Rector's Note: Early Thanksgiving - 11.06.25

The call came out of the blue a few weeks ago.

“St. Peter’s Church, this is Rev. Barb, how may I help you?”

“Oh wonderful! This is Moni McIntyre…”

The Rev. Dr. Moni McIntyre! A voice from nearly two decades ago laughed into the phone. She had been poking around on the internet and saw my name and position and decided on a whim to call. She didn’t expect me to answer the phone.

And I didn’t expect to hear from one of the people who were key to my becoming a priest, 18 years after our first conversation.

The day I decided to make decisive moves toward leaving the Catholic Church to pursue priesthood, I realized I needed advice from someone who had been there. That night I got online and googled “long-time catholic women who left the church to become priests.” 

The Rev. Moni McIntyre was the name that popped up.

A sister of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), she had been teaching theology at Duquesne University when she experienced her call to the priesthood, discerned as she attended Episcopal services at a nearby community. She was ordained an Episcopal Priest in 2000, then served the Church of the Holy Cross in Homewood, the only African-American church in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.

On that day, I emailed Moni to set up a time to visit her in Pittsburgh and talk. I still cherish the advice she gave me on that visit.  At the time I was worried about what I could retain of my Catholicism and my years of ministry, and what I might have to leave behind in a new tradition. I will never forget her answer.

“Barbara,” she said. “The Episcopal Church is a bridge between the catholic tradition and the reformed tradition. What is under a bridge?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing is under a bridge – bring everything --  your books, your understanding, everything.”

She was not saying that the Episcopal tradition didn’t have a deep theology,  or its own great writers and thinkers. But she did help me understand that huge pieces of Catholic tradition and sensibility were already holding up that bridge. Rather than being the fulcrum between two traditions, the middle way of the Episcopal Church was long and wide and could accommodate many. Even me, and my call to the priesthood.

She helped me step onto that bridge and find my place on it.

I recounted that story to her as we talked a few weeks ago. I thanked her. I caught her up on my walk to the priesthood, and my five years of ordination. We talked about the normal stuff that priests commiserate about –  the deep faith of our senior members, their wisdom and tenacity. Our hope for youth and young families to find their way to us again. Our joy at every new member who wanders in and wants to be received or confirmed.

Moni is retired now and serves as interim pastor of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church outside of Pittsburgh. What a joy to catch up so unexpectedly on a fall afternoon.

We’re not always given a chance to thank the people that are there at essential turns in our life of faith. This seemed like a teeny tiny miracle at a time when I needed it. A little bit of thanksgiving, a month in advance.