Anglicans seek admission to Catholic Church

[demosincebirth]

DUBLIN, Ireland (CNS) — Parishioners from three Church of Ireland parishes have joined traditional Anglicans from 12 other countries in requesting that the Catholic Church receive them into full communion. If approved by the Vatican, the move would allow 400,000 traditional Anglicans worldwide to be admitted into the Catholic Church. . The move, requested in a letter to the Vatican, would see the entire parish communities received into the Catholic Church. At the Vatican, officials would not comment on the letter, although they confirmed the doctrinal congregation had received it.

[DemBones DemBones]

1. We get a lot of Episcopalians converting

in our parish, and many other parishes, I'm sure. Someone my husband has worked with for many years recently told him that he and his wife are going through RCIA now. They've been Episcopalians for more than thirty years.

Of course, there are also Catholics who leave the Church and become Episcopalian because the Episcopalians fit their beliefs better, not being opposed to contraception, abortion, women or gays in the priesthood, or same sex marriages.

[demosincebirth]

3. 400,000 is a lot of converts from one denomination.

[DemBones DemBones]

5. Oh, absolutely! I was just saying we have been

getting converts from the Episcopal and Anglican churches for some time, some of them as individuals and some as entire parishes.

[tjwmason]

2. These aren't mainstream Anglicans

Trying to fit the story into a thumb-nail...

In the late '70s as the American Episcopalians started to change in a number of elements, principally women-priests and the new liturgy, this produced a very strong reaction from the Anglo-Catholic wing. A large number of these Anglo-Catholics broke away forming what they called the "Anglican Continuum", which maintains Anglican traditions (usually from a very Anglo-Catholic perspective) but isn't part of the actual Anglican Communion; this continuum suffered greatly from a lack of leadership and has splintered into a large number of different groups - however a few larger bodies have emerged especially the "Anglican Catholic Church", "Anglican Province of Christ the King", "Anglican Church in America" (ACA).

As other parts of the Anglican world either adopted these changes, or accommodated themselves to them there were similar splits (though usually far far smaller than in the U.S.) - most of these groups outside the U.S. (including the Irish parishes mentioned) have joined with the ACA to form the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC). The TAC has explicitly stated its desire to seek reunion with Rome in some manner which would preserve the Anglican traditions which are compatible with Catholicism.

Both sides are keeping very quiet about how negotiations are proceeding - which I think is a sign of the seriousness with which they are being taken.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. The "mainstream" Anglicans aren't doing too well.

Attendance is way down in their parishes in the UK and Anglicans elsewhere are more traditional, more Anglo-Catholic, from what I've read.

Mainstream Anglicans/Episcopalians as well as Anglo-Catholics are converting to Catholicism. There is also a group in my area that uses the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. (I believe 1928 is the correct year; it's the more traditional one, in any case, which is not being used in the other area churches.)

[tjwmason]

6. In terms of church-going the C.ofE. is doing about average

It has fallen more than Catholicism (which has been helped by immigration from Catholic countries such as Poland recently), but less than some of the protestant groups. As you suggest, this is a mixed picture with some parts doing well and growing, whilst others are falling dramatically.

The Anglo-Catholic movement in England is now very well defined and has strong leadership, since women-priests were introduced in 1992 it essentially has its own Bishops - English Anglo-Catholicism has always been very Romeward orientated, depending on how the move to women-bishops goes in the C.ofE. there could potentially be over a thousand Priests converting bringing the majority of their congregations with them.

[flamingyouth]

7. Interesting.

Our parish is Anglo-Catholic within the ECUSA and is growing rather rapidly. We have a female rector. We celebrate the Solemn High Mass and when Catholics attend they can't believe how traditional it is (except for the woman at the altar, naturally). Liturgically we're orthodox but progressive socially.

We have a very diverse group of parishioners. On Sunday we met a Catholic priest who comes up from Tacoma (about 30 miles away) to attend. I don't know what his story is as we didn't get to talk to him for very long, but we do have members who are former Catholics as well as people from who came from numerous other faith backgrounds (or none at all).

Our new bishop is Anglo-Catholic as well and was nominated by our parish, so it's kind of exciting for us.