When heresy really is heresy: The Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta and a bizarre draft resolution

As mentioned before, I would generally place myself on the liberal side of the middle of the Anglican spectrum. That said, it may come as a surprise to those who are more conservative and who disagree with me on things like women's ordination that I do, in fact, place great value in Tradition and ecumenical councils – I merely come to different conclusions on some issues. I'm quite willing to use the H word when I see it – heresy.

Jansenism

This is one reason I am so uncomfortable with our parish's choice of a patron saint, as mentioned previously. (I decided I can at least live with it, since she was chosen for her reforms and personal spirituality and not for her doctrine or associations, but I'm still not very happy about it.) While the Jansenists generally were maltreated and persecuted, and I certainly don't approve of any of that, I also agree quite firmly with the verdict that Jansen's teachings were in fact heretical.

I was particularly irked at our church's consecration in September by the speech of a professor of theology at the end of that service, who basically ignored the entire content of Jansen's or his supporters' writings and described the Jansenists (without naming them as such) merely as a persecuted minority. She also claimed that theologists today are reappraising Jansenism, that the verdict at the time was overly harsh, and so on.

Dunno, but the doctrine of free will so central to what it means to be Christian for anyone of a Catholic bent (that includes the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches) that I can't get my head wrapped around the idea that someone denying free will, claiming that God predestines some (indeed most) of us to suffer eternal damnation with no chance to do anything about it, isn't a major problem for the faith.

Gnosticism

I feel the same way about the Gnostics. For some time it has been in vogue to view the Gnostics as misunderstood proto-hippies and kinda-sorta-feminists as portrayed in The Da Vinci Code. Yet I think all you need to know about the Gnostics and their view of women (and thus of humanity) can be summed up in the Gnostic so-called Gospel of Thomas:

Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

I don't see how you can remotely think of the sexes being equal while believing something like that. Yet it is precisely in some of the more extreme liberal circles where the very same people who ardently support women's ordination also want to reappraise Gnosticism. The cognitive dissonance is mind-boggling.

Mind you, I have no problem with someone believing Jansenism. That is anyone's right. I would even happily go to the altar with them if they did and receive Communion, nor would I do anything to exclude them from the Church. Dissent is always allowed, and even should be protected and welcomed: Dissent is a necessary part of the dialectic to seek the Truth. But once that person starts to push to change long-held and explicit teachings of the Church as defined in ecumenical councils, even if only by implication, my alarm bells start ringing. Loudly.

Pelagianism

So you can imagine my disquiet when I read Resolution R11-7, a piece of proposed legislation (!) for the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. The text reads in its entirety:

Whereas the historical record of Pelagius’s contribution to our theological tradition is shrouded in the political ambition of his theological antagonists who sought to discredit what they felt was a threat to the empire, and their ecclesiastical dominance, and
whereas an understanding of his life and writings might bring more to bear on his good standing in our tradition, and
whereas his restitution as a viable theological voice within our tradition might encourage a deeper understanding of sin, grace, free will, and the goodness of God’s creation, and
whereas in as much as the history of Pelagius represents to some the struggle for theological exploration that is our birthright as Anglicans,

Be it resolved, that this 105th Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta appoint a committee of discernment overseen by our Bishop, to consider these matters as a means to honor the contributions of Pelagius and reclaim his voice in our tradition. And be it further resolved that this committee will report their conclusions at the next Annual Council.

Wait, what...?!

I could hardly believe my eyes – that anyone could submit such a resolution with a straight face. It sounds like something The Onion would publish as satire, not a serious proposal. What next, reappraise Aleister Crowley?

It is true that, based on some of my thoughts and positions on free will and grace, many Western Christians, in particular Protestants of a Calvinist or Lutheran hue, would accuse me of being Semipelagian. Then again the same people generally like to accuse the Orthodox Church of the same, so I feel I'm in good company. (See the Orthodox concept of theosis.)

But here is why I think Pelagianism is such a danger for the Church and for belief in general: It essentially teaches that we are not hard-wired to sin, and that it is possible on one's own to achieve spiritual perfection without the action or support of God, or of anyone else for that matter. If these things were true, then there would essentially be no purpose to the Church at large – why bother if we don't need to try in order to free ourselves from sin? If we are already free from sin, what is the point of Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross?

The heresies of the unloving God and of hubristic humanity

Orthodox teaching on the subject of justification and sin is really quite simple to understand and, I think, common sense. I think it could be summed up with two words: "Nobody's perfect". (Well, except for Jesus, of course.)

I strongly disagree with extreme Calvinist views where humanity is described as being "depraved", not least because that implies that God somehow created something that He either wasn't able to improve or control, or never intended to improve in the first place, both of which are impossible for me to swallow. I cannot believe that a loving God would create a living thing expressly for it to suffer the fires of Hell, without giving him or her a chance to turn oneself to God and accept Jesus in their hearts so that they really can change things with God's help. That just sounds incredibly cruel. And pointless, too.

At the same time, the opposite extreme of Pelagianism seems equally implausible – it implies that we began spotless and only choose to do bad or good things based on circumstance. Yet I think that anyone who studies the human condition will come to the conclusion that we are at heart intrinsically prone to be selfish, greedy and cruel when left to our own devices – all you have to do is observe how children act in a kindergarden towards each other to prove that we aren't little angels from the beginning. Without some firm and loving guidance, children generally turn into little monsters. That's really all orthodox doctrine is saying, that we need that firm guidance as well, throughout our whole lives. Compared to God, we are all children, no matter how old we are. It's hubris to think otherwise.

Walking in love as Christ loved us

The thing is, Jesus repeatedly emphasized our collective responsibility to aid one another in our spiritual journey, and described Himself as The Way – not a goal, but a path with no end, and one with a heavy burden: to take our Cross and follow Him. As mere human beings, we cannot and will not ever achieve true perfection in this life, but we can still walk that path towards perfection. To do that we need Christ to guide us, and we need each other to support one another along that path. This is precisely why the Church exists as a gift from God, to support, encourage and sustain us along that difficult and arduous path to the end of Time. Like it says in Ephesians, we must walk together in love as Christ loves us. It is our only hope of saving ourselves from war, disease, hunger, greed, injustice and all the other ills that afflict humanity from its earliest days.

Mind you, I am quite happy to entertain the idea that Pelagius himself was misunderstood. In fact what few of his writings I am aware of, he seems to have felt just that, while (to my knowledge) the things he was accused of teaching or claiming are not documented in his extant writings, so it is quite possible that he as a person was unjustly accused of the doctrine that bears his name. But in any such examination of the history involved, we have to also be incredibly careful to continue to stay away from the doctrine of Pelagianism, whether its name is justified or not, and most certainly not to legislate such change before the case has been made and accepted by consensus.

I hope that this resolution is shot down, or at least amended in dramatic fashion to distance the church from the doctrine of Pelagianism. I can only shake my head in disbelief that anyone felt it necessary to even submit it. It's one thing for Anglicanism to be comprehensive and inclusive. I think it's part of the beauty and strength of Anglicanism that we generally don't try to define every aspect of faith in detail. But It's another thing entirely to effectively say "anything goes" and challenge what few standards we do have. No matter how expansive or inclusive the faith, it still will have boundaries at some point.

An appeal

In closing, I would like to address an appeal to the people of the Diocese of Atlanta: Please consider what you would be saying with this resolution if it passes. Please think of what signals you would be sending by accepting it, and how you would be cutting yourself loose from the conciliar church just for the sake of rehabilitating one man, no matter how noble the motive behind that wish my be. Please remember the three Anglican pillars of Scripture, Tradition and Reason – and that this resolution challenges Tradition by definition. With all due respect and Christian love and charity, this resolution is simply wrong, pointless, a waste of time (what does it do to help people in need or to further Jesus' message?) and should be defeated.

So what's an Old Catholic, anyway?

You will no doubt have noticed me talking a lot about not just Anglicans and Episcopalians, but also "Old Catholics". The thing is, relatively few people have heard of them, and many immediately get the wrong idea from the name. One question that gets asked a lot is whether we do Masses in Latin -- i.e. Old Catholics get confused with the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), which is a quite different thing to say the least. In fact Old Catholics and the SSPX are almost mirror images of each other.

Essentially, Old Catholics in Europe have two origins -- the first in the general chaos of the Reformation in the Netherlands and the controversy over Jansenism, the second as a backlash predominantly in German-speaking countries against the papal dogmas proclaimed by Pius IX at the First Vatican Council in the 1870s.

To make matters more confusing, in North America there are many groups claiming the use of the name "Old Catholic", with wildly varying degrees of legitimacy. Usually the term "Old Catholic" pops up amongst people calling themselves "Independent Catholics" or similar. Sad to say, but many would-be bishops seem to view getting an Old Catholic line of succession as a kind of quick and easy way of claiming legitimacy, as if ordination was a magic trick performed by the dude with the right mojo and hey presto, you've got your very own church. So many "Old Catholics" in America are what are called episcopi vagantes, or wandering bishops -- bishops without a church, in effect. Which in Catholic ecclesiology is a total non sequitur.

It is thus important, for clarity's sake, to differentiate between the "regular" Old Catholics in the Union of Utrecht, and the "irregular" Old Catholics in North America. The relations between the two have been strained or virtually non-existent, with the Utrecht Old Catholics generally taking a dim view of their counterparts in North America partly because of their association with Arnold Harris Mathew (see below).

The only "regular" Old Catholic jurisdiction in North America was the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC), which in spite of the name is located in the US, based in Scranton, Illinois. Unfortunately, they left the Union in the 1990s over women's ordination, so the Union currently has no representation in North America -- there are thus no "regular" Old Catholics there (though that hopefully will change, as contacts are being established and the various irregular churches being nudged into joining together).

To get an idea of what the Old Catholics are, I'll concentrate on the regular Old Catholics as defined above. I mean no offense to Old Catholics in North America when I make this distinction, but it is an important one for outsiders to understand the workings of Old Catholicism, and obviously I'm far more familiar with the Utrecht Old Catholics. So let's look at the history and origins.

Old Catholics in the Netherlands, 17th century

The Dutch Old Catholics were once part of the Roman Catholic Church, as the Archdiocese of Utrecht. That archdiocese had the right to elect and choose its own archbishop, without consulting Rome -- something which today is, sadly, almost unheard of in the Roman communion. Then in the 17th century, there was some controversy over Jansenism in Holland, with the Jesuits in particular accusing the Utrecht church of harboring Jansenists and also sharing their views, which Rome condemned as heresy. A convoluted series of events led to the chapter in Utrecht electing their own archbishop, and getting a Roman Catholic bishop travelling through to agree to ordain their elected bishop. Then Rome excommunicated them for what Rome regarded as open rebellion, and essentially disclaimed any presence in the Netherlands until the 1850s. All subsequent Archbishops of Utrecht were excommunicated as soon as they were ordained, again because they supposedly did it without permission from Rome. This led to the rather bizarre legalistic hair-splitting way Rome views Old Catholic holy orders and sacraments -- "valid, but illicit". So the Dutch continued to have bishops with valid orders, preserving their line of apostolic succession.

The name "Old Catholic" came into being when Rome began to re-establish their own jurisdiction in the Netherlands in the 19th century. Since the Utrecht archdiocese considered itself to be the "regular" Catholic Church in the Netherlands, they became known as the "Old" Catholics, since they were there first. Indeed for some time they continued to refer to themselves as being Roman Catholic, but with an "old" jurisdiction.

Old Catholics in German-speaking countries, 19th century

Fast forward to 1870 and the First Vatican Council. There, Pope Pius IX rammed through the twin papal dogmas -- papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction -- over the protests of many bishops, especially in Europe and particularly in German-speaking areas. These bishops tried to boycott the council and thus prevent the dogmas from taking effect, to no avail. At that time, many clubs and groups formed to resist and protest the dogmas. Eventually Pius IX simply excommunicated the lot of them, leaving them effectively without a church of their own.

A large number of these Catholics didn't want to become Protestant or Orthodox, but to remain Catholic and to stay true to what they believed in. They established contact with Anglicans and the Utrecht archdiocese, and formed churches in the various countries they represented -- in particular Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Poland. These churches were intended and described as "provisional" churches, that is, they expected to rejoin with Rome at a future date when the First Vatican Council was revoked or revised.

Since Catholic ecclesiology requires a bishop with valid orders, they were able to have the Archbishop of Utrecht ordain their first bishops. Then these churches joined together in the Union of Utrecht, which is the Old Catholic counterpart to the Anglican Communion. Early on, talks were held with Anglicans and Orthodox with a view to uniting them, but in the end only the Anglicans agreed to join up, and did so with the Bonn Agreement in 1931. Ever since, Anglicans and Utrecht Old Catholics have been in full communion, exchanging priests, liturgy, theology and so forth, and members of the respective churches are welcomed as full members of the others. (Hence I'm still formally Episcopalian, while being a member of an Old Catholic parish and serving in the Old Catholic synod.)

Arnold Harris Mathew and the English Old Catholics, late 19th century

In the meantime, a rather colorful character named Arnold Harris Mathew approached the Union with a view to establishing an English Old Catholic church. There is much controversy surrounding Mathew, and he does seem to me to be a bit of a dodgy person -- not a charlatan, but certainly erratic and unpredictable. It turned out that the "church" he claimed to represent simply did not exist, at least not in the way he claimed, and the Union cut off support and ties with Mathew. He in turn declared independence from the Union (which seems to me to be like saying "you can't fire me, I quit!") and made contact with various people in North America, ordaining large numbers of bishops without much apparent concern for whether or not they had a legitimate interest in being a bishop or whether they were appropriate for the office. Eventually he converted back to being Roman Catholic and died isolated from the Old Catholics.

Irregular Old Catholics in North America, late 19th century to today

It is from these episcopi vagantes in North America that most of the "irregular" Old Catholics have their holy orders and apostolic succession. The North American Old Catholic movement, if it could be called as such, quickly splintered into a myriad of various churches with a wild range of beliefs, such as the "Liberal Catholics", who regrettably incorporated things like reincarnation and theosophy into their belief systems.

Today many of these irregular Old Catholics -- those with more orthodox beliefs, unlike the Liberal Catholics -- are trying, with guidance and help from the Episcopal Church USA and the Union of Utrecht, to finally come in from the cold and become a regular Old Catholic jurisdiction with recognition from and in communion with Utrecht. Unfortunately from what I am told, there are a lot of egos at work, preventing serious cooperation, and the project has not been crowned with success so far, but at least some progress has been made.

Of special note is the Cornerstone Old Catholic Community in Minneapolis, Minnesota, whose priest, Robert Caruso+, has been beating the drum to try and encourage more cooperation and to reconcile European and American Old Catholics; the Conference of Old Catholic Bishops, which transformed itself in September 2010 into the Old Catholic Church Province of the United States (sponsored by the Union of Utrecht); and the North American Old Catholic Church, led by Bishop Michael Seneco. Each of these are attempts at getting such a joint jurisdiction off the ground by getting the various bishops under one roof. Hopefully they will succeed and join the Union, and someday the Union of Utrecht can also deepen its ties with the Anglican Communion, maybe even fully merge. But that is years, maybe even decades, away -- sad to say.

Similarities and differences between Old Catholics and Anglicans

An obvious question is, what are Old Catholics like? Given that each national member church is autonomous and has its own history, it is difficult to make blanket statements. But it is possible to note a few differences from Anglicans. First, the liturgy and style is more "high church" as a rule than what you find in Anglicanism. Second, the traditions, tastes, and accentuations are clearly Continental and not English. Third, there are more concrete and clear practices related to the Real Presence in the Eucharist -- things like tabernacles and sanctuary lamps are more widespread. (Which I think is a Good Thing.) And lastly, I would argue that Old Catholics as a whole are more liberal than Anglicans in general, particularly in the question of homosexuality, and in a more limited sense in women's ordination. Old Catholics also are clearer in their belief in seven sacraments (which Anglicans tend to hedge by calling baptism and Communion the "great sacraments", implying the others are subordinate or not important). And of course, Old Catholics' holy orders and sacraments are recognized as valid by Rome, whereas Anglican orders are not.

I was once asked by my priest if I noticed any differences with Anglicanism, and I jokingly asked him, "I dunno, what's your position on polygamy?" He never did answer, so I can't tell you. ;)

There are also parallels and similarities. For one thing, German Old Catholics have borrowed liturgical elements from Anglicans, in particular from the Canadian Anglican liturgy, as well as a number of classic Anglican hymns, such as Hyrfrydol and The day thou gavest (an old favorite of mine). Theologically speaking, I have yet to detect any particular differences of note. Both support and practice women's ordination; both have an international communion with a clearly Catholic and episcopal ecclesiology (i.e. run by bishops with territorial dioceses); both are set up as a group of autonomous national churches in communion with each other; both believe in the Real Presence as the fundamental understanding of the Eucharist, albeit with different ways of reflecting that. So while on the surface, you would see some differences in style and practice, on the whole there is really no difference in substance as far as I can see.

As an Episcopalian in an Old Catholic parish, I have served as diocesan delegate three times, as a member of the parish vestry for five years, and numerous other jobs. In other words, I feel quite at home and am living out the promise of full communion. I look forward to the day when that full communion can blossom and add other episcopal churches to create a new super-church, with Anglicans, Old Catholics and various independent episcopal churches such as the Mar Thoma church or the Philippine Independent Church joining as one global jurisdiction as a counterweight to Rome and Constantinople.

Here's hoping that the Way of Christ leads to that unity, and to unity with all Catholic Christians and beyond.

The problem of Jansenism

You may have noticed (of course you did!) that I renamed the link to my parish in the bazillions of links down below. Previously we didn't have a name at all, aside from "Old Catholic Parish of Hannover-Lower Saxony". Now that we finally have our very own church, it was high time to pick a proper name.

The parish has been at it for literally years, with no sign of progress and a couple reverses. But this time there was enough determination to finally just pick one that it went through. The new name is "Marie Angélique", named for Maria Angélique Arnauld. Who's she, you ask? Go ahead and read her entry on Wikipedia.

I have to say, I ain't happy.

She seems to be a wonderful person. She was the major force behind reforming the Order of Port-Royal, a nunnery that had pretty much gone all to pieces and where standards were virtually non-existent -- indeed from the sound of things, it had more to do with a home for juvenile delinquents than a nunnery, and in some descriptions it even sounds like it was practically a bordello when she took over. Thanks to her, the nunnery was thoroughly cleaned up and revitalized. Truly a remarkable feat, and one that deserves to be remembered.

But there is something about her connections that seriously bothers me. While I've talked to our priest many times about it, and have accepted that that is the new name and that's that, I still am uncomfortable with the choice because of her connections to Jansenism. You can read up about it on Wikipedia, but I'll sum up my complaints here.

Take Blaise Pascal, a close associate of hers and another leading Jansenist. He wrote (emphasis mine):

And yet it pleases God to choose, elect, and discern from this equally corrupt mass, in which he sees only demerit, a number of men of each sex, age, condition, complexion, from every country and time, in short, of all sorts. God has distinguished His Elect from the others, for reasons unknown to men and to Angels, by pure mercy, without any merit involved. [...] God, through an absolute and irrevocable will, willed to save His Elect with a purely gratuitous goodness; He abandoned the others to their evil desires, to which He could with perfect justice abandon all men. In order to save His Elect, God sent Jesus Christ to satisfy His justice and merit from His mercy the grace of Redemption...

In other words, there is pretty much no such thing as free will, at least not according to Cornelius Jansen or his adherents. Jansenism was roundly condemned by Rome as heresy, mainly because of that denial of the free will of humanity to choose to turn to God. Certainly the opposite extreme, Pelagianism, is also full of problems. But Rome and the Orthodox Church are quite clear on what they see as problematic. Take this article from +Kallistos Ware, a former Anglican who is now an Orthodox bishop and metropolitan in England, where he states:

Grace and Free Will. As we have seen, the fact that man is in God’s image means among other things that he possesses free will. God wanted a son, not a slave. The Orthodox Church rejects any doctrine of grace which might seem to infringe upon man’s freedom. To describe the relation between the grace of God and free will of man, Orthodoxy uses the term cooperation or synergy (synergeia); in Paul’s words: "We are fellow-workers (synergoi) with God" (1 Cor. 3:9). If man is to achieve full fellowship with God, he cannot do so without God’s help, yet he must also play his own part..."
[...]
The west, since the time of Augustine and the Pelagian controversy, has discussed this question of grace and free will in somewhat different terms; and many brought up in the Augustinian tradition — particularly Calvinists — have viewed the Orthodox idea of ‘synergy’ with some suspicion. Does it not ascribe too much to man’s free will, and too little to God? Yet in reality the Orthodox teaching is very straightforward. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in"(Revelation 3:20). God knocks, but waits for man to open the door — He does not break it down. The grace of God invites all but compels none.
[...]
Orthodoxy, holding as it does a less exalted idea of man’s state before he fell, is also less severe than the west in its view of the consequences of the fall. Adam fell, not from a great height of knowledge and perfection, but from a state of undeveloped simplicity; hence he is not to be judged too harshly for his error. Certainly, as a result of the fall man’s mind became so darkened, and his will-power was so impaired, that he could no longer hope to attain to the likeness of God. Orthodox, however, do not hold that the fall deprived man entirely of God’s grace, though they would say that after the fall grace acts on man from the outside, not from within. Orthodox do not say, as Calvin said, that man after the fall was utterly depraved and incapable of good desires. They cannot agree with Augustine, when he writes that man is under ‘a harsh necessity’ of committing sin, and that ‘man’s nature was overcome by the fault into which it fell, and so came to lack freedom’. The image of God is distorted by sin, but never destroyed; in the words of a hymn sung by Orthodox at the Funeral Service for the laity: ‘I am the image of Thine inexpressible glory, even though I bear the wounds of sin.’ And because he still retains the image of God, man still retains free will, although sin restricts its scope. Even after the fall, God ‘takes not away from man the power to will — to will to obey or not to obey Him’ (Dositheus, Confession, Decree 3. Compare Decree 14). Faithful to the idea of synergy, Orthodoxy repudiates any interpretation of the fall which allows no room for human freedom.
[...]
Most orthodox theologians reject the idea of ‘original guilt,’ put forward by Augustine and still accepted (albeit in a mitigated form) by the Roman Catholic Church. Men (Orthodox usually teach) automatically inherit Adam’s corruption and mortality, but not his guilt: they are only guilty in so far as by their own free choice they imitate Adam."

This quote is from his book entitled The Orthodox Way, which I highly recommend -- very interesting and insightful as an introduction to the Orthodox Church. This kind of understanding of God seems both far more satisfying and more loving than the cruel God who damns people from the get-go, while also being more rational. What would be the point of condemning people in advance? It simply makes no sense and can't be reconciled with a truly loving, caring God interested in His Creation.

Here is another quote, this time from the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), about the sin of Adam and the redemption through Christ:

The sufferings and death of Christ in obedience to the Father reveals the super-abundant divine love of God for his creation. For when all was sinful, cursed, and dead, Christ became sin, a curse, and dead for us -- though he himself never ceased to be the righteousness and blessedness and life of God Himself. It is to this depth, of which lower and more base cannot be discovered or imagined, that Christ has humiliated himself "for us men and for our salvation." For being God, he became man; and being man, he became a slave; and being a slave, he became dead and not only dead, but dead on a cross. From this deepest degradation of God flows the eternal exaltation of man. This is the pivotal doctrine of the Orthodox Christian faith, expressed over and again in many ways throughout the history of the Orthodox Church. It is the doctrine of the atonement -- for we are made to be "at one" with God. It is the doctrine of redemption -- for we are redeemed, i.e., "bought with a price," the great price of the blood of God (Acts 20:28; 1 Cor 6:20).
[...]
In Orthodox theology generally it can be said that the language of "payment" and "ransom" is rather understood as a metaphorical and symbolical way of saying that Christ has done all things necessary to save and redeem mankind enslaved to the devil, sin and death, and under the wrath of God. He "paid the price," not in some legalistic or juridical or economic meaning. He "paid the price" not to the devil whose rights over man were won by deceit and tyranny. He "paid the price" not to God the Father in the sense that God delights in His sufferings and received "satisfaction" from His creatures in Him. He "paid the price" rather, we might say, to Reality Itself. He "paid the price" to create the conditions in and through which man might receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life by dying and rising again in Him to newness of life (See Rom 5-8; Gal 2-4).

I don't know about you, but that sounds far more coherent and loving than a God that just decides to create billions of people who will burn in the fires of Hell with no chance whatsoever to change that.

Fair enough: Marie Angélique herself may or may not have had much to do with Jansen and may or may not have shared his views. She does seem to have been a remarkable and formidable woman. I've also been told that modern theologians, including Roman Catholic ones, have reappraised Jansenism and think Rome's criticism at the time was wildly overblown. The "five points" of Jansenism that she was forced to condemn were at least technically not really what Jansen himself proposed, and she was badly mistreated and unjustly abused, when there should be tolerance for other viewpoints. And guilt by association is really playing dirty pool, no matter who does it.

But given her close association with leading Jansenists, and the close association of Port-Royal with Jansenism, it still makes me very uncomfortable to say the least, especially when I read what Jansenists themselves wrote. Go to the source and read Jansen's original paper for yourself. Read Pascal's writings as well, as linked and quoted above. I think you'd have to agree than the views expressed are difficult to digest at best, and I'd much rather stay distant from such viewpoints. To make it absolutely clear, I don't condemn her, Jansen, or anyone else, and it is not my place to do so. It is simply a matter of who I want to be associated with, whose views I can support and agree with. By choosing her name, there is an implied endorsement of her views or the views of her order, and that is why I'm uncomfortable.

I would have much rather have taken a simple name associated with Christ Himself, as was the tradition in the early church. The Good Shepherd is a good example, being one of the earliest representations of Christ in iconography, or just plain "Christ Church" (which unfortunately is already taken in Hannover). One of the suggested names was "Taufe Jesu", or "Baptism of Christ", which I thought was ideal given that our church is the first Old Catholic church to be built with a full baptismal pool. And it would avoid the kind of associations that any individual saint would inevitably conjure up.

But alas, it was not to be. I missed my opportunity to raise the issue, and by the time I did so, it was simply too late to stop the momentum. The proverbial bus was long gone by the time I got there. So in a lot of ways I only have myself to blame.

Being a "good Catholic" as I try to be, I have to accept the will of the church as expressed through our parish assembly meeting, and live with it. It's not something that would make me jump leagues or whatever. But it's still disappointing. Here's hoping that she can do us some good with the Big Guy upstairs and pray for us, and forgive my doubts about her.