Hi all. It’s been a rough Lent for me, but I am all but concluded that I should leave the Church of Rome. I grew up in a very loosely affiliated home. My parents were both baptized Methodist, mother was Catholic for a while but divorced her abusive first husband and so left the church also. They didn’t baptize me. We went to a few different churches from time to time as kids, but in high school I settled into going to the Episcopal Church with my girlfriend’s family. They must have been Anglo-Catholic because they always told me they were Catholic… Episcopalian Catholic. I didn’t know there was a difference so I never asked. In college I decided I’d get baptized. I first went to the local Episcopalian church in my local college town, but the schools Newman Club got to me first, and I ended up in RCIA and getting baptized & confirmed in the Roman Church. It’s been a difficult though worthwhile experience, and while I am on board with about 98% of the catechism there are a few parts I’ve never been able to fully accept. It’s difficult to have reservations in a church that teaches that its doctrine and magisterium are infallible. sure I could stay and just pretend that I accept it all, but that’s a terrible way to live. I’d prefer to be part of s church that doesn’t claim infallibility and allows for a reasonable exercise of one’s conscience, instead of demanding that I just be quiet, do as I’m told, and pray I come around in the end. I’m pretty pro-Pope, I suppose, but I just can’t go on pretending he has all the answers to everything. Anyways thanks for reading my rambling. It seems to me that if I am to find a new church it would have to be one that is pretty darned close to Catholicism, but without all of the rigid legalism and natural law …fetishism, for lack of a better word. I think that church is probably Anglican, which is where I started out from, more or less.
Welcome. I am a former RC but switched to Anglicanism last year. I feel so much relief at not having to force myself to believe things I really couldn't reconcile in myself. I wish you well in whatever faith you choose, but just know that although the RCC claims to be the 'one, true faith' - that isn't true. Relax and be true to yourself. God be with you.
Welcome. There are many "flavors" within Anglicanism. Investigate them until you find what you believe and what they teach. I, too, sought a place where infallibility was not advocated, yet remained the Catholic line of thinking. I do not know if you advocate for the practice of ordaining women as priests nor do I know if you advocate for the marriage of same-sex people. Some lines within Anglicanism are okay with both. I found that I was not, so I chose to follow teachings of the Anglican Catholic Church. I am fortunate to have a parish-priest that is open to teaching an old man what he seeks to learn. I am also fortunate to see and speak with the Archbishop and Metropolitan often, as I am but an hour away from where he resides. He attends Mass in our mission-parish often. Good luck on your endeavor on your Spiritual Path. God Bless.
Thank you, it is good to hear from you especially , I can very much relate to feeling forced to believe certain things. It’s odd; my issue is not so much that the RC teaches something I can’t quite grapple with, it’s that the RC gives no slack regarding it. There’s no church out there, I suspect, that will always mirror exactly everything I can bring myself to really believe.
One odd thing I’ve noticed about belief is that it can be easy to accept a teaching if it doesn’t affect you personally. For example, I may believe that women cannot be ordained, until I find that I have a daughter or a good friend who feels called to the priesthood. At that point you have to really wrestle with your belief in a way you’ve never been challenged to. I’m coming to Anglicanism with a pretty narrow set of complaints. I’m not sure I’m really even ready or able to make a call on women’s ordination. It neither irritates my conscience nor do I have strong philosophical or theological feelings about it.
Or until your son claims he’s gay, I agree… but it would not change my belief in the doctrine, because God is wiser than man, and the Church has seen all and every human situation during her perennial teaching it’s like with the recent trans movement for kids, if my 6 year old daughter came one day saying she’d like to get a double mastectomy, I wouldn’t just assume she’s right… what I’d assume is that groomer sickos in my school have brainwashed her, and would never let her go to that school again The majority of Anglicans in the world do not believe in WO.. it is mostly a province of (shrinking) corrupt Western churches and those in the 3rd world which they bribe into changing their theology…. We in ACNA have inherited the WO problem from the Episcopal Church, but just like we rejected gay marriage most of our people are also moving toward removing the WO from our canons… it’s a process, and takes a long time for people to understand to go against the grain
I hope the trans thing is a fad that will eventually fade and be rejected by civil society. It is incredibly destructive for everyone. Same sex marriage is a similar matter. I don’t think it makes any sense, and it damages the institution of matrimony. It would be hard to attend a church that performed them. But again if I were to go out and find a church that exactly suited my personal preferences I’d find myself in a church of one. it is a problem I have yet to work out. Locally there are a few different TEC churches of varying liberality, and an ACA church. There’s an ACNA parish I wouldn’t mind checking out but it’s a good 40 minute drive.
Be in prayer about which one to attend, and the Holy Spirit will give you direction. I was raised RC. I am always happy to encourage someone to move away from their particular way of looking at things. In my experience, they make their members feel as if they can't be pleasing to God unless they remain in the RCC. Christians should always trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, and not be led to divide their trust between Him and the denomination.
The best thing I have found about the Anglican Church (which may not be what other people like about it, but what they dislike) is that there seems to be room for everyone. If you support gays or women's ordination, there is a diocese for you. If you strongly oppose either of these, there is a diocese for you. I fortunately live in a diocese with a Bishop whose views I also support. It might be harder for me if I lived in a different diocese. I also know there are various offshoots of Anglicanism that I know nothing about. But that's what I like - no one central control that says I can't believe what I believe. No Pope. I like him as a person, he seems nice, but I can't go along with the whole philosophy of 'believe this or go to hell'.
This is false. The exact opposite is closer to the truth. The anti-women clergy view is the minority and is shrinking. And there’s probably something to that. No matter the issue, whatever the majority opinion is, right-wingers will seek to do the opposite.
I was interested so I had a quick look at easily accessible data. I don;t think it is quite right, and overstates the case a bit, however within the communion there has been a considerable move in this direction, indeed much further than I had thought. I think when you take GAFCON into account you will get a better balance on the numbers.
What are you talking about… have you been to any Anglican provinces outside the episcopal church?… Every strongly pro-WO province is shrinking and disappearing whilst the non-WO one are growing.. The church of Singapore is doubling every few years, and the orthodox Africans are growing, while (for example) South Africa (pro-WO) is shrinking, so it’s not a factor of if it’s Africa or not, but if it’s orthodox or not in ACNA the movement against WO is increasing year by year, and all the growing Gafcon church plants in England (rejecting WO) are growing, whilst the CofE (pro-WO) is shrinking
it would be interesting to see comparative graphs, over time and projected into the future, the numbers of those churches. I’d like to know where the slopes of the shrinking churches are intersected with the slopes of the growing ones, and when that intersection is predicted to occur. One hears the same in the Roman church with regards to the TLM, although it looks like Francis may have managed to prevent an eventual takeover
Hello everyone, we realize that women's ordination is a contentious topic but please try to reserve those discussions for their respective threads rather than clogging up people's introductory threads.
Thanks for posting this. It's also illuminating to see which specific orders (bishops vs. priests vs. deacons) are open to both genders in each church. The most growth is in Africa, and the African churches in general have been moving in the direction of greater openness. It gets repeated a lot on this forum that the "majority" of Anglicans worldwide oppose women priests, yet one will search in vain for statistics that even remotely substantiate that claim. It's a false statement, that is being repeated for ideological reasons or tribe-signaling. Even if, counterfactually, we grant the premise for the sake of the discussion, it's also just a poor argument. What difference does it make whether the majority approve or disapprove of women priests? Consensus is not a test for truth. Correspondence and coherence are. What matters is which position is more objectively defensible, not how many adherents each view has. Even if the majority were in fact opposed, that by itself wouldn't make it right, anymore than the majority favoring it does.