RIP: Ralph Johnston, headmaster of OLA Academy in San Antonio and MC of AUS annual conferences

Dear Friends, It is with great sadness that I tell you of the death of our former Headmaster, Ralph Johnston. As you know, he suffered a stroke several months ago, and has remained unresponsive since that time. Ralph has been an important and beloved leader at the Academy, and we miss him very much. However, it with confidence that we commend him to God's keeping, and I ask you to pray for the repose of his soul. The final services will take place next week, and the schedule is: Thursday, June 21st - 7:00 p.m. Rosary at Porter Loring North (2102 North Loop 1604 East) with calling hours beginning at 6 p.m. Friday, June 22nd - 11:00 a.m. Requiem Mass at Our Lady of the Atonement, with a light luncheon reception following. Interment will be at the Resurrection Cemetery of the Cordi-Marian Sisters. Our prayerful support is extended to his wife Cecily, and their two sons Cooper and Joseph. Yours in Christ, Fr. Christopher G. Phillips

A towering figure in the Anglo-Catholic movement dies

January 9, 2012
By Mary Ann Mueller

Retired Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope died Saturday in Louisiana


A towering leader in the current Anglo-Catholic movement has died. Former Fort Worth Bishop Clarence C. Pope succumbed to pneumonia in his sleep Saturday, Jan. 7.

Bishop Pope was the long-time rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge before being elected in 1984 as the bishop coadjutor in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. He stepped into the diocesan bishop's roll in 1986 as the second bishop of Fort Worth, taking over the diocesan croizer from Fort Worth's founding bishop, Donald Davies who died last October.

The retired bishop was always a staunch supporter of Anglo-Catholic spirituality in Anglicanism. St. Luke's is a strong Anglo-Catholic parish. Pope kept the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth tightly within that religious understanding.

Under Bishop Pope's leadership and guidance the Diocese of Fort Worth was one of the final four Episcopal dioceses that did not ordain women. The foursome included: Fort Worth, Quincy, Eau Claire and San Joaquin.

While Bishop of Fort Worth, Bishop Pope was instrumental in helping St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church in Arlington become a Roman Catholic Pastoral Provision parish. It is now known as St. Mary the Virgin Catholic Church. The former Episcopal parish is slated to become a part of the newly erected Anglican Ordinariate.

Bishop Pope was sympathetic with Arlington's sole Anglo-Catholic parish's Catholic leanings and was instrumental in helping the former Episcopal congregation keep its land and buildings when it became an established Roman Catholic Anglican Use church in the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth in 1994.

The Anglo-Catholic bishop was also the founder and first president of the Episcopal Synod of America, which eventually folded to Forward in Faith-North America where he served as the first president. Until his death, he remained an ex-officio adjunct member of the FiF-NA Council where he was listed as the President Emeritus.

Bishop Pope handed the reins of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth over to coadjutor Bishop Jack Iker in January 1995 so he could follow his conscience into the Roman Catholic faith. Bernard Cardinal Law received him and his wife, Martha, into the Roman Catholic Church.

However, the ecclesial transfer was not a good fit. In seeking to reclaim his priesthood as a Catholic under the Pastoral Provision, Bishop Pope was reportedly black balled by the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge Priests' Council and was not ordained a Catholic priest. He was devastated.

After some cajoling by then-Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning and his own successor Bishop Iker, Bishop Pope returned to The Episcopal Church and was reinstated into the House of Bishops. That, too, was not a good fit, and he returned to the Papal flock.

Bishop Pope continued to struggle with his place in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. His heart was Anglican but his soul was Catholic. He lived that tension for the rest of his life struggling to be faithful to the spiritual path God had laid out for him...



Read the rest of Clarence Popes' obituary at Virtue Online

Hat tip to Mary Ann Mueller

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.

Evensong and memorial service

An evensong and memorial service in memory of Lawrence Gaylord Jones (July 8, 1922 - November 24, 2008), erstwhile professor in the Slavic and Eastern Languages department of Boston College was held in St. Mary's Chapel at Boston College on Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 3:30 pm.
Dr. Jones, a noted professor of Russian poetry and religious philosphy, was a convert from the Episcopal Church. A native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Dr. Jones came to Boston and was a link between the European professoriat that fled Europe in the dark times of the 1930s and 40s and the contemporary error, having studied under noted professors who emigrated to the U.S.
The service was presided over by the Most Rev. John P. Boles, auxiliary bishop of Boston, who befriended Dr. Jones while he was pastor of St. Paul's Catholic Church in Harvard Square, Cambridge. Included within the service was the Bach cantata 106 Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, performed by the Ensemble Abendmusik directed by John Finney. The service was arranged by Dr. Michael Connolly, professor in the Slavic and Eastern Languages of Boston College, deacon of the Armenian Catholic Church, and frequent assistant at services of the Anglican Use congregation of St. Athanasius in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.