Sixth Anglican Bishop Ordained a Catholic Priest for the Ordinariate in England

Catholic Online ^ | March 31, 2012 | Randy Sly

[NYer]

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - A sixth former Anglican bishop was ordained to the priesthood in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham at St. John's Cathedral in Portsmouth on Monday, the Feast of the Annunciation. Robert Mercer, 77, was ordained by the Right Reverend Alan Hopes, the Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, who is also a convert from the Church of England.

During his homily, Bishop Hopes was quoted by the U.K. Catholic Herald as saying: "Robert, your life has been one of profound commitment and witness. Your formation and ministry within the Anglican tradition have provided you with a solid spiritual bedrock on which your life has been built . You have been a bold witness to Christ and to the truths of Catholic Christianity - often at great cost to yourself.

"Coming into communion with the Catholic Church through the ordinariate, you bring with you some of the spiritual riches that are to be found in the Anglican church. You take on a new mission in your ministry of bridge building - that of building bridges between the Catholic Church and the ecclesial communities of the Anglican tradition."

[hinckley buzzard]

The Piskie church continues to crumble, even as it ordains and elevates sexual perverts of both sexes.

[NYer]

Watch Video - Heirs of Newman's 'Oxford Movement'

[narses]

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[cothrige]

I am curious. Are these bishops, who belonged to a faith community which denied the Church for centuries, being required to give some testimony to their allegiance to specific Ecumenical Councils and the appropriate interpretations? I ask because I know that the SSPX are being required to accept some specific interpretation of Vatican II before being considered in union with Rome, and I fear Anglicans, who have for centuries denied much more than just one interpretation of one council, will be required to do no more than assent to the Creed. What exactly are these bishops being held to in that regard?

[AnAmericanMother]

Actually, they're going through a fairly lengthy period of instruction and discernment. They are also having to be re-ordained.

They're in a slightly different position from the SSPX because the folks involved have been a separate denomination for quite a few centuries.

Having started out as a Piskie myself, I can tell you it's quite a come-down to acknowledge that all those sacraments you thought you had for decades didn't amount to a hill of beans (except of course baptism). THAT is a much more serious thing to accept (especially for a priest) than acknowledging the validity of what you were supposed to have sworn obedience to in the first place.

[Salvation]

May God bless Father Robert Mercer abundantly.

[A.A. Cunningham]

They are also having to be re-ordained.

Correction: They have to be validly ordained since they never were as Anglicans.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, I know what you mean, but they were ordained before in the general sense (though not in the Catholic church as some "high churchers" claim). After all, we refer to "ordained ministers" in all sorts of Protestant denominations, even the dubious "self-ordained" independents.

Whether converting Anglicans had to be reordained was the major issue from Apostolicae Curae on down, so I guess I'm still thinking of the issue from the Anglican point of view.