The American movement

Easing back into this, still standing with full-leg casts at the raised PC, I couldn’t resist this item about a latter-day John Henry Newman heading to Rome from the Episcopal Church.  He is Rev. Alvin F. Kimel Jr., rector of St. Mark’s Church, Pittsburgh, who gave the news to his 200 parishioners in a letter.

“In the name of an ideology of radical inclusivity, the Episcopal Church has moved significantly away from the apostolic and catholic faith of Jesus Christ,” his letter read.

“With the decision made by General Convention two summers ago to approve the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions, it has, in my judgment, become heretical,” he continued.

“I cannot in conscience represent the Episcopal Church to the world, nor can I in conscience summon sinners into its fellowship,” he stated.

He’s the 80th Episcopal priest to take the path to Rome since 1980, when Pope John Paul II gave the go-ahead for married Episcopal priests to become married Catholic priests.  He will have to find a bishop to sponsor him, do an 18–month training (decompression?) program, and acquire his personal papal OK.

In my opinion, Roman Catholics should be pleased but should greet the news with sobriety.  It’s first of all a personal story, as was Newman’s, but of course with ecclesiastical ramifications of the first water.  The tradition-oriented Episcopal priest comes with wife and (four, presumably grown) children to take up duties as a Catholic priest, thus fulfilling a liberal Catholic’s dream.

With sobriety, I say, because Episcopalians are in an unhappy time these days, with the waves of antinomianism lapping at their foundations.  Bloody Queen Bess she may have been, though Belloc tends to give her a pass as caught in a political bind not of her making, but many Episcopalian faithful are holding on for dear life to the church of their fathers.