From Grace Church – Episcopal – in Newark.
Forum for
Disaffected Roman Catholics
We invite Roman Catholics whose spiritual lives are grounded
in the Mass and in the Sacraments
but who cannot endorse the Vatican’s authoritarian pronouncements
on issues such as contraception, abortion, homosexual relationships,
the role of women in the church, and divorce
to join us in an examination of Anglican Catholicism
Sunday, December 17
After the 10 a.m. Mass
Some Roman Catholics whose spiritual lives are grounded in the Mass and in the sacraments are, nevertheless, unable to concur with the Vatican’s position on issues such as the role of women in the church, contraception, remarriage of divorced person, homosexual relationships, or abortion. They have become increasingly disaffected as the hierarchy’s response to dissent has grown more strident and authoritarian.
If you are among them, you may find a comfortable spiritual home at Grace Church in Newark. The church is located in downtown Newark, at 950 Broad Street, one block south of City Hall, just north of the Federal Building. We urge you to visit our Web site, www.gracechurchinnewark.org,, and—better still—to visit the church in person. Sunday Masses are celebrated at 8 an 10 a.m. Weekday Masses are celebrated at 12:10 p.m., Monday through Friday.
At Grace Church you will find:
Traditional Catholic worship, offered with care and reverence
Worthy liturgical music, including Gregorian Chant
A respectful approach to Scripture and Tradition, without fundamentalism or authoritarianism
A diverse congregation that embraces divorced persons, gay men, and lesbians as fully as it embraces all others.
The Episcopal Church is not a Protestant denomination.
As John Macquarrie, sometime Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford, wrote, "Anglicanism has never considered itself to be a sect or denomination originating in the sixteenth century. It continues without a break the Ecclesia Anglicana founded by St. Augustine [of Centerbury] thirteen centuries and more ago…" The Episcopal Church is Catholic in polity. It has maintained the threefold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons. It faithfully ministers all the sacraments of the Catholic Church. Its liturgy affirms the sacrificial character of the Eucharist and the real, objective presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Nevertheless, its members differ widely in their theological positions. Since the sixteenth century many Anglicans—at times the majority—have embraced Protestant ideas; but other have always remained faithful to Anglicanism’s Catholic heritage, and the Anglican Communion has never departed from it in any essential. Grace Church, since its founding in 1837, has stood squarely with those who emphasize and treasure the Catholic heritage of Anglicanism.
On Sunday, December 17, after the 10 a.m. Mass, we shall hold a special forum for inquirers who wish to learn more about Anglican Catholicism.
We are eager to welcome you at any time; but we especially invite you to join us then.
Well. How nice.
Christopher Johnson has fun with the invitation here, slicing and dicing so we don’t have to.
Many questions are begged here. Most of them are really not new and, even before the Present Difficulties, stubborn ones for Anglicans of a Catholic bent. But here, the difficulties are magnified. If there is all of this diversity and disassociation from traditional Christianity, what’s the function of the liturgies with the gorgeous music? And how can the Highly Traditional liturgy be disassociated from the Highly Traditional faith which it expresses and embodies?
A reader adds the salient points, the context, the paradigm, the framework in which this kind invitation should be placed:
FYI, Grace Church has an average Sunday attendance of a little over 120, with official membership about 275. Annual income runs just over 100000, which means the parish is probably on its uppers, possibly close to exhausting any endowment. If most of the pledged income comes from the regular attendees, average pledge is only about $800.00, which isn’t very good even by Piskie standards.
Ah, I get it. As a commentor at TitusOneNine said – too smart to procreate, obviously. So we’ll just steal us some sheep.
I’d just like to add that my essential problem with this is not really the sheep-stealing aspect, but the intellectual dishonesty in the advert, points with Chris Johnson highlights quite ably.
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