Also, how your Tatler came to poping.
Author Gavin Ashenden has written an odd piece in which, after quitting the Church of England long ago for the Holy Catholic Church, and continually offering critical pieces on the former, is now expressing regret for his 46 years of criticisms, some severe, of his former church, stating, “I apologize for the offense I have caused.” He then gives us an admiring tour of the disparate branches of the C of E, whose differences caused Ashenden such distress.
Personally, your Tatler believes there was little need for Ashenden’s mea culpa. As a lifelong Episcopalian, way up high in the Anglo-Catholic division, from the single digits until well into middle age, I was aware I was a member of perhaps the most peculiar branch of Episcopalianism, but despite the criticisms of our odd ways, our smells and bells, bowing and scraping, most of all, our Mary worshipping, they troubled us not, the barbs aimed at us missed their marks. It was our belief ours was the truest way of worship and that was that. I have no doubt worshippers in the many branches of the C of E, far more than in the Episcopal Church, believe similarly.
Two events in the Episcopal Church tended to spoil it for your Blogger, especially in the Anglo/Catholic branch, both here and abroad: the dumbing-down of the Book of Common Prayer book and, in the US, the 1940 Hymnal. Before, it was satisfying to hear the splendid poetic words, albeit protestant words, by Thomas Cranmer, and, to a lesser extent, all the great hymns in one volume alone. It was the beginning of the end for this Episcopalian, for even though all A/C churches I attended continued using (perhaps ironically) the old prayer book and hymnal. it meant the only thing unifying my church had been taken away. It was thus inevitable that on one Feast of the Annunciation at my beloved Church of the Resurrection on E. 68th Street, during the splendor of a precession, a voice in my head, definitely not mine said, “Jesus is not here,” which was distressing at the least and I pondered it greatly. The next day though, walking to my job at the now-defunct Sony Music Studios, another voice in my head, this one definitely mine, told me, “You have to go to Rome.”
I then knew not a single Catholic priest to whom I might discuss the matter. I had though heard of one Catholic priest in New York, Fr George Rutler. Not knowing an email address for him nor his church, I sent hymn a written letter, him in care of his church. I soon received an email from him, having provided the address in my letter, which read simply, “Come see me.” I did just that and in good time I was received into the Holy Catholic Church.
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