By Terry Mattingly
(Knoxville News Sentinel) ...Even though Pope Benedict XVI didn't make it to America in
person, the Rev. Jason Catania still appreciated the message he sent to
the former Episcopal priests and others who swam the Tiber to Rome after
the pontiff's controversial "Anglicanorum Coetibus ("groups of
Anglicans") pronouncement in 2009.
"We didn't just wake up one morning last year and said, 'Why don't we
join the Catholic Church?' Many of us have made personal and financial
sacrifices over the years to do this," said Catania, who leads Mount
Calvary Church in Baltimore. This was the first American parish that
voted to enter one of the new "personal ordinariates" — the equivalent
of nationwide dioceses — that would allow Anglicans to retain key
elements of their liturgy, music, art and other traditions, such as
married priests.
"We were very intentional and took many steps toward Rome on this
journey," he said. "Now we're starting to see the results of the
Vatican's strategic step toward us."
Clergy and supporters of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter
gathered at its home base in Houston last week to mark the first
anniversary of this outreach effort in America. Archbishop Gerhard
Ludwig Muller, the new leader of the Vatican's powerful Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith, offered his share of theological commentary
on this project, but made it clear that his main message was personal.
"For most of you, this has been a journey into the unknown. ... I
want you to know that the Holy Father is following with great interest
the establishment and development of the ordinariate," he said, in his
prepared Feb. 2 text. It is common knowledge in Rome, he added, that
this is "very much the 'pope's project.' I have come to understand how
true that is. You are very much in his thoughts and prayers..."
During the first year of its work — while leaders wrestled with thickets
of legal and liturgical questions — the North American ordinariate
ordained or accepted 30 new priests, all former Anglicans, and took in
1,600 members from 36 parish communities. It is now expanding into
Canada, preparing for a second wave of incoming clergy and making plans
for its own chancery facilities in Houston... (continued)
Showing posts with label Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. Show all posts
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Episcopal Church liturgy for blessing same-gender relationships begins provisional use
“The love that she shares with her partner is unconditional and
speaks to the ideal relationships all of us should strive to have,” he
told the House of Deputies on July 10 in Indianapolis. “I often get
asked by churchgoers and nonchurchgoers why I am a part of this body.
The reason I return is for my sister. I seek to assure that she not only
has the same rites as myself but also the same privileges.”The new rite, “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant,” was authorized for use with diocesan episcopal permission beginning Dec. 2, the first Sunday of Advent.
On Dec. 29, Louisa Hallas, 25, and Clare Kemock, 30, will have their union blessed at their home parish of Holy Nativity Episcopal Church in Clarendon Hills, Illinois. The couple, engaged for just over a year, met working backstage at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Kemock is a costume designer; Hallas now works as administrative assistant for the Chicago diocese’s director of ministries...
“Because we’re a church who learns as we pray and our theology develops through our experiences of worship, we’ll learn more about what it means to bless the relationships of same-sex couples through our experience of these liturgies,” Meyers said. “So the commission will be developing a process of review and will want to learn from clergy and couples and congregations who are using these materials, and there may well be some refinements to the material...”
Link:
Related:
- Former dean of Advent Cathedral in Birmingham and ex-rector of nation's largest Episcopal church jumps to Catholic Church
- South Carolina Episcopal Parish Members to Convert to Catholic Church
- Katharine Jefferts Schori Takes Action Against the Episcopal Bishop and Diocese of South Carolina
- Catholic vs. Katholyc
- Local Episcopal priest to convert to Catholicism
- July 11, 2012: SC Bishop Mark Lawrence leads his delegation out of General Convention
- July 10, 2012: Episcopalians Approve Rite to Bless Same-Sex Unions
- Episcopal Church expected to OK liturgy for same-sex couples
- Reason #2775 for Anglicanorum coetibus
- Leader of Australian Ordinariate to Be Named June 15
- The Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham
- Vatican Wolves
- Anglican preacher barred from pulpit over opposition to gay marriage
- Priest Who Calls Abortion a ‘Blessing’ Tells Congress She'd Break Law to Help Minor Cross State Line to Get One
- Anglican Clergymen Become Catholic Priests: Taking the Final Steps to Ordination
- Ordinariate for former Anglicans visits Pope and Rome
- Ordinariate of the Chair of Peter for Anglicans / Episcopalians Seeking to Enter Into Full Communion With the Catholic Church
- Episcopal Diocese Sends Homosexual Priest to Soon-to-be-Catholic Calvary Episcopal Church
- New questions, challenges confront Episcopal-turned-Catholic leader
- Gay brother makes Anne Hathaway quit Catholic Church for Episcopalianism
- Pope defends invitation to Anglicans to convert
- Former clinic director: Episcopal Church chilly to my pro-life turn
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Former dean of Advent Cathedral in Birmingham and ex-rector of nation's largest Episcopal church jumps to Catholic Church
By
(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."
Link:
(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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