[MARK] LEWIS (St. Luke’s Parish): We left the Episcopal Church not because we were running away from the issues of the Episcopal Church. We left the Episcopal Church because we were running to the Catholic Church. We came to the point where we realized the theology of the Episcopal Church is what was lacking. The theology of Rome, the authority of Rome, the unity in the Holy See and in the bishops: that was appealing to us.
[BOB] FAW: Former Episcopal priest, Father Scott Hurd, married with three children, also found the move to Catholicism seamless. He was ordained into the Catholic Church in 2000 and acted as the chaplain here while Father Lewis waited to be ordained.
FATHER SCOTT HURD (US Ordinariate): There is a real hunger amongst some Episcopalians and Anglicans for authority. It was the question of where can true Christian authority be found that was a key element in this community’s journey.
A fundamental division in Catholic Anglicanism is between the theological descendants of the old High Church tradition of the Caroline Divines and the late Stuarts in the 17th and early 18th centuries and the theological descendants of the Romantic Revival of the 19th century.
I am a Prayer Book Catholic. My theological ancestors stressed their continuity with the early 16th century Church of Sarum. Our Catholic Anglican detractors called this “British Museum religion.” We responded by calling them “apeists” ready to follow whatever Romish fads they observed on holiday in Belgium. Prayer Book Catholics looked to Percy Dearmer’s _Parsons Handbook_ and the Alcuin Club for guidance in ceremonial. Others looked to Adrian Fortescue’s _Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described_ and the Society of St. Peter and St. Paul.
When I was in London some years ago I found in a Church of England parish church the same paperback missalettes used in Roman Catholic parishes. When I served in Maryland 1966-74 none of the parishes whose clergy were members of the Clerical Union for the Defense and Maintenance of Catholic Principles commonly called the Catholic Club used the Roman Missal. Some used the Prayer Book with ceremonial from that source; others used the Prayer Book with ceremonial from pre-Reformation English sources or from other parts of the Anglican Communion.
For some parishes the Ordinariate is not a big move. For others as the Bishop of Maryland notes differences of authority and Biblical interpretation will be sufficient obstacles. I am unable in good conscience to teach as necessary to salvation doctrines not found in or proved from Holy Scripture. For example, Anglicans are free to believe in the Immaculate Conception and Bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but we not required to do so.
When the Church of Rome repeals _Apostolicae Curae_ and ceases to reordain clergy in the English succession I’ll be happy to talk.