But the process of ordination is long and complex. In The Episcopal Church and the more respectable continuing Anglican denominations, a candidate for the priesthood becomes a postulant for holy orders and has many interactions with the bishop and various committees. Then the postulant goes off to an accredited seminary, typically a three-year residential program equivalent to any other post-graduate study like law or medicine. (Even Episcopal programs for commuting students are rigorous.) Only then, following further background checks, exams, and review, does the candidate for the full priesthood reach ordination as a transitional deacon.
A major benefit of this extended process is it ensures that enough different pairs of eyes fall on a candidate to weed out the marginal people. One cause of the Catholic child sexual abuse scandal was insufficient supervision of priestly formation and an unwillngness to weed out marginal candidates, and this must certainly have been a factor in the discussion with Archbishop Daniel that Bishop Gill found so unsatisfactory in yesterday's post -- the Catholic Church must take every precaution in evaluating any candidate for the priesthood. Why should Gill find this disturbing?
On the other hand, we already know the Traditional Anglican Communion has ordained priests on the fly, so to speak -- look at the controversy over Peter Slipper, the alcoholic gay sexual harasser whom John Hepworth ordained to the priesthood apparently because it seemed like a good idea at the time. (Why, by the way, if Bishop Gill is anti-Hepworth, should he nevertheless think it's OK for the TAC to ordain priests willy-nilly?)
But via the blog of the same Fr Smuts, we get a picture, however faint, of the way ordinations go in the TAC Diocese of Pretoria and Southern Africa:
After a considerable time of waiting, sustained teaching and visitations back and forth by Fr Francis Ward, our Director of Studies, it gives me great pleasure to announce that the Ordinations of Deacons and Priests will take place at two venues this year. . . . Those being Ordained in Kimberley will be Philip Simelane (St James Botshabelo), Denzil Philander (St Marks, Koffiefontein), Angelo Eriksen (Christ the King, Kimberley), Lennox Busani (St Francis, East London) and Siyabonga Thambo (Kirkwood, Eastern Cape) The service will begin at 09h30. All are engaged in sudies [sic] that will need to be completed before they progress any further. Zwelidumile Kama (St Mary the Virgin, Port Elizabeth) has asked that his Ordination be delayed as he feels he needs more time to prepare himself – an admirable decision.Let me see -- for starters, it doesn't seem as though these candidates have been to any recognized seminary; they just get sustained teaching and visitations from a "Director of Studies". If my assumption here (or anywhere else in this matter) is incorrect, I see that Fr Smuts has resumed blogging, and he's free to offer evidence that will correct me. And in mainstream Anglican denominations, you're ordained a deacon after you've finished seminary and passed additional checks and exams. But we see that of this group (and it's not clear if they're all deacons, priests, or what) these need to complete additional "sudies" before they progress any further, whatever that means. No wonder Archbishop Daniel seemed a little nervous!
On the matter of Fr Smuts himself, though, while I don't even find an equivalent announcement of his own ordination as a priest, I do find the following for his ordination as a deacon in 2004:
ON SUNDAY 15th February, lay readers Stephen Smuts and Peter Wood were made Deacons in the parish of Christ the King, Brackenfell, Cape Town. The ordination service was held in the school hall of the Bastian Primary School, Brackenfell, and was conducted by the Rt Revd Trevor Rhodes.Again, it wouldn't happen in The Episcopal Church, and likely not in the ACNA, that anyone would be ordained as a transitional deacon (which Smuts clearly was, since he's now "Fr" Smuts) straight out of lay reader -- there'd be three years of residential seminary in between (more for a commuting student), and it likely would not be at his home parish -- he'd have been called to another parish out of seminary, another instance of how worthwhile it is to have multiple pairs of eyes on a candidate.
On top of that, we find on the parish site of The Curch of the Holy Cross -- Pretoria that "Fr Stephen Smuts of Cape Town spent three months with the parish". Was this part of the additional studies that priests apparently need to complete after ordination, at least as this goes in the Diocese of Pretoria and Southern Africa? We don't know. All I can surmise is that this bothers Archbishop Daniel, too, and that in turn bothers Bishop Gill, to the point of apparently turning him anti-Catholic.
All I can say is that in the US, if someone calls himself a doctor and practices medicine, I assume he's completed medical school and a residency, and he has a license. By the same token, if someone calls himself an Episcopal or Catholic priest, I can assume he's completed at least three years of seminary, has passed all relevant reviews, background checks, and exams, has served a probationary period as a transitional deacon, and has been properly ordained. The question arises whether this happens all the time in the TAC. The Catholic Church, as part of Anglicanorum coetibus reserved the right to double-check this, and frankly, it makes me feel real, real comfortable. For Bishop Gill, not so much.
Some of Fr Smuts's on line conduct has, frankly, made me wonder from time to time how much of a priest he really is, notwithstanding what he claims to be. When I've called him on it in the comments on his blog, it's clearly been a sore point. All I can say is that the Catholic Church has said there are no plans for an Ordinariate in Southern Africa, so there's little chance that it will ever need to review Fr Smuts's qualifications. Has he had three years of seminary training?
A Master of Divinity program, required for ordination as an Episcopal priest in the US, consists of 60-63 units of work in the basic subject areas of theological education. (Naturally, this would follow a four-year bachelor's program at an accredited college or university.) Semester-long courses are 3 units each. Full-time study at most residential seminaries represents a load of 12 units (four courses) per semester. How has Fr Smuts's priestly formation corresponded with that requirement?
I have some concern -- which Archbishop Daniel apparently shares -- that people ordained as "priests" in some parts of the TAC may feel entitled to call themselves "priests", when people elsewhere in the world may be assuming their qualifications are more than what they actually are. Since people anywhere in the world want to see a consistent product when they see a Catholic priest, it's clear that the Catholic Church is entitled to review carefully the qualificaitons of any priest from an Anglican denomination who wants to go into an Ordinariate (notwithstanding Bishop Gill's objections). Following review, the US Ordinariate has certainly ordained Episcopal priests who've had the priestly formation outlined here, as well as TAC/ACA priests with the equivalent.
Fr Smuts will almost certainly never have to face such a review, although from his public remarks, his bishop doesn't seem at all certain that his priests would pass it. It seems to me that Fr Smuts needs to face this truth-in-labeling issue when he identifies himself as a "TAC priest". There are times, frankly, when reading his blog I've questioned whether his frequent use of the chi-rho sign to identify himself is a case of taking the Lord's name in vain.
