“We have lots of differences of opinion, but we honor the differences we all bring and a have a commitment to live and work together,” said Bishop Mark Beckwith of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, which covers North Jersey. “It’s not a problem in this diocese.”
The new national diocese, called an “ordinariate,” was created to accommodate Episcopal congregations whose members disagree with their church’s liberal stances on matters like same-sex marriage and the ordination of women and gays. The Episcopal Church, the main U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, has some 2 million members.
Beckwith said none of the 106 congregations in the Episcopal Diocese of Newark is planning to leave. And Bishop George Councell, who heads the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, which covers central and southern parts of the state, said the same.
“Beckwith said none of the 106 congregations in the Episcopal Diocese of Newark is planning to leave”.
That’s because the members that wanted to get out got out a long time ago. I’ve said for years that Spong was the best thing that ever happened to RC, Orthodox, and free church evangelism in NJ, especially in the northern part of the state.
+Beckwith is trying to make it sound like there’s a large influx of RC’s into TEC in NJ; I’m not seeing that
http://pr.dfms.org/study/exports/2112-9242_20120214_12020991.pdf
A better statistician than me(like Statmann 🙂 ) would have to comment here; I believe in the 70’s(pre-Spong and other things), the membership of DioNewark was 70,000+. You see what it is now, if the chart is accurate.
“The main U.S. branch?” This implies that there’s more than one……which is true.
Interesting characterization in this article of why the ordinariate was formed – disaffection. No mention of acceptance (or affection) of Catholic teaching and order, which I would think is why it was created and why one (or a congregation) would join under its jurisdiction. But perhaps the nuances were lost on the author.