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In The Empty Church: The Suicide of
Liberal Christianity (Free Press,
1996), I argued that the “Seven Sisters” of liberal
Protestantism deserved the continued loyalty and concern of their
members. These venerable denominations, which included my own Episcopal
Church, had a long history of good works and fidelity to the
Gospel. They were now in the grasp of liberals, I showed, and were
suffering from the inevitable illness that debilitates Christianity
when it is watered down and made to conform to the world. Every
effort should be made, I wrote, to preserve our religious homes
from decay and eventual death, and I detailed several recommendations
based on personal experience and a broad array of relevant literature.
The book was published in October, and within six months my wife
and I were preparing to leave the Episcopal Church. Dale Vree of
the New Oxford Review predicted in his review of The Empty Church
that liberals would neither read the book nor take its suggestions
to heart. By the spring of this year it was obvious that the prediction
was true and that the Episcopal Church in particular was heading
rapidly into the chasm that separates Christians from non-Christians.
It was time to get out.
Leaving was very difficult. Kathie and I had been active in traditionalist
organizations for more than two decades. The Evangelical and Catholic
Mission and the Episcopal Synod of America were designed to recall
the Episcopal Church to its Catholic heritage and to biblical morality.
We were long-time Associates of the Sisters of the Holy Nativity.
We belonged to the Society of Mary. Our parish, All Saints Cathedral
in Milwaukee, remained, in spite of a liberal bishop, quite solid.
For fourteen years I had slugged it out with liberals on the Board
of Trustees of Nashotah House, the only Anglo-Catholic seminary.
I served on the Board of Editors of Anglican and Episcopal History
and was keenly interested in Anglican studies. Virtually all of
our friends were Episcopalians. But there was no alternative to
departure.
The Episcopal Church, like much of the rest of America, lurched
leftward in the volatile 1960s. Prior to that time it had been known
largely for its inspired Book of Common Prayer, reverent and beautiful
worship services, hazy theology, and party warfare. It appealed
largely to people in the upper socio-economic range, Anglophiles,
and romantics, and was a quiet and thoroughly respectable denomination.
The minority Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church, to which we belonged,
looked to the Roman Catholic Church for much of its inspiration.
But in the 1960s the most radical spirit of the age grasped the
Episcopal Church by the throat, and the Church has been unable and
unwilling to this day to free itself. The Church’s admirable
activities in civil rights were dwarfed by the extremism that embraced
radical biblical criticism and moral relativism. Radical feminists
and gay rights activists in particular have flourished in the post-Sixties
Episcopal Church.
The Anglo-Catholics were deeply divided over women’s ordination,
which became legal in 1976. Some opponents opposed the innovation
on the ground of Scripture and tradition; others saw it merely as
a hindrance to closer relations with Rome and Orthodoxy. Proponents
tended to use equal rights arguments and sever relations with those
who remained where the Church had stood for centuries.
In the 1980s, women’s ordination was rapidly accepted. So
too were gay rights, at least by denomination leaders. (Most
Episcopalians vote Republican.) The heresies proudly proclaimed
by Bishop John Spong and a wide assortment of seminary professors
caused hardly a ripple of dissent.
Conditions deteriorated throughout the early 1990s, and by 1996
it was clear that the ordination of active homosexuals was acceptable
conduct. At the General Convention of 1997, as predicted, biblical
morality was rejected, homosexuals were lionized, and traditionalists
were all but banned from Church activity.
The tiny and dispirited Anglo-Catholic movement found itself mortally
ill. Without an alternative, ESA members vowed to create an illegal
diocese and consecrate their own bishops. This would add another
body to the many Anglican splinter groups that had formed since
1976. How “Catholic” could such a sect actually be?
Opposing all of the Episcopal Church’s radical agenda and
wanting nothing to do with a new sect, Kathie and I began to look
elsewhere. The natural home of Anglo-Catholic converts was
Rome. But we lived in an archdiocese which is known to be ultra-liberal. And
almost all of the Catholics we knew personally were liberal academics,
people who were hardly eager to welcome conservatives into the fold.
During an interview early this year with a local Catholic writer
about The Empty Church, I expressed my frustration at being unable
to find a way into the Catholic Church. He printed the story
in the Archdiocesan paper and alerted Our Sunday Visitor. Both articles
stirred an avalanche of support that was remarkable to behold and
that led directly to our entrance into the fullness of the faith.
Books were mailed and left off at my office, phone calls came in,
E-mail letters poured into my computer, local clergy called and
visited. (The last of our Episcopal parish priests to visit our
home came in 1977.) We were astonished to realize that scores of
people from all over the country were interested in helping us to
become Catholics. Scott Hahn and Thomas Howard telephoned. Catholic
Answers and The Coming Home Network provided invaluable assistance.
A few people--a priest in New York, a retired professor in Delaware,
an activist in St. Louis, a convert in Minnesota, an ex-Episcopal
priest in Northern Illinois, a writer in Pittsburgh--contacted us
regularly through E-mail with assurances and explanations. A
fine young priest in Kenosha offered his services, as did an Opus
Dei priest from Milwaukee.
Being Anglo-Catholics, we did not have some of the historical and
biblical problems facing many fundamentalists and evangelicals.
Still, we had several objections that needed to be overcome. Above
all, we had to understand the nature of the Church and its authority. Once
you come to grip with that reality, which rests on both history
and Scripture, the rest slides into place.
The quantity of the resource materials available to help potential
converts is astonishing. First-rate books, magazines, tapes, and
videos abound, and we dove deeply into them. The offerings of Ignatius
Press are particularly rich. Catholic web sites on the Internet
are consistently helpful and fascinating. I know of no church that
can begin to match the literature and media available to Catholics.
Kathie and I also had to find a parish that offered at least a substantial
measure of dignity and reverence. That was not easy around
here, and I wrote a description in Adoremus of my first failed attempt. But
we were soon able to locate a few suitable churches, and Opus Dei
kindly opened its doors.
We were brought into the Catholic Church on July 31. It is a grand
experience to be in communion with John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger,
and to have one’s life guided by The Catholic Catechism. It
is equally wonderful to be part of the same Church that nurtured
the many splendid Christians who helped us into the barque of Peter. We
will always be grateful.
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