Former Episcopal priest grateful to Pope for Catholic ordinariate

cna ^ | December 8, 2012 | Kevin J. Jones

[NYer]

Former Episcopal priest Larry Gipson. CNA file photo.

Houston, Texas, Dec 8, 2012 / 01:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Former Episcopal priest Laurence Gipson, who became Catholic in October, says his reaction to the Catholic ordinariate for former Anglicans is one of “gratitude.”

“The ordinariate, I think, is a wonderful opportunity for people like me, Anglican clergy and Anglican laity, who are seeking Catholic faith,” he said.

On Jan. 1, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI established the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter to allow Anglican and Episcopalian groups in the U.S. to become Catholic as groups, not only as individuals. It follows the Pope’s November 2009 apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum coetibus,” which authorized the creation of the special church structures.

Gipson, a 70-year-old native of Memphis, Tenn., said he is grateful to Pope Benedict for establishing the ordinariate. He said it is “advancing the cause of unity in the Church.”

“It offers Anglicans a way to affirm the Catholic faith, that is, a way to affirm orthodox or right belief, while at the same time being able to worship God and practice the Christian life according to the Anglican tradition and patrimony,” he told CNA Dec. 7.

“The Catholic faith and Anglican use are a great combination,” Gipson continued. “Catholics have welcomed us warmly. They’ve extended the right hand of fellowship to us, and I’m really grateful for that.”

Gipson and his wife Mary Frances were received on Oct. 28 into the Catholic Church at Houston’s Our Lady of Walsingham Church through the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

He was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1971. He served as rector of the Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, Tenn. and was dean of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Ala.

For 14 years before his retirement in February 2008, he served as rector at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas. The church’s parishioners include former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush.

Gipson and his wife have been married for 48 years. They have two adult children and two grandchildren.

He said he was drawn to the Catholic faith in part because of the Church’s “clarity” in teachings and the “unity of faith amongst the faithful.”

“What I yearned for and sought was a more centralized understanding of authority, the magisterium, the teaching authority, which could much more quickly and much more definitely interpret scripture and decide on the faith when it was in dispute and settle those issues.”

Gipson said Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, the head of the U.S. ordinariate, and the theology faculty of the University of St. Thomas were among those who helped him become Catholic.

“My hope is to be ordained to the priesthood of the Catholic Church,” Gipson said. “I would like to practice that priesthood in any way that’s useful to the ordinariate.”

“I’ve been a parish priest all of my life in the Episcopal Church, for 42 years,” Gipson said. “That’s where my enthusiasm is, at the level of the parish, teaching and preaching, pastoral ministry.”

There are at least 69 candidates for the Catholic priesthood undergoing formation for possible ordination in the ordinariate. The ordinariate has ordained 24 priests since its launch in January. Many of them are married men ordained under a special dispensation in place since 1983.

Gipson said he is “deeply grateful” for his 58 years in the Episcopal Church

“The clergy and the people of the Episcopal Church gave me and my family more in the way of acceptance and support and generosity and love than we could ever have imagined or have deserved,” he said. “Each day serving was a blessing. It prepared me for, and gave me a yearning, for the Catholic Church in its fullness in all aspects of Christ’s Church.

The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion have faced much controversy in recent decades over the interpretation of Scripture, the ordination of women as priests, Christian sexual morality and other issues.

“I see the controversies as an outcome of the nature of authority in the Anglican Church and the Anglican Communion,” Gipson said. There are 34 provincial churches in the communion which are autonomous.

“Without a magisterium to interpret and define the faith, what Anglicanism relies on is dispersed authority rather than centralized authority,” he added.

“What I realized of course is that the Anglican tradition about authority is a part of the identity of Anglicanism, and Anglicanism does not wish to change that manner of authority,” Gipson explained. “The Anglican Communion wishes authority to be dispersed. I decided that I could not ask Anglicanism to change its identity for me, so I was the one that had to do the changing.”

He asked Catholics to show “patience” towards new members of the ordinariate and the Catholic Church.

“We’re just learning how to be good Catholics and there’s a lot to learn,” he said.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Wow. Here’s history everyone in the church should know and (gulp) learn from. Beware Communist Christians.

[Albion Wilde]

Very interesting post, certainly reflecting the liberal viewpoint from Rev. Zahl. I also enjoyed the book review of One Nation, Under God?, although I could not get your link to work. I linked it again (above).

[Albion Wilde]

Beware Communists posing as Christians, at any rate. I do wish our Christian clergy would become more aware and preach accordingly of the distinction between sharing with the poor out of one’s conscience, and being forced by taxation to share with causes designated by “Caesar.”

[Cronos]

You are correct about Heidegger’s role. That, tied in the earlier Prussian Union was what made the non-Catholic Church tied in to the state as practically a department of first the RPrussian kingdom and then the German Empire. The subversion of this in the inter-war years lead directly to the utter lack of belief in northern Germany today. I know a lady pastor in training who is German and training to be a Lutheran pastor — but what I found really funny is that she is training to be one here in Warsaw, Poland. Studying to become a Lutheran pastor in Catholic Poland? I asked her that and she said that the community here (all 3000 of them) are among the most pious and religious in all the Evangelico Augsburgu denomination and the seminary is orthodox!)

[Cronos]

I wonder how one can say The Roman Catholics never joined, but the Orthodox churches did. The continuing failure to involve the Roman Catholic Church, the decline of liberal Protestantism in numbers and money, and the rise of unecumenical evangelical Protestantism and Pentecostalism in the southern hemisphere were realities too substantial for the ecumenical movement to overcome. Ecumenical unity among the churches will have to wait for another day

I haven't looked at it this way, more seeing that the mainline denominations went so far away from conservative values that Catholicism and evangelicals couldn't conceive "uniting" with them in reality

[Cronos]

interesting point about Judaism and how the Holocaust perversersly intensified the feeling of being a nation. Well, I would add in the 19th century twin events of the rise of nationalism and Russian pogroms. So many Jews became Germans, Russians, poles, English etc. etc. assimilating completely and others asserted their nationalism.

the Nazis forced even Jews who had become assimilated into other nationalities to be regarded as Jews alone. This, horrible, unforgiveable offense enhanced and boosted Jewish identity as you correctly pointed out

[Cronos]

A nice point about this discussion is that we are not in "oh, let's blame group xyz and forget about the problems in our own" -- as a Catholic it would be easy and wrong for me to do this -- as a whole we must recognize the common enemy. We have differences, sometimes severe, but if we allow, say for instance the UMC to go down the way of the ECUSA, we harm ourselves

With the ECUSA for instance, this has legitimised the entire gay marriage, abortion as a right etc. to the point that people ask the others why they are not doing the same as the ECUSA.

Fighting a common enemy is critical at this point.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Upon rising this AM, I find that North Carolina (Supreme Court?) has declared a “Choose Life” license plate to be “Unconstitutional”. How can a Choose Life message be unconstitutional anywhere? What have the Marxists wrought?

What if a driver applies for a Vanity plate that reads CHUZLIF. Would that also be declared Unconstitutional?

How can a country founded upon the idea that every person has the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness declare a vanity plate that says Choose Life to be Unconstitutional?

[afraidfortherepublic]

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/judge-rules-choose-life-license-plates-violate-the-first-amendment

More on the “unconstitutional” pro life vanity plate. It was a Federal Judge. He ruled that NC could not offer Choose Life plates unless they also offered Choose Death plates (or support abortion). (How would you like to be caught on the highway next to a car that said “Choose Death”?)

It seems that we are being governed by insanity much of the time.

[afraidfortherepublic]

I do wish our Christian clergy would become more aware and preach accordingly of the distinction between sharing with the poor out of one’s conscience, and being forced by taxation to share with causes designated by “Caesar.”

Isn't that the truth! But I think that some of them fail to see the difference.

[redgolum]

There have been rumors of undercover agents infiltrating the Church at large.

And then there were a large number of pastors/priest who got into the vocation for reasons other than a calling.

[ArrogantBustard]

(How would you like to be caught on the highway next to a car that said “Choose Death”?)

It would be refreshingly honest ... as is, we must infer from the (Carter|Mondale|Dukakis|Clinton|Gore|Kerry|0bama) bumper-sticker that the driver is an unrepentant death-eater.

[Albion Wilde]

Fighting a common enemy is critical at this point.

Absolutely.

[Albion Wilde]

(How would you like to be caught on the highway next to a car that said “Choose Death”?) It seems that we are being governed by insanity much of the time.

Truly. I recently phoned a local company that sells hearing aids and told them not to send any more junk mail because no one in this household needs a hearing aid. They sent a letter in reply saying they could not remove us from their list unless we are registered with the national Direct Marketing Association Do Not Mail list.

Thing is, we ARE registered with the national Direct Marketing Association Do Not Mail list. It's just that the hearing aid company spelled our name wrong. Now we have to re-register under the misspelled name; and when that list is pirated, we will receive even more junk mail under that name, et cetera.

It's a downward spiral of waste and ignorance.