely levelled against gay abbots and their priors and monks on their way up to the gallows hastily erected and no due process just snobby reformation judges giving sermons to the accused, though in facto many of the monks were innocent, it was simply a political ploy designed to make those guilty of papal loyalism pay for their attachment to the Old Faith of Jesus and the apostles, a cynical way also to turn the average housewife and her Joe Public against the monastery quads too. So there is a tradition of this charge being artificially attached to a sort of papal loyalism to the Old Faith - all such cases were called "montaturae negativae" of the worst kind. Naughty. Usurping young concubine queen Anne Boleyn was jealous herself of the way that so many clerics and monks and their canon lawyers simply came to the defence of Catherine in those fated times when Henry wished his wedding annulled by the church judges in faraway Rome. Spiritual jealousy of the Acts 2 kind is a terrible thing especially when it occurs between two women fighting for the king's hand. Like Diana and the old dear now very quaint and antique Camilla. Similarly the Lords and Ladies dancing of the Old Church of England maybe often allowed that old tradition to bite against the RC monasteries, without looking into the real cases against monks and real charges. They presided presidingly over the RC monks in that presidential way that was so superior than they, holier than thou, keener than the king for justice for the rich young boys a few who themselves practised disloyalty for a fast buck for their cynical Daddios - these latter then had the money to pay the fees, in a series of very cynical compo scams. They presided over the RCs in such abandon and in such superiority, looking down long noses, that when eventually the story about worse even worse abuse than buying ice creams for boys, indeed of the most painful penetrative kind, came out around the learned grey bishops of Canterbury, everybody who was anybody was naturally shocked and appalled - it was all a load of hypocritical cant - the reformation judges of the Old Church of England turned out to be worse than the RC monks on this old charge which had now become an old canard. And worse. Found among the very judges appointed by the crown, itself under pressure for minor abuse in the case of one or two of the princes courtesy of a friend in the stock markets called Geoff. Worse than worse. Stitch ups. The learned bishops of the RCs accepted it all so meekly and without rancour that at times for moderne humans rights lawyers, it all looked like collusion of the old kind in Ulster. But it is otherwise now in the Real Church of England where all is innocence and light.   

Em

Gosh, am really gobsmacked at the appearance not a few days ago of Emma W on one episode of the Vicar of Dibley TV Series with Dawn French as the vicar and Emma now as a trendy young vicar too all decked out in a nice Kensington grey and purple uniform, espousing nice trendy views and calling for the candidacy of much more interesting bishops of the protest song and protest poem, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen style bishops of the streets who at least would be more interesting and more exciting than the present stock of the usual fly by nights, of the usual conservative stuffy kind. It was such a glorious hoot to see her in action as a young trendy vicaress, and so cool and so sexy too, fabulous idea. Dawn French excelled too in this episode when she articulated the feelings of ordinary people, especially now that the usual suspects have been outed among the prelates as per once upon a time in ages past. Can the Old Church of England recover from a glorious Emma W attack of gargantuan proportions, she is such an intellectual giant without even trying to be, so nice. Such a tonic to see a young girl in action as a trendy trainee vicaress. Makes it all worth all the hassle of these last few years since 1992. The olde worlde of anglican prelates of the old kind cannot continue especially of the kind that now afflicts the leaders what with bishops caught with their pants down. The Real Church of England would salute this kind of girl, this kind of nice and trendy young lady vicaress. Met with one myself in a nice Spanish hotel not long ago. No hassle, no problem.  Even stuffy and snobby old Constantinople might actually concur if there were more girls like Emma Watson in the ranks of the glorious lady vicaress kind. The people concur.  

Wit

The outgoing prime minister was often pulling his hair out when decision time came up say around the ratification of treaties a la Chagos and the like or the Falklands, and his two Fathers in God, York and Cantuar, had to be consulted about such things as voices of the public christian conscience, but think what poor old new prime minister has to say to young Prince W of Cantab about consulting his new Fathers in God too - dilemmas, dilemmas, especially when such prelates have been red canons in the distant past, a terrible ordeal. A bit of a bind as Calvin the C often says, and he is compassionate. But such men are of a lean and hungry look yon Cassius, God knows what is going on in those old red minds - help, these might be wreckage artists from within - nobody would re-assign nowadays unless they were mischievous. So it is all too much tonight for the new prime minister who now desperately needs a jolly good skiing holiday, maybe with Bella and her sister Madison over yonder in Kirchberg, who knows. But calm your nerves, for it is all otherwise in the Real Church of England where stringent vetting takes place and lawyers are preferred vicars. 

Pondering

Am pondering the fates at the moment like a pensive Vespasian atop his throne in far away northern sees like York, much like the statue of Constantine the Great up here, and thinking as to how the Old Church of England can survive the latest scandals at Canterbury, what with the Welby story now circulating, since in 1850 there were large scale defections from the Old Church of England in that time frame, as many ordinary rural people walked away from an impossibly posh church that was only interested in the new urbanised populations of the rich and powerful merchant classes and the like and which dominated the churches in that period. Impossibly posh, stilted voices, artificial liturgies, abstruse sermons, pious hyperbole, nothing about the gospels, little about the real Jesus, so it was not going to be easy to recover from another 1850 in this year of 2024, since there is a little bit more to reveal about the Welby scandal maybe helas helas. Bp Welby has much to confide and confess in this story possibly, so we have not heard the final chapter of this whole story as yet, more canings around the evangelical sector maybe to surface, since there was more to it than meets the superficial eye. A catholic scottish Cracker is needed. Am not suggesting that the whole fate of the whole Church hangs by a thread upon the whims and fancies of one individual since the fate of the Church is bigger than just one person, but we shall see what emerges. There is however the Real Church of England that is more than the sum of the parts of the Old Church of England to be sure, and if anything is to be recovered from the Old Church of England it is that maybe there is room for a Celtic style rapprochement of the natural law based candidates of once upon a time. Caning boys as an expression of some strange fantasy is not going to be the foundation or basis for future candidates for clerks in holy orders maybe, methinks. The Celtics can teach us a thing or two about screening out those kinds of vicars and jurists, vicaresses too with their feminista pliars, of an overly strict kind of once upon a time since they too had their moment of infamy as well in medieval times when the invasion force of the Normans under licence from Henry II and also the pope at the time Adrian IV went over there in the 1100s and imposed order on an unruly kingdom of bolshevik and gay clergy and the Norrman king took a nice pretty Celtic girlfriend to be his wife called to signal to the unruly clerics that the age of the rabid anti-natural law cleric was over, anti-naturam clerics were now history. Even the mild mannered English pope at the time was concerned about what had happened there. The council of Trullo in 600 AD in our beloved Constantinople too was concerned about such developments when it imposed marriage on all future clerics. So too Elizabeth the First imposing marriage on the dons of Cambridge and Oxford. So it does happen from time to time. Canings are history for us in the Real Church of England, how those poor boys suffered. It cannot happen again, evangelicals or no evangelicals. Our own reformation judges of the civil kind already had occasion to warn of the extremes and excesses of evangelical schools of the Baptist kind in the 2000s and 2010s when suppressing the right to discipline children by private teachers then, the "spare the rod and spoil the child" school of thought, or rather instinct. Male evangelical teachers running schools .... .... just like a bad episode of Cracker. So the Old Church of England can survive this public very public meltdown but there will be a price to pay. Boys cannot be allowed to suffer so grievously.We in the Real Church of England can take steps.

While

While the kerfuffle and ferment goes on back home in Canterbury I have quietly retired to my country retreat for some tea and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts taken off and quietly resigned myself to books like the Diary of a Country Vicar a la James Herriott. Somewhat more consoling than the usual bill of fayre.