Posted on 01/04/2005 2:34:33 PM PST by churchillbuff
ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF SCRANTON TO RECEIVE FIRST ECUSA PRIEST
By David W. Virtue
SCRANTON, PA (1/4/2005)--For the first time in the 137-year history of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, Bishop Joseph F. Martino will receive a married former Scranton Episcopal priest and father into the priesthood from the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem.
The Rev. Eric Bergman, an Anglo-Catholic priest at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Scranton's Green Ridge section in the liberal ECUSA diocese, renounced his orders effective December 31st and left the Episcopal Church over the church's acceptance of homosexuality and the consecration of an avowed homoerotic bishop to the episcopacy in the person of V. Gene Robinson.
In a phone call to VirtueOnline Fr. Bergman, 34, and the father of three children said, "I think that the ordination of Robinson is the logical conclusion of the contraceptive mentality. When Lambeth approved contraception for married couples in 1930 they set the stage for the Robinson consecration in 2003. You remove the marital act from its purpose and we bless sterile intercourse. It is not a big jump to bless then sterile homosexual intercourse."
Some 60 parishioners at Good Shepherd will follow the priest and become Roman Catholics. About 275 will remain in the Episcopal parish. The group leaving the Episcopal parish also includes a small group from St. Stephen's parish in Whitehall, the former parish of Fr. William Ilgenfritz, who recently left that parish for a parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
In an open letter to the congregation Fr. Bergman wrote, "The events that have unfolded within the Episcopal Church USA and across the worldwide Anglican Communion can certainly be understood to be a catalyst that precipitated action on my part. That is, the election of an unmarried and unchaste man to the office of bishop demands a response from the faithful, particularly when the institutional response on the part of the Anglican Communion to this innovation has been so feeble. Nevertheless, I now view the incidents of General Convention 2003 as the logical outcome of a flawed orientation that betrays the Anglican Communion’s ability to proclaim the Good News, especially that truth that life comes to us through sacrifice. It is this orientation, ensconced in the teachings of the Anglican Communion for the past 74 years that finally led me to renounce my orders."
Episcopal Bishop Paul Marshall knew I was going to Rome and asked me to write this letter to the congregation on why I was leaving and renouncing my orders, Bergman told VirtueOnline.
Fr. Bergman, a Bethlehem native, will be received into the Roman Catholic Church through a process known as the "Pastoral Provision Decision," and will result in the conversion, priestly formation and potential ordination of Mr. Eric Bergman, a former priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, as a member of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton, said a press statement from the Roman Catholic diocese. Bergman and his wife, Kristina, are the parents of three children, Clara, Eric and Julia, all of whom who will become Catholic.
The Pastoral Provision Decision, rendered in 1980 by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, came in response to a request from the North American Province of the Society of the Holy Cross, a secular institute of Anglican priests, whose married members wished to offer themselves for priestly ministry in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as lay Episcopalians who wished to enter the Catholic Church with a common spiritual and liturgical identity.
In its acceptance of former married Episcopalian clergy as clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pastoral Provision Decision grants a special exception to the Roman Catholic Church's rule of mandatory priestly celibacy. However, the Decision stressed that this particular exclusion "should not be understood as implying any change in the Church's conviction of the value of priestly celibacy, which will remain the rule for future candidates for the priesthood from this group."
"I warmly welcome Mr. Bergman, his family and members of his former lay community on their new faith journey to become Roman Catholic," said Bishop Martino. "We assure them all of our prayers and complete cooperation as they take the initial steps toward full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in the Diocese of Scranton," the bishop stated.
Bishop Martino said that the Diocese of Scranton and Mr. Bergman have taken initial steps to begin the conversion/ordination process established through the Pastoral Provision Decision. The steps include preparation and submission of a dossier, or report, containing required documents which will accompany Mr. Bergman's petition to the Holy See for priesthood and incardination, or service to the Diocese of Scranton.
Fr. Bergman told VirtueOnline that his new congregation will use the Book of Divine Worship published in 2003 in which elements of the Book of Common Prayer are revised and adapted according to the Roman Rite for use by Roman Catholics coming from the Anglican tradition.
On January 2, Bishop Martino announced that Mr. Bergman will become Executive Director of the newly-formed St. Thomas More Society of St. Clare's Church in the Green Ridge section of Scranton. Members of the St. Thomas More Society of St. Clare's Church will provide for the temporal needs of Mr. Bergman and study with him in preparation to enter the Catholic Church. Mr. Bergman said that membership in the St. Thomas More Society is open to all former Anglicans or Episcopalians.
To date, the Holy See has permitted the ordination of a number of former Anglican or Episcopal priests who have become Catholic in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain.
Episcopal Bishop Paul Marshall was in Africa and could not be reached for comment.
I didn't say they were, did I? I said the men made a choice of one over the other, and that is a true statement. You know it. These men were told they could have one or the other. First, they chose the priesthood. Then they changed their minds and chose marriage. It may be that what they really want is both, but they aren't currently offered that option, and they did in fact make a conscious choice of one over the other.
It is true that the Church doesn't have to force them to choose, but the fact is they do. I personally agree with the Church's reasons for doing so.
>>>>> Lay Catholics, by and large, no longer value celibacy in their priests the way they once did, especially when they see married men performing clerical duties.
Some lay Catholics anyway. Obviously you don't speak for all of us, and even for committed American Catholics, I'm not sure the "by and large" is accurate.
You view the issue from an secularized American lens (or modernist Catholic if you prefer that term), and you make the all to common mistake of thinking the rest of the world agrees with you. I don't think that's a warranted assumption.
>>>>Oldironsides reaction is the reaction of every other Catholic I've ever had this discussion with.
You have discussed the issue online with a number of us, and we don't all have that reaction.
patent
>>>Hope you had great holydays.
No, but I had a blessed Christmas. ;-) Hope you did as well.
patent
In the early 80's I considered being a Catholic priest, but I wanted to marry as well, so I left the Catholic religion altogether. Had I known about this loophole, things may have turned out different.
If that's the question you are asking, you have no business recruiting for a Church. Being a priest isn't about girl friends, its about service and dedication to God.
This is a huge part of the problem. Here in the West everything is about sex. We (and you in your posting) treat the priesthood in terms of who they are sleeping with (or not sleeping with) but that is far outside what a priest is.
As human beings, we are not limited to our sexuality. We are not defined by our sexualality, contrary to what the valueless liberal lobby and the secular left wants you to believe. So long as you buy into their style of thinking, that we must consider sexuality first, then by definition you can't understand celibacy or a true priesthood.
Its a vocation, not a dating club. Treating it like the latter gives rise to all manner of problems as we've recently seen.
patent
>>>>>>The Maronite right is typically practiced in a less sex obsessed society than the US.
So, are you suggesting that becuase our society is obsessed by sex, that our Church must be too? That because our society is corrupt, that we must let our priests marry? I'd suggest the opposite, myself. We ought not let a corrupt society take control of the Church.
patent
>>>The only vocation in the Catholic Church that is growing is the one that accepts mature married men as candidates.
That isn't true. I've cited these statistics to you before, and you have long been on notice that priestly vocations in the Church are growing. You never care to remember that.
patent
You are accusing him of overstating his case (which is probably a fair accusation), but then you do the same. How can you know what these priests were called to? Discerning a vocation isn't something where most people can readily look at the man and say this one is called to this or that. Unless you have a special gift for reading souls, I'm left to assume you are merely reading the sad state of affairs today and making an assumption.
However, that assumption is unwarranted. A man may have sinned by having an affair while in the priesthood -- as so many of our now married priests did. These sins do not mean that he didn't have a vocation, just that he didn't life up to it. If I were to have an affair and cheat on my wife, would that mean I hadn't been called to the married life? Of course not. My sins do not change what my vocation was.
Like you I see the current sad state of affairs and make guesses about things. I see the number of late vocations, men who had a career they are now leaving to enter the seminary, and I think that for a time so many men were called, but ignored it, or missed the signs. Now, they are starting to hear the call, and returning. But I can't know that for sure, its just a guess.
We cannot know how many men were called to the celibate priesthood. Only God can know that.
patent
>>>My reference was a bit over the top, but I happen to believe that the vast majority of 24 year old men are too immature to commit to celibacy, and the attrition rate of men who are ordained at that age proves my contention.
Immaturity can certainly be a factor, but it is not the only factor so the attrition rate does not, by itself, prove your claim about the vast majority. Poor formation, a secular culture that the priests are tossed into, and poor spiritual guidance, all things far to prevalent in modern seminaries, can obviously play a role as well.
patent
">>>Hope you had great holydays.
"No, but I had a blessed Christmas. ;-) Hope you did as well."
Are not Christmas through the Epiphany holydays? ;-)
sitetest
Yes. You are, however, making one big mistake. You are taking me too seriously. Almost as seriously as I usually take myself. Its not worth it, trust me.
Oh, and I had to work through a couple of those holy days, so they weren't all great.
God bless,
patent
Dear patent,
"Yes. You are, however, making one big mistake. You are taking me too seriously."
So you think. ;-)
"Oh, and I had to work through a couple of those holy days, so they weren't all great."
Better to have too much work than not enough.
It's good to see you here once in a while.
sitetest
Very well said! Many people agitate against the celibate priesthood because they assume, together with many in our increasingly corrupt society, that sexual pleasure is the highest good of human existence. They hate the celibate priesthood for the same reason they hate the Church's teachings on human sexuality.
The celibate priesthood has served the Roman Catholic Church well for centuries. There is no need to abandon it now.
That's very debatable! :^)
That's almost like saying celibate men are more holy than married men. Besides... I know many retired clergy that work part time. Is the service they perform, because it is not 24/7, any less of a good for the Body of Christ? Of course not! And to say that anything other than celibacy is less, is to mock those thousands of married clergy both past and present. Someone posted that this is a discipline. Absolutely...and disciplines can change. The Eastern rites kept the old way -- optional celibacy. The Latin rite could revert and its something that should be open to debate amongst the magisterium.
Deacon Francis
He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.
You and I have been of like mind regarding optional celibacy in the Latin rite for many years, my friend. Considering how many rites with optional celibacy are still in communion with Rome, however, why shouldn't men with vocations both to the priesthood and to marriage simply change rites? That way, the Latin rite in America could simply relax its stranglehold on the other rites' exercise of optional celibacy without relaxing its own discipline of mandatory celibacy.
Why should you or I trust their interpretation of Scripture. Shouldn't I go by the Bible alone?
The not-so-subtle point I'm driving at is that the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church has been replaced by another tradition.
Not that there may not be a lot of truth in the Augsburg Confession. I've never read it. But you get my point.
Amen brother.
Needs to be said again.
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