revjmorris

When is Communion not Communion?

The next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council is a few months away, and one of its main items of business will be the proposals put forward by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) to modify the definition and the governance of the Anglican Communion. The proposals, called the Nairobi-CairoContinue reading “When is Communion not Communion?”

Revisiting Anglican Classics 12: Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker

Some people might wonder why, if I’m going to choose something by Dorothy L. Sayers to call a ‘classic’, I haven’t gone for The Man Born to be King, her cycle of radio plays first broadcast in late 1941. They were controversial, but fabulously successful, and repeated and adapted many times since. I rememberContinue reading “Revisiting Anglican Classics 12: Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker”

What’s right with Project Spire?

In April 2024 I took part in the assembly of the Global Christian Forum (GCF) in Accra, in Ghana. For those who don’t know anything about the GCF, it is a body which was originally sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC) as a way of inviting churches and Christian movements which couldContinue reading “What’s right with Project Spire?”

Revisiting Anglican Classics: Jane Austen at 250

250 years ago a baby girl was born in a country rectory in southern England. She was the seventh child for her parents George and Cassandra within ten years. She was baptised privately in her father’s church within a day – in those times of high infant mortality and dread of dying unbaptised, aContinue reading “Revisiting Anglican Classics: Jane Austen at 250”

Revisiting Anglican Classics 10: Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond

Rose Macaulay’s Towers of Trebizond (1956) is generally regarded as her masterpiece, and almost certainly it is the most commonly read of her novels today. It is also a sort of running tribute to Anglo-Catholicism, saturated with asides, often hilarious, about Anglo-Catholics and their peculiar habits and attitudes, and at the same time quietly appreciativeContinue reading “Revisiting Anglican Classics 10: Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond”

Encountering Pope Francis

As preparations are under way in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, inevitably I’ve been thinking over my impressions of him. I met him a handful of times, mostly in the company of many others, a couple of times as part of a small group. This isn’t basis enough to say very muchContinue reading “Encountering Pope Francis”

Revisiting Anglican Classics 9: Austin Farrer’s Crown of the Year

It has been said by many people well placed to know, that Austin Farrer (1904-1968) was probably the finest Anglican theologian of the twentieth century. I find it very hard to disagree with that. He has even been called ‘the one true genius’ of the Church of England in that century. But recognition ofContinue reading “Revisiting Anglican Classics 9: Austin Farrer’s Crown of the Year”

Another forgotten war, another forgotten people?

A number of people have asked me if I could describe something of what I observed when, early in October, I travelled in the Caucasus with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in particular what we saw of the unfolding crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh – or rather, its implications for Armenia, since it was of course impossibleContinue reading “Another forgotten war, another forgotten people?”

Are the winds of change blowing through the Catholic Church?

Never much interested in religious news, unless it also concerns money or sex, the British press showed barely any interest in what was happening in Rome last month. But it was momentous, and all church people should take note. It was an extraordinary opening-up of process and consultation in the Catholic Church. It may beContinue reading “Are the winds of change blowing through the Catholic Church?”

Revisiting Anglican Classics 8: Barbara Pym

Barbara Pym’s writing is probably something of an acquired taste. Her well-observed, delicate, deceptively light and funny novels are steeped in the world of the churchgoing middle class she knew so well. You can read them just as a gentle sending up of that world, almost like a comedy of manners. Very little reallyContinue reading “Revisiting Anglican Classics 8: Barbara Pym”