On Loving and Leaving the Episcopal Church and Priesthood

An update

Dear Readers,

Below is a letter I sent to Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire a few weeks ago following a long process of discernment and conversations with the Bishop and his staff. This week the Standing Committee of that diocese convened and consented to my request. By that act I was formally “released and removed from the ordained ministry of the Episcopal Church.” The letter explains a bit about the nature of the decision; I will write more about it after Easter Sunday and my confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church.

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March 24, 2025

Dear Bishop Rob,

I’m writing to officially inform you that after much discernment I have decided to let go of my Episcopal priesthood in order to be confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church.

This decision feels like a deeper embrace of the call that led me to the Episcopal priesthood. As I have written and spoken about before, in the Fall of 2016, shortly before my ordination to the priesthood, I heard a call to “religious life” after visiting a Catholic Mass at a prison in Bolivia. After returning home I discerned in conversation with Episcopal mentors and colleagues that as long as my priesthood – whether in the parish, or outside it – focused on devotion, care for the land, and work with the poor that I would be honoring the call to “religious life”.

I am proud of my work as a priest and my efforts to honor this call. As Priest for Discipleship and Discernment at St. Michael’s in Brattleboro I created a parish partnership with a non-profit that accompanies men recently released from prison, and I organized a group to start a L’Arche community for local people with intellectual disabilities. At St. John’s in Walpole, along with growing the congregation, I facilitated a missional discernment process that led to a collaboration with the local food pantry. More recently I have worked outside the parish: as a writer, teacher, and prayer group leader online; as a chaplain at the Springfield, VT Prison; and most recently as a migrant shelter coordinator in El Paso.

However, it has become clear to me that I can most fully honor my call to religious life in the Catholic Church. I began to sense this while working at the Springfield prison where I saw the impact that RCIA class and praying the rosary had on the men there. The sense became clearer in El Paso: while working at the parish hall-turned-shelter under the gaze of the Virgin of Guadalupe; handing out rosary beads to departing migrants and praying with my own pair on morning walks; hearing the ministry stories of Franciscan, Marist, and Maryknoll colleagues while managing the shelter desk; weeping at the beauty of the cantor’s voice at midweek Mass; and listening to my three year-old son Charlie ask me and Bethany during the Eucharistic prayers at a Sunday Mass, “When will we become Catholic?”

I will miss worshiping and leading with the lay folks and colleagues I have come to know in Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and beyond. I also believe that we will remain connected as siblings in Christ. Bethany and I still sense that God is calling us to start a Catholic Worker house focused on migrant hospitality in Keene when we finish our time of service and learning in El Paso. When we return to Keene, God willing, I look forward to working together as ecumenical partners to accompany and honor the dignity of our migrant neighbors in New Hampshire.

Thank you Bishop Rob. Thank you for welcoming me to this diocese and supporting my formation as a young priest with a robust Fresh Start program and professional coaching. Thank you for creating a culture of support and mutuality among the clergy. Thank you for allowing me the space to explore ministry outside the parish. And thank you for your work leading and serving the church which I love, and which I now feel called to leave.

Sincerely,

Duncan Hilton