One thing that has driven a good proportion of Anglicans, both of the Canterbury Communion and the continuers, into the arms of Rome is the general feeling of tiredness of what has become termed “alphabet soup”. This is certainly the impression we get when we see long lists of jurisdictions each staking their own claim to some kind of organic legitimacy by virtue of “succession” from the parent body. The idea of becoming Roman Catholic is sometimes a quest for stability, doctrinal security and no longer having to justify oneself as belonging to a “legitimate” church. I notice that the bewildering lists of acronyms have their parallel in churches claiming a Reformed / Independent / Old Catholic tradition and also among those claiming an Eastern Orthodox patrimony.

As I have mentioned, there will be independent churches, both sacramental and non-sacramental for as long as some people prefer to set up small businesses rather than work as civil servants or in multinational corporations. Some need the security of the mainstream, and others need the independence and a more rugged kind of life. People will “go independent” for as long as mainstream churches seek to be all-controlling and are too heavy on conformity and uniformity. Also, it is amazing and heart-rending to see how “disposable” human beings are – like supermarket food packets one throws away each day. The sheer waste of the crumbs under the master’s table is probably the greatest scandal!

Independent Catholics and continuing Anglicans are always challenged when it is pointed out to them that you are Catholic if you are in formal canonical communion with the Pope and in the official Church, and Anglican if your bishop is invited to the Lambeth Conference. Otherwise, it is implied, you are just an impostor and worthless. You duty is to go back to your mainstream church of origin or become an atheist, or perhaps do something predictable by becoming a Buddhist or a Hare Krishna! Here, the difficulty is caused by the phenomenon of imitation – indeed this is what most annoys the mainstream churches.

Of course there are degrees. Some bishops will warn their flocks simply because there is a chapel on their patch and the priest or bishop looks something like his Roman Catholic counterpart – even when pains are taken to write a disclaimer “We are not in communion with Rome or the local RC diocese”. Cases of true misrepresentation are actually quite rare, but you do get cases of independent bishops representing themselves as Roman Catholic, hearing confessions in churches, taking part in ceremonies and even fiddling money in a few cases. Such behaviour discredits all. Sometimes, reactions go to the other extreme and question – for example – Anglican clergy dressing in Roman Catholic fashion. The practice of Anglo-Papalists in England aping Tridentine Catholicism, goes back as far as the late nineteenth century.

Uninformed inquirers are perplexed by the use of words like Anglican and Catholic, and I remember a posting on a continuing Anglican blog about this. Why call yourself Catholic if you are not in communion with Rome, simply because you distinguish attachment to that Church’s liturgical, spiritual and doctrinal patrimony whilst being in schism from its hierarchy and canonical discipline? The official Church would say that you can’t do that. It’s all or nothing.

I can thus understand why someone has come up with the notion of “independent sacramental” to describe the thousands of individuals and communities who are unchurched in mainstream terms, but who still seem to have a valid priesthood and practice their faith and religion independently. They may do some things Roman Catholics and Anglicans also do, but they affirm their own identity. Such a notion is made possible by theological speculations in the field of ecclesiology that place more emphasis on the Sacrament than the human and political institution.

I am all for these communities and individuals being respected in the exercise of their conscience, allowed freedom from constraint and allowed to continue within the limits of law and public order. That is the accepted notion of religious freedom as taught by most declarations of human rights over the past two hundred years and by the most recent Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. Some will do work and survive, find stability, and others will die with their founders. That is the price of freedom.

I call myself Traditional Anglican Communion, because I am in possession of documents that attest that I am recognised to be a priest belonging to it. I identify with sacramental and credally orthodox Christianity. Here in France, I can’t go around calling myself a Catholic, and I only call myself an Anglican because I belong to an Anglican jurisdiction – or at least one that calls itself Anglican in a way that a significant number of people accepts. Should I be cast adrift from that, what could I call myself or the chapel where I say Mass? Not very much, I fear.

Unless one joins a mainstream Church with the consequences such a move would bring for any of us, we have to accept that security is an illusion, something we can only find in God and within ourselves. This is the beginning of understanding the Church of the future – made of spirit before being stone and mortar or political power.

With this reflection, I add a few reflections on a different way of living the priestly vocation. Christians are not persecuted in the western world unless they upset public order through blowing up abortion clinics or offending by hate speech (or what seems like such to the politically-correct brigade!) of one kind of another. If we are not involved in politics, we are left to our spiritual and liturgical life in peace, and we can always find ways to serve humanity even if we have to look like non-religious people to do it.

I have suffered scruples about not being a true parish priest with the idea that if I have not succeeded in getting a minimum of bums (butts on the other side of the pond!) on the pews of my chapel, I should give up and reconcile with Rome as a layman. In the mainstream church, a priest generally has a ministry or is a monk – but there are exceptions: priests employed in clerical tasks in diocesan curias and the Vatican bureaucracy, and, of course, teaching in schools, universities and seminaries. Such priests often say Mass on their own or with a single server in a church crypt, unless the time of the concelebrated Mass is convenient. We priests are conscious that our priesthood is not a personal possession but turned to serving the Church – and that is the source of my scruples when they haunt me.

Even saying Mass and Office alone is for the good of the world, and these services are public. I always make a point of leaving the door a little ajar unless the weather is bitterly cold, at least unlocked. The Mass is said even though there is no congregation, but I know many Anglicans will disagree. For them, if there are not a certain number of communicants (which the Prayer Book has never exactly defined), everything is packed up and no Eucharist is celebrated. The Orthodox also eschew celebrations of the Eucharist when there is no congregation. Roman canon law has become a little more relaxed. There should be at least a server or a lay person to make the responses, but a solitary Mass is allowed “for a good reason”. The priest’s piety and love of daily Mass is generally understood as being that “good reason” except perhaps for the most rigid purists.

The reason for all this is that the priestly ministry is not merely material and geared to people who are alive and in this world. The Church includes the departed in via and the Triumphant Church – the Communion of Saints. Spiritual writers often went on about the myriads of angels and saints assisting at each Mass of a priest – and that is why we still turn around and say Dominus vobiscum (or the equivalent in another language) to empty pews and the walls of the chapel. Whether we have visible or invisible congregations – or both – we priests are called to mediate Christ’s grace to the world. How that happens is a mystery. Some of us have not to leave the priesthood and live utter failure and spiritual suicide, but simply to let go of expectations of being “recognised” and honoured, and be given benefices and prestige. One step at a time is enough, and we have only to seek the Kingdom of God.