Twenty years of Victoria Street Ministry for FATHER ALLEN JONES, by Patrick Jamieson, from Island Catholic News, October 2008

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Ordained in 1990 as a Western Orthodox priest, Father Allen Jones, 43, has actually been involved with his ministry with the poor for twenty years now.  In 1988 he was ordained to the office of deacon and he officially set off on the ministry which consumes his passion for the gospel to this day.

In a recent conversational interview at a downtown coffee shop, Father Allen admitted that most of his ministry is at the diaconal level, that is, [it] comprises simple pastoral-servant presence, attending to the needs of people he has met in the downtown core.  “It’s rare that my actual priesthood is called for, only occasionally,” he stated.

SIMPLE PRESENCE

Simple presence among the poor of society as a Christian witness and helper.  This is the core work accepted by Allen as his central mission in life.  This has meant mixing with many more non-Christians than baptized persons, he says.  He has not felt the need to start a new parish structure.

He feels he is called to accept people where they are situated in their life situations.  His evangelism is by modeling the Christian concern he feels.  His working theology he typifies as “very Orthodox,” that is, presence among the people with a classic Christian tradition of doctrine.  He believes in the tradition that the Christian church should be governed by the  teachings of the first seven ecumenical councils.

For example, in this vein he is neither for nor against the ordination of women, but feels it must be determined by an ecumenical council to be properly accepted and real.  “We must be careful not to work against the Holy Spirit,” he explains, dressed in casual clothing with only a small cross pinned to his shirt pocket to designate his mission and calling.  At the same time he is prepared to work with his friend Jim Lauder who was recently ordained as a Roman Catholic womanpriest.

Western Orthodoxy sets great stock on the seven great ecumenical councils of the whole church.  It accepts the Second Vatican Council as valid but not Vatican I, which was much to narrow and self-serving to be valid, he explans.  This is the view of many progressive theologically-literate Roman Catholics today with whom Father Jones has much in common, including a passion for the social gospel.

As one way of expressing this passion, he has run twice for city council in election and is considering running again this fall although he has suffered a recent bout of ill-health.

SELF EDUCATED

Largely self-educated theologically, as a boy and a young adult he was consumed with study of the Early Church Fathers, church history and the classically defined doctrine.  While others of his age and group were reading comic books, Allen was in the library reading Clement and Origen and Augustine, although he is also a comic book fanatic he admits.  Along with Star Wars movies.

But he did not study in seminary.  Instead he was supervised and guided by his mentors who include men as diverse as Rev. Charles Dorrington of the Reform Episcopal Church of Our Lord and Roman Catholic priest Charles Joerin, who was also a convert to Catholicism like Father Jones.

In his case Allen Jones was raised in the Mormon tradition.  At the age when most Mormon youth go off to do a field mission, he became a Roman Catholic through the influence of the family of his girl friend at the time.  That romantic relationship foundered, largely, he says, because he felt a calling to the priesthood which excluded marriage.

He also suffered from an early childhood trauma which resulted in brain injury.  This hampered his learning process which lead to exclusion from the Roman Catholic priesthood due to his difficulties with schooling processes despite having a superior intelligence.  He went along with his own study process, particularly in theology which was accepted by the independent church movement in which he was ordained.

The independent Catholic movement includes the Catholic Apostolic Church of Canada, the Anglo-Catholic Church as well as the Western Orthodox movement.  Father Jones does not pretend that the rejection by the Roman Catholics did not hurt.  “The biggest hurt was the hypocrisy of attitude toward the wrongdoings of paedophile clergy and at the same time rejection because of my learning disabilities.  I feel they missed out on something there.”

PEOPLE OF GOD

Ordained under the auspices of the Apostolic Catholic Church in Brazil which was founded by Roman Catholic Bishop Charles De Costa, Allen has a strong penchant for the preferential option for the poor.  Asked what he thinks the church should be about today, he does not hesitate to identify the church with the whole people of God.  Mixing as he does with people without distinctions, he has little time for the narrow arbitrary lines drawn by the churches about who is saved and worthy.

In twenty years of ministry he has been asked to officiate at approximately two dozen baptisms and marriages by the people he has met and gotten to know and built trust with.  Now with a teenage daughter, Christina who just graduated from high school in Calgary, he empathizes with the strain of parent-child tensions.  He tries to get the parents to view the problems spiritually.  Take a longer view of the situation.

His typical day varies in content but includes visits to soup kitchens run by the churches.  He himself lives in hard-to house accomodation and benefits from meals provided for the brain injured, a disability which he continues to learn to work with in his day to day context.  He is very conscious of the plight of the low-income [people] from this spiritual perspective which he has cultivated.

His mother Darlene, a chronic diabetic, passed away at age 50.  He lost his sister Alana at age 37.  She had been employed as a nurse’s aide at Mount Saint Mary’s.  Allen expressed pride that some of the Sisters of Saint Anne attended her funeral.

He has suffered his own near-death experience when he recently collapsed on the street from a form of malnutrition.  Allen knows that life is fragile.  One of his life mentors recently died from lung cancer.

Allen Jones has known a level of adversity uncommon for many of us and yet his spirit and commitment to his priesthood is intrepid.  Twenty years is a long time in any field of work.  To have persisited and honed his Christian vision and grown spiritually over two decaes is a fine accomplishment.  When asked about the characteristic of his mentors that helped him carry on he speaks of Father Charles Dorrington who did not pretend to have all the answers and who always offered to pray for him in his struggles.

And he speaks of Father Charles Joerin’s great enthusiasm for the faith and the healing experience of knowing Jesus Christ.  Allen says he most admires these men for their humility and integrity, characteristics which he tries to emulate in his own life as priest.

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The ICN article is accompanied by two black and white photos of Father Allen Jones, and has a small boxed ad with the following information:

Rev. Father Allen Jones

Catholic Apostolic

Street Ministry

Support, Prayer, Listening

(250) 216-0819

Email: father_allen_street_priest@yahoo.ca

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