It was with sorrow that I read Fr. Minister's Viewpoint article [TLC, Dec. 11] titled "Switching to Rome Denies Anglican Orders." Fr. Minister has issued a stern, and in many ways much needed, warning for Anglican clergy contemplating conversion. They should weigh the heavy costs of such an action. However I must take issue with some of the implications of what he has written.

Fr. Minister's description of the clergy who convert to Rome does not respect the personal spiritual suffering converts undergo when abandoning their mother church. Almost all converts to Roman Catholicism I have known have agonized over the decision and have been keenly aware of the pain which their conversion has imposed on others.

To accuse the clergy who convert and accept Roman orders of "craven dishonesty" is to ignore the hours, and perhaps years, of soul searching they have undergone. We may disagree with their choice, but as a church which holds the highest respect for the usefulness of human reason in theology, we should at least respect their decisions.

Fr. Minister's words discuss the issue of conversion to Rome only from the point of view of the ordained clergy; but these people represent only a small percentage of those who convert. Yes, the conversions of the Bishop of Fort Worth and the retired Bishop of London are significant events. They are part of a larger lay movement to Rome of which we need to be aware. Any lay person who converts to Roman Catholicism as an adult is normally reconfirmed in the Roman rite.

Fr. Minister accuses clergy converts of "craven dishonesty" when they accept Roman orders while reserving the belief in their minds that they are already priests. Does he also wish to make the same accusation to the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lay people who have accepted reconfirmation under the Roman rites of reception? Dishonesty is a harsh word to apply to a large number of people who are seeking God's will in their lives. We would do better to ask why people are leaving than only to criticize them for doing so.

I am also distressed to encounter yet another tired denunciation of the Roman Church and its admittedly conservative policies. Anti-Roman prejudice is all too common among many of our clergy, whether liberal, evangelical or Anglo-Catholic. I believe we are required to love those with whom we disagree, even Rome and her converts.

I have heard Episcopal priests and laity single out the Roman Church for the harshest of criticism, while they somehow ignore the conservative attitudes of the See of Constantinople, the Nestorians, the Copts, and others. We are quick to recall the burning of heretics under Bloody Mary, but slow in recollection of the torture and execution of Roman clergy under Elizabeth I. Perhaps this attitude derives from the fact that for many Anglicans, Romanism is not distant from us, but altogether too close for comfort.

In addition, I am uncomfortable with Fr. Minister's blanket denunciation of the Roman policy of reordination. Of course, I agree with his statement that Pope Leo XIII's 1896 bull Apostolicae Curae was "ill conceived and historically vapid." Even if Pope Leo's denunciation of Anglican orders were correct at that time, which it was not, the subsequent conjoint ordinations of our bishops by both Anglican and Old Catholic bishops renders Rome's opinion utterly untenable today.

Rome's overstated obsession with this point is a lamentable ecumenical obstacle. However, Fr. Minister's comment that "Apostolicae Curae has not been repealed, nor will it be" predicates a degree of clairvoyance on his part which I personally do not possess.

We need to view Rome's position on the seriousness of unquestioned validity of ordination with respect. From the point of view of that church, it is essential there be no question that a priest is ordained in the apostolic succession.

Rome's policy on reordination is there in part to protect the scruples of the laity and clergy who want to be reassured that their priests possess an ordination which is unquestionably valid. Such a reverence for the sacraments has a commendable side.

And before we criticize Rome's obsession with unquestioned validity of clergy, we should remember there are many bishops and priests in the Episcopal Church who have not been slow to cater to the sensitive consciences of our own people who are uncomfortable about the validity of certain Episcopal priests, i.e. the female ones.

I affirm the appropriateness of the ordination of women; at the same time, I and many other priests respect our colleagues who do not. If Episcopal bishops and priests are willing to provide the ministrations of an all-male priesthood to people of tender consciences, then we should not criticize Rome for being equally obsessive in its mode of designation of ministers.

Furthermore, it is hypocritical for Episcopalians to condemn the Roman reordination of clergy when we practice it ourselves. While Episcopal bishops do not require "reordination" of Greek Orthodox or Roman Catholic priests who convert to our rite, they do require converted protestant ministers to be reordained to the Episcopal ministry.

Fr. Minister writes that "Any Anglican priest going to Rome acknowledges that his whole pre-Roman life as a priest was a fraud." Does Fr. Minister also believe that a Baptist clergyman who converts to Anglicanism and is ordained as a priest is thereby acknowledging his previous ministerial status to be fraudulent and entirely invalid?

Yes, I know there is a sacramental difference between a protestant minister and an Anglican priest ordained by a bishop in the apostolic succession. Yet we do not and should not declare the converted minister's previous clerical status to be completely invalid even if it was not fully sacramental in character.

Finally, I must express discomfort with the accusation that the priests and bishops who convert are automatically denying that they were ever ordained. The 1973 Roman Rite of Reception of Baptized Christians into Full Communion With the Catholic Church requires only a profession of faith. The instructions to that rite explicitly forbid an "abjuration of heresy" and triumphalism of any kind. Nowhere is the convert expected or implied to accept a belief in every word of all of the papal decrees ever issued.

Over the centuries, popes have not only denounced Anglican orders, but also membership in labor unions, the theory of evolution, and biblical criticism, all of which are commonly held beliefs of lay and ordained Roman Catholics today.

Fr. Minister also states it is "morally, intellectually, philosophically and theologically" dishonest for a converted priest to accept Roman orders while believing he still holds previously given catholic ones. But is the non-repeatability of the sacrament of orders really as absurd as it sounds?

Couples who have been faithfully married for years repeat their wedding vows as a confirmation of the oaths which sacramentally bound them to one another. Holy unction, once reserved for a once-only "last rites," is now widely used again and again for the same person in healing services. Holy Communion is given again and again without denying the validity of all of one's previous communions. Perhaps it is possible that the reimposition of sacramental grace in holy orders is not always out of line when persons change their ministry in a significant way.

According to the Catechism of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the ministry of a bishop is among other things to be a "chief priest and pastor" (p. 855). If, when an Episcopal bishop is consecrated, he receives the charism to be a "chief priest," does that rite of consecration imply that his (or her) previous ordination to the priesthood or diaconate was meaningless?

I speak only for myself, but if a series of re-ordination ceremonies as a Roman or Orthodox priest, or a Lutheran, Baptist or Presbyterian minister, was all that stood in the way of corporate reunion of the church catholic, then I would embrace those reordinations with all my heart. If this is a "humiliation" of my Anglican past, then reordination would be an appropriate penance for our 400-year-old sin of taking ourselves so seriously that we have tolerated the division of what the Nicene Creed calls the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I would not enjoy such a set of laying on of hands ceremonies, to be sure; I am sinfully proud to be a Episcopal priest. But I would be glad to undergo the required cranial manhandling in order to restore the unity of churches.

The greatness of the Anglican Communion has always been its ability to celebrate the catholic sacraments among people of widely divergent religious views with charity, respect and tolerance. That same degree of love must be extended to our sisters and brothers whose honestly held opinions compel them to part from us across the deep waters of the Tiber.