Anglican Nuns Going Roman

[Resurrexi]

+AMDG+

SMM, I had no idea that you were a convert!

Edited June 17, 2009 by Resurrexi

[jeffpugh]

Way to mess up my abbriev! lawl. Yes, I am. Long story. Sometimes though, I miss the liturgy when it was in English.

[Resurrexi]

+AMDG+

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' post='1894049' date='Jun 17 2009, 01:32 AM']Way to mess up my abbriev! lawl.[/quote]

I fixed it.

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' post='1894049' date='Jun 17 2009, 01:32 AM']Yes, I am. Long story. Sometimes though, I miss the liturgy when it was in English. [/quote]



You should tell your conversion story some time.

[jeffpugh]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1894053' date='Jun 17 2009, 01:34 AM']+AMDG+



I fixed it.





You should tell your conversion story some time.[/quote]
Good. Thought the post was past the edit time.

I guess I will. My witness talk needs sharpening up, but I guess I could. You know, I'm the oddball trad in my youth ministry, plus my background is exceptionally unique cause I was protestant (though there is one other amongst the Cradle Catholics). Okay, /tangent.

[MichaelF]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1893705' date='Jun 16 2009, 08:24 PM']If said "priests" were "ordained" using the Anglican liturgical books, however, their orders would be invalid.[/quote]

IIRC, the rituals are done according to the rites of the ordaining Bishop.

[jkaands]

[quote name='OraProMe' post='1893794' date='Jun 16 2009, 09:02 PM']Are episcopal seminaries really full over in America o.0?

In Australia they make up 25% of the population but they have hardly any seminarians and a Sunday congregation consists of 50 grey haired ladies.[/quote]

Is the Anglican Church the official religion in Australia?

Fastest way to kill a religion; make it the state religion and/or intermarry.

I looked up the staff at the local Episcopal cathedral, which I don't think is large, at least not by RC standards. This is a RC/evangelical town.

The cathedral has [i]six priests.[/i] A couple of 'very revs', and all the rest 'revs'. Two women, one middle-aged, one young. One is black, unusual in the ECA.

Four retired fill-in priests. They're 'canons', whatever that is.

Three full time 'diocesan staff'-education/choir/organist.

-Eight departmental staff--sec'ys, sextons, etc. That's a total of eleven support staff.

And the staff of a another representative Episcopal church (not cathedral) #1 St. Michaels:

-[i]Three [/i]priests, one a middle-aged woman, and 5 staff.

Another church, St. Mark's -one of those cute hyphenated names Episcopalians like so much:

[i]-Four[/i] priests, including a middle-aged woman

-[i]Eight[/i] support staff---education choir/ organist nursery/ pastoral/ building.


So they seem to have spaces and $$ for priests and administration for their small churches in their small denomination.

Back when I was an Anglican, it was 5% of your net income expected as the 'tithe'. Baptists, etc. are expected to tithe, 10% of the gross, period. Judging from what I saw of their buildings in the South, that's what they give.

[Maggyie]

My best friend is an Anglican in the USA. Her church has been without a pastor for more than six months and they are getting "Sunday supply" from a church 20+ miles to the south. Talk about a vocations crisis!

[jkaands]

[quote name='Maggie' post='1894327' date='Jun 17 2009, 11:27 AM']My best friend is an Anglican in the USA. Her church has been without a pastor for more than six months and they are getting "Sunday supply" from a church 20+ miles to the south. Talk about a vocations crisis![/quote]

I suspect that it's a very small church with insufficient funds to hire a full-time person or even a permanent half-time. I think that it's an attraction problem and not a supply problem.

[she_who_is_not]

I know some Episcopal churches have endowments that allow them to fund multiple priests/large music and education programs, etc. I've also heard that Episcopal clergy are among the highest paid (among mainline denominations) in the US. However, I don't know statistics to back that up.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='jkaands' post='1894315' date='Jun 17 2009, 12:15 PM']Fastest way to kill a religion; make it the state religion and/or intermarry.[/quote]

Catholicism fared pretty well as the religion of the State in the Roman empire and in medieval Europe.

[jkaands]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1894539' date='Jun 17 2009, 04:39 PM']Catholicism fared pretty well as the religion of the State in the Roman empire and in medieval Europe.[/quote] It was the only game in town and that was before the printing press was invented. Nothing helps a religion like having it be a persecuted minority.

[jkaands]

[quote name='she_who_is_not' post='1894528' date='Jun 17 2009, 04:31 PM']I know some Episcopal churches have endowments that allow them to fund multiple priests/large music and education programs, etc. I've also heard that Episcopal clergy are among the highest paid (among mainline denominations) in the US. However, I don't know statistics to back that up.[/quote]

You might be right about the endowments. The Epis church also has a very nice camp and conference center in western N. Carolina, Kanuga. (www.kanuga.org)

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='jkaands' post='1894680' date='Jun 17 2009, 07:14 PM']It was the only game in town and that was before the printing press was invented. Nothing helps a religion like having it be a persecuted minority.[/quote]

When Christianity was made the official religion of the Empire, Roman Paganism was still extremely popular.

[FSM Sister]

I haven't seen this addressed yet, so I'm going back to the original topic (Anglican Nuns Going Roman). Sorry if this is not the right place to address this...

Anyway, no one has said anything about where these nuns are going to live. Presumably, the convent where they are now living belongs to the Anglican church. Last July, 15 nuns from a schismatic convent in Washington state rejoined the Catholic Church. They left the mother house of the Religious Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI) in Spokane, WA to form a new congregation: the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Church. They formally renounced their state of schism, made a profession of the Catholic faith, became a private association of the faithful under the care of Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, and recognized the legitimacy of the popes from Paul VI through Benedict XVI.

When I last read about them, the 15 sisters (from an order of about 32) were living in a wing of a retreat House owned by the Spokane Diocese. There's more on this here: [url="http://www.sistersofmarymotherofthechurch.org/67"]http://www.sistersofmarymotherofthechurch.org/67[/url]

I belong to a private association of the faithful, too. It has not been an easy road. In my case, I left an order of Pontifical Right that I felt had "lost its way" concerning obedience to the magisterium. Starting afresh at the age of 36, with no Social Security 'points' (or whatever they are called) since none of my prior earnings for the order were in my name, and with no right to renumeration for work done for the community (canon law), I had to start on 'ground zero.' There are currently six of us in the private association. We have to be self-supporting, since we have no mother house to retire to, or to pay our medical costs. Yet, the pastors we work for (or sometimes it's the parish finance council) objects to our plea for a lay salary. "They are supposed to have a vow of POVERTY!" is what we often hear. The church points its finger at us, and says, "Take care of yourselves," while the parishioners think that the church "takes care" of us. Since we are a private association, we've no right to the diocesan collections for retired sisters. We are living simply - no one drives a late model car, we have simple clothing, we don't go on vacations - we can barely afford to rent space and pay a retreat master to give us a few talks once a year. All but one of us has a few working years before we reach retirement, so we can earn salaries (most of us work in Catholic schools, so no one is getting rich off that!)

I worry about these Anglican sisters, because they are all at or near retirement age. Their main sources of income are the retreat house (which probably belongs to the Anglican church - so there goes that source of revenue) or their card making. That won't pay the light bill, let alone anything else!

If anyone knows how they are going to make ends meet, would you mind posting it here or PM me? God bless you! And everyone else, PLEASE PRAY FOR THESE SISTERS!

[OraProMe]

[quote name='jkaands' post='1894315' date='Jun 17 2009, 12:15 PM']Is the Anglican Church the official religion in Australia?

Fastest way to kill a religion; make it the state religion and/or intermarry.[/quote]

Nope. But because it's the official religion of England and Australia is part of the British Empire you can usually see Anglican priests and bishops hanging around the royalty when they visit and most state funerals are conducted in Anglican Cathedrals. Oh, also a fair few governor generals (they basically represent the Queen in Australia, Canada, whatever other colony) have been Anglican clergymen.

They have a whole lot of nice Cathedrals and a bunch of churches but they're pretty empty. Although this tiny Anglican parish up the street from me has a youth ministry with around 40 or so kids, so it varies I suppose. But overall they're not going very well.