Why the Pope’s Visit Makes me Feel more removed from Rome?

I remember sitting in a meeting of the Church in Wales Governing Body discussing the ordination of women. In a more frustrated moment Archbishop Barry asked those who disagree with the ordination of women on grounds of relations with Rome are damaged something like:

“Do you think that Rome pays any attention to the Church of England, let alone what we are doing here in Wales?”

And he has a point. The language used by the Vatican and indeed by the Catholic Church has always been based on a ‘top down’ notion of power. What we have seen over the last few days is a further manifestation of what the Pope sees as best for us; he sees faith as being integral to society but it is his vision rather than a vision based on the actual opinions of the people. In a similar way, in many Catholic churches (and I include those in the Anglican tradition here, too), there is a feeling that ‘Father knows best’ and that all authority comes from him. There is an argument that this idolising and rendering of the priest as ‘better’ than ‘ordinary’ people lies at many of the issues that face the catholic church. The decrease in attendance can be seen as down to the father being removed (being on his pedestal) and lacking touch with reality in a society where respect is less important. The decrease in belief that the Pope attacks can be seen as faith being a dictation process to the people rather than a listening one with the people. Even the paedophile issues are based on the priest being overly dominant and people being afraid of challenging their authority. And this is what troubles me with the Roman Catholic Church – and indeed with any alignment of the churches in this country – is the impact on free will.

There has been discussions about how the churches based in Rome and Canterbury might align but the whole discussion has been around how Anglicans can become more like Roman Catholics and not how any rapprochement could happen the other way around. Again, Rome sees it fit to dictate their form of church to other rather than perhaps revising their method of doing church. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am largely at the more catholic end of the church but acknowledge our protestant heritage, too. Any movement towards Rome would austracise so many of us and I would probably end up becoming a Methodist. All of this is highly speculative as I am not convinced any formal relations with Roman Catholics will happen in my life time.

I know I am not the first to say any of this – look at Luther just as a starting point! Yet, it is worth emphasising again the difference in our churches to do with free will and the relations between the clergy and the laity. Seeing the Pope in the UK was fascinating and allows us to reflect on our spiritual life. But as Archbishop Barry points out – don’t necessarily think Benedict XVI was listening as hard to us as we were to him: power and influence is still coming from our leaders in the Roman Church rather than from the people.

And that is probably what keeps our churches generally – and me specifically – at a distance from Rome.