Roman Catholic church to receive Anglicans – Pope Benedict approves decree setting up new worldwide institution to receive Anglican communities
John Hooper – Guardian
More than half a million Anglicans are set to join the Roman Catholic church following an announcement from the Vatican today that Pope Benedict XVI had approved a decree setting up a new worldwide institution to receive them.
It will be the first time since the Reformation in the 16th century that entire communities of Protestants have reunited with Rome. The first group to take advantage of the new rules is expected to be the Traditional Anglican Community (TAC), which separated from the rest of the Anglican community in 1991 and has more than 500,000 members worldwide.
Reflecting the importance of Rome’s initiative, the pope set out the new arrangements in a so-called apostolic constitution, the highest form of pontifical decree.
Benedict’s chief theological adviser, the US cardinal William Levada, said the decree had been drawn up “to respond to the numerous requests that have been submitted to the Holy See by groups of Anglican clerics and believers from various parts of the world who wish to enter into full and visible communion” with Rome.
He said that, under the new arrangements, Anglican communities that joined the Catholic church would be able to keep their own liturgy while remaining outside the existing dioceses. Their pastoral care would be entrusted instead to their own senior prelates, who would not necessarily become Catholic bishops. This is a way around the problem that in the Catholic church, as in the Orthodox churches, married men are not allowed to become bishops.
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Tags: Church Life
October 20th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I think this is an excellent move. By opening itself up to married priests the Catholic church will have taken a small step towards the concept of married clergy.
If nothing else, the Catholic Church will grow accustom to the idea of having married priests and it will become harder to justify celibacy in the church as a whole.
I wonder if Catholics who are married but want to become priest could join this new Anglican wing and stay married.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I regret to tell you that your joy is misplaced. Celibacy is discipline of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, though being the lardgest it tends to dominate impressions of those outside the Church. There are a number of other Rites, in full communion with Rome, that allow married priests IAW their own institutional traditions. There are also married Roman Catholic priests (Anglican and Lutheran clergy that have converted) that have received special dispensation from the Holy See (with their own bishops endorsement). The gift of celibacy should be viewed very analogous to the gift of marriage — both being Sacraments instituted by our Lord, their participants are bound by the demands of fideltiy and personal sacrifice to remain within the sacrament. Though not identical, these sacraments and the gifts they bear are very close and interwound. Your comments reveal a lack of completely understanding Church teaching regarding celibacy and the priesthood in general. That is not a criticism, unless of course you are Roman Catholic where you are charged with preparing yourself to provide an adequate defense of the faith, and you cannot adequately defend what you don’t understand obviously. I am not a priest. Those married Catholics that want to become part of the Church or even part of her ordained clergy (have you heard of the Deaconate?) already have choices, albeit not easy ones. Orgasms are not the answer, or in other words, married priests are not the solution to the often over-simplified problem of declining numbers of priests. But that discussion would take up too much time here. God bless.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:02 am
‘Is the Pope stirring up trouble over Anglicans?’
This bullish approach towards Anglo-Catholic Anglicans from the Roman Catholic Pope (who is seeking to recruit disaffected C of E members by offering them special conditions within the Roman Catholic church) is potentially very dangerous indeed. Does he want to destabilise nearly 500 years of relative peace between Anglicans in England and Wales and Roman Catholics?
At a time when we need to hold together, national unity is now faced with an unexpected threat. The Pope and the Roman Catholic leaders should back off now, before the masses realise what is being proposed. This could easily lead to trouble on our streets. Sacaremongering? I don’t think so: this nightmare scenario is a possibility if this divisive proposal is not stopped now.
One cannot help thinking this dangerous situation has come about as a result of very weak leadership at the top of the Anglican Church–for too many years now, they have been navel-gazing and almost completely forgotten their Christian mission to this nation and beyond. The Pope has seen this weakness and it seems he now seeks to exploit it.
Just as our great Queen Elizabeth I, defender of the Church of England and our Christian faith, made a courageous stand against the threat from Rome, via Catholic Spain and France, for the first time in hundreds of years Anglican Christians need to stand and be counted, united in defending our English Christian faith and heritage.
Simon Icke, Buckinghamshire UK.