A Small Diversion

Today deacons, a couple of priests, and the other sixty or so soon-to-be priests met once more for instruction at Allen Hall.  It was all about relationships; in particular, marital relationships and the law of the Church concerning marriage.

The Presidential Limo

On the way home, though, another relationship hove into view; not exactly a marital one, but a very special one for all that – the relationship  between the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

So there we were, the Revd Deacon Jonathan Redvers-Harris and I, on top of a 211 bus.  We had already been diverted along the side of Buckingham Palace, where there were rather bored looking policemen in yellow jackets every twenty yards or so.  As our bus made its stately way down Victoria Street, towards the Abbey, it and all the other traffic jolted to a halt.  Then across our path came police outriders, all manner of odd vehicles including an ambulance, and suddenly in their midst a great limo bedecked with a Union Flag (which some people wrongly call the Union Jack) and the flag of the U.S.A.  It was, you may have guessed, our visitor on his way from Ireland, none other than the Tioseach of the U.S., Mr O'Bama and his first lady.  They were heading for Downing Street by back roads, in a rapid convoy. Progress was less rapid for us – indeed the delay meant that Fr. Jonathan will have arrived home on the Isle of Wight after 9 p.m., and although I narrowly caught the 5.35 from Waterloo to Brockenhurst it was overfull. I had to sit on the floor for the first hour of the journey until half the train emptied at Winchester. But we shall not complain; after all, we were witnesses to a little moment in history, and the "essential" relationship (as we now must call it) between our two countries.

I hope perhaps the President will have learned, too, that he was part of an historic event – the preparation of former Anglican priests for the Ordinariate.  I doubt if the Dean of Westminster will have told him that besides being the place where William and Kate were hitched, the Abbey was also where I was consecrated first Bishop of Richborough.  Perhaps I will have a chance to tell him another time.

Oh, and today we received the Ordinariate chasubles. I hope I may wear mine on Sunday, which is a little anniversary of my own – but more of that later. Meanwhile, Floreat the Essential Relationship!

Related posts:

Canadian Friends of the OrdinariateA Magical IslandMove Along, Folks. Nothing to See Here.The Silk RoadEducating the Ordinariate Bishop Barnes read theology for three years at Oxford before finishing his studies at Cuddesdon College (at the time a theological college with a rather monastic character). He subsequently served two urban curacies in Portsmouth and Woking. During his first curacy, and after the statutory three years of celibacy, he married his wife Jane (with whom he has two children, Nicola and Matthew). In 1967, Bishop Barnes received his first incumbency as Rector of Farncombe in the Diocese of Guildford. After eleven years, the family moved to Hessle, in the Diocese of York, for another nine years as vicar. In 1987, he became Principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford. In 1995, he was asked by then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, to become the second PEV for the Province. He was based in St. Alban’s and charged with ministering to faithful Anglo-Catholics spread over the length of Southern England, from the Humber Estuary to the Channel Islands. After six years of service as a PEV, Bishop Barnes retired to Lymington on the south coast where he holds the Bishop of Winchester’s license as an honorary assistant bishop. On the retirement of the late and much lamented Bishop Eric Kemp, he was honored to be asked to succeed him as President of the Church Union, which office he still holds.

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