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(The Birmingham News) The Rev. Larry Gipson, who was dean of the Cathedral Church of the
Advent in Birmingham from 1982-94 and rector at the largest Episcopal
church in the nation from 1994-2008, has become a Roman Catholic.
Gipson retired in 2008 from the 8,000-member St. Martin's Episcopal
Church in Houston, where his parishioners included former President
George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara.
Last month, Gipson was accepted as a Catholic into the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, a structure set up by Pope Benedict XVI to accept former Anglicans into the Catholic Church.
"The nature of authority in the Catholic Church is what attracted me
to it," Gipson said in a telephone interview from his home in Houston.
"After I retired, I was concerned and had been for many years about the
Episcopal Church's authority structure."
Gipson will be among 69 candidates for Catholic priesthood attending a
Formation Retreat this weekend in Houston, where the headquarters for
the Ordinariate is based.
Among those leading seminars at the Formation Retreat in Houston will
be the Rev. Jon Chalmers, who was ordained a Catholic priest in June,
the second former Episcopal priest to be accepted as a priest under the
Ordinariate. Chalmers served as curate, associate priest and interim
rector at Canterbury Chapel in Tuscaloosa from 2007-2009.
His wife, Margaret Chalmers, former canon lawyer for the Catholic
Diocese of Birmingham and now chancellor of the Ordinariate, will also
be a presenter at the weekend retreat that runs Friday night through
Sunday, Dec. 2.
"It's a really big deal," she said. "Larry Gipson, who was the
priest of the largest Episcopal Church in America, is now a Catholic."
Although married Episcopal priests have been accepted as Catholic
priests since 1983 under Pope John Paul II, only just over 100 came in
during that process, Margaret Chalmers said.
This year, the Ordinariate through its faster process has already
ordained 24 priests, with 69 in preparation. Her husband was accepted as
a Catholic in January and ordained as a Catholic priest in June.
The Rev. Matthew Venuti of Mobile was the first ex-Episcopal priest ordained a Catholic priest in the Ordinariate, which covers the United States and Canada.
Venuti and Chalmers both have young children, as do many of the new
Catholic priests, Mrs. Chalmers said. "There are lots of young priests
with young kids," she said.
The Ordinariate allows the new Catholics to keep their Anglican form of worship, including the Book of Common Prayer.
Gipson and his wife of 48 years, Mary Frances, attend the
headquarters church of the Ordinariate, Our Lady of Walsingham in
Houston.
"All their services are Prayer Book services," Gipson said. "The
music is from the 1940 (Episcopal) hymnal. It is the Anglican Rite One
prayer book. It's the opportunity to come into the Catholic Church while
maintaining Anglican tradition."
Although many Episcopalians have left the denomination over issues
such as consecrating openly homosexual bishops and rites for same-sex
unions, Gipson said he didn't leave the U.S. Episcopal Church and
worldwide Anglican Communion in anger.
"I don't have the right to ask the Anglican Church to change its
traditions for me," he said. "I'm the one who has got to make the
changes. Anglicanism has always been hesitant to define doctrine because
it has opposing factions. It has left doctrine blurry. People can
believe almost mutually opposing beliefs."
Gipson, who turned 70 on Oct. 23, started attending an Episcopal
church with his future wife when he was 14 in Memphis. "I'm thankful to
the Episcopal Church," he said. "I spent my life there. All my friends
and people I love are in it. I do not in any way wish to denigrate it.
I'm not angry. I was seeking something that I've been longing for, for a
long time."
Now, he's looking forward to the possibility of being ordained as a
Catholic priest. Earlier this year he earned a master's degree in
Catholic theology from St. Thomas University, although he already had a
master of divinity degree from Yale University.
"I was an Episcopal priest for 42 years," he said. "I can't imagine
not being a priest. I'm anxious to get back to priestly work."
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