Posted on 10/20/2009 8:59:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
ROME, Italy (CNN) -- The Vatican said Tuesday it has worked out a way for groups of Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their faith to join the Catholic Church.
The process will allow groups of Anglicans, including bishops and married priests, to join the Catholic Church some 450 years after King Henry VIII broke from Rome and created the Church of England.
The number of Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church has increased in recent years as the Anglican church has welcomed the ordination of women and openly gay clergy and blessed homosexual partnerships, said Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Their talks with the Vatican recently began speeding up, Vatican officials said, leading to Tuesday's announcement.
"The Catholic Church is responding to the many requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to enter into full visible communion," Levada said.
Levada said "hundreds" of Anglicans around the world have expressed their desire to join the Catholic Church. Among them are 50 Anglican bishops, said Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia of the Congregation of the Divine Cult.
Should Anglicans be allowed to join the Catholic Church? Have your say below
The Anglicans will be able to retain their Anglican rites while recognizing the pope as their leader, Vatican officials said. The British monarch is the head of the Anglican Church.
While married Anglican priests may be ordained as Catholic priests, the same does not apply to married Anglican bishops, Levada said.
"We've been praying for this unity for 40 years and we've not anticipated it happening now," Di Noia said. "The Holy Spirit is at work here."
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Hmmm. I wonder if Roman Rite Catholics will be able to attend Anglican Rite masses?
BBC Adds the following to the news :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8316120.stm
EXCERPT:
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said he did not think it was a “commentary on Anglican problems”.
Causes of discord in the worldwide Anglican communion have included the election of an openly gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions.
In the Church of England, the ordination of women as priests, and the prospect of their appointment as bishops, has led many Anglicans to consider joining the Roman Catholics.
Two senior opponents of women bishops said they would announce their reaction to the Vatican move in February.
The measure, known as an Apostolic Constitution, was shown to leaders of the Church of England just two weeks ago.
Under its terms announced by the Vatican, groupings of Anglicans would be able to join “personal ordinariates”.
This would allow them to enter full communion with the Catholic church, but also preserve elements of the Anglican traditions including the possible use of Anglican prayer books.
Speaking at a Vatican press conference, Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the constitution was a response to “many requests” from groups of Anglican clergy and worshippers wanting to enter into full communion with the church.
Cardinal Levada said it “provides a reasonable and even necessary response to a worldwide phenomenon”.
ping
MORE NEWS
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE59J1SQ20091020
EXCERPT :
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Tuesday took a major step to make it easier for disaffected Anglicans who feel their Church has become too liberal to convert to Roman Catholicism.
The move comes after years of discontent in some sectors of the 77-million-strong worldwide Anglican community over the ordination of women priests and homosexual bishops.
While both sides stressed the step would not affect dialogue between the two Churches, it was clear it was taken because of the growing number of Anglicans who want to leave their Church.
The Vatican said the Pope had approved a document known as an “Apostolic Constitution” to accept Anglicans who want to join Catholicism, either individually or in groups, while maintaining some of their own traditions.
It marks perhaps the clearest and boldest institutional step by the Vatican to welcome disaffected Anglicans into the fold since King Henry VIII broke with Rome and set himself up at the head of the new Church of England in 1534.
The new structure allows for the appointment of leaders, usually bishops who will come from the ranks of unmarried former Anglican priests, to oversee communities of former Anglicans who become Catholics and recognize the pope as their leader.
“In this way, the Apostolic Constitution seeks to balance on the one hand the concern to preserve the worthy Anglican liturgical and spiritual patrimony and, on the other hand, the concern that these groups and their clergy will be integrated into the Catholic Church,” the Vatican said.
May I ask? What was Jesus’ opinion on the ordination of WOMEN?
Please read the article.
The RCC has arranged a way for Anglicans who object to the heresies of the Anglican communion to return to the Catholic Church, while retaining some of their rituals.
The RCC will not permit married AC bishops to practice as bishops in the RCC, though it is very likely married AC priests will be ordained as priests in the RCC if they wish to do so.
Ding Ding Ding!
Folks we have a winner for the wrongest supposedly factual statement in an article on this topic. Figues it would be CNN.
Yes. Catholics of any rite can attend liturgies of other Catholic rites.
Those Anglicans will most likely not be coming over the Tiber, and if they do, they would have to give up their claims to the priesthood.
Read the press releases before you make silly comments like this, they're very helpful. Had you read them you would have read that the Anglican groups that will be received are those who profess the doctrine set for in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Does that catechism allow for women or openly gay priests?
I suspect that the bias against women being ordained is rooted in the patriarchal societies from which the Christian faith sprang. And as they say: That is just my humble opinion.
(See Mother Angelica for a fine example.)
However, the Lord ordained only the Apostles to the priesthood. They were all men.
There is a symbolic argument as well. The priest, in the Mass, represents Christ the Bridegroom. The church is the Bride. You can't very well have a female imaging a bridegroom.
Of course, with Archbishop Raymond L. Burke celebrating the Tridentine Rite mass in Rome, there seems to be a growing momemtum for it. I may live to see a widespread availability of it.
I don’t want to be married to Christ, I just want to worship him.
An "Anglican Use Mass" is a valid Catholic liturgy, in communion with the Pope, offered by a validly ordained Catholic priest. (Who is most certainly not a female.)
Therefore, the answer is "yes".
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