Last year Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington was appointed by the Holy Father as Pastoral Delegate for the U.S. for Anglicanorum Coetibus. In other words he is charged with the ministry of implementing the incorporation of Anglican/Episcopalian groups into the Catholic Church here in the United States. In this position, he is a delegate of the congregation and heads the U.S. bishops’ ad hoc committee charged with assisting the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in implementing the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.
The pope issued the document in November 2009 to provide for the establishment of personal ordinariates for Anglican/Episcopalian groups who seek to enter corporately into full communion with the Catholic Church. The personal ordinariate is a canonical structure similar to a diocese that covers the area of a bishops’ conference. This permits the incoming Anglican/Episcopalian to be part of the Catholic Church while maintaining aspects of their Anglican heritage and liturgical practice.
Since the Vatican’s new norms, several U.S. Episcopal churches have shown interest in becoming Catholic. Last week an Episcopalian parish in Bladensburg, Md., announced that it will become the first in the United States to join the Catholic Church under the structures laid out in Anglicanorum Coetibus. The 100 member St. Luke Episcopal Church petitioned for entry into the Catholic Church. St. Luke’s Episcopal will become part of the Archdiocese of Washington within the next few months. The parish will lease its land from the Episcopal diocese with the option to purchase. This past May following a long process of discernment, St. Luke’s vestry took a formal vote to enter the Catholic Church and all but one family supported the move.
The Rev. Mark Lewis, 51, ordained as an Episcopal priest in 2001, serves as rector of St. Luke. He and his congregation shared that the document, Anglicanorum Coetibus, laid the foundation for their entrance into the Catholic Church. Anglicanorum Coetibus “opened up a door that had previously been closed,” said Rev. Lewis. He shared that the debates over issues such as homosexuality, women’s ordination and other liberal decisions of the Episcopal Church were not the main reason for leaving the denomination. He said, “We worship in a very Catholic way.” In a letter to his parishioners, Rev. Lewis said that debates over social issues “illuminated a more significant issue in Anglicanism…Who speaks for the church? Where is the teaching authority of the church on matters of faith and morals to be found?”
Throughout the entire discernment process the St. Luke’s community received support from both Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. In a statement, Cardinal Donald Wuerl said the archdiocese will “welcome the St. Luke community warmly into our family of faith.” Bishop Chane said in a statement that he approved the separation. He said the decision was made with “mutual respect,” adding that “Christians move from one church to another with far greater frequency than in the past, sometimes as individuals, sometimes as groups.” Rev. Lewis said his Episcopal bishop was supportive. “He believed it was a continuation of our journey, a fulfillment of our faith.”
Rev. Lewis, when asked to describe his congregation, said it is “a community of believers of traditional Christianity. It expresses its tradition in an Anglo-Catholic style of worship.” He added, “Our hope is that we can grow and build a new building and school, so we can do more ministries in the Bladensburg area and keep the focus on children…. That’s where God has placed us, that will always be our number one priority, the children of the Bladensburg area.”
“I am deeply grateful to Cardinal Wuerl and to Bishop Chane for their support throughout this discernment. We look forward to continuing to worship in the Anglican tradition, while at the same time being in full communion with the Holy See of Peter.”
As the nation’s Catholic bishops meet at their Spring General Assembly in Seattle, Cardinal Wuerl will present a progress report on the incorporation of Anglicans/Episcopalians into the U.S. Catholic Church. I’m sure the positive experience of St. Luke’s incorporation will be part of his presentation.
Father Joseph D. Wallace is coordinator, Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs, Diocese of Camden.
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