In this Washington Post story, the Very Rev. Thomas Ferguson, Dean of Bexley Hall Seminary does a nice job of gently expressing concern and dampening some of the hype surrounding the “ordinariate” that the Roman Catholic Church has created to welcome disaffected Anglicans.
First the hype:
“It’s the largest reunification effort in 500 years,” said Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the new body, called an ordinariate.
Then Tom:
“If this papacy sees this as the only way to dialogue with other religions, that’s troubling,” said the Very Rev. Thomas Ferguson, who from 2001 until 2010 worked on ecumenical outreach. Ferguson is dean of Bexley Hall Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.
He predicted that the new structure wouldn’t draw that many people.
“In the end, we’re a country founded on religious beliefs, and people need to go where they’re called to go,” Ferguson said.
“That’s fine. God bless them.”
My hunch is that five years from now, there will still be more former Catholics in a single large Episcopal diocese than there will be former Episcopalians in the ordinariate.
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OK – put out my own blog post on this now: http://liturgy.co.nz/launching-the-us-ordinariate/8352
Blessings
Bosco+
Good points, good discussion, and thanks for the pointer to Tom’s blog post – but why does Tom think of himself as belong to another “religion”?! In my book, these are denominations in the same religion – and hence involve no “conversion”.
Christmas Season blessings
Bosco+
Obviously. I mean who wouldn’t want to come home to the church started by Jesus Christ himself?
Anyone HUMBLE enough to recognize ANY church proclaiming Jesus Christ can be said to be “started by Jesus Christ himself”?
You really think repetition of a bog-standard Popoid claim, Mark, is going to play among those who use Scripture, Tradition and REASON? [At least “Catholics Come Home” has media production values! :-p]
JC Fisher
In spite of it’s bias and subtle inaccuracies, it is a very good commercial and we should have one that good. I do wish they would go back to talking about their “Christian faith” instead of this emphasis on their “Catholic faith”. It makes everyone else look like chopped liver.
The most significant thing about the RC ad is that they choose to acknowledge it was even remotely possible they needed to produce and air it, and that approval was given to do so.