Bishop John B. Lipscomb To Leave The Episcopal Church

[cappie]

Bishop Lipscomb requests release from vows
November 21, 2007 -

Bishop John B. Lipscomb announced Tuesday his intention to leave the Episcopal Church to join the Roman Catholic Church.

In a letter to the diocese, Lipscomb said he has written to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, asking “to be released from my ordination vows and the obligations and responsibilities of a member of the House of Bishops. I have taken this step in order to be received into the Catholic Church.

“Through a long season of prayer and reflection Marcie and I have come to believe this is the leading of the Holy Spirit and God’s call for us for the next chapter of our lives,” he wrote.

Lipscomb stepped down Sept. 15 after a decade as bishop of Southwest Florida. Lipscomb told his successor, Bishop Dabney Smith, about his actions Tuesday at a meeting at the diocesan office in Sarasota. “On Tuesday, Bishop Lipscomb informed me of a personal decision he and Marcie have made regarding the expression of their Christian faith,” Smith said after the meeting. “I am pleased that he and Marcie have found their place of spiritual solace.

“I value his friendship and wish them well,” Bishop Smith said.

--Jim DeLa

[url="http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/7786/"]LETTER[/url]

Edited November 23, 2007 by cappie

[Resurrexi]

Yay! That's awesome!

[rkwright]

Just wondering... whose Marice?


His wife??

[Starets]

Piskie clergy are allowed to marry so yes Marcie would be the Bishop's wife. Fr. Dwight Longnecker is a former anglican clergyman now Catholic priest who is not only married he has a couple kids.

I am glad to hear of the Bishop's conversion.

[Ale]

Would he maintain his status of episcopacy or he will join catholic church as a simple priest?
And if he remain bishop he could instantaneously lead a diocese?

[Aloysius]

he will likely be ordained a priest; nowhere in the Church do we have the practice of raising married men to the episcopacy, I am not aware of any exceptions. he will have to be re-ordained, of course, as we do not recognize the validity of Anglican ordinations; of course, he also could enter as a layman if he so desired (or if the Church did not want to grant him the exception and ordain him, something the Church often does but does not have to do)

[cappie]

Sometimes there is conditional ordination. Dr Graham Leonard the former Anglican Bishop of London was conditionally ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Hume with the approval of then Cardinal Ratzinger. Dr Leonard was made a domestic prelate.

[url="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_n29_v30/ai_15409242"]http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m114...v30/ai_15409242[/url]

[Ale]

[quote name='cappie' post='1423874' date='Nov 23 2007, 01:54 PM']Dr Leonard was made a domestic prelate.[/quote]

Mmm, interesting but... what is a "domestic prelate"?
Is this "definition" related with his being an anglican "bishop" ?

[Ash Wednesday]

It's interesting to hear the responses from other episcopalians. It seems to me that the issue of womens ordination has caused serious problems for the episcopal church, really a lead-in to the gay movement that has turned cracks into full-out fracture.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='cappie' post='1423874' date='Nov 23 2007, 07:54 AM']Sometimes there is conditional ordination. Dr Graham Leonard the former Anglican Bishop of London was conditionally ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Hume with the approval of then Cardinal Ratzinger. Dr Leonard was made a domestic prelate.

[url="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_n29_v30/ai_15409242"]http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m114...v30/ai_15409242[/url][/quote]
I think this is done because it feels too harsh to just flat out tell them that their first ordination was simply invalid; however, the Church's position does remain that the Anglicans did indeed break with Apostolic Succession, there is no possibility of his Anglican ordination having been valid.

making it conditional doesn't really mean he might've already been ordained, there is no chance of that because the apostolic succession was broken a long time ago, so even if there was proper intent and even they used a proper form, a bishop in the Anglican Communion does not have the power to ordain.

[Guest henryh]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1423903' date='Nov 23 2007, 11:06 AM']I think this is done because it feels too harsh to just flat out tell them that their first ordination was simply invalid; however, the Church's position does remain that the Anglicans did indeed break with Apostolic Succession, there is no possibility of his Anglican ordination having been valid.

making it conditional doesn't really mean he might've already been ordained, there is no chance of that because the apostolic succession was broken a long time ago, so even if there was proper intent and even they used a proper form, a bishop in the Anglican Communion does not have the power to ordain.[/quote]
My impression was that Graham Leonard's ordination was conditional because he could establish that there was some Old Catholic laying on of hands at his Anglican ordination. Old Catholic orders have heretofore been recognized as valid by Rome. Hence, he did not suffer from the "usual" invalidity of Anglican orders that others would who would be required to have a reordination as opposed to a conditional one.

[cappie]

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decided, given documentary proof that Dr Leonard had been ordained by Old Catholic bishops as well as by Anglican ones, that there was 'a prudent doubt concerning the validity of his orders' - in other words, he might have been a Catholic priest, as he and other Anglo-Catholics believed, as well as an Anglican.

[she_who_is_not]

[quote name='Ash Wednesday' post='1423887' date='Nov 23 2007, 10:05 AM']It's interesting to hear the responses from other episcopalians. It seems to me that the issue of womens ordination has caused serious problems for the episcopal church, really a lead-in to the gay movement that has turned cracks into full-out fracture.[/quote]

As an ex-piscopalian, I have to say that I believe it is the division and enmity within the communion that both these issues have caused which has led to the fall out. After 30+ years of intra-parish bickering, waffling bishops, and and doctrinal confusion, people are seeking LOVE and TRUTH.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1423903' date='Nov 23 2007, 12:06 PM']making it conditional doesn't really mean he might've already been ordained, there is no chance of that because the apostolic succession was broken a long time ago, so even if there was proper intent and even they used a proper form, a bishop in the Anglican Communion does not have the power to ordain.[/quote]

Actually, I heard the other day a story about some guy down in Texas who was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church, but apparently there were a number of bishops present there who laid hands on him, and somehow a Catholic bishop managed to sneak in. So the story is that he received valid Episcopal and Catholic ordination. An Anglo-Catholic told me this story... I think the priest defected to one of those weird blends of Anglican Catholicism.

Whether the story is true or not (I couldn't care less, personally), it's an interesting concept.

[Daniel9]