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PDF versionCatholics the New Episcopalians
by Ken Briggs on Sep. 20, 2009
Some church traditions have a long history of spotlighting "trophy" converts as a means of gaining an edge. Perhaps the most publicized competition has been between Anglicans and Catholics. The defection of John Henry Newman from the Church of England to Rome remains the biggest headline in that tug-of-war.
The reasons why followers of one church jump to another are myriad. As the great sociologist/theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, social and economic factors are among those that have loomed large: in the "Social Sources of Denominationalism" he outlined the upwardly mobile process.
Niebuhr said that American church groups were arranged in a kind of hierarchy of class and prestige. If you began life as a poor person in a fundamentalist church, your education and spunk might lift to you a higher economic group which would, in turn, incline you toward a church that reflected your new status. And so on.
Episcopalians and Presbyterians (some United Church of Christ) were the aristocrats of this circumscribed world. Well-to-do people could feel at home in their tasteful churches being preached to by academically pedigreed clergy who put no demands other than financial on parishioners. Upwardly mobile Americans gravitated toward those churches; others reached their plateau as Methodists, Lutherans or similar middle class groups.
Perks counted. The liturgy had to be orderly and refined, the music at least marginaly professional, the setting pleasant and undisturbing. Most of all, the top rung had to be respectable.
Those requirements are still there, but the dynamics appear to have dramatically shifted. I would guess that Roman Catholics have become the new Episcopalians. Crossing over to Catholicism confers certain advantages to a particular kind of believer and now that Catholics occupy the top tier of U.S. income earners, socio-economic prestige need not be sacrificed in the process.
Despite the big losses the Catholic church in America has suffered (a third of those born Catholic have left says Pew), it has a cache that has drawn a number of well-known converts. To name a few: the late Robert Novak, Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, 400 or so Anglican priests, Paul Weyrich and Robert Bork. The list is overwhelmingly male (Laura Ingraham is among the rare ones) and thumpingly conservative.
Clearly the Catholic church has become a haven for opponents of women's ordination and homosexuality. Episcopalians are torn in the aftermath of acceptance of both and the losing side has a place to go. Furthermore, Catholicism taken on face value can present itself as the bearer of unchanging truth, unlike traditions that open their convictions to scrutiny. It's something claiming to be utterly reliable.
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Also, though globalization has become a shopworn phrase, it indicates a very real awareness of world-wide connections. Joining the Catholic church can satisfy a longing to be ecclesiastically global. Along with that, it seems that some of those who take the leap into Catholicism are looking for validation of their identity as Christians. The "universal" tag may have been the missing element in their search for something bigger, if not better, than the more parochial church environs in which they may have existed as Baptists or Disciples of Christ. A kind of feather in one's cap from their point of view. It may be an illusion fraught with misperceptions but it appeals, just as its secular counterpart does.
It isn't all passing trends, however. The attraction to Catholicism by any and all of the notables deserves respect as a deeply personal movement of the soul. Henry II's assertion that "Paris is worth a mass" reeks of the cynical side to looking for advantages in religious affiliation, but it certainly doesn't cover all bases. Maybe Henry got there for the wrong reasons, but being there may have led him in remarkable spiritual pathways.
There are plenty of
There are plenty of "Catholics" hanging around acting like Episcopalians. You know, the ones who demand women's ordination, or to change the teaching on artificial contraception, or approve so-called same-sex marriage.
The sad thing is, they don't have the courage to join a denomination that accepts those erroneous beliefs. Unlike the people you mentioned converting to Catholicism. Possibly at the expense of family objections, loss of friends, and loss of job (like the Anglican priests, or Francis Beckwith, et al)
I worry about the impact of
I worry about the impact of conservative Episcopalian converts on the Catholic church here in the US. It's good to be reminded that a tradition as deep and wide as Catholicism may have unexpected impacts on such converts, whatever their intital motivation.
In addition to class, ethnicity also used to be a significant element in who converted to or departed the Catholic church. I'm a Catholic women's ordination advocate and people with some regularity ask me, if I think women should be ordained, why don't I become an Episcopalian. I respond: because I'm a second generation Irish immigrant, a response that many find baffling. My grandparents would turn over in their graves, I add. One of the last things my father asked me before he died was "Are you still a Harp?" But it's unlikely that my nieces and nephews, despite their Gaelic names, will feel similarly constrained.
So do fallen away Catholics
So do fallen away Catholics not convert because they want to keep the "Catholic" name? And along the same vien, do non-(and often anti)Catholic media also hold onto the Catholic name for prestige?
The catholic education I
The catholic education I received taught me to not simply believe what I had been taught, but to challenge it. Similarly, it taught me to not simply believe what I wanted to believe, but to challenge myself. Thinking and believing are not mutually exclusive. I note that the writings of the new testament reflect this dynamic process in the developing churches. I see no reason for that dynamic process to stop. In such seeking, God surprises us by being where and what we may not have expected. That some choose to worship God here or there does not change God; it changes them. It is a personal choice, just as salvation is.
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