Unity in the Independent Sacramental Movement

Many of the Independent Sacramental Movement (ISM) email groups & blogs have been pretty quiet. I was thinking the other day how it’s been a long time since there has been any talk of unity. But sure enough, it seems that the talk has restarted again. For those of you who are new to the ISM, you may not know that the Independent Sacramental Movement (a.k.a. Old Catholicism, Autocephalous Church Movement, Independent Catholicism, Independent Orthodoxy, etc.) in North America is not a church denomination, but rather a group of small churches that are loosely linked by apostolic succession and sacramental theology. While the churches are diverse and indeed independent of each other, most of its clergy have longed for some form of unity with their catholic sisters and brothers. Many have tried to ‘legislate’ unity by forming associations and councils but have failed miserably. It is usually early in the process of forming these associations that theological and ideological differences get in the way of mutual agreement. And in my humble opinion, egos appear to be at the core of these seemingly insurmountable problems that create division (that’s a topic for another day).

There’s a part of me that is relieved that we haven’t spent a lot of energy talking about unity in recent months. Frankly, I’m not surprised that the movement has been quiet on this front simply because I believe that we’ve absolutely exhausted ourselves, spinning our wheels in misguided talk and planning of building an institution that is supposed to create unity, but ironically, these efforts seem to foster disunity instead. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that it is in our Christian nature to seek a concord with each other as I believe that is what Jesus wants for us. I have hope that there will be a day when we will join in a unified charge of supporting Christ’s Great Commission. However, now is not the time for such labors, at least not in any formal way.

There are a number of reasons why seeking unity through a formal process or institution doesn’t work. It’s hard to unify parts of a whole when the parts themselves are weak and fragile. One of the issues that the ISM is confronted with and quite frankly, has a hard time honestly recognizing, is the fact that it is small, disorganized and many of its members do not have a clear mission. There are only a few strong parishes and ministries – most of the other ISM communities are scattered, have more clergy than constituents, are distracted by what the Roman Catholic Church is doing, or they are ministries by website only. It seems that we are universally weak in our ability to build communities. I know that for this clergy member it takes a lot of energy and focus to build a new faith community. Indeed that is where my priority is; I need to work hard and keep my center of attention on building a new church before I can talk about helping to build an interdenominational council for unity.

In addition, I believe that trying to use an institution (council, association, or synod) to create unity is putting the “cart before the horse.” Councils and associations are formed from unity – unity is not formed by these associations. Bishop Brian Brown of the Ecumenical Free Catholic Communion states it best in the Yahoo e-list, The Old Catholic Churches on 1/17/2008:

Chasing unity is like chasing love, or chasing peace, or chasing God...

It's not something that can be chased. It's not something that will be formed by a meeting of bishops, councils, or synods. Unity is a state of being. Unity exists when it exists and it can't be forced to exist just like love can't be forced to exist. It can only be discovered.

So what can we do to foster unity in the ISM? First and foremost we need to work diligently in building our communities and ministries in support of Jesus’ Great Commission:

Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” [Matthew 28:18-20, NAB]

Build His Churches is a great source regarding growing the independent sacramental church. Build His Churches is a ministry of Bishop Senia Fix that offers workshops and resources in growing the church. This is a not-for-profit effort that I’ve found to be quite valuable.

We also need to use each other as a resource in building ministry; and we can do this by creating relationships with each other. Here in the New York City Metro area, many of the area independent sacramental clergy meet for dinner on a regular basis. This event was originally put together by Bishop Timothy Cravens of the Independent Catholic Christian Church. Clergy from the area just met this past Friday (unfortunately I was ill and could not attend). The dinner is informal with no agenda, except for friendship. From these social gatherings have come some wonderful relationships between clergy of different denominations in the ISM; and from these relationships have come unity.

In the meantime, we need to work hard. Not at forming yet another World Council of Independent Catholic Bishops; but rather spreading the Word, baptizing Christians and building communities of disciples.

Pax.