… as an Anglican priest who, with high ideals but considerably lower savvy, “poped” back in 1997, all I can say to those who may be thinking likewise is this: Unless you know in your heart you can believe in such super-added dogmas as papal supremacy and infallibility (very late inventions), that Jesus did not need to possess “faith” during his earthly years (to which I respond, was he or was he not fully human?), and that the bread and wine physically change into his body and blood during the Eucharist without any palpable evidence of it; unless you can believe in Mary’s “Immaculate Conception” (an unnecessary and unverifiable belief, if ever there was one), her bodily assumption, and so on, then I would urge you to stay put. You already have everything you need, and, what Rome would add to you, you not only do not need, but should positively avoid weighing yourselves down with. Anglicanism is doctrinally sound and blessed with great forms of worship. Rome is neither. As for Rome’s claims to a vastly superior moral authority -- well, I would venture to say that after such revelations as clerical sexual abuse on an international scale and their bank’s money-laundering, the lie has been put to that.Addison H. Hart is a [now former] Roman Catholic priest, ordained under the Pastoral Provision for former Anglican Priests. He resides with his wife and two children in DeKalb, Illinois, where he is Associate Pastor at Christ the Teacher University Parish and the Newman Catholic Center for Northern Illinois University. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
No, don’t make my mistake. I wouldn’t make it again myself, and, as it is, I’m making my way out the Roman door.
Just a word to the wise. (Emphasis added but not super-added.)
That brief bio was taken from a 2000 article that Hart had written for Touchstone, Convert Provocateurs. I used to read Touchstone regularly, until they got a Roman Catholic editor; after that the whole enterprise went down hill.
This comment came in response to a post from his brother, Fr. Robert Hart, at a blog called "The Continuum," on the topic of, well, maintaining your Anglican heritage in the face of all the adversity. He, too, thinks little of "the Latin-Romans":
Clean off the ring of doubt around your collar, and learn how to embrace the strength of your own heritage, including the riches you have almost thrown away because the Latin-Romans did not understand them. So, they don’t know valuables from trash; but, what’s your excuse?For those of you who are Roman Catholic, or considering a move in that direction: it genuinely is a bankrupt system.
Do you know where the story of Saint Veronica [of "Veronica's Veil" fame] comes from, and why she is not known to the Eastern churches? It is because the Romans did not know what the phrase Very Icon (true image, i.e. of Christ’s face) meant. They thought it was a name, and so a legend, pure fiction, developed to the point where you can’t watch a movie about Christ without the scene of some woman with a veil wiping the Lord’s face. Well, it is pretty much the same story when it comes to Roman understanding of English, or Anglicanism.
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