From the (Newark, NJ) Star-Ledger:
HACKENSACK—For five years, members of Saint Anthony of Padua in Hackensack, a church in the liberal Episcopal Diocese of Newark, have sought spiritual guidance from a bishop in a socially conservative diocese in South Carolina.
The reason? They oppose the liberal tendencies of the Newark diocese and their national church, which in 2003 seated an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire over conservative opposition. The following year, St. Anthony’s began periodically hosting Bishop William J. Skilton from Charleston, S.C.
The arrangement helps explain why parish members probably will not accept the Vatican’s special offer, made last month, to allow dissatisfied Episcopalians and Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, said the Rev. Brian Laffler, the pastor.
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“Conservatives who are leaving, most of them have left the Episcopal Church already,” said the Rev. John Donnelly of Saint Michael’s Church in Wayne. “Those of us that are staying—and there are significant numbers of conservatives who have stayed—we’re staying.”
Donnelly said he opposed the election of the openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson, on the grounds that Robinson lived with a partner.
“I am not supportive of that, but it’s not a chief motivating issue in my life,” he said. “For those people for whom it is a chief motivational issue, they have left the Episcopal Church. For me, it’s a B or C issue.”
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Responses from Episcopal bishops to the Vatican’s invitation have varied. Newark Bishop Mark Beckwith noted that “the door swings both ways” and that in many Episcopal churches in New Jersey, at least a third to half of the parishioners were raised Catholic.
See full article here.
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