Why Don't "Traditional Anglicans" Become Catholic

[GKC]

The problem is that Anglicans never really did define themselves. The 39 Articles were part of Elizabeth’s State Church and the compromise. From day one it was a part of the Anglican ethos that diversity was perfectly fine and that administration was really horizontal instead of vertical. The episcopacy is loose and free in Anglicanism and, as a result, you see little discipline and a ton of eclectic spirituality. Any denomination designed to be a compromise religion is going to end up like this.

I tend to agree with you that the 39 Articles are the closest thing Anglicans have to a creed, a code, a set of beliefs. The Articles reject elevation, adoration, reservation of the Sacrament, and they mock purgatory, ‘invocation’ of saints, indulgences, and other Catholic beliefs. The Articles also have a watered-down and vague ‘spiritual’ rendition of the Real Presence.

I left the Catholic Church as a young man for the then-Episcopal (now Anglican, thank God!) Church here in the more conservative Central Valley. I didn’t really realize what I was jumping into. As I grew more fascinated and interested in theology, I realized that I believed in saints, elevation, reservation, transubstantiation, and could not be an Anglican because the 39 Articles went against my grain here and there.

I have never understood the Tractarian Oxford Movement too much myself. I think Newman was right to bail and become Roman Catholic because he was 99% there already anyway?

In my experience, I took the 39 Articles to be the normative definition of what an Anglican actually is. I looked at them, agreed with some points, but by and large disagreed with too many of them to, in good conscience, remain and Anglican. Add to that the chaos, lack of discipline, idiocy of having female priestesses, and tolerance of an insane heretic like Spong spewing his disgusting grime, and I was “outta there.”

I tend to agree that the 39 Articles are the closest thing to what it means to be an Anglican but I see GKC’s point that they aren’t binding to Anglicans in that Anglicans don’t seem to “bind” themselves to much of anything? I don’t mean that in an insulting way. I just notice that there is such a lack of uniformity of belief from everything from Mary to the Eucharist to even the BOCP.

In Anglicanism everyone’s priorities are so vastly divergent? I ran into a woman at the grocery store who still goes to the ‘conservative’ (remember “conservative” in Anglicanism is the liberal in a Roman parish) Anglican parish that I used to attend. That parish just broke in two. The left-leaning hippie contingent remained Episcopal, the more orthodox-leaning (I emphasize “leaning”) stayed with the parish. I told her how crazy it is that some of the “conservative” people who stayed still want women clergy and she replied, “Oh I’m perfectly fine with female priests, I just remained because the Episcopal Church is toying with the idea of changing the prayer book! I won’t stand for that!”

I found it perplexing that she would be fine with breaking 2,000 years of firm, common-sense, intelligent, sacred beliefs in the priesthood, sanctioning priestesses (total heresy) and yet she was incensed, furious, because the Episcopal Church planned on modifying the prayer book?? Priorities…

I also remember a guy at our old church who went up for communion every week. At coffee hour he’d tell me how stupid it was that the Episcopal Church taught Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. “I’m a Unitarian!” he’d tell me. “I don’t believe any of that hocus pocus.”

That only reinforced my agreement about closed communion that the Catholic Church teaches. Why have a unitarian who rejects all of your doctrine sharing in the cup that signifies a common, united belief in what the Church is?

My point in all this is that, as GKC has so often and nicely pointed out, Anglicanism is hard to define, pin down, or understand at times. when you say, But just do us Anglicans who faithfully follow the Anglican Way a favour; please don’t claim to be and call yourself Anglicans. that statement makes little sense to me in that you are judging folks for not keeping to an ‘orthodoxy’ that isn’t there? And it’s also the first time I’ve heard an Anglican admonish others to hit the bricks if they don’t tow a specific doctrinal line. In Anglicanism there is not line to tow? And the 39 Articles have become more a piece of history in the prayer book than a centerpiece of their orthodox norms. I respect your devotion and respect of the articles. I respected them at the time enough to disagree and leave them. But many Anglicans out there don’t even agree with half of them or any of them and many Anglicans disregard them completely.

True. And just who would enforce such a norm, across the 38 independent jurisidictions of officil Anglicanism, and all the cats and dogs around the edges. From the time that the CoE, which had the only (theoretical) legal (since Erastian) authority to enforce doctrine, spun off its independent children, it’s every parish for its self. Chose the XXXIX, pick a sample, ignore them. Who do you think is going to start the auto-de-fe? The gracious Katherine? Cantaur?

GKC

*Anglicanus Catholicus *

 

[kotek]

I tend to agree with you that the 39 Articles are the closest thing Anglicans have to a creed, a code, a set of beliefs. The Articles reject elevation, adoration, reservation of the Sacrament, and they mock purgatory, ‘invocation’ of saints, indulgences, and other Catholic beliefs. The Articles also have a watered-down and vague ‘spiritual’ rendition of the Real Presence.

I left the Catholic Church as a young man for the then-Episcopal (now Anglican, thank God!) Church here in the more conservative Central Valley. I didn’t really realize what I was jumping into. As I grew more fascinated and interested in theology, I realized that I believed in saints, elevation, reservation, transubstantiation, and could not be an Anglican because the 39 Articles went against my grain here and there.

I have never understood the Tractarian Oxford Movement too much myself. I think Newman was right to bail and become Roman Catholic because he was 99% there already anyway?

In my experience, I took the 39 Articles to be the normative definition of what an Anglican actually is. I looked at them, agreed with some points, but by and large disagreed with too many of them to, in good conscience, remain and Anglican. Add to that the chaos, lack of discipline, idiocy of having female priestesses, and tolerance of an insane heretic like Spong spewing his disgusting grime, and I was “outta there.”

I tend to agree that the 39 Articles are the closest thing to what it means to be an Anglican but I see GKC’s point that they aren’t binding to Anglicans in that Anglicans don’t seem to “bind” themselves to much of anything? I don’t mean that in an insulting way. I just notice that there is such a lack of uniformity of belief from everything from Mary to the Eucharist to even the BOCP.

In Anglicanism everyone’s priorities are so vastly divergent? I ran into a woman at the grocery store who still goes to the ‘conservative’ (remember “conservative” in Anglicanism is the liberal in a Roman parish) Anglican parish that I used to attend. That parish just broke in two. The left-leaning hippie contingent remained Episcopal, the more orthodox-leaning (I emphasize “leaning”) stayed with the parish. I told her how crazy it is that some of the “conservative” people who stayed still want women clergy and she replied, “Oh I’m perfectly fine with female priests, I just remained because the Episcopal Church is toying with the idea of changing the prayer book! I won’t stand for that!”

I found it perplexing that she would be fine with breaking 2,000 years of firm, common-sense, intelligent, sacred beliefs in the priesthood, sanctioning priestesses (total heresy) and yet she was incensed, furious, because the Episcopal Church planned on modifying the prayer book?? Priorities…

I also remember a guy at our old church who went up for communion every week. At coffee hour he’d tell me how stupid it was that the Episcopal Church taught Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. “I’m a Unitarian!” he’d tell me. “I don’t believe any of that hocus pocus.”

That only reinforced my agreement about closed communion that the Catholic Church teaches. Why have a unitarian who rejects all of your doctrine sharing in the cup that signifies a common, united belief in what the Church is?

My point in all this is that, as GKC has so often and nicely pointed out, Anglicanism is hard to define, pin down, or understand at times. when you say, But just do us Anglicans who faithfully follow the Anglican Way a favour; please don’t claim to be and call yourself Anglicans. that statement makes little sense to me in that you are judging folks for not keeping to an ‘orthodoxy’ that isn’t there? And it’s also the first time I’ve heard an Anglican admonish others to hit the bricks if they don’t tow a specific doctrinal line. In Anglicanism there is not line to tow? And the 39 Articles have become more a piece of history in the prayer book than a centerpiece of their orthodox norms. I respect your devotion and respect of the articles. I respected them at the time enough to disagree and leave them. But many Anglicans out there don’t even agree with half of them or any of them and many Anglicans disregard them completely.

Well what you see as “Anglican” in the US and the UK is not the Anglican Way, it is Apostacy. MOST of the Anglican Communion is conservative and orthodox, especially in Africa. African Anglicans alone actually outnumber Anglicans/Episcopalians in the US and UK combined. We aren’t even talking about the Anglicans in the rest of the Global South and Southern Cone. No my friend what you see in the US is not Anglicanism but Apostacy.

I am a member of the new legitimate emerging Anglican Province in the US and Canada; the Anglican Church in North America. We are conservative and orthodox. It is true that some of those who comprise the ACNA have Womens Ordination, BUT they have halted all new Ordinations and will not ordain anymore Women.

My own part of the ACNA; the Reformed Episcopal Church never did ordain Women and never had any plans to do so.

If you want to know what the Anglican Way is I will tell you. The Bible as Primary, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer or the REC Book of Common Prayer or the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. The 39 Articles of Religion and the Books of Homilies written by the Anglican fathers. Anything outside of that is optional as long as it does not contradict any of the former.

 

[GKC]

Well what you see as “Anglican” in the US and the UK is not the Anglican Way, it is Apostacy. MOST of the Anglican Communion is conservative and orthodox, especially in Africa. African Anglicans alone actually outnumber Anglicans/Episcopalians in the US and UK combined. We aren’t even talking about the Anglicans in the rest of the Global South and Southern Cone. No my friend what you see in the US is not Anglicanism but Apostacy.

I am a member of the new legitimate emerging Anglican Province in the US and Canada; the Anglican Church in North America. We are conservative and orthodox. It is true that some of those who comprise the ACNA have Womens Ordination, BUT they have halted all new Ordinations and will not ordain anymore Women.

My own part of the ACNA; the Reformed Episcopal Church never did ordain Women and never had any plans to do so.

If you want to know what the Anglican Way is I will tell you. The Bible as Primary, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer or the REC Book of Common Prayer or the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. The 39 Articles of Religion and the Books of Homilies written by the Anglican fathers. Anything outside of that is optional as long as it does not contradict any of the former.

I fear that your isolation in the ghetto that +Cummins placed you (REC, that is) in, in 1873, is coming to an end, depending on how the ACNA actually works out. It will include the usual historical spectrum of Anglicans: the Compromise reborn. If the thought that some Anglican, one with which you are in communion, is observing auricular confession, or Benediction, or singing the Angelus (for example) cause you to hyperventilate, I’d check my blood pressure medicine. Will the use of the term “priest” bother you? It bothered +Cummins. Are you still using the table? I ask these things because I know that the REC has taken a very few small steps back from the edge.

Anglicanism is wider that the narrow band you live in. That’s why that little band existed, for 120+ years; to isolate it from the remainder of Anglicanism. But apparently it’s about to reenter the wider word. It may be a shock.

Maybe c&p, next time.

GKC

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Well what you see as “Anglican” in the US and the UK is not the Anglican Way, it is Apostacy. MOST of the Anglican Communion is conservative and orthodox, especially in Africa. African Anglicans alone actually outnumber Anglicans/Episcopalians in the US and UK combined. We aren’t even talking about the Anglicans in the rest of the Global South and Southern Cone. No my friend what you see in the US is not Anglicanism but Apostacy.

I am a member of the new legitimate emerging Anglican Province in the US and Canada; the Anglican Church in North America. We are conservative and orthodox. It is true that some of those who comprise the ACNA have Womens Ordination, BUT they have halted all new Ordinations and will not ordain anymore Women.

My own part of the ACNA; the Reformed Episcopal Church never did ordain Women and never had any plans to do so.

If you want to know what the Anglican Way is I will tell you. The Bible as Primary, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer or the REC Book of Common Prayer or the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. The 39 Articles of Religion and the Books of Homilies written by the Anglican fathers. Anything outside of that is optional as long as it does not contradict any of the former.

While I don’t agree with the 39 Articles, I respect you for being orthodox to your denomination and holding fast to what you believe to be the truth. I am merely pointing out that many Anglicans don’t believe those articles were binding. Heck, some dioceses like Syndey, Australia, don’t even respect holy orders and let LAY PEOPLE celebrate the Eucharist! My point is much like GKC’s, that Anglicanism is so eclectic that there is no one definition of it out there. The 39 Articles seem like a compass or starting point for some Anglicans, not code.

To give you one other example, my old rector at my former parish showed me this pseudo-tabernacle called, I believe (correct me if I’m wrong!) an Ambry (sp?). I asked him if the Eucharist was reserved there and he said, “yes, it sure is. We keep it here if the Host needs to be taken to a shut-in or someone in the hospital, etc. We haven’t always had one and many Anglican churches never had an Ambry because of the 39 Articles, against reservation. It could cause the abuse of adoration. Now we use it simply for this so things have changed a bit.”

I noticed how he trashed the 39 Articles on one hand but then respected them on the other? He also admitted implicitely (though he’d NEVER admit it being more evangelical and not a lover of Catholic spirituality in the Roman sense) that maybe Anglicanism has come around when it comes to reservation of the Host. ‘Maybe we were wrong’ was his general tone. But he did throw in that the adoration of the Host is an “abuse.” I found that interesting.

And yet the bishop, Bishop John David Schofield, of the Anglican diocese here, has discussed first-hand Eucharistic miracles he’s encountered and he loves High Church spirituality to the point that he lived in an Orthodox monastary for several years in the Bay Area.

Anglicanism is a tough animal to define so I’m simply saying that it’s tough for you to admonish your fellow Anglicans when they don’t see the Articles as the source from which to admonish anyone. Hope that makes sense?

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I really hate to rain on this parade, but eventually women’s ordination looks like something Anglicanism cannot run from, especially in this new North American province. And I say that with sadness because I DETEST women’s ordination for so many reasons. It’s absurd.

However, I have spoken with a very conservative CANA bishop recently (name withheld to protect his privacy) and he told me that Pittsburgh Diocese and CANA are going to continue to ordain women and that each diocese/member of the province will respect each other in this issue.

In my old parish, which is usually considered “conservative” and is part of the “conservative” San Joaquin Diocese, women priests are not allowed at this time******* Even Bishop Schofield still ordains women as deacons, women deacons are all over this diocese, and “conservative” seminaries like Nasthotah House ordain women like crazy. The AMIA was smart enough to reverse their position on this issue and no longer ordain women. In a world dominated by feminism, political correctness, “progressive” thinking, and the whole man vs. woman mentality (anything you can do I can do better! LOL) and without a central authority like the papacy, do you really think this will hold in North America? Maybe for ten, fifteen, who knows, years, but eventually it will happen here I think.

Like I said, I hear a lot of sympathy for female priests, even in my old parish! And I’ve spoken with higher-ups in my old diocese of San Joaquin, priests close to the bishop, and they say that eventually it will happen.

If it happens to San Joaquin, what will keep the folks of Fort Worth and Quincy and the others from eventually doing it? And if they DON’T accept it, the alternative would be more splintering and breaking off.

I share GKC’s pessimism about this province really. Tough sell.

 

[GKC]

I really hate to rain on this parade, but eventually women’s ordination looks like something Anglicanism cannot run from, especially in this new North American province. And I say that with sadness because I DETEST women’s ordination for so many reasons. It’s absurd.

However, I have spoken with a very conservative CANA bishop recently (name withheld to protect his privacy) and he told me that Pittsburgh Diocese and CANA are going to continue to ordain women and that each diocese/member of the province will respect each other in this issue.

In my old parish, which is usually considered “conservative” and is part of the “conservative” San Joaquin Diocese, women priests are not allowed at this time****** Even Bishop Schofield still ordains women as deacons, women deacons are all over this diocese, and “conservative” seminaries like Nasthotah House ordain women like crazy. The AMIA was smart enough to reverse their position on this issue and no longer ordain women. In a world dominated by feminism, political correctness, “progressive” thinking, and the whole man vs. woman mentality (anything you can do I can do better! LOL) and without a central authority like the papacy, do you really think this will hold in North America? Maybe for ten, fifteen, who knows, years, but eventually it will happen here I think.

Like I said, I hear a lot of sympathy for female priests, even in my old parish! And I’ve spoken with higher-ups in my old diocese of San Joaquin, priests close to the bishop, and they say that eventually it will happen.

If it happens to San Joaquin, what will keep the folks of Fort Worth and Quincy and the others from eventually doing it? And if they DON’T accept it, the alternative would be more splintering and breaking off.

I share GKC’s pessimism about this province really. Tough sell.

In addition to the doctrinal issues, I’m hearing much buzz on the consitution and canons, not positive at all.

For all that I respect Iker, Akerman, Schofield and Duncan, they represent the best of what the TEC could offer. What they are going to build is…the TEC. Quincy, Fort Worth, San Joaquin are weighted Anglo-Catholic. But it’s an Anglo-Catholicism that has lived with the modernists for 30 years, and it has no spine.The principled opponents left 30 years ago, and are fractured across the Continuum. And they are aged.

Ah, well.

GKC

 

[kotek]

I fear that your isolation in the ghetto that +Cummins placed you (REC, that is) in, in 1873, is coming to an end, depending on how the ACNA actually works out. It will include the usual historical spectrum of Anglicans: the Compromise reborn. If the thought that some Anglican, one with which you are in communion, is observing auricular confession, or Benediction, or singing the Angelus (for example) cause you to hyperventilate, I’d check my blood pressure medicine.

I have no problem with Auricular Confession, its making it mandatory on everyone under pain of being in sin if one chooses to confess directly to God and in the General Confessions in Daily Morning and Evening Prayer and at Holy Communion instead. The Anglican rule has been that those who may be troubled by a particular habit or sin may avail themselves of formal Confession to a Presbyter or Bishop. The old Anglican saying about Auricular Confession is : “Some should, none must, all may”.

If an individual wants to do the Angelus as part of their own personal piety I have no issues with that, its when the Church formally does it that I object to. The same goes for Benediction. The only public worship for an Anglican is Daily Morning and Evening Prayer and Holy Communion on Sundays, according to the historic Book of Common Prayer.

Will the use of the term “priest” bother you? It bothered +Cummins. Are you still using the table? I ask these things because I know that the REC has taken a very few small steps back from the edge.

I have no objection to “Priest” as long is what is meant is what it originally meant; a shortened term for the office of “Presbyter”. But if what one means by “Priest” is a reference to one who offers continuous sacrifices to God then I most certainly do object.

Yes we use a Table, Altars have been done away with after Our Lord Jesus made his One Sacrifice and Oblation so there is no need for an Altar in a Christian Church, only a Table where we partake of the Eucharist and receive Sacramentally the benefits and Grace of that One Sacrifice and Oblation once offered on the Altar of the Cross.

Anglicanism is wider that the narrow band you live in. That’s why that little band existed, for 120+ years; to isolate it from the remainder of Anglicanism. But apparently it’s about to reenter the wider word. It may be a shock.

Maybe c&p, next time.

GKC

 

[GKC]

While I don’t agree with the 39 Articles, I respect you for being orthodox to your denomination and holding fast to what you believe to be the truth. I am merely pointing out that many Anglicans don’t believe those articles were binding. Heck, some dioceses like Syndey, Australia, don’t even respect holy orders and let LAY PEOPLE celebrate the Eucharist! My point is much like GKC’s, that Anglicanism is so eclectic that there is no one definition of it out there. The 39 Articles seem like a compass or starting point for some Anglicans, not code.

To give you one other example, my old rector at my former parish showed me this pseudo-tabernacle called, I believe (correct me if I’m wrong!) an Ambry (sp?). I asked him if the Eucharist was reserved there and he said, “yes, it sure is. We keep it here if the Host needs to be taken to a shut-in or someone in the hospital, etc. We haven’t always had one and many Anglican churches never had an Ambry because of the 39 Articles, against reservation. It could cause the abuse of adoration. Now we use it simply for this so things have changed a bit.”

I noticed how he trashed the 39 Articles on one hand but then respected them on the other? He also admitted implicitely (though he’d NEVER admit it being more evangelical and not a lover of Catholic spirituality in the Roman sense) that maybe Anglicanism has come around when it comes to reservation of the Host. ‘Maybe we were wrong’ was his general tone. But he did throw in that the adoration of the Host is an “abuse.” I found that interesting.

And yet the bishop, Bishop John David Schofield, of the Anglican diocese here, has discussed first-hand Eucharistic miracles he’s encountered and he loves High Church spirituality to the point that he lived in an Orthodox monastary for several years in the Bay Area.

Anglicanism is a tough animal to define so I’m simply saying that it’s tough for you to admonish your fellow Anglicans when they don’t see the Articles as the source from which to admonish anyone. Hope that makes sense?

I don’t try to define it. But I know it when I see it.

If it’s an ambry in the traditional sense, it should be built into a wall, like a small cupboard. Ambries could be used, as Tabernacles, or could function to hold sacred vessels, etc, near the altar. The first one I saw was in the wall behind the altar at the former Anglican Use parish in town.

GKC

 

[kotek]

I really hate to rain on this parade, but eventually women’s ordination looks like something Anglicanism cannot run from, especially in this new North American province. And I say that with sadness because I DETEST women’s ordination for so many reasons. It’s absurd.

However, I have spoken with a very conservative CANA bishop recently (name withheld to protect his privacy) and he told me that Pittsburgh Diocese and CANA are going to continue to ordain women and that each diocese/member of the province will respect each other in this issue.

In my old parish, which is usually considered “conservative” and is part of the “conservative” San Joaquin Diocese, women priests are not allowed at this time****** Even Bishop Schofield still ordains women as deacons, women deacons are all over this diocese, and “conservative” seminaries like Nasthotah House ordain women like crazy. The AMIA was smart enough to reverse their position on this issue and no longer ordain women. In a world dominated by feminism, political correctness, “progressive” thinking, and the whole man vs. woman mentality (anything you can do I can do better! LOL) and without a central authority like the papacy, do you really think this will hold in North America? Maybe for ten, fifteen, who knows, years, but eventually it will happen here I think.

Like I said, I hear a lot of sympathy for female priests, even in my old parish! And I’ve spoken with higher-ups in my old diocese of San Joaquin, priests close to the bishop, and they say that eventually it will happen.

If it happens to San Joaquin, what will keep the folks of Fort Worth and Quincy and the others from eventually doing it? And if they DON’T accept it, the alternative would be more splintering and breaking off.

I share GKC’s pessimism about this province really. Tough sell.

While I share those concerns as well I think it perhaps a little premature to be so negative. I know one thing, if this Anglican Province fails I can almost say with certainty that I will NEVER return to the Roman Church.Not unless it would be as an RC that like so many in that Church both lay and academic simply don’t accept many things Rome teaches, especially about the Papacy IE Papal Primacy, Infallibility, Purgatory, Confession, Indulgences, etc

 

[GKC]

I fear that your isolation in the ghetto that +Cummins placed you (RECc, that is) in, in 1873, is coming to an end, depending on how the ACNA actually works out. It will include the usual historical spectrum of Anglicans: The compromise reborn. If the thought that some Anglican, one with which you are in communion, is observing auricular confession, or benediction, or singing the Angelus

 

[GKC]

While I share those concerns as well I think it perhaps a little premature to be so negative. I know one thing, if this Anglican Province fails I can almost say with certainty that I will NEVER return to the Roman Church.Not unless it would be as an RC that like so many in that Church both lay and academic simply don’t accept many things Rome teaches, especially about the Papacy IE Papal Primacy, Infallibility, Purgatory, Confession, Indulgences, etc

Why would you need to consider Rome. In the event of failure (and I expect it, and if not, I expect you’re not going to like what you find, anyway), wouldn’t the REC merely return to business as usual?

GKC

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

While I share those concerns as well I think it perhaps a little premature to be so negative. I know one thing, if this Anglican Province fails I can almost say with certainty that I will NEVER return to the Roman Church.Not unless it would be as an RC that like so many in that Church both lay and academic simply don’t accept many things Rome teaches, especially about the Papacy IE Papal Primacy, Infallibility, Purgatory, Confession, Indulgences, etc

I had no idea that you were formerly Roman Catholic to begin with? Interesting. Did you leave because of the papacy, indulgences, etc.?

Confession is actually in the Book of Common Prayer. Auricular Confession is optional, of course, in the prayer book, but there nevertheless. I’m sad to hear that you’re an opponent of it. I just went to confession at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Cathedral in San Francisco yesterday. As always, it’s a wonderful experience. Even if you don’t believe, as I do, that confession is the continual forgiveness of sins by Christ through a priest, it is full of positives and I cannot think of a negative. I always walk away from confession feeling empowered by Christ, more determined than ever to avoid the occasion of sin, and I love hearing that pronouncement by the priest, in persona christi, from Christ Himself, that I am forgiven. Confession also helps us to want to avoid certain sins, to make ourselves aware of our weaknesses, and even the undesirability of admitting our sins at times helps us to avoid them. I’d be interested to hear why you left Catholicism. That NEVER in caps seems a bit angry! lol

 

[kotek]

I had no idea that you were formerly Roman Catholic to begin with? Interesting. Did you leave because of the papacy, indulgences, etc.?

Confession is actually in the Book of Common Prayer. Auricular Confession is optional, of course, in the prayer book, but there nevertheless. I’m sad to hear that you’re an opponent of it. I just went to confession at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Cathedral in San Francisco yesterday. As always, it’s a wonderful experience. Even if you don’t believe, as I do, that confession is the continual forgiveness of sins by Christ through a priest, it is full of positives and I cannot think of a negative. I always walk away from confession feeling empowered by Christ, more determined than ever to avoid the occasion of sin, and I love hearing that pronouncement by the priest, in persona christi, from Christ Himself, that I am forgiven. Confession also helps us to want to avoid certain sins, to make ourselves aware of our weaknesses, and even the undesirability of admitting our sins at times helps us to avoid them. I’d be interested to hear why you left Catholicism. That NEVER in caps seems a bit angry! lol

I left the Roman Catholic Church after doing a lot of historical research, reading and studying the early Church, the Early Church Fathers, the Bible, Theology and a lot of Prayer to the Holy Spirit to show me the truth NO MATTER where it led, if anything I had a bias that the Roman Catholic Church was right. Nonetheless I was still open to the truth and had what some term “a teachable spirit”. The more I studied and prayed the more I saw that Rome was wrong on so many things. I also noticed that when I read or listened to Roman Catholic Apologists I saw that they constantly quoted the Early Church Fathers out of context, use poor and/or questionable Biblical Hermeneutics to distort what the Bible says and simply twist history to “prove” Rome right no matter what the real facts and truth is. So I am a little upset still sometimes because I was lied to by people who should be teaching the truth but who distort the Bible, History, the Early Church Fathers to prove Rome right at all costs.

 

[Padrej]

I AM a former RC and the reason I am no longer RC is BECAUSE those things like Purgatory, Marian Dogmas simply are not true. While I like C.S.Lewis he does not speak for what Anglicans have historically and Biblically held to.

I am afraid you are mistaken about the 39 Articles. The 39 Articles were meant to be binding on all originally. What the CoE does these days is irrelevant. In my humble opinion the reason the Anglican Way is in such confusion these days is BECAUSE they have denigrated the 39 Articles as a standard for belief.

The new North American Province, The Anglican Church in North America has seen this and we ARE making the 39 Articles the Gold Standard for Doctrine.

The last mention about “Benediction and Adoration” well the Articles CLEARLY address that:

From Article 25:

**The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried
about, but that we should duly use them. And in such only as worthily receive the
same, they have a wholesome effect or operation: but they that receive them
unworthily, purchase to themselves damnation, as Saint Paul saith.

**

What many Anglicans of today do is tke Article 25 from a wooden literal translation. IF they studied “Bicknel’s Theological Introduction to The 39 Articles of The Church Of England” they would see that this article has NOTHING to do with the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament but rather relates to the practice of taking the peice of host home for later consumption. This book for years was also used as the “gold standard” in the Anglican world for teaching what the articles were about.
In Bicknel’s mind there were persons who were coming to church only to watch the “priest magic” at the consecration, thus the “gazed upon” part of the article. The rest of the article speaks to who must recieve, “those worthy”; it used to be the practice to do what we called “fence the altar” by giving an exhortation about reciving communion in an unworthy manner, these exhortation are printed in the older prayer books are were to be read by the priest as a warning to the faithful.
If you weren’t supposed to “carry about” the sacrament, how could you carry pre consecrated elements to the sick??? The same “low churchmen” who quote artcle 25 as being against adoration of the sacrament or “cookie worship” as they like to call it, are the same ones who carry about pre consecrated elements to the sick. Talk about being a hypocryt.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I don’t try to define it. But I know it when I see it.

If it’s an ambry in the traditional sense, it should be built into a wall, like a small cupboard. Ambries could be used, as Tabernacles, or could function to hold sacred vessels, etc, near the altar. The first one I saw was in the wall behind the altar at the former Anglican Use parish in town.

GKC

That’s it. Like I said, Father James called it an ambry. It comes out of the wall almost like a little depository at a drive-through pharmacy or bank. It wasn’t behind the altar but in a little chapel adjacent to the main church.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

What many Anglicans of today do is tke Article 25 from a wooden literal translation. IF they studied “Bicknel’s Theological Introduction to The 39 Articles of The Church Of England” they would see that this article has NOTHING to do with the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament but rather relates to the practice of taking the peice of host home for later consumption. This book for years was also used as the “gold standard” in the Anglican world for teaching what the articles were about.
In Bicknel’s mind there were persons who were coming to church only to watch the “priest magic” at the consecration, thus the “gazed upon” part of the article. The rest of the article speaks to who must recieve, “those worthy”; it used to be the practice to do what we called “fence the altar” by giving an exhortation about reciving communion in an unworthy manner, these exhortation are printed in the older prayer books are were to be read by the priest as a warning to the faithful.
If you weren’t supposed to “carry about” the sacrament, how could you carry pre consecrated elements to the sick??? The same “low churchmen” who quote artcle 25 as being against adoration of the sacrament or “cookie worship” as they like to call it, are the same ones who carry about pre consecrated elements to the sick. Talk about being a hypocryt.

Are you, I take it from your post, a High Church Anglican?

 

[jlhargus]

I speak for myself only, worship in an Anglican church, and have a love of both the Roman and Anglican churches (even if some in both of them do not love me). Tradtional Anglicans already are Catholics; so are Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and all who adhere to the Apostles’ Creed. If Catholicism means submission to the Roman popes and not belief in the Apostles’ Creed, was the Church of Rome not Catholic in the interregnums when there was no reigning pope; was it more Catholic during the doleful period when there were three popes? At the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), the apostle Peter, more concerned with the Faith than personal prestige, deferred to James, the Bishop of Jerusalem. When Peter proposed the election of a successor to Judas (Acts 1), he did not act unilaterally; election was by a general vote. Peter was an apostle; bishops were appointed by apostles. Did Peter appoint himself a bishop, Bishop of Rome? And why not Bishop of Antioch, where he first sojourned?

If catholic means “universal,” are the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption found in the universal Apostle’s Creed ? Are they necessary to faith in the Risen Christ? Is papal infallibility really a criterion of Catholicism? It was unknown to the apostolic church and not accepted by Cardinal Newman and Lord Acton, two very prominent adherents of the Church of Rome at the time of its proclamation. It was not accepted by the Old Catholics either.

Perhaps Catholicism is too big a concept to be defined by one church or one system of church government. Perhaps the real question is: “Why do some Catholics, Roman and non-Roman, have such a sectarian view of Catholicism?” Why all the emphasis on who is in charge? Is that more important than the Gospel? We are all, Catholic and Protestant. called to proclaim the Good News of the Risen Christ: to love God and our neighbour as ourselves. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

Thank you, Catholic Answers, very sincerely and respectfully, for this opportunity to speak something of my faith to other Catholics. The service you provide to the Church is a recognition that we are all Christians first, with a common mission, whether we “are of Paul or Apollos or Cephas.” And we are more likely to succeed in our mission by learning from each other, working together, and loving each other. Might I suggest that therein might be found the one true church?

Philip Bitsco

JL: You are mistaken in your remarks, however you have proved your point. Your are a Protestant only.

 

[Padrej]

Are you, I take it from your post, a High Church Anglican?

Actually I am NOT a High Chuch Anglican, I respect those who are. I am Mostly a Low churchman, BUT I have served a High Church Parish so I know the “dance.”
Many find it curious that I have relics and a monstrance on my PERSONAL altar; not to mention that I have a colection of over 40 Orthodox Icons.
For a short time I ressurrected the old 5 wound chaplet and produced them for a RC supplier and got and enprimitur from Cardinal Keeler for this.
It pains me to see persons who claim Jesus as Lord and Savior allow such things as “I am Catholic” or “I am Protestant” to come between us. I do not feel this is how the Lord would have us to behave.
It makes me joyous to see when the Roman Catholic Church opens its doors to be eccumenical and we start to break down the barriers that are between us. At these events it is also eye opeing to see that Anglicans are SOMETIMES permitted to concelebrate mass. I have been a part of one of such events. I remember When Pope John Paul II met with the Archbishop of Canturbury George Carrey and concelebrated with him, the ground breaking event that was. I am still shocked when I see His Holiness in a Cope covered with Canturbury crosses that was taken for publicity at the altar to Canturbury Cathedral.

I guess what I am trying to say is we need to find our common ground and THEN the differences will become trivial and will be worked out in a far easier manner.

 

[GKC]

Actually I am NOT a High Chuch Anglican, I respect those who are. I am Mostly a Low churchman, BUT I have served a High Church Parish so I know the “dance.”
Many find it curious that I have relics and a monstrance on my PERSONAL altar; not to mention that I have a colection of over 40 Orthodox Icons.
For a short time I ressurrected the old 5 wound chaplet and produced them for a RC supplier and got and enprimitur from Cardinal Keeler for this.
It pains me to see persons who claim Jesus as Lord and Savior allow such things as “I am Catholic” or “I am Protestant” to come between us. I do not feel this is how the Lord would have us to behave.
It makes me joyous to see when the Roman Catholic Church opens its doors to be eccumenical and we start to break down the barriers that are between us. At these events it is also eye opeing to see that Anglicans are SOMETIMES permitted to concelebrate mass. I have been a part of one of such events. I remember When Pope John Paul II met with the Archbishop of Canturbury George Carrey and concelebrated with him, the ground breaking event that was. I am still shocked when I see His Holiness in a Cope covered with Canturbury crosses that was taken for publicity at the altar to Canturbury Cathedral.

I guess what I am trying to say is we need to find our common ground and THEN the differences will become trivial and will be worked out in a far easier manner.

The hope of Halifax and Portal, in 1892.

GKC