Foreign Travel...

..."You off to Rome then Rector?" With my present post-operative limp, making it to the garden gate-post is about the limit of my current venturing, so why then have not three but five of one's dear flock asked me this very question this week? Do I look equipped for foreign travel, when half-way down the High Street is quite beyond me?

Not though some cruel quip, a jest at my infirmity, but rather of course a quizzical wondering whether I'll be wanting to take up the latest offer from Il Papa di Tutti Papi of - well thus it seems to me - becoming a Catholic whilst yet remaining an Anglican.

No, is the present simple answer, certainly in advance of any opportunity carefully to scrutinise the as yet unpublished small print. Not really giving it much thought to be truthful at present, one's plate being somewhat full just now of other matters on which to chew as it were.

What, rather than any answering of mine, has me pondering is the casualness of the questioning. In the recent Woldean past - say any time over the last three centuries - such a consideration of defection (as it would be taken by all) would have raised burning passions on both sides. Indeed, the burning as such could, on rare but yet desperately sad occasions, be as literal as metaphorical.

Not now though. Folk have been asking as indolently as if just vaguely interested about one's possible plans for a short, reviving family holiday. "Oh, I hear Rome's very nice this time of year." That sort of thing and no more. So are they simply not bothered, totally indifferent even, whether I go or stay? Does, in fact, the whole Church shooting-match so little intrude into their lives that only utter indifference can give the full measure of their lack of any concern?

One could enquire of course, theorising in advance of the data being as much to be avoided in the nave as in the laboratory. Not though being up to much vox popping at present, I shall merely hazard a reasoned guess at the general state of mind and heart of my inquisitors.

Continuity is what is most wanted here at present, craved even. Too much turmoil both near and far has wearied the spirits these past few years. If then people felt threatened by any change - change qua change - they would be at once in stolid and solid opposition. That then they are completely relaxed about the whole thing can only mean that they see it as a very little thing. This is not indifference, just seeing very little difference.

Fr. Pat down the road at St. Alphonsus does a good Mass, whilst we here at St. Boniface do a pretty decent Communion I opine with some justification. He has his Solemn Vespers, we our Choral Evensong. He'll be not the last to allow that our traditional language of the liturgy outstrips his by some country miles for majesty, awe and wonder. (We on the whole try not to give a theology lecture to God the Father - "You this", "You that" - as must he from the rubrics as given.)

I never fish another man's pond, but it is patent that a certain number of Fr. Pat's sheep, duly branded with the petrine seal, do occasionally stray over to our meadows and pastures, seeking - as they would put it - some temporary respite from the woe that is the Nu Mass. "The Mass is the Mass is the Mass, Rector - no offence." None taken of course. "But I just need one Sunday in a while when I'm not asked to jig up and down to some happy-clappy 'People's Gloria' or give complete strangers a beaming smile and a hug."

In Fr. Pat's defence - man could speak for himself of course were he here, which of course he isn't so he can't - he's no happy-clappy cove himself and would have none of it at all were it up - or is that down? - to him. 'Tis, as ever the way of these things, the workings of his dread Bishop for whom the whole Vat. II thing was a complete eye-opener. Fair enough perhaps, just regrettably he's never really calmed down since.

Still keeps banging on does the Bish - or so Pat will tell me over the third whiskey, yes Irish in his honour - about 'engagement' and 'being Church' - whatever indeed that last should mean! (Pat and I have long given up searching for any clues. Gone as far even as the bottom of the bottle itself in search of an answer to that, but with no luck - if uproarious fun on the way - in making any head nor any tail of it.)

Trouble is, from Pat's perspective and with my entire sympathy and understanding of the man's intractable plight, with his Bish it is, as it were, 'Bish, Bash, Bosh' all the way. Man must take command and control at all times, in season and jolly well - or indeed badly - out of season too.

We too, of course, do have our centralising tendencies from time to time, with sudden flurries of paper edicts descending like some new variant Biblical plague. Keep your head down, make a few nominal assenting responses, but don't actually do anything and the spotlight moves on eventually. That generally sees off whatever it was that the Palace had - briefly - on its mind I find.

For poor Pat though there is no let up. Weekly Sit. Reps. are demanded, theological auditors are posted far and wide to inspect and approve - or not - progress, mandatory conferences are convened. The whole tone of the thing being the futility of resistance.

Pretty wearing all round that must be, and though Pat is a doughty worker in the vineyard of the Lord, one can tell that he just wishes he could be left alone once in a while to bring in the harvest without endless oversight of his viticultural skills or constant requirement of reporting Ph levels in the soil.

If then I am at present and for the foreseeable future in no way inclined to set sail for Rome on the back of an offer I feel perfectly at ease in refusing, it is in main part that I see no need for the journey at all, and in no small part I much rather prefer being Captain of my own small vessel to slaving in the galley of a dreadnought.

"I give the orders round here," I can cry whensoever I wish. The fact that I hardly ever do is not the matter in hand. It is the liberty to do so that counts. For the sake of the Lord and my continued easeful existence, please do not snitch to my Bish this take of mine on modern Anglican diocesan life as parsonically personally lived. He would awfully mind. He might even act on his minding. That would mean change. Worse than foreign travel is change.