First, a little history: “Crossing the Tiber” has always been an option for members of the Church of England. In the 19th century there was the famous case of Henry (later Cardinal) Newman, who left a distinguished position as a Oxford professor to become a Roman Catholic. He experienced, along with other Anglican clergy who joined him, a welcome which was anything but warm. Newman was re-ordained as a Roman Catholic priest and for some years languished in a poor and obscure parish in Birmingham before his new bosses finally realized that this convert possessed one of the greatest theological minds of the age. Only then was he given the position he deserved.
Closer to our own time, a group of married Episcopal clergy who were admitted into the Roman Church because of their refusal to accept the ordination of women in the 1970s found that they were regarded with suspicion by their new congregants and most experienced unhappy and frustrating pastorates.
This current invitation is a bit different in that those going to Rome have been promised that they can maintain their Anglican ways (Prayerbook, etc) and even have oversight by former Anglican bishops. Still those priests and bishops will be ruled by the Vatican. The reason dissenting Episcopalians left our church is that they didn’t like control. I doubt many of them would be anxious to trade in their current relative independence for orders from the Chair of St Peter.
It might be a different story in England where there is a much more pronounced Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England….
Oh dear. I know Arizona well. I never thought Bishop Kirk would use such cheap arguments and misrepresentation. The history of Anglican vicars in the Roman Catholic Church is largely one of fulfilment, contrary to what the bishop writes. From Cardinal Manning onwards their gifts have been prized and well used. And no, this is not a recruitment exercise. When people write as he has done, assuring you that they are not, definitely not bothered by this, no it does not worry them at all then you have to wonder whether all the vehemence conceals a deeper unease. As for the red herring of people going both ways, of course it is true. But it is also true that in a state where the population has expanded dramatically, in 2002 his diocese reported 26,947 baptized persons, and in 2008 24,895, despite church plants in Peoria and North Scottsdale and a putative plant in Marano. And despite some hopeful signs (for Episcopalians) of Hispanic work out of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix, Hispanic ministry has had meager/meagre fruit.
[blockquote] I doubt many of them would be anxious to trade in their current relative independence for orders from the Chair of St Peter [/blockquote]
As opposed to the “independence for orders” from KJS and the upper-management HOB of The Episcopal Corporation??????????
[blockquote] The reason dissenting Episcopalians left our church is that they didn’t like control. [/blockquote]
Would all those to whom this statement applies, please stand up and wave?
Hmm, thought so.
That reasoning to explain the complex situation happening in TEC is simplistic and offensive. Those folks that are leaving are leaving for a myriad of reasons. But “lack of control?” Really? REALLY?
I am also struck by his account of Cardinal Newman. Apart from not being accurate, one wonders what is wrong with ministering in a poor and obscure parish. Surely the bishop does not esteem only those who minister in rich and famous parishes? Or want to reserve the best pastoral and intellectual gifts for them? The more I look at this piece the more it has me gasping.
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Contrast this with the gracious invitation of a [b]real[/b] bishop, NT Wright of Durham, to the Pope.
As a former Episcopalian in the diocese of Arizona, I can only pray for this man. This piece is so full of innuendo and insult that it is just staggering.
[blockquote] In my entire five years as bishop, I know of only two people who have left the Episcopal Church to become Roman Catholics! [/blockquote]
From my former parish alone in Paradise Valley, AZ, I can name 10 people off the top of my head who left the Episcopal church to join the Roman Catholic church in the past 2 years, including one of the associate priests. Not only did the married priest leave, (with his wife and 5 children), but he is currently under an RC priest who was formerly an Episcopal priest who is also married with 5 children. He will be ordained an RC priest the first of next year. They will be using the Anglican rite which has been in place longer than the recent announcement by Pope Benedict.
Pray for the lack of love and charity in this wayward bishop. He lacks honesty, clarity, and forbearance. How sad that he is in a position to proselytize and influence so many unsuspecting sheep. Pray, too, that those who have ears to hear may recognize the error of the Gospel he preaches and seek the Truth.
May God have mercy on them.
Church history was either not a strong suite at his seminary or he was an indifferent student then as now. Really, quite astonishing ignorance of a number of matters in his own organization and those others he addresses.
I’m afraid that the esteemed elves would edit my comment if I described this person as stupid, so I won’t. But his arguments, as well as being fatuous and uninformed in excelsis reek of self-satisfaction and a kind of unpleasant pride which is annoying as well as disappointing.
Tediously thin command of facts …
“First, a little history: ‘Crossing the Tiber’ has always been an option for members of the Church of England.” Indeed. Among others, Edmund Campion, crossed the Tiber but was drowned in a seething sea of anti-Catholicism.
But, wait ! There’s more ! Here’s another howler …
“But is the building up of a church on the basis of hatred consistent with Jesus’ message?” Gosh, it must have been Benedict’s forced enrollment in the Hitlerjugend when he was a boy which infected him with the the virulent hatred which is so characteristic of his papacy. And how ’bout that venomous Jesus character attacking those defenseless money-changers in the temple ? Makes you wonder how Christianity ever got around to preaching love when it was founded by a brood of vipers. Let’s not even talk about how wicked it was that Ananias and his wife Sapphira were struck down.
When I read ecclesiastical drivel like this, it makes me glad I’m only visiting this planet.
And let’s not forget “Henry” (Hank) Newman who swam the Tiber with his cousin Alfred E. Newman. This bishop is, I assume, the product of the deep learning at one of several TEC seminaries
#7. 10 — your uninformed statements about bishop smith’s education undermine do little other than expose your own ignorance in the matter. try this on for size (straight off the same website!):
While earning his baccalaureate in history at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, Smith broke from his family tradition and was received into the Episcopal Church. Smith went on to earn his Ph.D. in medieval church history from Cornell University in 1976, having spent an academic year at Oxford University studying and writing his thesis. He then studied for holy orders at the Berkeley Seminary at Yale, was deaconed in 1979, and ordained a priest in 1980, through the auspices of his home diocese of Arizona.
but then again, what do i know? lots of people with ph.d.s in church history probably don’t know anything about church history, right dwstroudmd?
Smith’s false witness classes seem to be working out well for him.
So most of the vitriol here is shamefully unnecessary but I would like to ask the good Bishop, “What’s wrong with ‘poor and obscure’ parishes?
Is he really referring to his own people like this? Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong with the Episcopal Church that a bishop can think it acceptable to talk about Christ’s flock in this way. I know it’s obvious but the jibes, the sarcasm and the abuse are still shocking to me. Lord have mercy (because your bishop evidently won’t).
This Bishop is so typical of TEC leadership today. So small, defensive and fearful. Reading this, one can understand why he waited for the “experts” to speak.
So now, the esteemed Bishop sees the Roman Catholic Church conducting itself “on the basis of hate”. And that if you “hate gay people”, you ought to join them. This is just so insulting and ignorant.
He actually reminds me of my young daughter, to whom, like most kids, the word hate slips off the tongue so easily: “I hate this show”, or “I hate this soup”, and I try to correct her each time about what the word hate means, and why, as a good Christian household, we shouldn’t ever use it.
The Pope hates no one. Romans and Anglicans with Christ in their hearts do not hate gay people, Bishop Smith. In fact, most of us pray for them as we do any unrepentant sinners. Your choice to use that word in your “analysis” demonstrates with perfect clarity an immature view and great disrespect of both Churches.
For a Christian, the Bishop has a severely flawed view of poverty and authority.
#11, by their fruits you know them. He has certainly demonstrated a cavalier attitude towards reality that belies an education in church history, I must say. That he has a PhD in the matter is rather the more embarassing. But I do note that it is in medieval history and perhaps he has not moved into a modern understanding of the papacy as of yet? I suppose we should know the specific PhD thesis to determine that.
Yet his comments stand in indictment of such education as he has degrees to exhibit. And the idea that the Roman Catholic Church is rapidly failing (1.2+ billion members and rising) from a bishop in an organization that boasts an ASA of ~700,000 and nearly 2 million members (counting the dead and those not removed from parish lists for relocation or transfer and still relying on absent dioceses and parishes to buck up those inflated numbers) does not do well for math skills, either.
But, historical or numerical accuracy is not highly prized in the ECUSA/TEC today. Rather like canons and constitution, eh?
This is so very sad indeed.
someone needs to talk to this fellow, and all of us need to pray for him. his comments are ignorant, offensive, and unChristian.
Not the classiest piece I’ve ever read.
youngadult, #11 – he was, as a medievalist, undoubtedly drawn to the church as a convert for reasons which ought to be obvious. That he is out of his field- waaay out, is equally clear.
All is well.
Based upon my 20 plus years as an Episcopalian, I think Bishop Smith’s words accurately reflect the ignorant anti-Catholic prejudice of a majority of Episcopalians, including the so-called anglo-catholics. Bishop Smith’s prejudice is as American as apple pie.
[blockquote] The Pope hates no one. Romans and Anglicans with Christ in their hearts do not hate gay people, Bishop Smith. In fact, most of us pray for them as we do any unrepentant sinners. [/blockquote]
upnorfjoel, while I generally agree with what you said, I would like to clarify that according to RC teaching it isn’t BEING homosexual that is sinful. We all have our own weaknesses and disorders that lead us to sin, but being homosexual isn’t inherently sinful. It is homosexual behavior that is the problem. There are many good and holy people who are celibate homosexuals, and many are Catholic clergy. One needs to be careful not to paint with too broad a brush, or misrepresent Catholic teaching.
And it isn’t that we just pray for sinners (myself included). We love them as well. As with all of us, we are called to LOVE the sinner, not just hate the sin (but we can still call a sin a sin)! And thank goodness for that, because as my spouse can attest, I am far from perfect.
Youngadult (#11)
I think most of those are vested with a PhD are all too aware that it does not make them infallible (myself not the least). My sense is that the commentators here are more irked by the manner in which Bishop Smith dismisses 200 years of Anglican-Roman conversions as the angry and frustrated response of embittered men contemptuous of authority.
It is certainly true that Newman and his fellow converts [i]were[/i] regarded by the Irish-dominated English church with considerable suspicion (with educated Anglican converts that wasn’t uncommon). However, I agree with those who consider it odd that Bishop Smith describes Newman’s work at the Birmingham Oratory in such negative terms. At the very least, you could argue that a posting to a poor parish was a way of testing how genuine Newman’s conviction and call actually were.
It is equally odd that Bishop Smith refers to conservatives as having a dislike of “control,” since most of those whom he references have for some time been appealing for a greater exercise of authority by the occupant of Lambeth Palace and greater authority for the primates as a collegial body. I’m not clear that Bishop Smith has a problem with the exercise of authority as currently practiced in the United States.
Finally, he alleges the lack of “a clear Gospel proclamation” on the part of Benedict XVI and the sole desire to increase his “rapidly dwindling ranks.” A Roman friend of mine (a convert) recently suggested to me that Benedict (and the choice of name was not accidental) is well aware of the recent demographic shifts in Christianity and anticipates that the Church in the West will soon be defending against a new age of secularist hostility. Since it is to the Global South (Africa and Asia) that the mantle of leadership will fall, the Pope may well see that he has an obligation (perhaps as the last European pope) to do all he can to unite the various fragments of Catholic Christianity in the West before that day comes. So, in a sense, Bishop Smith may be right, but not for the rather crude numbers game that he implies is the sole motivation.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
Youngadult (#11),
The problem is not his PhD; (but as #25 implies) the problem is his arrogance!
A copy of my email to Bishop Kirk:
Dear Bishop,
Your recent vitriolic article, full of misinformation and ant-Catholic sentiments, makes me glad that I do not reside in your diocese and increasingly wondering how much longer I can remain a member
of a church which is inclusive of everyone except orthodox Christians.
I am a gay man who supports the full inclusion of women and LGBT Christians but not at the expense of an increasingly vapid, Broad Church kind of liturgical Unitarianism.
Anglican Comprehensiveness is officially dead in TEC.
Surprisingly, I find I have more in common theologically with my disenfranchised, persecuted and deposed sisters and brothers in the reasserter camp than with fellow progressives: http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/26263/#comments
Lord have mercy.
Br. Christopher Cleveland
Terry Tee — yes the same sentence struck me too. Imagine sending a priest into a poor and obscure parish! Outrageous treatment! Obviously they later had to make him a cardinal to make up for it.
My guess is that Birmingham is a far cry better that say Kingman or Utah, AZ.
Br. Christopher:
What an exceptional person you are, and a proverbial breath of fresh air! Thanks for taking the time to post your comments here.
Many blessings.
RE: “Is he really referring to his own people like this?”
Yep — the traditional Episcopalians in his diocese “hate”. What a wonderful pastor he must be!!! ; > )
#27 Archangelica/Christopher
You are not the first gay Christian I have read lamenting the failure to preach the faith once received. The theological heterodoxy is doing no one any favors.
I am sorry to hear what you are going through. May the living God continue to enable you to grow in wisdom, discernment and knowledge of Him in your journey and guide you into the plans He has for you [Jeremiah 29:11-14]. He only ever gives good things if we will ask for them.
Blessings.
#31: there are no “traditional Episcopalians” left in his diocese!! They’ve all been driven away!