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Cardinal: US church ready to receive Anglicans
Oct. 20, 2009
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Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionWASHINGTON -- The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the American church "stands ready to collaborate" with the Vatican in implementing a new provision to receive Anglicans into the Catholic church.
See the NCR story: Vatican reveals plan to welcome disaffected Anglicans
In a statement released in Washington Oct. 20, Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, conference president, also emphasized the U.S. Catholic church would continue to work toward Christian unity with Episcopalians.
The same day at the Vatican, U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said Pope Benedict XVI was preparing an apostolic constitution that would establish a special structure for Anglicans who want to be in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church while preserving aspects of their Anglican spiritual and liturgical heritage.
The Anglican province in the United States is the Episcopal Church.
"The Catholic bishops of the United States remain committed to seeking deeper unity with the members of the Episcopal Church by means of theological dialogue and collaboration in activities that advance the mission of Christ and the welfare of society," Cardinal George said.
At the Vatican, Cardinal Levada also reaffirmed the church's commitment to Christian unity. However, he said, in establishing the new church jurisdictions -- "personal ordinariates," similar to dioceses -- Pope Benedict was responding to "many requests" submitted by individual Anglicans and Anglican groups, including "20 to 30 bishops," asking to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.
As long as even ONE married
As long as even ONE married Anglican/Episcopalian priest and his family are "welcomed" into the Roman flock, the Vatican can no longer credibly REFUSE ordination to married birth-Catholic men. We are seeing where centuries of ordaining celibates is leading...and it is not a pretty sight.
They've been welcomed in for
They've been welcomed in for decades, and Eastern Rite Catholics have married Priests as well. An unmarried Priesthood in the Latin Church is discipline not a dogma, it can change. Your strategy is flawed in that no one has a right to ordination, and the Catholic Church certainly can, and will refuse to ordain married men.
I shared this article with
I shared this article with good friends: an Episcopal priest and his wife. Their response about the "wandering Anglicans:" 'good riddance.'
And after that I am sure you
And after that I am sure you condemned all of those readers here who called for anti-Catholics to leave the Church as un-Christian?
Isn't it interesting that the
Isn't it interesting that the Cardinal whose Curial department oversees the Doctrinal Purity of the Church has been the leading spokesperson for this develop,emt, not the Cardinal overseeing the Dept of Ecumenical Relations. hmmm????
The Australian Bishops have jumped on the bandwagon as quickly as their US counterparts, but here is another view from downunder...
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-vatican-finally... by Dr Muriel Porter is a member of the Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia.
The Holy Spirit is moving
The Holy Spirit is moving here.
The Holy Spirit is moving
The Holy Spirit is moving here.
Adding insult to
Adding insult to injury:
Former Anglican sees new Vatican provision as 'slap-down' of liberal agenda
New York City, N.Y., October 20 (CNA) .- Fr. George Rutler, an Anglican convert and pastor in New York City, has written a guest column for CNA following the announcement by the Vatican that the Pope has approved a new structure for Anglicans desiring to enter into communion with the Catholic Church. The priest argues that move is a rebuke to the liberal agenda of some in the Anglican Communion.
In his column, Fr. Rutler says that he sees the announcement as not only "a dramatic slap-down of liberal Anglicanism," but also a "total repudiation of the ordination of women, homosexual marriage and the general neglect of doctrine in Anglicanism." The new provision has the potential of bringing hundreds of thousands of Anglicans into the Catholic Church.
"It basically interprets Anglicanism as a spiritual patrimony based on ethnic tradition rather than substantial doctrine and makes clear that it is not a historic 'church' but rather an 'ecclesial community' that strayed and now is invited to return to communion with the Pope as Successor of Peter," Rutler writes.
The pastor also touches on the press conference announcing the new structure, the phenomenon of married Anglican clergy becoming Catholic priests and the impact that the new provision will have on the rest of the world.
You can read the full text of Fr. Rutler's comments here: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/column.php?n=987
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