When Father Patrick Allen lay prostrate before the bishop for his diaconate ordination on June 29, Allen’s son, Henry, ran up to join his dad.
Posted on 07/20/2013 1:45:48 PM PDT by NYer
It was barely a week into Father Patrick Allen’s new ministry when, in the course of taking his two children to activities in his nonreligious clothes, at least five people asked:
So, what do you do for a living?
Allen smiles graciously, sometimes bringing his hand to his chest in a humble gesture, one that coincidentally shows his wedding band.
“This might begin a long conversation,” the James Island father says.
“I’m a Catholic priest.”
When his daughter, Lucy, goes to Charleston Catholic School next year, she will be the only student whose father comes not only for parent conferences and class parties, but also to celebrate Mass.
Ordained a Catholic priest July 7, Allen joins a small but growing group of former Episcopalians embarking on a new journey, one they hope marks a critical step down the long path to Christian unity.
They have embraced a new option in Catholicism that allows Anglicans to become fully Roman Catholic yet retain elements of their liturgical and theological traditions.
Allen is the second Episcopal priest in South Carolina to join the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, often dubbed the “Anglican ordinariate.”
Pope Benedict XVI created the ordinariate, a non-geographic diocese within the Catholic Church, for groups of American Anglicans who wanted to enter full communion with the Vatican.
The result: Two weeks ago, Allen lay prostrate before the Most Rev. Robert Guglielmone, bishop of Charleston.
Those on hand for his ordination included his closest Anglican mentor and friend, the priest who heads the ordinariate and the once-Episcopalian families joining him to create a new Catholic community.
None asked, What do you do?
Circular paths
What he does today, fresh into his Catholic ministry, completes a circular life’s path.
Allen was raised Catholic in a Florida parish until he was 11. Then, his parents began attending an evangelical Presbyterian church.
Ever fascinated by history, he went to college unsure but with an eye toward teaching history.
He attended a Presbyterian seminary college working on his master’s in divinity, though not seriously considering the ministry, much less the Anglican priesthood. Meanwhile, a friend in Charleston invited him to work at Camp St. Christopher.
Allen served as head counselor and then assistant director of the summer camp for nine years, time that proved pivotal to virtually every front of his life.
He confirmed his desire to teach and mentor.
He fell in love with a young woman named Ashley Duckett, who also worked on the camp’s summer staff.
And he met future mentors such as the Rev. M. Dow Sanderson, a deeply intellectual priest who adhered to an Anglo-Catholic tradition that appealed to Allen.
Allen also discovered the Book of Common Prayer.
“I fell in love with it,” he recalls.
He felt drawn to the sacramental nature of Anglicanism and studied people including John Henry Newman, Anglican priest-turned-Catholic cardinal. Newman famously once said, “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”
Allen also met the Very Rev. Craige Borrett, rector of Christ St. Paul’s on Yonge’s Island who encouraged the young man to consider becoming an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion’s American province.
“I had successfully avoided the idea up to that point,” Allen says with a grin.
The weight of it
At the University of the South (Sewanee) in Tennessee, Allen was immersed in Anglican studies. He hung a picture of Pope John Paul II on his wall.
Looking back, it seems a prophetic choice.
While delivering the benediction at his ordination in 2001, Allen looked out over the masses kneeling before him.
“The weight of it came to me,” he recalls.
A naturally introverted man, Allen put his studies into action.
“Nothing prepares you for getting involved in people’s lives in such very personal and important ways,” he recalls.
Then-Bishop Edward Salmon assigned him to a tiny parish in Calhoun County.
It was the ultimate gift, Allen later realized.
He was near the parish Sanderson led at the time. While some other Episcopal churches were booming with contemporary services, Sanderson adhered to high Anglicanism.
Meanwhile, Duckett, the young woman he’d been dating, went to medical school at MUSC.
They married in 2003. She did her residency at Vanderbilt University. He moved to a parish nearby.
In time, they returned to her hometown Charleston where she joined MUSC’s faculty.
And Sanderson, then rector of Church of the Holy Communion in downtown Charleston, made a place for Allen.
“Holy Communion has a very unique role in the diocese here,” Allen says.
The parish adheres to the tradition of the Oxford Movement, which asserts Anglicanism’s Catholic continuity with the earlier, pre-Reformation church.
It was, in some ways, an oasis in the storm, a like-minded sanctuary to contemplate and teach even as the Episcopal Church faced growing divisions.
New paths
Cracks of schism were widening nationwide over the Episcopal Church’s ordination of an openly gay bishop and other theological issues. Local Bishop Mark Lawrence and many clergy in town supported a more traditional reading of Scripture.
Ultimately, even Holy Communion could not avoid the question.
When Lawrence and most local parishes disassociated from the Episcopal Church last fall, each parish’s leaders had to decide whether to stay with the national church or go with Lawrence’s group.
Yet, for Allen and many at Holy Communion, the choice was a uniquely different one.
Remain Episcopalian, or pursue a larger reunion of Anglicans and Catholics? Pope Benedict XVI had just created the new ordinariate.
“I already knew I would wind up in the Catholic Church,” says Allen, who by then had two young children.
He had settled into a realization that the Catholic Church was what it claimed to be: the church founded by Christ.
At first, he hoped the entire parish would convert.
“But leaving the church they grew up in was not a possibility” for many, he recalls.
Holy Communion remained with the Episcopal Church.
About two dozen members decided on their own to convert to Catholicism. So did Allen.
In a letter to his parish, he wrote: “Mine is a move forward to the Catholic Church, and I am nothing but grateful for my years in the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina.”
Still, it concerns him that the timing could be suspect.
“I didn’t want the fact or appearance of dividing the church and leading people out of there,” Allen says. “Instead, it was a fulfillment of the faith we held.”
At the end of last year, he relinquished his Episcopalian orders and no longer went by “father,” not in the religious sense anyway.
God’s design
Six months later, at his Catholic diaconate ordination, Allen lay prostrate before Bishop Guglielmone. Allen’s 2-year-old son, Henry, ran up to lie down beside his dad.
Someone snapped a photo of the moment.
The picture is, in some ways, a reflection of Allen’s life now. Catholic priest. Father of two. Husband.
“It has worked out the way God designed,” Allen says.
He describes both his former bishop Lawrence and current bishop Guglielmone as gracious and supportive of his move.
He, along with his wife and 19 former Holy Communion members he calls “pilgrims,” were confirmed together last month. They have formed the Corpus Christi Catholic Community, which meets in St. Mary of the Annunciation in downtown Charleston.
When Allen was ordained to the priesthood, Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, head of the American ordinariate, was on hand.
Sanderson and his wife were, too.
“We were so very proud of him as he began this new chapter in his call to serve God,” Sanderson says. “He and I share the same theological core values, and we will always remain close friends.”
Today, Allen is learning the finer points of celebrating Mass and assisting Monsignor Steven Brovey, rector of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. He’s also building Corpus Christi from scratch using a fully Catholic Mass with elements recognizable to any Anglican.
“All things that are good and pure and true in the Anglican church have a home in the Catholic Church,” Allen says.
Pope Benedict compared the ordinariate to building a house and including a room for cherished items from one’s former home.
There’s also a missionary aspect to building Corpus Christi that appeals to Allen.
“It is a seed,” he says. “And my somewhat unique status brings on those questions.”
So, what do you do for a living?
“I don’t believe it...”
Doesn’t matter. It’s true whether you believe it or not.
“I’ll bet there’s lots of young men out there who be married and and Catholic priests as well if it was against the rules...”
Is that Ebonics? Can put that into English?
You need to read something other than Catholic history...There were plenty of anti Catholics from the get go...Peter and Paul are two good examples...
I think you need to find a new religion if you really feel that way.
I agree that this is not a direct survey about the characteristics of child molesters. I’d be interested in a better study too.
I don’t read this particular study the way you do. The part you quote was part of the review of the literature the authors used to assemble their survey questions.
The article shows that the professionals didn’t competely agree with that.
The study itself starts from the hypothesis that
“ students would be more likely to see abusers conforming to the stereotypical characteristics, whereas professionals’ perceptions would reflect characteristics of actual perpetrators.” Given who these people treat IMO that isn’t a bad assumption.
The research you quoted was certainly the basis for questions regarding “items describing potential demographic characteristics of abusers.”
The differences between that study and the impressions of the professionals were married state and educational level.
I'll take peer-reviewed studies that measure the actual thing over a survey that measures folks’ OPINIONS about the thing.
Over the years, I have seen peer-reviewed research that fails to support your bare, unsupported assertion - that the vast majority of child molesters are married men.
I've never seen a peer-reviewed study that directly measures the attribute that supports your unsupported assertion.
As for the opinions of mental health professionals, I'll say this. When I was a student in a clinical psychology Ph.D. program, the concept of mandatory reporting by health professionals of child sex abuse was a hot topic, just starting to gain traction in legislatures. Our professors, to a man and woman, were aghast that anyone would force psychotherapists, or any other health professional, to report child sex abuse.
Interestingly, every single student in my class, whether liberal or conservative, supported such legislation, to the horror of our faculty.
Whose perceptions were better? Students or faculty?
sitetest
I provided the specific Scripture reference. It’s up to you whether you want to read it or not.
I provided the specific Scripture reference. It’s up to you whether you want to read it or not.
Dear sitetest,
In the courses I have taken both for the public school and church positions I have filled, usually the pedophile is a person the child knows — the parent, teacher, coach or youth minister — and most of them seem to be leading a normal life.
So watch out if you know someone (a parent) who might lean this way, coaches the girls’ basketball team, teaches math is high school and is the youth minister!
All parameters need not be present to indicate a pedophile, but the person is a probable entry at the top of the list.
I saw no live links.
Read comment 101 ... slowly.
Tell me, what protestant denomination were Peter and Paul members of? And why they did the Catholic Church make "anti-Catholic" Peter their bishop of Rome?
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
That’s ungodly, God instituted marriage and would not break up a marriage to do His work! It’s goes against His nature, doing something wrong for something right?
No live link that I can click on.
for St. Paul goes on to say that all things created by God are good.
1 Timothy 4
1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; 5 for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. 6 If you put these instructions before the brethren, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, nourished on the words of the faith and of the good doctrine which you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with godless and silly myths. Train yourself in godliness; 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. 9 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance. 10 For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. 11 Command and teach these things. 12 Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 13 Till I come, attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching. 14 Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophetic utterance when the council of elders laid their hands upon you. 15 Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. 16 Take heed to yourself and to your teaching; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I sincerely hope you understand now what a live, clickable link is.
Well then you should be able to do your own survey of the research.
“unsupported”
I would call this an argument from authority since professionals who treat these people are generally considered as such. Actually my assertion was about pedophiles only not those who pursue teenagers. Child molester studies like the one with the characteristics list often mix the populations together.
Your argument is that you don’t recognize the authority of the opinion. Fair enough. But your reason for that is that they’re immoral??? I don’t see how morals (because someone won’t or will report crimes) means they can (students) or can’t (professionals) describe the population that produces the crime.
On reporting sex crimes ....the Catholic Church has defended the sanctity of confession on this very issue. Is it immoral too?
Here is something that might help better understand the *discipline* of priestly celibacy and 1Timothy4:3:
http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/doesnt-1-timothy-43-disprove-the-priesthood
Perhaps you have misunderstood the article. The marriage remains intact except the husband is now also a priest.
Yes, celibate service is good. But “forbidding marriage” for your priests is “demonic.”
Yes, I admit that I see value in reading Scripture. If you want to dismiss that as “YOPIOS,” you’re free to do so at your spiritual peril.
I don't know what you are reading but as far as Theo interpreting scripture, it didn't exist...The scripture posted is plain, clear and straight to the point...No interpretation needed...
1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
1Ti 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
1Ti 4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
1Ti 4:4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
I think the problem is that the scripture is so plain and easy to understand, Catholics have to try to interpret the passages into something they don't mean because it certainly goes right to the heart of the deception of the Catholic religion...
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