How I met your Father: Married Episcopalians becoming Catholic priests

This is somewhat curious.  I would have thought +Iker and other senior clergy in Dio Fort Worth had made their position very clear over the years, i.e. that they were not headed to Rome.  But the Houghs seem to have convinced themselves that it would happen. 

Anyway, they are being true to their own conscience, which is important for any Christian.

One might speculate that the Bishop of Rome would be received into the Anglo-Catholic Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth long before the Bishop of Ft. Worth would be received into the Roman Catholic Church.

First, married men can be “pastors” of RC parishes. My pastor is Fr. David Bristow mentioned in the story.

Now that’s off my chest, let me make my point.

Bp. Iker and the RC bishop Kevin Vann have had a positive working relationship since Bp. Vann came here in 2005. It may or may not have been strained by recent events, but the point is the mutual respect and friendly, perhaps fraternal care they have had over time. It rather illustrates the point I would like to make.

It is right and good that Christians of different beliefs should scrap and tussle over theological differences. It’s in the nature of believing that we hold things to be true and of eternal importance.

But Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, or any persons of good will are not the enemy.  As the recent business with Chik-fil-a shows clearly, it’s secularism, homosexualist ideology, the culture of death (abortion and euthanasia),  materialism, and atheism that are our enemies, and the enemy of all who value joy, hope, and everything good in life.

I’m not urging a nice-nice group hug with 15 choruses of Kum-ba-yah. Theological differences do matter. But ad hominem,  slander, and gossip aren’t helpful. Personally, I’m not one for re-fighting the 16th century, nor for repeating the 500-800 year old complaints, but if you want to do that, or shout “Whore of Babylon” at Catholics, that’s really your problem. If Catholics want to say that the Church of England was founded by a syphilitic whore-monger, that’s their problem (not mine, for the record).  I hope that I behave as a Christian and an adult.

Which is all just to expound on MichaelA’s comment that being true to our conscience, with the caveat that a conscience must be well-formed. And I recognize that settling on “well-formed” is part of the tussle. 

Meant to add that one piece of gossip might be shared without sin: Bp. Iker is said to be under extreme stress and very weary, which should go without saying. But at times like this, it is especially incumbent upon his brothers and sisters, of which I count myself one, to hold him in prayer.  God be with him, his clergy, and his people.

Thanks Words Matter.  +Iker has been a major inspiration to many people around the world as well as in USA.  I am sorry to hear he is under stress (although its understandable) and will remember him in my prayers.

#5

As a layman in the Dio FW I would suggest that Fr. Hough’s comments might have been accurate wrt some priests but many lay persons have no interest in going to Rome.  I guess some were just convinced that if the priests crossed then the laity would have followed without question…and that’s where they were wrong.  God bless them, though.  I know them all and Rome’s gain is our loss.

Please pray for our diocese and Bishop Iker.  These are certainly trying times for all of us.

BigTex AC

I never met the senior Father Hough, but I sort of knew his son. When we lived in Texas, he was at St. Mark’s in Arlington, which was one of the two churches in Arlington above I-20. Since our churches did lots of ministries together, I got to talk to him frequently. A really nice man, good priest and family man, but he clearly already had his eye to Rome. I can’t say I was shocked (especially after his father left) when he left.

Big Tex AC is right in saying that almost none of the laypeople and churchgoers in the Diocese of Fort Worth (the real one) want to go to Rome: they are high church/biblical Christians and they are against being in communion with the New York-based TEC, but they don’t really share the ambitions of that part of their clergy who dreams of a new Oxford Movement that takes a Roman course.

Also, I’m not so sure that the clergy with ‘Rome in their eyes’ had as many of the Fort Worth priests in their fold as they thought. Last I talked to my old rector and another priest in the Diocese, only about 7 left…not that many.

They are all good men, and they are a loss, no question. But I just don’t see the goals of Rome and the goals of American Anglicans as the same. Should we partners, of course! Absorbed…no.

I am a member of Bishop Iker’s flock and I am glad he is battling the wolves nipping at our heels. Keep him and our diocese in your prayers for a just resolution of our court battle with TEC and her menions. Thanks.