Lynx
Well-Known Member
Ironically enough, I'm thinking about staying home on Sunday mornings.
I'm going to apologize in advance for the rest of this post. I usually try to keep my personal problems off the site because they're, you know, personal, and I doubt most people want to hear them. But this one has been bothering me for several months now, it recently has become very upsetting, and I do believe that God frequently speaks to us through other people. (I may not always like the message I get, but still....)
Some background: The church I've been attending for the last twelve years is closing at the end of the summer and its congregation will merge with another parish. Of course, we're all welcome to attend the other church's services once that happens. (One member of the choir commented that they would welcome our choir members because their own numbers are so small.) There have been several shared activities, and the two priests have "swapped pulpits" and so on. However, the other church is a city church, parking is an issue, and several of the people at my current church are there because they were former members of the other place and couldn't stand the priest. Granted, that may just be personality issues, but for various reasons I'm not really wild about the idea of moving to this new church.
However, many of the other churches in the area are closing or will close in the near future. The surviving churches, not surprisingly, will be mostly in the city, since they have the populations to sustain them. This includes a church that my grandparents helped start many years ago, which is expected to close within five years.
On top of that, I've become increasingly dissatisfied with Roman Catholicism, between the sex abuse scandals and the continued refusal to ordain women and a number of other issues. When the church closes this summer, I'm not sure whether I'll just stay home and not belong to any church for a while, or whether I'll actually join another Christian denomination instead. Hence my question about the Episcopal religion, since it seems to be the closest to Roman Catholicism in terms of structure and other characteristics.
My third option is to stay in the Catholic Church and either find some way to ignore all this stuff, or become an active feminist. I have to say I've yet to see any effective women's rights groups in Roman Catholicism, but perhaps I haven't searched enough.
I guess the fact that I'll be attending the comic book convention in New York City this Saturday instead of seeing the Pope at Yankee Stadium should tell you what kind of a Catholic I am. (Personally, I think we should invite the Pope over to join us. I'm guessing he's never been to a comic book convention before. It'll be a new experience for him. Not to mention for the rest of us.... :wink: )
Anyway, that's the most succinct and least emotion write-up I can do on this subject. Sorry about griping, but in the last couple of days I've seen some truly hateful comments made about women who support the idea of women's ordination (including one guy in my own church, who I told off for being sexist), and I found them to be more upsetting than usual. Maybe I'm must taking this too personally.
Hmmmm, I had this same revelation a few years ago. Of course, due to the busy nature of my life (Hooray school and work!), I haven't actively sought out a new denomination, although I've remained fairly spiritual. Although, honestly, I did look into the Episcopal Church briefly before I stopped completely. From what I could tell, it's sort of a middle ground between Roman Catholicsm and the Protestant denominations. I liked what I saw, but. . .I don't have much more than that. Good luck, Seldes.