Former Catholic Priest Dying of AIDS Finds Spiritual Home in Episcopal Parish
Episcopal News Service. December 14, 1994 [94198]
When Charles Scheidt left the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1987, he served as a chaplain for Dignity, the organization for gay and lesbian Catholics, for six years but was left spiritually homeless -- until he found a small Episcopal parish in New York's Greenwich Village.
Last summer Scheidt decided he wanted to be part of a parish again and joined a confirmation class at St. John's in the Village. He said he was drawn to the Episcopal Church because "I found it to be a mid-point in terms of being both Catholic and reformed, both a place where the sacraments are celebrated and reason is not dismissed." He found in St. John's a small but very active parish with loving and caring members. When asked why he left the Catholic church, he said, "I don't think I ever left the church, the church left me." In his new parish, he found a spiritual home and community at last.
As confirmation day neared, it was apparent that Scheidt was too sick to be present. He has been living with AIDS for several years. So Bishop James Ottley, former bishop of Panama who just assumed his post as Anglican observer at the United Nations, went to Bellevue Hospital on December 4 to receive him into the Episcopal Church.
As Ottley, the Rev. Lloyd Prator, rector of St. John's, and parish members gathered at the hospital, it was quite apparent that Scheidt was very weak. Several parishioners had a clear sense that he was really living for the moment because he had looked forward so intensely to the event. Even as the clergy "offered blessings and communion, their words promising eternal life as Mr. Scheidt's sunken eyes and reed-thin frame hinted at imminent death," wrote David Gonzalez in the New York Times. "They had come not to say goodbye, but to welcome him."
"I thought it was an extraordinary and touching moment," said Prator afterwards. "It struck me that what we saw was the church being the church in the best possible way. We were there to help someone take the next step in his spiritual journey and we were ministering to his suffering. We were also engaged in a rich spiritual heritage of the church -- the bishop laying on hands to receive an individual into full communion with this branch of the catholic church."
"Looking into his eyes, you could literally see that he was on the edge of heaven and earth, with one foot in both places," observed one participant, Sister Catherine Grace of the Community of the Holy Spirit in New York.
Cameron Dubes, a member of the confirmation class, added, "Words cannot express my feelings of sacredness of the afternoon. Charles is a symbol to me of forgiveness and reconciliation to God and church by his desire to be accepted into, not only our parish community, but the Anglican Communion. I know how important this moment was to him."
Dubes related an incident during class when he looked across at Scheidt during a discussion of Christ's crucifixion. "Charles had been wasting away physically since I have known him and he was talking about Christ being naked on the cross, exposed to all. In that moment, I saw in Charles, Christ upon the cross. And I related to the path of each and remembered how he and so many of my friends who have died have been crucified by the judgement of others. Yet I knew that my life wouldn't be as full and enriched if it hadn't been for their deaths. They taught me how to live. I still grieve because there have been too many martyrs, too many deaths," he said."
Scheidt died four days after becoming an Episcopalian but he lingered long enough after the confirmation to seek reconciliation with his sister, who came to the hospital after Newsday published a photo of him and Sister Catherine Grace. He was estranged from his family over his sexuality and for leaving the Roman Catholic Church. Some of that estrangement persisted as the family challenged his final wish to have his ashes interred in the columbarium at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
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