RIP Fr. Bell

I discovered yesterday, that a beloved Anglican/Episcopal priest we knew years ago, has gone to the Lord. In Western Orthodoxy: Fr. Antony Bell, RIP, I learned that Fr. Carl Bell had indeed converted to Orthodoxy, taken the name Antony, and died this past summer of cancer.

Decades ago, I was away from the (Catholic) Church when friends invited dh and I to go to their Episcopal Church. Fr. Bell taught us (and re-taught me) more about the richness of my (Catholic) faith than I had learned or experienced in the decades coming out of Vatican II. After he left that parish, I had a feeling he would convert, probably to Orthodoxy, but we lost touch with him. I have been feeling sad to learn that he died in June of cancer before we had been able to track him down again. I feel like he was instrumental in my return to the Catholic Church in the days before I discovered (through the internet) that there were Catholics out there who remembered and practiced some of the spirituality that I thought had disapeared after Vatican II.

May God rest his soul and comfort his family.