Franklin is a town in Robertson County, TX. The population was 1,564 at the 2010 census – up slightly from when David Bristow was a boy there. It is the county seat and is close to Bryan-College Station. It was home to a Catholic Church at the turn of the 20th century that was destroyed 100 years ago by a windstorm in 1913. Franklin was without a Catholic Church again until 1997.

Fr. David Bristow is a dapper, silver-haired, erudite and engaging man, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in Ft. Worth. His roots as a native Texan are evident by the silver cuff links in the familiar shape of a Lone Star he wore when we met. His path to the priesthood was a long one having been raised Anglican in his little hometown of Franklin. He started down that path at 11 years old when he borrowed a copy of the best-selling The Cardinal by Henry Morton Robinson from the Carnegie Library. That work of fiction also contained a lengthy statement of theology. He started reading Catholic books voraciously and continued to do so throughout his youth and to this day. All the while, he was a pious young man and a dedicated young Episcopalian. 

Meanwhile, his attraction to the Catholic faith and fascination with everything about our faith led him to talk to his pastor about it. His Anglican pastor understood and recommended awaiting Anglican reunion with the Catholic Church which was hoped for, but never happened and, in fact, became impossible. He went on to become a minister of the Anglican Church. According to Fr. David, the intense interest in our faith was shared by others and certainly not limited to him at that time. He recounts that when the new Catechism of the Catholic Church was published in the early 1990’s, the first three customers to purchase it in his local bookstore were Anglican ministers – he and two others. The Anglican Church has no analog to the Catholic Catechism but does have the beautiful and history-rich Book of Common Prayer which is predecessor to its Catholic adaptation, the Book of Divine Worship.

Father David prayed during that time for the Anglican Church to take the Catechism of the Catholic Church seriously. Reunion of the faiths came close, says Fr. David, but changes internal to the Anglican Church closed the door on that possibility. Fr. David and many other Episcopalians grew disheartened, struggled and prayed for God’s guidance what to do. After much prayer, perhaps a little spiritual anguish and heartfelt dialogue with his wife, Janice, he and she, guided by the Holy Spirit, decided together to say, “Goodbye” to the faith of their upbringing, (including, of course, Fr. David’s duties and title as an Episcopal minister) to embrace the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

With his conversion and entry into the faith, Fr. David was called once again to ministry, to become a Catholic priest. So the task of compiling Fr. David’s dossier for the Pastoral Provision came to be. The Pastoral Provision is a service rendered to the bishops of the United States by which former Episcopal ministers who have been accepted as candidates for priestly ordination receive theological, spiritual, and pastoral preparation for ministry in the Catholic Church. It is to prepare former Episcopal priests for service in Catholic Dioceses of the United States. Fr. David has been a Catholic priest for fifteen years.

Since 1983 more than 100 men like Fr. David have been ordained for priestly ministry in Catholic dioceses of the United States; three personal parishes have been established and the Book of Divine Worship has been authorized. Along with the ordination of married former Episcopal priests, the Pastoral Provision of 1980 permitted the establishment of Anglican Use parishes in the United States and created a special missal using liturgical elements from the Anglican tradition. (Cf. Pope Paul VI, Sacerdotalis caelibatus, no. 42.) This special liturgy was subsequently approved in 1983 by the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Committee for the Liturgy of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. In 2003 it was published in book form as the Book of Divine Worship. St. Mary of the Assumption Church does not use that book, but its existence is a measure of the outstretched hand of welcome to former Episcopalians.

Fr. David has a special place in his heart for two figures who were key in the presentation and review of his dossier for the Pastoral Provision: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Karol Józef Cardinal Wojtyła who became, of course, Pope Benedict XVI and Blessed John Paul II.

Janice and David Bristow have been married for 47 years.

About St. Mary’s: Saint Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church, is located in the historic Southside of Fort Worth. Founded in 1909, St. Mary of the Assumption was the third Catholic Church to be established in the City of Fort Worth; it is the “mother church” of all the other parishes south and west in the city. The church building has been designated a Texas Historic Landmark and is registered with the National Register of Historic Places.

This Week’s Evangelization Challenge

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