Second Thoughts About the Church?

Back when I was attending RCIA, I was confronted approached by one of the other Inquirers about Anglicanism. When RCIA first began, we all gave a quick summary of our spiritual lives and what had drawn us to the Catholic Church. I mentioned making a pit stop in Anglicanism after leaving the evangelical world before deciding to make the full transition to the Mother Church.

I surmise my comments drew his attention because he approached me later on and asked if I ever had second thoughts about leaving Anglicanism.

I told him that I was positive I was doing the right thing from a religious standpoint. But I must say that it's a question that I've always had a difficult time articulating an answer for because there are several considerations at work.

For one thing, I really enjoy the liturgy of the ACNA parish I attended for most of 2013. It felt sober and reverential. It was a relatively broad church Anglo-Catholic parish. So we got the bells every service, the smells of incense occasionally and a very Catholic view of the Real Presence.

What I ultimately had to understand was that I would rather be an Anglo-Catholic in the Catholic Church than a papist in the Anglican Church. In spite of my new (and recent) fondness for the Traditional Latin Mass, it must be said that a lot of that comes from my distaste for the Novus Ordo... and that comes from my affection for the Rite I Anglican liturgy, with its beauty and eloquence.

Had I gone straight from Southern Baptist Church #2 straight to a Novus Ordo Catholic parish, I might not care as much about the specifics of liturgy. But that year in the ACNA parish said that liturgy is good; eloquent and beautiful liturgy is better.

But that isn't what happened, now is it? I did spend that year in the ACNA parish, I was exposed to a lot of Anglo-Catholic theology and language does matter to me.

That's what attracts me to Anglicanism on the superficial level. But it's also the same thing that repulses me about it on the spiritual level. Anglicanism isn't just from England; it is of England. You cannot separate Anglicanism from some sense of British nationalism.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problem with people from other countries being patriotic. Or even nationalistic, for that matter. Go right ahead.

Where I have to draw the line though is comingling national sovereignty with religious expression. It's well and good to be proud of your country. But the fact is that Anglicanism classically is the mix of Englishness on the one hand and Christianity in the other hand combined in the center in prayer. So closely associating my faith with my earthly citizenship just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

But come to that, Anglicanism is defined by England every bit as much as Lutheranism is by Germany, Presbyterianism is by Scotland and the SBC is by America. None of these are truly universal in the way the Church is intended to be. The Church is supposed to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Anglicanism at large fails the "one" part with its myriad splinter groups. The decidedly English flavor trips up the "catholic" attributes of the Church. It's fidelity to the "apostolic" element is debated to this day by people a lot smarter than me. And surely you don't need me to tell you how far out of whack several components of Anglicanism are when it comes to the "holy" part of the equation.

The Catholic Church has none of those problems. Pope Francis is the vicar of Christ and is the leader around whom the rest of the Church can unite. The Church suffers slings and arrows specifically because of her holiness. It is catholic in that all people in all places feel at home in the Church; so much so that there's probably a Mass going at all times somewhere in the World. And Pope Francis is the latest in a succession of bishops who can be traced in an unbroken line all the way back to St. Peter.

She is therefore one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

So whatever affection I may have for aspects or elements of Anglicanism to this day, no, I don't have second thoughts about my decision to come home to the Mother Church.

Hatred

Been thinking.

Obviously gay marriage is making a lot of inroads right now. And it doesn't matter what I think about that. It doesn't matter that it's completely artificial. It doesn't matter that what little "momentum" it has comes from a Presidential election where a major part of the electorate was repressed and kept away from polls.

What matters is that it's coming. And this genie isn't easily put back in the bottle, however illegitimate its origins.

This same group is basically openly at war with any semblance of organized religion. They've been less successful here, thanks primarily to a Supreme Court obsessed with freedom of speech. Under other circumstances, nobody's qualified to say what might be happening to America right now.

This is all mostly pushed by people who only love liberty and democracy when it suits their purposes. Otherwise, both are obstacles to their agenda. Obstacles to be eradicated.

And I'll be bluntly honest that it's hard to obey Our Lord's command to love those who hate me and do good to those who persecute me. My natural inclination is to be an absolute gadfly. If I have a chance to ruin a liberal's day, all too often I'm guilty of taking it. Even if it's something as petty as cutting somebody off in traffic with an Obama/Biden 2012 bumper sticker on their car. As long as it doesn't violate the law or result in physical injury, odds are it'll be a pleasure to completely screw some liberal over.

But Our Lord doesn't say to do that. He says to love those who hate me and do good to those who persecute me. This is what the Church did back in the first century when the Romans were using Christians as tiki torches in Caesar's garden. This is the approach that ultimately transformed Rome from barbaric paganism to enlightened Christianity.

This is the approach that changed the entire world.

But hate. Hate comes so easily, doesn't it? I see liberals everywhere destroying everything that makes this country great. And not only are they destroying it, they're reveling in their victories and successes. And I hate them for it. I regularly refuse to give them any measure of forgiveness, patience, kindness or, worst of all, Our Lord's love. I declared them enemies and never even attempted to reach them.

And my hate isn't restricted to liberals either. A fair amount of it is directed to evangelical Christians, obsessed with their little imaginary apocalypses; the ones who stayed home in 2012 and gave control over this country to a tyrant because they didn't like Mitt Romney out of some idiotic "principled stand".

This same principle didn't keep them from voting for President Bush back in 2004, mind you; it's only when Obamacare is set to destroy what's left of freedom in America that these fools decided to be conservative purists.

I say all of this to my shame. Because for as resentful, angry and downright hateful as I've been to those people, they're ultimately just PEOPLE who need Our Lord's love and sacrifice in order to be forgiven. And I've made absolutely no effort to be the light that shines the way.

Understand, in most respects I consider myself a sexual libertarian. I don't care who does what with whom as long as all parties consent to it. My opposition to same-sex "marriage" comes exclusively from the certainty that part of "marriage equality" necessarily entails putting the Church under liberalism's boot.

NOBODY can guarantee when gay marriage is the law of the land, priests, pastors and other religious leaders won't get sued into oblivion for refusing to perform "same-sex marriage" ceremonies.

That is where my opposition to same-sex unions begins and ends. Otherwise I couldn't care less about it and am amazed that things have gone as far as they have.

But that hasn't stopped me from anything. I originally didn't care about "same-sex marriage" supporters or their kooky cause. But now that they're in spitting distance of their goal, I not only hate them but the people they're advocating for.

And again, that's the complete opposite of what Our Lord intended.

Through this entire mess, I've come to realize that there's a better than average chance that this could result in a serious persecution, possibly up to and including martyrdom. And through it all, I've steadfastly refused to count the evangelicals as allies. By definition they've already rebelled against the Church's authority.

Why would they be counted upon to stand up for REAL truth when they've already rejected so much of it already by separating themselves from Rome?

But Our Lord said we should make peace with our brothers. I've never even attempted to do this. I've just assumed they're pompous, ignorant, proud and unreliable pretenders to the REAL faith.

There's a lot here that I've failed to handle properly. I've returned the favor (with interest) when liberals treat me like enemies. I've smugly dismissed any legitimacy of conviction (if not purity of doctrine) among the evangelicals and categorized them as misled sheep; simpletons and fools too stupid to crack open and read the writings of the early Church fathers to understand their supposed faith's TRUE origins.

I will do all in my power to repent. The hour is late. Probably too late to reverse any of this. But that's no excuse for not recognizing my error and working to repent and correct these problems.

Married Priests

Pope promises 'solutions' to priestly celibacy

Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis promised "solutions" to the issue of priestly celibacy in an interview on Sunday that raised the possibility the Catholic Church could eventually lift the interdiction on married priests.

Speaking to Italy's La Repubblica daily, Francis also condemned child sex abuse as a "leprosy" in the Church and cited his aides as saying that "the level of paedophilia in the Church is at two percent".

"That two percent includes priests and even bishops and cardinals," he said.

Asked whether priests might one day be allowed to marry, Francis pointed out that celibacy was instituted "900 years after Our Lord's death" and that clerics can marry in some Eastern Churches under Vatican tutelage.

"There definitely is a problem but it is not a major one. This needs time but there are solutions and I will find them," Francis said, without giving further details.

The interview was the third in a series with the 90-year-old founder of the La Repubblica daily, Eugenio Scalfari, a famous journalist and known atheist.

This is one of the most awkward news pieces I've ever seen from any major news source. From a strictly journalistic standpoint, it changes subjects too often. It sets the context of the Holy Father discussing priestly celibacy, switches gears to talk about the pedophile issues, returns to celibacy and then mentions with whom the interview was conducted.

I've studied journalism enough to understand the inverted pyramid. You introduce your main subject in the first paragraph, you then begin resolving it and work your way down to more granular issues as you go and you conclude the piece with utterly irrelevant matters such as, in this case, the name of whoever conducted the original interview.

Therefore I'm not sure what to think of this piece interjecting the pedophile scandal where it doesn't belong. One way to look at it is that this sloppy, unprofessional writing. And certainly that's not to be underestimated.

A different, nastier way of looking at it (and people have certainly picked up on this) is that Francis is linking pedophilia with unmarried priests when he might not be. I've long believed the new media's love affair with Francis not only can't last forever but is likely to end. It'll end badly and it'll end SOON. So maybe this is the opening salvo?

Another way of looking at it is that the writer is determined to associate pedophilia with unwed priests. I have no way of knowing if that's what he's trying to do. I also have no way of knowing if there even IS a link there. My gut instinct is to doubt it because married people molest children too.

But apart from all those things, I remain skeptical that permitting priests to marry will solve anything. Pope Francis has been expected (by leftwing media) to fundamentally transform the Catholic Church. He was (supposedly) going to "change" the Church's teachings about abortion, gay marriage and other Democrat Party sacraments.

Obviously he's done none of that so far. But permitting priests to marry would probably be the biggest shake-up the Church has experienced in decades, possibly centuries. And I'm not convinced it'd be a positive development.

Sure, the media would finally believe themselves vindicated for viewing Francis as The Great Reformer. But would allowing priests to marry really improve anything? I just don't think so.

For one thing, by definition it couldn't be retroactive. Anybody expecting to see their priest hanging out at the singles' bar is probably in for some major disappointment because that priest MADE A VOW to not take a wife. The Church changing their policy on the matter wouldn't absolve him of his promise.

The other thing though is that right now, Catholic priests can make a decent living because the Church provides for so many of their needs. But I just don't think the Church has the resources to financially support globe-trotting priests and their families.

As an example...

Catholic Priests & Their Wives

These five Fathers are husbands and fathers. Huh?

Father Jim McGhee won't hear his wife's confession. That would just be... awkward. Other than that, Ann McGhee is a parishioner like any other at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Keller, Texas, where her husband says three or four masses a week. Who sanctioned this scenario? Pope John Paul II. Back in the late seventies, an Episcopal priest from South Carolina named James Parker decided he'd had it with the leftward drift of his church, which ordained its first female priest in 1977. So Parker sought full communion with the Catholic Church, and the Church embraced him. In 1980, the pope issued a special dispensation allowing Episcopal priests who were theologically simpatico with Rome to "come home" -- i.e., convert to Catholicism -- and bring their families with them. Today there are seventy-nine such priests in America and at least a score more who've converted from other Christian denominations (Lutheran, Methodist, et cetera). Here are five of these men with their wives, children, and grandchildren.

Jim and Ann McGhee, Keller, Texas

Father McGhee, 66, and Ann, 68, were both raised Methodist: he in Kennett, Missouri, and she in Jumpertown, Mississippi. They met in 1956, just before Jim joined the Air Force, and married the next year. Their son, Robert, and daughters, Mary (center) and Renée, are pictured here with all seven of Ann and Jim's grandchildren. From left: Courtney, Jameson (upside down), Jeremiah, Ashley's feet, Bryant, Matthew, and Emily.

Twelve years ago, when Ann McGhee would tell people that her husband was planning to enter the Catholic priesthood, people would say," 'Well, what's he gonna do with you?'" she recalls. "And I would say, 'Well, he's going to keep me!'" The McGhees' conversion to Catholicism was the latest turn in a meandering spiritual journey that goes back almost 50 years. Father Jim became a licensed Methodist preacher in 1962, an Episcopal priest in 1972, and a Catholic priest in 1995. "I had become convinced in my own head and my own heart that Jesus had established a church, not churches," he says. "And when I looked at the evidence of history, it was so clear to me that it was Canterbury that had left Rome. Rome did not leave Canterbury."

Steve and Cindy Anderson, Grand Blanc, Michigan

High school sweethearts from the town of White Lake, Michigan, the Andersons met when he was 16, she was 15, and they were both Presbyterian. Thirty-two years and two Christian denominations later, Father Steve, 47, and Cindy, 46, have three sons. From left: Steven, 11; Austin, 20; and Christian, 7.

"A lot of people become Catholic because they don't like what's going on in their denomination," says Father Steve Anderson, the associate pastor of Church of the Holy Family in Grand Blanc, Michigan. "That wasn't my story." In 1999, Anderson was the pastor of a Charismatic Episcopal parish that mixed High Episcopalian elements like incense and vestments with a Pentecostal flavor. "At our church, you might get a prayer book, and you might get a tambourine." He loved that experience, but the more he read the "early church fathers," the stronger he felt the tug of Rome. So on April 3, 1999 -- Holy Saturday -- he and Cindy converted. "People were delighted," says Cindy of their reception at Holy Family. "The best part is, they can connect with me. They're so excited to have a priest and his wife, and I come with loving arms back to them. God's just planted me here, and I fit."

Bob and Ginger McElwee, Frontenac, Kansas

Two important things happened to Bob McElwee when he was a high school kid in Wichita, Kansas: 1) He met Ginger, and 2) he rode his first motorcycle. More than four decades later, the McElwees, both 58, have six children. They were photographed at the 65th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.

Father McElwee doesn't think Catholic priests should be married. He didn't think so before he became one; he doesn't think so now. The Lord, however, had other ideas. Two days after resigning as an Episcopal priest in 1980, McElwee was in his car, "talking out loud to Jesus, asking what I'm supposed to do next," when he heard a report announcing the pope's provision for married Episcopal converts. "And I still didn't want to do it," he said. "It was my wife who said, 'Well, God opened this door. Give it a try.'" That was 22 years ago, 19 of which have been spent in southeast Kansas. Recalls Ginger, "The bishop told us, 'You'll only have to explain yourselves once. The gossip will take six months to move around the area, and then you'll be done with it forever.' And that's exactly what happened."

John and Burgess Ellis, St. Cloud, Florida

John Ellis was a 24-year-old sales manager working for the J.C. Penney Company in DeLand, Florida, when he met Burgess, an undergraduate at Stetson University, in 1961. They married the following September and had a son, Thomas, in December '63. Father Ellis, 68, and Burgess, 65, are pictured here with their daughter, Ruth, and her five-year-old twins, Jordan (left) and Zachary (right).

"The official doctrine is that celibacy is not going to be changed," Father Ellis says. "But I think most of the clergy are looking at us as pioneers, the big experiment." The Ellis's experiment began in 1989 when John, after 20 years in the Episcopal priesthood, was ready to leave his church and join the Catholic laity. Then he heard about the Vatican's loophole for married converts. "There have been married clergy in the Catholic Church longer than there have been celibate clergy," he points out. "Celibacy wasn't mandated until the Middle Ages. Even our first pope was married." So should celibacy be optional today? "Well, there are places for celibacy. Religious orders, for instance. But there is no reason why a diocesan priest shouldn't be married. Being married or being single has nothing to do with being a priest."

Allan and José Hawkins, Arlington, Texas

Allan and José (pronounced Josay) Hawkins met in 1963 at St. George Anglican Church in Stevenage, England, where Allan was a priest, and married in 1964. They moved to Texas in 1980. Father Hawkins, 71, and José, 63, are pictured here with their two children, Sarah and Giles.

Father Allan Hawkins didn't bring just his family into the Catholic Church when he was ordained in 1994; he brought his entire flock. "The decision to seek unity with Rome was pretty well unanimous here," he says -- "here" being St. Mary the Virgin Catholic Church in Arlington, Texas, which used to be St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church. "It was the same building, the same people, transferred in toto, so all that you might say changed was the sign on the street." This made the transition a nonissue for José; unlike the other wives on these pages, the other parishioners already knew her as the priest's wife. "As long as Anglicanism was moving toward -- however slowly -- some kind of rapprochement with Rome, we could just wait it out," Father Hawkins says. "But once that became impossible, we had to act for ourselves."

I realize this is a cutesy story filled with cutesy anecdotes but the fact is that they ALL hint at the difficulties of having married priests in the modern era. The Catholic Church is an inventive institution gifted with wise, talented men who can invent ways of coping with the problems married clergy would bring. But isn't the simpler, cheaper and lower risk way to continue not permitting them to get married? Once the decision is made to allow them to marry, it's not easily unmade. And it was first made for a reason.

Far be it from me to criticize the Holy Father on this, especially when I have absolutely no skin in the game, but I just don't think this is a wise idea.

Female "Clergy" and the "Church" of England

The Church of England votes to allow women as bishops

LONDON – The Church of England ended one of its longest and most divisive disputes Monday with an overwhelming vote in favor of allowing women to become bishops.

The church's national assembly, known as the General Synod, voted for the historic measure, reaching the required two-thirds majority in each of its three different houses. In total, 351 members of the three houses approved of the move. Only 72 voted against and 10 abstained.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the long-awaited change marks the completion of a process that started more than 20 years ago with the ordination of women as priests. He called for tolerance and love for those traditionalists who disagree with the decision.

"As delighted as I am for the outcome of this vote I am also mindful of whose within the church for whom the result will be difficult and a cause of sorrow," he said in a statement.

Stupidity like this isn't the main reason I walked away from Anglicanism. But it was a consideration. The fact is that being an orthodox, traditionalist Anglican increasingly puts you at odds with what's left of Anglicanism worldwide.

When all's said and done, this decision accomplishes three things. First, it codifies what's long been unofficial practice in the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church USA "ordained" a female presiding archbishop back in 2006 or so. And they did it with absolute impunity because they knew that the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn't lift a finger to stop them.

Speaking of the Archbishop, you really have to admire the strength of his convictions. Only after YEARS of conservatives abandoning the "church" in droves while the liberals shriek ever louder for female "clergy" does he express support for their cause. He should be a politician.

Secondly, it further alienates whatever traditionalists are still left in their "communion". I'd predict that the worldwide Anglican Communion might rupture over this, except they already ruptured over homosexuals being "ordained" as priests and bishops back in 2009.

But third, it might give those same traditionalists the final push they need to leave their pathetic excuse of a communion behind and come home to Rome. The infrastructure for doing so has existed for years now. So maybe there's some Anglo-Catholic parish or maybe even an entire diocese that's got nowhere left to go except Rome.

Speaking of which, I truly hope I never hear some Episcopalian wingnut wish for reunification with Rome.

Once again, the Catholic Church will absorb the faithful while the Anglican Communion loses more of the few people actually willing to actually tithe and do yucky stuff like feed the homeless and whatnot.

If this was a war, Rome would win by attrition.

My Catholic Year- The Traditional Latin Mass, The Ancient Way

How about a REAL update on My Catholic Year?

I said in my last post that I'm not terribly interested in bickering over liturgy. What I'm convinced of is that evangelical liturgy (and yes, they DO have a liturgy; their refusal to put it in writing doesn't change the facts) is weak sauce and often hypocritical. Beyond that, your liturgy of preference is between you and your God.

That having been said, I went to the Traditional Latin Mass this morning at that FSSP parish this morning and HOLY CRAP!!!

When I was slumming it with the Anglicans, I REALLY enjoyed the High Church services they did. It wasn't as High as it might've been but I figured it was still pretty good. But if you've ever been to the TLM before, you know that it blows the doors off the Anglican liturgy, duct tapes them back on and blows the doors off again.

Anglicanism ruined me for evangelical Christian worship. The Traditional Latin Mass has ruined me for every other liturgy. THIS is what I want from my worship. It all feels so ancient and reverential and, most of all, AUTHENTIC.

With all due respect to Pope Paul VI, I have no idea how or why the Church could ever go from the TLM to the Novus Ordo. Having now been to both, I can understand why people are so partisan about it these days. I don't think it's worth the grief and bloodletting it's caused over the years, you understand; I'm just saying I understand why people can get so fired about it.

From the standpoint of communion, part of why the TLM works for me is because it's primarily in a dead language. Yes, the homily and related matters are in whatever language they're in. But by and large, the Mass is in Latin. Apart from the mystery aspect of it, there is (or would be) solidarity in knowing that basically all of us are having basically the exact same Mass in basically the exact same way. It'd be as mysterious to me as it is everywhere else in the world.

Obviously that isn't how things are right now. I'm just saying it'd be nice.

I've never questioned my decision to join the Church. But at the same time, I've also never been more positive of where I'm supposed to be.

Apart from that, I made plans with Father Charles to meet later this week. My work schedule has changed so I probably won't be able to make it to Mass on Sunday for a long while (which I'm not happy about, especially now, but it's the hand I've been dealt) but he said he's willing to meet with me one-on-one and go through the Catechism with me so that I can pick up basically where I left off in RCIA.

Besides all that, I have every Thursday and Friday off from work now so I can still go to Mass on those days. Being as Father Charles is hopefully going to be my mentor through this whole process, I'm thinking my lack of attendance on Sunday won't be a major problem for him. My guess is that it'll be a fairly Low Mass on those days (although I'd love to be wrong!).

Just heard a major rumble of thunder outside so I guess I'd better call it a night.

Another Thing About Liturgy

By the by, feels like I should mention that I'm not militantly opposed to the Novus Ordo Mass. You might get that impression, especially judging from my last post. But it's simply not true.

What is true though is that I've talked at length about liturgy. And the reason for that is because I've been working through how lied to and betrayed I feel by my evangelical upbringing. In that world, they have a "liturgy" of sorts but they refuse to put it in writing. So there is a sense of ritual about evangelical worship. But at the same time, there's a strange, neurotic compulsion to deny that a liturgy exists.

On top of that, style takes a backseat to substance. It doesn't matter how or when you worship. What matters is that, by golly, your HEART is in it.

And honestly, I wouldn't have a problem with that line of thinking if it had any basis in fact. But it just doesn't. The early Church clearly believed that liturgy matters. Yes, your heart's conviction is important. It's not to be underestimated. But if the Lord has appointed a manner He finds acceptable to be worshiped, isn't it dangerously stupid to worship Him in any other way?

Also, evangelicals have this aggravating tendency to create a false dichotomy between liturgy and meaningful worship. When it comes to the Almighty, I've always had a reverential sense of soberness. He isn't my co-pilot, my best drinking buddy, my n***a or any of that stupidity. He's the sovereign God Almighty and there is none like Him.

Because of that, I was morally offended at times by how chummy a lot of evangelicals tend to be with Him. And whatever, He'll judge or not judge that for Himself. But this is a crucial part of evangelical worship and it took being painfully separated from all that for me to realize just how repugnant I find most of that stuff.

But anyway, my point here is that a lot of my discussion about liturgy is coming from the angle of a disgruntled evangelical who's forcibly woken up and smelled the coffee. Liturgy is a big subject for me because it's only been pretty recently that I've developed an awareness of and appreciation for it.

But among Catholics, it can be a contentious subject. This is illicit and that is not. I refuse to get involved with that. At least for right now. When I criticized the Novus Ordo, I did so on the basis that I don't think the sixth grade-level English of that Mass stacks up against the best of what the Anglicans have to offer. But I'm certainly not criticizing that Mass insofar as legitimacy is concerned. The Anglicans may have a more eloquent liturgy but what's it worth if half (or more) of their priests aren't validly ordained?

Because I want sober, reverential worship of the Lord, the only logical place for me to go is the Latin Mass. If the Solemn Masses I've seen on YouTube are indicative of what the Latin Mass is all about, this is about as High a Mass as the Catholic Church can offer (maybe the Orthodox have a Higher service but that takes you right back to the validity of their ordination in some cases).

But if others prefer the Novus Ordo, what difference does it make to me?

My Catholic Year Update

Man, been a long time since I updated this thing. As usual, there's not been much to say so I didn't bother updating. Until recently, that is, when a few interesting things came down the pipeline. So now's not a bad time to talk about some of that stuff.

For one thing, as I've said again and again, I haven't been able to attend RCIA at the Catholic parish I've mentioned a few times because of my work schedule. But we recently did a shift bid at my office and so my schedule has changed. My Thursday nights are now free. It's my Sunday mornings that are unavailable now.

No, it's not an ideal situation since RCIA requires Thursday nights AND Sunday mornings to be free. But it changes the equation at least a little.

Another thing is that I decided to wash my hands of the Catholic parish I'd been attending. I love the Church and I submit to her authority, don't get me wrong, but it really felt like they weren't even TRYING to meet me halfway on this. They have a model and they're sticking to it no matter what.

My decision to find a different parish coincides with moving to a slightly different part of town. There are two different parishes nearby. One is part of the FSSP. The FSSP's big claim to fame is their preference for the Latin Mass. I've written about the Latin Mass before but I've never really been to one before. But I really like what I know and what seen of it.

I must be honest though, there's an incredibly High Church Anglo-Catholic parish near my new apartment and it was VERY tempting to start going there. I rationalized that I really tried to join up with the REAL Church but they didn't seem interested in having me.

In the end though, that seemed like an excuse. I like Anglican liturgy more than the language and liturgy currently employed in most Catholic Masses, it's true, but that's not a good justification for turning my back on the Church. Ultimately, communion with the Church founded by Our Lord is more important than liturgy. Besides, I figured I could find an FSSP parish and try my luck with them.

So that's what I did today. I called the pastor of that FSSP parish, explained my problem and the impression I got from him is that he's surprised that this tiny problem has gotten as big as it has (and he's not alone on that either). But no matter what, he said he'd be open to meeting with me and working through the Catechism of the Catholic Church with me in lieu of a standard RCIA arrangement.

Just like that! He said that to a total stranger like me! How awesome is that? The guy couldn't pick me out of a police lineup if his life depended on it but he agreed to help anyway.

I'm still in the process of getting things sorted out in terms of moving from my old place into my new apartment so all my nice clothes aren't in my closet yet. So there's probably no way to manage going to the Latin Mass tomorrow. But I can definitely work it out next week.

There have been some hiccups along the way. This whole process turned out to be a lot bumpier than I was originally expecting. But I'm making progress here and that's ultimately what counts the most.