Anglican clergy defect for Catholic Church

Anglican clergy defect for Catholic Church

AM - Tuesday, 23 December , 2003 08:14:55
Reporter: Ben Knight
DAVID HARDAKER: After a year of turmoil and division, the Anglican Church is now losing its clergy to the Catholic Church.

Father William Edebohls, once the Anglican Dean of Ballarat, is now the Assistant Priest at a Catholic church in suburban Melbourne.

Father Edebohls' move reflects discontent among a group of conservative priests. For those priests the crisis began with the Anglican Church's decision to ordain women as priests, and it's grown with the move to do the same with homosexuals.

They say it's caused a 'reclustering' amongst Anglicans, and that some of those clusters may move to make their own reunification with the Catholic Church.

Ben Knight reports.

BEN KNIGHT: Father Bill Edebohls declined to talk to AM about his decision this morning, saying it was a personal matter. But he did confirm that he had become a Catholic priest, and that as a husband and father, he'd been exempted from the rule of celibacy.

While his conversion, or defection, is unusual, he's by no means the only Anglican minister in Australia who feels that the Catholic Church might be more in line with his core beliefs.

DAVID CHISLETT: I think Anglicans like me consider that every couple of days.

BEN KNIGHT: Father David Chislett is the Rector of All Saints Anglican Church in Brisbane and is a close friend of Father Bill Edebohls.

DAVID CHISLETT: People's consciences must not be down, they mustn't be made to believe things that they can't believe, and one of the things that's happened to us over the last 15 years is, as we see it, we're trying to be faithful priests in a church which is drifting away from us.

BEN KNIGHT: What stops you from doing it?

DAVID CHISLETT: We have responsibility for people to whom we minister, we believe that we can't abandon people, we want to have the largest community possible with us, and in my particular parish we want to protect the people that we have and basically not let the liberals take over.

BEN KNIGHT: The liberals, are of course, the small "l" liberal Anglicans who support changes to the church, like the ordination of women and gays.

Those differences have been brought to a head this year by the appointment of gay bishop Gene Robinson in the United States.

In Australia, much of the debating has been done between the liberal Anglicans, mainly in Melbourne, and evangelical Anglicans in Sydney, led by Bishop Peter Jensen.

But David Chislett represents a third cluster in the church, the Anglo-Catholics.

It's a traditional group that's been in favour of reuniting with the Vatican, something which, despite strong progress in the 1970s, is now looking extremely unlikely.

This year, David Chislett made his own trip to Rome to begin what he calls very informal talks, but he says there are others who feel the same.

DAVID CHISLETT: I do think that there'll be others who will go to Rome, yeah, as individuals. Some of us still cling to the vision of a cluster of Anglicans with aspects of Anglican heritage and ethos as a kind of church in full communion with the Holy See.

BEN KNIGHY: Charles Sherlock is an Anglican liberal, and who leads the church's discussions with the Vatican on theology.

He doesn't believe the Anglican Church is leaving people like Bill Edebohls and David Chislett behind, and rejects the labelling of its members.

CHARLES SHERLOCK: Conservative and liberal really aren't the sort of terms that work. I mean, overwhelmingly Australian Christians are conservative theologically because the alternative, stuff like believing in Santa Claus and shopping, is so appalling. And so the differences between us, and there are them, tend to be more on applied issues and sometimes I think they're made to look far bigger than they actually are.

DAVID HARDAKER: Anglican theologian, Charles Sherlock ending Ben Knight's report.

[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s1015188.htm]