I went to England to study at Oxford afflicted with a severe case of Anglophilia. I had come from an Evangelical background, and much influenced by C. S. Lewis, was simply looking for 'Mere Christianity'.
I wished to be a 'Mere Christian' in the Anglican Church, and by God's grace I was an Anglican for fifteen happy years, and an Anglican priest for ten of those years.
Then in 1995, while a country vicar on the Isle of Wight, I left the Anglican Church for 'More Christianity.' My whole conversion story is told elsewhere — on my website and in various publications — but suffice it to say that the question of women's ordination prompted an examination of authority in the church which led me back to Cardinal Newman and the Fathers of the Church and finally to Rome.
Ten years later I was ordained through the Pastoral Provision and now welcome the erection of the Ordinariate. I hope to comment here regularly, and to meet and support an increasing number of brothers and sisters as they enter the Ordinariate.
A "Reluctant Anglo-Catholic"? Only because I was always more of a mainstream Anglican in churchmanship. I loved Catholic spirituality and Catholic worship, but never signed-up and called myself an 'Anglo-Catholic'.
I hope all those who are full-blooded will forgive me for that!
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