Kansas City Group and Priest to Leave Church
Diocesan Press Service. September 8, 1975 [75302]
The Rev. Donald E. Becker, Editor, The Diocesan Bulletin
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Rev. M. Joseph Hirsch, Vicar of Church of the Redeemer, Kansas City, Mo., Diocese of West Missouri, has left the Episcopal Church, taking with him a number of communicants variously reported as 25 to 50 in all.
The move has been rumored for several months. But effective 1 September, it became a reality and it became public as well, being the featured front page story in the Saturday, August 29 Kansas City Star.
Father Hirsch gives four reasons for his decision to leave :
* The Church has refused to speak authoritatively against abortion (he is on the Board of Missouri Citizens for Life);
* The Church has refused to take canonical action to protect its integrity concerning the issue of ordination of women to the priesthood;
* The Church has a permissive attitude towards homosexuality;
* There is a wave of doctrinal heresy about the virgin birth, the Holy Trinity, the Resurrection, and the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.
While these matters strained his relationship with the Church, he states that the final action that led to his break was the decision of Anglican Church of Canada to ordain women to the priesthood. At the time that this was announced by the Canadian Church, Fr. Hirsch declared them no longer in communion with himself and issued a letter to that effect.
"The church now is not able or willing to defend its orthodox catholic tradition. The church no longer speaks with any moral authority. We have always thought of ourselves as a catholic church. But the church has left this," Fr. Hirsch contends.
His plan now is to begin an orthodox church and those coming out of the Episcopal Church with him plan to ask that he be assigned pastor of the newly incorporated St. Theodore of Tarsus Orthodox Church.
The group has petitioned the Orthodox Church in America (Russian Orthodox) for recognition and status as a parish in that communion. It is reported that Fr. Hirsch will be reordained by the Archbishop of North America in September. A tentative date of September 6 was set but may not be kept because of the Archbishop's schedule.
The group have been called by some "rats leaving a sinking ship." But Fr. Hirsch rejoins that statement saying that he sees himself as "pointing the way to save what is good in the Episcopal Church." How this would be done is not clear to the interviewer.
Is there going to be further withdrawal from the Episcopal Church? He replies, "I feel that this will become a movement. By Christmas, 1976, the Episcopal Church will be diminished by 50 percent. Not just by people going to orthodoxy, but just simply by dropping out. "
What, precisely, the action of the Episcopal Bishop of West Missouri, the Rt. Rev. Arthur A. Vogel, will be is not clear as yet. It is assumed that Fr. Hirsch will formally renounce his Episcopal orders and deposition be pronounced, if his ordination by the OCA Archbishop is a re-ordination and not a conditional ordination. M. Joseph Hirsch is married and has two small children. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri -Kansas City, and Nashotah House. He is 31.