Posted on 02/25/2005 10:22:56 AM PST by NYer
SCRANTON, Pa. — Eric Bergman gave up friendships, his home and his priesthood in the Episcopal Church for his beliefs. The 34-year-old renounced his priesthood Dec. 31 and now wants to win souls as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Joining him in the move to Catholicism are his wife, Kristina, and his three children, all under the age of 3. Bergman also brings with him some 60 parishioners from his former congregation, the Church of the Good Shepherd in Scranton, Pa., where he served as rector for five years, and 10 Episcopalians from a nearby parish.
Bergman is petitioning the Holy See to be ordained a priest under the "Pastoral Provision Decision," a Vatican-approved process that allows married, former Episcopal priests to become Catholic priests while retaining elements of their Anglican customs and heritage.
"Jesus said the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church," said the Yale Divinity School alumnus. "The Church should be on the offensive. If we adopt the defensive posture, that means we’re adopting the posture of the devil. That’s not what God intends for us, and I don’t want to be part of that. I want to be on the offensive to win souls for Jesus."
Bergman cited the provision — along with Pope John Paul II’s commitment to the culture of life, the Church’s teaching authority and its "steadfastness and unwillingness to waver with regard to the moral teachings that are the foundation to the life of holiness" — as among reasons he decided to convert.
The pastoral provision, which the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith approved in 1980 with the blessing of Pope John Paul II, makes clear that the Church is not changing its stance on priestly celibacy, only that it will make an exception for married Episcopal Church clergy who want to become Catholic priests, according to Maria Orzel, executive director of communications for the Diocese of Scranton.
Issues that have long set Rome and Canterbury at odds — and some new ones — spurred Bergman. One of them harks back to the Anglican Communion’s 1930 Lambeth Conference, which sanctioned the use of contraception.
"When you get down to it, if the (Episcopal) Church is not going to back you up on the issue of (the immorality of using) contraception, there’s no way you’re going to be able to preach the whole gospel of life," Bergman said. "I understood on my own that I had to leave; I didn’t know anyone would come with me."
‘Logical Outcome’
His disillusionment with the Episcopal Church had been building for several years, Bergman said, culminating in August, when he attended a retreat with other Episcopal priests and their families. Many of the priests held conservative views in regard to the homosexual agenda in the church, but as he looked around, he said he noticed that a lot of them had only one or two children.
He wondered if contraception had limited the size of the other priests’ families. And he recalls thinking that if they had used contraception, then he wasn’t on the same wavelength as they — among the most orthodox — were. And this, he thought, meant he shouldn’t remain an Episcopal priest.
In a Dec. 31 letter to Bishop Paul Marshall of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, Pa., he renounced his orders as a priest. Bergman cited contraception and the 2003 ordination of V. Gene Robinson, the first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop, as two major reasons for his dissatisfaction.
Bishop Robinson’s ordination was the "logical outcome" of the 1930 Lambeth decision, he said.
Some dioceses in the Episcopal Church allow a blessing of same-sex couples, and Bergman wrote: "When an ecclesial community pronounces intentional sterility among married couples to be blessed by God, that church all but formally invites into her midst the advocacy of blessings upon relationships that in the absence of sexual complementarity are of their very essence sterile. Those conservatives within Anglicanism who attempt to refute the sterile agenda of the homosexual lobby…have engaged in a self-contradictory and thus futile quest."
He also pointed out that a contraceptive mentality that views children as "a burden instead of a blessing" only encourages abortion. He said the Episcopal Church has pushed for the legalization of abortion since 1967.
"By His great grace and kindness our Lord has cured me of my former spiritual blindness and thus has compelled me to seek entry into, and full communion with, that part of Christ’s Body the Church that continues to engage the moral issues of our day at their most foundational level," Bergman wrote.
Evolving Parish
Bergman is now considered a layman. If the Vatican consents to his ordination, he could become a priest in about two years, after sacramental preparation and theological formation, he said.
For now, he has been named by Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino to be the executive director of the newly formed St. Thomas More Society of St. Clare’s Church in Scranton. His former parishioners, and those from the other Episcopal church who want to convert, are receiving sacramental preparation and are members of the society, he said. The goal of the St. Thomas More Society, he added, is to establish a "Pastoral Provision Parish for Anglican Use" in the Diocese of Scranton.
Even if Bergman had not left the Episcopal Church, Judith Sanderson, a former parishioner at the Church of the Good Shepherd who is converting to Catholicism, said she would have eventually left.
"I’ve been a little bit disgruntled in the Episcopal Church for a long time," said Sanderson, 65, who cited the ordination of women as one reason for her dissatisfaction. The Episcopal Church began ordaining women as priests in 1974 and named its first woman bishop in 1989.
Sanderson said she has been feeling the call to convert to Catholicism for years. When Bergman announced he was leaving, she discussed it with her husband, who agreed it was time to leave, too. But Sanderson said she is happy that they and their friends will be able to retain the Anglican-style liturgy under the Vatican provision.
Bergman said he and other former Episcopalians have been heartened by the reception they’ve received at St. Clare’s and by the Catholic Church in general.
"I warmly welcome Mr. Bergman, his family and members of his former lay community on their new faith journey to become Roman Catholic," Bishop Martino said in a statement in early January. "We assure them all of our prayers and complete cooperation as they take the initial steps toward full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in the Diocese of Scranton."
Bergman’s wife, Kristina, said it hasn’t been easy to move out of their former home and leave behind friends who are angry at her husband. Still, she said, becoming part of the Catholic Church is the right thing to do.
"We have to follow the truth, so it doesn’t matter what sacrifices we have to make," she said. "We just have to do it."
ping.
...and this AM's news tells us that the folks in England are about to throw out the American Episcopalians altogether over the Queer Ordination problem.
We can pray for the Episcopalians--I think many more will be returning to Rome soon.
I think the trickle that began years ago may be gradually turning into a stream, then possibly a flood. Refugees from the Epsicopagan "church" of the USA have been coming to the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church for years. Whatever problems may be in these two communities, for sheer godlessnes and New Agey relativist paganism, the ECUSA has them beat by a long shot - though the PCUSA and ELUSA are not far behind. Whatever the problems are in the Catholic Church, and there are serious ones, the ECUSA is worse.
I'll ping you to a 'related' story.
Excellent! Welcome aboard to all.
Ping away! Thanks!
Thanks. One thing I hope is that we might be able to get folks back to the old habit of waiting until the recessional has finished before 90% of the church empties like a thundering herd of elephants! The two ECUSA parishes I attended in Northern VA, which were still Christian places (and exceptions to the usual Episcopaganism), nobody moved until the recessional was finished, except for persons who had to leave to prepare rooms for Sunday School classes. The early "exodus" is one of my pet peeves, along with the pre-Mass jabber-fest. My own parish doesn't suffer too much from these things, but when I've traveled......oy vey! Both the pre-Mass jabber-fest and post-communion (much less post-dismissal before the recessional) thundering herd make it a bit difficult to mediate and pray.
I find the pre-Mass jabberfest particularly annoying, though I notice it usually happens in "churches" where the Tabernacle has been relegated to a broom closet and the art and arctitecture are nihilistic.
I met Eric Bergman the other day. (He was attending Thursday morning mass in our parish.) He is an humble, self-effacing, and conscientious young man, and I think he will make an excellent Catholic priest.
In our parish, talking is prohibited inside the nave, especially before, during, and after the mass. We stay until the recessional is done as well. (Our organist is an excellent musician, so it's hardly a sacrifice!) I thank God for our Anglican Use parish -- it's been a blessing to my family and to a lot of people looking for a place to come in from the cold.
My own Catholic parish here in Georgia celebrates the Novus Ordo Mass about as well as it can be celebrated. Lots of "smells and bells" as they say and a reverent attitude from priests and altar servers.
Each hymn is announced (by a member of the choir)and before the final hymn the following is intoned: "Our recessional hymn is No. #. We thank you for respecting our custom of remaining in place and singing until the procession has exited the Church."
Nobody moves.
My home parish is an excellent one, a vast cut above the usual AmChurch airplane-hanger-lets-just-party-for-"mass" mess. There are no Anglican-Use parishes in Northern Virginia. But if there was one, especially like the one you describe, I'd certainly go to it once in a while, maybe even consider moving to it. In my limited experience with Byzantine Rite Catholic parishes, the reverent silence before and after Divine Liturgy is incredible.
I suppose I fuss about all this because last weekend I was in Solomons, MD and atteneded "mass" at a parish there that hit every hot button I have - the kindest thing I'll say about the place is that I met my Sunday obligation there and that is all. I'm used to leaving my home parish refreshed, nourished and strengthened.
Now that is the way to have church, as the old Southern saying goes. You're blessed to have a parish the conducts worship that way. Parishes like yours, mine, and a few others mentioned in this thread seem to be the exceptions. To me, especially as a convert, that is sad.
Meanwhile, here on the Far Left Coast, the tide runs in the other direction, with liberal Catholic priests headed for the Episcopal Church, many with a boot in the tush by the Holy See. I've attended services at an Episcopal church with a priest who ducked out of Catholicism because he wanted to marry. He did it in the apropriate order. Nice fellow, great speaker, devout Christian.
And then there's Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest who wrote books--a couple quite good and thoughtful--but also incorporated the witch, Starhawk, into his services, along with other New-age idiots. He got a warning or two and then was ejected from the Cartholic Church, only to cross the street and find a home at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral where he famously ran "Raves." I'm sure the pope and other Catholic officials were crazy about raves. LOL
Ah, Matthew Fox, one of several "catholic" candidates for the position of being the "catholic" John Shelby Spong! When Fox departed for the Episcopagan church, the scalawags welcomed him with open arms. Birds of a feather. I keep hoping for a population exchange, where the rad-lib-revisionist-kumbaya-1960s-leftover-New-Age types will leave the Catholic Church and all the Christians left in the ECUSA will migrage to the Catholic Church. SF Grace Cathedral is a pagan a place as St. John the Divine in NYC. Both places were, once upon a time long ago, Christian places where Christ was worshipped.
Nope. The recessional hymn is a nice custom, but I don't think it's an integral part of the Mass. I'm pretty sure that it's something we borrowed from the Protestants, actually.
Keep in mind that, pre-Vatican II, the typical Mass was a Low Mass, which had no choir and was a dialogue between the server and the priest. As such, the priest would say "Ite, missa est" and the server would respond "Deo gratias" ... and that was it.
Welcome!
Nope.
The Recessional is simply not part of the Mass--ergo, the Mass ended before the recessional.
And people weren't all that much more polite then, either; usually, the priest exited directly into the sacristy off the altar, and when the priest left the nave, the rush began (for most, not all...)
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