Dramatic Introduction of Charles Hart ‘Barking Toad’ Nalls in Robot

Remember the long biography of The Continuum’s newest addition? Well, dear reader, Barchester presents the dramatic reading in Robot English for your listening pleasure.

Follow along with the text:

The Reverend Canon CHARLES HART NALLS is a Priest of the Anglican-Catholic Church . He currently serves the Church of the Ascension, Centreville, Virginia, and is Canon to the ordinary for his diocese. A Colonel, Chaplain Corps, Canon Nalls’ current military service is as Chief of Chaplains in the Maryland Defense Force and Regimental Chaplain to the 70th Regt. (LDR), Maryland Army National Guard. He also is lead chaplain for the 32nd Civil Support Team (Weapons of Mass Destruction) at Ft. Meade, Maryland. Canon Nalls is also an attorney with more than twenty-five years at bar and expertise in canon, religious and ecclesiastical law. He is the Executive Director of the Canon Law Institute® in Washington, D.C. and CEO of ELG, a Baltimore-based charity. His academic degrees include a Master of Theology and S.T.B. (both with honors) from Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC, where he currently is an S.T.L. candidate. He also holds a Juris Doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center, and Bachelors of Arts degrees (Magna Cum Laude) in Political Science and History, respectively, from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Canon Nalls is the author of the book PRAYER: A Field Guide and a number of legal and religious articles, guides and pamphlets. He married Elizabeth F. Carroll in 1985, and together they have a daughter Laura Bayly Nalls.

Ordination: Anglicans Going to Rome

Jeffrey Steel, a former Church of England priest, made a superb blog post the other day that Barchester is unfortunately only now able to comment on. His article is about the possible objection some ‘high church’ Anglicans might have to being ordained into the Catholic priesthood, as opposed to being received or at the very least conditionally ordained. Barchester is unsure whether or not any conditional ordinations will be allowed such as in the famous Graham Leonard situation, but our guess is that most certainly will not be the norm. Perhaps a more educated or informed reader may let us know?

But the point that Jeffrey raises is one that Anglicans need to think upon. Anglicans do indeed have a messy situation regarding holy orders. Barchester, maybe foolishly, thinks that–to use Fr Hunwicke’s brilliant phrase–the ‘Dutch Touch’ did in fact make Apostolicae Curae redundant, regardless of where one stood on the argument that Dom Gregory Dix made in the late 1940s. Francis Clark’s argument of Pope Leo XIII’s understanding and meaning of ‘intention’ was one that eventually won the day, including the current Holy Father’s understanding. Hence, Jeffrey Steel’s point, ‘about the apocryphal ordinations of Protestants who have “high forms” including imposition of hands. It seems that form without context can only be reduced to formalism’. Barchester agrees, but holds that Anglo-Catholics at least, do indeed hold valid orders: valid Anglican orders. Let us explain.

The Church of England being separate from the Holy See, the centre of Catholic unity, does indeed have valid sacraments (at least after the re-grafting on of valid lines of succession from the Old Catholics), but being separate means that she cannot, by very definition, be completely Catholic. She lacks full communion, being in schism. She lacks jurisdictional unity, being in schism. Thus, there can never be an Anglican Rite within the Catholic Church unless the See of Canterbury itself is restored. Thus, besides the sacraments of baptism and matrimony, her other sacraments are not complete either. Valid? Yes. Complete? No.

Ever since the innovation of women’s ‘ordination’, the question of the Church readdressing the situation surrounding Apostolicae Curae has been dropped. It’s pointless now. Why should theologians and historians waste all their time delving into every individual ordination to discern if there might be Old Catholic lines back there someplace, when the whole thing has been jeopardised? Hence the wise words of the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, saying that, ‘I think what we need to focus on now is not the validity or otherwise of Anglican ordinations, whether mainstream or semi-detached, but on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s suggestion that orders (and therefore, one should say sacraments other than baptism) are second order issues’. Indeed, Anglo-Catholics now must go home, for the church that raised them has not only deserted them, but has actively announced that persecution will formally commence.

The point Barchester would like to make is that people must not fear the Anglo-Catholic’s orders, for they are valid Anglican orders. But there is a communal deficit there that even the likes of The Continuum blog must recognise if their claim to be ‘a part of’ the Catholic Church is to hold any water (Barchester does not grant their argument, though that is beside the point). And this is Barchester’s second point – that Anglicans need not fear being ordained a Catholic priest should they decide to move into the Ordinariates. It is not a renunciation of the Anglican’s previous ministry at all, but rather it is making that Anglican priest a fully Catholic priest.

If the Oxford Movement showed us anything, it is that Newman was proven correct. But fortunately we do not have to choose between him and Pusey any more. The Holy Father has provided a way for Pusey to bring his parish in as well. Barchester is thinking about all the catholic parishes in the Church of England who might hesitate to go into the Ordinariate with gusto. This is not a time of sadness. It is a time of determination and of co-operation. This is to be a corporate move and Barchester’s fear of Forward in Faith splitting along the lines of Newman and Pusey over issues like Anglican orders is, we fear, deeply real. But it is deeply ill-informed. This is not a time for sadness about the traitorous behaviour of some within the Church of England, that can come later when we are safe on the other side. It is a time for joy, gladness, and thankfulness, for the end of our Pilgrim Way is in sight.

Palin On Israel

One of Barchester’s favourite American blogs is the Crunchy Con, who reports on something that Barchester and perhaps many of you have always suspected about the beauty queen (ex)governor of the wild – she’s a fundamentalist. Her striking beauty, her dazzling personality, even her incredible ability to make the most daft of statements, are all elements of Mrs Palin that the American voter needs to weigh against statements like this:

I disagree with the Obama administration on that. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.

Why is this troubling you may ask? Rod Dreher explains.

Brown in Denial

This is David Cameron’s criticism of the Prime Minister that you’ve no doubt seen or at least hear about.

And yesterday, Gordon Brown simply said he’ll keep spending till Britain is out of the recession:

Invicta Veritas

A friend of Barchester, ‘Invicta Veritas’, originally wrote on this thread on Nov 22nd, and has since updated it with the help of ‘Tom Abell’.

More intelligent words were never written (here at least) than these of “The Poor Parson:”

Blame the AbofC all you like, but the net effect of the Apostolic Constitution designed by the Forward in Faith plotters has been to convince the revision committee on women bishops to withdraw the very arrangements which they had agreed the week previously.

Why? This has been a beautiful, and very “Marxian,” coup on the part of the Pope and FIF/UK leadership, for it has wonderfully “heightened the contradictions,” and brought the ever-to-be-desired revolutionary transformation of the Church of England into a sodomite sect managed by priestesses (and their castrated male “running dogs”) appreciably closer, but I do thank +Fulham (and +Ebbsfleet and +Richborough), and commend their examples to +Beverley.

The arrangement, now withdrawn, of the General Synod revision committee would have sufficed to keep many Catholic-minded old dears (both clergy and lay, and maybe even some purple shirts in the vicinity of Chichester and Beverley) in the CofE, with much the same effect as slowly heating the water in which a frog is sitting: they would have been parboiled before they were even aware of it. Priestesses would multiply (like a plague of locusts), flaminicae would appear; soon they would be “ordaining” purported priests as well as priestesses; with the Act of Synod of 1993 gone, orthodox Anglo-Catholics would be confined to their “shrine churches” here and there, facing extinction, if they maintain their principles, or perversion, if they were to allow a new generation of “decorated Protestant” clergy to lead them into the promised Aff Cat land of WO and SS — and given the congregationalist NIMBY attitude of so many Anglo-Catholic laity, and not a few clergy, this would have been a fine way to deal with them. It would have been the ultimate “Swedish solution” (cf. the way the Church of Sweden — or SveK for short [SveK can mean "Svenska Kyrkan" or "Church of Sweden," whele the word "Svek" means "deceit, dissimulation, guile or treachery"] — has dealt with its own opponents of WO and SS over the past 30 years) to the conflicts in the Church of England, adapted to English circumstances and sensibilities. (Cast your eyes upon Sweden, O Catholic-minded Anglicans, and reflect “Sum quod eras; ero quod es; circumdederunt me gemitus mortis.”)

Now, however, all that has all been blown away, as altogether lighter than vanity itself, and the druidical Archtergiversator has been run to ground, to the point that he has must needs prescribe priestesses and flaminicas to the Romans on the basis that “it cannot be proven to have done any harm to the Church.” Surely Benedict the Blessed must smile at this ridiculous piece of poltroonery, as though it were an argument which, even if true (which most manifestly it is not, cf. SveK and TE”C,” those two sisters under the skin), could smuggle WO past the barriers of “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est” (ca. 434) and of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994). But I think that the intent is not to present an argument to Benedict or the Catholic Church at all, but rather an effort on the part of the poor hapless AbC to recover his street cred among the Aff Cat and liberal enragees who will be running, and running down, the CofE for the foreseeable future.

For that is what the rejection of last week’s proposals by the revision committee really manifests, the forthcoming take-over of the CofE by the ecclesiastical counterparts of the Trotskyite “entryists” that wrought such harm upon the Labour Party in the 60s and 70s — and who have outdone their secular counterparts by succeeding where the others failed. Now the poor froggies, instead of expiring like Seneca in the comfort of a warm bath(house), will have “wopersonpriests” and “sadpriests” coming at them with their spiritual blowtorches, and will have to hop, skip and jump as best they can in a general sauve qui peut to avoid their “ministrations.” All that remains is for the FIF/UK remnant in the General Synod is to throw their support to Christina Rees’s NAGgies (anyone remember the “Nursery Action Group” from Oxford in the 60s, and the late Lord Dacre anagrammatizing it into “Nausea Atque Gula?”) and vote for a “single clause measure,” stripping away the illusions of consideration, concern and protection for the froggies, and winding up the now superfluous 1993 “Act of Synod”, PEVs, Options A, B and C, and all that. And let all the people say, Amen.

But it would be churlish to end without praising famous men, heroes known and unknown, sung and unsung. Ratzinger, DiNoia, Schoenborn, yes, yes, but on the other side Hepworth (without whom …) Broadhurst, Burnham, Newton, Barnes, Baker and Kirk, (not to forget Hunwicke the sacerdotal scholar, with flowing fingers and pregnant wits) whose lonely vigils, perilous peregrinations to Rome and Vienna, services as synodsmen, hands raised up to God by day and night, have borne such promising fruit — not least of which may well be to have goaded the Erastian anti-Church to turn on its own in its Zeitgeist-fueled fury, before finally (like an ecclesiastical Ungoliant) turning on itself in its uttermost desolation, and expiring at its own hands. (Oh, for a chorus from Judas Maccabaeus at this point; “see how the conquering hero comes, sound the trumpets, beat the drums” — but perhaps we should reserve all that for Benedict’s visit.)

Strange times, stirring times, delightful times.

British Masterworks

The University of Chicago Symphony Orchestra, University Chorus, and Motet Choir present a program of British Masterworks. Barbara Schubert conducts Ralph Vaughan-Williams’s ‘Symphony No. 9 in E minor’. James Kallembach conducts ‘In Windsor Forest’ and Edward Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 in G’. This concert was presented at Mandel Hall at the University of Chicago on 08 March 2008.

(To download, right-click on the links below and choose ‘Save As’)

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in E minor – I. Moderato maestoso

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in E minor – II. Andante sostenuto

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in E minor – III. Scherzo: Allegro pesante

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in E minor – IV. Andante tranquillo

Vaughan Williams: In Windsor Forest – I. The Conspiracy

Vaughan Williams: In Windsor Forest – II. Drinking Song

Vaughan Williams: In Windsor Forest – III. Falstaff and the Fairies

Vaughan Williams: In Windsor Forest – IV. Wedding Chorus

Vaughan Williams: In Windsor Forest – V. Epilogue

Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4 in G Major

Saturday’s Speculations

It does seem that though Barchester is away in the big city, more time to blog is available than was previously thought. Therefore, perhaps today is a good day to highlight some of the stories making the headlines and to add small scraps of saccharin-free speculation from an English Anglo-Catholic perspective.

The Archbishop of Canterbury lectured in Rome that since The Roman Catholic Church does not ordain women, they are presenting a major challenge towards corporate unity between the two churches. As they say, a good defence is a good offence. Read all about the madness here.

Speaking of ecclesial difficulties, the Dean of Nashotah House just posted an odd piece last night. In Healing the Faultlines of Christianity – Introduction, Dean Robert Munday writes that Orthodox Anglicans possess ‘a comprehensive grasp of the Church—ancient and modern, east and west, catholic and reformed’ and thus are ‘uniquely positioned to be the focal point of Christian unity’. But then he lists the doctrines which ‘Orthodox Anglicans’ cannot agree:

The nature of justification,
the nature of sanctification,
grace and works,
the nature of a sacrament,
the nature and effects of Baptism,
the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper,
the role of the Virgin Mary,
the authority of the Scriptures in relation to Tradition,
Apostolic Succession,
the nature of the Priesthood (Presbyterate), etc.

In what possible sense can so-called ‘Orthodox Anglicans’ posses a comprehensive grasp of the Church? Read all about Dean Munday’s confusion and denial here.

A Russian Orthodox priest was martyred yesterday for actually doing what a Christian is supposed to do – making disciples of all nations. Fr Daniil Sysoyev converted many Muslims from the former Soviet republics, openly criticised Islam, and worked to spread Christianity in immigrant communities in Moscow. Read about this amazing example of a Christian priest here.

Rugby: England 6, New Zealand 19. Read about the match here.

Herman Van Rompuy (not Tony Blair) was selected (not elected) to become the first President of the European Union. He is currently the Belgian Prime Minister. Good news is, the man sees Europe as actually being based on Christian morals and culture, so Turkey’s not coming in under his watch. We’ll see how long this lasts. And of course the ever erudite Gerald Warner has the latest on Her Serene Highness the Baroness Ashton of Upthenetherlands. I wonder what Davy Boy will have planned for us once he replaces Gordy with respect to all this? Read all about Rompuy here.

Finally in culture today, did TS Eliot correspond with his letters?

Dress Smart

Noting all of the bog standard rubbish clothing stores that pelt us with advertisements at every turn, Barchester is always pleased to highlight quality stores of the English Civilisation. Bugnini’s Ghost will not win the day and neither will the chavs, despite what one may hear on Radio 1.

Therefore without further ado, we are proud to present Smart Turnout which sells, among all sorts of quality, Barchester’s favourite: ties from Magdalen College.

If our readers might have any other suggestions for other quality online clothing stores in addition to this one, please feel free to leave a comment with the appropriate link below. If ‘lex ordandi lex credendi‘ is true liturgically, no doubt it is true that how one dresses influences how one behaves.

Barking Toad Sells Out

The Barking Toad, that hilarious blog that pokes fun at the silliness of the so-called Continuum and the ACNA, sells out. Or does he? We need your help in deciding. Even in our busyness, Barchester cannot resist asking readers for their help on this mysterious case!

The main question at hand – Is the newest member at the blog The Continuum, Fr Charles Nalls, indeed the same man as the one who runs The Barking Toad blog?

By way of an American reader, Barchester received a forwarded email from a super-sleuth who informs our informant (get that do you?) that,

[T]his time I note that Fr. Charles Nalls is entirely on the same card with [Fr.] Hart.  His latest submission is solely intended to discredit any ACA claims that Rome’s offer is an answer to their prayers. [...] Here Nalls is jumping on the bandwagon!

But this next bit is why the Barchester division of MI5 pays the American sleuth the discernible dosh:

BTW, in case no one noticed, when Nalls was added as a contributor to the Continuum, “R. Toad” was also added as one. That suggests that Nalls is indeed the Barking Toad and some glitch in the Blogspot/Blogger software exposed this fact. But I don’t see why Nalls would even continue as the Barking Toad if he is now of a mind (and I use that term VERY loosely) with Bob Hart.

Then our informant asks the sleuth:

I’m confused here. If Nalls supports Bob Hart and the Contiuum on that blog, but makes fun of the Continuers on the Toad blog, then either he is a schizophrenic, a liar, or is trying to stir up controversy. And for a man who’s credentials and projects were as long as my monitor, he sure has a lot of unexpected free time…

And the sleuth replies:

I share the same confusion. But then I initially understood that Nalls was converting to Rome on his own (and perhaps should have been received very recently). [...] In any case, Nalls must have backed out of his Tiber swim at the last moment and he may have swung his views to the opposite extreme in order to regain the confidence of his Anglican peers (those like Hart would obviously consider him as always suspect short of Nalls posting absurd anti-Roman polemics as he is doing now). While preparing for the swim, Nalls could easily have posted as the Toad. But since turning back, it would presumably alter the character of the Toad’s posts.

All I can say is that it was always Nalls alerting people to a new entry at the Barking Toad. He has always been the most likely candidate. If he be the Toad, I am curious as to what the Toad might have to say from here on out.

What do our dear readers think of this? Is the American sleuth correct in his analysis or have we missed an important piece of the puzzle?

The Anglo-Catholic

Whilst Barchester is away and providing only spotty posting at best, please have a look on the sidebar for excellent links to keep up with the news.

One such blog, another new one besides yours truly, is the excellent one, The Anglo-Catholic. Though without the duff.