It also suggests to me that the Episcopal Church is doing a really bad job about communicating with the world.

But, that could just be confirmation bias on my part.

Does it really matter. As long as folks find a community in which they are fed, God bless them. Who cares who has more of whose disgruntled flock.

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Rich, because perception, at a minimum, influences reality, it is important to make clear that the Episcopal Church is not suffering a large net loss in members to more theologically conservative denominations. I wish the people who have left our church well, but I don't want them being used as "facts" to argue against the ordination of women, the full inclusion of LGBT people, a commitment to social justice, etc. (Not saying the Catholic Church lacks a commitment to social justice, but some conservative churches do.)

Isn't the Church Of Ireland growing rapidly, populated with former Irish Catholics? Do you have some numbers on that?

In the circles I journey in we call Benedict 'The Great Evangelizer' because of how many disaffected Roman Catholics have found a home within the Episcopal Church. Thank you for putting numbers to something I see in the pews.

I don't, Clint. But if you do, I would be glad to share them.

Here's an article I found about growth in the Church of Ireland, from three years ago:

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/celebrity-news-gossip/the-catholic-church-in-ireland-is-losing-market-share-some-would-call-this-a-healthy-development-1664623.html

I just wish I could find something a little more current.

Thanks, Clint. In the world of church demographics, 2009 is actually amazingly current.

Thank you for the excellent research and the perspective that these numbers offer. This matters a great deal because I am constantly being asked about the impact that the folks joining the RC church are having on us. I suppose I should start asking them the same question. We really need better publicity in the mainstream media.

Just yesterday, at the parish where I was doing a presentation on the Holy Eucharist, I was asked about "all those Episcopalians" who are moving to Rome. I pointed out that it was a small number, and that those folks were going to be very surprised to find out the differences in church polity.

I also pointed out that the Roman Church had some things to teach us as Episcopalians, to wit, in Rome, you have to worship with those whom you don't like, because you have to go to church in the parish in which you live. Yes, I said, you can go to another parish, but to be baptized, married and buried, you have to go to your home parish.

All of this is to say, yes, we need to tell our story better, because perception is reality to far too many people. Are there some folks leaving TEC to go over to Rome? Yes. Are there far more people leaving Rome to come to TEC? Yep. And that's what we need to talk about when we answer questions about all this movement.
Lauren R. Stanley

I keep wanting to produce an ad directed at disaffected Roman Catholics with the following tag line:

The Episcopal Church: All of the Liturgy, none of the guilt

I don't think this is a valid statistical comparison. The ordinariate involves Episcopalians who want to join the Roman Catholic Church but still sort of continue to be Anglican. There certainly are other Episcopalians who went over to the Roman church as individuals and don't show up in the ordinariate statistics. I don't know how many of these there are, but I have known some personally. You would have to add both of these groups together to get a valid figure for comparison. Certainly the number would be larger than the ordinariate alone.

Cathy Kerr

The difference, it would seem to me, is that when Roman Catholics become Episcopalians they do so as individuals and use ECUSA liturgy - we don't have a system of letting groups of Roman Catholics come over en masse and keeping their own liturgies to become a sort of Uniate group. That, surely, is what get the press's and public's attention, while the flow of Romans to Canterbury happens with no fanfare (unless you are a high profile member of the clergy like Fr. Cutié or Fr. Fox).

Cathy, you're right, of course - people do go over to the RCC as individuals. Would it make that much of an addition to the numbers? Does the American RCC even keep track of those numbers?

Cathy, I am not making a statistical comparison. I am asking why so much attention was paid to such a small number of people when no attention has been paid to traffic in the opposite direction. Note the last three sentences: "Some people swim the Tiber. Some swim the Thames. Media coverage suggests that reporters pay little attention until the Vatican tells them it’s a big story."

Clint Davis's link above to the 2009 article in Independent Woman deserves to be closely read. The article asserts that the membership of the Church of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland grew 50 percent between the early '90s and 2009! To me, that's an astounding development in a continent that's said to be abandoning organized religion. Note as well that the C of I is also said to be becoming more user-friendly, abandoning its one-time severe austerity for a bit of ritual here and there.

The Episcopal Church: All of the Liturgy, none of the guilt

Jonathan, you do know that this much like an actual quote?

Good old St Elsewhere, OBM. Circa early 1980s. An Italian (?) boyfriend has come home for Christmas w/ the daughter of the toney old-money Boston doctor. Upon being told the family's going to the Episcopal church for Midnight Mass, the boyfriend responds

"Episcopalian? Cool! All of the glory, and none of the guilt!"

;-D

JC Fisher

Jim, I can understand your sentiments here, and I agree that in exactly the way you discuss, it is overhyped. Some of this is probably because the "anything that hurts ECUSA favors us" schismatics and triumphalist trad Catholics push it; some of it is probably because a lot of the press don't understand the continuing world well enough to understand that most of those joining aren't actually Episcopalians. Perhaps some small part reflects your personal failings as a press officer (just joking).

But it is news. As far as I know, it is unprecedented for Rome to absorb a group of Protestants in this manner.

Interest in the Roman Catholic ordinariate is a red herring. We Episcopalians find this non-issue, a perspective that your statistics confirm, easier to discuss and, sadly, more interesting than focusing on real mission. People who leave TEC for the Roman Catholic Church are not abandoning Christianity; they’re simply moving to another branch. Spiritual journeys often lead people to make similar moves. The real tragedy is that we fail to engage in mission with the same vigor and interest with which we experience angst over this inconsequential event.

One significant aspect of the ordinariate IMO, is that The Catholic Church now officially has western-rite MARRIED PRIESTS. This is --from the point of view of the development of the priesthood in the RCC-- a step forward, creating a "parallel development" ambit where something new may be tried. Of course, the dark lining is that these married priests are unlikely to help Rome move much forward...

Juan, there have been a few married ex-Anglican priests in the RCC for a while now, thanks to the Pastoral Providion that resulted in the foundation of Anglican Use parishes in 1980. The presence of married priests may not be really as significant as it might seem at first because future ordinands in the Ordinariate will have to be celibate, I believe. In other words, as soon as this first generation of converts dies off the Ordinariate will start to look like the rest of the RCC as far as its clergy is concerned.

It seems to me that although TEC individual dioceses might survive (or even thrive), the collapse of TEC as we know it is inevitable. Also, lest anyone should think that ACNA is thriving, it should be pointed out that its organic growth rate is barely more than zero; most or all of it is coming from transfers. This begs two questions:

1. What will happen to ACNA once the exodus from TEC subsides?
2. Is ACNA compromising its standards (such as they are) in order to accommodate incoming Episcopalians?