It’s all over the net. All kinds of talk about Anglicans swimming, put on swim trunks, taking the plunge, testing the waters, dipping the toe, crossing over, etc. It will be a wonder if the Tiber can handle the traffic as well as it handles the copious references to the metaphor … if they all come.
Those who do come are deserving of a hearty welcome from those of us standing along the shore. They certainly will have paid a hefty price in strained and even lost friendships as they have made a momentous and meaningful journey to the Catholic Church.
As an Anglican watcher I have noticed a distinct pattern on most Anglican blogs. Whenever something positive about the Catholic Church is posted there is a strong and bitter reaction among many of the commenters. Antipathy toward the Catholic Church is deeply ingrained in the minds of Anglicans and protestants from an early age. So it erupts almost without reflection whenever the moment calls for it. It has been particularly heavy in the wake of word of talks between some Diocese of Fort Worth Episcopal clergy and the local Catholic bishop.
Here is an example of the kind of visceral bitterness that has surfaced at blogs like the Continuum:
Joining the Roman Catholic Church is a simple process, about as hard as joining Sam’s Club. All you have to do is sit through a few RCIA classes and keep quiet. Piece of cake.
So why do Episcopalian Tiber-swimmers have to make it into a big deal, like it’s really hard? And if they have found the Church of their dreams, why do they want some specialized form of it? What wrong with good ole’ Friday nite bingo-playing, Kumbaya-singing, St Philomena’s with the over-sized asphalt parking lot?
Imagine a bunch of people who have found the perfect condominium, but they won’t consent to move in until the condominium adds a new wing, specially designed to accomodate their over-sized family antiques? And when they finally make the move, they hang around the neighborhood of their last home, telling everyone how happy they are and picking fights with anyone who doesnt wish to move also? And since they cannnot find a real job in their new neighborhood, they have lots of time to harrass their old neighbors.
I suspect a lot of these aspiring Tiber-swimmers, particularly the ones who speak and write in high flowing tones about “the authorrrity of the Magisterrrrium” and drop sentimental platitudes about “that they may be one” secretly know their Condominium is never going to build a new wing for them, and they will have to choose between moving into the Kumbaya section, or staying put with their family antiques. It’s all just a pose.
LKW
He comments further later:
… But she [a relative gone Catholic] did not try to negotiate her way into the RCC, asking for special arrangements or unusual favors. She just joined. She has not nattered incessantly to all her friends and relatives, asking them to validate or approve her decision. She is quite secure in it. She does not waste time attempting to proselyte her former co-religionists. In fact, she has gotten busy with the clothing ministry and teaching CCD in her new parish church (where she is blessed with some fine parish priests, the Oratorians).
Sadly, we know too many of those former PECUSA clergymen who surely appear to suffer a big guilt complex for abandoning their priesthood for a church which tells them that priesthood was “invalid.” That must be a tough thing to live with. I can only be sympathetic–up to a point.
But I reach a breaking point when I receive a pile of unsolicited e-mails from former ECUSA priests, and even a former ECUSA bishop. I wish them every happiness. I also wish they would just shut up and go away.
LKW
I can appreciate L.K. Wells’ frustration. Nobody likes to be proselytized. Nobody likes being talked down to. I experienced plenty of this in my native Virginia. Evangelicals and even some Episcopalians from Truro tried to impress upon me that my Catholic faith was defective and that they alone had salvation. Ick.
Catholics in the past decade, at least many of us, have imbibed of the Evangelical spirit through the apologetics work of Scott Hahn and many others. LIke many Catholics I relished having responses to the attacks of the Protestants. I loved being trained to point out the flaws in Evangelical theology, ecclesiology, history and everything else. While triumphalism is unattractive, it is important that we be able to assert ourselves unlike our fore bearers of generations past, even if some find it irritating to a degree.
I have found often that those who bristle most at an articulate Catholic are those who have a most deeply ingrained anti-Catholicism. Surprise, surprise. By no means should their protestations make us Catholics “shut up and go away.”
But, we Catholics also need to remember that it is not about winning arguments, but winning souls. The Catholic faith is not the prize of a tested wit. The Catholic faith is the fruit of a movement of the Holy Spirit in a heart predisposed to the Truth. The Catholic faith is about faith. And we Catholics need to learn to share our faith experiences, testimonies and stories even more than we need to know how to point out the flaws of Sola Scriptura, though they be many.
Bringing a prayerful spirit to the blogosphere will do more for the faith than a CCC. I say this knowing I need to hear it as much or more than any.
May God bless the new evangelization just in its infancy.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of the New Evangelization, Pray for us!
