These ECUSA reactions to the Ordinariate are odd. The numbers are very small. Overreactions like Andrus’s speak to his own insecurities.

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” and with this bunch it is “gods”.

Well, God’s truth is always unfolding as I learn more and seek Him. Yet oddly enough, the Faith once delivered never changes. I change, if I’m obedient. My understanding changes, but always into .

I change. The Faith doesn’t change.

To be honest, that sounds better than it lives. Most of the time I’m stuck in neutral. But maybe you get my point.

“…the enormous problems of the world today, chiefly climate change and related human poverty and suffering.”

I cannot comprehend this learned individual, a bishop no less, believes that climate change is the chief problem of the world today.

I really really don’t believe it. In fact his stupidity is going to keep me awake tonight.

People like Mr. Andrus – Bishop of the Castro District – are just too stupid to bother with. I thought Episcopalians were supposed to be ejukated?

“These ECUSA reactions to the Ordinariate are odd. The numbers are very small. Overreactions like Andrus’s speak to his own insecurities.”
Nah, he is just jealous as all get out. He went to all this trouble to drive out every last Anglo Catholic in his diocese, and now here they are getting comfortably ensconced in a real Church by order of the Pope. You know, that guy from Rome that people listen to while ignoring anything Andrus ever said. I mean, +++Benedict has parishes with more people than Andrus diocese, and single dioceses with more people than TEC. How many Catholics are there in California? I looked it up- “In 2005, 11.1 million of California’s 36.6 million people were Catholic”- 5 times the entire membership of TEC.

His talk of “angry ex-Episcopal priests” and “ersatz diocese for the unhappy,” indicate an underlying emotional disorder in Bishop Andrus characterized by unhappiness and anger.

Not exactly the type of church leader the sheep should follow.

“…we understand revelation to be a process of unfolding.”

Uhhhhh, OK.

Well his diocese stole Matthew Fox from the Roman Catholic Church first, and we are still upset about……oh, wait. No we’re not. Carry on.

“they reflect the way Episcopalians have [come to understand] chosen to pretend to understand God”

Fixed it for you, Bishop.

Angry ex-piskies??? Zat mean me? Gee, after 27 years they finally noticed. Sniff, sniff….Never worry about what might have made them upset, wot? Actually this doesn’t sadden the *angry* ex- in me, it saddens the formerly happy Episcopalian. They could have kept so very many of them for so cheap! No matter, having found the Orthodox Church and discovered it was the real thing all along I realize (along with many others) that on the best day it ever had the Anglican experiment is inadequate. It would still have to be abandoned for something better whether I was “happy” with it or not. The theological and moral atrocities of the last 40 years made it a lot easier to see the contrast.

a national refuge for disaffected Episcopal priests and the lay people who follow them.

Well frankly I agree. Look at how well AMiA & ACNA all turned out. You can take the priest out of ECUSA but you can’t take ECUSA out of the priest

Basically ECUSA clergy – and ex-ECUSA clergy – are all damned. There’s no way – no way in hell – any of them should be allowed a position of Christian leadership whatsoever – whether actually clerical, or in some nominally secular para-church agency).

It’s not as if ECUSA’s slide towards Dagon-worship and paedogenocide is something new: hell, ECUSA founded the RCAR (now misnamed RCRC) back in ’73.

If you want to be a Christian, you must covert to a real Christian church. Nuff said. Given the manifest benefits of joining the “real” Roman Church, or Southern Baptists, why risk your salvation on something as tainted as the Ordinariate, the Continuum (sounds like something out of Star Trek), or the AMiA/ACNA mess

Dacama -

I recommend a glass of good red wine. If you don’t drink, hot milk or a warm bath will do the trick. In any case, these guys aren’t worth losing sleep over. Crazy ideology and the rage that drives them (can you say ”projection”? sure you can) are no match for the peace joy and rightousness of the Kingdom of God.

It seems like we have come to a place of serious religious conflict. The HHS rulings, the Komen/Planned Parenthood issue, the nastiness of the Prop 8 and other same-sex marriage contests, plus the rise of the militant atheists all point to the ascendancy of an evil power fighting Christ and his people. At the end of the day, all of these forces will break themselves againt the Rock.

That is the end, and even in the midst of whatever troubles come, we can rejoice… and sleep well.

The Ordinariate is ”the real Roman Church “.

Or part of, anyway.

Honestly, I am hardly an “angry” ex-episcopalian. I am very happy as a Catholic priest and really don’t think too much about Anglicanism. The only sentiments that I have now are mostly nostalgic; I do miss the hymnnody and the altar rail but that is about it. Where are these angry ex’s he speaks of? Honestly, where are they? I have not seen them. Most that I know are quite gracious. Perhaps he reads some blogs, but the face of Anglicans turned RC has been pretty gracious in my observations.

“Overall I concluded that something that gives credit to the amazing laypeople, deacons, priests, and bishops of The Episcopal Church who have courageously held to a course that follows that faintly shining tract through time to which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed (“The arc of history bends towards justice.”), and have done so with malice towards none and charity towards all – that such an effort was well worth it.”

Let’s see, Kate; Bonnie Anderson; Elizabeth Kaeton.
Oh, yes, all those without malice toward any and charity.

Yep, Chris, that some’s pretty powerful stuff Marc’s tokin’.

Sinner,

I will pray for you. Your hatred and judgment are not worthy of the call of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Martin Luther King was a Baptist, not an Episcopalian.

The initial take of the ordinariate was what? 4500 people?

Granted, that’s probably about 0.3% of TEO’s membership, or about one week’s worth of membership loos these days.

The irony that he spends time on a column on it is delicious, but he doesn’t grasp the fact that when he lets the mask drop on how he feels about those who oppose “The Agenda,” demonstrating that traditionalists really have no home anymore in TEO. Sure, TEO won’t do any auto-de-fe’s on us. They’ll just treat us like quaint little oddities, like tropical animals at the zoo and snicker and sneer at us at the diocesan conventions and GCs. Thanks for the clarity Marc-y boy.

Maybe writing these screeds will keep bishop marc from doing more of this:
http://bishopmarc.typepad.com/blog/2011/04/a-wounded-earth-a-crucified-christ.html

I hope Rome comes to its senses and does what the Russian Orthodox did after Robinson: stop ecumenical talks with these people.

What a punk.

No, no persecution but also no job if you’re not convinced of the new TEC©
understanding of God. Andrus isn’t half the man or half the priest that Fr
Steenson is.

Keep on reminding me what a clown convention my former home has become.

The Church has already notified the Anglicans that nothing more is going to be accomplished in any talks, but they will continue meeting if Canterbury wants to.

What a selfish bastard:

In 2009, Episcopal bishop and gay celebrity Gene Robinson crowed….”Pope Ratzinger,” referring to Benedict XVI by his given name in a late-2005 speech, “may be the best thing to happen to the Episcopal Church… We are seeing so many Roman Catholics join the [Episcopal] church.”

Besides there are those great ornaments to modern Christianity and RC’s converts to the TEC: The Popess herself, Matthew Fox, Alberto Cutie, New Jersey Governor James McGreevey (following his disastrous 2004 revelation that he had appointed a homosexual lover as a homeland security adviser.)etc

And yet this man, the California Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus ,bitterly objects “that the Roman Catholic Church has chosen to expend funds of its available energy including what might be viewed as a kind of low-level creativity on making a national refuge for disaffected Episcopal priests and the lay people who follow them.” They are those who reject “kindness …. commonality with others, respect,and charity… (reject)the experience this transforming presence with us in the sacraments of the Church, we understand revelation to be a process of unfolding” and instead prefer to “drift towards the vocal, active minority, including Jeffrey Steenson, the new head of the ersatz diocese for the unhappy.”

This comes from a representaive of an organization whose fundamental religious injunction and canon is “do not be judgemental” and reject anything in thre bible that is inclduing Christs own “go and sin no more”.

Is it about numbers or about purification of the Church. If the latter one would have thought Andrus would be celebrating “good riddance”.

Thanks, Danby. I’d expect no less from the church.

It’s true, Bishop Andrus; us Papists aren’t proud, we’ll take anybody. Look at me, for example!

Fr. Dru – he got Matthew Fox and in return we got Jeffrey Steenson and others? Ah, that explains why there’s steam coming out of his ears!

He’s got a WHOPPING 26 followers and all comments are closed from the moment of posting.

He certainly must have a lot of time on his hands to maintain his “blog”.

One would thing the throngs of GLBTPXYZ’s joining his “church” would keep him busier?

Craig Reed, “Sinner” is a troll. He pretends to hold what he thinks is a parody of conservative views. This latest line about all ex-TEC people being damned is pretty weird, though.

This latest line about all ex-TEC people being damned is pretty weird, though.

no, not all ex-TEC people – just the ordained. It seems pretty clear you should never let an ex-TEC priest or bishop anywhere near leadership in anything Christian.

Just imagine how much better off AMiA/ACNA/A-whatever/ would have been if there (mostly superannuated) bishops had required – and they’d asked for and received however many real missionary bishops sent from Nigeria?

The current AMiA mess would never have happened.

And, quite seriously: if being part of a Christian Church is important for salvation: why risk it on some quasi-offshoot of ECUSA??

Ex-TEC clergy are shining stars in the Catholic firmament. As my bishop said at one of the ordinations, we are grateful to the Anglican tradition for their formation and the graces that came in that formation.

Sinner may be a troll, but he so often provides sterling opportunities to express good truths. Sometimes I think he’s really CJ keeping thinks interesting.

Sinner does occasionally make good points, there was one recently I agreed with (but my terrible memory means I can’t remember what it was).

Just struck me – this bit from the bishop’s article sounds like the latest smash-hit self-help book: “Disaffected Episcopal Priests and the Laypeople Who Follow Them: When Dogma Matters But Caifornian Bishops Don’t Know Why”.

FW Ken :
Well, God’s truth is always unfolding as I learn more and seek Him. Yet oddly enough, the Faith once delivered never changes. I change, if I’m obedient. My understanding changes, but always into .

I change. The Faith doesn’t change.

You make things very clear. Thanks for being so succinctly right!

I really don’t know why +Andrus has his rosier in a knot, but he must be feeling jealous or something.

The Bishop sounds like an abusive mother who is shocked – shocked! – that her child moves 500 miles away and cuts off contact. The ungrateful little brat! How dare she, after all that Mama has done for her!

“Throughout this tumultuous decade of The Episcopal Church’s life I have seen the large majority within the House of Bishops act with kindness” Ah yes, this is the same house of Bishops that challenged the authenticity of the election of John David Schofield at the convention as Bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin. They accused Bishop Rivera of rigging the election. There was also an article planted in the Fresno Bee that John David was a Roman Catholic. He still got the necessary consents and the rest is history.

Hahahaha Sinner.

Because ECUSA is a “quasi-offshoot” of the Anglican Church which is a “quasi-offshoot” of the Roman Catholic Church.

And ECUSA is the one “quasi-offshoot” which is DOOMED.

The fact this guy even notices departing Episcopalians shows it matters. The fact is misery loves company and will not tolerate being left alone at the party. It’s no fun being grotesque if there’s no audience for the display. PECUSA wants to be weird and that is only successful if there is someone *appreciate* the weirdness. That is the way to understand the bitter words of this cleric. He knows that weirdos like his fellow churchmen don’t reproduce or bring others in and that he is bound for extinction.

Much of the drama queen reaction by the TEC/TEo blogging left is hypocritical. They’ve patronized and demonized departing Episcopalians – or perhaps as often are bitchily dismissive… ‘Don’t let the door hit you in the *&^ on the way out!”, and/or crowed to one another in their comment boxes about how *all* the Catholic traffic in THEIR parish is TEC bound, and who needs the neanderthals..

Maybe they are starting to miss the fleeing ca$h?

As a former Catholic, now Episcopalian long enough to be repulsed, I’ve wondered – and asked many others like me – what their reaction was to PB Jefferts Schori & Co. pulling the very same “crap” as our former Roman Bishops have done i.e. Bede Parry, etc. etc. etc. Depending on how deeply they’ve drank the revisionist Kool-Aid there is often a sickening realization that they have fled to a church with even worse problems. I salute those Episcopalians who are considering ACNA, the continuing churches, the new Ordinariate, Orthodoxy, and also those evangelical Anglicans who cannot remain. God bless ALL of you.

This week I have also felt embarrassment that no TEC bishop (to my knowledge) has publicly stuck their neck out in support of the Roman Catholic bishops [vs. the Obama administration's HHS mandate]. We hear instead dreary silence from Kate & Bonnie … or nauseating, gushing enthusiasm from their collared pro-abort minions. Kudos to Abp. Duncan for his public support of the bishops.

Ex-TEC clergy are shining stars in the Catholic firmament. As my bishop said at one of the ordinations, we are grateful to the Anglican tradition for their formation and the graces that came in that formation.

Not only minds and speakers like George Rutler (heard and met him twice) but Anglo-Catholicism has raised official-church traditionalists’ cultural level, at least here in Philly, countering the low-church Thomas Day effect among most English-speaking Catholics, which goes back to before Vatican II. Our Lady of Lourdes’ weekly Tridentine Sung Mass, its main Mass, has the best of Good Shepherd, Rosemont, and St Clement’s in that department, with not only Gregorian chant in Latin but organ preludes and postludes, and orthodox, singable Anglican hymns as processionals and recessionals. I think that’s a big reason for the ordinariates.

A word on Andrus’ behalf: he’s a bishop defending his turf. Under the mask of relativist granola tolerance he’s really logical (even though of course I don’t accept his premise), believing his church is part of the one true church and Rome is in error. Mirroring Catholic belief and feelings when his church didn’t steal but took in Alberto Cutié for example. (Fair enough. Cutié asked to go in. Freedom of religion.) The church didn’t steal the ordinariate folk; the Anglicans, following their true nature of a changing church (that is, the Tractarians were wrong about Anglicanism), pushed them out, and they, at least the British ordinariate folk, weren’t really Anglicans but would-be Catholics anyway. (American Anglo-Catholics weren’t gung-ho about the Pope but their difference with Rome was tiny, and unlike the Brits their worship is more like pre-Vatican II.) They asked to come in. The Catholic Church shouldn’t tolerate dissent; why should the Anglicans? (Who have the same right to self-government as Catholics.)

By all means Andrus can fly his freak flag and, exercising freedom of speech, say mean things about converts to the church. But step on my freedom (by egging on the government to force Catholics to pay for contraception and abortion) and it’s a fight.

People like Mr. Andrus – Bishop of the Castro District – are just too stupid to bother with. I thought Episcopalians were supposed to be ejukated?
tjmcmahon

Well, no, they are not stupid. But they endlessly repeat stupid things in hopes of appealing to and winning over unreflective people. And they’ve met with great success, which is why they continue with this strategy. When they are refuted in one forum, they shut up, move somewhere else, and repeat the same stupidity.

Sinner does occasionally make good points
Um… no he doesn’t. I’d be glad if you could actually google around this site to dig up where, if you really think so. It’s all just hypocritical projection and ascribing hypothetical motives. But that is ridiculous. You can’t say that someone shouldn’t do the right thing by attributing hypothetical “bad” motivations to them. That could be used to rule out any action at all, including his. It’s a cheap, cynical trick, predicated on the belief that Christians will have more integrity than he has. But if that is the case, why listen to someone with no integrity? Just evaluate individual cases in and of themselves without such distractions.

Smurf Breath: I think they used to be smart and learned but wrong (just as anti-Catholic but cleverer about it), but now they go in more for sophistry. Like the contrast between a stereotypical old Tory Anglican bishop and his legendary chilly English reserve, all Northern European intellect and discipline, and a rant from a man who can’t control his emotions.

An intelligent mind can still be depraved.

Smurf Breath, every once in a while Sinner comes out of his faux-conservative schtick and makes some intelligent observations. I doubt that I agree with him about much of anything, but I think, when he leaves the schtick behind, that I could like him (without agreeing with him).

But young fogey (if I may address you so familiarly), why does Bishop Andrus find it necessary to defend his turf? Is the situation in the Episcopalian Diocese of California such that there is a sizeable percentage of his ex-congregants availing of the Ordinariate?

I found his article very curious; he starts by waffling on about the problems of the world and the energy needed to solve them, which would make yhou think this is going to be the usual pre-Lenten stuff about justice and peace and the Millenium Development Goals (blessed be their names), but then he launches into making a few swipes at we Catholics (par for the course) by a laboured device linking his opening remarks about energy with the energy wasted on setting it up; he spends the majority of the article putting the boot into his former co-denominationalists (including fellow clergy), then winds up with a defensive statement that there is no need for an ‘either/or’ choice between helping the poor in the Third World and advocating for LGBT rights (it’s all a matter of there being plenty of energy to go round for solving all problems) and finishes up with a bit of smarm about “valu(ing) (his)e my partnership with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco on forwarding the Millennium Development Goals, to cite one prominent example of our work together” and a resolution about yes, it was worth expending the energy to respond to “this latest egregious action by the Roman Catholic central authority” (gee, thanks, Bishop Andrus; we appreciate you too) for the sake of the wonderful, lovely, sweet, charitable amazing laity, clergy and hierarchy in TEC.

Why? Why bother his backside? If he’s so chummy with Archbishop Niederauer, why mention the war? I can only speculate that either he is feeling the pinch from departing congregations and is rallying the troops, or that he may have been questioned as being insufficiently zealous for the cause if he is getting on well with the misogynistic, sexist, racist homophobes in the Roman archdiocese and this is an attempt on his part to distance himself from any suspicion of creeping conservatism.

It’s very odd, and I’d love to know what is going on in his diocese to prompt this late effusion (because if he was going to respond to the Ordinariate, then doing so back when it was first announced would have been the time, surely?)

“…I’d love to know what is going on in his diocese…

Well among other things, on the best day the diocese ever had within the past ten years they couldn’t have filled Fenway Park more than 25%.

(I suppose the link won’t work, but you know what I mean.)

Andrus was elected in 2006, immediately ran afoul of Homeland Security for his “protest march” stunt to the Federal Bldg Plaza, has marched in every Gay Parade since 2007 and yet (quelle horreurs) ASA has steadily dropped every year since his enthronement. I mean, he’s doing everything right isn’t he? Why aren’t people flocking to church?

It’s interesting that not just attendance, but membersip has been dropping. Membership rose slightly from 2000 to 2005 or 6, though ASA dropped. Patterns like that always catch my attetion.

“I mean, +++Benedict has parishes with more people than Andrus diocese…”

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, at a membership of 2.1 million has more members than the Episcopal Church.

Myrmidon, I see your point. The graph shows that his plate and pledge is dropping by $1 million every year for the last 3 years. Assuming that continued through 2011 (and he would have got the figures from the accountants a week or two ago), he would realize that in another 17 years, there won’t be a diocese of California.
And whether he loses another million this year or not, KJS is going to expect her annual tribute to be paid in full and on time or the poor boy will find himself without a pointy hat.

Andrus = irrelevant

Myrmidon, I noticed by reading through the quarterly “Pacific Church News” e-magazine on the diocese website that in July 2011, Bishop Andrus got his very own ex-Jesuit priest who switched to being Episcopalian! So why didn’t he make any mention of this in his article (as I’ve seen Jim Naughton do, when discussing the Ordinariate: ‘we get traffic the other way from the RCs fleeing their church, and we get more of them than they get of us!’)?

Looking up the Reverend J. Cameron Ayers (currently, I believe, one of the clergy of Holy Innocents), I see that he fits right in to the diocese; back in 2009 he took a leave of absence from his Catholic parish and the Jesuits to “discern his own personal vocation” after activities such as ” leading his parish in San Francisco’s 2006 “Gay Pride” parade; hosting the “Alienated Catholics” seminar at St. Agnes; donating to the “No on Proposition 8″ campaign, at a time when all the Bishops of California were calling on their flocks to not only vote for Proposition 8, but to volunteer and contribute financially to its passing.”

So he fits right in and is the perfect model of a model Episcopalian – why not publish this to the world? And receive the grateful thanks of Catholics for accepting the transfer of a clergyman who is so obviously a better fit with Bisop Andrus than with Archbishop Niederauer?

@Fuinseoig,

You wrote:

So he fits right in and is the perfect model of a model Episcopalian – why not publish this to the world? And receive the grateful thanks of Catholics for accepting the transfer of a clergyman who is so obviously a better fit with Bisop Andrus than with Archbishop Niederauer?

That is a sterling idea. Andrus could use it as a recruiting tool and earn even more gratitude from us. I am very confident that Rev. Ayers is not the only Catholic priest whose ¬adherence to the teachings of the magisterium and ¬faithfulness to same would likely indicate a calling to a conversion to Episcopalianism.

And the fact of such clerical converts may help TEC disguise some unpleasant factual realities. First, that one of the reasons more Catholics become Episcopalians than the reverse may be entirely due to the fact that there are ≈32 times as many Catholics in the U.S. as there are Episcopalians—and the trend lines for the latter are not encouraging. (After all, a dozen Catholic converts to TEC is a much bigger percentage increase than would be 200 Episcoplians becoming Catholic.)

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

Addendum to my prior comment:

¬ is the symbolic representation of the operation of negation, IOW, it is interchangeable with “not.”

Keith Töpfer