# Very interesting article and a question also



## dudley (Aug 7, 2010)

I read a very interesting article today. There are now 414 ex Roman catholic priests in the United States who have become Protestant ministers. Many are about my age. I am one of also 15 million ex rc's who are also now Protestants. Another 15 million ex roman catholics have left roman catholicism and have no affiliation now. The study by the way is done by a roman catholic Jesuit priest! Rev. Stephen Joseph Fichter who is the pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Haworth, N.J., and a research associate for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

Thanks to information gathered from the research offices of the five mainline Protestant Churches (Congregational, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian), The author was able to identify 414 such men in the United States. 

Nearly one-third of the 414 former Catholic priests now serving in Protestant ministry agreed to participate in my survey. Of the 131 respondents, 105 (80.2 percent) became Episcopalian, 15 (11.5 percent) Lutheran, eight (6.1 percent) Congregationalist, and three (2.3 percent) Methodist. He found a 40-year age range: the youngest was 42 and the eldest 82. Their mean age was 62.8 while the median was 64.

The “typical” participant in the study, therefore, was born around 1944. If we divide his life into seven 9-year periods, we find him immersed in Catholic devotions and rituals during the first two timeframes. His service as an altar boy and the encouragement he received from the nuns facilitated his entry into the seminary at the age of 18 in 1962. He dedicated the third period of his life, during the heyday of Vatican II, to preparing for ordination at the age of 27 in 1971. He spent the fourth phase in active Catholic ministry and struggled with his commitment to celibacy. At the age of 36 in 1980, at the beginning of the fifth period, he resigned from ministry, got married, worked for a few years in a non-ministerial job, and eventually began his journey to his new denomination. From 1989 to 2007, he served as a protestant minister, twice the amount of time he spent as a Catholic priest.

Celibacy was the initial motivation for 6 out of 10 to question their Roman catholic faith. However many cited that the establishment in Rome was becoming more rigid and moving the church backwards. I could relate with that myself as that was one of the issues that led me away from the Roman catholic church. One minister and former Roman catholic priest said “The reforms of Vatican II came under fire. It came to the point where I could not imagine being happy in 20 years if I remained in ministry in the Roman Catholic Church. I felt God was calling me to pursue something else. I dreamed of finding a denomination where I could continue to minister with my wife, a gifted youth and family minister.”

When asked why they chose their current denomination, the majority of respondents spoke of the strong similarity between their present church and the Catholic Church in terms of liturgy, ministry and theology. This was especially true for the Episcopalians and seems to explain why so many of the survey respondents gravitated to the Anglican Communion. Most of those who joined the Episcopal Church said that with only minor adjustments they “felt at home” from the beginning and that they found comfort in the fact that they could hold onto their core beliefs in the Resurrection and the Eucharist. Over time however the respondents who became Lutheran, Congregationalist and Methodist said they modified their views on other subjects, such as papal infallibility and the sacraments, the Roman Catholic mass etc. Many have now fully accepted the Protestant doctrine of Justification by Faith alone and the basic principals of the Protestant Reformation , the authority of the Bible alone in all matters of faith and practice and that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The one item I found curious is that while Presbyterian converts from the Roman catholic priesthood were contacted none of them responded. I know that their are many ex Roman catholics on the PB who are like me now Reformed Protestants. Have any of you or any PB member come across an ex Roman catholic priest who is now a Presbyterian minister?


----------

