Journeys Home (8 page)

For half a dozen years or more, we identified with the relatively
small Anglo-Catholic movement. I taught my parishioners and anyone
else who would listen that Episcopalians are Catholics, not Protestants.
During these years, we moved to Texas, where I served a newly
formed parish, and three years later to Oklahoma, where I was
chaplain of an Episcopal elementary and secondary school. One
of our sons was born in Texas and another in Oklahoma.

This Anglo-Catholic ray of hope finally gave out. We recognized
that, as a movement, Anglo-Catholicism (like Anglicanism) is essentially,
inescapably Protestant. The appeal to the faith of the original
Catholic Church, like the appeal to the tradition of the early
centuries, is futile. There is no one to say what that faith is,
or what that tradition is, or what that tradition says about Scripture.

We had to admit that each individual decides for himself, or chooses
a clergyman who will decide for him, what is Catholic, and then
proceeds accordingly. There is no visible entity to which the
Anglo-Catholic can point and say, "That is the Catholic Church
to which I belong." Such a Catholic Church is only an abstraction.

In the nineteenth century, Blessed John Henry Newman tried desperately
for years to convince himself and others that they were part of
the Catholic Church. Eventually he recognized that his Catholic
Church was only a paper church, existing in the imaginations of
himself and other like-minded persons.

Now where to turn?

Like most Anglo-Catholics, we looked on Eastern Orthodoxy with
awe -- an awe largely born, I later learned, of misunderstanding.
The Anglo-Catholic logic regarding Eastern Orthodoxy goes like
this. Rome denies that our church is Catholic. (That is, Rome -- and also the Orthodox -- reject the branch theory.) Rome, however,
does admit that the Eastern Orthodox churches are Catholic. (Today,
I know this is incorrect.) Therefore, the Eastern Orthodox tradition
is living proof that one can be Catholic without having to be
a papal Catholic. We wondered: Is Eastern Orthodoxy the answer
to our seeking?

At this stage of our journey, as a chaplain I had summers free.
A generous friend and benefactor made it possible for our family
to spend several summers at the University of the South in Sewanee,
Tennessee. There I studied in the Episcopal graduate school of
theology.

In our first summer in Sewanee, a well-known Byzantine scholar
offered an introductory course in Eastern Orthodoxy. Ruth and
I saw this opportunity for me as purely providential. I found
the course and the work on a required research paper to be intensely
interesting. I decided the paper should be the basis of a graduate
thesis in theology.

Our reading and study drew both Ruth and me toward Orthodoxy,
but there was ambivalence in our thinking about the Eastern churches.
The Orthodox ethos is utterly foreign to Americans. Whatever its
ethnic background, an Orthodox church is a very different world
for those raised in this culture. How could we, an Okie and a
Texan and our five children, ever be truly at home in any of these
other cultures?

Increasingly, the essentially ethnic nature of the various Orthodox
traditions stood out in our thinking. No other Christian tradition
is so deeply rooted in a particular culture as are the several
Orthodox churches.

All the Orthodox churches have been ingrown for centuries. None
has evangelized any significant part of the world in recent centuries.
Their spread to this country and elsewhere has been due almost
entirely to the immigration of Orthodox people from their various
homelands. Not one of these ethnic churches has demonstrated universal
appeal.

Orthodox theologians agree that an ecumenical council is their
highest authority. Yet, in over twelve hundred years they have
never conducted one, for with no Christian emperor, who can convoke
a council for them? If the patriarch of any of the ethnic churches
presumed to call an ecumenical council, he would be opposed immediately
as having asserted unauthorized jurisdiction over the other churches.

Most important, Orthodox churches have no real solution to the
problem of doctrinal authority. The bishop, they say, speaks for
Christ, the ecumenical council is the ultimate authority, and
for a conciliar decree to be considered infallible, the entire
Church must receive it. However, there is no way of determining
whether and when this has happened.

From within the Catholic communion, we now can see other fundamental
problems in the Orthodox churches. First, the term "Orthodoxy"
commonly designates the Orthodox churches as a whole. But Orthodoxy
and Anglo-Catholicism have this in common: In differing degrees,
perhaps, both are abstractions.

There is no entity, no institution to which one can point and
say, "There is Orthodoxy." There is no Orthodoxy; there are only
separate Orthodox churches. All basically hold the same faith,
but they are not organically united.

Indeed, jurisdictionally they are divided. In any given city in
this country, one may find two or three or more different Eastern
churches, each with its own bishop. But where is Orthodoxy?

As the Eastern churches gradually separated themselves from Rome,
under the influence of powerful Eastern emperors, they became
increasingly subservient to the secular authority in their countries.
This is the problem of
caesaropapism
, which has characterized
the life of the Eastern churches ever since they began to break
with Rome. The Communist secret police's admitted control of the
Russian Orthodox Church for generations is only the latest example.

Earlier I referred to the Anglo-Catholic opinion that Rome regards
the Orthodox churches as Catholic. This is incorrect. Vatican
II documents, for example, always refer to the Eastern Churches,
never to the Orthodox Church, and they certainly never refer to
Orthodox churches as being Catholic. True, they do have Catholic
sacraments and hold most of the Catholic faith, but they are in
schism with the Catholic Church.

Again, it was back to the search. We loved the Lord Jesus, we
wanted to be in His Church, we wanted to do His will. Where should
we look next?

Almost before we dared ask the question one more time, we knew
the answer: Rome.

Frequently, in television coverage of baseball games, the camera
will focus several times alternately on the pitcher and the catcher,
just before the pitcher throws across the plate. The catcher signals
for a certain pitch. The pitcher shakes his head, waits for another
signal, then another. Finally, when he gets one he likes, the
pitcher winds up and delivers.

How many signals from the Holy Spirit dared we turn down? But
Rome? Idol-worshiping, power-hungry, priest-ridden, thought-controlling
Rome?

From our upbringing and from our seminary training, we had imbibed
all the prejudices, all the stereotypes. These, however, had to
be put aside. We already knew the outlines of Catholic teaching
from our Anglo-Catholic days. Now we admitted to ourselves that
we had to listen to the details of Rome's claims. Our reading
and discussion resolved most of our objections, which were almost
entirely based in misunderstanding.

The last major hurdle between ourselves and submission to Rome
was the papacy. We read Newman's
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
avidly
and devoured Meriol Trevor's two-volume biography of Newman in
large bites. Our journey was much like his, though on a smaller
scale.

We saw ourselves as pygmies trying to follow a giant. We continually
invoked his prayers on our behalf. We received much help from
what may be the best single book about the Catholic Church, Karl
Adam's
Spirit of Catholicism.

Sixteen years after beginning our search for the full truth of
Christ, we admitted to one another that we had to submit to Rome.
Neither of us really wanted to be a Catholic, but God's call was
unmistakable. We submitted to His will and eventually to His Church.

We had to keep our decision secret to spare embarrassment to the
school of which I was chaplain. Each week for months, we drove
to another city to spend an evening in instruction by a Benedictine
monk whose friendship has been a rich blessing to us. With his
help, I began seeking employment to support our family.

We knew that God never leads anyone down a blind alley. We cast
ourselves as completely as possible upon His mercy. Then doors
began to open, and the way became clearer.

The day we were received into the Church, Ruth and I wanted to
have a party in our home. The problem was that we had no one to
invite. Our Episcopal friends were either greatly saddened or
resentful. We did not know any Catholics.

Even so, we had our party: Ruth and I, our children, the two priests
who received us, and -- Ruth reminded us -- the angels and archangels.

On the third day after our family was received into the Church,
I went to early Mass in our parish church. As I knelt in the pew
after receiving Communion, the words suddenly came to me, half-aloud,
in a burst of joy: "Now I'm ready to die!"

For the next seven years, I was a layman in the Church. During
that time, we moved to Milwaukee, where I completed course work
for a doctorate in theology. Back in Oklahoma, I taught and worked
for the diocesan educational department and completed my dissertation.

Then came a move to San Diego to join the theological faculty
of a Catholic university. While teaching fulltime, I was ordained
a permanent deacon in the Church and entered law school at night.

Several years after passing the bar, I was preparing to begin
part-time practice, which I intended would become fulltime after
I stopped teaching. Then the Church announced the Pastoral Provision
for this country. Under its terms, married Catholic laymen who
had formerly been Episcopal clergy were allowed to apply through
their bishops for a dispensation from the rule of celibacy and
for ordination to the priesthood.

My application was the first to be sent to Rome, though it was
not the first one acted on. Thirteen months later, my bishop received
a letter from then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict
XVI), telling him the Holy Father (Pope John Paul II) had approved
my being ordained. Several months later, after a series of written
and oral exams, I was ordained to the priesthood. That was in
1983.

Each time I stand at the altar, at least once the thought suddenly
comes, "Can this be real? Am I a Catholic priest, offering the
Holy Sacrifice?" Then comes that blessed answer: "Yes! Thanks
be to God!"

Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D., is a former minister of the Episcopal
Church. In 1963 he was received with his wife, Ruth (see the following chapter), and their five children into the Catholic Church. Twenty years later, he was ordained to the priesthood of the Catholic
Church, with a dispensation from the rule of celibacy. Currently, he serves
as chaplain for Catholics United for the Faith and the Coming
Home Network International, and on the boards of both those apostolates.
He is also a regular columnist for
The Catholic Answer
Magazine,
and he serves as an assistant at St. Peter's Church in Steubenville,
Ohio.

This story was originally published in
This Rock Magazine,
January 1995.

former Episcopal priest's wife

In an earlier chapter of this book, Marilyn Grodi said that she
never had wanted to marry a minister anyway. Well, I certainly
never dreamed I'd be married to a Catholic priest!

The thirteen years my husband Ray served as an Episcopal priest
were exciting, fulfilling years. We had both come from a Disciples
of Christ background, and we found the intellectual and liturgical
ethos of the Episcopal Church very satisfying. Our five children
came along during that period.

We loved the people in the various parishes and the school where
Ray served. The people were great, good people who struggled along
with us to live the Christian life. There were, of course, the
usual ups and downs, joys and sorrows of living and serving. But
through it all, we felt most blessed by our Lord in all the important
ways.

Through these years of study, prayer, and simply living with God's
people, we gradually moved to a more "catholic" view of the Church
(from "low church" to "high church"). There began a search for
the historical "roots" of the Church. We became more and more
aware of conflicting views and teachings in the Episcopal Church,
not only in doctrinal matters but in moral ones as well. Some
teachings were quite heretical.

Questions arose: Who was right? Which were the teachings faithful
to the Gospel? Who was to say which teachings were true or false?
Where was the locus of authority?

When we began to see where the search was leading, we resisted.
We did not want to go. We did not want to turn our comfortable
life upside down. We did not want to go into the "unknown," into
a "foreign land."

We loved the Episcopal Church and all it meant to us: the people,
the beautiful churches, the grand music, and the liturgy. Then
there were all the questions about how to support our family and
how we could leave dear friends. (When we entered the Church,
we knew not even one Catholic, only the two priests who instructed
us.) What about our families who would grieve and be shocked that
we had "lost our minds"?

Those who have traveled this road know all about the sufferings.
And yet, and yet ... we could hear the insistent beat of the "following
feet" of the Hound of Heaven as He pursued, keeping His steady
and unhurried pace.

When the Holy Spirit showed us, through sheer grace, beyond the
shadow of a doubt, that the Catholic Church is indeed the true
Church, founded by Jesus Christ Himself on the Rock of Peter,
could we say anything but "Yes!" to Him? Praise be to Jesus Christ
for His mercy and grace!