Posted on 11/09/2009 7:29:56 AM PST by marshmallow
The Vatican today held the line on priestly celibacy as it published the document which opens the door for hundreds of thousands of disaffected Anglicans to become Roman Catholics.
Pope Benedict XVI has made it as easy as possible for traditional and “continuing” Anglicans to convert to Catholicism while retaining key elements of their ecclesiastical heritage, observers commented.
The Apostolic Constitution even allows for married Anglican bishops to be granted the status of retired Catholic bishops, to become members of the local Catholic bishops’ conference and to be granted permission to use the “insignia” of episcopal office, such as the mitre, pectoral cross and staff, by the Holy See in Rome.
But after a hard-fought battle within the Holy See former Catholic priests who left the Church to marry and subsequently became Anglican clergy will not be permitted to return.
Married Anglican clergy, as long as their marital state is not “irregular”, will be allowed to train for the priesthood in special seminaries set up within the new Anglican Ordinariates, similar to dioceses.
The new law “does not signify any change ... in the discipline of clerical celibacy,” the Holy See said.
The constitution, signed by Pope Benedict XVI and published in the Vatican’s official bulletin, states that the admission of married men to the clergy will be considered “on a case by case basis.
Under the structure as published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the onus for paying for the new clergy, the ordinary in charge or “bishop”, the seminaries and other costs, will be down to the ex-Anglicans themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
BTTT for later.
Thank God for Pope Benedict.
Do you think that The Times has some issues?
Welcome home!
It is interesting that married Anglican bishops will be treated as “retired” Catholic bishops and allowed to use the symbols of the office.
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