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?
Correction: abstain from food from midnight, abstain from sex for three days.
You seem to lack some basic theological understanding. Belief in the holy trinity is a central core belief of all mainstream Christian denominations, AND accordingly it is a major belief in the Catholic faith.
Since the definition of the holy trinity that God is THREE persons -- Father, Son, AND Holy Spirit -- as ONE God, any Catholic priest who is called to serve God would, by definition, be serving God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit simultaneously.
Mormons and Muslims do NOT believe in the holy trinity. Mormons believe, erroneously, that God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are "three separate Gods", rather than the SAME one true God. Muslims believe, erroneously, that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are NOT God, and reject the idea of a trinity entirely. Thus, a Mormon or a Muslim who says they are "called to serve God" would NOT be doing the same thing as a Catholic who is "called to serve God", and neither the Mormon or Muslim person would necessarily be "serving Jesus" when they are "called by God". Their concept of Jesus and how he relates to God is entirety different than how God and Jesus are defined in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christianity.
You're reading some different Bible then -- mine says we're all one in Christ, not that we're all equal. Ananias and Sapphira weren't equal to Peter when they died for lying to him, and the various people Paul condemns in different places weren't equal to him, and when Hebrews 13 talks about obeying those placed in authority in the church, it's not talking about a relationship between equals.
Heaven is a monarchy, not a republic.
But just between you and me, I think we Catholics know what our ordinations mean, and don't need either you or a reporter to tell us, in any case.
Have you ever actually been to a Catholic ordination? I'm pretty sure you haven't. I have. I think I and other Catholics are better authorities on the ceremonies of our faith than you are.
We consider marriage to be a holy sacrament. The Reformers demoted it to a mere civil contract. Who do you think holds marriage in higher regard?
Personally, I don’t care one iota about your Ordinances. I only care about the living, breathing God and not man-made rituals - whether it be a Catholic church or Protestant one. There isn’t one “true” church - only the body of believers whichever denomination they are in.
So, you keep your ordinances and rituals and I’ll keep my personal relationship with Jesus. Do you think God is impressed with your ceremonies? I doubt that.
And, I’m also sure He isn’t impressed with those who prostrate themselves in front of a mere mortal man. That type of worship is preserved for God and God only. And, whether you like it or not - it does denote worship.
You are equating the sins by those you mentioned as not being equal. Each of those who sinned had an equal place until they chose to ain. Judas was equal to the other apostles until he chose to betray Christ. Then he lost his place. Jesus died for all - not just a few special people.
You do err in some of your conceptions, so you believe your man-made teachings and ordinances, and I’ll continue to believe the Word of God. Every believer born again is called to minister. Minister simply means to serve. It is God who chooses the calling upon an individual.
The five-fold ministry is given to equip the saints. Yes, all believers are called saints - not just a few who are canonized by a church.
I never said heaven was a republic - don’t put words in my mouth.
But the Bible says he had a mother-in-law!!!
Anyway, the fact of the matter is requiring priests to be celibate is a *discipline* of the Catholic Church. It is not doctrine. Since it is a discipline, it *can* change.
However, to change it because of the shortage of priests is ridiculous. The reasons why there is a shortage of priests go much deeper than the fact that they can't marry. There were plenty of times in Church history (*cough* pre-Vatican II *cough*) where there were plenty of priests despite the fact that they could not marry.
Pedophiles are almost always married men (ex: Jerry Sandusky). A married priesthood doesn’t mean there won’t be scandals involving children.
And yet you encourage those in authority to reject marriage for themselves. Your denomination’s doctrines are confused; why else would it deny marriage for your leaders? Jesus’ friend Peter was married.
Does Scripture speak highly of marriage, or lowly of marriage? Sounds like you have little regard for marriage.
Because Jesus and St. Paul encouraged it?
"For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others--and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." -Jesus
"To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" --St. Paul
Do you have a citation for your assertion that, “Pedophiles are almost always married men...”?
In 10 minutes of googling, the only hard statistic I came up with on the question of the marital status of molesters is that 44% of convicted molesters either are or have been married.
http://theweek.com/article/index/221730/pedophilia-a-guide-to-the-disorder
It does say that the vast majority of molesters have or have had sexual relationships with adults, but that's wildly different from saying that the vast majority of molesters are married men.
Other sources either don't give a precise statistic for this category (currently or formerly married men), or lump it in with other categories, or deal with the question so sloppily as to deserve to be ignored.
sitetest
Well, you would if you wanted to be not ignorant and wanted to avoid making stupid comments. Let’s see what you choose. I think I already know.
You make several misleading or mistaken points in your statement: “And yet you encourage those in authority to reject marriage for themselves. Your denomination’s doctrines are confused; why else would it deny marriage for your leaders? Jesus’ friend Peter was married.”
Mistake: “Your denomination’s doctrines are confused;”
Reality: None of this is doctrine. It is a discipline. You apparently aren’t even aware of that.
misleading: “why else would it deny marriage for your leaders?”
Why wouldn’t the Church insist on celibacy for bishops when that was universally done since the early centuries of the Church?
Misleading: “Jesus’ friend Peter was married.”
At one time. We know about his mother-in-law. There is no evidence his wife was still alive at that point. She might have been, but it is irrelevant. Jesus and Paul were unmarried. Later the Church had - universally - no married bishops whatsoever.
Actually last night I wanted to amend my comment that “God does not care” about whether one prostrates before a bishop or not. That was not my real meaning. Here is what I meant:
There are many ways to sincerely express humility and surrender to God, and I have no doubt that He accepts and is pleased by any sincere expression.
Just as a good father in this world is pleased by any sincere attempt by his children to please and serve him, in love. A grown son with a good job might give his father an expensive watch as a gift, and the toddler may pick a handful of wildflowers (complete with roots and a bit of dirt) and both gifts will please the father’s heart, when offered with love.
Is a good father in this world pleased when two of his sons argue and fight and say the other son’s gift is no good? Or if one son tells the other son that he should not offer his gift to their father? Or if one son tells the other - “I’m his favorite son and you’re not because you don’t do things for him my way”? Even a loving and wise (albeit imperfect) father in this world is very unhappy when sons and daughters argue about such things in this world.
How much more so is the Supreme Father displeased when those who believe in Him criticize another believer for worshiping slightly differently than they do.
I’m far from a Bible scholar, but did not Jesus say “In my Father’s house there are many mansions”?
Thank you, lj. Sometimes I wish we could all let the verbal weapons drop, and just go to Our Father and say “We love You. We want so much to do the right thing. We’ll try to be good from now on, Dad!! Thy will be done.”
I know He is pleased by sincere effort, motivated by love. I don’t know much, but I know that.
The story of the Prodigal Son is my very favorite. Show His unconditional love even for the fallen. Gives me such wonderful firm hope and conviction that all will be well, because His love is more powerful than anything.
Welcome home, Father. We are glad you are with us.
You should know, before you do any more responding to me, that I don’t read a word you write any more. I’ve come to understand that you are not worth my time.
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