Thinking on the Plight of Traditional Roman Catholics

A More Organic View of Communion Needed?

The current situation of traditional Roman Catholics is difficult for me to write on.  To emote and rant is a temptation. But after reading yet another article on their plight, this time from the Free Press…

Confessions of Canceled Priests

I am compelled to write.   

For these are the most faithful dedicated Catholics, and I feel a lot of kinship with them. Under Pope Benedict I briefly thought it possible I might join them. Yet they are being trampled underfoot by the evil Bergoglio regime.  There is understandable speculation that Pope Francis and cronies want to make life so miserable for the traditional faithful that there is schism so the modernist apostates can take it all.

Well, there you go.  I ranted already.  But that is not my purpose here, at least not in this post. Nor do I dare take a deep dive into what can and should be done when the papacy descends into evil and even apostasy. Instead I want to look at the bigger picture of the need for a more organic policy of communion than that usually practiced in the Roman Catholic Church.

My current situation in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) along with the situation of my TradCat friends among other issues has prompted me to rethink communion (or the right hand of Christian fellowship as old fashioned evangelical brothers might put it).  I’ve long considered the proper boundaries of fellowship to be right doctrine on the basics of the faith, including the authority of Scripture; not being a playground for totalitarian ideologies, including those of Critical Theory, or other profound evils; and the ability and willingness to exercise church discipline.  On the latter, I’ve oft said a church that doesn’t care enough about truth to discipline doesn’t care enough about truth, period.

My views on these boundaries on communion haven’t changed much.  What has changed is I am beginning to think communion should not be too wedded to church institutions and organizations but instead be more organic.  This is more easily explained by example.  So I will use an example I know well — myself.

In recent years, I’ve thought my time might be near to leave ACNA.  Some dioceses, especially the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others, had become playgrounds for wokeness and even for Liberation Theology (now somewhat less so thanks to the departure of Rez Austin).  My subjurisdiction within ACNA, the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) had not, and I have been happy with the REC for the most part.  But I was getting fed up with ACNA, even though most of it is orthodox and not woke.

Related and in line with my views on the importance of church discipline, I thought that it was past time for woke dioceses and clergy to be read the riot act — repent or get out.   I still think that would be a good thing.  As I wrote the other day, if you enable an evil, you get more of it.  But continuing…

I’m now thinking it might be better to be more organic about communion.  Is a diocese, parish, or cleric in ACNA woke?  Then, although as a member of ACNA I might technically be in communion with them, as far as I am concerned I am not.  Is a diocese, parish or cleric in ACNA or in any other Anglican jurisdiction faithful?  Then I am in hearty communion with them.   (Granted, I am a layman, so I have more flexibility to think this way.)

Hence a more organic view of communion is based more on orthodoxy and orthopraxy than on organizational boundaries.

I certainly don’t presume to have invented this view.  Discussions with a beloved priest have nudged me toward it.  Some of you may have thought this way for decades. Many of us have instinctively interacted with other Christians according to this organic view.  I know I have frequently.

That ACNA as a whole is making progress against the infiltration of wokeness helps me to be comfortable with this more organic view of communion.  There are also serious problems should I continue with my previous more rigid organizational view of communion, namely what would I do if I left ACNA?  My attitude is I am Anglican until I die and maybe beyond, but there is only one Anglican church I could attend within 100 miles, my current one (which I love), and it’s REC/ACNA. So if I left ACNA what would I do? Most and maybe all of the options are not good.  So much so, I will refrain from mentioning them.

Again, I am still thinking about all this.  So if you think me a bit sloppy in my thinking, you are probably right.  Nonetheless I remain convinced as before that any view of communion that is practical and Biblical has to allow one, even compel one, to avoid communion with the apostate, the totalitarian, and the otherwise profoundly evil.  2nd John, Galatians 1: 8, 9 and other scriptures require this.  At the same time, one should avoid becoming a denomination of one.  And one should be in communion with as many faithful as possible “on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

I am no expert on Roman Catholic canon law and doctrine on the details of communion.  But it seems to me that their view of right communion is so wedded to communion with the Pope that it makes avoiding communion with the current apostasy taking over Rome to be difficult at best for traditional Roman Catholics.

I say that not to criticize them; I greatly admire their faithfulness, which is an example to us all.   Nonetheless, I pray they find a way to practice communion that is more scriptural, patristic, organic and livable than being shackled to whoever happens to be the current Bishop of Rome.

And since Anglicanism is notoriously messy, us Anglicans could always use some prayers about communion, too.