Prominent conservative YouTuber, the Presbyterial Church USA (PCUSA) supporter known as RedeemedZoomer, an institutionalist who argues that schism is sin and that all must therefore convert to mainline protestantism in order to save it, regardless of how woke the Church is, signed a shocking deal with the Catholic Church in a meeting with Pope Leo XIV today where he announced that he will be the ‘First Elder’ of a newly founded “Presbyterian Ordinariate”, that will see faithful Presbyterians like him be able to retain some of what is true and right in their own traditions while entering into full communion with Rome.
Though he has long been opposed to becoming Catholic, believing that issues in Protestantism were caused merely by the fact that “real Protestantism has never been tried,” RedeemedZoomer finally made the jump when he realized that the only way to truly save his beloved PCUSA would be by becoming Catholic first, infiltrating the Church to get a hold of its revenue streams—and its faithful, use these to buy out and fill up PCUSA churches, and then slowly but surely move assets over to the PCUSA column until “the Church” becomes, in an instituonal sense, the PCUSA, while maintaining newfound communion with Rome and greater scale as well as union, he argues, by the associative property of mathematics, with “all the other historic Protestant denominations.”
Catholics have long courted (and threatened) RedeemedZoomer, but it was not until Christian B. Wagner of Scholastic Answers arranged for a preliminary meeting between Zoomer and Pope Leo XIV last week that the first draft of a deal could be struck by way of the creation of a “Presbyterian Ordinariate” much like the “Anglican Ordinariate” founded to reconcile Anglicans to Catholicism, but this time seeking to return Calvinists to Rome.
Of course, given their far more divergent theological views and practices than the Anglicans, the “Presbyterian Ordinariate” seemed like an impractical stretch when Pope Leo XIV first proposed the Presbyterian Ordinariate of Blessed Duns Scotus during his first negotiating session with RedeemedZoomer. At first, Zoomer laughed, threw up some objections about the idea of schisming from the PCUSA, whether this would be starting a new denomination, “What Would John Calvin Say?”, contradictory infallible statements, superlapsarianism, postmillennialism, and more.
But when he discovered that PCUSA bylaws allow for complete apostasy (but don’t force it on conservatives, as he corrected the papal aide), RedeemedZoomer realized that he could turn his Presbyterians for the Kingdom organization into the Presbyterian Ordinariate of Blessed Duns Scotus and technically run the new ordinariate within the Catholic Church AND simultaneously an organization within the PCUSA without leaving it, one major objection fell entirely away.
Christian B. Wagner had to debate Zoomer about his objections to Catholicism in front of the Pope for 26 and a half hours staight, but Zoomer finally gave in, agreeing to be the founding “first elder” (bishop) of the Presbyterian Ordinariate of Blessed Duns Scotus which would personally oversee the Presbyterians for the Kingdom congregations over which he as influence enter the Catholic Church under a new Presbyterian Use of the Roman Rite featuring small tweaks to conform it to Catholic theology, but a generally greater focus on preaching, Divine sovereignty, sin, Scotism over Thomism, and on the Psalms, the Old Testament as opposed to the New, and Covenant theology. Priests and bishops in the new ordinariate, overseen by Zoomer, will be referred to officially as Elders; all the Catholic sacraments will be offered, even if full participation in them will be “phased in” over time.
Churches will be renovated to have tabernacles in line with adopting transubstantiation instead of the Reformed “spiritual presence” view of the Holy Eucharist, but are expected to still have a minimalist aesthetic, with Marian devotion officially present but likely to be downplayed according to Presbyterian sensitivities, as of current reports.
The organization’s mission, under its patron Blessed Duns Scotus and its motto, atributed to Scotus in defense of the Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Conception: “Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit,” which translates to “God could do it, it was appropriate, therefore He did it” is to reach out to offer a pathway to Reformed Protestants more generally and bring them into full communion with Rome while preserving what is distinctive and good in the traditions of “historical Protestantism” as Zoomer calls it and ending the pipeline problem that has led in his eyes to the abandonment of true Reformed practice.
Though Catholics are generally excited about this move, happy that such a prominent Protestant voice has finally entered the Church after converting so many of his followers to Catholicism or Orthodoxy already, many are concerned about how serious Zoomer actually is personally about his conversion, with some convinced that it really is just a plot to subvert Catholicism from the inside, “just as the Anglican Ordinariate is,” according to prominent Catholic traditionalist writer Christine Jacksonia, “as we all know, nothing but a plot by the British monarchy to recapture Anglo Catholics back for the Church of England.”
A meme posted by RedeemedZoomer recently backs up this concern, especially as details of Presbyterian Ordinariate practice remain murky, such as whether bishops will marry (it appears they can as Redeemed Zoomer is currently married), what the liturgical calendar will look like (would they dare put Calvin and Luther and C.S. Lewis on it?), or iconoclasm, where Redeemed Zoomer hasn’t yet publicly admitted to changing his position.
Traditionalists, meanwhile, are complaining about the Vatican’s focus on reconciling Presbyterians and other Protestants even as the SSPX is pushed from the fore, with some commentators, such as Dr. Rundus Murray Jones, arguing that the more pressing problem for the Catholic Church is the creation of an “SSPX Ordinariate of St. Pius X” (SOS) in order to reconcile members of the Society of St. Pius X back to Rome while preserving their own traditions.
The leadership of the PCUSA, while against the move by RedeemedZoomer, for obvious reasons, is unable to discipline or remove him or his organization from their roles or church buildings, due to a lack of replacement pastors or parishioners, a resource limitation problem which is also likely the reason why RedeemedZoomer accepted the offer from Rome in the first place.
In a possibly unrelated architectural move, all Presbyterian Ordinariate churches will be equipped with extra-large ceiling fans and a Minecraft aesthetic in their narthex.
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