Controversial bishop attacks Roman Catholic archbishop over Facebook

From the London Telegraph-

In a hard hitting statement Bishop Jonathan Blake, who heads the Open Episcopal Church, warned that there were far greater risks to relationships posed by the Roman Catholic church than there were from internet sites.

The outspoken Rev Blake, the Bishop of Greater London, attack was in response to an interview in the Sunday Telegraph in which Archbishop Vincent Nichols said social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace encouraged teenagers to view friendship as a commodity and increased the risk of suicide.

Bishop Blake, who was criticised for blessing the civil wedding of the late television personality Jade Goody, said: "So the Archbishop of Westminster warns about the dangers of electronic isolation and relationships mediated through the keyboard. Of course there are dangers and wise parents and balanced adults will guard against them.

"However, there are greater dangers to relationships perhaps in Roman Catholicism. I have counselled those heartbroken that a member of their family had been snatched from them into a closed order of Nuns, others sucked into the loneliness of the celibate priesthood, many more isolated into religious fanaticism, others damaged by the homophobia, authoritarianism and sexism enshrined in church policy."

The Archbishop of Westminster had warned that relationships were already being weakened by the decline of face to face meetings and the telephone. "Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities but I'm wary about it," he said. "Among young people often a key factor in their committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships."

The rest is here-

The Open Episcopal Church's wafer wheeze

From the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" department (England Bureau)

No more haven't-got-time-to-get-to-Mass misery! Bishop Jonathan Blake of the Open Episcopal Church is offering "Host in the post", the genuine body and blood of Christ on your doormat for just £2 to cover postage and packing.

The theologian John Drane has written about "the McDonaldisation of the church", so maybe the Dominos Pizza-ization of the church was only a matter of time. Delightfully whacky as home delivery eucharist sounds, it's only the latest step in experiments in adapting Christianity to a changing world.

Time was, of course, when church was somewhere you generally had to go to get the benefit of it – unless you could persuade the priest you were close enough to death to bring it to you. But since the early days of radio we've had hymns and sermons beamed into our houses.

More recently websites have experimented with online confession, and offering a "sacred space" for communal prayer from the convenience of your own desk. The Blessed Sacrament Webcam allowed visitors to look at pictures, updated once a minute, of a chalice in a box in Florida whenever they felt the need.

There are now churches that only exist on the internet, such as St Pixels, where, as you would expect services focus more on prayers, short sermons and liturgy than on sacraments or singing.

But every technology has its limitations, and its likely to be a good while before we can download wafers. The internet maybe making us all into consumers, but there are limits. So it's back to the postbag.

More here-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/09/communion-wafer-post

and here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5483394/Church-leaders-offer-communion-wafers-in-the-post.html