Since the 1980 Pastoral Provision just over 100 U.S. Anglican clergy have gone through the process to become Catholic priests, including the most recent – Father John Lipscomb, former Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Southwest Florida, who was ordained a Catholic priest in the Diocese of St. Petersburg on December 3, 2009. According to Monsignor D. Hamilton, pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Lindenhurst, NY, of the total who have taken advantage of the Pastoral Provision since 1980, approximately 15 have died, and another 15 have retired.
“The expectation is that our General Synod will accept the Holy Father’s offer,” said Christian Campbell, Senior Warden of the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Orlando and a member of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Church in America’s Diocese of the Eastern United States. “It is not so much a question of whether or not we desire to avail ourselves of the offer ”“ inasmuch as it is a direct and generous response to our appeal to the Holy See. The question now is how the Apostolic Constitution is to be implemented. We have practical concerns and we are presently working with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to resolve any outstanding questions.”
For me, the most interesting thing here is the report that several evangelical Protestants a day are calling to see how they could perhaps get in on this deal and thus join the Catholic Church.
An unexpected development, and a fascinating one.
David Handy+
What’s interesting to me is that of course there was nothing stopping these individual “Protestant and Evangelical Christians” from joining the RCC before this. Apparently the Roman church by itself wasn’t sufficiently enticing, but the Roman church in combination with Anglican liturgy is.
That’s gotta make the Roman liturgists feel a little miffed 🙂
It’s when you look at the membership cited – 5200 – in four dioceses – that you begin to suspect an element of unreality about it all. I wish them well, I wish them happiness and fulfilment as Catholics, but … I also wish them to realize that they are joining a vast and motley crew, saints and sinners, and that we all have to get along together and find our unity in a common tradition. No parallel universes.
Terry Tee, I don’t think God is trying to turn us all into little cookie-cuttered papal drones. Roman or not, we should be celebrating the uniqueness of the different cultures, their liturgies and their bishops.
Your response reminds me of Milosz’s poem:
The Prince of This World governs number.
The singular is the hidden God’s dominion.
The Lord of rescues and exception’s Father
Who from the start inhabited my errors.
One against the multiplication table.
Particular, free from the general.
Without hands or eyes yet real.
Who is, every day, though unrevealed.
Maronite and Byzantine Catholics sure look like a parallel universe to me. What harm can one more do?
In response to the above: as a Catholic priest, I respect the Holy Father’s decision. We are entitled to ask, though, that those who join do so to become part of a greater whole, rather than as sectarians. A Catholic, eastern or western, should have a sense of belonging to a community that transcends cultural divisions. A sect by definition is a refuge from the world. In this refuge there is comfort without challenge. In the above post I was uneasy about the panoply of dioceses and provinces without the numbers that would justify it. This was what underlay my concern that there was an element of unreality. However, as I admitted when the pastoral constitution was announced, I have been wrong on this issue before, and perhaps I am being wrong again. I wish for TAC’s future what I would wish for myself: a flourishing in faith, hope and love through Christian commitment and ecclesial loyalty. May God grant us this grace.
6. Terry Tee.
The impulse to shoe-horn all Western Catholics liturgically is an especially modern one, though the tendency has been present in the Roman Rite from early times, as the case of the Celtic Rite suggests. Still, Vatican II saw a wholesale suppression of various uses of the Roman Rite, which had had a striking breadth of expressions.
Benedict in his wisdom is reversing this universalizing trend with the general permission for the 1962 form. I have never been to one, much less said one. I have a curiosity but not a real attraction to that form. But, I am glad that Rome is permitting parallel liturgies and the parallel universes that they tend to create. In a Church with 23 rites, 22 of which are Eastern, I think we can learn to accept each other in the various liturgical expressions that move us.
I am not a charismatic, but I am glad there is room…
I am not a Tridentine, but I am glad there is room…
I am not a Dominican, but I am glad there is room…
I am not an Anglican, but I am glad there is room…
I am not a diocesan priest, but I am glad there is room… 🙂
I am looking forward to the new Anglican Catholics precisely because they will not blend in. And, they will have a great deal to teach the rest of us!
As for numbers, compared to the Catholic Church, Anglicans are accustomed to having a much lower membership to bishop ratio. These bishops spend most of their time as parish pastors, and they do not really imply the kind of administrative overhead that Catholic dioceses require. Also, if the Anglican Use in Texas is any indication, even tiny AU parishes have the potential to grow immensely after entering the CC.
Perhaps all of these expressions are a preparation for his many mansions.
#6
Our Lady of the Atonement Anglican Use parish in San Antonio started in the early ’80s with a grand total of 18 members iirc. They currently have 2,500+ members.
Fr J: I am happy to agree with you.