TO: The Clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth
FROM: Bishop Pope
DATE: 25 October 1994
I wish to express my everlasting thankfulness to Almighty God and
gratitude to you and your people for the rare privilege of serving you in
the episcopal ministry for the past ten years. I pray that we have all
grown in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ as we offered ourselves
through the exercise of the Sacred Ministry. As your bishop I always
sensed a homecoming as I made parochial visits -- I was at home at the
altar of your parish church as we celebrated and shared the Holy Eucharist
together. For me there was the constant awareness of the Christian family
gathered around their Father-in-God. The remembrance of those week by
week visitations colored whatever else I did in the episcopate. Thanks be
to God.
And now I must take my leave of you, beginning another chapter in
my pilgrimage of Faith. On the 17th of this month I confirmed my last
class at St. Luke's-in-the-Meadow and have now ceased to function in the
episcopate. As you are already aware I have surrendered all ecclesiastical
authority to Bishop Iker in writing and will not take it up again. He is
in complete control and charge of the diocese in every aspect of its
operation so that on January 1st he will have been the bishop already from
every practical standpoint. I have vacated the bishop's office and am now
trying to make the accumulation of forty and a half years of books and
things fit into our home.
My love for the Episcopal Church and Anglicanism is very deep. I owe
much to this church and especially for introducing me to an understanding of
Catholic sacramental principles and the disciplined life which follows.
Over the many years of ministry, first as a priest for thirty
years and now as a bishop, the catholic elements within Anglicanism seemed
to me to beg for more wholeness. I thrilled to the possibilities for our
communion as the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission took up
their work and made such wonderful progress in finding a way forward
toward organic reunion between Rome and Canterbury. Every province of our
communion endorsed the principle of organic reunion and our hopes soared.
Anglicanism had much to offer and much more so in full communion with the
Holy See from which we had come. I grew more and more to believe that full
communion with the Holy See was not just desirable but essential to full
catholic life. Isaiah's admonition to "look unto the rock whence ye are
hewn" (Isa. 51:1) seemed to me to reflected centuries later when Jesus
gave Simon Bar-Jona the name Peter, rock, and said ". . . on this rock I
will build my church . . . " (Matt. 16:18)
And so many of us continued to pray and work for institutional
reunion with the See of Peter. However one by one the provinces of the
Anglican Communion began to make decisions concerning the sacred ministry
which greatly increased the problems of institutional reunion with the
Holy See. And yet many of continued to hope that somehow the Church of
England would not do this and that there would still be a way forward
toward reunion.
In November 1992 this hope disappeared and it was then that I
became very aware that the pilgrimage I had longed to take corporately
would now have to be taken alone. At that time we were preparing for the
election of the bishop coadjutor and I knew that I would need to stay in
place until he was elected, consecrated and settled. That has now all
taken place and in Bishop Iker we have a strong leader who has already
taken the reins of leadership in a very forceful way. My prayers will go
up for him daily.
What I have written is a very brief glimpse of a long spiritual
journey in which the Episcopal Church played a major part. I love her and
all the best that Anglicanism has produced over the centuries. I said all
this in an exceptionally good visit with the Presiding Bishop about my
pilgrimage this past week. He and I exchanged memories of our relationship
going back forty-four years to our days at Sewanee. Ultimately it will be
his responsibility to take whatever action is necessary when I am received
into full communion with the Catholic Church. When in the future this
happens we agreed that we would talk again. I do not view my anticipated
action as a repudiation of what I am or that it brings into doubt the
validity of any sacramental act I ever performed as a priest or bishop. My
journey is a spiritual progression toward what I have come to believe is
fullness and I ask your prayers and I assure you of mine.
My beloved wife, joins me in our walk of faith under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit, and without her constant support and wise counsel I
would have found my task infinitely more difficult.
When appropriate I shall offer myself for service through the
Pastoral Provision for Anglicans coming into full communion with the Holy
See. In this regard I hope to be of use in the possible development of the
pastoral provision which I would consider reflective of some of the goals
of those years of reunion talks.
In the Gospel of St. Luke Jesus speaks to Peter and tells him
that Satan demanded to have him " . . . but I have prayed for you that
your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again , strengthen your
brethren." (Luke 22:31) And so I turn to Peter to be strengthened in the
Lord for more service in His Holy Church in the remaining years of my
life. May God richly bless you in your life and work in the Episcopal
Diocese of Fort worth.
+Clarence C. Pope
EPISCOPAL BISHOP TO ENTER CATHOLIC CHURCH
FORT WORTH, October 26 -- Bishop Clarence C. Pope, Jr., the
highest-ranking Episcopalian to affiliate with the Roman Catholic Church
in this century, says that his conversion affirms the spirit of the
Catholic unity for which he has consistently labored.
"My journey," Pope said, "is a spiritual progression toward what
I have come to believe is fulness..." The Fort Worth bishop, an
internationally known proponent of historic Christian theology and
practice, said he hopes to serve his new church under its Pastoral
Provision for Anglican converts.
Pope, who observes his 65th birthday today, was elected spiritual
head of the sprawling, 24 county diocese of Fort Worth in 1984. He said in
a farewell letter to diocesan clergy that he had vacated his office.
Earlier this month, at the diocese's annual convention, he announced that
he was handing over all ecclesiastical authority to Bishop Coadjutor Jack
L. Iker. "He [Iker] is in complete control and charge of the diocese in
every aspect of its operation." Pope said.
A central force behind the 1989 organization of the
traditionalist Episcopal Synod of America, Pope now becomes the second
leader of worldwide Anglicanism to join the Roman Catholic Church. Retired
Bishop Graham Leonard of London, who addressed the synod's founding
meeting, left the Church of England after it voted in 1992 to accept women
as priests. Episcopal traditionalists, like their Roman Catholic
counterparts, maintain that the women's ordination overthrows sacramental
integrity by violating Jesus Christ's example in choosing only men as
apostles.
Pope resigned as president of the ESA in 1992, but the
organization's nationwide activities continue under the presidency of
Donald Peter Moriarty of Orange, California.
The Fort Worth bishop said that by converting to Roman
Catholicism, he was not repudiating the reality of the ministry he has
exercised within the Episcopal Church, nor did he intend to cast doubt on
any sacramental act he has performed. He expressed love for the Episcopal
Church "and all the best that Anglicanism has produced over the
centuries."
He praised Anglicanism for "introducing me to an understanding of
catholic sacramental principles and the disciplined life which follows."
Pope said, nonetheless, the Anglican-Roman reunion he had hoped
for became impossible once Anglicanism's mother church -- the Church of
England -- accepted women priests. "I became very aware," he said, "that
the pilgrimage I had longed to take corporately would now have to be taken
alone."
A native of Shreveport, LA, Pope attended Centenary College and
the University of the South and was ordained priest in 1955. He had been
rector of Saint Luke's Church, Baton Rouge, for 22 years at the time of
his election to head the Diocese of Fort Worth. The bishop and his wife,
Martha, who is a medical doctor have two children.
For further information, contact Bishop Pope at (817) 738-1644
(voice); (817) 738-0068 (facsimile) --OR-- Fr. Allan Hawkins (817)
460-2278 or (817) 277-4041 (voice); (817) 277-9927 (facsimile)
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