Recall the old joke about the Episcopal Church as Roman Catholic Lite? [View all]

[hedgehog]

"All the pageantry, half the guilt"

Well, I've been a very active Roman Catholic all my life, but I've had a harder and harder time watching Rome trying to turn back the clock. I've been waiting for a change in the anti-women/anti-gay attitudes. My Vatican II parish was closed in a perfect storm of lies and subterfuge. For a while, I drove 20 miles each way to be a member of the nearest Vatican II parish. But, Roman Catholics are a parochial people. It's hard to be member of a parish in another county. I was also concerned as to what would happen to that parish the day the wonderful pastor is gone ( he's 83 years old.) Would everything I liked about that parish be swept away by the next pastor? Then, last Advent, the new Mass translation came down. All the changes were presented as being closer to the Latin but I heard them as an imposition of clerical superiority and Vatican power. I kept coming home from Mass not having heard a word. Then came this summer's lurch to the Right by the American bishops.

So - for the last month I've been going to the nearby (walking distance!) Episcopal Church. I had to make the change if I wanted all the things I valued most about being a Roman Catholic. I feel like a weight has been lifted from me. I don't want to engage in a game of sour grapes, and I am dismayed at the destruction I see taking place. John XXIII pointed the way forward, but the hierarchs will see most Catholics leave before making any changes that they perceive as taking power from them.

Anyways, that old joke? For me, it's true!