Senior Anglican Bishop Reveals He Is Ready To Convert To Roman Catholicism

Telegraph(UK) ^ | October 24th 2009

[Steelfish]

Senior Anglican Bishop Reveals He Is Ready To Convert To Roman Catholicism

The Rt Rev John Hind, the Bishop of Chichester, has announced he is considering becoming a Roman Catholic in a move that could spark an exodus of clergy.

Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent 24 Oct 2009

Bishop Hind said he would be "happy" to be reordained as a Catholic priest and said that divisions in Anglicanism could make it impossible to stay in the church. He is the most senior Anglican to admit that he is prepared to accept the offer from the Pope, who shocked the Church of England last week when he paved the way for clergy to convert to Catholicism in large numbers.

In a further blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury's hopes of preventing the Anglican Communion from disintegrating, other bishops have cast doubt over its survival. The Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Bishop of Fulham, even claimed that "the Anglican experiment is over". He said it has been shown to be powerless to cope with the crises over gays and women bishops.

In one of the most significant developments since the Reformation, the Pope last week announced that a new structure would be set up to allow disaffected Anglicans to enter full communion with Rome, while maintaining parts of their Protestant heritage.

The move comes after secret talks between the Vatican and a group of senior Anglican bishops. Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was not informed of the meetings and his advisers even denied that they had taken place when the Sunday Telegraph broke the story last year.

Now Bishop Hind, the most senior traditionalist in the Church of England, has confirmed that he is willing to sacrifice his salary and palace residence to defect to the Catholic Church.

[Steelfish]

["End of The Anglican Experiment']

[narses]

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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment

Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

[Mad Dawg]

He will find that being an authentic layperson or priest in the Church beats the tar out of being a bishop in some bogus outfit. I miss a lot of pastoral stuff, but, believe me, being Catholic is better.

[Steelfish]

Right choice.

[ak267]

King Henry the 8th.....EPIC FAIL

[Vince Ferrer]

Pope Benedict has made the right offer at the right time. The remnant worth saving of Anglicanism will be saved, and the rest will disintegrate even faster without the traditionalists to slow them down. Very soon it will be the Anglican Catholics, and the wiccans. How long the wiccans last is determined by how much church property they will keep to live off of.

I haven't seen any reaction of this offer from African Anglicans, who are far more traditional than the British.

[opticks]

I’ve seen a lot of obviously younger posters (age <= 55+) on FR the last few months. easy to ID! Glad to see younger folks like me are just as conservative and not falling for leftist tripe. Older folks take notice!

[Vince Ferrer]

Also, if they could bring back some of the stuff they left with, that would be cool.

Cathedrals

[erman]

Now if only all the gay priests, bishops, cardinals and lesbian nuns would convert to the Anglican church.. life would be better. We could see how the “homosexual church” and the Roman Catholic Church do. Maybe the communists in the RC church could take a hike as well.

[Unam Sanctam]

I think there will still be an Evangelical presence, either within or outside the Church of England. They don’t care so much about women’s ordination and are not likely to go Romeward. They may split from the COE however if it continues its liberal tilt. As for TEC in the USA, I think they are so far gone, the Evangelicals will head for ACNA and the Anglo-Catholics will head for Rome, leaving just the liberals.

[Steelfish]

Yes- that would be nice. Indeed, return the Cathedrals and Basilicas confiscated under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and bring back the sacred iconic imagery!

[Josh Painter]

John Paul was a tough act to follow. But Benedict continues to impress. He is no less a visionary than his predecessor.

- JP

[sionnsar]

Bishop Hind said he would be "happy" to be reordained as a Catholic priest and said that divisions in Anglicanism could make it impossible to stay in the church. ...
In a further blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury's hopes of preventing the Anglican Communion from disintegrating, other bishops have cast doubt over its survival.

The disintegration of the worldwide Anglican Communion (which was never an official, formal structure but a comparatively recent "let's have tea with Mother Church" every decade) was inevitable once its members decided not to significantly remonstrate apostacy in its ranks. It was not in their charter to begin with, but for whatever reason (I can guess some of it, but whatever...) they did not fully rise to the occasion.

IMHO the wwAC as we once knew it is over. The roots of its blowup are different from those that sparked the Reformation, but no less divisive, and will no doubt split the Anglican church along its age-old catholic and protestant divisions.

But some of us are not going away; we will still be as we see ourselves, the via media between Rome and the Protestants; my own parish is home to a number of Rome-Protestant marriages. Despised and denigrated by many on both sides, we still hope to bridge the gulf and see the Bride of Christ reunited.

The failure of some churches wearing a particular label, or the failure of some of their members, should not an indictment of all; if it were so, all Christendom would be suspect or worse.

We are in a time of change, and in such times everything is messy and confused. Fifty or a hundred years out things should look very different and settled, and then the historians can write an "accurate" history. (One which will not likely contain today's confused view, however.)

Just my humble opinion.

Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.

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[Frantzie]

Wasn’t the Anglican church essentially formed by a guy who murdered his wives? Not a very inspiring start.

[opticks]

/agree. Benedict is an insanely smart man. He is slowly ratcheting up his papacy. He may not get to JPII level of popularity, but he continues to impress, given the low expectations by just about everyone.

[Windcatcher]

If he can bring about reunification with both the Anglican and the Orthodox churches, I predict he will be called Benedict the Great.

[sockmonkey]

In a further blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury's hopes of preventing the Anglican Communion from disintegrating

Well, he may have had hopes that it wouldn't disintegrate, but I saw very little action by the CoE to accomodate the concerns of conservatives in their ranks.

[opticks]

Yes. given the general anti-Christian/Catholic vibe throughout America and Europe, Benedict could certainly coax (if that’s not too vulgar of a phrase for the diplomacy involved) many of the Anglicans and Orthodox churches back into the fold.

[karnage]

Heh heh.