Married Episcopal priest will become priest in Roman Catholic Diocese of Scanton

SCRANTON, PA (1/4/2005)--For the first time in the 137-year history of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, Bishop Joseph F. Martino will receive a married former Scranton Episcopal priest and father into the priesthood from the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem.

The Rev. Eric Bergman, an Anglo-Catholic priest at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Scranton's Green Ridge section in the liberal ECUSA diocese, renounced his orders effective December 31st and left the Episcopal Church over the church's acceptance of homosexuality and the consecration of an avowed homoerotic bishop to the episcopacy in the person of V. Gene Robinson.

In a phone call to VirtueOnline Fr. Bergman, 34, and the father of three children said, "I think that the ordination of Robinson is the logical conclusion of the contraceptive mentality. When Lambeth approved contraception for married couples in 1930 they set the stage for the Robinson consecration in 2003. You remove the marital act from its purpose and we bless sterile intercourse. It is not a big jump to bless then sterile homosexual intercourse."

Some 60 parishioners at Good Shepherd will follow the priest and become Roman Catholics. About 275 will remain in the Episcopal parish. The group leaving the Episcopal parish also includes a small group from St. Stephen's parish in Whitehall, the former parish of Fr. William Ilgenfritz, who recently left that parish for a parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

In an open letter to the congregation Fr. Bergman wrote, "The events that have unfolded within the Episcopal Church USA and across the worldwide Anglican Communion can certainly be understood to be a catalyst that precipitated action on my part. That is, the election of an unmarried and unchaste man to the office of bishop demands a response from the faithful, particularly when the institutional response on the part of the Anglican Communion to this innovation has been so feeble. Nevertheless, I now view the incidents of General Convention 2003 as the logical outcome of a flawed orientation that betrays the Anglican Communion’s ability to proclaim the Good News, especially that truth that life comes to us through sacrifice. It is this orientation, ensconced in the teachings of the Anglican Communion for the past 74 years that finally led me to renounce my orders."

Episcopal Bishop Paul Marshall knew I was going to Rome and asked me to write this letter to the congregation on why I was leaving and renouncing my orders, Bergman told VirtueOnline.

Fr. Bergman, a Bethlehem native, will be received into the Roman Catholic Church through a process known as the "Pastoral Provision Decision," and will result in the conversion, priestly formation and potential ordination of Mr. Eric Bergman, a former priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, as a member of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, said a press statement from the Roman Catholic diocese. Bergman and his wife, Kristina, are the parents of three children, Clara, Eric and Julia, all of whom who will become Catholic.

The Pastoral Provision Decision, rendered in 1980 by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, came in response to a request from the North American Province of the Society of the Holy Cross, a secular institute of Anglican priests, whose married members wished to offer themselves for priestly ministry in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as lay Episcopalians who wished to enter the Catholic Church with a common spiritual and liturgical identity.

In its acceptance of former married Episcopalian clergy as clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pastoral Provision Decision grants a special exception to the Roman Catholic Church's rule of mandatory priestly celibacy. However, the Decision stressed that this particular exclusion "should not be understood as implying any change in the Church's conviction of the value of priestly celibacy, which will remain the rule for future candidates for the priesthood from this group."

"I warmly welcome Mr. Bergman, his family and members of his former lay community on their new faith journey to become Roman Catholic," said Bishop Martino. "We assure them all of our prayers and complete cooperation as they take the initial steps toward full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in the Diocese of Scranton," the bishop stated.

Bishop Martino said that the Diocese of Scranton and Mr. Bergman have taken initial steps to begin the conversion/ordination process established through the Pastoral Provision Decision. The steps include preparation and submission of a dossier, or report, containing required documents which will accompany Mr. Bergman's petition to the Holy See for priesthood and incardination, or service to the Diocese of Scranton.

Fr. Bergman told VirtueOnline that his new congregation will use the Book of Divine Worship published in 2003 in which elements of the Book of Common Prayer are revised and adapted according to the Roman Rite for use by Roman Catholics coming from the Anglican tradition.

On January 2, Bishop Martino announced that Mr. Bergman will become Executive Director of the newly-formed St. Thomas More Society of St. Clare's Church in the Green Ridge section of Scranton. Members of the St. Thomas More Society of St. Clare's Church will provide for the temporal needs of Mr. Bergman and study with him in preparation to enter the Catholic Church. Mr. Bergman said that membership in the St. Thomas More Society is open to all former Anglicans or Episcopalians.

To date, the Holy See has permitted the ordination of a number of former Anglican or Episcopal priests who have become Catholic in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain.

Episcopal Bishop Paul Marshall was in Africa and could not be reached for comment.

I don't see anything particularly wrong in 174.

Of course you don't. Admit it, it was excellent, beautiful even, and thoroughly Catholic. In fact, let's just read an excerpt again, let the words really sink in...

"The mystery is this: I can look on my celibacy if I am a priest, as a chastity belt. And the Church has locked it and thrown away the key. In that case then, I'm just somebody deprived of what I should have a right to by a greater force that's thrown away the key.

That's not celibacy at all. That is enforced continence.

I can look on celibacy then as something acceptable to the Church but a pain in the neck or a pain somewhere else. I still am very far from it.

The celibate is somebody who says to himself or herself (a nun), 'My greatest power of love is in reproduction and in living with another human being. And in having children and in exchanging our love and warmth and friendship and confidence. And giving each other the intimacy of our very being, soul and body, which a true marriage does.

But, I will give that up because..when I become a priest, Christ puts a seal on my soul. The seal of his priesthood. And that seal cordons me off for a higher destiny. And the destiny is to have a very, very particular union with God, with Christ.'

And that union is the union of somebody who is going to hold God's body in his hands at Mass. And is going to be a special emissary bringing blessing and shriving people from their sins and healing their souls. That's what true celibacy is. It's a segregation of your soul from all the lovely things in life that human love can bring and marriage can bring....

And in the beginning it is a sacrifice. And then, with the passage of time and fidelity, suddenly...this flower blooms in their souls. And they achieve this marvelous tranquility and this marvelous warmth that people always saw in the traditional priest. This amazing power to get inside you. This light, this feeling that they were there for you. They weren't riven in their sympathies. And they were there for you because Christ was their man, Christ was their King, Christ was their High Priest. That idea of priesthood....you won't find that anywhere today in Catholic manuals or preached in sermons or anything like that. Celibacy is regarded as...like Fish on Friday , a law we want to change and do away with." - Fr. Martin

Sinkspur probably didn't read it either. He just didn't want to miss an opportunity to attack Fr. Martin because deep down he knows he can't present an intelligent argument against what Fr. Martin says about celibacy, or I would wager anything to do with the faith.

Why you jumped in on the bandwagon I have no idea.

I agree with what Martin says about celibacy. It's valid for those who are called to celibacy.

I just disagree that celibacy should be mandatory for Latin Rite priests.

You've been nothing but a naysayer since you signed up for this website. Why not make a positive contribution, if you can, so you don't get the reputation of a "Dr. No"?

"Rest easy. We're much more concerned with burning the heretics within the Church, and by the time we get done with them we'll have run out of wood and matches."

I assume that you are joking..in any case, it's not funny because their are those that really still feel this way. The Catholics that I know who make such wild statements just don't know enough about Protestants. IMHO

Let me tell you a little of my observations.

My Catholic acquaintances run the entire gamut from claiming devotion to their faith and rarely attending church to spending all their time in the church. Same with Protestants.

The Catholics run the gamut of being addicted to drugs, porn, et, to complete self control and discipline..same with the protestants.

Of the Catholics that I know some read their bible regularly and pray and some don't..again, same with the Protestants.

In both cases the condition of the lives of these people is all across the board. In other words..I don't see a big difference in what really counts.

I assume that you are joking..in any case, it's not funny because their are those that really still feel this way.

Of course I was joking silly, but I was trying to make a point by way of joke. At this point I am more concerned about 'Catholics within the Church' who are trying to destroy it. They will not succeed in the end, but have done and can do a great deal more damage before they are through. Far more damage than any of the Protestant reformers put together.

P.S. I had neighbors who are devout Baptists. Although we had serious disagreements on doctrine, we agreed on more moral issues than the people in my former Catholic parish did. I was very sad to see them move, and they are always in my prayers.

Sinky,

I don't know what to say to your response, because it makes no sense. It is as if

a) you really didn't read what Fr. Martin said

b) you did not understand a word of it, or

c) you are so "wedded" to the idea that a married priesthood in the Latin Rite will be a good thing that you refuse to understand what Fr. Martin said.

Now I don't doubt that some day you may get your wish, and the Latin rite will relax its discipline on celibacy, but it will not be a good thing. The decision will be an error which will only cause more damage to the Church. Which is the point that Fr. Martin makes. The supreme law is salvation of souls, a celibate priesthood best serves this law.

You've been nothing but a naysayer since you signed up for this website. Why not make a positive contribution, if you can, so you don't get the reputation of a "Dr. No"?

How is taking the side in support of celibacy negative? Besides, I may already have the reputation of being a "Dr. No", for different reasons, just ask my husband. {:^O

That was a joke, by the way, I couldn't resist.

"...yeah, I see a lot of Buddhist monks that molest children. " I know, it's terrible, isn't it? I feel so sorry when I travel to Asia and I see those poor kids with the monks. They probably get passed around like peace pipes. Buddhism's pedophile monks By Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI Religion Correspondent WASHINGTON, (UPI) -- Sex between clergymen and boys is by no means a uniquely Catholic phenomenon, a noted American scholar said Wednesday -- it's been going on in Buddhist monasteries in Asia for centuries. "Of course, this is against the Buddhist canon," Leonard Zwilling of the University of Wisconsin in Madison told United Press International, "but it has beencommon in Tibet, China, Japan and elsewhere." "In fact, when the Jesuits arrived in China and Japan in the 16th century, they were horrified bythe formalized relationships between Buddhist monks and novices who were still children. These relationships clearly broke the celibacy rule," said Zwilling, who has written extensively about this topic for more than three decades, and was one of the first to do so. Zwilling, who holds a doctoral degree in Buddhist studies said in a telephone interview this practice continued until well into 20th century. [and is said to still continue] Although the Buddha clearly proscribed sex of any kind in monasteries, "we know of incidents where members of the Bob-Dob, an order enforcing discipline among Tibetan monks,fought each other over boys," continued Zwilling. "They clobbered each other with huge keys that were the tools of their trade. We also know that generations of Dalai Lamas had their 'favorites,' although we have no proof that these relationships were sexual." Other studies show that Buddhist monks in Japan practiced a non-sexual form of "pedophilia" as long ago as the 10th century, according to Minnesota-based Ralph Underwager, a pastor, psychologist and one of the world's leading experts on child abuse.

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