ARTICLES

We've Got All These Children --
What Are We Going to Do?

STOCKTON PRIEST BRINGS HIS FAMILY TO CHURCH

By Alvaro Delgado

Randy Rainwater was driving a camper through Canada on a family vacation, struggling with the question of the Roman Catholic Church's authority. Rainwater was an Episcopalian priest making his way to the bosom of the Catholic Church. He agreed with nearly all of the Catholic Church's teachings, but one stumbling block remained: the Church's belief in the pope as the ultimate authority. It made sense that the pope's authority extended over the universal Church, but Rainwater harbored doubts. He told God he wanted to believe; he chose to believe. It was prayer resembling the Gospel prayer, "Lord help me in my unbelief."

"At that moment, all doubts left miraculously," recalls Rainwater, "I (believed) Jesus Christ had established one physical church on earth."

Nine years later, Rainwater describes the prayer as a breakthrough moment, a humble leap of faith, in his conversion to Catholicism and his subsequent ordination as a priest in the Catholic Church in the diocese of Stockton. He became Catholic in 1993 and was ordained a Catholic priest in November 1996. A married man, Rainwater, 44, is not unique among the ranks of former Episcopalian priests who, dissatisfied with their denomination's drift into liberal waters, have been accepted as priests in the Catholic Church. But Rainwater and his wife, Suzy, are the parents of six children, and their journey home to the Catholic Church required sacrifices. Suzy Rainwater, whose sixth child was born two days after the ordination, recalls the anguish. "We've got these children and what are we going to do? All I could think of is: how are we going to survive?"

The former pastor had no assurance he'd be ordained a priest in the Catholic Church. Forced to sell their house, the family didn't know where they would live. In an autobiographical sketch accompanying his petition for priesthood in the Catholic Church, Rainwater wrote: "Even if I can never fulfill what I believe to be God's call upon my life to serve as a priest in his Church, the price I will have paid in what I have given up is insignificant compared to the value of the pearl which I now possess."

Rainwater became dismayed with what he termed the "politicized" and "secular" acceptance by elements within the Episcopal Church of women's ordination, homosexuality, and the "pro-choice" position on abortion. He began to question his future in the Episcopal Church when a retired bishop, formerly a missionary in South Africa, wondered aloud how a young family could bring children up in today's Episcopal Church. With his children involved in summer camp and other Episcopalian activities, Rainwater envisioned the day they'd label him "old-fashioned" because he didn't embrace the more liberal stances adopted by the church. Without a central authority, Rainwater saw the Episcopal Church falling apart in disputes over morality and doctrine. For example, Bishop Spong of Newark, New Jersey, wrote books claiming Mary was not a virgin and that St. Paul was a closet homosexual. Yet the Bishop of Canterbury lacked jurisdictional authority to censure Spong or any other bishop promoting heresy. In England, women were being ordained priests, and the homosexual issue was sowing deep divisions. The stances taken by Episcopal Church authorities jeopardized relations with the Catholic Church and made a reunion nearly impossible.

Rainwater explored the possibility of joining the Orthodox Church, which, like the Anglican Communion, comprises a confederation of local churches united as one body. The idea sounds great in theory but is unworkable in practice, he said.

A theory in Episcopalian circles is that the "holy, catholic and apostolic church" contains three branches: the Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and the Anglican Communion. Under this theory, King Henry VIII, in demanding approval from Catholic authorities for a divorce in the 16th century, had not created a new church but liberated the Catholic Church in England from Roman domination, said Rainwater. The Episcopal Church relies not merely on the Bible for doctrinal and spiritual direction but on the church's interpretation of the Bible. So Rainwater faced the dilemma of deciding which of the supposed three branches of the universal church had final authority over interpretation of the Scriptures.

Rainwater saw a pattern for the Petrine office in the Old Testament's description of a loose confederation of 12 tribes united, over time, under the central authority of first, King Saul, and later, king David. "The Petrine office grew. So you see a development of the Church, just as you see it in the Old Testament with the 12 tribes," said Rainwater. He came to see the Catholic Church as a communion of believers united under the successor to Peter, who holds ultimate authority over the universal church. With the pope as the earthly head of the Church, only the Catholic Church demonstrated the all-important visible unity for which Jesus prayed in the Gospel of John. "I came to see that the pope is the final authority God has designated to hold the unity of the Church together," he said. Before becoming Catholic, Rainwater was already in harmony with many Catholic beliefs as a member of an Anglo-Catholic group that looks to Rome for guidance on matters of faith. He honored the Assumption of Mary and had installed stations of the cross at St. John's Episcopal Church in Stockton, where he was pastor.

Convinced of the truths of Catholicism, Rainwater began the process of becoming Catholic and inquiring whether he could be ordained a Catholic priest. It would take him three years to become a Catholic from the time he decided to convert and six years to be ordained a priest. "After waiting three years to be Catholic, I was elated to be Catholic," he said. While still an Episcopalian minister, he sent out 100 resumes for teaching positions in a year and received no response. "I wasn't qualified to be anything other than an Episcopalian priest," he said. He decided to sell his house in 1993 and quit as an Episcopalian priest in July of that year. He finally landed a job as a technical writer for an industrial plant in Stockton, earning $1,200 a month to support his wife and five children during an 18-month period. He boosted his pay with overtime work on the weekends and his wife took a nighttime job at an ice cream parlor. The family moved in with Suzy's parents for a summer and the kids slept in a backyard tent.

Rainwater's parents could not believe their son would leave the Episcopal Church for good. Both Randy and Suzy Rainwater had been born, baptized, confirmed, and raised in the Episcopal Church. The cathedral choir had performed at their wedding, which was witnessed by 700 people. "It's a phase and he'll get over it. This will be a terrible decision on your part," he remembers his parents saying. "Suzy was supposed to talk me out of it." He became a Catholic without knowing whether he would be accepted into the priesthood and received approval from Rome to be a non-celibate priest on the day he finished a novena begging for an answer. (Because priestly celibacy is a discipline and not a doctrine, the Church is free to grant special dispensations for former Episcopalian priests who are married.) "I kept saying to God: 'Please don't let me die before I become Catholic,'" said Rainwater. "I wasn't becoming Catholic for any benefit other than being in Jesus' true Church. Becoming a priest is like icing on the cake."

The hard times helped Rainwater and his family appreciate the Catholic faith in a way cradle Catholics never dream of. He laments the disobedience by most Catholics of the Church's ban on artificial birth control. "When I see Catholics who have everything handed to them on a silver platter and don't take the Church's teaching seriously, it's very sad," he said. As the father of six children, Rainwater has a unique platform from which to preach obedience to the Church's teachings on birth control. "None of our children has been planned. We've never thought we were ready for children," he said. "What society does to us Catholics (is) ridiculous. I say to them, 'what's wrong with having a big family?' The Church must teach that children are a blessing and not a curse, a sacrificial means to holiness along the way of the cross," he said. Often, we focus attention on the do-nots. What happens is that creates minimalist Catholics," said Rainwater. "We need to talk about Jesus, about perfection and His highest expectations for us. All baptized Christians, their call is to holiness."

Rainwater is a Catholic chaplain at the Northern California Women's Facility in Stockton, a prison for 700-800 women. The position is in accordance with Vatican guidelines recommending that married priests work in institutional settings such as hospitals, schools, and prisons. The job includes little administrative work and affords him two days off each week. Rainwater considers it ideal because he's able to balance his ministry with attention to his family. "It's all devotional and prayer. It's the life of the Church I get to do all the time for the women," he said. Catholic parishioners are surprised to see a married priest with children when he celebrates Mass at diocesan churches.

"They look a little funny when the kids run out and say, 'Hi dad,'" said Suzy Rainwater. Pregnant with the youngest child when she read one of the readings at her husband's ordination, Suzy gave birth two days after the event. "He's our cradle Catholic baby," she said.