Remembering Father James Parker

If one listens to the recordings of the 1977 Congress of St. Louis, that gathering of concerned more than 2000 Canadian Anglicans and American Episcopalians concerned about the direction of their Church that saw the birth of the Continuing Anglican movement, one will hear Father James Parker, then-Rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Albany, Georgia, offer a prayer and then the following observation: 

We live, as  we all are aware, in a tragic moment in the life and the history of the Episcopal Church. I've always felt that we ought to look for some good even in the greatest difficulties, and I have to say that coming from Georgia as I do...  the kind of encouragement and consolation I find is the realization that a lot of you are beginning to learn what the word "secession" means.

For those who knew him, the remark was classic Parker, both in its appreciation for the South and for its quick wit.

Born Luther Wood Parker, Jr., in Charleston in 1930, he was graduated from Porter Military Academy, the University of South Carolina (A.B.), Virginia Theological Seminary (M.Div), and Rosary College (M.A.L.S.), he married a lovely lady named Mary Alma Cole who bore him two daughters and served tirelessly alongside him. After his ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of South Carolina on 25  July 2957, the Feast of St. James, he adopted the name of his patron -- James -- and served parishes in South Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, and Georgia and also served as a librarian in Tennessee. Of Anglo-Catholic convictions and High Church inclination, he was made Master of the Province of the Americas of the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) in 1977. 

All of the preceeding would've constituted a distinguished career for an Episcopal priest of his day but, as he noted in his St. Louis remarks, the era around the 1970s were turbulent times in the history of the Episcopal Church (something that has not changed). Clergy and laity who found that they could no longer in good conscience remain in the old church went a number of places. Some went to the Continuing Church that came out of the St. Louis Congress and then sadly fragmented, a few into the Reformed Episcopal Church, which had departed in 1873, others left Anglicanism or the church altogether. Through the years there had been Anglicans who "swam the Tiber" and became Roman Catholic, most notably among them John Henry Newman in 1845 but Newman, who reentered Holy Orders, wasn't married and clerical celibacy had meant that those married Anglican clergy wishing to go to Rome would do so as laymen. Until, as it were, Father James Parker.

Shortly after the St. Louis Congress Father Parker, who remained in the Episcopal Church, inquired of the Holy See whether or not he and other married priest might be able to be ordained as Roman Catholic priests. After a lapse of two papacies in 1978 following the death of Pope Paul VI and the 33 day reign of Pope John Paul I, approval came from Pope John Paul II. Father Parker resigned from St. Mark's Church and the Episcopal ministry in 1981 and was, with his beloved Mary Alma at his side, ordained a Roman Catholic priest on 29 June 1982, the first married western rite priest in nearly 1000 years. Father Parker was in his early 50s at the time and he continued in active ministry, serving as Pastor of several congregations, most notably Holy Spirit Church on John's Island, South Carolina, where he led a substantial building campaign. He and Mary Alma also served as mentors to clergy and their wives who were serving under Pastoral Provision.

I first met Father Parker in the mid-2000s, although I really can't remember where. We shared a love of our heritage and it may well have been at a meeting of one of the heritage societies to which we jointly belonged. Despite the fact that I am happily and committedly an Anglican, in the words of Bishop Cosin "Protestant and Reformed according to the principles of the ancient Catholic Church," Father Parker and I struck up a friendship through which I was blessed and I hope that he was as well.

Because much of my ministry has taken place in the context of hospice chaplaincy, he was a useful contact. One patient's daughter, sure that her mother would want her funeral mass said "the old fashioned way" asked me if I could call Father Parker to see if he could say it; I laughed and told her that I would because, "If you want a Roman Catholic mass said the old fashioned way, get a guy who used to be an Episcopal priest" -- the lady, who remains a friend, saw the irony (unfortunately trouble with his knees prevented him from fulfilling the request). On another occasion, I called upon him when a Roman Catholic patient who was near death and needed sacramental ministry that I, as an Anglican, couldn't provide; he was very helpful. 

I saw him at Mary Alma's funeral and it was clear that the loss of his longtime wife and helpmeet had taken its toll on him. Learning of his death yesterday was bittersweet; I will mourn his passing but give thanks that I had the privilege of counting him a friend and, most of all, that he rests in the Lord. 

On the GOP, Third Parties, and "Throwing Your Vote Away"

A couple of years before I was born my late-mother had the honor of introducing a visiting politician at the annual (and unfortunately named) Lincoln Day Dinner in Buncombe County, North Carolina. My parents got the visitor to sign the program from that event and it remains one of my father's prized possessions. The name of that visitor? Governor Ronald Reagan. I grew up in a Republican household and later had a couple of AUH20 bumper stickers passed down to me when my dad discovered them going through some old things. I cut my political teeth campaigning for that Governor's reelection as President when I was in eighth grade and I served as a delegate to county and district Republican conventions before I'd graduated from high school. With greater or lesser intensity I remained involved in Republican politics until my early forties save for a brief hiatus among the Constitution Party of South Carolina  in the late 1990s. While not considering myself a Republican since 2013, I continue to vote in Republican primaries and primarily but not exclusively support Republican candidates for office. This year, however, I will not be supporting the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump and plan instead to cast my vote for Darrell Castle, the nominee of the Constitution Party.

I have been told by a number of people that in so doing I am "throwing my vote away'" and that I'm "just helping Hillary Clinton." I'd argue that I'm doing neither but that even if I was that it is my right to do so, especially as a veteran who swore to lay down my life for the Constitution if need be (I note that because I have come under the harshest criticism from those who have never done so [those who have worn the uniform seem more tolerant regardless of what their own opinions may be]). In addition, I'd also ask my faithful Republican friends to consider the following historical example. My late grandfather, W.A.Collins, was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1900. After attending Davidson College and the University of Virginia he followed in his father's footsteps and opened a department store in the 1920s that later grew into a chain. Like almost all Southern whites at the time he voted Democrat and he did so in 1932 for one Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As a businessman he recognized the New Deal for the creeping socialism that is was and that caused him concern, so much so that the ballot in 1932 was the last one that he cast for a Democrat on the national level. With the possible exception of 1948, when he may have voted for States Rights Democrat Strom Thurmond (who was a friend of his whom he'd flown in his airplane to campaign events on occasion) he voted Republican at the national level until his death in 1982 (I'm sure he also voted Democrat at the state and local level for a good deal of that time as that was the only way to have a say in those elections for much of his life). He didn't get to see a Republican Presidential win in South Carolina until Barry Goldwater carried the state while loosing the national election in 1964. Four years later he got to see Richard Nixon not only carry the Palmetto State but also win the White House and just shortly before his death. he lived to see Ronald Reagan win South Carolina and the Presidency.

To those who would accuse me of throwing away my vote, I would point to Granddad's example -- he cast loosing ballots in his state for nearly thirty years before seeing a Republican carry South Carolina and it was some 32 years before he got to elect a winning elector in a national race. These days Republicans point to folks like him as pioneers and trailblazers. While I hope that the Republican Party returns to sanity in four years it may just be that I have to wait as long as he did to see my dissent bear fruit -- I'll be in my early 80s by then and am willing to wait if I have to. In the meantime I will be able to face my God and myself in the mirror with a clean conscience.