Would Bishop Peter Collins of East Anglia bow his head to receive a blessing from an SSPX bishop?
Of course not.
One can almost hear the press release already: concern for ecclesial communion, anguish over irregular status, fidelity to the successor of Peter, the grave wound of schism, and all the usual incense poured over cowardice. Rome can always find a canon when tradition is involved. The bureaucracy has a whole drawer full of them.
Yet the same hierarchy manages to find smiles, warmth, mutual presence, shared witness, and “friendship” when the other party is Anglican. At Walsingham, Collins’ own diocesan diary listed him as attending the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham pilgrimage on May 25 at 11:30. The Anglican pilgrimage program listed the 12 noon “Solemn Mass” with Luke Irvine-Capel, the Anglican “Bishop of Richborough,” as principal celebrant, followed by a sermon, procession, and Benediction preached by John Wilson, the Catholic Archbishop of Southwark.
Even leaving aside the circulating photograph of Collins bowing for the Anglican blessing, the verified record is already damning enough. A Catholic bishop attended a public Anglican shrine event centered around an invalid Eucharistic rite, presided over by a man styled as a bishop in a communion whose orders Leo XIII declared invalid. The ecumenical write-up even found it “particularly striking” that an Anglican bishop presided at the principal Eucharistic celebration while a Catholic archbishop preached later in the day. Collins was named among the Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox church leaders present.
“Particularly striking” is one way to put it.
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