'Take away all hatred and prejudice': on converts, allegiance, and prayer

Has been received into the Catholic Church. Please pray for me.

This was recently posted on 'X' by a high profile Anglican who has become a Roman Catholic. It was not, from what I can gather, an unsurprising development. I had assumed that this was the individual's direction of travel for some time. It is, of course, always a matter of some sadness when an individual leaves the ecclesial tradition and communion you cherish for another tradition and communion. These things, however, happen: it is (and has been for centuries) part of ecclesiastical life. I serve in a parish which includes those who are former Methodists, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics. They bring to Anglicanism gifts and strengths from their previous traditions, within a context of gratitude for the Anglican tradition.

What they have not brought to Anglicanism is bitterness, resentment, or anger. And for that I am deeply thankful. The words of Burke capture the mindset of those Christians who, embracing a new ecclesiastical allegiance, bear bitterness, resentment, or anger towards their former communion:

[those] who hate sects and parties different from their own, more than they love the substance of religion.

The individual I have referenced at the outset of this post has, on the basis of their social media statements, provided an example of how one should move from one communion to another. No angry declarations; no triumphalist commentary on the failings of their previous communion; no spiteful comments directed at those who continue in that communion. This demonstrates a wisdom often lacking in social media commentary from those who leave one communion for another. Angry declarations (usually shouting culture war themes) do not share in the grace of Christ; triumphalist commentary on the failings of one communion is blind to the reality that all communions have failings; spiteful comments directed at those who continue in the previous communion are an abject failure to abide by the apostolic exhortation, "With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love".

The modest, peaceable, humble spirit to which all Christians are called does not cease to apply when one leaves one communion for another. The modesty and simplicity of the 'X' post in this particular case expresses that spirit.

While some Anglicans might bristle at the statement "Has been received into the Catholic Church" - an implicit denial of the catholicity of Anglicanism - no such response is justified. Just as Anglicans confess day by day that we are part of "The holy Catholick Church", so Roman Catholics claim that the "one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic ... subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter". Denying that Roman Catholics can make such a statement is almost equivalent to those Roman Catholic keyboard crusaders - often animated by ugly sectarianism - who demand that British and Irish Anglicans must not describe them as Roman Catholic (a demand usually followed by an historically illiterate call for the 'return' of cathedrals). When, daily at Matins and Evensong, I confess that I belong to "The holy Catholick Church", my confession is not dependent in any way on the approval of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Likewise, I fully expect one who swims the Tiber to accept the norms of Roman Catholic discourse.

The 'X' post concluded with the simple, modest request "Please pray for me" - which is the basic, routine request Christians should address to each other, across traditions and communions. What else is there to say? Each of us, faltering sinners in "this transitory life", needs the prayers of others. 

For Anglicans, when any Christian requests of us "Please pray for me", the answer is given in the Book of Common Prayer. In the Prayer for All Sorts and Conditions, we petition:

that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life.

Likewise in the Prayer for the Church Militant:

that all they that do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity, and godly love.

We do not pray that they will abandon their communion; we do not pray that they will recognise that we are theologically correct; we do not pray for our ecclesiastical supremacy. Instead, we pray for our fellow Christians as we trust they pray for us: that more and more we will discern the fulness of truth revealed in the holy Scriptures; that we might live in peace and concord with fellow Christians; and that our confession of Christ will bear fruit in our lives. 

For a minority of Christians, this may take the form of leaving one communion for another, influenced by context and circumstances they best discern and interpret for themselves. For the majority of Christians, we will live and die in the communion in which we received the Sacrament of Baptism. This, by the way, was also the case at the Reformation. For most of Protestant Europe, the Reformation was a case of worshipping in the same parish church, often with the same clergy, confessing the same Creed, praying the same Lord's Prayer, reading the same Scriptures, having your child baptised at the same font. Beside these realities, allegiance to the Bishop of Rome was an abstraction. As Jeremy Taylor stated, "our Church before Luther was there where your Church was, in the same place and in the same persons".

Whether amongst that minority of Christians who move from one communion to another, or with the majority of Christians who live the faith and die confessing it within the communion in which they were baptised, "Please pray for me" is the request we should address to our fellow Christians. And amidst our contrasting confessional allegiances, we can pray for each other in the words of the Prayer Book's Prayer for Unity, that those allegiances will not be perverted into the ways of hatred and prejudice:

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union and concord: that, as there is but one Body, and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all; so we may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.