Into the Half-Way House: The Story of an Episcopal Priest

The Renniers and Archbishop Carlson

At Yale, there used to be an auxiliary library buried underneath the green in front the Sterling Memorial Library. One fine fall day, I happened to find myself not out amongst the foliage but rather tucked away below the sunshine and the sod, reading a book. I suppose it was an odd choice. This was the ugliest space I know of on an otherwise beautiful campus. So ugly, in fact, that it was targeted for a remodel and is now gone. But there I was, and perhaps even more odd, I, a good Anglican-priest-in-training, was reading Cardinal Newman. Not the good parts that we Anglicans agreed with; the parts about the Oxford movement and the Church Fathers. No, I was reading the Apologia; the story of his conversion to the Catholic Church. I was particularly bothered by one specific bit. Continue reading

A Lutheran Theology Professor and an Anglican Priest become Catholic

Rev. Giles Pinnock

Dr. Michael Root

Recently Dr. Michael Root, Professor of Systematic Theology at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, announced that he will be received into the Catholic Church.

And today Giles Pinnock, Vicar of St Mary-the-Virgin, in Kenton, announced his intention to pursue full communion with the Catholic Church. (See also here.)


H/T Jeffry Steel

Telegraph: 100 US Anglican parishes to enter the Catholic Church

Telegraph: 100 US Anglican parishes to enter the Catholic Church

Each of the bishops of the Anglican Church in America have made this request to the Holy See, but apparently each individual parish must decide whether to accept it.

What a homily: An Anglican on the Unity of the Church

'We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.’

+ In the name of the Father …

Every Sunday, week by week, and on certain other feast days, we recite the Creed, and during this Advent, I shall preach on each of its four Sundays on the Church that we say in the Creed we believe to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic. ...

So I start by examining the statement that we believe that the Church is One – although it is very much the case that every part of ‘We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church’ supports and is supported by each of the others. It is one statement, not four.

We believe that the Church is One.

continue reading

Pope Benedict Creates a New Structure for Anglicans to Enter into Full Communion with the Catholic Church

Damian Thompson's report is here. Fr. Z's comments are here. See also the CNA report and the AP article. The CDF document is here. The Joint Statement by The Archbishop of Westminster and The Archbishop of Canterbury (both pictured at right) can be found here.

This action by the Holy See opens the way for the reception into the Catholic Church of at least 400,000 Anglicans who in 2007 had requested full visible communion with the Catholic Church. This is one significant step in healing the schism that took place under King Henry VIII in the 16th century, separating Anglicans from the Catholic Church for now almost five hundred years. As a former Anglican myself, I'm delighted by this news. For all those praying and working for the reconciliation of all Christians in full visible unity, this news is a cause for celebration.

UPDATE: The Primate of the TAC responds.

UPDATE 2: Video

H/T: Kansas Catholic

"What will it take for a true ecumenical reconciliation?"

Metropolitan Jonah calls for Full Communion With New Anglican Province

Speaking on Wednesday morning to the ACNA Assembly, His Beatitude, Jonah, Metropolitan of All America and Canada and leader of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), called for a "full... intercommunion" with the Anglican Church in North America. "What will it take," he asked, "for a true ecumenical reconciliation? That is what I am seeking by being with you today." (Read the rest of the article).

H/T: Michael F. Bird

Fr. Longenecker's trilemma

Fr. Longenecker, drawing from Cardinal Newman, lays out a trilemma between latitudinarianism, sectarianism, and Catholicism. Read more.

Fr. Jeffrey Steel jumps into the Tiber

Fr. Jeffrey Steel, a former Covenant Theological Seminary student, and former PCA pastor for 6.5 years, and more recently an Anglican priest, has decided to become Catholic. There he writes:

I am writing to make the announcement that I am becoming a Roman Catholic along with my wife Rhea and our six children. I realise that this decision is going to make some really happy, some very sad and others possibily angry. But, I have made the decision with the deepest sense of integrity and by conscience. I would like to share a bit of my faith journey though there are many gaps here, it is descriptive of my heart over the past few months. This is not particularly an academic account of what I have done in my studies but rather the spiritual wrestling that went on within me. The announcement was made this morning in all three parishes where I serve and is now a matter of public knowledge. My duties and licence in the parish end on 14 June 2009 (Corpus Christi Sunday) and my reception into Holy Mother Church is forthcoming.

My PhD studies really set me on my Catholic journey in a deep theological way though I did not realise it at the time. I have been looking at Bishop Lancelot Andrewes as a catalyst for ecumenism with the Catholic Church in the area of Eucharistic sacrifice. Andrewes was in regular dialogue with S. Robert Bellarmine SJ and it is in this dialogue and Andrewes’ other writings that I saw how Catholic he was with regards to the Eucharist being the Christian offering which consisted of more than a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. It was and is propitiatory as well as other things.

Through my time of study in Catholic sacramental theology and viewing my own priestly ministry within this theological framework the question of communio began to frequently come to mind. I had fully embraced Catholic sacramental theology and believed that I could be a Catholic in the Church of England and planned on retirement from the C of E later in life. With all that is going on around the Anglican Communion presently, and particularly within the C of E and how she makes decisions on matters of doctrine, I began to ask questions about authority. As a theologian praying for reunion with the Holy See the question I was now asking was, ‘on whose terms does this reunion take place?’

Please pray for him and his family as he makes this transition.

400,000 Anglicans reconciling with Rome

The story is out at The Record, and Deacon Keith Fournier discusses it here. Here's an excerpt from The Record.

The TAC is a growing global community of approximately 400,000 members that took the historic step in 2007 of seeking full corporate and sacramental communion with the Catholic Church – a move that, if fulfilled, will be the biggest development in Catholic-Anglican relations since the English Reformation under King Henry VIII. TAC members split from the Canterbury-based Anglican Communion headed by Archbishop Rowan Williams over issues such as its ordination of women priests and episcopal consecrations of women and practising homosexuals. The TAC’s case appeared to take a significant step forwards in October 2008 when it is understood that the CDF decided not to recommend the creation of a distinct Anglican rite within the Roman Catholic Church – as is the case with the Eastern Catholic Churches - but a personal prelature, a semi-autonomous group with its own clergy and laity. Opus Dei was the first organisation in the Catholic Church to be recognised as a personal prelature, a new juridical form in the life of the Church. A personal prelature is something like a global diocese without boundaries, headed by its own bishop and with its own membership and clergy. (emphasis mine)

This helps pave the way for other Anglo-Catholics seeking reconciliation with Rome.

Episcopal bishop takes a $75,000 pay cut to become Catholic

Dr. Jeffrey Steenson

The National Post story is here. His "The Causes For My Becoming Catholic" is a must-read; I can't emphasize that enough given the conversations I have had with many of you who are regular readers of this blog. Here are some excerpts:

It all begins with the conviction that the Catholic Church simply is. She is not one option amongst many. People who become alienated from their own churches will sometimes think that the next step is to go down to the marketplace and see what is on offer: which church is going to give me the best deal? Those people seldom find the Catholic Church because they have missed the essential point – the fullness of Christ's blessings is not distributed across the ecclesial landscape but flows from the one Church. "The one Church of Christ, as a society constituted and organized in the world, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him." This is the ecclesiological North Star. On the other hand, Anglicanism’s branch theory of Catholicism cannot be located on the map because it is a utopia, ou topos, a place of nonexistence. This is a difficult truth, but the idea that Catholic Anglicanism exists sui generis is an illusion that must be let go of in order to experience the fullness of Catholic life. Many Anglicans have intuited this, but it is hard to overcome the notion we were taught, that Catholicism is simply the sum of all the Christian churches, kath’holos, according to the whole. The Catholic Church has a different understanding: "Particular Churches are fully catholic through their communion with one of them, the Church of Rome, which presides in charity.'"

Anglicanism has for the last quarter century proceeded quite intentionally from the principle that truth not only is discerned primarily in the experience of the Christian community but also that the community itself has priority over truth. This approach has produced a very meager and inconsequential harvest, and the great legacy of Anglican theological scholarship has been lost. The contrast with the Catholic mind is striking. As an Anglican I would take in hand, for instance, The Catechism of the Catholic Church and ask, could my church have produced a work so penetrating and comprehensive? No, it has neither the capacity nor the confidence to speak its mind in such a way. Why? Because it has deliberately cut itself off from the tradition.

How could an individual person hope to comprehend and understand everything that the Catholic Church teaches? To think that one must do so before giving assent is a very Protestant exercise of private judgment. People come to the Catholic Church not because they have worked out every point of doctrine but because they trust that what the Church teaches is true. This is no blind act of faith but the conviction that the Church of Rome is the principal witness to the apostolic tradition. The early Church Fathers were very much aware of the unique vocation of the Bishop of Rome to speak with the voice of Peter in matters of faith.

And lastly:

It is no small matter to be taken to the woodshed by the Vicar of Christ at a carefully organized ecumenical event, and it demonstrates how seriously the Pope regards the disintegration of Anglicanism as a communion.

"Ex-Anglican communities to become Catholic, Rome confirms"

See Damian Thompson's post "Ex-Anglican communities to become Catholic, Rome confirms". H/T Sean of You are Cephas.

Church of England chooses the way of Protestantism

The vote Monday night by the General Synod of the Church of England to permit the consecration of women as bishops means that the Church of England, as an institution, has made its choice, toward the way of Protestantism, and away from reunion with the Catholic Church. This comes one day after the Telegraph's story of Anglican bishops in a secret Vatican summit.

Fr. Longenecker is right when he says

Large scale ecumenism with the Catholic Church is definitely over. There's no point talking with the Anglican Communion. They spit in our face every time. Furthermore, there is no way a unified body could be identified to talk with even if we wanted to. Ecumenism will now be with individuals and smaller groups. Finally, the other thing that is certain is that the fuss in Anglicanism will bring a good number of people to the banks of the Tiber, and for that we should rejoice and continue to pray.

What exactly is happening? A separation is happening, as is quite clear. What principally characterizes the two sides? The essence of the position of the 'liberal' side is what is called 'modernism', which Pascendi Dominici Gregis condemned one hundred years ago. The Catholic encyclopedia entry defines 'modernism' as "the critique of our supernatural knowledge according to the false postulates of contemporary philosophy". The fundamental error of modernism is that it raises human reason above divine revelation. Thus, its fundamental error is a form of the chief of the seven deadly sins, the one through which Satan himself fell, pride. Faith and pride are immiscible, for the former is a trust in God, and the latter is a distrust in God and a trust in oneself.

In contrast to the 'liberal' side, the essence of the position of the 'traditional' side is a subordination of human reason to divine revelation.

Those who subject divine revelation to human reason cannot be truly united to those who subject human reason to divine revelation. "For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" (2 Cor 6:14) Hence, wherever such persons are mixed together, they will necessarily eventually separate, as oil naturally separates from water. And that is what is happening with Anglicanism.

I believe that this fundamental separation will continue to take place all over the world, as I have argued in a little essay titled "On The Imminent and Final Conflict between the City of God and the City of Man", which I wrote in April/May of last year. [Of all that I have written on this blog, I believe that that and "The Gnostic Roots of Heresy" are the two most important (insofar as anything I have written here is important), for they describe the end and the beginning, respectively, of the story of unity and disunity.] The good ecumenical news out of this Anglican split is that those who subordinate human reason to divine revelation are, in a way, now more free to pursue reconciliation and reunion with the Catholic Church. It is among those persons who subordinate human reason to divine revelation, no matter what their Christian tradition, that ecumenical activity is and will be most fruitful, for such persons have the most important thing in common, i.e. humility before God and divine revelation. That is why I hope and expect to see a continued reconciliation between traditional Anglicans and the Catholic Church.

Two related articles on the prospects of traditional Anglicans reuniting with the Catholic Church are: "Anglicans to Catholics: Ready or Not, Here we Come" and "Church of England bishops coming home to Rome?"

Let us continue to pray for "the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers".

UPDATE (July 8): Two Anglican bishops seek to lead traditional Anglicans to reconciliation with the Catholic Church. (See here) Fr. Longenecker comments on this development here. Taylor Marshall comments here.

GAFCON: The Jerusalem Declaration

The Declaration can be found here. AP has the news story here.

UPDATE (June 30): The Declaration is now available on the GAFCON site here.

UPDATE (July 01): "More Anglican Developments"

UPDATE: (July 01): "Anglican Communion: falling apart"

"Anglicanism Nearly Finished Destroying Itself"

"Breaking the Bonds of Communion", by Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Post

H/T: Mark Shea

The choice for Anglicans is either to continue to fragment, each person continually seeking out a bishop somewhere (e.g. in South America, or in Africa) with whom he agrees, or to pursue reconciliation and reunion with the Holy See. There are no other options.

Those who do not understand the relationship between being and unity will not understand that to lose unity is to lose being. To fragment is to die. In other words, to lose catholicity is to cease to exist. It is only a matter of time, just as it is only a matter of time for a corpse to disintegrate.

Just as being cannot come from non-being, so unity cannot come from non-unity. St. Thomas Aquinas writes, "ab uno derivatur unitio" [uniting is derived from unity](ST I Q.60 a.3 ad 2). That is why ecumenicism cannot be "E Pluribus Unum" [out of many, one], because unity cannot be derived from plurality. Out of mere plurality can only come plurality, for unity only comes from unity, just as being only comes from being. Unity does not come from plurality, for plurality (as such) has no unity to give, because plurality is a privation of unity. And nothing can give what it does not have. Unity is given to plurality from unity, to make what is plural into a unity, by incorporating the many into an already-existing unity. We can see this implicitly in verses like 1 Corinthians 10:17, which in Greek reads:

ὅτι εἷς ἄρτος, ἓν σῶμα οἱ πολλοί ἐσμεν, οἱ γὰρ πάντες ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἄρτου μετέχομεν.

and in Latin:

Quoniam unus panis, unum corpus multi sumus, omnes, qui de uno pane participamus.

and in English:

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

We, who are many, are made one by partaking of the one Bread (John 6), who is one. (John 10:30) Only by participating in and partaking of the One are we, who are many, made one. We can see this also in 1 Corinthians 12, where St. Paul teaches that in our baptism, we are baptized into one body [εἰς ἓν σῶμα; in unum corpus]. (1 Cor 12:13). By our baptism, we are incorporated into an already existing unity, namely, the Body of Christ. Why is the Body of Christ one, even though it has many members? Because Christ, who is the head of the Church, which is His Body, is One. (Eph 5:23) The Church is one because Christ its Head is one, and because the Spirit which animates the Church is one. The unity of the divine nature is the source of all other unity, and has no source of unity, for it itself is perfect unity, i.e. unity per se, uncaused unity. Every other unity is a derived unity, i.e. a unity-from-unity. No mere plurality can become an actual unity without being incorporated into an existing unity, and the only divine unity into which we can be incorporated is the life of Christ, found in His Body, the Church which He Himself established. Any other community is an imitation, and is intrinsically disposed to fragmentation, for it was not founded by the God-man Jesus Christ. "Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ', or 'There He is', do not believe him." (Matt 24:23) Christ is in the Church that Christ founded, not in the societies founded by mere men. (See here.)

What's my point? Tower of Babel ecumenicism is doomed to failure by the metaphysical truth that unity cannot come from plurality anymore than being can come from non-being. The only sort of ecumenicism that can succeed is that which finds and participates in that already-existing unity which the incarnate Christ Himself established, and of which He is the Head and Cornerstone. To separate oneself from the Catholic (universal) Church is to cut oneself off from the Unity and Life of Christ in the Church. That is why the only two options before the Anglican bishops, as the Vatican warned in May, are the pursuit of reconciliation and reunion with the Holy See, or the eventual utter fragmentation that necessarily accompanies Protestantism. It appears that one portion of Anglicanism has chosen the path of Protestantism. Let us pray that all of Anglicanism pursues the path of reconciliation and reunion with the Holy See.

UPDATE: Read Fr. Longenecker's "Anglicans in Agony". According to Damian Thompson, at least one Anglican bishop is preparing to seek full communion with the bishop of Rome after the Lambeth Conference.

Former Anglican priest (Fr. Peter Geldard) on "The Journey Home" tonight

Fr. Peter Geldard

Former Anglican priest (and now Catholic priest) Fr. Peter Geldard is on EWTN's "The Journey Home" tonight. In light of the Vatican's recent statement regarding the choice facing Anglicans in the upcoming Lambeth Conference, Fr. Geldard's experience (recounted here) is another example of the way in which the two Cities are dividing, even while the City of God is coalescing.

Anglicans must choose between Protestantism and tradition

Anglicans must choose between Protestantism and tradition, says Vatican

An Anglican Trilemma

I recently read a comment somewhere in which an Anglican claimed to be committed to the ideal of parity among the bishops.

If no man can serve two masters, i.e. two persons having equal authority over him (cf. Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13), then a fortiori no man can serve three masters (i.e. three persons having equal authority over him), or four, or five, or six, or however many (so long as the number is greater than one) bishops there are. But then it follows that a man can have only one highest ecclesial authority. Yet if there is nothing that gives one bishop more authority than all other bishops, then it follows logically that no man can serve any master, i.e. egalitarianism is true, and no bishop has any authority. Therefore, either Jesus was mistaken when He said that no man can serve two masters, or no bishops have any authority, or one bishop has more authority than all other bishops.

Anglicans are deceiving themselves if they claim to believe that all bishops have equal authority, for they obey and trust their Anglican bishop over the bishop of Rome. "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other."

Britain has become a 'Catholic country'

According to this article in the Telegraph, there are now more practicing Catholics in Britain than practicing Anglicans. That follows yesterday's news of Tony Blair's conversion to Catholicism. From a Catholic point of view, it is not entirely surprising that Anglicanism is in decline. In 1896 Pope Leo XIII ruled in Apostolicae Curae that "ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void". Any organization lacking valid orders must eventually collapse. Those who reject Apostolicae Curae to become or remain Anglican are implicitly determining that the [Anglican] Archbishop of Canterbury (or whichever Anglican bishop in Africa under whom they have placed themselves) has more authority than the episcopal successor of St. Peter. One of the factors leading me out of Anglicanism was that I could not justify the claim that some Anglican bishop has more authority than the bishop of Rome.