First Kansas City Woman Ordained Priest

            Several weeks ago there was a momentary tizzy when Georgia Walker, a Catholic woman, was ordained.  The Kansas City Star and the National Catholic Reporter proclaimed her to be the first Kansas City woman to be ordained a Catholic priest.      

            Actually, a different Kansas City woman, Katrina van Alstyne Welles Swanson was ordained as a Catholic priest on July 29, 1974, over 40 years before Georgia Walker.   On that solemn morning, in front a congregation of two thousand, she was presented for ordination as a priest in Christ’s holy Catholic Church, just as Georgia Walker was presented recently.  Katrina Swanson was ordained by three bishops.  One of them was her father, the Rt. Rev. Edward R. Welles, Bishop of West Missouri.

            Bishop Welles, of course, was an Episcopalian.  Almost everyone would recognize that if Welles was Catholic, it was of a peculiar sort.  Katrina and Georgia, and the bishops that ordained them, share a kind of communion with the Catholic Church because they share the same baptism.  And perhaps the Catholic Church would recognize that the historic episcopate maintained in the Episcopal Church and claimed by the Womanpriest movement has a certain affinity with essential Catholic structures.  They may even claim to celebrate some or all of the same sacraments and preach from the same bible.  But Bishop Welles would never have claimed the right to join the council of all the Catholic bishops at Vatican II. Nor would he have ever claimed to believe or to teach everything the Catholic Church believes and teaches.  He may have worn a cope and miter and have stood beside the local Catholic bishop, but he would never have claimed to be in communion with him, or to celebrate the sacraments for local Catholic parishioners.  He could claim to be Catholic, but only within the context of the meaning of that term as understood by other Episcopalians. All of those ordained by him could only make a similar limited claim.  And the bishop who ordained Georgia Walker can only make a similar claim.

            The Catholic faith is not about magic, and bishops are not dispensers of magical power.  The bishops who ordained the two women were not acting for the Catholic Church.  Catholic bishops represent the whole Catholic faith and act in union with the universal church. The bishops who ordained Katrina and Georgia reject much of what Catholic Church understands to be essential to Catholicism, they teach much that is incompatible with Catholicsim and they were not in union with the universal church. So they could not have ordained Katrina and Georgia as Catholic priests, in the most common understanding of the term.  The definition of Catholicism made by Katrina’s Episcopal Church and Georgia’s Womanpriest movement does not include communion with the Catholic Church and does not include the full Catholic faith.  They can define the word Catholic for themselves and use it within their own context in whatever way their traditions choose.  But if all are honest, they will recognize that their definitions are very peculiar. 

            Georgia Walker is not even the second Kansas City woman to be ordained a priest.  In the forty years since the first ordination of women as priests, any number of Kansas City women have been ordained  priests.  Given the movement of members back and forth between the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church, it is likely that a few Catholic women were ordained priests in "Christ's Holy Catholic Church" by Episcopalian bishops.  It is also possible that others have been ordained priests in one of the iterations of the Old Catholic Church that sprout locally.  A little research could determine the numbers, but it really doesn't matter all that much.              Episcopal bishops ordain priests for the Episcopal Church. Old Catholic bishops ordain Old Catholic priests. And Womanpriest bishops ordain Womanpriest priests.  Only Catholic bishops ordain priests for the Catholic Church.  No matter what her ordination liturgy may have claimed Katrina Swanson was only a priest in the Episcopal Church, not the Catholic Church.  And no matter what her ordination may have claimed, Georgia Walker is a priest for her movement, but not for the Catholic Church.

            The recent attention to Georgia Walker’s ordination does have a potential positive outcomes. It gives us an opportunity to remember a bit of local history and recall headline-making events.  Katrina Wells Swanson nor Georgia Walker will not be recognized as Catholic priests for the Catholic Church, but Katrina’s ordination should be remembered as being a historic first, forty years before Georgia’s.

Practical Questions About Liturgy at Our Lady of Hope

1. What is the church like?

When you walk into Our Lady of Sorrows Church where we worship, you get a distinct feeling of the presence of the Lord. Indeed He is present in the Blessed Sacrament. Upon entering one becomes immediately "worshipful" in manner and upon entering one is given to silence.

2. How is the liturgy celebrated?

Whether the congregation is small or large, everything is dignified, and reverent as the "Lord of Hosts is with us".  The vestments are rich and beautiful, often handmade.  Then the solemn manner in which sacred ministers, cantors, servers, altar guild and readers perform their part in the eternal drama, absolutely contributes to the piety of all. This tone and manner is shared by the congregation, who fully participate.

3. What kind of music is used?

Probably the most dramatic contribution to the Anglican Patrimony is its hymnody. Magnificent music planned and directed by Dr. Bruce Prince-Joseph our organist, sung in the most venerable traditions, shared by a congregation singing to the rafters literally lifts the soul to the heavenly throne.

4.  How do the people receive communion?

We receive communion in the traditional manner, kneeling at the altar rail.  Those who cannot kneel are welcome to stand. Some receive the sacrament on the tongue. But most make a simple, humble "throne" of the left hand for the right, whereon is placed the precious Sacrament. From there, the Body untouched is raised to the mouth of the communicant.

5. Are the people reverent?

Such things as bowing the head at Our Lord's name, making the sign of the cross at timely points of prayer, genuflecting at the Incarnatus in the creed, acknowledging the Lord at the elevation of the Host at the time of consecration - all these "engage" the faithful in the act of worship. The faithful are not only involved, but their participation lends to their understanding and their personal piety. They help us to present ourselves as a "living sacrifice." They help to shape a humble, contrite, awe-inspired heart when we come before Him. That reverent participation is also a part of the Anglican Way.

5. Why not use everyday English?

The language of the liturgy is Elizabethan English, as in most traditional parishes. Its formality, poetry, and beauty add a special dignity, and once again reverence, to the order of worship and contribute to the piety of the people. It helps to establish in a unique way, a humble, separate, not presumptuous, relationship between creature and Creator. It doesn't put off, but rather gathers together reverently. Formal expression can be inspiring. Therefore those prayers and hymns employing that formal language tend to put the faithful in a reverent attitude before the Holy of Holies.

6. How is the liturgy related to the Anglican Prayer Book?

The Book of Common Prayer is itself a work of great spiritual and practical genius, a rich gift to the faithful. Anglicans know it as well as they know their Bibles. Anglicans throughout the world can pick it up and know they are "at home.  All of those familiar with the prayer book tradition will be soon right at home with the Catholic “Book of Divine Worship” used in Ordinariate liturgies.  Catholics will immediately recognize the familiar structure of the Mass, enriched with historic Anglican devotion.

7. Who can receive communion?

Because Catholics believe that the celebration of the Eucharist is a sign of the reality of the oneness of faith, life, and worship, members of those churches with whom we are not yet fully united are ordinarily not admitted to Communion. Eucharistic sharing in exceptional circumstances by other Christians requires permission according to the directives of the diocesan bishop and the provisions of canon law. . . . " 

(Many thanks to Marthat Eischen, "Anglican Patrimony or the Anglican Way," published in VirtueOnline, June 29, 2011.)

Does Kansas City Need Another Catholic Church? 4

I began by saying that if we have nothing distinctive to offer, then there are plenty of other Catholic parishes in Kansas City.  But Our Lady of Hope is not like any other.  We have a particular mission: to those sisters and brothers whom God is calling into the full communion of the Catholic Church.  Certainly every other parish shares that same mission.  But none of them, except for those in the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, are called to place that mission at the top of the list. All of us were separated, called, and reconciled, so we know what kinds of sacrifices are sometimes required.  We also have another distinctive characteristic: Joy!  Catholic converts are happy Catholics.  We know what we have found!  The treasure in a field, a pearl of great price.

I invite you to read the story of one of our Ordinariate priests who was with us at the recent clergy and wives' conference.

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/10/does-the-center-hold-the-story-of-fr-albert-scharbachs-journey-from-westminster-theological-seminary-to-catholic-priest/

Does Kansas City Need Another Catholic Church? 3

Does Kansas City Need Another Catholic Church? 3

            Everybody needs to know that Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church is really small.  Even by Episcopalian standards, where Sunday attendance in an average parish has declined to 65, we are very small.  On a good Sunday we have about half that many. If we are content to join the slow decline of Episcopalian, Anglican, mainline Protestant and Evangelical parishes (last one to leave, please turn out the light) then no, Kansas City does not need us. If our goal is to preserve a liturgy as a museum piece and to serve the religious sentiments of club members, then no, Kansas City does not need us for that, either.

            A few weeks ago I asked one of our original members, Jodeen, how she came up with the suggestion of Our Lady of Hope for our name.  She told me, “I didn’t know anything about the name.  I believe it was a direct inspiration from God.”  Our name calls us to be people of hope.  This whole Christian enterprise started with one person.  Luke does not record that anyone was with Mary when Gabriel visited her. And from the one person who dared to believe that the hopes of her people would be fulfilled, everything began.  One is not none, and small is not nothing.

            Back when I was working in the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri with my good friend, Fr. Jim Carlyle, our jobs were to start or restart parishes.  We knew that new parishes have a much better chance of growing than old ones, because when everyone is new, all start from the same place.  There are no established power structures that newcomers have to break into and people can start belonging right away.  We both had small groups to start with, but our goal was to open new churches with 200 in attendance on our first Sunday. We used telemarketing, mailings, and personal invitations.  He worked to launch St. Anne’s Episcopal in Lee’s Summit, and I worked to re-launch St. Michael’s Episcopal in Independence. Twenty years ago, we both worked to remove perceived “barriers.”  That meant making the liturgy user-friendly, the music contemporary, denominational identification invisible, and to a certain extent, the faith non-challenging.

            Things have changed a lot in twenty years.  Our Lady of Hope is no more than what we used to call a “core group.”  We don’t have any plans to do any telemarketing. If anything, Our Lady of Hope is doing a slow launch.  I don’t have the luxury of devoting myself to this project full time, and we don’t have the financial resources that the Episcopal diocese devoted to our projects.  But we have something that is much more important – the Catholic faith, the inexorable work of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of Mary and of all the saints.

            Our Lady of Hope has a potential that our previous work in the Episcopal diocese never had.  And we have a potential that no other Catholic parish can match.  The Holy Spirit is our telemarketing campaign.  And the Holy Spirit is calling evangelicals into the Catholic Church.  Can you imagine what a Catholic parish would be like if it fully embraced and empowered their evangelical skills and zeal instead of keeping them at arm’s length?  The Holy Spirit is calling Anglicans, Episcopalians and Methodists who love their tradition, but even more love Christ and his call to be one in him as he is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is calling Catholics who want to celebrate the liturgy in the beauty of holiness, and who are eager to share the depth of their faith with others.

            Are you being called?  Do you know others who may be called?  Do you hope to be part of a Catholic parish like this?  Are you willing to give of yourself, your time, your energy, and your faith, and to be a person of hope?

More to come!

Does Kansas City need another Catholic Church? 2

Four or five years ago it seemed that having an "Anglican Use" community as part of St. Therese Little Flower Parish could be a long-term mutually beneficial solution.  I was thinking that I could remain at St. Therese until retirement.  The Anglican Use community added resources to the struggling inner-city parish, and the parish provided space to worship, a link to the wider Catholic community, and assistance with pastoral programming.  We began some projects that assumed we would have a long-term home at St. Therese.

When I was thinking that I could remain at St. Therese long-term, I didn't realize was that St. Therese Parish and the Anglican Use community had a deep and basic conflict.  St. Therese Parish depends on attracting people who feel like they don't fit in a regular parish.  St. Therese Parish can be very warm and welcoming and some neighborhood parishes can be very cold.  But some of our key parishioners had a deep animosity toward the church hierarchy and Catholic dogma and discipline.  On the other hand, I and the other former Anglican converts who joined me at St. Therese had made an adult choice to enter the Catholic faith.  And to enter the full communion of the Church we had affirmed that we believe what the Catholic Church believes.  This was a rift that simply could not be bridged, and it continued to feed the suspicions of some parishioners that our presence and my pastoral leadership could not be trusted.  It became clear to me that I would not be able to remain at St. Therese long-term, and it also became clear that one person could not be pastor of both communities.

The Anglican Use community at St. Therese never discussed this.  Instead our discussion focused on our future.  Our study of Anglicanorum Coetibus and the mission of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter convinced us that we needed to take charge of our own future and find a way to enter the Ordinariate.

Now that we are Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church we can embrace our Catholic identity in a way that would never have been possible at St. Therese Little Flower.  Converts make joyful Catholics, and that should make us good evangelists.  I am convinced that this is our fundamental mission, more important than anything else, that we put Christ first.  We are taking steps to put our money and our program where our mission is, and to keep from getting diverted into things that will take lots of energy but aren't directly related to our mission.

More to come!

Does Kansas City need a new Catholic Church?

Does Kansas City need a new Catholic Church? Only if the new one does something the others cannot do.

Just a couple of years ago it appeared that Kansas City might actually get two or three new Catholic Churches.  There was some excitement that Kansas City's two Traditional Anglican Communion parishes might enter the Catholic Church along with the whole TAC.  The bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion had asked for a way that they and their churches could enter the full communion of the Catholic Church while retaining some of their Anglican traditions and retain some responsibility for their own governance.  "United, not absorbed" was the goal of Anglican reunion with Catholicism as the early 20th Century Malines Conversations had described it.  Pope Benedict offered Anglicanorum Coetibus. Based on that Apostolic Constitution, Ordinariates were established in Great Britain, the United States and Canada, and Australia.  There was a lot of excitement prior to the Coming Home conference sponsored by the Anglican Use Community at St. Therese Little Flower and a number of Anglican priests participated.  The former Anglicans at St. Therese believed that they could help facilitate the project of healing church divisions by sharing their experience in becoming Catholic.  They were open to the possibility that they could cease to exist as a separate community and that they themselves could be absorbed into one of the existing Anglican soon-to-be-Catholic parishes when they entered the Catholic Church. But by then, the original excitement of the TAC was fading.  Rome had made a very generous offer.  But most of the Anglican parishioners in the pew didn't want to be Catholic, and the TAC bishops apparently weren't terribly enthusiastic about actually entering the Catholic Church.  Several of the Anglican bishops and many of the Anglican priests did not meet the required educational standards for ordination in the Catholic Church, and several had marriage issues.  A few TAC Anglican parishes around the country entered the new Ordinariate, but none of the local ones did.  That meant the former Anglicans at St. Therese Little Flower had to mull over their own reason for being.  What did it mean for them to be "United, not Absorbed"?  What was their reason for being?  Did they have a permanent future at St. Therese?  How could they enter the Ordinariate when the parish they had joined would always be part of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph?

More soon!

"What child is this? What mother is this?

What Child is this? What Mother is this?

I grew up in an Episcopal parish. In some ways we prided ourselves at being catholic, or maybe even a little bit better. We liked to say that the English reformation simply purified the Catholic Church in England, and that we kept everything that was authentically catholic. We could point out things about our church building, about our liturgy, and about our faith that made us catholic. You might think that we considered Mary to be a corruption, because her image was absent from the church, devotions and prayers were absent from the liturgy, and all of her days on the church calendar were absent – except one.

The Catholic Church’s devotion to Mary developed because of a long meditation on Jesus, her son. Convinced that Christ born in Bethlehem is already Son of God as we sing at Christmas in “O Come all Ye Faithful” – “God from God, Light from Light Eternal, Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb; Only begotten, Son of God the Father, O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.”

If Christ is worthy of our adoration as God, then how did he come to dwell among us as a person? How powerful was it when Mary told Gabriel, “Let it be to me according to your word.” How full of grace and sinless did she have to be to carry God the Son of God in her womb and give birth to him? How full of love did she have to be to raise, with Joseph, a child, a teenager, a young adult like Jesus? How much did she understand him when she told the people at the wedding, “Do whatever he tells you.” How much according to God’s plan was it that the same Holy Spirit that overshadowed her so that Christ could be conceived in her, was the Holy Spirit that fell upon her and the disciples at Pentecost, giving birth to the Church?

It does seem to be true that to truly know Christ is to know his mother, and to tuly know his mother is to know Christ. May we know them and love them better and better.

Core Values

The National Catholic Reporter did a very short article about St. Therese because we are the one parish in the country that uses the Ordinary Form of the Mass as well as the Anglican Use. Even though our former Anglicans have been here a year and a half, they are relative newcomers in a parish that has a well-established identity. That means St. Therese is a microcosm of the rest of the Catholic Church as we deal with two cultures that have so much in common and also some differences that are very important to each. It would be naïve of me to pretend that these differences are not the source of actual and potential conflict. It is much easier to believe theoretically that diversity is a strength than it is to celebrate it when someone else's spiritual and liturgical expression causes discomfort or symbolizes what one is afraid of. Some Anglo-Catholic liturgical practices that defined the "Catholic" wing of the Episcopal Church not only seem like dinosaurs to some Catholics but remind them of the pre-Vatican II days they were glad to leave behind. And some contemporary Catholic practices remind former Episcopalians and Anglicans of what they were trying to get away from. I truly doubt that some of those deep-seated preferences and convictions will change. Last week I was reading about the experience of some Anglican priests who converted to Catholicism and then returned to the Anglican Church. Something like 250 priests converted in England, and about 10% went back. Apparently they missed a feeling that they belonged, that they were personally known and welcome. They found their Catholic parish to be cold and impersonal. It struck me that in spite of differences, St. Therese's core values are very Anglican. There is nothing cold and impersonal about St. Therese. "Father says" is not a good enough reason to get something done here - people expect to be included and respected. If this experiment can succeed anywhere, it can succeed at St. Therese. It really doesn't matter whether the person bagging the groceries for the food pantry goes to 9:15 or 11:15, and everybody loves to eat. Newcomers and old-timers, 9:15 and 11:15 folks all met together to begin work on converting our school into a community center. There was a nice review of our 11:15 Mass at Church of the Week. He says he will be visiting our 9:15 Mass soon. You might want to visit it at http://church-of-the-week.blogspot.com/

Bridging the Tiber

I am trying to imagine how those Anglicans who have asked for unity must be feeling right now. If I can remember correctly, as an Episcopalian, I imagined unity with Rome as a kind of covering Rome would throw over the Anglican Communion, offering legitimacy, blessing, collegiality, and support for the Anglo-Catholic interpretation of Anglicanism, without being intrusive. I may have imagined a kind of unity that we could take off the shelf and use to our advantage when it suited us, and put back on the shelf when we were finished with it. It would certainly have suited us to have Catholic recognition of Anglican orders, Catholic endorsement of Anglican sacraments, Catholic representation at Anglican altars at special functions, Catholic bishops' hands participating at Anglican ordinations, and Catholic boosts to the Anglican ethos of having a special place and role to play as the bridge church. We would have been pleased to have Catholics at Anglican communion rails, and Catholic contributors in our pews. In other words, I imagined that we could be Anglican first, and Catholic when it suited us.

Based on what I have been reading and hearing, at least some Anglicans who asked for union with Rome hoped unity with Rome might be something like what I described. Now, faced with the offer of an Anglican Ordinariate in the Catholic Church, Anglicans are faced with an invitation to be Catholic, and the reaction of some seems to be, "But I don't want to be Catholic! I don't want to convert!"

I hope my fellow Catholics will not be dismissive of such reactions. I think it is absolutely necessary for Anglicans to wrestle with real issues and express the emotions related to them. Newman's entry into the Catholic Church did not happen in one day. Nor did he just think himself through the process, although thinking was absolutely necessary. Newman helps us realize that we reason not only mentally, but physically, emotionally and socially as well. If we try to shut down the process and demand instant gratitude for a gracious offer, then we demean those for whom this is almost a life and death issue involving one's core identity.

To be helpful to our Anglican sisters and brothers, Catholics should recognize, that Anglicans are faced with huge sacrifices. To take up Rome's offer, Anglicans are asked to trust the unfamiliar, to put more of a premium on hope than on their past, to be able to state with conviction they believe all the Catholic Church teaches, and to define themselves more as a people who are for something than against something. To become Catholic they will have to give up participating in the sacraments until they are prepared to make professions of faith as Catholics, and for Anglicans in irregular marriages, to forego the sacraments and enter the Catholic annulment process for a ruling on the status of their marriages. Anglican clergy, especially the TAC clergy who may not have seminary educations, are being asked to give up their ministries for what may be an extended period. Because only Catholic priests can be incardinated into the Ordinariate, former Anglican clergy will have to wait until the Ordinariate can establish the educational processes so they can meet Catholic standards and be ordained Catholic priests. If they are married, petitions still have to go to Rome and the Ordinariate will have to demonstrate that there is a need for their ministry. Some Anglicans may know right now, intuitively, that they ready to cross the bridge. But I imagine that for most, especially here in the U.S., it will take some time.

Some, perhaps many, Anglicans who hoped and prayed for an invitation, will decide not to accept it. Even making that decision will require a huge shift in identity. After hoping, praying, and working for unity with Rome as the solution to Anglicanism's problems, those who decide not to accept unity on Rome's terms will have to go through a huge process of reorientation toward a new and different future.

The gap between Rome's "Here is what you requested" and Anglicanism's "Is this what I was asking for?" is huge. The gap is between Rome's offer of an Anglican expression of Catholicism and Anglicanism's hope for a Catholic blessing of Anglicanism. Bridging that gap will involve a very real struggle and it is entirely dependent on the Holy Spirit working with people of good will and wisdom from both sides of the gap. As Anglicanorum Coetibus states, the Holy Spirit moved groups of Anglicans to petition for unity. The Holy Spirit is the principle of unity, establishing the Church as a communion. The Holy Spirit has brought us this far, and he will certainly carry us further.

Come Holy Spirit. Kindle in us the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created.

And you shall renew the face of the earth.

O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful. Grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may have a right judgment in all things, and ever rejoice in his holy consolations. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.