GRAVEYARD AHEAD, COMMENCE WHISTLING

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Jim Naughton’s not a-scared-a the Ordinariate:.

Up to 900 Anglicans, including 60 clergy, are preparing to be received into the Roman Catholic faith in special services during Holy Week.

You read that correctly 900 people.

The British press continues to cover the development of the Ordinariate as though each person who leaves the Church of England for Rome deserves his or her own personal news story. But in the normal course of things, much larger numbers of people go back and forth between denominations all of the time. I am guessing that within the last five years at least 900 people have left the Catholic Church for the Episcopal Church in the handful of dioceses within a three hours drive of my house in Maryland.

In the last five years, nine hundred Catholics became Episcopalians in just your immediate neighborhood? I seriously doubt that, big smacker. But you’re missing something, Jim.

In England, at least 900 people have abandoned the Anglican religion in the space of a few months. That number’s only going to go higher. And they’ve left a “church” that hardly anyone attends anymore as it is.

For his part, the Bishop of Guildford is glad all those folks left or will be leaving since it will allow the C of E to peacefully resume not influencing Great Britain in any meaningful way.

The Right Rev Christopher Hill said congregations losing clergy or laity to the Personal Ordinariate, a Vatican initiative allowing Anglicans to convert while keeping elements of their spiritual heritage, would allow the church to move on after being “racked” by the issue of women priests.

“Where a decision has been made then those who go will have a bigger agenda, as do those who stay. They can leave this issue alone. It has racked these congregations. It has absorbed a lot of energy. Where a church has had such an exodus, there will be a sigh of relief that a decision has been made.”

Always look on the bright side, Your Grace.