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?
Two problems here...You guys claim that Jesus is in the monstrance...Perhaps this priest was bowing to the monstrance...
Trouble is: there's a man between the priest and the monstrance, facing the priest...The priest is clearly prostrating himself to the bishop, as the reporter correctly reports...
When Father Patrick Allen lay prostrate before the bishop for his diaconate ordination on June 29
Maybe the priest figured the bishop was an appearance of Jesus...Isn't that you guys are taught to believe when the priest 'consecrates the host'???
And you ignore the fact that Peter says, 'don't do this'...
Rev 22:8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
Rev 22:9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
Rev 19:10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Your OT examples have nothing to do with NT practices...While OT people bowed to kings who had great power over their lives and priests who were responsible for acquiring their atonement from God, there is only one legitimate King and atonement provider in the NT and that is Jesus Christ...
The Apostles make that very clear...
It is common in many Protestant denominations but they don't bow to the pastor as this priest is bowing to a bishop...
It is very common for these same people to bow to statues of other Catholics...
One can’t have a mother-in-law unless one is married.
Again, Scripture only tells us that Peter was married at one time. If my wife dies and her mother does not, I will still have a mother-in-law. It's a very simply exercise in logic.
Your knowledge of the topic at hand is quite deficient but go ahead and be content in your ignorance.
I think you are misinterpreting the picture.
The prostration indicates the ordinand’s total commitment to Christ and to his ministry as a priest serving Christ.
“We were so very proud of him as he began this new chapter in his call to serve God,”
So God called this fella to be a Protestant priest, and then called him back and said what??? "I'm going to promote you to Catholicism"??? Maybe God didn't really call him to do anything...
So the fact that this guy says he is going to serve God makes him a Christian, eh??? Is that how you guys know you're Christians??? Seems to me Mohammed did the same thing, serve God...Seems the high priests of Mormonism do exactly the same thing...
And I'm the one who has the obtuse mind???
No, we don’t have any way of knowing that because Scriptures don’t give us that information. Its also possible that he took his wife along with him at times according to 1 Corinthians 9:5:
5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife,[a] as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
It is you who is ignorant. Its also possible that Peter took his wife with him at times according to 1 Corinthians 9:5:
5 Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife,[a] as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
One must look at Scripture in light of other Scripture, therefore, avoiding Biblical error by taking one out of context
Revelation 3: 9" I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but are lying—I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you"
We can not put God in box.
The first thing you have to do when reading the bible is 'learn how to read'...And the second thing is to recognize that the 'red letters' represent Jesus speaking...
So let's start over...WHO is having non believers bow before the church at Philadelphia??? The believers in the church??? Nope...It's Jesus having the unbelievers bow...
Has this event ever taken place in the past??? Nope...Is it happening now??? Nope...
Will unbelievers ever bow before the church of Philadelphia??? Jesus said they would...Do you know when this will take place??? Didn't think so...Hello!!!
IMHO, if people who disagree with particulars of Catholicism used their valuable time to try to convert atheists, their time would be better spent.
This is why I rarely post on any religion threads, because the criticism of different sects and denominations gets so bad that I know it is not good for the criticizers; and there are so many atheists or people who supposedly believe in God but have no real faith and need help. Why not spend energy outreaching to them?
I’m not even a Catholic but I respect any sincere Christian and am 100% sure that God does not care one way or another if someone prostrates before a bishop or not. But I am 100% sure that He is not pleased by people spending a lot of energy criticizing the practices of other religions, rather than trying to enlighten those in darkness.
In fact, the strong negative feelings about the Catholic faith really surprised me when I came to FR. I had no idea such existed. It is distasteful in the extreme and does no one any good.
Scripture also makes no mention of Peter's hands...He likely had them at one time, but we don't know if he still had them when he lived with his mother in law...
Why would I want to look there???
Wrong.
Ronnie the Rocket’s post 4, about a period of continence being required, is not receiving the attention that it deserves. Up until the time of St. Pius X, ALL OF THE FAITHFUL in the Latin Rite were expected to abstain from marital relations for three days prior to receiving Holy Communion—the rational may be found described in the Catechism of the Council of Trent under the section on the Eucharist, subsection titled Recipient of the Eucharist, sub-subsection titled Preparation of the Body (if you have the TAN edition, bottom of p. 248). Short version: abstain from food from midnight, abstain from food for three days.
This would preclude daily Mass if one had married priests exercising marriage. It also would require a great deal of mutually agreed to abstinence if at least one party in a marriage wanted to be a very frequent communicant.
While St. Pius X did away with the requirement of a sexual fast for the Latin Rite, he did not alter Canon Law on the matter of clerics, and if canon lawyer Edward Peters is right (and I am persuaded that he is), Canon Law has not been altered on the point. Misunderstood and misinterpreted, but not altered. http://www.canonlaw.info/a_deacons.htm
Peters’ position is detailed, and contains nuances regarding those ordained without knowledge of the law. As I need sleep, I will let him make the case in a way more precise and nuanced than I am capable of.
God invented marriage. It is a good thing. Not an inconvenience, as your denomination posits.
Thanks.
Not according to the picture...And apparently not to Mrs. Don-o...She just posted a list of folks in the OT that showed it was perfectly legitimate to bow to others held in high esteem and religious people...
What’s that??? Your open bible???
I’m certainly no expert on church history, either, and this story caught me by surprise. But, here’s how the pastor at my Roman Catholic church once explained it:
He explained that priests are supposed to model their lives after the life of Christ, and nuns are supposed to model their lives after the life of the Blessed Mother. And that’s why priests and nuns remain celibate.
However, a married man may become a Catholic deacon. Deacons can participate very heavily in the Mass. The deacons at our church sit next to the priest at the altar, serve Communion, and sometimes give the homily.
Yes God does care...You don't spend much time in the bible, do ya???
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