The Rev. Richard Rodgers of Blessed Sacrament Old Catholic Church in Racine, Wis., has presided over Masses since 1989. But Rodgers isn’t a typical priest ”” the 62-year-old pastor is married and has a son and grandchildren.
A former Episcopalian minister, Rodgers leads a seven-member congregation in the Chicago Diocese of the Old Catholic Church, a hybrid of Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions.
“I left the Episcopal Church because it was slowly descending into chaos,” Rodgers said, referring to his opposition to the church’s acceptance of openly gay clergy, blessing over same-sex unions and allowance of female priests and bishops.
Yes, lest we forget: conservative [i]vagantes[/i]. (They’re not Old Catholics. Those are in northern and central Europe and are often liberal, in communion with the Episcopalians.) Ultimately they don’t make theological/ecclesiological sense but I like them, especially a ministry that sounds stable like Fr Rodgers’. Blessed Sacrament sounds like would-be Anglican Use in an RC diocese where AU’s not allowed: Anglo-Catholics making do as best they can where they are, something many are now familiar with. As the news story suggests such could be a rare example of Americans coming aboard under Pope Benedict’s latest offer.
It makes sense that this is in Wisconsin, once among the Episcopalians’ biretta-belt dioceses and once the stomping grounds of an Old Catholic priest/church adventurer, Joseph René Vilatte (one of his Belgian parishes there is now Episcopal).
He’s been at the church since 1989, and he has seven church members? Does that strike anyone else as peculiar?
Archer, all you need is 3 or 4 other folk and a past ordination from most anywhere, and you can make up your own Anglican Communion.
Good catch, Archer. If it’s only seven people then sorry, I can understand the RC diocese turning them down to have the Anglican Use.