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There has been a long and often close relationship between
the Anglican and Catholic Churches. In certain situations
there remains a mutual recognition of the validity of key
doctrines, liturgies, and practices. And the Catholic
Church continues to hold the faith and moral teachings as
taught by the Apostles.

In 1980 the Holy See, in response to requests from priests
and laity of the Episcopal Church who were seeking full
communion with the Catholic Church, created a Pastoral
Provision to provide them with special pastoral attention.
It also authorized the establishment of personal parishes
in dioceses of the United States in response to the request
of former faithful of the Episcopal Church in which they
may retain certain liturgical elements proper to the
Anglican tradition. This Anglican Use liturgy uses the
Book of Common Prayer (with minor updates) for the Mass.
So there is no need to lose the liturgy Anglicans are
familiar with. This Mass is valid for all Catholics as well.

Under the Provision the ordination of married Episcopal
priests was made possible as well. Since 1983, close to 100
former Episcopal ministers have been ordained for priestly
ministry in Catholic dioceses of the United States; several
AU parishes have been established and the Book of Divine
Worship has been authorized.

Resources for those interested in the Catholic faith:

Catholic Answers
www.catholic.com
A superb site for clearing away the myths propagated by too many.
Offers free on-line library that examines all the major issues,
free on-line archive of over 1,500 hours of radio/audio material,
plus magazines, books, pamphlets, tracts, videos, and more.

Coming Home Network
www.chnetwork.org
Provides fellowship, encouragement and support for Protestant
pastors and laymen who are somewhere along the journey or
have already been received into the Catholic Church.

Biblical Evidence for Catholicism
www.biblicalcatholic.com
Dave Armstrong's monster site. Eclectic, fun, exhaustingly
detailed, personal, moving, and more.

Resources for those interested in the Anglican Use rite:

Our Lady of the Atonement Parish, San Antonio, TX
Our Lady of Walsingham Parish, Houston, TX
St. Mary the Virgin Parish, Arlington, TX
St. Thomas More Parish Fort Worth, TX
St. Athanasius Congregation, Boston, MA
Church of the Good Shepherd Parish, Columbia, SC
St. Margaret of Scotland Parish, Austin, TX
St. Anselm of Canterbury Catholic Mission, Corpus Christi, TX
Atlanta Area AU Catholic Laity, Dunwoody, GA
California AU Catholic Laity, St. Francis of Assisi Church, La Quinta, CA

Yahoo Discussion Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AnglicanUse/

And our own Sockmonkey and B-Chan are Anglican Use converts.
They have generously made themselves available for answering
questions via FreepMail.

May the Word be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path.

There has been a long and often close relationship between the Anglican and Catholic Churches.

I have to say that this close relationship between the Anglican Church is not long, but a fairly recent development. It began with the Oxford Movement in England in 1833. There was great resistance in the Anglican Communion to this reforming of religious practice and doctrine to follow that of the Catholic Church.

The Episcopal Church of the USA used to be have the official name of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Dropping the Protestant qualifier didn't happen until the last half of the 20th century. Morning prayer used to be the most typical form of Sunday worship. Now it is Holy Communion, but that is a change that happened only within the last 50 years.

I don't know many Episcopalians who think of themselves as Anglo-Catholics, althouth there are certainly some. And there has been a trend in the chuch to move in a Catholic direction in many respects. But certainly the ordination of women is not part of this tendency.