[music] Marcus Grodi: Good evening, and welcome to
'The Journey Home'. I'm Marcus Grodi,
your host for this program. Tonight's 'Journey Home'
is a special episode, in effect, maybe the start of a number
of episodes like this. It's something that
I've thought about doing for a long time. We've been doing this
program now for, whoa, about 24 years. And those of you, especially who are
regular viewers, have heard many stories
of men and women who've had a deep conversion
to Jesus Christ, and then, in the process, eventually discovered
the Catholic Church. Or other guests were
brought up Catholic, and then had left, and then, often after an
awakening to Jesus Christ, felt a draw back to the Church. And these guests,
over the years, have come from a great number
of non-Catholic traditions, as you know that, and in our own large database, the Coming Home Network's
large database of converts and reverts to the Church,
inquirers to the Church, we see people coming from over 100
different denominations. But what I've wanted to do,
over the years, is to invite back guests
to talk about, specifically, given their
denominational background, two questions, and this is what we're
going to do tonight, two questions. For that person's
denominational background, what were the main; what are the main barriers
that prevent a person from that particular tradition to be open to
the Catholic Church? And then the second
question is, what is it that opens the heart of people from that tradition
to the Church? And the reason I think
this discussion is important is because sometimes we just
lump all non-Catholics into Protestants. Well, the truth is,
everybody's a bit different in their theology,
even within one tradition, so that the barriers that stand between an Anglican or
a Presbyterian or a Baptist, a Lutheran, a Pentecostal,
Assembly of God, Church of Christ, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness are different, nuanced different,
sometimes radically different from one another. And same thing, the things that draw people from each of
those different denominations is different. So, I invited, tonight, to join me on this program,
a good friend of mine. I feel like we've known
each other forever, but we've just known each other because of our journeys
to the Church, and our guest tonight, for the first
of these episodes, is Msgr Jeffrey Steenson. He's been on the program
a number of times, but let me run down
just a little background. He's not going to give
a story tonight, but Monsignor Steenson was
a former Episcopal bishop before he was received into the Catholic Church
in 2007. He, in 2009, he was then
ordained a Catholic priest, in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. He was then appointed, and after serving
a number of parishes, he's then appointed
as the first ordinary of the Anglican Ordinariate, the personal ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter
in 2012. He served for four years until actually they got a bishop for the ordinariate. And then Monsignor
moved back up north where he served
as a scholar in residence in the School of Divinity
at St Paul Seminary, and then he's also been teaching in the Archdiocese
of St Paul in Minneapolis. And now he serves part-time as the Vice President of the Coming Home Network, and he's also my co-host on a 'Deep in History' program, which we'll talk about later. So, let me welcome to the
program, hello, Monsignor. Msgr Jeffrey Steenson:
Marcus, it's wonderful to be with you. Thank you so much. Well, it is great
that you would join us for this first episode,
Monsignor. I wish we weren't
separated by electronics, and we can just be sitting
across the table here, but... Exactly. Yes. Yeah. First of all, before I get you to jump
into this question, what do you think
about this idea of, discuss the
unique barriers and the unique things that draw people
into the Church from, in your case,
the Anglican Church? I think it's a wonderful
idea, Marcus, not only for people that may be thinking about
coming across the river, but also for Catholics to be more sensitive
about the needs of these people as they, that inquire, and
some of them will convert, and I think it's
a great idea for that. I've thought about
over the years, if you've listened to
'The Journey Home' program over the years, you've heard all
the different reasons that people's hearts were
open to the Catholic Church, and you might just think,
well, that's, was unique to that person. But it also
might have been because of the tradition
they came from. Yes. That that was
what opened their heart. Exactly. No. I think, yeah,
in our program now today, we'll be able to talk about
some of these elements, and I think they'd be
different from people from different
Church traditions. What I've asked
Monsignor to do is not focus
on his own conversion. If you're not familiar with his journey
to the Church, you can go to ewtn.com, or you can go
to Coming Home Network, chnetwork.org, and look at the old
'Journey Home' episode where Monsignor
gave his story. But what I wanted
you to do, and this first question,
then, Monsignor, is, from your experience
and studies, what would you say
are the biggest barriers that stand in the way,
for Anglicans, Episcopalians to
the Catholic Church? All right. I'll try to break that
down in a couple of ways as we go along here,
Marcus, so you please interrupt me with any
questions or comments that you have
on this as well. I think the, I think,
honestly, the, probably the
biggest problem for serious Anglicans
to get over is their
superiority complex. <i>Ooh! [chuckles]</i> <i>Now, where did
that come from?</i> Well, I don't know. We were just, it was
kind of ingrained in us that we had a superior
ecclesial culture. We had the best liturgy,
the best music. Well, maybe not the best
music, but way up there. And so, there's a; I, we felt very,
very proud about that. I can remember that
over the years, and sometimes that
can become a barrier. For us to say that
here sounds demeaning. I thought, Monsignor, it was just things
that I felt, because when I
was a pastor, first, a Congregationalist
pastor, then for many years,
a Presbyterian pastor, I was always a part of
the old ministerial groups in the towns
where I served, and so, we would gather once
a month with the Baptists. I was maybe
the Presbyterian, and then the
Assembly of God, and maybe the Catholic
priest would show up. But then there'd be
the Episcopalian, and I always just felt that he had this attitude
towards the rest of us. Oh, there is, honestly,
there is no doubt about that. I can remember, years ago, I was out of seminary
at the time, but I was a young
Episcopal priest, and we got into this
fascinating discussion about why Episcopalians make the best dry martinis
on the planet. [both laugh] There was;
and my first job after I finished
graduate school, my first pastoral calling,
my boss said, "One of the most
important things that you need to learn
as a new Episcopal priest is how to
tend bar properly so you can do
a proper dinner party." I mean, you could see
it was sort of; we laughed about it. It's kind of
silly snottiness. But... Is it...? I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, does this come
from, historically, the idea that when the, I don't know if it's, this came about
during the initial years of the English Reformation
in the mid-1500s, but whether it
developed later, that the
Church of England saw itself as going back to the earliest
years of the Church, I think the first six
or seven ecumenical councils, they accepted. And so, they began
to see themselves back in the time when
the Church was united, Catholics, Orthodox, and then they saw themselves
in that mix, and so, therefore,
they kind of presume they preceded
the continental reformation, the Germans and the Swiss. Is that kind of it? No. That's a great point. I can remember
pretty vividly those days we spent in, when I was in England, and the attitude was that the Church
of England was for, that was the national Church
for all the people, and if you opted out
of that arrangement, you might be a Wesleyan or a Presbyterian
or something like that. But it was this sense of being the Church
of the people, if you will, the national Church. And it bred a kind of
arrogance, honestly. Everybody else
were upstarts. Yeah. I mean, even Luther
and Calvin were upstarts, in a way, when seen
from that perspective. And I wonder even Newman
trying to clarify. Here's Newman,
an Anglican priest in the mid-19th century struggling with
the problems of the Church, and himself being drawn
to a higher Anglicanism, a more traditionalist
Anglicanism, but trying to justify, trying to justify, in fact, the superiority
of Anglicanism as a via media, middle
place between Catholicism and all the rest
of them Protestants. Isn't that what he
was trying to argue? That's what
he was trying to argue. And it's interesting how, when he started
to travel to Italy, and especially that early
journey to Italy, I forget what the year was, but it was before
his conversion, and he writes about how
he was really humbled by the faith of
simple Catholic people. And that kind of
superiority that he had been bred with in Oxford
and in that world, he came to repent,
if you will. Yeah. When I was in seminary,
Monsignor, and you were in seminary
right down the road from me about the same time. We didn't know
each other then. Yeah. I was at
Gordon-Conwell. You were at Harvard. But my focus in my, beside pastoral ministry, I focused on
the English reformers, not the 17th century
Puritan reformers, like John; Richard Baxter, and that group of folk,
Isaac Watts. And what's fascinating
about those writers; now think about this, folks. You have the English
Anglican Church being established
in the 16th century. 100 years later, you have faithful
Evangelical-minded pastors breaking away
from the Anglican Church because it's
so corrupt already. Richard Baxter writes
that wonderful book, 'The Reformed Pastor,' in which he says in there, "It's a sin when a man
becomes a pastor before he's converted." This is 100 years
after the establishment of the Church. And I'm not; I don't want
us to sit here and just browbeat Anglicans
for their arrogance; excuse me, mea culpa, for my own arrogance, but I'm wondering if that was
a part of even the culture that infiltrated early
into the ministry? It did;
just down the street from where you went
to seminary, where I was a seminarian, I remember we had
a wonderful pastor there, Fr Jim Hampson, who, I can remember
a homily he gave about how
he kind of gave you a little biography
of his life, and he was baptized,
he was confirmed, he was married,
he was ordained, and then he became
a Christian. Yeah. I... Well, yeah. Boy, that gets me into
a lot of other discussions we could get into, because, sometimes
for Anglicans, coming towards
the Catholic Church, even, it often - I've got
to be careful here - it often isn't a deeper
walk with Christ, but it's more liturgy
or some of these, more of the externals, then; and it's not
always true. We make sure on, the guests
on our program talk about Our Lord
Jesus Christ. But sometimes that
could be a struggle. Oh, and it is. That was one of the things
I put on my list today to talk about, the barriers that Anglicans
sometimes experience, and the liturgy is one
of those things that can be
sometimes off-putting. If there's one thing
an Episcopalian was taught to be proud of,
it was the liturgy. And there was, at least
in the higher tradition, not necessarily
Anglo-Catholic tradition, but the high
Anglican tradition, the Cathedral type worship; it was beautiful. The texts were wonderful. The hymnody, the organ
music was stunning. And then you contemplate
becoming a Catholic, a Roman Catholic, and it's a different
experience liturgically. Yeah. Any of you Anglicans
watching us, we're not trying
to nail you down. We're trying to; and I was
never an Anglican, so I've got to be
careful here, but wasn't it Cranmer
that put together the 'Book
of Common Prayer'? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I remember
I joked with you that in the process
of doing that, when he copied over
the virtues, he got them
backwards, so that... That's right.
That's right. ...in a sense, the worst
vice became humility and the highest virtue
became pride, the stiff upper lip, and you see that a bit
in English culture anyway. But that isn't alone
an Anglican issue. We certainly see that
in other traditions, but I think you're
witnessing to that, you're talking the liturgy. What other things would
you say are barriers for Anglicans, just getting
beyond themselves, but also the liturgy? Yeah. Well, I think
another thing that we had to
really struggle with is the attitude
that we had that the nature of the
Catholic Church was that it was basically
a worldwide federation of national Churches. And so, Anglican
apologists develop what we sometimes call
the 'Branch theory', that there are many branches
of the Catholic Church, and they all lead back
to the apostles. That theory has
a hard time sometimes acknowledging that everything is rooted
in Peter. It comes from Peter
and his successors. So, that's a big problem. I remember, we were
taught, as Anglicans, that, toward this
branch theory idea is that when Christ made
that commission to Peter, what was entrusted to Peter was entrusted
to all the apostles. And so, using that analogy
and carrying it forward, then, it's not
the Bishop of Rome, but all the bishops together who represent
the apostolic authority in the Church. So, it was this idea that, why would
we become Catholic since we're
already Catholic? Yep. Yep. And to me, that just
points out the problem of interpretation
of Scripture, because you can have a solid
Scriptural foundation for an idea, but is that the
correct interpretation, or is it a new
interpretation? And you're; Monsignor Jeffrey
Steenson's my guest, those of you who
are listening on radio. And your strength is, and training
is in patristics. And often the problems
in the Early Church, with the different heresies was a battle
between - this is what it says in the Bible, versus this is what
we've received from the apostles, or this is what
the present Bishop of Rome and those gathered
around him are saying. There was a battle
between how do you interpret
that Scripture? Well, sure. Marcus, I'm not sure
how exactly to put this, but from a point; from the point of view
of patristic study, the primacy
of the Roman See wasn't so clear
in the early centuries. And we were; you and I
have been talking a little bit about this with our Irenaeus
podcast as well. The, what is
kind of ironical about this whole
story is that the first time that it
specifically mentioned that the Bishop
of Rome sees himself as a successor of St Peter, just like that,
came from his opponents, that we find it in the letters
of St Cyprian. So, and that was mainly
the Eastern Churches complaining about
the Bishop of Rome imposing pastoral discipline in terms of what do we do
receiving back heretics and schismatics
into the Church. And they objected to Pope
Stephen being so imperious about the decrees that he
put forward about that. Yeah. I've often read in; historians will say,
quote somebody, fourth century, and say, 'Well, this is
the first time that this belief
was created or coined,' or whatever word, when in truth, no, that's the earliest record
we have of it, but that doesn't mean it's
the way people believed. They may have been believing
that for 100 years before that, but it
just happens to be the first record
we have of, earliest record
we have of something, and Monsignor and I are
doing a weekly podcast. We'll talk about it in the
second half of the program, of Irenaeus' wonderful
book 'Against Heresies' that was published
in 175 AD. I mean, that's exciting
to think about that. But there are things
he says in there that maybe one of
the earliest records in the history of
the Church when it said, but the way
he says it implies that this is what
they always accept. It's not new. This is what was passed on
from Christ to His apostles as the apostolic
deposit of faith, the core of
what we believe. No. We should probably
acknowledge, too, the importance of Blessed
John Henry Newman on this as well. Well, actually, no,
St John Henry Newman. That's right. Between his Anglican period and when he
became Catholic, in that transition,
he wrote his essay on 'The Development
of Doctrine.' And I think that's very
important, honestly, for people that
are trying to think their way into
the Catholic Church from Anglicanism, because it; if you just
kind of look at it from a point of view that, if, well, that
everything has always been the same
from the beginning. Honestly, it hasn't been. There's been some kind of
development going on; and so, all of the things that will come later
in the Catholic tradition, well, they're not
new things, but they're developed or
unfolded out of the deposit. These initially can be quite
serious stumbling blocks for potential converts
from Anglicanism to the Catholic Church. The Marian dogmas,
for instance. Papal primacy is not
so terribly hard, but papal infallibility is a more serious
problem to resolve. And what Newman did,
I think, was incredibly important
to help many of us. Well, we're faced
with moral issues today, that people even 100 years
ago couldn't imagine. So, there was nothing in the apostolic
deposit of faith that dealt with
in-vitro fertilization. So, what do we do? Well, the Church, as it says in
the very first statement in the Catechism, the responsibility
of the Church is the guarding
of the deposit, has to gather
the Magisterium in union with the successor
of Peter to discern, how do we take Scripture, which is a part of the
apostolic deposit of faith and the tradition
we've received, and apply it to what's
going on today? And that's what
Vatican II was all about. Monsignor, the moral
issue comes up, and I'm wondering even, as a barrier
to many Anglicans, I mean, the Catholic Church
has stood really strong on some moral issues
that the Anglican and Episcopal
Church haven't. Is that a barrier
to Anglicans? It can be, of course. When some of that stuff
comes up, though, it's sometimes helpful just to sit down with people
that have those questions and remind them
that Anglicans had similar views about
things like contraception not that long ago,
in the 1920s, say, there was unanimity - those things
kind of got changed in the later part
of the 20th century. Yeah. Well, I'm
wondering if the idea, as a Catholic,
we recognize the authority of the Magisterium in union
with the successor of Peter as the final word on issues
of faith and morals. Well, in the Anglican
Church, that isn't exactly
the model. Is it? No. No. Yeah, that's another thing that I put down
on my list as well. There's a strong sense that an individual
has the right to, at the end of the day, the individual is supreme in his or her judgments. And that's a, I think that's a big barrier
to overcome. The other thing, Marcus, that I remember
in that year that I was preparing
for ordination as a Catholic, I can remember, they sent me off
to Seton Hall, to Immaculate
Conception Seminary, just to basically be quizzed
about where I was, what my theological
formation was all about. And then they would make
some recommendations about what I should work
on for my studies, and it was Canon Law
and Moral Theology. And I can remember one
of the professors at the seminary saying,
"Oh, that makes sense, because everybody knows that Anglicans
are immoral and lawless." [both laugh] He was teasing,
of course. But the moral
theology question is a real significant one, I think, for people
that are seriously trying to think
their way in, because in the
Anglican tradition, there's a kind of pragmatism that you don't find
in the Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church is
a realistic moral theology. It's based
on being faithful to the Commandments of God. And the moral theology is a way to make
that pathway clear, whereas in Anglican
moral theology, there's a kind of pragmatic
approach, if you will. I remember
the second guest that I had on
'The Journey Home' was the former Bishop
of London, Graham Leonard. <i>Graham Leonard.
Loved him.</i> God bless him. And I don't remember
all of his journey, but one of the issues,
as a Bishop of London, starting to wonder,
what was his authority when the Lambeth
Conference would gather every year? And democratic
theology would vote on whether a woman could
be ordained or whatever, and he had really
no authority. And that was one
of the issues on this issue of morality. Where is it decided? And we're going
to take a break now, but I just want to say that we recognize
in the Catholic Church that the Church says,
in the Vatican II documents, that our baptized
non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters,
by the mercy of God, can receive the graces
and be saved outside the Church. We recognize that,
saved through the Church, though not fully of it. But that's not meaning that we don't proclaim the
beauty of the Church to them, because outside
the Church, how can they be sure that
in their areas of morality or teaching, doctrine, that they're going
in the right direction or just following
their own gut feelings? And that's why we want them
to be a part of the family. Oh, Marcus, I remember
when I was a pastor in an Episcopal
congregation, I would have the writings of John Paul II
on my shelf, and I would work
with those, and many times I would take
my homilies from them. And I remember one guy
coming up to me one day saying, "Well, that
was an interesting sermon, but remember,
that's just your opinion." [chuckles] That's really, for any
Protestant minister, that really is
a coming up short moment, because we strive
to preach from the truth and to have it kind of just passed off as
your personal opinion? You end up feeling impotent
when that happens. And you get in the pulpit, and you try and tell
the people, you call them
to holy lives, and they say, "Well,
that's just your opinion." And even if you said,
"Well, no. That's what it
says right here. That's what it says
in the Bible." "Well, that's just your
interpretation of it. I see it differently." Well, Monsignor,
let's take a break. We'll come back,
and when we get back, we're going to talk about
what are the things that opened
the heart to Anglicans to the Catholic Church. We'll be back in
just a moment. [music] [music] Welcome back to
'The Journey Home', this special edition
of 'The Journey Home'. I'm your host, Marcus Grodi, and our guest is Monsignor
Jeffrey Steenson. We've been talking
about unique barriers that stand in the way
of Anglicans to consider
the Catholic Church, and now for the rest
of the program, I want to focus on,
well, what are the things that break through
those barriers and awaken Anglicans
to the Church? And I know you had
a list, Monsignor, but before we get
to that list, I want to draw back. We were brutal
to Anglicans. You were brutal
to Anglicans about their;
you called them arrogant, and you've come from... That's because I was
brutal with myself. That's what
I wanted to be. And I hope the
audience knows that. Yeah. And I thought
about that a little bit during our break, and I realize
that there's a sense in which many
non-Catholic Christians, and it could be true of Catholic priests
and bishops, too, is that; but I remember,
as a Protestant minister, really thinking,
I've got the Scriptures, and I know what it says, and so, I can get up
in that pulpit, and I can proclaim
what's true; and there could be a sense
of blind arrogance about that, blindness
to one's own blindness. And as I thought
about that, Monsignor, it reminded me of
that beautiful Scripture from 2 Chronicles 7
that says, "If My people
who are called by My name humble
themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from
their wicked ways, then I will hear
from Heaven, and will forgive their sin
and heal their land." When I think
about the barrier of self-centered arrogance, that might be there
for anyone, not just Anglicans, but anyone that
stands in the way, the only thing that can
break through that is grace, and that draws us to do
just what that passage says, humble ourselves, pray,
get on our knees, seek God's face. So, as you think
about the things drawing people to church, talk about, first of all,
the work of grace. Oh, no. I think so. And if I could just add
an autobiographical note about it, for Anglican clergy
that become Catholic, one of the
hardest things to do is to pick up a pen and write a letter
of resignation and renounce your orders
in the Anglican Church - at least
in the Episcopal Church, that was required. So, there's a; all that you worked
for in your younger life, you basically have
to leave that all behind. And... I remember
when you asked me... Yeah. ...to speak at a retreat
for Anglican converts, for the ordinariate, and I gave a talk
on the parable in Luke about the Wedding Feast. Remember?
We talked about that. And one of the problems,
not just for Anglicans, but for any
non-Catholic clergyman that comes into the Church, sometimes they think,
well, okay, I was a minister
for 20 years. And so, how do I come
into the new Church at the same level
that I was at before? I was a branch
manager before. Well, how do I come in
to be a branch manager in the Catholic Church? What does Jesus say? You don't come in and
take the front row seat. You take the
back row seat. That's right. Oh, that word of the Lord has been so precious
over the years. I think we could all
benefit so much if we just think
about that, deliberately think
when we walk into a room, look at,
look for the simplest, humblest seat
in the place. What are some
other things, Monsignor, then, besides the work
of grace that awakens us, what are the things
that open hearts? Well, certainly
for Anglicans, it is the sense that, we've already
had the sense that, we have a tradition that's
older than the Reformation. That's very,
very important. I think for all the
converts from Anglicanism that come over,
that's very precious. The Venerable Bede wrote about how Pope Gregory
the Great commissioned Augustine,
the monk, to go to England. He became Augustine
of Canterbury, and gave him a pallium. And the pallium
represents the authority of an archbishop. So, basically,
Augustine was charged with founding
a Church in Britain, and we felt that we were
part of that Church. So, I think
the Early Church is a very, very
precious part of us, and I guess
I'm going to point to John Henry
Newman again. The more that you love
the Fathers of the Church, the more that you
want to walk with them. And I remember Newman
talked about how, when he became
a Catholic, his relationship
to the Fathers of the Church changed. They were not;
they were now in a whole different sense
brothers in the faith and fathers
in the faith to him. But that,
I think that openness to the early tradition is a very important thing that helps us
along the journey. Monsignor, I mentioned
earlier that, and you did, too, that you and I do
this podcast on Irenaeus' wonderful book
'Against Heresies'. He wrote this; he was
a Bishop of Lyon, and he wrote the book and published it
in 175 AD. Think about that, folks. That's 140 years or so
after the Resurrection, Ascension of
Our Lord Jesus. So, it's very early. And to me, I love
doing this book, and I hope everybody,
if you're interested, go to chnetwork.org, and you can find
our Deep in History podcast, but, to me, that's
an example, Monsignor, of why going back to
the Early Church Fathers, whether you're
an Anglican or any non-Catholic
traditions, awakens you to the Church, because, for example, when you read Irenaeus, he is completely convinced,
without apology, in the Real Presence
of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity
in the Eucharist. And he's not, as if he's
creating it, this, he's defending
on the fact, this is the tradition
that he received, and all the Early Church
Fathers are united in that. So, as a modern, when you
go back and read it, you ask the question, well, which side
would I be on? Would I be on the side
with Irenaeus and Ignatius and
Justin Martyr or Clement? Would I be on that side, or would I be one of these
other guys challenging it? Monsignor. Oh, no. That's right. When we've been
doing this podcast, I keep thinking about
how those Gnostics, some of their attitudes
about the Eucharist, or the implications of their
faith about the Eucharist, are haunting because
they're so modern. We have the same
challenges today like that. In Anglicanism,
that was one of the things that was so hard sometimes
to deal with is that, we were all over the board on the question
of the Real Presence of Christ
in the Eucharist. Some of the, on the more
evangelical side saw it as, they were even
lower than Luther. They were Zwinglian in their attitude
about the Eucharist. <i>"It's just a symbol,
just a symbol."</i> Yeah. Well, doesn't
the 39 Articles forbid the belief
in the Real Presence? Well, I'm; Newman
tried to defend that. So... Okay. All right. Okay. I wasn't an Anglican. I'm just secondhand here. What other...? But I mean, we didn't, and I have to say, and I think
many Anglicans would agree with me on this, too. We truly did believe
in the Real Presence. Whether our beliefs
were secure or not, that's a different
question, but... I was brought up
Lutheran, and we believed
in the Real Presence. And I will often
get emails from viewers, Anglican viewers,
that will say, "I'm an Anglican. I believe in
the Real Presence." And my point is,
what do you base it on? Is it just,
as you said earlier, just individual
interpretation? Is that all
that it matters, or is there an authority that determines
what is true about...? No. That's true. We used to joke,
a few years ago, anyway, if you wanted the most
low church version of what Anglicans believe
about the Eucharist, go to church
in Sydney, Australia, or if you want
the most high church, probably come to one of the Episcopal Church
parishes, if you will. So, everybody was
all over the board, and it was lacking
that sort of center. Yeah. And now
we need to pray for our Anglican
brothers and sisters, because they are struggling
about orthodoxy within Anglicanism, and we know some pastors,
Monsignor, who have left different
branches of Anglicanism, are now a part of branches
that come out of Africa, because those branches
of Anglicanism are trying to
hold true to the faith. And they could be in a city
with another Anglican, both Anglican Church, but believing radically
different things. Oh, it gets so confusing. I've lost track of the number
of Anglican groups now but they were upwards
of 50, I think, when I last was
tracking it. So... What other things
would you say opened the hearts
of Anglicans? Well, I think, again,
I just want to again, reiterate the
whole question of finding common ground
in the Early Church. We, I quoted,
or I cited that, Bede's story about
how Gregory sent Augustine, I just wanted to quote
one more thing here. St Irenaeus, Book Three,
Chapter Three, he's trying to give
all these lists of how apostolic
succession works in the various churches,
and he said, "We could be here forever. Let's just cut
to the quick. It is necessary that all
churches be in accord with the Church of Rome on account of
Her more excellent apostolic foundations, being the Church of, where Peter and Paul
laid down their lives." That text has great
power to move people. I mean, there are; that will help
people get through a lot of the
struggles they have, in terms of dealing with
a different Church culture that the Roman
Catholic Church sometimes represents
for Anglicans. But all of us,
in the whole, I mean, really,
when you think about it, all of us that come from any of the
Protestant traditions, where did we get
our faith from? Missionaries
that came from Rome or were sent
from Rome, mostly. Here's a good
example, Monsignor, that, what draws Anglicans might be different from others,
because, for example, arguing with an Anglican about the inadequacies
of Sola Scriptura may not be an issue
for an Anglican, because for Anglicans, they already accept the
reality of tradition... Yeah. ...and Scripture. Is it possible that maybe,
pointing out, how do you know that your
tradition is trustworthy is more of an approach
to an Anglican than the issue
of Scripture? Oh, that's
absolutely correct. That's absolutely correct. And when you think
about how the Church, the Anglican Churches have changed
their teaching on so many fundamental
questions over the years... Yeah. ...I think people
are very unnerved by that sort of thing. Marcus, I remember,
as a graduate student, I was in love
with things Catholic, but I was encouraged
to hold back and don't become
a Catholic yet, because we're; the union
between Anglicanism and the Catholic Church
is just over the horizon. That was right in the
years after Vatican II, when, I mean, that wonderful
encounter in Rome. I think it was in 1966
or something like that where Michael Ramsey met, Archbishop Ramsey met
with Paul VI, and Paul VI took off his
ring and gave it to him. And then they
started something called the Anglican
Roman Catholic International Commission
at that time. And so,
in those early years, we were all very hopeful that unity was
just around the corner, corporate unity was just
around the corner, and it just didn't happen. Another area I'd like
to ask you about, and then we got an email. I'm going to try
and get that in, too. I remember when I was
studying the biography of the first American-born Protestant minister convert who became a priest,
John Thayer. Hopefully, I'll get that
book published someday. Yeah, I'm looking
forward to that. I've been working
on it forever, but he was a
congregational minister, and when he went to Europe right after the Protestant; I mean, right after
the American Revolution, the last thing on his mind was ever even to consider
the Catholic Church. And the first thing
that opened his mind were the miracles
that happened around the death of St Benedict
Joseph Labre in Rome. But in many ways,
the main thing that awakened him
to the Church was the faith of Catholics
that he encountered, because being
brought up in America, he'd never met a Catholic, but he met Catholics
in France and then in Italy, and he was moved
by their faithfulness. I think the same
is true for Newman. Oh, yes. For Newman,
it was. Yeah. Is this true
for Anglicans? I think so.
You know what? I remember as a young man, walking into
a Catholic parish, and looking at ordinary people
coming in and praying, and it left an incredible
impression on me where we; I mean,
people prayed, of course, in the Protestant
Churches as well, but it was not
in the same way. And to see people
just kneeling, praying in quiet in a
parish church somewhere had a great impact on me. My wife, when I
was a Protestant pastor, a little country church, she was the director of
the local pro-life center. And the last thing
we were thinking about was the Catholic Church, but I remember her
being so impressed by the Catholics
that came to defend life. Yeah. And Catholics,
what does that; if we want to reach out to our Anglican Episcopalian
friends and family, I mean, we can read
the Early Church Fathers, lots of things, but they're looking at us. They're looking at us
and our lives. Are we living our faith? Are we a good example that would draw them
to the Church? Yeah, and if they live; when Catholics
live out their faith, in a public way, that's an incredible
witness, and, well,
how will we ever know the impact that has, just simple people being
faithful to their faith, the witness
that represents? One of the
most important things. Let's take this
email, Monsignor. Cindy from Wyoming writes: That's a wonderful
question from Cindy. It is, right? Yeah.
- Yeah. A wonderful question. Well, that was, of course,
Pope Benedict's vision for the ordinariates was that they would bring
the best of Anglican, of the Anglican
tradition with them, and it would enrich the life
of the Catholic Church, in terms of, especially
in terms of worship, liturgy and
things like that. That was the... <i>The patrimony.</i> That was the
patrimony that... Yeah. The patrimony.
Right. Yeah. So, those are things that
I think are very important. I think the pastoral style is another thing that's; because not just
Anglicans, but Protestant clergy
tend to be far more; they tend to be more
closely involved with their parishioners. I don't mean that
in a critical way, but it just, it's just
a different tradition, and I think
it's an important thing to bring
that forward, too. Got just a couple
minutes left, Monsignor. If you were to talk
about the necessity of the need for our Anglican
brothers and sisters to come Home. If you were to put down
what's a main reason? We're not standing in
judgment of their salvation. That's not what we're
talking about here. But why do we want them? Because don't they already
have the sacraments? Well, that's a very
complicated question. We probably don't
want to go there. But you know what
the Church teaches? The Church was very
clear about this. Obey your conscience, and if your conscience
is leading you to come into
the Catholic Church, you have to obey it. You must obey it. If you don't,
there's darkness. And so, I think
that's one thing I'd want to
really emphasize. Well, and in that vein, when you follow
a formed conscience. So, I'm thinking,
particularly, to Anglicans, Episcopalians,
a gift of the Catechism might be a good start. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah, because
there's nothing like it. We didn't have
a Catechism, not like the
Catholic Catechism. That would be a wonderful
gift to your friends. And I treasured mine
when I was given it. I mean, in some sense,
because the Anglican Church, you say they don't
have a Catechism. But very much tradition,
very much creeds, a long literary history that it seems that
Anglicans particularly would be open
to reading what it is that Catholic Church
believes in one volume, as opposed to everything
that's out there. "Well, here's
what we believe." Yeah. No. It's wonderful. And then the USCCB has
developed the Catechism a little bit more in terms of
kind of making it a little bit more
manageable in terms of reaching
ordinary people. I forget the name of
that edition that they... The Compendium. The Compendium.
That's it. Yeah. Which is wonderful. I think that's probably one of the great
evangelization gifts that we have in the Church
is that Catechism. All right, Monsignor. If I could,
could I ask you, as we close the program, for a blessing
for our audience. Of course. And if I could use
an Anglican prayer as part of this, because in
the ordinariate, this is our tradition
that we brought with. Lord Jesus Christ, who saidst
unto Thine apostles, peace I leave with you,
My peace I give unto you. Regard not our sins, but the faith
of Thy Church and grant unto It
that peace and unity which is according
to Thy will, who livest and reignest,
world without end. Amen. And the blessing
of God Almighty, the Father, Son
and the Holy Spirit be amongst you
and remain with you always. Amen. All right.
Thank you, Monsignor, for joining us
on this special edition of 'The Journey Home.' And all of you,
thank you for joining us. I hope this has been
informative for you, and to me, it's an
encouragement to pray for our Anglican Episcopalian
brothers and sisters that, by the work of grace, they will be open to
the fullness of the faith. God bless you. See you again next week. [music]
