Since I had made solemn promises when I was ordained a priest (or not) in the Episcopal Church (TEC), my departure and renunciation were slow and deliberate.
What pushed me over the edge was this: A bishop, an ordinary, was fool enough to hear the confessions of his high-church clergy, one of whom later turned out to be a child molester. (Ordinaries ought not to hear confessions because it can trash their ability to discipline their clergy. It can tie their hands.)
So at the civil suit of the diocese, the confessions came up. Since the point of the suit was that the diocese knew or should have known about the abuse, the content of the confessions was highly material. The penitent molester gave his permission, but that's immaterial, IMHO.
So the judge ordered the bishop to divulge. He demurred. She threatened to hold him in contempt and to fine him $1k per day. He stalled for time, and asked “815” (TEC headquarters in New York) for backup.
They told him to go ahead and divulge.
Now at least in theory rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) have the force of law, and the BCP is only changed with great work and the votes of two successive triennial general (national) conventions.
And the relevant rubric reads, “The secrecy of a confession is morally absolute for the confessor, and must under no circumstances be broken.”
Very UN-EPiscopalian language: “morally absolute” and “under no circumstances.” So what we had was the headquarters of TEC telling a bishop to break a rubric.
So much for the representative character of the TEC polity. So much for “Vox (Episcopal) populi, vox dei.” It all came down to the illegal decision of the bureaucrats of the Presiding Bishop.
This same Church took the decision to abandon centuries of tradition and ordain women to the priesthood and episcopate as something it could do, did do, and which the people of TEC should accept as authoritative. But the rubric on the secrecy of the confessional was optional?
Not only is there the obvious legal and “authority” problem here, there is a moral problem. At the very least, 815 should promulgate their decision that “morally absolute” means “morally relative” and “under no circumstances” means “under some circumstances”. That way, pious layfolk would know that the confidentiality they had been given to expect was illusory.
Needless to say, that didn't happen either.
So, I wrote a monograph, in the mode of a crank, I suppose. I had enough copies printed for all the clergy of the diocese and handed them out at a diocesan clergy meeting.
I got ONE response.
So I concluded we had an organization that began in a dispute about the authority of the Bishop of Rome, finally dissolving into a group refusing to abide by its own decisions and evidently perceiving none of the responsibilities of taking authority.
Not only that, but in this and all the other transgressions of discipline, TEC was revealed to be a body that declined to bear the burden of apostolic authority. “Believe what you want about gender and sexuality, abortion, the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, the creeds, the nature of Christ, or anything whatsoever,” is the opposite of Apostolic, as much as shrugging is the opposite of a declaration.
For me, it wasn't a matter of leaving one ‘church’ for another because I liked the other more. It was a matter of the church which two times had required of me that I subscribe to or make verbally an oath of conformity — as witnessed by the congregation, which would naturally conclude what was suggested, namely: that I meant to be obedient — expected no conformity from me or from its other clergy. We each were expected to do what was right in our own eyes, and by this incident were shown to conform not even to our own wills but to our whims.
It was conceptually impossible that I had been ordained by a church that intended ordination or, indeed, that intended anything whatsoever!
But specifically, this showed that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the Episcopal “clergy” were FINE with that state of affairs.
(I have been told I am “too reasonable”! Moi! It's not that my arguments were bad, it's that they were GOOD, therefore they should not be listened to or answered!)
So, yes, by all means let us shout and tangle. But the great somnolent mass of adherents to mainstream denominations will not let their slumber be disturbed. In forsaking proper authority, they end up having forsaken ANY authority.
Wow. That's so similar to the conclusion that regularly picks fights with me that it's scary.
It took me a long time, but I finally realized that the only alternative to floating in the murky waters that pass for non-Catholic doctrine really is the the Catholic Church Christ, oddly enough, said He would build on solid rock. The great majority of folks, though, happily float along on their inflated mat of self-absorbsion and to them anyone swimming in search of solid ground is either a distraction or a joke. It doesn't bother them a bit that their doctrine is like Grandpa's Axe and has had the handle replaced three times and the head replaced twice. As long as they're cozy they have no intention of getting off their lovely little personal mat or paying any attention to what they're floating towards.
Only a small percentage are willing to even dip a toe in the water much less abandon their mat and swim off in search of solid ground. That small percentage is desperately needed at the barricades but time spent trying to guide them to solid ground is time not on the barricades and effort that often times is counterproductive. We're up against a very smart opponent, one who frames the battle in a way that pits our attempts to be as wise as serpents against our desire to be as harmless as doves.
Regards
I am too naive then, but then if we don’t do this, I despair that it means giving up.