Posted on 03/09/2011 1:30:07 PM PST by NYer
LONDON - Hundreds of disaffected Anglicans left the Church of England to become Roman Catholics on Ash Wednesday, the Christian day of penance.
The day set by the church to welcome converts wishing to join the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, a unique grouping created by Pope Benedict XVI for Anglicans left feeling isolated since the Church of England decided in 1992 to ordain women as priests.
Tensions have grown further as the governing General Synod moves to allow women to become bishops while denying special structures to protect the sensitivities of the objectors.
"I believe that synod is trying to make the church conform to the culture rather than being faithful to new life found in Jesus Christ," the Rev. David Lashbrooke said in his farewell sermon at St. Marychurch in Torquay, southwestern England.
Those joining the ordinariate will be allowed to keep some of their customs and liturgy, though they won't be allowed to receive communion until they are confirmed shortly before Easter. Their priests can be ordained to the Catholic priesthood even if they are married.
Church officials haven't released numbers, but a Catholic magazine, The Tablet, has reported that about 20 priests and 600 lay people around England are making the move. Five former bishops have already gone over.
"Of more than 22,000 ordained Church of England clergy in total, about two dozen would appear to have decided to join the ordinariate at this time," said Howard Dobson, spokesman for the Archbishops' Council.
"It is impossible to obtain an accurate figure of lay numbers as no one needs to register their leaving the C of E," Dobson said. The church claims 1.7 million active members.
In the Catholic diocese of Brentwood, covering east London and suburban Essex County, 241 adults and children, including seven priests, have indicated they will be moving from the Church of England, said diocesan press officer Mary Huntington.
The program set by the Catholic Church for the ordinariate is built around the season of Lent leading up to Easter, when new members normally prepare for confirmation, and Pentecost 50 days after Easter when former Anglican priests will be ordained into their new church.
The Rev. Simon Chinery, a curate or assistant priest at two Anglican churches in Plymouth, said he felt "a sense of peace, a sense of excitement and some nervousness" as he prepared for the Ash Wednesday service at a Catholic church.
In his farewell to his old churches on Sunday, Chinery noted he wasn't the first priest from the parish to become a Catholic but that Benedict had made it easier.
"Whereas previously ex-Anglicans were stealthily admitted to the Catholic church through a side entrance, this time the front door has been thrown open and the welcome mat laid out," he said.
"I deeply love the Church of England, it's a hard decision to leave it behind," he said Wednesday, adding that he would particularly miss the church's rich musical heritage.
The Rev. Ed Tomlinson was leaving St. Barnabas Church in Tunbridge Wells, southeast England, and felt relief as he took about 70 parishioners with him into the Catholic Church.
"I spent so many years battling to defend the faith from within the Church of England, which is crazy, and that's taken all my energy away from visiting the sick, preaching the good news and helping people," Tomlinson said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
A smaller group remains committed to St. Barnabas and the Church of England, Tomlinson added, "and they have my prayers and good wishes."
While some move, others are still weighing their options.
Rev. John Corbyn of St. Mary Magdalene Church in Harlow, 25 miles (40 kms) northeast of London, said his group may be part of a second wave to migrants.
"It's not just one day and that's it," Corbyn said. "It's not a closing down sale."
Jesus was speaking to His Church. At that point in time, "His Church" and "the Apostles" were one and the same.
I would think that would be elementary to one who claims to study the Bible.
Come on over, brother. We could use a bloke like you.
So we have a church which:
On the one hand, you guys say that liberal Protestantism doesn't count as Christian and shouldn't be held against you. On the other, you often sound like you'd rather people were liberal Protestants than Catholics.
I'll ask you straight out: do you believe a faithful, orthodox, believing Catholic is worse off spiritually than a liberal Protestant who thinks homosexual activity is moral and abortion is peachy, and Jesus was mostly just a great moral teacher and a "good man", etc.?
Are you talking worldwide, or some specific country? When you consider that (Pentecostal) Protestantism is sold throughout Latin America as the progressive, modern, Norte-Americano thing, and that Evangelicalism worldwide goes for the hard sell in making church attendance into an entertainment experience, complete with rock bands, entertaining sermons, etc. ... those are impressively good statistics -- for us.
And Antoninus is right -- don't count on keeping all of them. Francis Beckwith, Jesse Romero, Jeff Cavins -- and those are only the reverts I know of because they've written books and do apologetics.
A bunch of folks escaping priestesses, “gay marriage”, and homosexualist clergy in “relationships” to a group that doesn’t accept those things?
A massive blow to conservatives everywhere. Yeesh.
Freegards
Funny you should mention money.
My daughter takes music lessons at a PCA church. My wife brought home one of their weekly bulletins. I was shocked to see that the monthly budget for this PCA church was something like twenty times the monthly budget for my bedraggled, old, velveteen bunny Catholic parish.
TWENTY times?!? (No, they don't have twenty times the membership; maybe 5 times if that.) Twenty times, and we're all about the money?
The sacrament of confession, BTW, does not involve a fee.
YEAH.
Ran even more intensely & deviously by Jesuit globalists in league with satan than the Episcopal horror...
One might think that the altar boy PE training would be a clue to some . . . evidently not to those on FR.
The Anglican Episcopal church was neutered into spiritual fogginess and oblivion long ago. Only The Charismatics within it as well as the Charismatics within the RCC appear to have any authentic heart for and connection with God much at all.
GIVEN THE LATENESS OF THE HOUR in terms of END TIMES EVENTS . . . and the deadliness, eternal deadliness of cultish lies and deceptions . . .
Our military has been deliberately transferred overseas and spread thin and decimated.
Foreign police force personnel have been hired for use in this country by the thousands with our tax dollars.
And that’s just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
I don’t think those of us in watchmen-on-the-wall roles have the luxury to play sweetness and light about much of anything any more.
There are some reports that the long prophesied Vatican evil Black Pope is already running things behind the scenes, scripting all of Benedicts significant actions and pronouncements.
THE TRUTH IS VITAL. THE TRUTH IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF LOVE AT THIS POINT.
I don’t want any RCC folks’ blood on my hands.
Here’s some documentation
in the globalists own words and documents—including those in the Vatican Cult—otherwise known as the Roman Catholic Church:
AMAZING DISCOVERIES DR VEITH RE ILLUMINATI ETC SECRET SOCIETIES:
http://amazingdiscoveries.tv/media/123/211-232K/
My understanding is that the following confirms a lot of the above but I haven’t looked at much of it:
The Secret History of the Jesuits
http://arcticbeacon.com/books/Paris-The_Secret_History_of_Jesuits%281975%29.pdf
Written by a former Jesuit Priest
Thanks.
The one-world religion marches on.
When Jesus returns, will He find faith on the earth?
The Tiber is a muddy, turbulent cesspoll of a river.
Ever been to Lake Geneva? I’ve been there.
Cool, calm and refreshing.
LOLOL. Me, too. Great comparison.
Gasp! Bad, bad news for the Dr. Quickleberx twins!
How fascinating, Dr E . . .
YET AGAIN, THE RC’S ARE FLAUNTING REBELLION AGAINST THE RM’S INSTRUCTIONS
to avoid mangling/distorting FREEPER’S SCREEN NAMES.
WHAT A SURPRISE. NOT.
On the one hand, they !!!!DEMAND!!!! that FR and particularly the Rel Forum
CONFORM TO THEIR THIN-SKINNED SENSIBILITIES AND BE RAN, ESSENTIALLY LIKE AN UNIT OF THE VATICAN.
Essentially—they want THEIR TYRANNICAL AUTHORITARIAN HOGWASH TO RULE THE DAY AND THE FORUM.
Otherwise, they’ll chafe against, sit on the abuse button against and generally rebel against the authority and rules of the exceedingly fair-to-them RM.
Fascinating. What 2 year old duplicitous brats.
BTW, it’s not bad news for me, per se.
It’s bad news for those involved.
It’s sad, to me. However, I’m doing my job as watchman on the wall more or less as well as I know how. Folks who choose to ignore my warnings are their own responsibility, now.
Geez, what happened to the colourful big fonts? Did they too betray ya and convert to dirty old Catholicism?
No.
Sometimes I just don’t bother, for various reasons.
The real problem is that their humor is so lame. If there were some cleverness to it, it might be palatable. As it is, it's just stupid.
The real problem is that their humor is so lame. If there were some cleverness to it, it might be palatable. As it is, it’s just stupid.
Indeed. That’s been one of the bigger inconsequential disappointments over the decade+.
I used to hope for some parity of wit and humor. Sadly, they are seldom even in the same galactic cluster as Proddys.
I guess slugggging & slummmming around in the Vatican Cesspool of dirthy mangled theology, mangled history and mangled pseudo ‘Bible’s likely drains off whatever creativity and humor they may have started out with.
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