REC Orders - A Final Thought

3 November 2006

Dear Father:

I thank you for your thoughtful and helpful remarks regarding the subject we have recently discussed. Catholic Anglicans certainly want, and should, assert the necessity of maintaining an orthodox doctrine on the sacramental eucharistic priesthood, or if you will, the sacrificing priesthood, and of the anamnetic re-presentation of Our Lord's one perfect offering of Himself in the eucharistic sacrifice. And no doubt you are utterly right to insist that the said doctrines are integral to an authentic and biblical understanding of the sacramental system given to us by Jesus Christ and the Holy Apostles. Having come through the Tractarian Revival, we Catholics clearly see the need to emphasise afresh these key catholic doctrines of the Church and the sacramental life. However, to insist that the orders of the Reformed Episcopal Church are invalid because it lapsed into error regarding the nature of the sacerdotal priesthood and the objective sacrificial character of the Mass is precisely to invoke the argument and the theological matrix of Apostolicae Curae of Pope Leo XIII. I believe this is extremely dangerous territory for Anglicans to tread upon. Our orders were condemned by Rome in 1896 specifically because the Vatican held that the construction of the Anglican Ordinal and the ethos of the Anglican Church in which it was and is used construes an invalidating defect - by rejection of the very same dogmatic realities which the REC rejected. By using the argument of Apostolicae Curae to reject as invalid REC orders is to demonstrate, by logical extension, the possibility that our own orders are invalid. Is Rome right when she says that the Anglican Ordinal is defective because it removes all reference to the power of offering and consecrating the true Body and Blood of Christ in the eucharistic sacrifice? We should say absolutely not! But then, if this standard cannot apply to us, then it cannot apply to the REC either. Pope Leo XIII would have us believe that the Anglican Church rejected the priesthood and the eucharistic sacrifice at the Reformation because it altered its rite of ordination purposely to remove all references to the power of offering sacrifice to God and of transforming the Eucharistic oblation into Our Lord's Body and Blood, and that therefore all orders conferred with the Anglican Ordinal are not the orders of the Catholic Church, although the titles of bishop, priest and deacon are used for the three orders of the Anglican hierarchy. Rome officially holds that all orders ever conferred by the Edwardine Ordinal of 1550, and amended in 1662, are always and everywhere invalid because of defect of intention and defect of form, based upon the supposed anti-sacerdotal 'native spirit' of Anglicanism. This is exactly what you are saying about the REC. But if it can be said of the REC, then, saith Rome, it can be said of us as well, and we all fall equally under the judgement of 1896.

We may vociferously disagree with the Roman assessment that the rite of ordination, in order validly to confer the grace of Holy Order, must make explicit reference to the power of the sacerdotium to offer the eucharistic sacrifice, and well we should, as Saepius Officio brilliantly points out, taking the examples of the earliest patristic Western ordination rites and the catechism and rites of the Eastern Churches. If we are correct in our judgement about Apostolicae Curae, then we should conclude that if the REC uses the Anglican rite of ordination without substantial change, it possesses by virtue of the liturgy (exterior and ecclesiastical intention), thus employed, the intention of the Anglican Church in the conferral of Holy Orders. The private intentions of the ordaining and ordained, even expressed on paper by the Declaration of Principles, would not override the intention of the Anglican Ordinal, and thus the intention of the Church, used for the administration of the sacrament.

Your comments bring to mind these words of Apostolicae Curae: 'But the words which until recently were commonly held by Anglicans to constitute the proper form of priestly ordination namely, "Receive the Holy Ghost," certainly do not in the least definitely express the sacred Order of Priesthood or its grace and power, which is chiefly the power "of consecrating and of offering the true Body and Blood of the Lord" in that sacrifice which is no "bare commemoration of the sacrifice offered on the Cross"'. Anglicans have always said that it is not the power of eucharistic consecration and offering which must be explicitly signified in the sacramental action of ordination (the porrectio instrumentorum or the anointing with chrism), but the grace of the Holy Ghost for the office and work of the priesthood which is of necessity. The Eastern ordination rites lack any explicit gesture signifying the power to offer sacrifice. The grace of the sacrament, the Holy Ghost Himself, is signified by the laying-on-of-hands and prayer for grace and for the conferral of the order in question, and the Anglican Ordinal does exactly this. But so does the rite used by the REC. Now you may say, 'but the REC deliberately rejected the sacramental character and grace of Holy Order.' Yes, that is true to the extent that the Declaration repudiated any special grace or character in the administration of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, but the rite the REC has consistently used prays for such grace and signifies the communication of such grace with the proper sacramental sign. In other words, the grace of Apostolic Succession is given even if the ordaining prelate and ordained subject do not accurately or rightly believe in this particular grace because the liturgical rite objectively acts to confer the grace, bringing to bear with it the intention of the Church. All the sacraments act thus according to the 'working of the work,' ex opere operato. Otherwise we could never know with moral certainty if any given ordinations in any church have ever been valid. In 1872 the Roman Holy Office affirmed that Methodist Baptisms administered in Oceania are valid, even when the minister publicly preaches at the service itself that there is no grace of regeneration in Baptism, because the proper matter and form are used and they suffice to fix the necessary intention of the Church in the sacramental act. Baptism is valid, even in ecclesial bodies which publicly and officially deny baptismal regeneration, because the intention of the Church is supplied when the proper matter and form are used. If this applies to Baptism, it must also apply to ordination. Ordination is valid, even in Churches which publicly and officially deny the grace of sacerdotium, because the intention of the Church is supplied when the proper matter and form are used. Heretical views on the sacrament of order do not invalidate ordination, just as heretical views on baptism do not invalidate baptism. Historic REC teaching and thinking on the subject of orders is probably just as muddled and confused as that held by Anglicans during and after the Reformation, but because of the safeguard of the ordination rites held in common within Anglicanism, these problems do not jeopardise validity unless the rites themselves are voided of necessary matter and form. I confidently assert that that has not happened in the REC.

It has been a pleasure to discuss this subject with you and I look forward to conversing over other important topics in future.

The Orthodox Goal for the Anglican Communion Network

http://www.pgh.anglican.org/news/local/orthodoxresponse103006

In a truly astonishing and encouraging letter, the official ecumenical representative of the Russian Orthodox Church's Moscow Patriarchate has responded to the letter of Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh in which the latter expressed his concern that the Orthodox Churches might not be willing to pursue dialogue with the ACN because of the purported ordination of women.

In a gracious and remarkable reply, Bishop Kirill has expressed the desire of the Orthodox Churches to continue dialogue with Anglicans in order that they might be led to restore their full catholicity in the Apostolic Tradition regarding the male character of Holy Orders and the Catholic sacramental priesthood:

'The Russian Orthodox Church however has not discontinued dialogue with Protestant and Anglican Churches after they adopted female priesthood, in the hope that mutual contacts and talks will help persuade the Protestant and Anglican sides into returning to the apostolic tradition in their view of female ordination.'

Let us thank God for the powerful witness of the Orthodox Church towards the Anglican world and let us pray for the restoration of the Catholic Faith amongst those Anglicans who once possessed it in its fullness and then rejected it in the strife created by the modernist onslaught of our own age. Note that the Orthodox are not calling Anglicans to introduce a new position, but rather to re-establish their own integral life, a life shared with the Orthodox Churches of the East. The Orthodox Church historically recognised the validity of Anglican Orders and now serves to remind us, in a loving and pastoral manner, of our own profound inheritance in the Apostolic Tradition. Would it not be a wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit if our dearly beloved sister, the Eastern Communion, could lead us all back to our own proper Faith and Order?

REC Orders Again

2 November 2006
All Souls' Day

Dear Father:

I concur that the Church of England in her official formularies never formally attempted to redefine the nature or the meaning of the Threefold Apostolic Ministry, save for the fact that the Preface to the Ordinal and the ordination rites themselves sought to clarify the original, that is, the primitive and apostolic, character of Holy Orders and to re-express a more bibliodidactic and pastoral role for the Sacred Ministry. Certainly the situation in 1873 with the formation of the Reformed Episcopal Church is not an exact parallel of the English Reformation, although one must point out that many divines and churchmen of sixteenth and seventeenth century Anglicanism clearly held to views similar if not identical to those espoused by the founders of the REC. It was on that very basis that the REC organisers could claim they were continuing and restoring the principles of the English Reformation. At one early stage, the Edwardian, 1547-1553, the Church of England was spared something like the Declaration of Principles because of the interplay between the Monarchy and Church authorities, not to mention the untimely death of Edward VI which brought the protestant campaign to an end with the accession of Mary. By the time of Blessed King Charles I and Blessed Archbishop Laud, general Anglican views, having passed through the Settlement and the refinement of the Elizabethan age, had moderated from those held by the protestantising bishops and divines who had inaugurated the Reformation in England almost two generations before. Surely we were rescued by the Caroline Divines from the more extreme protestant views which would come to define only a party within Anglicanism, and not the whole.

However, the entire point of my submission yesterday is this: even if the REC Declaration of Principles radically redefines the meaning of Holy Order by its revision of essential doctrines, most particularly the doctrines of the Real Presence, the sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic oblation and the sacerdotal nature of the Apostolic Ministry, nevertheless, so long as the REC retains the minimal intention to ordain Sacred Ministers, bishops, presbyters and deacons, in conformity to the mind of Our Blessed Lord and the New Testament Church, such Orders are sacramentally valid ex opere operato, on the basis of the promise and institution of Christ. So long as one intends to ordain according to the teaching of Holy Scripture, the institution of Our Lord and the practice of the Apostolic Church, with proper laying-on-of-hands and prayer, the ordination is valid, even if the minister and subject have totally misunderstood what Our Lord, the Scriptures and the earliest Church have given and instituted concerning ordination. The original consecrators in the REC episcopate believed that they were making genuine bishops, presbyters and deacons according to the true mind of Christ and His Church and deliberately employed a rite which the Anglican Communion herself has used essentially unchanged since 1550. That minimal intention, expressed liturgically and ritually, suffices for validity. Where proper form, matter, minister and subject are present, the Church, as I understand it, has always presumed in favour of proper intention. Therefore the onus of responsibility for adjudging such orders invalid would fall on those who reject them; one must then prove theologically that a proper and necessary minimal intention was not present, and that would be very difficult to achieve. Defect of form and defect of intention are so closely bound together in the organic unity of sacramental action that it is difficult to separate them. Leo XIII tried, and, I think, failed. The principles of sacramental theology which I have attempted to postulate would supply that a necessary sacramental intention is a remarkably easy, uncomplicated and direct element in the administration of the sacraments. A minister of ordination would have to try extremely hard or be mind-numbingly negligent to lack the necessary minimal intention. Regarding ordination, the only way to lack such an intention 'generally to do what the Church does' would be to form, liturgically and personally, a clear intention not to ordain. A purposed intention not to ordain, such as in play, jest or mockery, would be the only radical denial which could eradicate necessary sacramental intention.

I recommend that one consult Dr RD Fenwick's magisterial work The Free Church of England. Originally, the Church of England accepted the validity of REC Orders, at least in theory. In 1878 a Convocation was established to examine the question of Reformed Episcopal Orders. In 1879, the Counsel of the Convocation advised the Archbishop of Canterbury, Tait, that 'the orders conferred by Bishops Gregg and Toke [of the REC] are as undoubtedly valid as any conferred by your Grace.' This was the legal opinion given to the episcopal committee of the Church of England, which was later challenged by the American Bishops. On 5 April 1885 Bishop Richardson of the REC wrote to Archbishop Benson of Canterbury claiming that REC Orders had been acknowledged as valid by no less a figure than Dr Pusey. It is true that in a letter of 8 February 1882 Dr Pusey had referred to Bishop Gregg as a Bishop. As I noted in earlier correspondence, Bishop Edward King of Lincoln acknowledged the validity of REC Orders as well. The expert legal opinion that REC Orders were 'valid but irregular' ran counter to the American desire, plainly political, to see the REC mitigated as a potential influence over the evangelical wing of PECUSA. Eventually an American Memorandum rejecting REC Orders as null and void was considered and entered into the record by the Lambeth Conference 1888. However, on 20 July 1886, the Dean of the Court of Arches, Sir Walter Phillimore, issued a legal opinion on behalf of the Bishop of Bath and Wells stating that REC Orders were 'valid though irregularly and improperly conferred.' The Church of England did not officially decide to administer absolute ordination to former REC ministers until after the submission of the 1888 American judgement. To maintain the unity of the Anglican episcopate, the Church of England from henceforth followed the American lead on the subject. As late as 1891, Archbishop Benson was unsure of what course of action to take with former REC clergy; he could not decide if REC Orders were valid or not - he clearly did not want to reiterate the Sacrament of Holy Orders, hesitating to administer absolute ordination in the case of REC ministers. Finally Benson stated that the re-ordination of REC ministers was 'a matter on which each Bishop exercises his own discretion.' In order not to rile Rome on one hand, which at the time was busily examining the validity of Anglican Orders and the legitimacy of the Anglican episcopate in dialogue with Lord Halifax and Anglo-Catholic constituency, and PECUSA on the other, which was threatened by the existence of a new rival church, the Church of England determined to maintain solidarity with the American Church rather than introduce a dispute that could undermine the unity of the Lambeth Conference.

The conclusions I have presented are based squarely on the premises which I have provided; of course, one would have to accept deductively the premises here given to arrive at the same conclusion I have discovered. I deeply appreciate your kindness and your candour in this discussion.

Are REC Orders Valid?

1 November 2006
The Feast of All Saints

'I really don't understand why this concordant was rushed through with a Protestant denomination that has rejected every essential part of Intention for the sacrament of Holy Orders. No one in the APA has ever taken the time to tell me how Holy Orders can be valid with a rejection of everything that allows the Intention to be present. This is not at all like the 16th Century C of E with its Preface to the Ordinal; in the REC even "the minimal intention of doing what the Church does" is not present, and cannot be present. I see some APA names on the list, and I am throwing this friendly challenge at your feet. Convince me.'

Dear Father:

Omnes Sancti et Sanctae Dei, intercedite pro nobis.

With trepidation I, as a priest of the Anglican Province of America, take up your daunting challenge. I am not an expert sacramentologist, nor am I a particularly qualified spokesman for the position of the APA: but I am a committed Anglican Catholic, a priest of the Society of the Holy Cross, who believes in the Seven Sacraments, the Real Objective Presence, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Catholic Sacramental Priesthood, and who also believes that the episcopal orders of the Reformed Episcopal Church are valid. To take one precedent from our Anglo-Catholic side of things, the saintly Bishop of Lincoln, Edward King, held, as I do, that the sacramental orders of the REC are 'valid but irregular.' The following reflection was written some time ago precisely in order to address the concerns which you have raised. You may find my line of thinking thoroughly unconvincing, but I have tried very diligently to apply only the most orthodox standards of Catholic sacramental theology to this controverted question. In the following words I assert that indeed the necessary minimal intention of 'doing what the Church does' is in fact what is exactly present in the REC transmission of Holy Orders. Please bear with me.

The episcopate of the Reformed Episcopal Church depends for its sacramental validity upon those same five components which are necessary for any valid consecration and ordination: proper minister, matter, form, subject, and intention. The necessary intention for a valid ordination is, simply, 'generally to do what the Church does.' This is not to intend what the Church intends, but to do what the Church does, i.e., ordain. This general intention suffices, even if the minister and the subject hold to an heretical doctrine of the sacrament being conferred. So long as one intends seriously to perform and receive the rite of ordination, that is, seriously to perform the Christian rite however understood, the intention is valid for the administration of the sacrament. So long as one merely intends to do what Our Lord Jesus Christ or the true Church do in Ordination (even in opposition to the Catholic Church's doctrine), such an ordination is valid, even if heretical views are maintained on ordination itself. Heretical views on the sacrament of order do not invalidate ordination, just as heretical views on baptism do not invalidate baptism (see the decision of the Roman Holy Office on Oceanic Methodist Baptisms 1872). This position is precisely the position Saint Augustine of Hippo took against the Donatist schism, and it has been the general and authoritative teaching of the Western Church since the fourth century. Saint Thomas Aquinas echoes this teaching in the Summa Theologica, Supplement, Question 38, Second Article. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine defends this very point in his On the Sacraments In Gen. I.21. Those who dissent from the Catholic Church can validly baptise and ordain, even if they hold doctrines on the very sacraments themselves at odds with the Church, as long as the Church's basic rule on baptism and order is preserved.

For the purposes of this discussion, I shall leave aside the debate on the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of the Declaration of Principles of the REC. It may suffice to say that its teachings regarding the Real Objective Presence, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Christian sacerdotium are not in accord with the received Tradition of the ancient and undivided Catholic Church. Its orthodoxy or otherwise, however, does not affect the substance of the argument I here present - for this reason. It is the rite that matters, not the internal belief or error of the celebrant. Sacramental intention, for Anglicans at least, is usually understood as external or exterior intention, which is manifested ritually, in the liturgical rite used for the administration of the sacrament. Internal intention or personal intention are not usually brought into the discussion because it is impossible to determine in any given case what the personal or interior intention of the minister of a sacrament is. If the sacraments depend on the personal orthodoxy or right belief or interior disposition of the minister, no sacrament could ever be held to have a moral certainty of validity, as one could never determine such a needful state in the mind or heart of the bishop or priest in question. Sacraments are by nature ecclesial, ecclesiastical, and this is particularly the case with ordination. Sacraments belong to the Holy Catholic Church, and as such to a particular local Church specifically. What matters is the Church's intention. The necessary intention of the Church, and of the minister who functions publicly as the agent, officer and representative of the Church, is put forward in the Church's official rite, the matter and form, used for the conferral of the sacrament. On the basis of these principles, the episcopate of the Reformed Episcopal Church is valid from 1873 forward. As long as the proper matter and form of ordination remain, prayer with the laying-on-of-hands for the conferral of the particular order, with the intention to ordain a baptised man as a bishop, priest, or deacon, changes to the rite of ordination do not and cannot void the sacrament on the basis of defective intention. Otherwise, Pope Leo XIII and Apostolicae Curae (1896) are right and all Anglican Orders were invalidated by the changes Archbishop Cranmer made to the Pontificale Romanum in the construction of the 1550 Anglican Ordinal.

Let us look at the original reformed Ordinal used for the consecration of Reformed Episcopal bishops from the 1870's -

It is, in fact, a very slightly altered version of the 1662 English Ordinal. It is virtually identical to the 1789 American version. It clearly identifies the Order of Bishop as that being conferred. It includes the traditional collect for the Eucharist of episcopal consecration. The traditional lessons clearly refer to the episcopate, Acts 20.17ff and S. John 21.15ff or S. Matthew 28.18ff. The Litany invokes the grace of God upon the consecrand for the Office of Bishop, 'our Brother.' The collect at the end of the Litany prays for the one 'called to the Work and Ministry of a Bishop.' The vows unambiguously charge the candidate with episcopal authority and oversight. The Veni Creator Spiritus is sung over the consecrand, invoking the Holy Ghost upon him. The Prayer of Ordination before the imposition of hands is the 1662 English version, replete with its prayer for grace for the candidate. The imposition of hands is accompanied by the formula: 'Take thou Authority to execute the Office and Work of a Bishop in the Church of God now committed unto thee...' This change is the only major alteration in the Consecration Service and is modelled on the alternative formula for the ordination of priests in the American Ordinal. The final prayers are exactly the same as those found in the Anglican Ordinal.

What does this all mean?

1. Proper matter: imposition of hands is the matter of the Reformed Episcopal Ordinal.

2. Proper form: prayer for the grace of the episcopate is found throughout the Ordinal and suffices for validity; the formula at the imposition of hands fixes the intention of the rite as the transmission of the authority and office of the episcopate.

3. Proper minister: undoubted bishops in the Anglican line of succession, beginning with Bishop George David Cummins of Kentucky, have always presided at consecrations in this rite. One bishop in apostolic succession is required for validity, three for regularity.

4. Proper subject: the original REC bishops were episcopally-ordained priests; however, per saltum ('by a leap') consecrations are valid. Even if the candidate were not himself a priest, he would still receive the character of the episcopate with this rite. Per saltum consecrations are valid but irregular, and were actually administered by the Church of England to titular Scottish bishops in 1610. The Lambeth Conference of 1908 recommended per saltum consecration as the way by which to introduce episcopacy into non-episcopal bodies.

5. Proper intention: the intention of the Ordinal in question is to consecrate a Bishop in the Church of God. That is all that is necessary.

The original presence of Bishop G. Cummins alone as sole consecrator does not affect validity; the hierarchies of both the Polish National Catholic Church and the entire Old Catholic Union of Utrecht originated from solus consecrations and are regarded as valid by Rome. The presence of and imposition of hands by non-episcopally ordained ministers or episcopally-ordained priests in the consecration of REC bishops also do not affect validity, as long as the consecrator himself is in valid episcopal orders. Bishop Cummins' public statements at and before the consecration of Bishop Cheney, by which he personally asserted a 'low' view of the episcopate, a bene esse view, do not render his sacramental acts invalid. By following the Ordinal described above, he clearly intended to confer the episcopate of the Church of God, and that is all that is necessary.

As Dr John Wordsworth writes: 'The "Sacrament of Order" requires laying-on-of-hands, with prayer suitable to the office conferred, and with a general intention of making a man what the Church intends as a Bishop, Priest or Deacon. We hold that such an Ordination conferred by a Bishop, as sole or chief minister, who has been himself so ordained, even if he is a heretic, is valid and cannot be reiterated without sacrilege.' A stricter requirement than this in the matter of intention would be contrary to the main theological tradition of Western Christendom and might involve difficulty concerning earlier ordinations in history. Such has been the formal position of the Church of England for the duration of her history.

In fine, it is my prudent judgement that neither the American Report of the House of Bishops 1888, the Lambeth Conference of 1888, nor Bishop Charles C. Grafton of Fon du Lac were fully and sufficiently informed on this subject. And that is exactly the prudent judgement of Bishop Frank Wilson of Eau Claire in his 1941 report affirming the validity of the Reformed Episcopal episcopate. I firmly believe Bishop Wilson, himself a faithful Anglican Catholic, was correct.

Let us avoid the nineteenth-century scholastic mistake of judging the validity of Orders on the primary basis of the orthodoxy of formularies, what Leo XIII called the 'native spirit' of a church. REC Orders are valid in spite of the heresy of the Declaration, just as our Orders are valid in spite of the heresies held by sixteenth and seventeenth century Anglicans. Were that not so, Apostolicae Curae would be right and we would all be laymen. We must be very careful not to take the very theological paradigm used by Rome to condemn Anglican Orders and then turn around and apply that same paradigm to other Churches whose theology we correctly find erroneous but who have preserved in its substance the Apostolic Ministry. By doing that we could hazard the same indictment of Pope Leo, who was admonished by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in their 1897 Reply to Apostolicae Curae, Saepius Officio: 'Thus in overthrowing our orders, he overthrows all his own, and pronounces sentence on his own Church.' Let us pray for the unity of Christ's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Thank you for your kind and gracious consideration.

A Must For Every Anglo-Catholic Library!

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Oxford Movement Historical Theology Collection (10 volumes)

The Oxford Movement Historical Theology Collection brings together some of the most important titles to have stemmed from the Oxford Movement and the Tractarians. As historical documents, the ten volumes, all long out-of-print, play witness to one of the greatest debates in the Church of England since its split from the Roman Papacy. As works of theology, the volumes deliver edifying accounts of church history, apostolic succession, the nature of the Virgin Mary, the doctrine of the Eucharist, and many other issues pertinent to any era.

This collection focuses particularly on the works of Edward Pusey, leader of the Oxford Movement. Also included are three books by Darwell Stone and Charles Gore (Archbishop of Oxford) who helped assure by their writings that the work started by the Oxford Movement would continue into the 20th century. Moreover, the collection features an important work by J. B. Lightfoot, in which he clarifies some of his earlier claims that were contrary to the ancient traditions of the early undivided Church. This collection is valuable for students, clergymen, or anyone interested in church history, Eucharistic doctrine, or Anglicanism.

The Orthodox View of the 'Immaculate Conception'

Saint John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco (died 1966)

Zeal Not According to Knowledge
(Romans 10:2)

The corruption by the Latins, in the newly invented
dogma, of the "Immaculate Conception," of the true
veneration of the Most Holy Mother of God
and Ever-Virgin Mary.

WHEN THOSE WHO censured the immaculate life of the Most Holy Virgin had been rebuked, as well as those who denied Her Ever-virginity, those who denied Her dignity as the Mother of God, and those who disdained Her Icons—then, when the glory of the Mother of God had illuminated the whole universe, there appeared a teaching which seemingly exalted highly the Virgin Mary, but in reality denied all Her virtues.

This teaching is called that of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and it was accepted by the followers of the Papal throne of Rome. The teaching is this: that "the All-blessed Virgin Mary in the first instant of Her Conception, by the special grace of Almighty God and by a special privilege, for the sake of the future merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin" (Bull of Pope Pius IX concerning the new dogma). In other words, the Mother of God at Her very conception was preserved from original sin and, by the grace of God, was placed in a state where it was impossible for Her to have personal sins.

Christians had not heard of this before the ninth century, when for the first time the Abbot of Corvey, Paschasius Radbertus, expressed the opinion that the Holy Virgin was conceived without original sin. Beginning from the 12th cen­tury, this idea begins to spread among the clergy and flock of the Western church. However, by no means all of the members of the Roman church agreed with the new teaching. There was a difference of opinion even among the most renowned theologians of the West, the pillars, so to speak, of the Latin church. Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux decisively censured it, while Duns Scotus defended it. From the teachers this division carried over to their disciples: the Latin Dominican monks, after their teacher Thomas Aquinas, preached against the teaching of the Immaculate Conception, while the followers of Duns Scotus, the Franciscans, strove to implant it everywhere. The battle between these two currents continued for the course of several centuries. Both on the one and on the other side there were those who were considered among the Catholics as the greatest au­thorities.

There was no help in deciding the question in the fact that several people declared that they had had a revelation from above concerning it. The nun Bridget of Sweden, renowned in the 14th century among the Catholics, spoke in her writings about the appearances to her of the Mother of God, Who Herself told her that She had been conceived immaculately, without original sin. But her contemporary, the yet more re­nowned ascetic Catherine of Sienna, affirmed that in Her conception the Holy Virgin participated in original sin, con­cerning which she had received a revelation from Christ Himself. (See the book of Archpriest A. Lebedev, Differences in the Teaching on the Most Holy Mother of God in the Churches of East and West.)

Thus, neither on the foundation of theological writings, nor on the foundation of miraculous manifestations which con­tradicted each other, could the Latin flock distinguish for a long time where the truth was. Roman Popes until Sixtus IV (end of the 15th century) remained apart from these disputes, and only this Pope in 1475 approved a service in which the teaching of the Immaculate Conception was clearly expressed; and several years later he forbade a condemnation of those who believed in the Immaculate Conception. However, even Sixtus IV did not yet decide to affirm that such was the unwavering teaching of the church; and therefore, having forbidden the condemnation of those who believed in the Immaculate Conception, he also did not condemn those who believed otherwise.

Meanwhile, the teaching of the Immaculate Conception obtained more and more partisans among the members of the Roman church. The reason for this was the fact that it seemed more pious and pleasing to the Mother of God to give Her as much glory as possible. The striving of the people to glorify the Heavenly Intercessor, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the deviation of Western theologians into abstract speculations which led only to a seeming truth (Scholasticism), and finally, the patronage of the Roman Popes after Sixtus IV—all this led to the fact that the opinion concerning the Immaculate Con­ception which had been expressed by Paschasius Radbertus in the 9th century was already the general belief of the Latin church in the 19th century. There remained only to proclaim this definitely as the church's teaching, which was done by the Roman Pope Pius IX during a solemn service on December 8, 1854, when he declared that the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin was a dogma of the Roman church.

Thus the Roman church added yet another deviation from the teaching which it had confessed, which faith has been held up to now unaltered and unchanged by the Orthodox Church. The proclamation of the new dogma satisfied the broad masses of people who belonged to the Roman church, who in simplicity of heart thought that the proclamation of the new teaching in the church would serve for the greater glory of the Mother of God, to Whom by this they were making a gift, as it were. There was also satisfied the vainglory of the Western theologians who defended and worked it out. But most of all the proclamation of the new dogma was profitable for the Roman throne itself, since, having proclaimed the new dogma by his own authority, even though he did listen to the opinions of the bishops of the Catholic church, the Roman Pope by this very fact openly appropriated to himself the right to change the teaching of the Roman church and placed his own voice above the testimony of Sacred Scripture and Tradition. A direct deduction from this was the fact that the Roman Popes were infallible in matters of faith, which indeed this very same Pope Pius IX likewise pro­claimed as a dogma of the Catholic church in 1870.

Thus was the teaching of the Western church changed. It has introduced into itself newer and newer teachings, thinking by this to glorify the Truth yet more, but in reality distorting it. While the Orthodox Church humbly confesses what it has received from Christ and the Apostles, the Roman church dares to add to it, sometimes from zeal not according to knowledge (cf. Rom. 10:2), and sometimes by deviating into superstitions and into the contradictions of knowledge falsely so called. (I Tim. 6:20). It could not be otherwise. That the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church (Matt. 16:18) is promised only to the True, Universal Church; but upon those who have fallen away from it are fulfilled the words: As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me (John 15:4).

It is true that in the very definition of the new dogma it is said that a new teaching is not being established, but that there is only being proclaimed as the church's that which always existed in the church and which has been held by many Holy Fathers, excerpts from whose writings are cited. However, all the cited references speak only of the exalted sanctity of the Virgin Mary and of Her immaculateness, and give Her various names which define Her purity and spiritual might; but no­where is there any word of the immaculateness of Her concep­tion. Meanwhile, these same Holy Fathers in other places say that only Jesus Christ is completely pure of every sin, while all men, being born of Adam, have borne a flesh subject to the law of sin.

None of the ancient Holy Fathers say that God in miracu­lous fashion purified the Virgin Mary while yet in the womb; and many directly indicate that the Virgin Mary, just as all men, endured a battle with sinfulness, but was victorious over temp­tations and was saved by Her Divine Son.

Commentators of the Latin confession likewise say that the Virgin Mary was saved by Christ. But they understand this in the sense that Mary was preserved from the taint of original sin in view of the future merits of Christ (Bull on the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception). The Virgin Mary, according to their teaching, received in advance, as it were, the gift which Christ brought to men by His sufferings and death on the Cross. Moreover, speaking of the torments of the Mother of God which She endured standing at the Cross of Her Beloved Son, and in general of the sorrows with which the life of the Mother of God was filled, they consider them an addition to the sufferings of Christ and consider Mary to be our Co-Redemptress.

According to the commentary of the Latin theologians, "Mary is an associate with our Redeemer as Co-Redemptress" (see Lebedev, op. cit. p. 273). "In the act of Redemption, She, in a certain way, helped Christ" (Catechism of Dr. Weimar). "The Mother of God," writes Dr. Lentz, "bore the burden of Her martyrdom not merely courageously, but also joyfully, even though with a broken heart" (Mariology of Dr. Lentz). For this reason, She is "a complement of the Holy Trinity," and "just as Her Son is the only Intermediary chosen by God between His offended majesty and sinful men, so also, precisely, the chief Mediatress placed by Him between His Son and us is the Blessed Virgin." "In three respects—as Daughter, as Mother, and as Spouse of God—the Holy Virgin is exalted to a certain equality with the Father, to a certain superiority over the Son, to a certain nearness to the Holy Spirit" ("The Immaculate Conception," Malou, Bishop of Brouges).

Thus, according to the teaching of the representatives of Latin theology, the Virgin Mary in the work of Redemption is placed side by side with Christ Himself and is exalted to an equality with God. One cannot go farther than this. If all this has not been definitively formulated as a dogma of the Roman church as yet, still the Roman Pope Pius IX, having made the first step in this direction, has shown the direction for the further development of the generally recognized teaching of his church, and has indirectly confirmed the above-cited teaching about the Virgin Mary.

Thus the Roman church, in its strivings to exalt the Most Holy Virgin, is going on the path of complete deification of Her. And if even now its authorities call Mary a complement of the Holy Trinity, one may soon expect that the Virgin will be revered like God.

There have entered on this same path a group of thinkers who for the time being, belong to the Orthodox Church, but who are building a new theological system having as its founda­tion the philosophical teaching of Sophia, Wisdom, as a special power binding the Divinity and the creation. Likewise develop­ing the teaching of the dignity of the Mother of God, they wish to see in Her an Essence which is some kind of mid-point between God and man. In some questions they are more moderate than the Latin theologians, but in others, if you please, they have already left them behind. While denying the teaching of the Immaculate Conception and the freedom from original sin, they still teach Her full freedom from any personal sins, seeing in Her an Intermediary between men and God, like Christ: in the person of Christ there has appeared on earth the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Pre-eternal Word, the Son of God; while the Holy Spirit is manifest through the Virgin Mary.

In the words of one of the representatives of this tendency, when the Holy Spirit came to dwell in the Virgin Mary, she acquired "a dyadic life, human and divine; that is, She was completely deified, because in Her hypostatic being was mani­fest the living, creative revelation of the Holy Spirit" (Archpriest Sergei Bulgakov, The Unburnt Bush, 1927, p. 154). "She is a perfect manifestation of the Third Hypostasis" (Ibid., p. 175), "a creature, but also no longer a creature" (p.191). This striving towards the deification of the Mother of God is to be observed primarily in the West, where at the same time, on the other hand, various sects of a Protestant character are having great success, together with the chief branches of Protestantism, Lutheranism and Calvinism, which in general deny the vener­ation of the Mother of God and the calling upon Her in prayer.

But we can say with the words of St. Epiphanius of Cyprus: "There is an equal harm in both these heresies, both when men demean the Virgin and when, on the contrary, they glorify Her beyond what is proper" (Panarion, "Against the Collyridians").

This Holy Father accuses those who give Her an almost divine worship: "Let Mary be in honor, but let worship be given to the Lord" (same source). "Although Mary is a chosen vessel, still She was a woman by nature, not to be distinguished at all from others. Although the history of Mary and Tradition relate that it was said to Her father Joachim in the desert, 'Thy wife hath conceived,' still this was done not without marital union and not without the seed of man" (same source). "One should not revere the saints above what is proper, but should revere their Master. Mary is not God, and did not receive a body from heaven, but from the joining of man and woman; and according to the promise, like Isaac, She was prepared to take part in the Divine Economy. But, on the other hand, let none dare foolishly to offend the Holy Virgin" (St. Epiphanius, "Against the Antidikomarionites").

The Orthodox Church, highly exalting the Mother of God in its hymns of praise, does not dare to ascribe to Her that which has not been communicated about Her by Sacred Scripture or Tradition. "Truth is foreign to all overstatements as well as to all understatements. It gives to everything a fitting measure and fitting place" (Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov). Glorifying the immaculateness of the Virgin Mary and the manful bearing of sorrows in Her earthly life, the Fathers of the Church, on the other hand, reject the idea that She was an intermediary between God and men in the sense of the joint Redemption by Them of the human race. Speaking of Her preparedness to die together with Her Son and to suffer together with Him for the sake of the salvation of all, the renowned Father of the Western Church, Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, adds: "But the sufferings of Christ did not need any help, as the Lord Himself prophesied concerning this long before: I looked about, and there was none to help; I sought and there was none to give aid: therefore My arm delivered them (Is. 63:5)." (St. Ambrose, "Concerning the Upbringing of the Virgin and the Ever-Virginity of Holy Mary," ch. 7).

This same Holy Father teaches concerning the universality of original sin, from which Christ alone is an exception. "Of all those born of women, there is not a single one who is perfectly holy, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, Who in a special new way of immaculate birthgiving, did not experience earthly taint" (St. Ambrose, Commentary on Luke, ch. 2). "God alone is without sin. All born in the usual manner of woman and man, that is, of fleshly union, become guilty of sin. Consequently, He Who does not have sin was not conceived in this manner" (St. Ambrose, Ap. Aug. "Concerning Marriage and Concupis­cence"). "One Man alone, the Intermediary between God and man, is free from the bonds of sinful birth, because He was born of a Virgin, and because in being born He did not experience the touch of sin" (St. Ambrose, ibid., Book 2: "Against Julianus").

Another renowned teacher of the Church, especially revered in the West, Blessed Augustine, writes: "As for other men, excluding Him Who is the cornerstone, I do not see for them any other means to become temples of God and to be dwellings for God apart from spiritual rebirth, which must absolutely be preceded by fleshly birth. Thus, no matter how much we might think about children who are in the womb of the mother, and even though the word of the holy Evangelist who says of John the Baptist that he leaped for joy in the womb of his mother (which occurred not otherwise than by the action of the Holy Spirit), or the word of the Lord Himself spoken to Jeremiah: I have sanctified thee before thou didst leave the womb of thy mother (Jer. 1:5)— no matter how much these might or might not give us basis for thinking that children in this condition are capable of a certain sanctification, still in any case it cannot be doubted that the sanctification by which all of us together and each of us separately become the temple of God is possible only for those who are reborn, and rebirth always presupposes birth. Only those who have already been born can be united with Christ and be in union with this Divine Body which makes His Church the living temple of the majesty of God" (Blessed Augustine, Letter 187).

The above-cited words of the ancient teachers of the Church testify that in the West itself the teaching which is now spread there was earlier rejected there. Even after the falling away of the Western church, Bernard, who is acknowledged there as a great authority, wrote, " I am frightened now, seeing that certainof you have desired to change the condition of important matters, introducing a new festival unknown to the Church, unapproved by reason, unjustified by ancient tradition. Are we really more learned and more pious than our fathers? You will say, 'One must glorify the Mother of God as much as possible.' This is true; but the glorification given to the Queen of Heaven demands discernment. This Royal Virgin does not have need of false glorifications, possessing as She does true crowns of glory and signs of dignity. Glorify the purity of Her flesh and the sanctity of Her life. Marvel at the abundance of the gifts of this Virgin; venerate Her Divine Son; exalt Her Who conceived without knowing concupiscence and gave birth without know­ing pain. But what does one yet need to add to these dignities? People say that one must revere the conception which preceded the glorious birth-giving; for if the conception had not pre­ceded, the birth-giving also would not have been glorious. Butwhat would one say if anyone for the same reason should demand the same kind of veneration of the father and mother of Holy Mary? One might equally demand the same for Her grandparents and great-grandparents, to infinity. Moreover, how can there not be sin in the place where there was concupis­cence? All the more, let one not say that the Holy Virgin was conceived of the Holy Spirit and not of man. I say decisively that the Holy Spirit descended upon Her, but not that He came with Her." "I say that the Virgin Mary could not be sanctified before Her conception, inasmuch as She did not exist. If, all the more, She could not be sanctified in the moment of Her conception by reason of the sin which is inseparable from conception, then it remains to believe that She was sanctified after She was conceived in the womb of Her mother. This sanctification, if it annihilates sin, makes holy Her birth, but not Her conception. No one is given the right to be conceived in sanctity; only the Lord Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and He alone is holy from His very conception. Excluding Him, it is to all the descendants of Adam that must be referred that which one of them says of himself, both out of a feeling of humility and in acknowledgement of the truth: Behold I was conceived in iniq­uities (Ps. 50:7). How can one demand that this conception be holy, when it was not the work of the Holy Spirit, not to mention that it came from concupiscence? The Holy Virgin, of course, rejects that glory which, evidently, glorifies sin. She cannot in any way justify a novelty invented in spite of the teaching of the Church, a novelty which is the mother of imprudence, the sister of unbelief, and the daughter of light-mindedness" (Bernard, Epistle 174; cited, as were the references from Blessed Augustine, from Lebedev). The above-cited words clearly reveal both the novelty and the absurdity of the new dogma of the Roman church.

The teaching of the complete sinlessness of the Mother of God:

(1) does not correspond to Sacred Scripture, where there is repeatedly mentioned the sinlessness of the One Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ (I Tim. 2:5); and in Him is no sin (I John 3:5); Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (I Peter 2:22); One that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15); Him Who knew no sin, He made to be sin on our behalf ' (II Cor. 5:21). But concerning the rest of men it is said, Who is pure of defilement? No one who has lived a single day of his life on earth (Job 14:4). God commendeth His own love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us..... If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life (Rom. 5:8-10).

(2) This teaching contradicts also Sacred Tradition, which is contained in numerous Patristic writings, where there is mentioned the exalted sanctity of the Virgin Mary from Her very birth, as well as Her cleansing by the Holy Spirit at Her conception of Christ, but not at Her own conception by Anna. "There is none without stain before Thee, even though his life be but a day, save Thee alone, Jesus Christ our God, Who didst appear on earth without sin, and through Whom we all trust to obtain mercy and the remission of sins" (St. Basil the Great, Third Prayer of Vespers of Pentecost). "But when Christ came through a pure, virginal, unwedded, God-fearing, undefiled Mother without wedlock and without father, and inasmuch as it befitted Him to be born, He purified the female nature, rejected the bitter Eve and overthrew the laws of the flesh" (St. Gregory the Theologian, "In Praise of Virginity"). However, even then, as Sts. Basil the Great and John Chrysostom speak of this, She was not placed in the state of being unable to sin, but continued to take care for Her salvation and overcame all temptations (St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on John, Hom­ily 85; St. Basil the Great, Epistle 160).

(3) The teaching that the Mother of God was purified before Her birth, so that from Her might be born the Pure Christ, is meaningless; because if the Pure Christ could be born only if the Virgin might be born pure, it would be necessary that Her parents also should be pure of original sin, and they again would have to be born of purified parents, and going further in this way, one would have to come to the conclusion that Christ could not have become incarnate unless all His ancestors in the flesh, right up to Adam inclusive, had been purified beforehand of original sin. But then there would not have been any need for the very Incarnation of Christ, since Christ came down to earth in order to annihilate sin.

(4) The teaching that the Mother of God was preserved from original sin, as likewise the teaching that She was preserved by God's grace from personal sins, makes God unmerciful and unjust; because if God could preserve Mary from sin and purify Her before Her birth, then why does He not purify other men before their birth, but rather leaves them in sin? It follows likewise that God saves men apart from their will, predetermin­ing certain ones before their birth to salvation.

(5) This teaching, which seemingly has the aim of exalting the Mother of God, in reality completely denies all Her virtues. After all, if Mary, even in the womb of Her mother, when She could not even desire anything either good or evil, was preserved by God's grace from every impurity, and then by that grace was preserved from sin even after Her birth, then in what does Her merit consist? If She could have been placed in the state of being unable to sin, and did not sin, then for what did God glorify Her? If She, without any effort, and without having any kind of impulses to sin, remained pure, then why is She crowned more than everyone else? There is no victory without an adver­sary.

The righteousness and sanctity of the Virgin Mary were manifested in the fact that She, being "human with passions like us," so loved God and gave Herself over to Him, that by Her purity She was exalted high above the rest of the human race. For this, having been foreknown and forechosen, She was vouchsafed to be purified by the Holy Spirit Who came upon Her, and to conceive of Him the very Saviour of the world. The teaching of the grace-given sinlessness of the Virgin Mary denies Her victory over temptations; from a victor who is worthy to be crowned with crowns of glory, this makes Her a blind instru­ment of God's Providence.

It is not an exaltation and greater glory, but a belittlement of Her, this "gift" which was given Her by Pope Pius IX and all the rest who think they can glorify the Mother of God by seeking out new truths. The Most Holy Mary has been so much glorified by God Himself, so exalted is Her life on earth and Her glory in heaven, that human inventions cannot add anything to Her honor and glory. That which people themselves invent only obscures Her Face from their eyes. Brethren, take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ, wrote the Apostle Paul by the Holy Spirit (Col. 2:8).

Such a "vain deceit" is the teaching of the Immaculate Conception by Anna of the Virgin Mary, which at first sight exalts, but in actual fact belittles Her. Like every lie, it is a seed of the "father of lies" (John 8:44), the devil, who has succeeded by it in deceiving many who do not understand that they blaspheme the Virgin Mary. Together with it there should also be rejected all the other teachings which have come from it or are akin to it. The striving to exalt the Most Holy Virgin to an equality with Christ ascribing to Her maternal tortures at the Cross an equal significance with the sufferings of Christ, so that the Redeemer and "Co-Redemptress" suffered equally, accord­ing to the teaching of the Papists, or that "the human nature of the Mother of God in heaven together with the God-Man Jesus jointly reveal the full image of man" (Archpriest S. Bulgakov, The Unburnt Bush, p. 141)—is likewise a vain deceit and a seduction of philosophy. In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28), and Christ has redeemed the whole human race; therefore at His Resurrection equally did "Adam dance for joy and Eve rejoice" (Sunday Kontakia of the First and Third Tones), and by His Ascension did the Lord raise up the whole of human nature.

Likewise, that the Mother of God is a "complement of the Holy Trinity" or a "fourth Hypostasis"; that "the Son and the Mother are a revelation of the Father through the Second and Third Hypostases"; that the Virgin Mary is "a creature, but also no longer a creature"—all this is the fruit of vain, false wisdom which is not satisfied with what the Church has held from the time of the Apostles, but strives to glorify the Holy Virgin more than God has glorified Her.

Thus are the words of St. Epiphanius of Cyprus fulfilled - "Certain senseless ones in their opinion about the Holy Ever-Virgin have striven and are striving to put Her in place of God" (St. Epiphanius, "Against the Antidikomarionites"). But that which is offered to the Virgin in senselessness, instead of praise of Her, turns out to be blasphemy; and the All-Immaculate One rejects the lie, being the Mother of Truth (John 14:6).

The 'Immaculate Conception'

Although the Immaculate Conception has come to be viewed by some Anglicans as a theologumenon, a theological opinion or pious belief, its inadmissibility as an acceptable adiaphoron was certainly held by the Tractarians and the early nineteenth-century Anglo-Catholics. The spread of the doctrine amongst Anglicans is a product, not directly of the Catholic Revival or Tractarian Movement, but of the later and, one could convincingly argue, separate phenomenon today described as Anglican Papalism. Beliefs concerning the personal holiness, the sanctification and perpetual virginity, and even the corporeal glorification, of Our Lady (all of which I profess, for they are based on Scripture and the universal Tradition of the Undivided Church) are distinct in nature and origin from that of the Immaculate Conception, as the Eastern Orthodox and Old Catholics will vociferously attest. I for one must fall in with the consensus catholicus shared historically by Anglicans, Orthodox and Old Catholics: the papal dogma of 1854 is not a part of the Catholic Faith, but is a theological novum, a new dogma which has been surreptiously added to Apostolic Tradition by the unilateral action of the Pope of Rome. The very definition of what comprises the Catholic Faith given by St Vincent of Lerins excludes the papal dogmas, of which the Immaculate Conception is absolutely fundamental. The Immaculate Conception is the down-payment on papal infallibility. As was quipped at the time of the I Vatican Council: 'Peter hath said to Mary, "thou art immaculate" and Mary hath said to Peter, "thou art infallible."'

The following quote nicely summarises an historic Anglican position on the matter:

'The proclamation of the [Roman] dogma of the Immaculate Conception [by Pius IX in 1854] is of enormous importance, for two reasons: one of faith, and one of order. It illustrates the method by which the opening made by the Council of Trent, when it set Tradition on a level with Scripture, can be used to introduce any novelty that appeals to popular devotion. Here was a doctrine which was clearly contrary both to Scripture and to the teaching of the Fathers, all of whom held that Christ alone was without sin; unheard of before the twelfth century, condemned by the greatest divines of the Middle Ages, St Bernard and St Thomas Aquinas, and based on the Augustinian theory of "original guilt" (to be distinguished from "original sin"), which had never been formally defined by the Church as necessary, and which is especially difficult for most modern Christians to accept, but without which the Immaculate Conception is meaningless. Yet it was taken up by powerful religious orders [Franciscans and Jesuits] for party reasons, and made popular by means of devotions based upon it, and at last came to be so widely accepted that it could be made into a necessary dogma without serious opposition; the Spanish bishops actually told Pius IX that it had been believed in Spain since the beginning of Christianity there! It was not defined to meet any heresy; it had no connexion with the Catholic dogmatic scheme, which is quite complete without it. There is nothing to prevent any popular superstition from being defined as a dogma in the same way.
As a matter of order, the Bull Ineffabilis [which proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception] was an entirely new departure, and was universally recognised as being so. Never before had any Pope added a fresh dogma to the Faith without a Council. The Bull Unigenitus was the nearest precedent, but that was only the condemnation of a set of propositions, not the definition of a new dogma. Indeed, Dr [John Mason] Neale calls the Ineffabilis "a second and worse Unigenitus".The Bull was inconsistent with the Gallican opinion that the judgment of the Pope is not irreversible until confirmed by the consent of the Church; for the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed as an irreversible dogma, though the consent of the Church had never been asked. Therefore the infallibility of the Pope, by himself and not by the consent of the Church, decreed sixteen years later by the Vatican Council [I], was already implied by the Bull Ineffabilis. The contrast between the long and fierce opposition to the Unigenitus, and the almost universal acceptance of the Ineffabilis, marks the decline of Gallicanism... The Bull Ineffabilis had behind it the vast system of popular devotion to the Blessed Virgin, against which the doubts and difficulties of the theologians counted for nothing.'

-Dr CB Moss, The Old Catholic Movement, pages 179-181

Father John Jay Hughes on the Priesthood

With a biretta tip to Jeff Steele at his superb blog Meam Commemorationem, I here link a fascinating article written by the famous Father John Jay Hughes, author of Absolutely Null and Utterly Void and Stewards of the Lord. Originally an Anglican priest, Father Hughes was conditionally ordained to the Roman priesthood in 1968, the first Anglican cleric in modern times to be so ordered. An eloquent and meticulous defender of the validity of Anglican Orders, Father Hughes has written a truly inspiring piece on the joy and dignity of the Holy Priesthood. His positive comments on Anglicanism are edifying... and true.

http://meam-commemorationem.blogspot.com/

A Roman Catholic Converts to Orthodoxy

A riveting and tragic story about the state of the Roman Church in America today...


Rod Dreher

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Orthodoxy and me

I apologize for this very long post, but it's time to clear something up: yes, I am now a communicant of the Orthodox Church, and have been (along with my family) for a couple of months. I did not intend to make this public until the end of this month, to honor a personal and professional obligation that, the violation of which stood to hurt some innocent people. This is why I've taken care since the day I entered Orthodoxy not to claim I am Catholic in writings here, and not to rise to the bait of certain people in the comboxes who have demanded that I declare myself. Though I've wanted to get this out there, and not to deceive readers, I had an obligation to keep this to myself until month's end, for an important reason I can't really discuss. But now I am forced to reveal all early. Why? Because a certain malicious reader, a perfect stranger and petty little Catholic Prufrock named X, who is unhealthily preoccupied with me nearly to the point of cyberstalking, troubled himself to write a letter to a priest at my parish asking about my ecclesial affiliation -- and when he received his answer, undertook to publicize it.So, here we are. I apologize to readers who feel deceived or betrayed. That was not my intent; my intent was to honor a prior obligation, whose terms were soon to end anyway. I only now have to give you the long explanation two weeks early. What follows will be lengthy, but it will be all I intend to say about this matter. I know that the comboxes will be filled with discussion, much of it spiteful and vitriolic, and that there's nothing I can do about that, except refuse to join it. But here is how I ended up where I am today.Back in 2001, when I first started writing about the child sex-abuse scandal in the Church, Father Tom Doyle, the heroic priest who ruined his own career by speaking out for victims, warned me, "If you keep going down this path, you are going to go to places darker than you can imagine." I thought I understood what he meant, but I didn't. Even if I had, by then, I couldn't have stopped. What brought me in touch with Fr. Doyle was my having stumbled upon a cell of clerical molesters at a Carmelite parish in the Bronx. They had preyed on a teenage immigrant boy who was troubled, and whose father was back in Nicaragua. His mother sent him to the priests for counseling, thinking that maybe being around some men of God would do the boy some good. The priests ended up molesting him. When the boy's father arrived in the States and found out what had happened, he went to the Archdiocese of New York to tell them what happened. They offered to cut him a check if he'd sign a paper agreeing to let the Archdiocese's attorneys handle the matter. This man was merely a worker from a Third World country, newly arrived in New York, but he knew what was happening. He walked out and got himself and his son a lawyer.

And that's how it began for me. At the time, as the father of a young boy, I couldn't shake the thought What if this had happened to my family? Would we be treated this way by the Archdiocese? I began reading the literature about the scandal, most especially Jason Berry's devastating "Lead Us Not Into Temptation," a detailed account of the abuse and cover-up in a notorious situation in my native Louisiana (something I remember reading about from my childhood), that revealed the profound personal, familial and communal damage that Catholic authorities were prepared to see take place to protect themselves from the truth.A few months later came 9/11, and shortly after that I left the New York Post and went to National Review. I hadn't been at NR but for a couple of weeks when the John Geoghan trial got underway in Boston, and thus what Catholics would come to call simply The Scandal would break. I began writing about it critically, both in the magazine and on NRO, the website. Word got back to me that Bill Bennett credited NR's cover story on the stakes in this scandal for giving tacit permission for conservative, orthodox Catholics to discuss the matter, and to say in public about the bishops' handling of the matter what they had mostly only been saying in private, but feared to voice because they didn't want to be seen as disloyal. The flood of e-mail correspondence opened. I heard from many, many people who identified themselves as faithful orthodox Catholics, but who wrote of the pain and suffering they had undergone because either they or a close family member had been molested by a priest, and their diocese had covered it up and even attacked them when they sought justice.There was the monk who learned that there had been a molestation ring in his order, and when his superior suspected that he was going to go to the authorities, had him committed to a mental institution. His brother helped him escape, and was trying to persuade him to go public .... but couldn't; the poor man, who had had a heart attack over the stress of all this, feared angering God for betraying his child-molesting brothers to the authorities. There was the woman who, along with other women, had to clean Vaseline off the altar in her parish in the mornings after the priest there (who is now in jail after a child molestation conviction -- I checked this out) had been doing God knows what the night before. She told me she went to the bishop with this news, and had reason to suspect he was being blackmailed by this priest. The bishop now enjoys a reputation as being one of the more conservative prelates in the American church. The woman couldn't be persuaded to go public, because she still works for the Church, and said she had children to support.My in-box was filled with stories like these.

I began to understand what Tom Doyle's warnings meant. Every day after work I'd head back home, feeling like a spiritual "walking wounded." And then there was the day I talked to Horace Patterson. His son Eric had committed suicide after 15 years of depression. Not long before Eric died by his own hand, he'd confessed that he had been molested by Father Larson, their parish priest, as an altar boy. Horace later discovered that of young men were traceable to Father Larson, who now sits in jail for sex crimes against children. Horace and his wife Janet were to learn later that their Kansas diocese knew that Father Larson had a thing for boys, but did nothing to stop him. On the phone with me in New York, Horace talked about having received the call at home one day that their boy Eric had blown his brains out. He talked of having to go sit on their front porch and wait for Janet to come home so he could tell her what had become of their son. He told me how watching her car pull in at the end of the long driveway, and head home, where this news awaited her, was one of the most excruciating moments of his life. As a relatively new father, this devastated me. Even this morning, as I write this, it's hard to recount the brokenness in that man's voice without getting tears in my eyes.What if that were me? I'd ask. And I'd look at my own little boy, and carry these things in my heart.And then there were other blows. The prominent archbishop who told me I needed to quit criticizing the Church, and that if I didn't trust the bishops to handle the matter, he didn't understand why I was still Catholic. There was the prominent priest who yelled at me on the phone one day that if Bishop X. told me there was no scandal in his diocese, that should have been good enough for me to quit my investigation.

There was the lawyer for a top American archbishop who had heard I was looking into widespread allegations that he had sexually harrassed seminarians, and who phoned to see if I could be taken off the story (when I'd see this archbishop on TV later in the year proclaiming wounded innocence in the scandal -- "If only we had known this was going on in the Church," he'd say -- I wanted to hurl). There was the Catholic therapist I saw briefly for help in dealing with my anger over the Scandal and over 9/11, who spent an entire session literally yelling at me about how I was going to go to hell for questioning the Pope's handling of the scandal.And I have only set down here the smallest bit of what I learned. All this takes a toll. And yet, I kept going back to my catechism, and to the truth that none of this undermines the truth claims of the Catholic Church. The Eucharist is still the Eucharist, no matter how corrupt the clerics may be. That was a lifeline for me -- that, and the comfort and friendship of dear Catholic friends, especially good and decent priests, who, aside from actual victims and their families, were probably suffering more from this scandal than anybody else.As my dearest friend, Fr. Joe Wilson, has said many times, the Scandal does not exist in isolation. It is only a part of a many-headed beast. The sex-abuse scandal can't be easily separated from the wider crisis in the American Catholic Church, involving the corruption of the liturgy, of catechesis, and so forth. I've come to understand how important this point is, because if most other things had been more or less solid, I think I could have weathered the storm. But I found it impossible to find solid ground.

As most readers know, we moved to Dallas in 2003, and had a difficult time establishing ourselves in a parish. Dallas has had more than its share of problems with abusive clerics, as most people know. What I didn't understand, nor anticipate, was how difficult it would be to find an orthodox parish here. We have lots of faithful Catholic friends here, and I don't think it's unfair to say that most of them are doing what most (but not all) orthodox Catholics in this country do: grit their teeth and white-knuckle it out in their parishes, doing what they can to hang on. Without belaboring our boring saga of hunting for a parish here, we ended up in an orthodox parish in a nearby suburb, which had something rare in Catholic parishes: unity in belief. These were Catholics who really believed it, and did so joyfully. We thought we were home.And then I discovered entirely by accident -- indeed, in the process of helping bring a friend into the Church -- that a priest at the parish was not supposed to be in ministry. He had been suspended by his diocese in Pennsylvania after formal abuse accusations had been leveled against him. The priest came back to his hometown, Dallas, and got other work -- but was helping out on the weekends in this particular parish. It turned out that the pastor knew all about his past, had concluded that he had been falsely accused, and put him into active ministry in the parish -- without telling the parish, or even his bishop. Now, this priest might well be innocent -- nothing has been proved against him -- but that is not the point. The point is, and was, that he was not supposed to be in active ministry, yet the pastor and those closest to him chose to deceive the bishop and the parish about the matter. The priest in question -- orthodox and personally charismatic -- lied to me in a manipulative way about how he had come to Dallas (he said the liberals in his old diocese had driven him out), and lied to my catechumen friend, who is a liberal, in the same manipulative way (he told her the conservatives had driven him out). This was too much. When I told Julie what Father's true background was, we were both shattered. I mean shattered. Given all that had come before, and given that we finally thought we could let our guard down, that we were among orthodox Catholics now, and we could trust them -- well, something broke in us.It would be months before we realized how broken. We returned to our old parish, and spent months going through the motions. It's hard for me to express how spiritually depressed we were. The only strong emotion I felt about faith in those days was ... anger and bitterness.

I got into the habit of routinely leaving during the homilies -- in part because sometimes we would hear objective lies (like the time a deacon -- and this is one of the most conservative parishes in Dallas-- thanked God from the pulpit that we Catholics aren't like those nasty fundamentalist Christians, who believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation), but mostly it was simply because I felt so weak and vulnerable in my faith that I just wanted to get through mass and to receive the Eucharist and go home without having to get mad all over again. I was in such a state that the usual AmChurch banalities that orthodox Catholics learn to endure early on had the effect of setting me off. It was a rotten way to live, and I began to despair over what kind of icon of Christ I was for my children.I also despaired over raising children in the Catholic faith. Julie and I decided not to put our kids in the Sunday School program at the parish when she learned that the parish was allowing women who didn't even go to mass to teach the faith to children, as part of their obligation to do parish service in exchange for reduced tuition at the parish school. This whole Sacrament Factory approach to living the Christian life left me ice-cold. I started to see my own faith and relationship to the Catholic Church as a purely mechanical thing.

I'd go to fulfill my Sunday duty, receiving the Eucharist and then getting the heck out of there, wanting as little as possible to do with parish life. One day, in tears, Julie and I confessed to each other that we were afraid we were losing our faith entirely. This is not a place either of us ever imagined being. To know that you have the responsibility to raise children as followers of Christ, to say nothing about having responsibility for your own eternal soul -- well, to be in that position and to be so alienated from the Church you believe has the right to command your fidelity is a terrible thing.After months, we finally made a decision: we would visit an Orthodox parish. As Catholics, we knew at least that the Sacraments there were valid. Though we couldn't receive communion, we could at least be in the presence of the Eucharistic Christ, and worship liturgically with them, and draw close to God on Sunday morning, however imperfectly. I can hardly express the burden of guilt I felt when I crossed the threshold of St. Seraphim's parish that morning. But you know, it was a wonderful place. The liturgy was breathtakingly beautiful. The preaching orthodox. And the people -- half of them Russian, most of the others converts -- could hardly have been kinder and more welcoming. As a new Episcopalian friend told me a couple of weeks ago after he visited St. Seraphim's, "There is life there." We kept going back, and finally got invited to dinner at the archbishop's house. I feared it would be a stiff, formal affair. I was astonished to turn up at the address given, to find that it was the shabby little cottage behind the cathedral. We went in, and it was like being at a family reunion. Vladika's house was jammed with parishioners celebrating a feast day with ... a feast. There was Archbishop Dmitri in the middle of it all, looking like a grandfatherly Gandalf.

I had never in all my years as a Catholic been around people who felt that way about their bishop. The whole thing was dizzying -- the fellowship, the prayerfulness, the feeling of family. I hadn't realized how starved I was for a church community. Julie, who grew up Evangelical, said this was what she had known all through her youth -- and what she'd left to become Catholic. I remember thinking that night, given what we'd been experiencing in the liturgy, and now at this parish feast, This is what I thought Catholicism would be like when I came in. And I reflected that there's really no reason at all Catholicism can't be like this. It's not like the Orthodox have some exclusive magic. But there you are.Over time, we got to know the people of the parish. They became our friends. It was a new experience for me to be in a parish where you can be openly small-o orthodox, and the priest and the people support you in that. In "Crunchy Cons," the Orthodox convert (from RCism) Hugh O'Beirne says that Catholics new to the Orthodox Church may find it surprising that they don't have to be on a "war footing" -- meaning the culture wars don't intrude into worship. People are on the same page, and if they're not, they're not out trying to get the Church to change her position on abortion, gay marriage, inclusive language, and all that. As someone who more or less is on the front lines of the culture war every day in my job as a journalist, I found it a new and welcome experience to be able to go to church on Sunday and get built back up for the struggle ahead, instead of to find mass the most debilitating hour of the week. Julie and I could see what was happening to us: we were falling in love with Orthodoxy. On several occasions, we stopped to check ourselves. But we couldn't bring ourselves to leave this place, where we were back in touch with Christ, and learning to serve Him in community, to return to what we had experienced as a spiritual desert. I know this is not every Catholic's experience, but this was ours. I kept thinking about the older Catholics I know who are faithful, but whose children have been lost to the faith. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but knowing them as I do, I think it's not an unreasonable thing to fear the effect of having no real parish support for orthodox Catholicism on raising Catholic children. As my kids have gotten older, I have been deeply impressed by the importance of community in supporting and reinforcing what parents teach. Most of my Catholic friends with kids are doing the best they can in a bad situation. They are a lot stronger than I am. I had to admit that I needed help. I found the help I needed at St. Seraphim's.

But there was the matter of truth. A decade ago, when my dear friend Terry Mattingly was trying to decide whether or not to go Catholic or Orthodox, I listened impatiently to his fears for raising his children as Christians in an American Catholic parish, without active support from the priest and the community, and possibly even outright attack (at the time, I was preparing for marriage while living in south Florida, and had learned that CCL instructors, who taught couples how to practice NFP in obedience to the Church, couldn't even get a foot in the door in parish marriage instruction). I kept saying to him, confidently, that none of that matters, that what matters is: Is the case for Catholicism true? And here I was a decade later, facing the same dilemma.I had to admit that I had never seriously considered the case for Orthodoxy. Now I had to do that. And it was difficult poring through the arguments about papal primacy. I'll spare you the details, but I will say that I came to seriously doubt Rome's claims. Reading the accounts of the First Vatican Council, and how they arrived at the dogma of papal infallibility, was a shock to me: I realized that I simply couldn't believe the doctrine. And if that falls, it all falls. Of course I immediately set upon myself, doubting my thinking because doubting my motives. You're just trying to talk yourself into something, I thought. And truth to tell, there was a lot of that, I'm sure. But what I noticed during all this Sturm und Drang over doctrine was this: we were happy again as a family, and at peace. Julie said one day driving home from liturgy, "Isn't it great to look forward to going to church again?" And it was. I was beginning to pray again, and beginning to climb out of the slough of religious despond. I began to think differently about Truth. As Christians, Truth is a Person, not merely a proposition. Here I was beginning to live a more Christ-like life as a fellow traveler of Orthodoxy, and knowing that if I went back to full-fledged Catholicism, I would be returning to anger and despair. What does it mean to live in the Christian truth in that situation? How would I feel if I approached the Judgment Seat and said to God, "I lived as a depressed and embittered man, lost my children to the Christian faith, and was a terrible witness to your goodness. But Lord, thanks to you, I never left Catholicism."It was not an abstract question for me. I wondered: is the point of our life on earth to become like Jesus, or is it to maintain formal affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church? I honestly don't believe God will ask of me, in the day of judgment, "Were you an obedient Catholic? (Or Orthodox, or Presbyterian...)" He will ask me, "Did you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind? Did you love your neighbor as yourself?" I had made in my life till that point the fundamental error of conceiving of the Church as an end in itself, rather than a means to the end of becoming a saint in Christ.

I could see authentic holiness and goodness around me at St. Seraphim's, and was encouraged and motivated by it. I couldn't believe these people were going to hell because they weren't Catholic (and in fact the Catholic Church doesn't claim that they are, but the point I'm making is that Jesus so plainly lives in their lives, and that deeply impressed me). This parish was not full of ethnic pride, nor was it anti-Catholic. In fact, the pastor, Fr. John Anderson, had once been a Catholic, and was full of gratitude for his Catholic formation. That made a difference to me, because if we came to Orthodoxy, I could not in good conscience turn into one of those people who bash whence the came. In fact, the further I moved from Catholicism, the more I was able to love it. I think it's because I felt somehow released from feeling responsible for the Scandal. It's important for me to say, though, that at no time in this journey did anybody at St. Seraphim's speak ill of the Catholic Church (in fact, one new friend there, a Russian, once told me that there are too many sins and scandals in Orthodoxy for the Orthodox rigorists to spend their time carping about Rome). They only bore joyful witness to what they had discovered in Orthodoxy. This made an impression on me.Julie and I put off converting as long as we could, but we finally had to admit to ourselves that we loved these people, that we loved this faith, and we didn't want to leave it. The only thing keeping me personally away from making the decision for Orthodoxy was love of my Catholic friends, whom I knew I would disappoint. And, to be honest, I didn't want to leave Rome because it is all I've ever known as an adult Christian. Some will doubt this, but for all the pain, I will always love the Catholic Church, and I sometimes get a little emotional thinking about that. And yet, staying there was killing me spiritually. Leaving was like chewing my own leg off to get out of a trap. I have talked about how the Church itself failed me in all this. Let me confess how I failed myself.

The Amish example of forgiveness and detachment from anger recently made a powerful impression on me, because I can see so clearly how I allowed myself to become snared in it. The pursuit of justice is a wonderful and necessary thing, even a holy act. But I became so tormented over what had happened to those children at the hands of the Catholic clergy and hierarchy that I could see nothing else but pursuing justice. And my own pursuit of justice allowed me to turn wrath into an idol. I didn't know I was doing this at the time. I came to believe that if I didn't stop, or if I let up, that I would in some sense be failing the victims, that I would be helping the perpetrators get away with it. Again and again, I kept thinking What if this had happened to our family? And over time, the anger, and my inability to master it and put it in its place, corroded the bonds that linked me to Catholicism. That is something that could happen to anybody, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or what have you. Be warned.What's more, I had become the sort of Catholic who thought preoccupying himself with Church controversies and Church politics was the same thing as preoccupying himself with Christ. Me and my friends would go on for hours and hours about what was wrong with the Church, and everything we had to say was true. But if you keep on like that, it will have its effect. One night, some Catholic friends left after a long and vivid night of conversation, and Julie and I reflected that we had all spent the entire evening talking about the Church -- but never mentioned Jesus. Julie said, "We need less Peter around here, and more Jesus." Her point was that all this talk about the institutional Church was crowding out our devotion to the spiritual realities beneath the visible structure. And she was right. But I didn't learn that until it was too late.I can look back also and see that my own intellectual pride helped me build a weak foundation for my faith. When I converted to Catholicism in 1992 (I entered the Church formally in 1993), it was a sincere Christian conversion. But I also took on as my own all the cultural and intellectual trappings of the American Catholic right. I remember feeling so grateful for the privilege and gift of being Catholic, but there was a part of me that thought, "Yay! I'm on the A-Team now, the New York Yankees of Christianity. I'm on Father Neuhaus's team!" A short time back, an intellectual friend who is a Protestant told me that he almost became a Catholic, and would have except for the place where he was working at the time was filled with conservative intellectual Catholics who wouldn't shut up about the superiority of Catholicism. Their arrogance finally put him off the Church, and now he says he couldn't imagine converting. I swallowed hard when he told me that, because I can only imagine how I must have come off to people like him in my prideful heyday.Without quite realizing what was happening, I became a Professional Catholic, and got so caught up in identifying with the various controversies in the American church that I began to substitute that for an authentic spirituality.

This is nobody's fault but my own. Part of that involved hero-worshipping Pope John Paul II, and despite having a healthy awareness of the sins and failings of various bishops, exaggerating the virtues of bishops my side deemed "orthodox." Bernard Cardinal Law was just such a bishop. I count it as one of the most shameful acts of my life the moment when I rushed across a courtyard in Jerusalem to kneel and kiss Cardinal Law's ring. I don't count it as a sin to kiss a cardinal's ring; what was wrong was my motivation for doing so: I felt so much pride in showing myself to be an orthodox Catholic paying due homage to an orthodox archbishop in that public way.Well, I was a fool, and I set myself up for a big fall. A few weeks back, I mentioned to Julie on the way to St. Seraphim's one morning, "I'm now part of a small church that nobody's heard of, with zero cultural influence in America, and in a tiny parish that's materially poor. I think that's just where I need to be." See, this is why you won't see me ballyhoo my conversion to Orthodoxy as I did with my conversion to Catholicism. Partly it's because I still consider myself to be among the spiritually walking wounded. I need to build myself up in Christ, and in ordinary Christian piety. I believe that God rescued me from a pit partly of my own making by showing me Orthodoxy, and through the witness of the people of St. Seraphim's parish. I have to laugh when well-meaning people say, "Well, Rod's still looking for the perfect church, I wonder what's going to become of him when he figures out that the Orthodox Church is screwed up too." Shoot, the Orthodox Church in America is neck-deep in a financial scandal at its pinnacle! Don't they think I see that? I am perfectly aware that sexual sin and the temptation to cover it up or deny it exists in every human institution. I do not imagine that I have escaped that in Orthodoxy. I am incapable of being the kind of gung-ho Orthodox as I was a gung-ho Catholic. I've learned my lesson. What I do have in Orthodoxy, though, is a second chance to get it right. To receive the Sacraments as an aid to theosis, and to learn to love the little platoon around me, building up the community and my own family. Had I started out this way as a Catholic, maybe it wouldn't have come to this. But I did, and here I am, and God is merciful. I don't want in any way for this to come across as an apology for entering Orthodoxy. I am not ashamed of it, and indeed I am grateful for God having provided for me and my family, lost and drifting as we were.

Still, I think my feelings must be like that of an exile who had to leave his native land, and who is grateful for his new country but who will never be able to forget whence he came -- nor does he want to. I grieve having disappointed friends, and no doubt many of you, who have been so kind to me over the years with your prayers and encouragement. I can't expect you Catholics to endorse my move, but I hope at least you will pray for me and my family, and with me for the ultimate unity of Orthodoxy and Catholicism (by the way, I took as my patron saint in Orthodoxy Benedict of Nursia, who as a pre-schism saint is also revered by the Orthodox; I also chose him in part to honor Pope Benedict, whom I cherish). I hope also that my own example will encourage others -- Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant -- to look seriously into their hearts, and detach themselves from both idolizing the Church in the place of Christ -- this is partly what led to the Scandal, and partly what led me to put myself in a position where the Scandal destroyed my Catholicism. And I hope my example helps people to deal swiftly with anger before it masters them. As far as tradition goes, I have moved with my family to a church that I believe stands a much better chance of maintaining the historic Christian deposit of faith over time. To be more blunt, I have moved to a church that in my judgment within which I and my family and my descendants will be better able to withstand modernity. Basically, though -- and this is as blunt as I can be -- I'm in a church where I can trust the spiritual headship of the clergy, and where most people want to know more about the faith, and how we can conform our lives to it, rather than wanting to run away from it or hide it so nobody has to be offended.In the end, we all depend on the mercy of God to deliver us from our faults and errors. I have no intention of talking about this conversion further, either on the comboxes or this blog. (Nor, by the way, do I intend to avoid critical comments about any church; I am an opinion journalist.) I owe it to my family, and to my God, to avoid the nasty combox polemics that will inevitably follow this revelation. I can't keep any of you from saying whatever you will -- and no doubt, the Xs of the world will have their day. I'm a public person, so I have to put up with that. Still, those of you more charitably inclined, please just pray for me and my family, that we always live in truth, and do the right thing, and be found pleasing to God, the Father of us all.

News from the Anglican Church in America (ACA)

Our historically sister Church, the ACA, with which the APA was jurisdictionally united from 1991-1995, has elected a new Primate, Bishop George Langberg, and has formally joined the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas. Let us pray that the great orthodox Anglican realignment has begun in earnest in North America...

http://anglicanfederation.org/

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4831

A Pastoral Letter from the Episcopate of the APA and REC

http://www.anglicanprovince.org/statementonunity9-06.html

A Liberal Roman Catholic Schism!

http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/

Whispers in the Loggia has received definitive confirmation that, at yesterday's ceremony at Washington's Imani Temple (home of the breakaway African-American Catholic Congregation), Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo ordained four prelates of the Old Catholic Church to the indisputably valid Roman episcopate, passing to them his lineage and, with it, the episcopal lineage of Pope Paul VI, who ordained Milingo as archbishop of Lusaka in 1969. An Associated Press story yesterday had caused confusion by referring to the ceremony as an "installation," particularly as the ordinands had previously claimed episcopal orders through other channels.

While the Holy See last week raised the specter of "canonical suspension" on the renegade Zambian prelate with a deadline of 15 October, yesterday's action places Milingo under an automatic latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Holy See under the provisions of canon 1382. In the west, the break is comparable only to the events of June 1988, when the traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre ordained four bishops of his own, incurring the excommunication of all involved and creating the great schism of the 20th century.

Milingo and his four prelates -- the "Council of Bishops" of the "Married Priests Now!" movement -- are meeting today in Washington to discuss the division of their responsibilities. Expect a statement from the Holy See quickly.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060925/ap_on_re_us/archbishop_marriage_2

An African archbishop who wants to make celibacy optional for priests installed four married men Sunday as Roman Catholic bishops. The Archdiocese of Washington did not recognize the installations. "This means nothing within the church," spokeswoman Susan Gibbs said.
Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo — whose marriage to a woman chosen by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon scandalized the Roman Catholic Church — performed the ceremonies at a Capitol Hill church. Installed were the Rev. George Augustus Stallings, Jr., of Washington, Peter Paul Brennan, of New York, Patrick Trujillo, of Newark, N.J., and Joseph Gouthro, of Las Vegas.
The four men claim affiliation to the breakaway Synod of Old Catholic Churches.
"We are not only validly ordained Catholic bishops, but we are ordained Roman Catholic bishops," Stallings said. Milingo has said that the head of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops has demanded he send a letter of repentance by Oct. 15 to Pope Benedict XVI or face "canonical suspension." The Vatican said Milingo violated church law when he created "the so-called 'Married Priests Now' association," and when he previously celebrated Mass with married clergy. A "canonical suspension" would bar Milingo from ordaining priests, leading Mass and performing other sacraments, according to the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit writer and expert on the church. Milingo, 76, has had a troubled relationship with the Vatican for years.
Before his marriage, Catholic officials accused him of promoting African indigenous beliefs by performing mass exorcisms and healing ceremonies. Then in 2001, the archbishop married Maria Sung, a South Korean acupuncturist Moon chose for him, at a mass wedding in New York.
Four months later, Milingo renounced the union, after a personal appeal from Pope John Paul II. But Milingo said he grew frustrated by restrictions on his ministry, so he fled Rome. In July, he reappeared in the United States to announce his new organization. He says he now lives with his wife in the Washington, D.C., area.

A Conservative* Communion Emerges?

http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/comments/kigali_communique/

At the next meeting of the Primates in February 2007 some of us will not be able to recognize Katharine Jefferts Schori as a Primate at the table with us. Others will be in impaired communion with her as a representative of The Episcopal Church. Since she cannot represent those dioceses and congregations who are abiding by the teaching of the Communion we propose that another bishop, chosen by these dioceses, be present at the meeting so that we might listen to their voices during our deliberations.

We are convinced that the time has now come to take initial steps towards the formation of what will be recognized as a separate ecclesiastical structure of the Anglican Communion in the USA. We have asked the Global South Steering Committee to develop such a proposal in consultation with the appropriate instruments of unity of the Communion. We understand the serious implications of this determination. We believe that we would be failing in our apostolic witness if we do not make this provision for those who hold firmly to a commitment to historic Anglican faith.

Provinces Represented: Bangladesh**, Burundi, Central Africa, Church of South India, Congo, Indian Ocean, Jerusalem and Middle East, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Philippines**, Rwanda, Southern Africa, South East Asia, Southern Cone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, West Africa, West Indies (** Not present but represented)

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* Conservative as opposed to catholic and orthodox, because Bangladesh, Burundi, South India, Kenya, Philippines, Rwanda, Southern Africa, Sudan, Uganda, West Africa, and West Indies purport to ordain women to the Sacred Order of Priests in violation of Scripture and Tradition.

Saint Joseph Gets His Due in 1962

Communicántes, et memóriam venerántes, in primis gloriósæ semper Vírginis Maríæ, Genitrícis Dei et Dómini nostri Jesu Christi: sed et beáti Joseph ejúsdem Vírginis Sponsi.

In communion with, and honoring the memory in the first place of the glorious ever Virgin Mary Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ; also of blessed Joseph, her Spouse.

In relation to my essay on the role of the Mother of God in Anglicanism, consider this history-making addition in the wider Western Church:

In honour of Saint Joseph, the Most Chaste Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope John XXIII did what was unthinkable at the time and altered the venerable and 'inalterable' Canon of the Mass of the Roman Rite in 1962, by adding Saint Joseph to the list of those Saints commemorated in the Roman Liturgy from time immemorial.

Let us never forget to venerate the memory of Saint Joseph, foster father of Our Blessed Lord and Patron of the Universal Church.

Sancte Ioseph, ora pro nobis.