Anglican Converts To Catholicism

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Catherine_W

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If you have converted from the Anglican or Episcopalian church to Catholicism, could you please list some of your reasons why? Especially if they deal with how you came to believe the Churches teaching on infallibility, Mary, the Saints, and the history of the Reformation. My fiancé is attending RCIA currently and he is an Anglican. These are some of the issues that he is having a hard time with. Please please, if you have any information to offer on these topics we are in great need of your advice. Or if you could recommend any good books/ conversion stories especially focusing on Anglican converts to Catholicism. Thank you.
 
Catherine_W said:
If you have converted from the Anglican or Episcopalian church to Catholicism, could you please list some of your reasons why? Especially if they deal with how you came to believe the Churches teaching on infallibility, Mary, the Saints, and the history of the Reformation. My fiancé is attending RCIA currently and he is an Anglican. These are some of the issues that he is having a hard time with. Please please, if you have any information to offer on these topics we are in great need of your advice. Or if you could recommend any good books/ conversion stories especially focusing on Anglican converts to Catholicism. Thank you.
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I did, but I don’t have time to post right now. Search the archives. There’s tons of info on these beliefs. And the catholic.com website has tons of tracts on these issues as well.

Briefly, why did I leave the Episcopal Church? The final straw was Prophet Gene. BUT, really it comes down to the Episcopal/Anglican Churches were founded in the 16th century by someone who got miffed because the Pope didn’t grant him an annulment. Of all the reasons… And if you open your heart, you will find that the Catholic beliefs your fiance is dealing with are all quite biblical.

So look around…
 
The simple answer is…I came for the authority; I stay for the Eucharist. 😃

I believe the Anglican communion is falling apart because they do not have a clear teaching authority. Let’s be honest, King Henry had laughably flimsy reasons for this schism. If you believe that the church for 1500 years was true why couldn’t you believe it remained so.

So once I had a clear understanding of history I could no longer remain Anglican. But please do not think this was easy…I was sick to my stomach when I realized that I would have to convert if the CC was true.

It wasn’t until after our Confirmation that I experienced consolation in the CC. Now I couldn’t imagine living without the sacraments and sure teaching of this beautiful Church. :cool:
 
John_Henry said:
Briefly, why did I leave the Episcopal Church?.. BUT, really it comes down to the Episcopal/Anglican Churches were founded in the 16th century by someone who got miffed because the Pope didn’t grant him an annulment.
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If you are an ex-Episcopalian you should know that the above is a gross oversimplification.
 
Catherine_W said:
If you have converted from the Anglican or Episcopalian church to Catholicism, could you please list some of your reasons why? Especially if they deal with how you came to believe the Churches teaching on infallibility, Mary, the Saints, and the history of the Reformation.
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The Reformation had almost nothing to do with it – at least not in any direct way.

Infallibility was easy. Anglicans believe in Apostolic Succession. At one point the idea of the papacy seemed an inevitable point (Mt. 16:18). I asked myself, *If you have Apostolic Succession, and Peter is **not *in your house of bishops, what kind of game are you playing?

Since the Communion of Saints is something we affirmed in the Apostles Creed, I had no problem with that. We had statues of Mary, St. Joseph, and St. Anthony of Padua in our Church. We invoked the Saints, and the Prayer Book itself commemorates the feasts of the Apostles and Evangelists as well as St. Michael the Archangel. My Parish also observed many of the pre-Reformation saints’ days (viz. St. Anthony of Padua above).
My fiancé is attending RCIA currently and he is an Anglican. These are some of the issues that he is having a hard time with. Please please, if you have any information to offer on these topics we are in great need of your advice. Or if you could recommend any good books/ conversion stories especially focusing on Anglican converts to Catholicism. Thank you.
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Reading John Henry Newman’s Apologia pro Vita Sua and Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine pushed me across the Tiber.
 
John_Henry said:
Yes, I know. There’s also the lust for the Church’s money to be accounted for.
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It seems like Anglicans have to answer this question as often as Catholics have to respond to the charge that they worship Mary.

Yes, Henry VIII’s split with Rome came out of the Pope’s refusal to grant him an annulment, which Henry needed for dynastic reasons. The Pope’s decision was based, at least in part, on the fact that Katherine of Aragon who was the daughter of the Spanish Monarch. The Papacy’s political interests were tied closely to those of Catholic Spain. I understand that there were at least decent theological reasons to allow an annulment…if political considerations were ignored. After the break, the English Church was as Catholic as the Catholic Church minus the Pope. However, you then had the effect of the Reformation on the Church and the Anglican Church became reformed. After the restoration of Catholicism when Mary (a/k/a “Bloody Mary” for killing over 300 protestants) took the throne, the Church again became Catholic. When Mary died and Elizabeth took the throne, the Church returned to the Protestant fold. However, the “Elizabethan Settlement” moved the Anglican Church to a position somewhat in between the Catholic positions and Protestant positions, and between the Calivinist and Lutheran positions. The resulting compromise (or ambiguity if you choose) became known as the Via Media or middle way. This is an oversimplified history of the process, but much more accurate than the picture that you painted.
 
Aplogia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman comes to mind…as long as you can make it through to the concluding chapters! 😃
 
  • “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”*
    - John Henry Cardinal Newman, Anglican minister turned Catholic Cardinal.
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:tiphat:
 
Thanks! I will definitely read Aplogia Pro Vita Sua by John Henry Newman.
 
Hi, I’m a recent convert from the Episcopal Church.

If he wasn’t focused on problems in the Anglican Church it won’t do any good for anyone to point them out now. Focus on the positives as best you can. I didn’t care for it when the sister that ran my RCIA thought she knew something about the Episcopal Church, most of what she thought she knew was wrong.

I really didn’t care for my RCIA experience. And, I resisted the idea that I needed to be confirmed again. Eventually I got to the point that I wasn’t really being asked to renouce my confirmation, but surrender and say… ok let’s do it again. I also accepted that I didn’t have to have every single thing completely worked out. Some issues could be “a work in progress”, provided I was open.

One idea that did trip me up was that a priest could confirm, with the bishop’s permission, at the Easter vigil. Confirmation in the Anglican tradition is only by and through the bishop.

I also don’t like lay people in street clothes administering communion. At least put on an alb! And, having lay people in and out of the tabernacle is weird. I guess I’m still a work in progress on those. lol

The best part was afterwards when a whole new world opened up and I felt myelf be a part of the original church for the first time. It is great to be “home”.

I hope you can pray for him and support without pressure. And, if he isn’t ready now, let that be ok and trust the Lord to work it out as he wills.

Best wishes for your happiness
Fred
 
John_Henry said:
I did, but I don’t have time to post right now. Search the archives. There’s tons of info on these beliefs. And the catholic.com website has tons of tracts on these issues as well.

Briefly, why did I leave the Episcopal Church? The final straw was Prophet Gene. BUT, really it comes down to the Episcopal/Anglican Churches were founded in the 16th century by someone who got miffed because the Pope didn’t grant him an annulment. Of all the reasons… And if you open your heart, you will find that the Catholic beliefs your fiance is dealing with are all quite biblical.

So look around…
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Well…the Pope/divorce thing is partially true. I think the reality had more to do with general political aspirations and borader desire to control the complete politcal life in Britain.

In any case I have a chart showing a tree and Anglicanism as the 3rd main branch in Christianity (Roman Catholicism and Orthodox being the other two). Then various off shoots from them. Anglicans see themselves as the English church and part of the church going back to teh times of the apostles. Again, from an Anglican point of view the Papal delcaration of Anglican roders as invalid had more to do with politcs and political expediency. England was overhwelmingly Anglican and one of the World’s most powerful nations militarily and culturally for a long time. Having declared tehir orders as valid could have caused the Catholic Church some problems through presenting a powerful alternative for Westerners. The Orthodox Church did not present that threat due to the much vaster cultural gulf.

North
 
Hi Catherine, he was arguably the most influential convert to the Roman Catholic Church in recent times…probably the most important convert from the Anglican Church. Like I said, the first roughly 3/4 of the book was very dense for me, but when he finally got to his ultimate reasons for entering the Church my jaw dropped when I was reading it. It seems like it would be a relevant read for you. 👍
 
RevDrNorth said:
Well…the Pope/divorce thing is partially true. I think the reality had more to do with general political aspirations and borader desire to control the complete politcal life in Britain.

In any case I have a chart showing a tree and Anglicanism as the 3rd main branch in Christianity (Roman Catholicism and Orthodox being the other two). Then various off shoots from them. Anglicans see themselves as the English church and part of the church going back to teh times of the apostles. Again, from an Anglican point of view the Papal delcaration of Anglican roders as invalid had more to do with politcs and political expediency. England was overhwelmingly Anglican and one of the World’s most powerful nations militarily and culturally for a long time. Having declared tehir orders as valid could have caused the Catholic Church some problems through presenting a powerful alternative for Westerners. The Orthodox Church did not present that threat due to the much vaster cultural gulf.

North
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Didn’t they lose the validity of their Holy Orders when King Edward VI changed the wording and intent of the Ordination ceremony from “priest of God most high” to “minister of word and sacrament?”

I understand that the wording has been changed back, but were there any validly ordained Bishops available in the Anglican Church to use it, by the time it got corrected?
 
jmcrae said:
Didn’t they lose the validity of their Holy Orders when King Edward VI changed the wording and intent of the Ordination ceremony from “priest of God most high” to “minister of word and sacrament?”

I understand that the wording has been changed back, but were there any validly ordained Bishops available in the Anglican Church to use it, by the time it got corrected?
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Yes, but the main reason why they lost their holy orders was because they did not intend to carry out the Catholic faith (they chose to preach the protestant religion). You have to have intent to be ordained, like marrige. By 1600 I imagine the last of the valid Priests were dead. However, nowadays the shismatic Old Catholic Churches (pretty much a club for ex-priests and wacky intellectuals) started to assist in ordinations of anglican ministers so some actually are valid. The former anglican bishop of london converted to catholicism about 15 years ago, he did not have to be re-ordained because he was ordained by an old catholic bishop.
 
John_Henry said:
Apologies for that… that was most certainly snotty…
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Don’t worry about. I suspect that cashing in on the Catholic Church’s land and treasury in England may not have been a factor in why Henry VIII split from the Church, but it was certainly a “convenient” consequence of the split.
 
rr1213 said:
Don’t worry about. I suspect that cashing in on the Catholic Church’s land and treasury in England may not have been a factor in why Henry VIII split from the Church, but it was certainly a “convenient” consequence of the split.
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I have heard it estimated that from 30% to half of the GNP was channeled to Rome via the monastic land holdings. I think any head of state would be cranky about that!

Now back to your regularly scheduled topic.
 
jmcrae said:
Didn’t they lose the validity of their Holy Orders when King Edward VI changed the wording and intent of the Ordination ceremony from “priest of God most high” to “minister of word and sacrament?”

I understand that the wording has been changed back, but were there any validly ordained Bishops available in the Anglican Church to use it, by the time it got corrected?
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The Vatican has said that the orders are invalid because of deficiencies in form and intent. As noted, the problem with form may have been corrected. Truthfully, I’ve never been able to wrap my small brain around the reasoning cited by the Vatican or the counterpoints raised by Canterbury.

papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13curae.htm

ucl.ac.uk/~ucgbmxd/saepius.htm
 
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