To be clear, Fr Whitehead seems like a good man and I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him... so this is not a referendum on his qualifications or suitability for Holy Orders.Another visitor e-mailed,
Well there WAS St Ambrose :)The link said,
He was a catechumen preparing for baptism when the bishop of Milan died in 374. A chaotic crowd formed outside the cathedral to elect a bishop, and Ambrose, who had gone out to the crowd to quieten them down, was unanimously acclaimed bishop of Milan after a child cried out “Ambrose for bishop! Ambrose for bishop!” He was thus baptized, confirmed, ordained a deacon, a priest, and then a bishop all on the same day.Well, this predates the Church's more recent policies, still many centuries old, on ordination. In addition, we must assume that the crowd that insisted on Ambrose for bishop had an intuitive, and possibly Spirit-guided, sense of his suitability. He turned out to be a saint and Doctor of the Church, after all. I assume Bp Lopes can't just say the Spirit told him to ordain Fr Whitehead -- in these times, the Spirit would normally work through a diocesan vocations director, after all.
But let's back up. The first OCSP ordinary, Msgr Steenson, attracted criticism from both Anglican and Catholic observers for the way in which -- especially having met with Cardinal Ratzinger to explore a personal prelature for Episcopalians in 1993 -- he nevertheless continued as a TEC priest and then became a TEC bishop, only to jump ship for Rome at a time convenient to himself, having exploited his rise to episcopacy to accomplish this. What did this say about Steenson's integrity?
He was kind of a sneak, huh? Maybe a bit of a weasel?
What of Fr Whitehead? Looks like he undertook some sort of secret process, however abbreviated in his case, to move from the REC to the Catholic Church, having presumably not informed his REC superiors of his intent. At least Whitehead's parents knew about the ordination in advance. The REC, probably not. Surprise!
A bit of a sneak. A weasel? Reminds me of what good priests say to Catholic women who think about sleeping with their boyfriends: You're going to sleep with a guy who admits by his actions that marriage isn't that important. Fr Whitehead seems like a good man, says my visitor.
And I think of men like Fr Longenecker, who resigned his Anglican orders and struggled for nearly a decade to become a Catholic priest, supporting himself with secular jobs in the meantime. Or very good men who resigned Anglican orders in anticipation of joining the OCSP who were never accepted in the end and now have moved on to secular careers.
But Bp Lopes thinks it's a good idea Whitehead should be a Catholic priest. So good an idea he can't even miss a single paycheck.
