Friday, April 13
Episcopalians, Dispersed
I am told that the Episcopal Church in the USA is losing 800 members a week.
The transformation and destruction of this ecclesial community is a true cause of concern for everyone: the loss of such a historic bulkward in our nation's Christian practice and heritage only furthers secularization (and anti-Christian sentiment). Hardly something about which to be triumphalistic, God help us...
The self-destruction of ECUSA also changes the Christian landscape in America, removing a link in the "progression of conversions" that, as anyone who knows the name "Marcus Grodi" will tell you, constitutes the Journey Home. Catholicism becomes a little more alienated..
But from these ashes some very moving stories are rising. Here is a fascinating, and very touching, collection of people who have thus far left ECUSA.
The infusion of these truly sterling Christians into the Catholic and Orthodox Churches can only build up the Body of Christ in profound ways. And what struck me most was the anecdotal report of the "State of Catholicism" these accounts contain: almost all those received into the Catholic Church report finding am great parish, made now the greater by their contribution.
May all this advance the plan of Providence: Ut Unum Sint!
Update: It has become necessary, in the course of the comments thread, to clarify that the Catholic Church teaches that all the baptized belong to One Body of Christ:
"[A]ll who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church." Unitatis Redintagratio para. 3
The transformation and destruction of this ecclesial community is a true cause of concern for everyone: the loss of such a historic bulkward in our nation's Christian practice and heritage only furthers secularization (and anti-Christian sentiment). Hardly something about which to be triumphalistic, God help us...
The self-destruction of ECUSA also changes the Christian landscape in America, removing a link in the "progression of conversions" that, as anyone who knows the name "Marcus Grodi" will tell you, constitutes the Journey Home. Catholicism becomes a little more alienated..
But from these ashes some very moving stories are rising. Here is a fascinating, and very touching, collection of people who have thus far left ECUSA.
The infusion of these truly sterling Christians into the Catholic and Orthodox Churches can only build up the Body of Christ in profound ways. And what struck me most was the anecdotal report of the "State of Catholicism" these accounts contain: almost all those received into the Catholic Church report finding am great parish, made now the greater by their contribution.
May all this advance the plan of Providence: Ut Unum Sint!
Update: It has become necessary, in the course of the comments thread, to clarify that the Catholic Church teaches that all the baptized belong to One Body of Christ:
"[A]ll who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church." Unitatis Redintagratio para. 3
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