Howdy, this is Taylor Marshall and I just wanted to send you a personal email.I was somewhat daunted at the title "(Please reply) What's holding you back spiritually?", which says to me he sees his audience as people who are confused at a rather basic level, which is never the way to address people you seriously want to reach. But I replied as follows:So Subscriber, please do me a little favor. Please respond to this email and share the following:
- I've learned over time that my greatest asset as an author is you the reader.
I will read your email. As a fellow traveler on the pilgrimage of faith, I want to produce future posts, podcasts, videos, articles, and books that will be helpful to you. When I read your email, I'll begin crafting future posts to help you.
- What's the #1 thing holding you back in your faith?
- What do you desperately want to learn about regarding theology?
- What's your favorite topic?
Well, OK, I’m taking you up on your invitation to reply! I’m a former Episcopalian who became Catholic in 2013 via RCIA. I tried to do it via the 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus but found the process in the case of the Anglican parish involved disastrous. I began a blog in 2012 at https://stmarycoldcase.blogspot.com/ that covers what happened. I just discovered your podcasts while researching the McCarrick-Vigano crisis, and I found your discussions very informative. I’ve also been following Fr Longenecker’s blog since he conducted a Lenten program at our diocesan parish last winter.So far, he hasn't replied, and I suspect he won't -- and he's not going to turn any of his content toward Anglicanorum coetibus, either. At about 1:00 in this video, he talks about how "Fr Bill Stetson" was responsible his conversion to Catholicism. He and his interlocutor have many good things to say about Stetson and the Pastoral Provision. Marshall does correctly identify Stetson as the "point man" for the Pastoral Provision.The question of “Anglican outreach” via the Pastoral Provision of John Paul II and Anglicanorum coetibus is especially interesting to me, and my blog discusses a wide range of topics including the Oxford Movement, Anglo-Catholicism, Apostolicae Curae, “continuing Anglicanism”, and much more. I’m curious about, and investigating, Cardinal Bernard Law’s promotion of “Anglican outreach” since the 1970s and what part it may play in the current hidden agendas in the Vatican. I think “Anglican outreach” has become another version of the wolf among the sheep.
My wife and I are members of a very good diocesan parish and find it very hospitable to growth in the faith, so I don’t have too many issues in that direction.
I would, though, be very interested in insights you may be able to provide in the Anglican ordinariates, which have already had their own scandals, including a married former Anglican Catholic priest in Indianapolis who was convicted of felony assault for beating his wife in front of the parish altar.
But as far as I can see, Stetson was personally involved in the bungling of St Mary's original departure from TEC in 1977, the subsequent failure of any Catholic initiative toward the "continuing" movement after the Congress of St Louis, and again in the bungling of the second attempt to bring St Mary of the Angels into the Catholic Church in 2011-12.
And let's keep in mind that while Stetson was "point man" for the Pastoral Provision, the performance of the initiative was disappointing to say the least. The showcase example, Our Lady of the Atonement, turned out to be a headache for its archdiocese and had long-running conflicts with the chancery over financial irregularities and a deacon's inappropriate conduct with pubescent boys. Fr Phillips was finally forced into early retirement, something I suspect Stetson had a role in averting for as long as he could.
Good as Taylor Marshall may be on the overall crisis, I fear there's a range of questions he'll never ask.
