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.
"A strictly orthodox Catholic has to be a very deft conversationalist to get into most seminaries nowadays."
Or they need to know someone who can prepare them with the "right" answers before they go through the process.
Of course. If I don't agree with you about a changeable Church discipline, I must be a modernist. That's cheap, patent, and you're above that.
You have discussed the issue online with a number of us, and we don't all have that reaction.
FR tends, both politically and religiously, to be further to the right than both the American population and the Catholic population. The fact is, surveys among Catholics, for 25 years, have shown that the American Catholic population favors opening the priesthood to married men.
"Me too. I've often thought about it. But it can put a strain on a marriage."
Think about it again. The divorce rate among deacons worldwide is only about 0.5% - you have a much better chance of your marriage lasting if you become a deacon!!!
;)
Vocations are not growing in the West. The American Church would require over 800 ordinations a year (twice the current number) just to keep up with the loss of priests who leave, die or retire from active ministry.
Vocations are growing in Africa, where no person who works for the Church starves and gets a respectable position in the community.
And the Church wonders why it has so little credibility among Catholics! Replace a priest who leaves to get married with a married priest!
The largest parish in the diocese of Fort Worth (over 6000 families registered) is staffed by a married pastor, a celibate associate, and two married deacons.
"celibate men tend to devote more time to the Lord than married men.
That's very debatable! :^)"
Do you think that its only when you get on the other side of the fence, that you find out how very little most of them actually do?!!!
"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?"
The Vatican's already wise to that one - it takes at least 7 years for a clergyman to transfer rites within the Church!
Permanent deacons are proof that there are plenty of mature married men who will serve the Church. The ONLY things a priest can do that a deacon can't is hear confessions and celebrate the Eucharist. In many parishes, deacons are full time on staff, and often work harder and longer than the priests they serve alongside.
Certain members of the hierarchy tell you that mandatory celibacy is important to the priesthood, but the rationale for requiring it of Latin Rite priests is becoming thin, especially since every other of the 22 rites in the Church allow married men to enter the priesthood.
The lack of vocations has nothing to do with celibacy and everything to do with liberalism. To use a small example, my sister attends a conservative parish in her archdiocese, where the pastor is from Eastern Europe. At this parish, there are no altar girls, almost all boys become altar boys, and the parish has students currently in the seminary. The altar boys are exposed to the priesthood and, as a consequence, think seriously about it as a vocation.
By contrast, far larger and wealthier parishes in the archdiocese produce no vocations, because the boys aren't given the same exposure to the priesthood and never think seriously about it as a vocation.
The pattern repeats itself on a larger scale: more conservative dioceses and orders are blessed with vocations, and more liberal dioceses and orders are not. In fact, conservative candidates expressing an interest in the priesthood are often turned away.
I was thinking more about transferring before seminary. Or are they on to that, too? : )
The priests I work with are good men, but they take very few evening appointments, insisting that they need that time to "read, meditate, and prepare homilies."
We have laymen prepping people for baptism, prepping people for marriage, working marriage cases, and even have a counselor on staff four nights a week. Some days, the priests barely work bankers' hours.
I am not wise enough much less spiritually blessed enough to take a strong position on the abandonment of celibacy.
I can say this, having had the experience of any convert, a married pastor introduces a whole new set of potential problems.
I remember reading about Paul Weyrich, the noted conservative, who wanted to change to the Byzantine Rite and become a deacon. After submitting his request to Rome, he had to wait several years before getting any kind of response at all.
Sure it does. But there are problems with any kind of life. It's just a matter of what kinds of problems the Church is willing to live with.
After his decision to follow Christ, Peter and his wife "became as brother and sister". That was the second model for pristly celibacy, after Christ himself.
That's apocryphal. Are you getting that from the Gospel of Thomas?
A classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Cutting off one's nose to spite the face? etc. ;o)
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