St. Timothy's holds final service and looks for new home

By Julie Baughman
July 2, 2013

CATONSVILLE, MARYLAND---St. Timothy's Church of Baltimore County held its last Sunday service in its building on Ingleside Avenue — which they have occupied since 1844 — June 30 after voting as a parish on Feb. 10 to switch faiths from Episcopalian to Roman Catholic.
Those congregation members who chose to convert to Catholicism will move to St. Mark Church's building on Melvin Avenue for the time being as they search for a new, permanent home in the area.
Emory Stagmer,a member of St. Tim's for more than 20 years, and was among the parishioners who voted to switch.

He said the group negotiated with the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, which owns the church property, but was unable to retain their worship space.
"We went to the Episcopal Diocese with a lease, with an option to buy proposal and they turned it down and said that they were not going to make us a counter offer," Stagmer said. "We know going into this entire process that ... it was a distinct possibility (to lose the church building.)"
"The new Roman Catholic congregation was allowed to maintain a presence in the Catonsville church property during their transition through a cooperative arrangement with the Episcopal Church," said the statement from the Rev. Scott Slater, canon to the ordinary of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. "The new Catholic community will be leaving the property effective June 30, 2013.
"The buildings and grounds remain the property of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and we are currently discerning future uses of this space," the statement said. "As we have said from the start, our goal is to maintain an Episcopal presence in Catonsville. This is a strong community and we plan to be here for a very long time."
Stagmer said the group is thankful to St. Mark's parish for welcoming them into their church home, and is looking at property at both St. William of York Catholic Church on Cooks Lane and Mount de Sales Academy on Academy Road for a long-term spot...

Read the rest at the Baltimore Sun.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller.

Msgr. Steenson's Easter Letter

The newest Ordinariate community, St. Timothy of Catonsville, Maryland, shown with Msgr. Steenson, who celebrated the Easter VIgil and received members into full communion.

Easter 2013

Dear People of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, 

A blessed and joyous Easter to you all!

We have just passed through a Lent in so many ways like none other.  We began this Lent trying to absorb the unsettling announcement of the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, who more than anyone else has made our journey to full communion possible.  And we concluded Lent by welcoming Pope Francis, whose beginning days have been so full of surprises.  In many ways, we are in a different place than when we started.

But in a more important sense, we have come full circle.  Ours is a living tradition, and the Pope has the ministry of interpreting that tradition authoritatively so that it might continue to be heard throughout the world today.  The two Popes of Lent 2013 are a study in contrasts, gifted in different ways, but they serve the same Gospel.  It is a wonderful illustration of how the Petrine office is exercised; it is an instrument of the Holy Spirit: to renew the Church’s mission and to configure her in the image of Christ.

I love the way St. Irenaeus of Lyon wrote of how the Tradition is perpetually revivified in the Church.  The Faith that is received and handed will, by the Spirit of God, renew the Church and make it young, “as if some precious deposit in an excellent vessel causes the vessel itself containing it to renew its youth also” (3.28.1).

There is a resurrection theme to be discerned in this.  Earthly communities and societies get old and tired and are replaced by something new and different.  But the Church is renewed and recovers her youthfulness, because she participates in the life of the blessed Trinity.

The people of the Ordinariate should understand this principle because we have experienced it in the renewal of our communities and in our personal faith, as we have journeyed deeper to the source of the Church’s life, to the streams of living water.  In the words of Jeremiah 2:13, we have learned of the futility of digging “broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

May our Risen Lord bless our life together and keep us always faithful to Him and to His Church!

- Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson

More on St. Timothy's, Catonsville

In an article on The Christian Post, Fr. Jason Catania of Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore is interviewed about St. Timothy's.

St. Timothy's Church is not the first Maryland congregation to opt to leave The Episcopal Church for the Catholic Ordinariate. Christ the King Anglican in Towson, and Mount Calvary Episcopal in Baltimore joined last year.

Fr. Jason Catania (right) with Fr. Reamsnyder and Fr. Vidal
after their ordination as Catholic priests last year.

Fr. Jason Catania of Mount Calvary told The Christian Post that he was "delighted by the decision of St. Timothy's to join the Ordinariate."
"I have been in close communication with their rector during the past year, so I know what a careful and thoughtful process it has been," said Catania.
"I congratulate them on having made such a momentous decision, one which sadly includes abandoning their property, as the Diocese of Maryland seems to be unwilling to reach a settlement as they did with Mount Calvary."
When asked if he felt other Maryland congregations would follow suit, Catania told CP that he was unsure but that it was not impossible.
"I was asked this same question after Mount Calvary's decision, and the time said that I didn't think there would be any more Episcopal parishes in Maryland that would seek to join the Ordinariate. Clearly I was wrong," said Catania.
"But at this point, I can't really think of any other congregation that might follow this course, though there could well be individuals or groups from particular parishes that might do so. It is curious how Maryland seems to have become such a hotspot for the Ordinariate in North America."

Read the whole article at "Md. Episcopal Congregation Votes to Join Catholic Church".

Benedict’s legacy: here come more Episcopalians

February 20, 2013 

By Deacon Greg Kandra

Following several months of prayerful discernment, the majority of members of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Catonsville, Maryland, have decided to enter the Catholic Church as part of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.
Two other churches in the Baltimore area, Christ the King Anglican in Towson, and Mount Calvary Episcopal in Baltimore, became Catholic through the Ordinariate in 2012.
Members voted on Feb. 10 whether to leave The Episcopal Church and whether to enter the Ordinariate. Eighty of 100 parishioners were present; 55 were voting members. Of the voting members, six people abstained; 83 percent elected to leave The Episcopal Church and 76 percent to enter the Ordinariate. The vote was held in the presence of the Rev. Scott Slater, canon to the ordinary for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, and Rev. Scott Hurd, vicar general for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter...

Read the rest on Deacon Kandra's blog The Deacon's Bench.

Archdiocese of Baltimore welcomes new order of nuns

All Saints' Sisters of the Poor left the Episcopal Church two years ago.

By Mary Gail Hare
November 1, 2011

The Archdiocese of Baltimore added a new religious order of nuns Tuesday, its first in decades and one that began as an Anglican community.

The All Saints' Sisters of the Poor left the Episcopal Church for the Roman Catholic Church two years ago. By a decree from the Vatican, they are now an official diocesan priory, or order, the same designation carried by the School Sisters of Notre Dame or the Daughters of Charity.

"We feel we have broken ground," said Mother Christina Christie, leader of the community and a nun since 1966.

Yesterday, All Saints' Day, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, all 10 members of the Catonsville convent individually professed perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience "for the rest of my life in this world." Then each signed her profession at the altar before nearly two dozen priests and bishops...

Read the rest at The Baltimore Sun.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller.