More on the "C" word

It was our own Fr. Wells who rightly got my point in the post (below), "How is that 'Catholic' exactly?" He commented: "But perhaps the real problem is that it is WE OURSELVES who do not understand what 'catholic' means." That very danger was my point. I used the fact that I found it necessary to change the road sign for St. Benedict's as a natural lead-in to what followed. The meaning of the article was simply this: It's bad enough that the public at large misunderstand the word "catholic," but it seems that many of our own Continuing Anglicans really don't understand it either. 

The problem is that the word "catholic" had become a partisan word for the highest of the High Church Anglicans and Episcopalians long before the St. Louis Congress. If, in fact, the name of my jurisdiction, "The Anglican Catholic Church," simply invokes that partisan division in some minds, let me be clear that it has no such meaning to me. I am not an Anglo-Catholic, even though I can do very High Church liturgy as well as the next priest. I can also do Low Church liturgy as well as the next priest, and it really is all the same to me. It is the same Lord, it is the same sacrament, and it is the same theology - at least it was written that way and should be so understood.

All my life long, growing up in the Episcopal Church from the late 1950s, and starting to learn in the 1960s, I knew I belonged to "the Holy Catholic Church." As an Episcopalian who knew only one edition, in those days, of the Book of Common Prayer, I was taught that we are both Catholic and Protestant, that we have the Apostolic Succession of Bishops, that only a priest is authorized to celebrate the service of Holy Communion, etc. That was the authorized and official teaching we all shared in the Anglican Communion.

In those decades, in Ellicott City Maryland, the High Church people went to St. Peter's (the House of Commons, as it was jokingly called), and the Low Church people went to St. John's (or the House of Lords, as it was jokingly called). Growing up in the 1930s, my mother remembers being taken to both at different times. She preferred the High Church worship, right down to the Last Gospel. My father was raised Low Church in Towson, Maryland, and lived next door to Trinity Church which his family attended. I grew up understanding that it was all, High and Low, essentially the same.

We did not "aspire" to be Catholic, because we belonged to the same Church that Christ established through the Apostles. Others, the Church of Rome (not the Eastern Orthodox, because our relations with them were different before 1976) may not have appreciated our place in the Church; but we knew who we were anyway. Protestants also criticized us for being "too catholic" for having the Apostolic Succession and a priesthood celebrating at an altar, etc.; but we just prayed for them. 

The Creeds teach us that the Church is Catholic, and that our Trinitarian Faith is Catholic. That means, as I said:

"...we use the word 'Catholic' simply to mean that we believe the whole faith, and that we belong to the One Church established by Christ through His apostles. For, when all is said and done, that is what it means: According to the whole - the whole Faith and the Universal Church."

It is a shame that explaining my decision about a church sign by the road proved to be so distracting. I hope it is because readers wanted to make sure we remain true to the theological meaning of the word "Catholic." Considering who it was that commented, I not only hope so, but think so. Indeed, we need to remain faithful to the meaning of that word for doctrine and order. If I believed that the comments were about nothing more than an emotional attachment to the sound of the word, with partisan implications as the main concern, I would be disappointed indeed. 

By now we should have established that the essence of "catholic," as Anglicans use the word, is not a matter of how many candles are on the altar, whether the priest wears a chasuble, whether the minor propers are used, etc. I hope that, by now, we have established that there is no one book more catholic, except for the Bible, than the Book of Common Prayer. 

And, as far as names are a concern: If the name of my jurisdiction of the Church merely indicates an Anglican party, then I would want to change it. But, since the name speaks of the unchanging truth and order of the Church Christ established, and our humble place among so large a company that includes the saints, I want to keep it to the end.

But that is what is has to mean in our thinking. Anything else is something much less, and not worth the breath it takes to say it.