By Rita McInerney

The dossiers of two married Episcopal clergymen who have requested ordination as Roman Catholic priests have been submitted by the archdiocese of Atlanta to the Vatican and are now under study by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The clergymen are Father Thad Rudd and Father David Dye. Father Rudd was rector of the Church of Our Saviour on North Highland Avenue, Atlanta. Father Dye was assistant rector at St. Martin-in-the-Fields on Ashford Dunwoody Road, Atlanta.

In the case of Father Rudd, a group of his parishioners, estimated to be 40 to 50 people, made the decision to seek admission to the Roman Catholic Church with him. They have formed themselves as the Community of St. Augustine of Canterbury and held the first service of evening prayer at All Saints Catholic Church in Dunwoody on Sunday, Jan. 8. A parish reception to welcome them was held the same evening.

Father Dye and his family have been received into the Catholic Church while Father Rudd, his family and the group will enter together after a response is received from Rome.

Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, S.S.J., is the sponsoring ordinary for both men who sought to become Roman priests under the “pastoral provision” put into effect by the Vatican for Anglican clergymen in 1980.

Archbishop Marino said he learned of the interest of the two clergymen shortly after his installation last May 5. Both men had earlier communicated their desire to Archbishop Thomas Donnellan. There was interest on his part, but his illness and subsequent events prevented the cases from moving forward, the archbishop said.

He was informed by Father Peter Ludden, chancellor, that both clergymen had asked for appointments to see him, the archbishop continued. He met with each of them during the summer.

“I had no idea what the process was, had no first-hand experience. I proceeded with interest, hope and caution.” The caution, he explained, was because of the “extraordinary graciousness” of Bishop Charles J. Child, the Episcopal bishop of Atlanta, and “the implications for our own clergy and people.”

Archbishop Marino said he “wanted people to understand what was happening when Episcopal priests, for reasons of faith and conscience, can no longer continue their roles.”

“What people need to be acquainted with is the intolerable burden placed on a man if he happens to be an Episcopal priest with a family depending on him to function as a minister, and now, for reasons of conscience and faith he has no alternative.”

The church, he said, “would be insensitive if it would not permit him to act as a priest. It would seem that this would be an instance where the Church could show insensitivity in not allowing a person in these circumstances to be considered for and to be ordained.”

The archbishop said Father Rudd would be admitted to the Church in a process that would admit the group. They would become a Roman Catholic community with an Episcopal identity and would be allowed special prayer at their Mass, the prayer of the faithful, which would be closer to the Episcopal Church than to the Roman Catholic Church.

“We’re not asking that they be brought in as a separate parish,” the archbishop said. A personal parish was not requested in the dossiers submitted to the Holy See. All Saints will be the location for their worship as Roman Catholics.

While there is usually a limit placed on the kind of assignment a priest can be given under the pastoral provision, Archbishop Marino said a request for a dispensation from such limitations had been made in the petition sent to Rome for the two men.

“We’re sailing through uncharted waters. I’m excited by the possibilities, but at the same time don’t have answers to all the questions,” the archbishop admitted.

He went on to say how moved he was when the group gathered, in October, at his residence to present their petition to him. “It showed a great deal of faith on their part. They were taking a tremendous risk where there was no guarantee that I would recommend their request or that the Holy See would act on it.”

He said he had talked to Cardinal Bernard Law several times concerning the two applicants. The Boston prelate is in charge of the pastoral provision applications from the United States.

“He (Cardinal Law) felt the dossiers were very full and complete. There were about 30 to 40 pages of documents, testimonies, the bishop’s review and letter,” the archbishop said. Father Ludden, he commented, had done “a tremendous amount of work” in putting the dossiers together.

On Aug. 20, 1980, it was announced by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops that a decision to admit Anglicans, including some married clergymen, to the Roman Catholic Church had been made by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The decision applies only to persons who, while wishing to retain some elements of the Anglican tradition, fully accept Roman Catholic doctrine and the authority of the popes and bishops. This is the first time the provision has been applied in the archdiocese of Atlanta.

Father James Parker, now director of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Charleston, S.C., was the first Episcopal clergyman to become a Roman Catholic priest after the 1980 pastoral provision went into effect. Now he works with Cardinal Law on the applications.

In a telephone interview with The Georgia Bulletin he said he had taken the two dossiers to Boston “right before Christmas.” The cardinal had approved them and the packet had been dispatched to Rome.

Asked how long he thought it would take for a response, he replied, “We don’t get responses in any set time.” Some may take a year, others less than a year, others more. “We’re hoping these cases can be expedited because of the importance of keeping the group together,” he mentioned.

“Their training and understanding of their faith is very Catholic in the Anglo-Catholic school of thought of Cardinal (John Henry) Newman,” he added.

“We always remind Episcopal priests that they are dealing with two separate pilgrimages,” Father Parker emphasized. The first is membership in the church and the second is the priesthood. “We can’t guarantee that,” he said of the second pilgrimage.

The Community of St. Augustine of Canterbury will use the Book of Divine Worship, a prayer book approved by the Vatican for use by former Episcopalians. Father Parker said it has been adapted from the Book of Common Prayer, 1979 version, used in Episcopal churches, with a few revisions to make it consistent with Roman Catholic practice.

Father Rudd said that he came to his decision because “I didn’t agree with the way the church was going.” Disagreement started for him about 15 years ago, he said, when the national conventions of the Episcopal Church began voting on changes affecting marriage and holy orders.

He cited abortion as an issue on which he was troubled by the lack of a unified position.

About eight years ago he went to see Bishop Raymond W. Lessard of Savannah. This was just after the pastoral provision became effective. At the time, he explained, a priest seeking ordination in the Roman Catholic faith could not remain in the same diocese in which he had functioned as an Episcopal clergyman.

Although through Bishop Lessard he made contact with a bishop in another diocese, Rudd said he and his wife, Sherri, decided not to uproot their three children, then in junior and senior high schools.

He has been questioned by some Catholics, he said, who feel that he and Father Dye made the decision because of the recent election of the Rev. Barbara Harris as the first woman bishop in the worldwide Anglican communion. This is not the reason, he claimed. “We would have accepted it if it had been approved through normal councils of the church.” He feels that fewer than three million members of the U.S. Episcopal Church decided this issue for 70 million Anglicans worldwide, “most of whom are not in favor.”

The ordination of women has been approved in the U.S. Episcopal Church and four other national bodies of the 27-member Anglican communion.

Father Rudd celebrated his last Mass at Our Saviour on midnight of New Year’s Eve. In a farewell letter to the congregation he wrote: “I have devoted my adult life to the Catholic cause. Now by the grace of God and another most understanding (arch)bishop, I will be allowed to continue that ministry in the Roman Catholic Church.”

While at Our Saviour, Father Rudd said in the interview, prayer was offered for the pope every Sunday and the congregation concluded every prayer service with the Hail Mary. “Our people have been more Catholic than Episcopal for years.”

He served the Episcopal Church as an ordained priest for over 18 years and his home diocese in northern Indiana was “extremely Catholic, we always had dialogue.”

Father Rudd said the people coming with him have completed the confirmation program at Our Saviour and will attend an intensified RCIA program put together by Jean Farrell, religious education director at All Saints.

He and his wife, Sherri, a nurse who works part-time at the Shepherd Spinal Center, last week moved into an apartment in All Saints parish. Their three adult children are Allister Ann Richey, of Atlanta; Kendyl Elizabeth, a senior majoring in occupational therapy at the University of Central Arkansas, and Thad Jr., serving with the Air Force in the Philippines. All of them, their father said, have attended Catholic schools in various locations while growing up.

“I will not make as much money as I did in the Episcopal Church,” he said of his new situation. The archdiocese, he added, has provided the apartment “until I know what I’ll be doing.”

Of his own feelings, “Inside of me I feel like I’m transferring parishes. It’s a very good feeling.” It was a change, he said, not done on a whim. “I’ve been a member of the Episcopal Church all my life.”

Father Dye, an Atlanta native an Episcopal priest since 1971, had been at St. Martin’s for 10 years. In a telephone interview he said he had always had questions about Anglican claims to being Catholic.

Earlier he had spent four years as chaplain to Americans in Brussels. There “living in a Catholic culture hit home to me,” he said. It was a new experience for a native of the South where a climate of prejudice to Roman Catholics had long existed, he continued.

When he returned to the U.S., he was disturbed by the changes in the Episcopal Church, the ordination of women, changes in moral teaching, remarriage after divorce as well as divorce and remarriage among the clergy.

He and Father Rudd were both involved in the Evangelical Catholic Mission, a group within the Episcopal Church described by Father Rudd as including the last of the bishops and lay people who see themselves as Anglican Catholics. The two clergymen talked about their dilemma and offered each other support.

Father Dye, his wife, Chantal, their two teenage daughters Leslie Marie and Gabrielle, and son David, 8, were received into the Roman Catholic Church by Father Ludden on Dec. 10 at Marist School chapel. Mrs. Dye, he said, was raised as a Roman Catholic.

Father Dye called the severing of ties with the Episcopal Church that he loved a “very wrenching” one. “The realities are really hard to face and the break-up very painful.” But now, he added, there is the feeling of “a great burden being lifted off our shoulders.”

The family has been attending All Saints and will remain in their own home. “I don’t think our circumstances will change much,” he said. The salary will be comparable with that of an assistant in an Episcopal congregation, he added. Mrs. Dye will continue to teach French at St. Martin’s Day School.

Father Ludden said that after the two Episcopal clergymen initiated contact with the chancery, Archbishop Donnellan adopted the policy position that the archdiocese would be open to such applications. “To me that was a milestone in the process.”

Up to that time he said there had been overtures but it was deemed too difficult to fit the clergymen in positions since they were not given assignments as pastor or assistant pastor under the pastoral provision. The Vatican, he added, has not granted any exemptions to date.

Concerning their financial compensation, Father Ludden said that it was recognized from the outset that the archdiocese was committed to provide them with enough to “allow them to support themselves in modest dignity.” This would obviously have to be higher than the pay for a celibate priest who does not have dependents, he said.

There was assessment made of their actual needs, looking at the subject in comparison to what the two clergymen had been making. “Certainly, the total compensation doesn’t match what they had been receiving.”

Before the Dyes were received into the Church, Father Dye had received instruction geared to his considerable knowledge. The children had already received and are continuing to receive cathechesis.

Monsignor R. Donald Kiernan, pastor of All Saints, is confident that the newcomers will get a “warm welcome” from parishioners. The reception last Sunday evening was a parish tradition. “we usually welcome newcomers to the parish once a year.”