Pastoral Provision Delegate heading West

Bishop Kevin Vann is the third delegate for the Pastoral Provision, following Bernard Cardinal Law and Archbishop John Myers. Bishop of Fort Worth since 2005, he has been selected as the new bishop of Orange, California.

Blogger Rocco Palma shares the story:

Over recent years, it’s hard to think of a national project on which Bishop Kevin Vann hasn’t been intimately involved.

From serving on the three-member USCCB team that oversaw the Stateside implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus and mediating the bench’s oft-delicate relations with the nation’s Catholic hospitals, to filing suit against the Federal government over the contraceptive mandate of the Obama administration’s sweeping health-care reform, the 61 year-old prelate has cris-crossed considerably more ecclesial turf than the sprawling 28 counties of Northwest Texas he’s overseen since 2005.

Now, however, the latest task comes via Rome... and given its centerpiece, well, it’s worth its weight in Crystal.

This morning, the Pope named the energetic head of the booming Fort Worth church to lead the diocese of Orange, succeeding Bishop Tod Brown at the helm of the 1.3 million-member fold in Los Angeles’ southern suburbs...

Read the full story at Whispers in the Loggia.

Read Bishop Vann's blog at Shepherd of Fort Worth.

Ordination Homily...

 for Fathers Charles Hough III, Charles Hough IV,
Christopher Stainbrook, Joshua Whitfield, Mark Cannaday,
and Timothy Perkins

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church
Keller, Texas
June 30, 2012

Dear Charles, Charles, Christopher, Mark, Joshua, and Timothy,

          We gather today from near and far to celebrate your ordination as Roman Catholic Priests, and we all do this with great joy from wherever we have come. As the Jewish people, when they would approach the sacred space of Jerusalem and the Temple would joyfully pray the “Psalms of Ascent”, we also joyfully join our voices in a grand chorus of praise to God “Praising God to the Holiest in the Heights” as we approach this sacred space and sacred time. And, as you will shortly say “I do...I do...and I do, with the help of God” there is a chorus of voices that surround you this day that have led you here. They are: The Word of God that you have chosen for this day - this Feast day [The First Martyrs of the Church of Rome], the voices of your Anglo-Catholic formation, family and friends who have helped you to hear this call, and I might add, from the “Communion of Saints,” the voices of those from the past but still from Eternity, sing to us this great day! And St. Augustine would say “Let us now sing, but keep going!”

          Let us turn first to the Book of Lamentations, the first reading for this day. At first glance one may wonder why this would be used on a day of priestly ordination, given its history and origin, dating from the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem. Yet, it is the reading for the Mass of the day, and you have chosen it. It also echoes, it seems, a pilgrimage of Faith that each of you all made, from times of an uncertain destination (the “where, when, and how” of it all) to a destination and journey far beyond in which all at once the light of God illuminated the path and opened the door; the light of Christ which St. Paul speaks about in the second reading for this day!

          Toward the end of the Book of Lamentations for today, we find the words “pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to Him.” As we all lift up our hands to the Lord this day, in thanksgiving and praise, let us imagine this praise being joined by two voices from Eternity, from the Communion of the Saints, in a manner of the antiphonal chanting of the Psalms with one voice answering the other: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and Blessed John Henry Newman! These witnesses of the Faith share the Anglo-Catholic heritage which your Ordination as priests, along with your communities, bring now into much sharper focus for the whole Body of Christ! This will be clearly evident in a few minutes when we pray the prayer of Basil Cardinal Hume, in gratitude for your history and formation as Anglo-Catholics!

          I have had the chance over the years to visit St. Peter’s Church on Barclay Street in New York, where St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was received into the Church. One day, upon approaching St. Peter’s, she said: “A day of days for me, Amabilia. I have been—where? To the Church of St. Peter with the cross on the top instead of a weather-cock (that is mischievous)—but I mean I have been to what is called here among so many churches the Catholic Church. When I turned to the corner of the street it is in, ‘Here, my God, I go,’ said I ‘my heart all to you.’ Entering it, how the heart died away, as it were, in silence before the little tabernacle and the great Crucifixion over it. ‘Ah, my God, let me rest,’ said I—and down the head on the bosom and the knees on the bench.” [From Mrs. Seton, by Fr. Joseph I Dirvin, CM, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc. 1975]

          From this personal experience, a personal echo of Lamentations, another voice now answers in return from eternity, that of Blessed John Henry Newman. His own experience of Lamentations, when he was still at St. Mary’s in Oxford in May of 1843 speaks to us: “At present I fear, as far as I can analyze my own convictions, I consider the Roman Catholic Communion to be the Church of the Apostles, and that what grace is among us (which, through God’s mercy, is not little) is extraordinary, and from the overflowing of His dispensation…My office or charge at St. Mary’s is not a mere state, but a continual energy. People assume and assert certain things of me in consequence. With what sort of sincerity can I obey the Bishop? How am I to act in the frequent cases, in which one way or another the Church of Rome comes into consideration?” AND FINALLY, “By retaining St. Mary’s, I am an offense and a stumbling block.”

          Dear brothers, your lives, your prayer, and your discernment over these past years, not only find a resonance in the sacred history in the Book of Lamentations, but also in the words and lives of these two great figures enrolled among the Saints and Blesseds, whose history reflects in many ways your own. You, like they, having “Poured out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord,” and have been led by the providential care of the Lord to this great day of rejoicing!

          There is also, however, turning to the Gospel for this day, another echo for your lives. Like the centurion, who asked for his daughter to be healed, you will hear the Lord’s words not only for the centurion, but for yourselves, now and into your future ministry: “It shall be done to you because you have trusted.” And because you have trusted, the next words you speak will be your “I DOs” to the Lord in your Ordination as Roman Catholic Priests.

          You are being called to priestly ministry in the Catholic Church in which your role as a witness is very much needed. The first Martyrs of the Church of Rome, whose feast day we celebrate today, stand with you to call you forward in this mission: a task of being a credible witness to the essential nature of ecclesial communion in Christ, and a witness to the words of the same Christ who says in another place “You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.” Indeed, you are being called to the priesthood in an era in which the freedom to proclaim and live the truth is being threatened. Your voices and ministry are essential to the freedom of the Church in the proclamation of this mission.

          There is one more voice, one more place that sings to us this day: Canterbury! St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) said “That I may seek you desiring you, that I may desire you seeking you, that I may find you loving you, and that loving you I may find you again (cf. Proslogion, 1).”

          That would be another voice, then, that joins our chorus of praise today for you and for the whole Church, who together with the great St. Augustine says one more time “Sing then, but keep going.”

AMEN.

From Bishop Vann's blog Shepherd of Forth Worth.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller.

6 former Episcopal clergymen are ordained in Catholic Church

BY JIM JONES
Special to the Star-Telegram

KELLER -- Under a huge dome with images of winged angels, six former Fort Worth-area Episcopal clergymen -- including a father and son -- lay facedown at a marble altar Saturday and were ordained as priests in the Roman Catholic Church.

In what officials called a historic moment, Fort Worth Catholic Bishop Kevin Vann and other white-robed priests in the diocese laid hands on the priests at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Keller to welcome them.

It was the first ordination class under Pope Benedict XVI's new Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, created Jan. 1 to allow Episcopal priests to be ordained as Catholic clergy and for Episcopal congregations to join the Roman Catholic Church.

The priests' wives carried in vestments that the priests later donned, assisted by other clergy. Then, standing before Vann, the priests each said, "I will" in answer to his questions about whether they will faithfully carry out their responsibilities.

More than 1,000 in the church stood and applauded.

The ordinariate is headed by a former Fort Worth Episcopal priest, Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, who earlier converted to Catholicism.

"This is very moving for me today personally," Steenson said. "These men were all part of my generation, and we all served in Fort Worth."

The pope created the ordinariate to help Episcopal churches and clergy who want to become Catholic but keep part of their Anglican roots.

It's an enlargement of a system begun by Pope John Paul II in 1981 that first allowed married Episcopal priests to become Catholic clergy...

Read the full article at The Star Telegram.

Hat tip to Daniel Page on Facebook.

Solemnity of Pentecost and St. Timothy's Church

May 30, 2012

by Bishop Kevin W. Vann, JCD, DD

60 members of St. Timothy Church were received into the Ordinariate of
the Chair of St. Peter at St. Mary the Assumption Church on May 27.
St. Timothy was a former Episcopalian Church which announced its
desire to enter the US Ordinariate on January 1.
Photo by Donna Ryckaert

Today was a truly blessed and historic day, as on this great feast of Pentecost, about 60 members of St. Timothy Church were received into the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter at St. Mary the Assumption Church in Fort Worth. The members of St. Timothy Church through the leadership of their Pastor, Rev. Christopher Stainbrook, officially announced their desire to enter the US Ordinariate on January 1, 2012, on the same day that the Holy See announced the erection of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in the United States with Msgr. Jeffery Steenson named as the Ordinary. Since that time, the members of St. Timothy had been involved in several weeks of formation and catechesis in preparation for the reception into the Church. Today about 60 of their members, along with their pastor were received into the Church by Fr. David Bristow, pastor of St. Mary the Assumption.

I was able to address the congregation at the beginning of Mass to welcome them and affirm their decision to come into the Ordinariate in what is truly a historic occasion and give them my blessing before I headed over to the Cathedral for Adult Confirmation of about 65 adult Catholics from across the Diocese. After his homily, Fr. Bristow received and confirmed about 60 of their members, beginning with their pastor Christopher Stainbrook who then proudly stood and sponsored each member as they came forward for Confirmation. After Confirmation, Fr. Bristow then presided over a brief Rite of Welcome for about 15 members of St. Timothy’s who were still in preparation for full reception and Confirmation, and who will be received into the Church on a later date. Christopher Stainbrook then addressed his congregation and thanked them for their perseverance in this journey of faith and stated that in his 22 years of ministry this was the most emotional moment he has ever experienced...

Read the full story on the blog of The Shepherd of Fort Worth.

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller

For additional information visit the web site of St. Timothy's.

Ordination to the diaconate for six Ordinariate clerics

Fr. Scott Hurd, Vicar General of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, writes on Facebook:

I thank God for the last night's ordination as transitional deacon of six oustanding men in Fort Worth. As a former priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, I give thanks in a particular way for my friends and former colleagues. Of them, Deacon Chuck Hough Sr. was my first boss at St. Andrews', Grand Prairie, and his son was an altar server at Stephanie's and my wedding. And I had great joy assisting Deacon Christopher Stainbrook Stainbrook leading the diocesan youth ministry- which included a fine young woman named Kristina Steenson! And thanks you, Bishop Kevin Vann.

(left to right) Charles Hough IV, Timothy Perkins, Joshua Whitfield,
Christopher Stainbrook, Mark Cannaday, and Charles Hough III

See also the story on the Anglo-Catholic blog.

Letter from America: “Glory Be”

by Timothy Perkins
“Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, in full accord and of one mind.”
Philippians 2:2

THiS YEAR has already been filled with celebration. The erection of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter on the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, on January 1st, was an occasion of joy, not only for us in the United States, but for all who, having been nurtured in faith within Anglicanism, are now coming into the fullness of the Catholic Church.
This time of rejoicing transcends the present moment. It draws to mind the blessings of times past, is experienced in the here and now, inspires confidence for the future, and awakens hope that knows no end. It awakens the perception of a complete joy of the sort that St Paul recognised could be experienced only through unity.

A particular occasion of the past in which we rejoiced last month was the establishment of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on January 15th last year. The remembrance marks a momentous first step in the fulfilment of the Holy Father’s vision of incorporating our Anglican patrimony into the life of the Catholic Church.

In his remarks on the occasion, Monsignor Newton expressed what I believe all of us feel, “The sentiments of joy and thanksgiving, two great Christian words, are ones which should characterise our first anniversary celebration.”

Similar “sentiments of joy and thanksgiving” were apparent at the Epiphany gathering of the small community of St Peter the Rock with whom I serve in Arlington, Texas. The following day was the anniversary of our first offering of worship at the Chapel of the Catholic Centre in Fort Worth...

Read the rest of Mr. Perkins' column in the February issue of The Portal Magazine (page 14)

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.