Why I Stayed

The Apostolic Constitution; Anglicanorum Coetibus, was announced on November 4, 2009 and it provided a significant hope of increased unity within Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church seemed to be opening its doors in a new and wonderful way for Anglicans around the world that had become disaffected by the increasingly bizarre innovations within the Anglican Communion especially the Episcopal Church. During the subsequent months this new approach to Christian unity started to wind its way through the massive organization which is the Roman Church.

During that same time, the legal battles between the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania and the Rt. Rev. David Moyer, rector of The Church of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania continued. The Episcopal Diocese requested the Pennsylvania Court remove Fr. Moyer as the church rector and the vestry of Good Shepherd arguing that Fr. Moyer not be allowed to remain as he was now a bishop in another Anglican jurisdiction.

For many within the Church of the Good Shepherd the Anglican Ordinariate in America was viewed with great hope. A traditional Anglican body was to be accepted into the Roman Catholic Church. It was viewed as a theological safe haven.

The two threads came together in September 2011. In a final order entered on August 25, 2011, Judge Stanley Ott of the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas ordered Moyer and two members of the vestry removed from their offices. Moyer, members of the vestry and a significant number of parishioners departed Good Shepherd, Rosemont and formed the Blessed John Henry Newman Fellowship. The members of this fellowship began preparations for joining the Anglican Ordinariate.

I have been a member of Church of the Good Shepherd for almost 20 years. I certainly find the innovations of the Episcopal Church to be highly distasteful; however I elected to remain and not follow Moyer into the Ordinariate. It was not because Moyer had not been a good priest to my wife and myself, nor was it because of my distaste for the way Good Shepherd had been run over the last few years exceeding my distaste for Episcopal innovations. It was deeper than that. It goes to the definition of the Body of Christ. To read more, click here.