Thinning of the Ranks

The Rev Donald Minchew

From the Telegraph:

Members of the congregation at St Michael and All Angels parish church in Croydon, south London, don’t ask for much. A decent sermon, perhaps a few rousing hymns; clean pews; a tidy garden at the back; someone to help with Sunday school. But this month, they need something rather more important: a new vicar, to replace the one who converted to Catholicism and took 69 of his flock with him to a church up the road.

A “Parish priest: vacant” sign now stands outside the towering red-brick church behind West Croydon train station. Seven weeks ago, it housed 100 parishioners and a vicar who had served there for 16 years. Today, St Michael’s has less than half its original congregation, after the Rev Donald Minchew quit his post and was received into the Catholic faith at St Mary’s, 500 yards away.

and then, the devastating clincher:

The Rev Minchew’s reasons for leaving St Michael’s were rooted in his doubts about the Anglican faith. “In the Church of England, you don’t know what the Church believes from one synod to the next,” he said. “I think there is great comfort in the Catholic church: you know what you believe and what the Church teaches.”

Read more about this story here:

The Rev Donald Minchew left his Anglican church of nearly two decades to join a Catholic church just up the road in Croydon, south London.

The 63-year-old quit six weeks ago because he disagreed with decisions being made by the Church of England, including the ordination of female priests and bishops.

But after he resigned from St Michael's and All Angels parish following 16 and-a-half-years, 70 of his flock decided to join him in an extraordinary leap of faith.