Gavin Ashendon - Chooses the Public Square Over Priesthood

Gavin Ashenden who was received into the Catholic Church in 2017 in 2019 has explained in Christian Today his reasons for withdrawing from ordination as a Catholic priest. 

Instead he believes he has a prophetic obligation to continue speaking out to defend orthodox Christianity.

"When I became a Roman Catholic (which I did because I came to believe that what it taught about itself was true, and because Protestantism was slipping away from its capacity to read Scripture honestly), so many people turned to that old proverb “Be careful you don’t jump from the frying pan into the fire."

However:  

"The Roman Catholic Church has suffered the same propagandisation of their people as the Protestants have. Secularism, relativism, and the progressive collectivist politics from the Left have swept through the education system and the media, producing great pressure to change Christianity into the image of a form of cultural Marxism. 

"It’s everywhere. It affects whole swathes of Catholic bishops just as much as laity. Maybe more! But there are good reasons for thinking (though this is not usually acknowledged or seen by Protestants) that protected by the Magisterium (the collective assessment of the work of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus to protect and lead the Church over the years) the Catholic Church has the resources to see off this explosive cultural and philosophical revolution."

But it would seem he believes these forces are stronger than the promise of Christ and the Holy Spirit:

"But the balance of things changed when Pope Francis appeared. Where the rubber hits the road here, is in the account of how the Catholic Church’s invitation to ordain me to the Catholic priesthood got caught up by a change of political weather. But this is not about me. It affects all of us. It is a theological or spiritual weather event. What happened to me is simply a small window and is happening everywhere.

"Having changed my mind from being deeply sympathetic to same-sex attracted minorities, I saw them instead as fronting an assault on the Christian conscience. The minorities were soon to be reversed. Now it is Christians, not gays, who are persecuted for believing that heterosexual marriage is the glue that God intended to hold our communities together. A movement that pretended equality had ambitions to destroy Christian sexual and social ethics. And my place in the body of Christ?

To my surprise I began to be given a voice and a platform in the public square to represent orthodox Christianity.

"I had hoped that this role in the body of Christ might be congruent with what I thought was a vocation to be a Catholic priest ... The Church in our day was surrounded by a deep, corrosive and dangerous intellectual and moral heresy, which I thought I understood and knew needed public repudiation. And the public platforms that were being given to me day after day allowed me to do just that."

 But:

"{W)ho knew that Bergoglio’s election would precipitate a crisis in the Catholic Church between traditionalists and progressives that I too would get caught up in?

"Pope Francis has a thing about stuffy traditionalists. I’ve met my fair share of condescending, superior, clergy who make you feel less than you are. I can sympathise. But rightly or wrongly he has turned his dislike of them into a papal crusade against all traditionalists. But it is the traditionalists who are holding the Church to its timeless values, faithful to the Gospel and tradition. And so the dominoes fall. It’s bad enough when Christians are cancelled in the public square, but much worse when they are silenced by the Church."

Define "Traditionalist". Pope Francis' strategy for leading the Church was clearly stated as early as 2013:

"But I also make waves. I think they are waves that serve Jesus and the Gospel well, but they are waves. So I was alarmed when I was told that to move forward to be re-trained would require being silenced. “It would never be prudent to permit our seminarians to assume such a high-profile media role when they are discerning a move towards ordination."

 Was this really an unreasonable request?

"There are two ways of seeing a platform in the public square. One is an opportunity to speak for Christ; the other, a distraction and a cause of controversy and turbulence. A large domino fell across my way. Had God given me the voice, the influence and the platform only to close it down? We don’t have enough priests. But perhaps we have fewer prophetic voices saying 'thus saith the Lord'.

"It’s not clear yet how the struggle in Catholicism is going to pan out. The progressives are trying to use a clumsily engineered consultation process called the Synodal Way to spearhead the cause of feminists and gay activists, in their campaign to take over both Church and world and make the Church give up revelation and heaven and reflect secularism and utopia instead."

But it is clear Gavin. You alluded to it as your reason for joining the Catholic Church - the Church's divine teaching authority and the protection of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus to  the Church. 

"Pope Francis, always enigmatic, is keeping us all guessing about where the Vatican and papacy is going to put its weight. Probably more important is what happens when the 266th successor of St Peter gives way to the 267th.

"Whatever the dominoes do, I think it best to continue to keep faith with what God has given me to do. And try to follow the example of St Paul and St Athanasius, to keep, protect and share the faith, in the public square, until I am silenced by the state, rather than by the Church."

That's fair enough - follow where the Spirit leads - but please don't join the chorus of dissent coming from the likes of 'Mundabor', 'Church Militant' and 'Life Site'. 

Are the accusations of papal critics rooted in a fear that Christ’s promises for the Church are untrue? Do you trust in the divine assistance promised to the Church in the ministry of the pope and bishops? The Church teaches that the Magisterium is a backstop against doctrinal error and heresy. Have faith in the Holy Spirit’s protection of the deposit of faith and confidence that erroneous ideas from the modernist-progressives will be rejected.

Addendum

Pope Francis in 2013, six months into his papacy stated his vision for the Church

"A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.

“This is also the great benefit of confession as a sacrament: evaluating case by case and discerning what is the best thing to do for a person who seeks God and grace. The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better. I also consider the situation of a woman with a failed marriage in her past and who also had an abortion. Then this woman remarries, and she is now happy and has five children. That abortion in her past weighs heavily on her conscience and she sincerely regrets it. She would like to move forward in her Christian life. What is the confessor to do?

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.

“I say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our preaching. A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation. Then you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the pastor’s proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach must recognize the heart of their community and must be able to see where the desire for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ."