In a sleepless moment the other night I found myself discovering the world of Catholic garage churches. A garage church is a church somebody has in their garage.<\/p>\n
Within the Anglican cosmos I was always fascinated by the umpteen little Anglican churches that you could find lurking in various out of the way places.<\/p>\n
I called them garage churches because you would come across their website which would be billed as something like, \u201cThe American Anglican Orthodox Church\u201d or \u201cThe Conservative Anglican Church of the Western Hemisphere\u201d or maybe a bit more jejune like \u201cThe Celtic Orthodox Church of the Anglican Use (Glastonbury Designation)\u201d. Or maybe you would meet one of their clergymen. He\u2019d roll up in full clericals with a business card that announced that he was the Universal Archdeacon of the Canons Regular of the Hippolytan Conserve. He\u2019d tell you that he was an Anglican priest and make sure you understood that he was of the Hippolytan Conserve and NOT one of those terrible members of the Ambrosian Conflation.<\/p>\n
Then when you got into conversation you\u2019d learn that the reverend was a delivery man for a local florist (\u201cAfter all, St Paul had to make his living mending tents\u2026\u201d) and that their congregation of three (him, his mother and his Aunt Mildred) met for worship every Sunday at eleven at their proto-cathedral based in his Aunt Mildred\u2019s garage at 413 Ferndale Circle.<\/p>\n
It is all very entertaining and if you are bored one evening and wish to learn more about Anglican garage churches you can visit this web page<\/a> and have a wonderful time browsing through their various websites. I became an Anglican through one of these churches\u2013the Anglican Orthodox Church.<\/a> It was founded by a larger than life former Episcopal priest from North Carolina who was like a character out of a Tennessee Williams play. To be fair, some of the churches on this web page are fairly hefty organizations with a global network and a growing clientele. As the Anglican Communion continues to self destruct, they are picking up members.<\/p>\n So you can imagine my mixture of delight and dismay to discover that there is a goodly collection of Catholic garage churches too. First I came across theUnited Catholic Church<\/a>\u00a0\u2013which seems a misnomer\u2026never mind. From there I found \u00a0 the United American Catholic Church<\/a>\u00a0which is not to be confused with The American Catholic Church in the United States.<\/a>\u00a0The Liberal Catholic Church<\/a>\u00a0must distinguish itself somehow or other from the other garage churches, but I\u2019m not sure how as they all seem liberal to me.<\/p>\n It seems that most of these Catholic garage churches take their heritage from the Old Catholic Dutch secession of the nineteenth century. Here is the page for the Independent Old Catholic Church of America<\/a>\u00a0which is a different body than the Independent Catholic Church of America<\/a>\u00a0and the American National Catholic Church<\/a>\u00a0not forgetting the Catholic Apostolic Church of North America.<\/a><\/p>\n I could go on. This page<\/a> gives a list of them. I love the understatement in the opening line of this page: \u201cThe independent movement tends to be diverse.\u201d My all time favorite is the Church of the Culdees<\/a>\u2013Orthodox Old Catholic. The Culdees were an early medieval Irish monastic group. Hermits mostly.<\/p>\n Some of the breakaway Catholic churches are ultra conservative, but most of them are progressive in their stance. They\u2019ve broken from the Catholic faith because they want to be more inclusive. The irony is that they can\u2019t even seem to get together themselves. If they are all so welcoming and inclusive of all why can\u2019t they achieve unity amongst themselves? You would have thought that a church without walls would be able to blend with other wide open groups.<\/p>\n This brings one to consider the claims we hear constantly that the church must be \u201cwelcoming to all\u201d and \u201cinclusive of all\u201d. Doesn\u2019t anyone grab hold of the logical impossibility here? How can any organization\u2013whether it is a church or an army or a country or a country club\u2013be inclusive of all? As soon as you form any kind of organization there must be some people who are, by definition \u201cin\u201d and some who are \u201cout\u201d. There are boundaries and terms of membership and requirements or there is no organization. By the sheer definition any body of people must have boundaries. Everyone may join, but they are not automatically included. Some are out by decision of those who are in, but most are out because they don\u2019t want to be in.<\/p>\n I will sometimes get some stick from non-Catholic Christians because we do not admit non-Catholics to communion. We are meant to be more inclusive. I then point out that their churches also have boundaries. They are shocked and deny it.<\/p>\n \u201cOK\u201d I propose, \u201cWould you admit anyone to communion?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA Methodist, an Episcopalian, a Baptist or a Presbyterian?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOK. What about a Seventh Day Adventist, A Holiness Church of God Pentecostalist, a radical non-denominational LBGT Christian?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUm. I think so. Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about an Four Square Gospeller, Christian Scientist, Worldwide Church of God, Salvation Army?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf they love Jesus, Yes, I think so.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA Moonie\u2013Unification Church member? A Mormon? a Jehovah\u2019s Witness?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUh. Tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cScientology? Unitarian Universalist? Spiritualist? They love Jesus\u2026. sort of\u2026you know, in their own way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBuddhist? Hindu? Muslim? Jew?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell they \u00a0wouldn\u2019t want to come to communion anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, but what if they did?\u201d<\/p>\n The point being that every religious group draws the line. There are boundaries and definitions and decisions about who is in and who is out, and in order for there to be anybody in there has to be somebody who\u2019s out.<\/p>\n In the case of the Catholic garage churches, the very folks who have formed these churches have most often left the Catholic Church because it wasn\u2019t inclusive enough, but unless they become nothing at all they must be forming churches which are, by definition, much smaller and more exclusive than the Catholic Church with its vast breadth and catholicity.<\/p>\n Which leads to the final question, \u201cWhy on earth do they even want to take the name \u201cCatholic\u201d when they are clearly forming a schism and a sect?<\/p>\n I\u2019m still scratching my head.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a sleepless moment the other night I found myself discovering the world of Catholic garage churches. A garage church is a church somebody has in their garage. Within the Anglican cosmos I was always fascinated by the umpteen little Anglican churches that you could find lurking in various out of the way places. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n