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Anglicans and Catholics -
Do They Really Want Us?
Do We Really Want Them? Really?
Originally published in E-Leaven, October 27, 2009, Issue 17

Editors' note: We at Leaven want to thank long-time contributor Dennis Kennedy for his typically outrageous piece on the recent announcement from Rome about allowing Anglicans to move to the Roman side of the aisle. It has awakened us from a recent travel and sickness induced slumber, and leads us to add a few further comments on Rome’s action. As always we welcome your thoughts and responses.

You Sure You Want a Piece of This?
by Dennis Kennedy

I wondered if anything could ever make me write for Leaven again. I am a practicing and happy Irish Catholic attending an Episcopalian parish, allowed to lector, commune and preach at some services, which I can’t do in Roman circles because I left the Roman priesthood and married. The continuing rollback by restorationist neo-cons of Vatican II – of the Council’s changes in the liturgy, in lay/female roles of power, in reducing clericalism and liberating religious life -- these I regretted, of course, but I saw them as par for the course, and tried not to respond emotionally. But the article in the Oct. 21st Denver Post titled “Angling for More Anglicans” certainly caught my attention.

Seems the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger’s old slot, has made it “easier” for disgruntled Anglicans to go whole hog and cloth over to Rome. Cardinal William “Wild Bill” Levada, not too long ago the bishop of that king-maker diocese, Portland OR, wants to lasso more Anglican mustangs into the Roman corral. Although I am perfectly gruntled with women priests and bishops, “out” gay or lesbian clergy presiding at worship and touching the Real Presence, more conservative Anglicans can work up a real froth at these possibilities, going so far as to align their individual parishes, break-off churches or whole dioceses, with more “traditional” African bishops (assuming that you count misogyny and homophobia as tradition). Oh, my.

There is certainly much to gain for Anglicans joining with Rome, especially under the new Wild Bill dispensation. They can join the Catholic Church while retaining “aspects” of their Anglican liturgy and identity, including married priests. Levada even was courteous enough to inform the Archbishop of Canterbury about the new policy “hours” before it was announced, which continues the neo-con approach to ecumenism: roughly “Have it Our Way” unless you are schismatic traditionalists or politically opportune fundamentalist zealots.

In the interest of full disclosure, however, I thought it best to inform dissident Anglicans edging toward the Roman nest What Else might be in this enticing curial packaging. Yes, your priests can be married when they enter, but you’d better check the fine print if they sorrowfully become a widower and think they can marry AGAIN. Forget divorce. Same for Anglican deacons, none of which, of course, can be women. Regardez liturgy, you’d better hide those beloved Books of Common Prayer from whatever year you revere, and kiss goodbye to the King James; can you spell “Tridentine”? Brush up on your Latin ablatives, padre. And speaking of kings, you may rethink former oaths to any royal thrones other than Peter’s, and trade out that old Union Jack for a Papal Flag in the sanctuary. Get ready as well for some big swallows of certainty and infallibility from the Big Bishop with the Biggest Hat. Don’t expect to be consulted, it only makes the guys in the back room nervous. Oh, and all your priests may have to be re-ordained the right way. Stop reading theologians we haven’t approved of, and start praying to John Fisher and Thomas More. And admit that maybe you killed Joan of Arc.

Finally let’s talk about sex, shall we? The following deeds are subject to spiritual capital punishment without exception or mercy: sex outside of Catholic marriage; sex inside marriage if not open to conception; co-habitation before or without marriage; family planning using “artificial” birth control like the pill, condoms or vasectomy; masturbation of any kind or even thinking about it. Of course gay sex is wildly verboten, and lesbians, as Monty Python might say, are right out.

So after you enter these holy halls, you can back up the Halloween Hell Bus for most high school and college students, the majority of adults in the pews, and we will also issue boarding passes to select clergy and religious.

Welcome, make yourselves to home. Don’t cut your tongue on the hosts, and here’s your new box of envelopes.


Two Way Streets, Married Men (Not Women), and Tant Pis for Ecumenism
by John Kane

Given how atwitter the blogosphere is with comment on Rome’s invitation to dissatisfied conservative Anglicans to cross-over the aisle, I thought I’d add my “two-cents,” though it actually will be three.

First, I wish someone beyond the number counters would start writing about the reverse phenomenon – that some of our most educated and active Catholics are joining Anglican/Espicopal Churches (hereafter just Episcopal or Episcopalian). Kennedy himself is but one example of many I’ve known in recent months and years. Given Rome’s continual efforts to tighten the reins, its fearless willingness to alienate anyone with the least reformist inclinations, and its bending over backwards to placate traditionalists of all sorts, I’d be surprised if the number of Catholics going to Episcopal Churches isn’t quite large. We know (from those very bean counters) that one-in-ten adult Americans (citizens or US residents) is now an ex-Catholic. One in ten Americans! That’s a staggering number, a staggering reality. And my bet is that many of those have ended up Episcopalians. Sure, many are joining new or unofficial “Catholic” churches. Others are becoming Buddhists or finding other more personal forms of spiritual practice. And some are simply joining the ranks at the Sunday morning coffee-shops. But one-in-ten is, I think (I’m no good at numbers), more than thirty-million people. Some of them must be joining Episcopalian ranks, and probably not the ranks of the dissatisfied conservative Episcopalians.

Second, for years I’ve made the bet that Rome would ordain married men long before it ordained women (though I believe that eventually that will and should happen too). So the big news for Catholics in this invitation to Episcopalians is that it’s another crack in the supposedly iron-clad celibacy dike. I say “supposedly” because one hears rumors and some data about many unofficial exceptions to the rule, not only in Africa and other “mission cultures,” but also in rural and other enclaves in Europe and the rest of the developed world. Priest shortages, damage control, and cultural pressures will eventually break the dike – the only betting should be on when.

Finally, welcome to real ecumenism – real concern for the unity of God’s People. It’s no news that the Anglican communion worldwide is suffering severe tensions and divisions. Not something that should warm our hearts as we watch Christian sisters and brothers struggle openly with issues dividing most of us. So how did Rome decide to help? By inviting Episcopalians to become schismatics from their own church. Of course that’s not how it’s presented. We’re just opening the doors of the one true church to those seeking it. Yet we’re continually told that Rome is so politically savvy and tactful. Some tact. Of course it may end up actually helping those who remain Episcopalian – both by dumping some of their schismatics on us, and by encouraging the rest to work together against the clutching specter of Roman power – not a new fear for Episcopalians. Yet such fears and such actions can only weaken the worldwide hope for Church unity – at least short-term. But I don’t sense that such (citizens or residents of the US)! hope hasn’t actually been shared by Rome for some long time now, pious rhetoric notwithstanding.

Oh well, the Spirit blows where it wills. Our task is to try once again to determine where the true Spirit is blowing.

 

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