The first principle of the Ordinariate is then about Christian unity. St. Basil the Great, the Church’s greatest ecumenist, literally expended his life on the work of building bridges between orthodox brethren who shared a common faith, but who had become separated from one another in a Church badly fragmented by heresy and controversy. He taught that the work of Christian unity requires deliberate and ceaseless effort...St. Basil often talked with yearning about the archaia agape, the ancient love of the apostolic community, so rarely seen in the Church of his day. This love, he taught, is a visible sign that the Holy Spirit is indeed present and active, and it is absolutely essential for the health of the Church.

- Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, Homily on the Occasion of his Formal Institution as Ordinary

Monday, January 9, 2012

Retired Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope dead

JANUARY 8, 2012
BY GEORGE CONGER

The second [Epsicopal] Bishop of Fort Worth, the Rt. Rev. Clarence C. Pope, Jr., has died.

On 8 Jan 2012, the Diocese of Fort Worth announced that Bishop Pope (81) had “died in his sleep overnight” at a hospital in Baton Rouge where he was being treated for pneumonia.

“His wife, Dr. Martha Pope, and members of their family were with him over the past week. Please keep all the family in your prayers,” the diocese said.

Elected the second Bishop of Fort Worth in 1984, Bishop Pope was the first president of the Episcopal Synod of America, and a long-time advocate for corporate reunification with the Roman Catholic Church. Upon his retirement in 1994, Bishop Pope announced that he and his wife were joining the Roman Catholic Church. Citing the Church of England’s 1992 Act of Synod permitting the ordination of women, Bishop Pope said then that the “pilgrimage I had longed to take corporately would now have to be taken alone.”...

Read the rest at Anglican Ink.

Requiescat in pace.
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