THE
P RTAL
May 2019
Page 3
P ortal Comment
Leaving and joining
– the journey of converts
Will Burton reviews his journey
F
or some Catholics, being a Convert is sometimes thought of as being second best. I expect most of
us will have heard it said with pride, “Well; I am a Cradle Catholic!” Yet conversion is surely an essential
aspect of the Catholic Faith.
We all need conversion. We all need to be rescued for. Concise and certain orthodoxy was a welcome
from our sinful ways, and brought into the joy of home from home. The welcome was warm and
forgiveness, surrendering ourselves to the love and unjudgmental.
salvation brought by Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Catholic Church posses a Catechism that lays
The conversion of members of the Personal out what the Church stands for in a positive and
Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, indeed of unambiguous way. Its attraction is obvious; the concise
anyone, has two parts. First: there is the decision to orthodoxy of Pope Benedict appealed to Anglicans
leave the place where one has been for a long time, hungering for doctrinal stability. Let us be sure not to
maybe one’s whole life. Second is the decision to enter lose the very thing that brought us to this point in the
life of the Church: doctrinal stability.
into full communion with the Catholic Church.
In her column this month my colleague Joanna
Bogle outlines one of the reasons for the decision
many of us took to leave the CofE. It is a question of
gender and the importance of holding that, although
the two genders of male and female are equal, they
are, nevertheless, not interchangeable. She also
outlines the difficulty of expressing, let alone holding,
such a view as the “thought police” gradually tighten
their grip.
We must add the understandably negative reaction
to sexual scandals in the church. They too; have
contributed to the slow-down in converts. Such
scandals, and theological fuzziness, do not attract
converts.
Thank God, we have faithful Ordinaries, Bishop,
Priests, Deacons, and lay folk in the three Ordinariates
that hold fast to the teaching of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church.
There were, of course, other reasons why so many of
us felt the need to leave the dear old CofE. In the time
Let us pray others will see the deep attraction of this
of my short life, the established church of this land had and make the journey that we have already made.
altered out of all recognition. Doctrinal ambiguity had
not just replaced concise orthodoxy, it had become a
New Ordinariate Members
tenet of faith. I realised that my time in the CofE was
limited when a cleric boasted to me that “I have a
Before Easter:
Churchwarden who is not Baptised”.
24th March – 1 at Most Precious Blood, Borough
31st March – a young family of 3, including a
The words of the Creed (Apostles and Nicean, not
former Anglican priest, at Warwick Street
to mention that of St Athanasias) came to mean
something rather different from the traditional
In Holy Week – a Diocesan Catholic becomes
understanding. A lax view of marriage, divorce and
Ordinariate at Most Precious Blood
same-sex relationships became the official line. A
– 1 at St Mark’s Hemel Hempstead
vague and fluid theology gradually crept into every
Received at Easter:
aspect of the church’s doctrine. So one had to leave.
– 2, a mother and daughter at Most Precious Blood
– 3 at St Osmund’s, Gainford, Darlington
The Catholic Church was an attractive place to head