An Easy Difficult Decision

Reader "Augustine" comments on the posting below about the new Anglican province known as Anglican Christians of North America:

This is a disastrous marriage 'of circumstances'. The (predominant) evangelical Anglicans in the new entity are using the three Anglo-Catholic dioceses as a necessary source of their potential legitimacy as a full province of the Anglican Communion. Four (three?) dioceses are needed for the formation of a province and the evangelicals only 'have' one recognized diocese, Pittsburgh. The new entity's radical commitment to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and to the literal, 'grammatical' acceptance of the 39 Articles marks it as a thoroughly and fundamentally Protestant organization. While Anglo-Catholics may feel that it will allow them time to pursue other alignments, their alliance with Protestants who countenance the 'ordination' of women is not something on which to build faith and in which to preach salvation. The Anglo-Catholic world of North America has no remaining ecclesiastical home in any Anglican body. One can mourn this, but cannot tarry too long over mourning. One must choose: high church Protestantism or Rome.

Right on the mark, I say. As a former Anglo-Catholic I had to make the very choice Augustine posits. After much deliberation I came to the conclusion I could be an Anglican or a Catholic but not both. Upon that realization it was a relatively easy, though certainly not painless, decision to be received into the Holy Catholic Church, regardless her present deficiencies. For in the end music and liturgy, no matter how beautiful, are not sufficient in themselves to get us into heaven.