The newspaper headline screams, "Episcopal bishop opens door to Catholics" and it gets your attention. The Episcopal bishop of Maryland gives the reminder that "the door swings both ways." Yes, the All Saints Sisters of the Poor just entered the Catholic Church, but the bishop proudly claims that he's taken in three Catholic priests over the past months. Tit for tat, you win a few you lose a few.
What the bishop neglects to mention is that the vast majority, if not virtually every case of a Catholic deciding to become Episcopalian is because of the search for a church that will make fewer demands or give approval to something that is unacceptable for Catholics. I've never met an Episcopal priest who was formerly a Catholic priest who hadn't made the switch because he got married (usually after an illicit relationship with someone before actually leaving the active Catholic priesthood). Certainly the married state is an honorable one -- unless that person is already bound by the vow of celibacy. Most of the Episcopal laity I've known, who tell me "I used to be Catholic," are divorced and remarried -- even multiple times.
It comes down to this: most of the traffic into the Catholic Church is because consciences have been sharpened; most of the traffic out of the Catholic Church is because consciences have been dulled.
7 comments:
Fr. Phillips,
I am an Anglican in a more conservative church, the Reformed Episcopal Church. I have found myself growing in faith and that I am now questioning the Anglican Church and its stand as a self-reliant church. I have some very good friends of mine that are Anglican and plain to go to Rome, I understand their reasons and support them; but I am a divorcée and have remarried and have had children with my current wife. The back-story is that I was in a very rocky relationship, had two children, she left I got custody of the children; I remarried sometime later and have had two more children. So I am looking for a more solid faith but from what I have heard about the Roman church and there views on divorce I am not sure that I would be welcome, Can you answer this question for me?
Joe
Joe, a situation such as yours depends very much on many variables, such as whether a previous spouse is still living, or was a baptised Catholic and attempted marriage outside the Church, or any number of other issues. You can explain your situation to a Catholic priest or deacon, and he should be able to give you guidance. I'm happy to answer any questions privately, if you'd like to e-mail me at FrPhillips@atonementonline.com
"Father Phillip G. Christopher"?
Daniel, I guess we must be famous, if we're being spoofed!!
Father,
Your final sentence sums it up.
Let the Episcopal bishop try to score points, he is in a dying church. Our Lord founded one, and only one, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church - and it sure isn't the Episcopal Church.
I am not sure if I have posted here before but I am a former cradle Catholic who left the Church because it is too liberal regarding marriage, divorce and annulments.
None of you really know what you are talking about, except in theory, unless you have seen what I have seen.
Joe, my advice to you is to do what is the right thing. You will find it very hard to find a competent, really Catholic priest. They are very, very few and very, very far between. Perhaps this priest here is one, but I would have to have a detailed conversation to make that judgment.
My wife and her lover are accepted in the Catholic Church in the face of the Roman Rota ruling twice in favor of our valid marriage. They are treated as husband and wife. I have been condemned, soundly, for protesting that the Church should do every single thing it can, including formal excommunication to bring the two adulterers to repentance. It has been this way since a Catholic priest told my wife to divorce me twenty years ago so that she could pursue an annulment which she "deserved". The Catholic Church is doing what it can to destroy me emotionally and morally, so that I die as early as possible, in order for the adulterers to be married in the Catholic Church.
If you think this is a morally acceptable approach to the "divorce and remarriage" problem, then you should become Catholic.
Each case MUST BE looked at individually because there is a HUGE difference between an abandoned innocent spouse and the malicious abandoner. The problem is that the huge vast majority of Catholics, including the huge vast majority of clergy do not care a snit about the consequences of this to our children or to what such laxity of morality teaches and results in.
If this priest who is reading what I am writing does not fully agree with almost every single thing I have written he is a loser and should be ignored.
If he has slight reservations about details, he may be wise or may need to think about things.
If he finds significant disagreement he is a heretic.
I do wish you only the best. The priest is free to email me if he wants to. If I have never communicated with him before, he may learn something about his Church.
I did not say what I have said to keep you from the Catholic Church.
continued..................
I love the Catholic Church. It is Christ's Church, but it has strayed from its mission regarding marriage because it fails to remember that justice and mercy must compliment each other. Neither may exceed the other or damage is done that worsens over time and destroys people, faith and souls. We live in a time now of massive false charity, which is wrapped in a corrupted concept of mercy that obliterates justice.
This is rampant in pastoral theology and is at the heart of the problems of marriage, adultery and divorce/annulment.
God help the SSPX when it addresses this issue with the Papal theologians. The future of the Catholic Church and all Christendom depends, primarily, on this issue. Other issues are very important but all rest upon marriage, the family and how the good of the spouses is woven, indissolubly, among teaching the children real Catholicism so that all, ultimately, return to their creator in heaven. This is marriage. A simple, faithful, committed promise which is easily made(unlike annulments are heretically teaching), is a natural phenomena and which almost any functional human can partake sufficiently and can live, if that promise is taken seriously, for better or for worse.
God be with all of you.
The Catholic Church needs to heed the words of the "Doctor of the Church", Catherine of Sienna, which she wrote to a Pope Gregory XI:
----------------------------------
Those who are in authority, I say, do evil when holy justice dies in them because of their selfish self-centeredness and their fear of incurring the displeasure of others! They see those under them sinning but it seems they pretend not to see and do not correct them.
And if they do correct, they do it so feebly and halfheartedly that it is worthless, only a plaster over the vice. They are forever afraid of offending and making enemies and all this because of self-love. Sometimes it's just that they would like to keep peace, and this, I tell you, is the worst cruelty one can inflict. If a sore is not cauterized or excised when necessary, but only ointment is applied, not only will it not heal, but it will infect the whole [body], often fatally.
----------------------------------
This is THE MAIN PROBLEM TODAY!!!
NO GOVERNANCE LEADS TO ANARCHY.
Karl
Post a Comment