Father Richard Kramer, a visiting priest, blesses worshipers of the new St. Edmund Campion Catholic community with holy water during Mass Oct. 23. The new community in Hendersonville is part of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, created by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans into the Catholic Church yet keep alive their unique prayers, music and other traditions. (Photo by Lexi Harris)HENDERSONVILLE — For former Anglicans seeking to practice the Catholic faith in the rite they love, the St. Edmund Campion Church community is a godsend.
This new community celebrates the sacraments in the “Ordinariate Form,” an Anglican style liturgy, once a month in the chapel at Immaculate Conception Church. Led by Deacon Joshua Johnson, a convert studying for the priesthood, the community of 60 members is the latest example of how Catholic bishops and dioceses around the world are welcoming rites of many traditions.
The St. Edmund Campion community is comprised of Catholics who maintain their distinct Anglican tradition within the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. Based in Houston, Texas, the ordinariate is a type of diocese spanning the United States and Canada – one of only three ordinariates in the world, besides Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom and Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia.
The ordinariates were created by the Vatican to welcome Catholic converts from the Anglican Church.
Father Christian Cook, pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish, said he felt called to welcome Anglican converts shortly after arriving at the parish in 2019 because, “As Pope Benedict wrote in ‘Anglicanorum Coetibus,’ (the apostolic constitution released in 2009 that paved the way for Anglicans to join the Catholic Church), the Holy Spirit is the principle of unity. Unity is both an invisible spiritual communion but is also visible to society and the spiritual community.”
Father Cook says it was also important to him to support the small community of believers in bringing stability. “And I had a desire to show visible unity among Catholics as the Catholic Church has seven different rites – Latin, Byzantine, Maronite and the like – and Catholics in the United States are not largely exposed to this fact,” he said.
The ordinariate form is a blend of traditional Anglican and Latin Rite prayers that comprise the liturgy. Ordinariate communities celebrate Mass using “Divine Worship: The Missal,” a book of liturgical texts created by the Vatican in 2015. This missal uses language derived from the classic books of the Anglican liturgical tradition that is fully Catholic in content and expression.
Deacon Joshua Johnson was raised Baptist but discovered the Methodist and Anglican traditions in his young adulthood. It was during his time of studying in seminary at Duke School of Divinity for the United Methodist Church that he felt the pull toward Catholicism.
“In seminary I began to have a deeper encounter with the Catholic Church, reading the Church Fathers and about the Church councils,” Deacon Johnson recalled. “I had an experience very similar to (Cardinal) John Henry Newman. And when I became a United Methodist minister, I became very conflicted.”
Deacon Johnson was ordained a deacon Oct. 19 and is expected to be ordained a priest for the ordinariate next June.
Some years ago, he felt called to start a community near his home in the mountains of western North Carolina to evangelize others. “This shows the deep desire of the Church to welcome back our separated brethren. Pope Benedict established these ordinariates in a response to those who desired to come into the Catholic Church. It’s the first time the Catholic Church has welcomed and incorporated traditions from one of the Protestant communities. It is an acknowledgement that the Holy Spirit was active in our lives before we became Catholic, and impelled us to the fullness of truth in Christ’s holy Catholic Church.”
He loves the Anglican liturgical traditions, noting, “It’s such a great gift to pray the prayers that have brought Anglicans comfort over hundreds of years, and to know that our prayers are in harmony with the Catholic Church.”
St. Edmond Campion Church celebrates Mass once a month in the chapel at Immaculate Conception Church. The next Mass is scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, the Vigil of Christ the King.
— SueAnn Howell. Catholic News Agency contributed.
Learn more
Learn more about the new St. Edmund Campion Community at www.saintedmundcampion.com. Questions? Email Deacon Joshua Johnson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
