Guest blogger, The Rev\u2019d Humphrey Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda\u2019s, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. He is a graduate of Plymouth University. He completed his studies for the ministry at Latimer Hall, Durham. He is married to Daphne and enjoys home brewing, model railroading and is an avid member of the Great Snoring Morris Dancers<\/span><\/p>\n I say lads, let\u2019s have a round of drinks to toast our courageous Archbishop of Canterbury. It\u2019s about time someone stands up to the Romans! No sooner did the Pope attack our church and Dr Williams heads off to the Pope\u2019s HQ to talk to the top man himself and give him the what ho.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t had such cheering news for a long time. Yes indeed, as that jolly gal Ruth Gledhill said at The Times, the Archbishop has hit back and hit hard. I know it\u2019s not the done thing nowadays to knock the Roman Catholics, but one has to defend oneself, and after the Pope blatantly tried to steal our sheep it\u2019s a good thing the Archbishop has stood his ground.<\/p>\n You know sometimes our friends in the Roman church like to criticize us because they think we seem a bit woolly in our beliefs, but I myself don\u2019t see any harm in that. The Church of England has never been a dogmatic church as such, and I don\u2019t see why we ought to start now. The truth of the matter is that we make room for everyone. All are welcome in the C of E. Used to call it the Church of Everybody when in the old days. In fact, when I was doing my national service the drill sergeant used to call us to march to the chapel on Sundays by saying, \u201cEveryone to the C of E except for Catholics and the mentally insane!\u201d Never failed to raise a chortle I can tell you.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s my point. We don\u2019t exclude anyone, and let\u2019s face it did Jesus exclude anyone from the Last Supper? No. He invited all of his twelve apostles\u2013even that rascal Judas. After all didn\u2019t Our Lord himself say, \u201cBroad is the way?\u201d Well as a broad churchman I\u2019ve always taken comfort in that.<\/p>\n The problem with the Roman Catholics is that they\u2019re exclusive. They\u2019re always telling people \u201cyou\u2019re out\u201d rather than \u201cyou\u2019re in.\u201d I mean to say, think of this latest adventure of theirs\u2026the Pope is pushing even more people out of his church. As Lavinia was saying just the other day at the Clergy Fellowship Gathering, \u201cHe\u2019s pushing out all the homosexuals and women.\u201d Then he has the gall to dress up the whole exercise as some sort of \u2018church unity\u2019 attempt.<\/p>\n Well, now Dr Williams has given the Pope in Rome one or two things to think about. I wouldn\u2019t be at all surprised to see a turnaround in the years to come. Very quietly the Romans will let drop their strong language about lady priests and you\u2019ll see them coming around to our way of thinking. After all, we were the first to step out and put the prayers and the Bible in English, and sure enough, it took them four hundred years, but eventually the Romans did the same.<\/p>\n Then we started singing jolly new songs like \u201cShine Jesus Shine\u201dand now they very happily sing them too. As Dr Williams has said, \u201cThe underlying sense of unitive cohesion may be said to transcend the temporal items of divisive fissiparousness and shouldn\u2019t the overarching principles be considered as it were indicative of a more foundational sharing than is otherwise at times implied by liturgical distinctives?\u201d<\/p>\n Couldn\u2019t have put it more clearly myself. Three cheers for the Archbishop finally taking the lead.<\/p>\n Now Colin, I don\u2019t much like your tone. It\u2019s all very well saying, \u201cMrs. Vicar hasn\u2019t followed your lead has she Vicar?\u201d I\u2019ve told you before Daphne is staying with her cousin Eileen in the Midlands. The poor woman\u2019s going through a rough patch and Daphne\u2019s there with a bit of TLC and the odd cup of tea. Not sure exactly when she\u2019s coming back, but in the meantime I don\u2019t mind batching it. Lavinia and Georgie have been a couple of bricks. Absolutely spiffing! Last night they brought around a jolly nice quiche with some lentil soup and elderberry wine. I must admit the lentil soup has produced a few rumbles down south, but otherwise it was a splendid supper.<\/p>\n Well, lads, I must dash. Lavinia\u2019s got me lined up to attend some sort of play reading at that women\u2019s book club she runs over at the Swan and Stubble. Play\u2019s called the Virginia Monologues or something of that sort. Sounds interesting. It\u2019s from across the pond, so I \u2018spect it\u2019s a historic piece about the first settlers in Virginia.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Guest blogger, The Rev\u2019d Humphrey Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda\u2019s, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. He is a graduate of Plymouth University. He completed his studies for the ministry at Latimer Hall, Durham. He is married to Daphne and enjoys home brewing, model railroading and is an avid member of the Great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[4,21,94],"class_list":["post-1538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-vicar","tag-alter-egos","tag-anglicans","tag-humor"],"yoast_head":"\n