An Episcopalian: free from tyranny

       I am a former Roman Catholic cleric. I was ordained and ministered in a thriving 5000 family community of faith. When I had an inkling that I was gay, I sought out a Catholic therapist in addition to my spiritual director and behaved in a decent and forthright manner.  When I came to realize that I was in fact gay, I knew what it meant for my ministry. The Church had no place for gay men who proclaimed the heresy that being gay was truly a gift from God. Doctrinally we are labelled intrinsically disordered. There would be no room for me if I chose to share my gift with even one other or perhaps, especially one other. It was suggested I seek a leave of absence, no need to speak the truth, just ask for a leave of absence.  But the horse was out of the barn as they say.  In my respect for the Church I was honest and forthright. The Church had already done the damage to itself in me by instilling in me the honesty and self respect I knew I deserved as a beloved child of God.  But the respect was not mutual and the vehemence with which I was laid down was, as I know now, to be expected.  Laicized and ostracized. Ironically, treated worse than had I been a pedophile.

      This is all ancient history now. The reason I note it is because I held great anger over how I was treated and as a result, I decided it best to stop writing this blog for over a year. The anger with which I wrote was not healthy and not consistent with a message I wished to convey.

      As took up my pen again, renewed and without anger I am still none the less fully aware of the situation of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. They are wrong on so many levels as to diminish if not erase any moral authority they once may have held over me and the faithful at large. I note this not in anger but as a statement of fact as I once again witness the vapid and tarnished fruit of the Churches actions. Witness the recent news from the State of Pennsylvania. Horrific and not wholly unexpected. I am sure the accusations and apologetics for these crimes are now ramping up to full steam. The Catholic Guild will be outraged that mother church is being attacked.

      What this says to me is that I made a wise choice in leaving not only the ordained ministry but the Roman church proper. As an Episcopalian I am freer to be the faithful person God has called me to be. As it turns out, I probably was an Episcopalian all along based on several criteria. What will I get for my exit? I suspect, God's respect and hopefully, prayerfully, and with careful attentiveness to God's message, a place in heaven as today's passage alludes to.

     We must always be attentive to what God is saying to us even when it means turning away from the faith of our fathers. Fathers can be misguided and wrong hearted. Jesus himself attests to this when he chastised and called out the religious elite of Judaism. What is so different now?  The Roman church has embraced errant policies and theology while abandoning the faithful and literally, abandoning the children in it's care. Walk away, wait, run from the leaders of unjust and unfaithful love. Better you should have a millstone tied around your neck in complicity. 

      If you examine your  beliefs, the decision and judgments of your heart, mind, soul and conscience, you may be like me, an Episcopalian and perhaps always were. 

Matthew 19:23-30

 Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’

 Then Peter said in reply, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.