The Very Reverend Doctor Stephen Hill (or Father Stephen) was an ordained Anglican priest by the time he was finishing up his studies at CDU (now Catholic International University), he now serves as the Vicar General of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Sydney, Australia. The story of how he became an Anglican priest, and eventually was ordained into the Roman Catholic Ordinariate is absolutely inspiring. At Catholic International University, we are honored to be part of his amazing story:
The flexibility that CDU (now Catholic International) offered and being able to do it at my own pace was really really appealing to me. Once I had done a couple of units I realized that this was a no brainer and I have to enroll in the MA in Theology program.
This was all going on in a process of discerning. I was ordained an Anglican priest as I was finishing my degree at CDU. The Anglican Church was happy to ordain me as long as I finished my work at CDU. I completed my dissertation at CDU on Catholic Human Anthropology: what it means to be a human being and finding the fullness of our humanity at CDU.
Around this time, Pope Benedict put out a statement about bringing Anglican pastors as pastors in the Catholic Church. The day before I got on the plane to fly to the gala for CDU, I got a letter from the Catholic Church that said I could be a candidate for holy orders in the Catholic Church.
The notion of faith journey is very important. One’s faith journey might be defined as leaving something, mine was defined as finding something more. Every step in my faith journey from leaving one step and joining another happened as a result of finding a fullness that was in one place and not another.
