Joining the Church

This is actually a good question that I hadn’t considered previously. The short answer is that some “extra lessons" will be needed, but what those lessons are and how they’re had makes for a bit more complication.

While it’s true that the Anglican and Catholic Churches are similar, there are fundamental differences that necessitate some level of education, and much of this will depend upon what kind of Anglican we’re talking about (High or Low). To twist the linguistic example above, consider Polish and Czech; two closely related Slavic languages. The word “czerstwy" to describe bread means “stale" in Polish. In Czech, the exact same word means fresh bread. (I also understand that there are some words in Czech that would be taken as unholy oaths in Polish, though my wife won’t tell me what they are.) There is similar potential for misunderstanding in the case of Anglicans entering the Catholic Church, but I think it far more likely to happen to Low Anglicans than High. [What follows comes from my personal and incomplete religious education in the lower branches of the ECUSA’s bush 30+ years ago, so accuracy is not guaranteed...I’m probably the worst person on Earth to describe this particular aspect, but here goes...] I don’t recall anyone ever explaining the Real Presence within Anglican teachings in quite the same way it’s understood in Catholicism, but it is a fundamental point in the Catholic faith. I’ve looked up the Anglican view on Wikipedia, and it seems to be a mix of potential philosophies based on how high up the Anglican chain you might be. (In fact, when I was a kid, we used grape juice for communion.) Another point would be Holy Tradition. Catholic Tradition is a wide and varied thing that might give rise to misunderstandings for the uninitiated (heck, it can even give rise to misunderstandings for the fully initiated).

I also suspect that if High Anglicans were able to cross over without education of some sort, JPII would probably have approved cross-communion before 2003.

There are two or three ways that these lessons can be had. The most common is via the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA). However, another method might be more appropriate for someone approaching Catholicism from the higher Anglican philosophies.

I’ll expound on RCIA more in another post, but here is a touch upon the subject. Most parishes use RCIA as the basic entry-level course for joining the Church. Each RCIA program is different. Some are truly wonderful experiences. Some (like mine) are rather run-of-the-mill lectures/small group exercises that gives you the most basic understanding of the Church and her teachings. Some programs are...well...consider the guy in the comments below that was looking for a t-shirt that says “I Survived RCIA", but was offered an “RCIA Deprogrammer" shirt instead. Some programs are simply dreadful. If you can’t find a decent RCIA program in your area that suits you, then...

There is a method of joining the Church that is fairly close to the idea of “repudiating of Henry VIII = Catholic" idea. This is essentially a self-study program, but this is going to require the cooperation of a priest. The idea is to study and read everything you can on your own. Once that’s done, go to a priest and ask if you might be permitted to join the Church without having attended RCIA, or with personal instruction. Practically speaking, I think most priests will want some indication that you had at least tried RCIA and it didn’t work for you. However, before a priest agrees to this, he’ll probably want you to tell him the basics of the faith - something like testing out of a class in college. This would likely be the best solution for a High Anglican wanting to swim the Tiber with the shortest number of strokes, but I can’t stress enough that this would require the cooperation of a priest.

I’ve also heard of small groups of people that have approached a priest with the idea of doing a self-study program of their own. The priest agreed and was an advisor to the group. Once they were done, the priest would have an indication that you knew the basics, and would welcome you into the Church. This could be a long or short process, depending on how you and the group got on, how much the priest expected, how much time could be dedicated to it, etc. It could also have a very different feel than RCIA, given that you can more readily pick the people with whom you study (and the lessons, and the texts).

Lastly, there’s a comment below about an intensive program to bypass RCIA. one-week intensive introduction to the Catechism I personally don’t know much about this program, but it certainly seems like an interesting idea.

This is an over simplification of a more complicated situation, but hopefully it will give some idea of the whys and wherefores. Let me know if you have any questions.