Recently I went to the installation service for the new rector of Bishop Cummins Reformed Episcopal Church in Catonsville. Bp. Cummins was the founding bishop of the REC. It is interesting to note that before he became a bishop, he served as a curate at St. Peter's Church, which later merged with Grace Church, and became Grace and St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The thing that makes it interesting is that GASP, as it is known here in Baltimore, is the spikiest, most anglo-papist ECUSA parish around.
Anyway, while at the installation I met people from all sorts of denominational backgrounds. Some, when I told them that I attended a Roman Catholic seminary, became sort of stand-offish towards me, even though we had enjoyed pleasant small talk up till I revealed the "dreaded news" to them.
It amazes me how some people still have such strong prejudices towards Roman Catholicism. It is almost as though the pope personally did something to these people. Of course, most of the time these people know nothing about Roman Catholic dogma or teachings other than what they have heard from their own pope - Pope ______ (insert name of your denominational leader) - so their hatred is really ill-informed. What these folk fail to see, though, is that they can place their own souls in serious spiritual jeopardy by harboring such bitterness, anger, and hostility towards others. They think that they have "righteous indignation", and that their rage is somehow jusitifed, unfortunately they become so blinded by their hatred that they can no longer even consider trying to see something from another person's (or church's) perspective.
Thomas Merton, in Seeds of Contemplation, talks of detachment. Briefly, detachment is essentially to focus on the universal, not the particular. It is not focusing on the thing in itself, but rather to focus on what is beyond the thing - what the thing points to. So for example, prayer is good, obviously, but when we become so obsessed with prayer itself we can get the point where we can no longer pray. Solemn liturgy and vestments are wonderful, and play an important role in the spiritual life, but they are a means to an end - not the end itself. Without detachment, something good can be used for great evil.
Detachment, I think, is part of the process of overcoming the denominational prejudices that we all hold on to, and what the people I met need to try to cultivate in their lives. They, and many of us as well, sometimes forget that the point of our dogmas and doctrines is growing in deeper knowledge and love of God, and having a more intimate communion with Him. Some people think that the point of dogma and doctrine is to have right dogma and doctrine. Our theological constructs or systems become our God. When we harbor hatred and rage towards people who do not believe the same way that we do, even if we are truly convinced that we are right, then we become clanging cymbals. And even worse, we put our own souls in danger of Hell.
