But again I’m going to have to be contrarian. This is a good reason to enter into serious discernment, but not a good enough reason to categorically deny ordination to people who feel a pull to both groups. If someone loves and understands both groups, and is willing to serve as an ISM minister without worry about how the other group will react to that service when/if they ever return, I still think both traditions can be respected.

The Eucharist is a bit thorny, at least in the case of canonical Orthodoxy or Rome, since they (theoretically) close off their table. But there are a variety of ways I think communing at both tables can be done with some personal integrity. In fact, as I’ve posted before, that can be positive for all of us, since the Eucharist effects unity not only in the obvious, visual way but in a mystical way as well.

I guess what I’m trying to get across is that I know some wonderful priests who, if a tectonic shift occurred in Rome might consider going back. They’re good priests for the ISM, they don’t shy away from doing things because they’re afraid what Rome might think, and they do love us and don’t see us as a defective alternative to Rome. But they love the Roman Church, too, and feel their call might be there if Rome would just accept that. I’m suspicious of any theory that says, no, in fact they’re not good enough priests that we should have ordained them. There are realities here that I don’t think can be accepted without stretching any general theory rejecting half-in/half-out folks totally out of shape with exceptions. Instead, it’s worth saying that such cases need to be carefully discerned.