Jeffrey Steenson to lead the Anglican Ordinariate in the U.S.

The Vatican has appointed the former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande to head up the American branch of the Anglican Ordinariate.

On 1 Jan 2012 the Vatican announced that Fr. Jeffrey Steenson had been named the Ordinary for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.  The American branch of the ordinariate will be based in Houston, Texas and is the second national jurisdiction for former Anglicans established under the provisions of Pope Benedict's 2009 apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum coetibus”.

A second former Episcopal clergyman, Fr. Scott Hurd, who was received into the Catholic Church in 1996 and is presently a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, has been appointed vicar-general of the ordinariate for a three-year term, the Vatican announcement said.

A statement released in November by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops explained that under the Complementary Norms for the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus the ordinariate would be "juridically comparable to a diocese."

The leader of the ordinariate would be called an “ordinary” and have a “role similar to a bishop” and would be “appointed by the Pope and is a voting member of the Episcopal Conference. If a priest is married … he may not be ordained a bishop,” the USCCB said.

The 59-year old Fr. Steenson currently teaches at the University of St. Thomas Center for Faith and Culture and at St. Mary's Seminary in Houston, since August 2009 and is an assisting priest at St. Cyril of Alexandria Parish in Houston. He is married and has three adult children, and as such will not be ordained a bishop.

He will exercise “his responsibilities in collaboration with local diocesan bishops, and is assisted by a Governing Council, Finance Council and Pastoral Council,” the USCCB statement said.

The Vatican reports that approximately 100 former Anglican and Episcopal clergymen have sought to enter the ordinariate and to be reordained as Roman Catholic clergy.  They have been joined by an estimated 1,400 people drawn from 22 congregations and communities across the United States.  The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter is the second such jurisdiction.  The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was formed in January 2011 to serve England and Wales and plans are underway for ordinariates in Canada and Australia.

Anglicanorum coetibus was a response by Rome to “repeated and persistent inquiries from Anglican groups worldwide who were seeking to become Catholic. Ordinariates seek to provide a way for these groups to enter in ‘corporate reunion’; that is, as a group and not simply as individuals. This will allow them to retain their Anglican liturgical heritage and traditions,” the USCCB explained.

Bishop Steenson announced his resignation and decision to enter the Catholic Church at the September 2007 meeting of the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops.

“My conscience is deeply troubled because I sense that the obligations of my ministry in The Episcopal Church may lead me to a place apart from scripture and tradition. I am concerned that if I do not listen to and act in accordance with conscience now, it will become harder and harder to hear God’s voice,” he told the House of Bishops.

The March 2007 meeting of the House of Bishops had been “a profoundly disturbing experience for me,” he told his fellow bishops

“I was more than a little surprised when such a substantial majority declared the polity of the Episcopal Church to be primarily that of an autonomous and independent local church relating to the wider Anglican Communion by voluntary association. This is not the Anglicanism in which I was formed, inspired by the Oxford Movement and the Catholic Revival in the Church of England … honestly, I did not recognize the church that this House described on that occasion.”

He told the Episcopal House of Bishops that he was entering the Catholic Church because “I believe that the Lord now calls me in this direction.  It amazes me, after all of these years, what a radical journey of faith this must necessarily be.  To some it seems foolish; to others disloyal; to others an abandonment.”

Elected bishop of the Albuquerque-based Diocese of the Rio Grande in 2004, he was canon to the ordinary under Bishop Terence Kelshaw for five years before being his election. Prior to that, he was rector of All Saints’ Church, Wynnewood, Pa., Good Shepherd, Rosemont, Pa., and St. Andrew’s, Fort Worth. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Nashotah House and the Board of Directors of the Living Church Found and had been educated at Harvard Divinity School and Oxford University. 

Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, the Vatican’s delegate for the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus in the U.S. told the Catholic News Service that he welcomed the appointment of Fr. Steenson.

Fr., Steenson "brings to the position of ordinary great pastoral and administrative experience, along with his gifts as a theologian,” the cardinal said.

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston added that Fr. Steenson “will surely be an effective, kind and joyful leader who will love and guide God's people with the attitude of Christ."