Vatican welcomes Anglicans: React story No. 2

I certainly support this move by Rome but I'm wondering about the "Ut" encyclical by JPII ("That All May be One"). Didn't the former Pope advance a notion of using the papacy as something less than the full Catholic concept of the papacy for Protestants to become associated with the Church. Maybe Rome could do this for those Anglicans a little wary of a complete jump into the Tiber?

What an ironic twist of history. King Henry VIII and his wives must be smiling. Let me get this straight: imperialism is the (token) government of (the Church of) England and the de-facto government of the Roman Catholic Church, so now, Roman Catholicism is proposing marriage with the Church of England. Question: are both churches imperially "submissive" shes? To which empire must they be submissive to? Who'da thunk it?
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977866219

There's more to this than meets the eye. These 30 Anglican bishops are not all looking to get "demoted". There obviously have been signals from Rome that there will be flexibility on the "no married bishops" rule.
If Iker turns Catholic, I'm re-evaluating.

From the NCR website.

It seems rather hypocritical to accept married priests from other denominations but not allow faithful, married Catholic men to become priests themselves.

Is this about welcoming our brothers and sisters into the fold, or just plain old competition between sects?

Yesterday I did two postings on my blog, Creative Advance, questioning Rome's strategy for absorbing disaffecting Anglican congregations. Although Pope Benedict's move is probably the most effective Catholic challenge to the Church of England in the 450+ years since Henry VIII, I suggest that it may have many unintended consequences for both communions--consequences that may prove more significant and more enduring than any short-term gain the pope may achieve.

I'm gratified to note in the above article that I am not alone in this thinking.

One of the largest consequences will be to give fresh life to the very movements that the conservative Anglicans oppose. While Rome will gain new fans for its opposition to ordaining women, ordaining gay people and blessing same-sex unions, its move will strengthen movements in favor of them in the Roman church and among Anglicans in the U.K., Canada and the United States, not to mention the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which since August has officially endorsed all three (generally for "congregations that choose to do so"). For example, the speculation is that the Church of England will now accelerate the ordination of female bishops, which had been on hold in deference to the traditionalist Anglicans.

As suggested in NCR's article, it is also likely to increase a commitment to a married clergy among those who remain Anglicans, including even some conservative Anglicans who agree with just about every other Roman position but consider married priests and bishops a non-negotiable part of the Anglican patrimony. And it is quite naive of the Vatican to think it can introduce hundreds or perhaps thousands of married Anglican priests into Catholicism without further diminishing the celibacy policy of the Roman church.

For more on this please see my blog at http://creativeadvance.blogspot.com/

The reality of dissent and separation eventually leads to the breakdown of a Christian community. Certainly, this is nothing to rejoice in but rather for all to ponder. Bishop Duncan thoughtfully places all this in the correct context regarding serious differences between Anglicans and Rome. However, seeing the utter dissolution of the Anglicans in the US might move him to reconsider his Church's stance. As far as celibacy, the married priesthood brings with it a whole new set of challenges including the salary, housing and benefits the Church must provide a priest and his family, considerably more than with a celebate. Additionally, the stress of ministry and family life places great strains on both the Church and the priest's family, with divorce a clear possibility. Indeed, there isn't any panacea with the Holy Father's moves rather a new set of challenges. One wonders with the great theological divide with the Roman Catholic Church in the US, if we are up for the challenge.

Andrew Brown's comment about the Anglican communion no longer being seen as a coherent body seems applicable as well to Roman Catholicism. If the Anglican/Episcopalian communion has been recognized by Rome as a legitimate part of the Body of Christ, might not disaffected Roman Catholics join the still "affected" remanant of that body?

Very Interesting...... I see several possibilities for B16 doing this:
1. As a balance because he plans the same thing for the SSPX, this way no one can complain. But can the Church tolerate two bitter enemies, the SSPX and AngloCatholics fighting one another?
2. Some place for progressive Catholics to go. Anglican churches have married priests and vestry boards of laypeople who govern the churches. A Latin Rite male who is married and wants to become a priest can go to an AngloCatholic seminary and be ordained and be a Roman Catholic in good standing w/ valid orders. Con: with the closing of churches is it possible that there could be a tsunami of individuals going over to the growing AngloCatholic church, eventually possibly outnumbering the Latin Rite Catholics?
3. Someplace for the malcontent conservatives to go? The Anglican rite is often Ad Orientem, have altar rails and use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer w/ it's formal Victorian english... everything a conservative wants? Con: no one to debate with anymore!

Can another Church-Within-A-Church, another special ordinarie be one where Roman Catholic women are ordained , if Anglican priests can be a Church-within-a-church as special ordinairie why can not the pope also allow the women to be ordained as a special ordinairie too as many RC laity agree to women as clergy too.

Thepope agrees to Anglican church-in -church, to be fair he should agree to women as clergy church too.

Many Roman Catholics are disgruntled too not just Anglicans are disgruntled.
Many RC laity want women as clergy too and are not happy at all with the poor treatment of women by the papacy.

Special ordinariates..... that is what the term is for Church-within-Church. So the pope should create women as priests special ordinariates as well. Lots of RC approve of women being ordained as well as men being ordained.

Another special ordinariate is also the Originally- Roman- Catholic- Roman- Catholic- Married- Priests- special- ordinariate Church-within-a-Church as well.

Right now the pope laicizes Roman Catholic priests who marry and have a family UNLESS these men are ex another denomination... then they are accepted by the pope. If the men were originally Roman Catholic then they are not allowed to be a priest in the RCC,

Hey that's a some special Crazy Church you got Pope BXVI! You no make no sense, Pope BXVI! You One-Big-hypocrite, PBXVI. You no like the women so much! You Say Gay Priests, Keep In That Closet! Crazeee Church!

Married Priests, celibate priests is not where it all lies. I love Jesus Christ and our Roman Catholic Church and that will never change! Forward..... to the mission

the photo here begs for a caption with quote:
"Oh, you shouldn't have!"

While admiring this image we must also ask:
Is that a Corpus upon that Anglican cross?

Who's well-turned calf is that on the wall?

And, yo, photographer dude, couldn't you have turned the tripod just a hair to the right? Good job keeping it straight, but please!

And did Rowan know then, two years ago, the Pope would now be stealing his flock?

The article nearly ends with: Ruth Gledhill, religion correspondent for The Times of London, noted the same in Great Britain: "While the shortage of Catholic priests would be alleviated by the influx of so many Anglicans, . . ."

Notice each one arrogantly English-only.

Where does that leave our earliest Roman Catholic population in the Americas, from Saint Augustine to San Francisco, the Latino, the greatest growing demographic, devoid of any ministry, of anyone who knows their real needs?

Is this the reason for opening the barn to English-only anglicans, who have oppressed and slaughtered and enslaved Roman Catholics for one half a millenium?

Or is it impolitic now to ask such a thing?

I've felt for some time now that the next big shift in the priesthood would likely be either married priests or female priests. To my simple mind, it comes down to the question of whether the Church feels more strongly about gender or celibacy.

I also feel and acknowledge that the wholesale shift will most likely not happen in my lifetime, but this may be a start. For all the traditionalists, this is a return to part of our tradition, these priests being married. Why and how it stopped is a matter of known history. On the other hand, we've not officially (or otherwise, from what I can tell) had female priests, but we have had female deacons.

So again, history rolls around. Vatican II was an effort to get us back to our older traditions in many (but not all) ways. Wonder how John 23 would feel about how things have transpired in the past half century...

Well as the French proverb would have it "the more things change the more they stay the same". The Anglicans at least the ones who hold to the notion of a Catholic faith have always insisted that the Church of England existed long before Henry VIII and was in fact a Celtic communion free of papal control with its' own kalendar and liturgical practice until the Council of Whitby. It appears now that they may be given the chance to return to that happy state with some shall we say compromises.
I do not think you would see these developments had the Anglicans in general and the Episcopalians in particular handled the hot button issues in a very different way. Had they presented the argument for women's ordination and the inclusion of gays in the ministry from a patristic and Scriptural ethos instead of a multicultural, anthropological and psychological one fewer conservatives would have voted with their feet and pocketbooks. The impression many traditionalist Anglicans got was if you favour women's ordination you have to accept a whole litmus test of "modern" beliefs that reject the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection and so on.If there was any doubt in the mind of many traditionalists it was removed when the Presiding Bishop being interviewed on television was asked if she in fact believed at least in the Divinity of Christ to which she replied No. As a self identified progressive Traditionalist ordained in the Eastern Church who believes strongly in the ordination of women and full participation of gays in the life and ministry of the church(needless to say I am no longer in the Eastern Church)her statements were indeed unworthy of a presiding bishop but it shows the essential problems with the Anglicans of their inability to define what it is they believe and why. If you try and be all things to everyone you may very well end up being nothing to everybody.

I have VERY mixed feelings about this move. I DEFINITELY think we should have a married clergy. There is a desperate need for priests in our Church. However, I don't believe in stealing clergy from other faiths in order to initiate a married clergy in our own church. If they outright OK'd married clergy in the Catholic Church we would most likely have more vocations to the clergy. Then we wouldn't need to plunder other churches for ministers.

Episcopal clergy have converted to Catholicism and remained clergy in the past. They have always had that option. So, I don't think this is the way to do it. I do believe in a uniting of the Christian faiths of the world--all being one. But this seems a deceitful way to merge. I am confused.

I suppose prayer for the Holy Spirit to shed light on this question is the true path.

Where are all those converting Anglican priests going to find jobs? IF there are a 'thousand' Anglican priests converting (I doubt) and ALL of the TAC (trad Anglican Communinion--450,000 members estimated in an agglomeration of tiny groups)--that's one priest for 45 converts--hardly a ratio to support the priest. And how will the local Latin rite bishops take it with all those married former Anglican priests in their cozy little ordinariate churches not under his control when he--the bishop--is trying to staff his underserved large churches?

There are already breakaway Anglican churches and dioceses established under the Southern Cone (their term) and some African prelate or other--why should they feel obliged to swim the Tiber? Especially when there continue to be so many unanswered difficulties--the Pope and Mary chief among them. There is also much more collegial governance in Anglican dioceses than there would be under Rome.

There's another problem no one has mentioned--the social issues. Anglicans tend to be white, affluent and well-educated, praying in little pretty churches with a lot of clergy and staff. The laity can stay in their little enclaves, but the convert-priests will either have to find work in their tiny little Anglican rite churches or enter the Latin rite work force of overworked elderly priests performing endless masses, confessions, constantly commuting between parishes and otherwise serving quite another set of parishioners. This is going to be quite a jolt for those former Anglican priests--and their families.

My reflection isn't too subdued. This invitation (poaching) to disaffected Anglicans solidifies the Catholic Church's anti-woman, anti-gay position despite assertions to the contrary. Roman Catholic priests can't marry. Meanwhile married converting Anglican/Episcopalian priests can keep their woman while a principal reason they would defect is because they reject the role of women in their Church. Furthermore, they'd be able to keep their liturgy while we're regressing bit by bit to a pre-Vatican II liturgy. Been there and don't want to go back. This is very disheartening and depressing.

At the risk of sounding cynical, it seems odd to me that the Catholic Church should reach out to disaffected Anglicans while exerting considerably less effort to reach out to disaffected Catholics. Maybe the Pope should be more concerned about his own "communion" before seeking Anglicans to replace departing Roman Catholics.

As the above comments show, this decision, however well-intentioned by the Pope, will have all sorts of unintended consequences. It will be interesting. B16, the well-intentoned scholar, again politically clueless re the results of his actions. But, as I said, it will be interesting.

Utterly disgraceful. The church does not need more anti-woman, anti-gay, and amti- Vatican II types. What an insult to the thousands of married Catholic priests who could be serving the church today, What an insult to the Catholic women who would make great priests, what an insult to loyal Vatican II theologians who are silenced one after another by "mother" church for having an original thought while at the same time the Vatican welcomes people who refuse to accept the spiriti and reforms of Vatican II,.

I've had the unenviable experience of dealing with two protestant clergy who 'converted' to the Roman church, one a former Lutheran pastor and the other an Episcopal priest, both married with children--both favoring celibacy for priests despite their own situations. They both made married life so miserable for their wives and children that, all things considered, celibacy would have been a good choice for each of them.

Both came to the Roman church because they found their own churches too ‘liberal,’ too open minded, too compassionate--both found ready homes within the Roman clergy. Thus the Roman church receives those extruded from the right-wing orifices of churches who are well rid of those whom Benedict and Co. embrace.

It could be funny if it weren't so terribly sad in the face of the Roman church's refusal to bring the Eucharist to priestless churches. Celibacy has become Rome's litmus test, as if Jesus said, "Don’t' do THAT in memory of me." Don't worry, lord--this church does little to preserve your authentic memory. Kyrie, eleison!

This is a wonderful gesture from Rome. I hope this will be the beginning of something new & great from the Catholic Church as it is so in need of priests. Instead of closing churches all around, it can now hopefully reopen then to the grieving Catholics. We need to continue to pray that this moves on in our time!

Two thoughts:

1) Will Anglican women priests be welcomed into the RCC,if they wish?

2) Will former RCC priests who left the ministry, married, and became Anglican preists be welcomed back into the RCC, if they also wish?

This could be one small step that could grow into something a giant step for unity in Christ.

As an Anglo-Catholic woman who became and remains (oy vey) a Roman Catholic, I say "a pox on both their houses." If only Pope John XXIII were still walking the earth, maybe we would at last have "one holy catholic and apostolic church" that included everybody in the Body of Christ. Instead, our present pope - the Inquisitor (formerly Cardinal Rat) - continues to provide support for those who disrespect and disempower women, continues to promote injustice and stupidity (think condoms), continues to behave as though he really matters despite the vast number of American Catholics who ignore him. Thank God for the Eucharist! It is the only valid Catholic reality. The rest, including this pope and his henchman Cardinal Levada, is all wood, hay, and stubble.

Most comments on various Anglican blogs consider the Vatican's latest moves an imperial "intrusion" by The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Most Anglicans are offended and believe this was a deliberate move by the wrong Vatican Congregation to keep the Archbishop of Canterbury in the dark. They succeeded in doing this and most Anglicans feel Rome humiliated their Archbishop. They feel it should have come out of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity which would have shown transparency in the process. It was a sneaky and underhanded move by Cardinal Levada. He was famous for this kind of action when he was a mere archbishop of San Francisco. It was discourteous and inappropriate. It was inimical to ecumenical dialogue. It was a right wing reactionary move that will go down as cowardly and shameful.

Amazing. At this rate, one of these days, all of the ultra conservative Christians will all be in one Church. Won't that be wonderful!

If only this represented true reaching out and inclusion instead of the obvious intent to bolster conservative ranks as Rome moves further from Vatican II and the Catholics who are most concerned about following Jesus rather than hierarchy are driven to meaningful liturgies in their homes as in the early days of the Christian communities.

Speaking as a non-canonical priest of the Roman Discipline,
the most important line I see here is that the faithful are:
"VOTING WITH THEIR FEET"...Amen

Hi.

I am afraid that I must disagree with the above writer. As someone has already noted - " Henry the eighth must be spinning in his grave and Saints Thomas More and John Fisher smiling"! Te Deum!

Jim

My take on this situation is that the Anglicans are not really going to become Roman Catholic per se, but are coming into communion with Rome in the manner that many Eastern Rites are. We have to await the details. For many to think that this means a "married" priesthood for Roman Catholicism, you are premature. There are already many married priests in communion with Rome, but only a very very few are Roman Catholic.

In conversation an Episcopal friend remarked, "We are catholic,too." Another friend who is an Episocpal priest always emphasizes that we are all catholic, if not Roman. Their comments show a simple longing for the unity to which the Spirit calls us.

What movement might get a boost, or what doctrine might be challenged by this opening misses the sublime point: this is a movement of the Spirit. Let us rejoice.

How is this "invitiation" any different from what is already in place??? My bigger question is about living with the "small things", like birth control, abortion, marriage and divorce, voting for your bishop and governing the parish??? I don't understand why church leaders who have a hard time with "cradle catholics" who disagree want to bring in people who have already disregared their own leaders, do they think they are going to go along any better in this organization???

Yesterday, as I listened to our parish priest discuss the need for increased vocations to the priesthood, I felt extremely sad and disillusioned. The RC church is ready to welcome into the fold those married priests from other Christian faiths, yet continues to treat men who left the sacramental priesthood to marry as 3rd rate citizens. Former priests are not allowed to actively participate in church life by being Eucharistic Ministers or teaching in religious education programs, much less celebrate the sacraments to which they were "ordained forever". (Also, if a female Anglican priest converts to Catholicism, does she become unable to function in that capacity, much like her married bishop brothers?) I find it sad that the church is so uncomfortable with the idea of anyone holding an official position in the church that is "under the influence" of a woman.

As a former Episcopalian who was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 2003, I am always happy to see people accept the Catholic faith. It was the best decision I ever made.
However I have some misgivings about this recent overture by Pope Benedict. While the 1662 Anglican liturgy is incredibly beautiful and I can still quote great parts of it from memory, to make it a condition for becoming a Catholic seems to me to be making an idol out of it. Cardinal Newman made no such requests or put conditions upon his conversion.
Secondly, I believe that many of these Anglican rite parishes will be nothing more than small Anglican ghettos with the participants not really being fully integrated into the Catholic Church. My spiritual life has been greatly enriched by being at St. Mark's, a parish in the Diocese of San Diego. Should an Anglican rite parish be established in my area, I would most definitely stay where I am.

Interesting posts from various persons. The Pope has extended this invitation because of the many Anglicans who do not want to remain where they are. PLEASE!!! He is not stealing any Anglican brothers or sisters! Rules will follow to addressed most of the questions being asked.
I think the following will happen regarding married Anglican priests. Since the church started with Christ's disciples, who with the exception of a couple were married and Jewish; the same will happen as it did when the church first started. Married Anglican priests will be ordain into the universal church, but not the ones who departed from the catholic church who then married and now want to enter as priests. Each married priest will be address individually to determine if he can be ordained into the catholic church. The Anglican Bishops who are married will not be recognize as part of the fraternity of catholic bishops but they will retain their title of bishop within their own formation. Those bishops that are not married, will enter into the catholic college of bishops if they accept the dogmas and doctrines of the catholic church. New seminarians coming from Anglican backgrounds (in the future) will now have to be unmarried men. Catholics who want to attend our new brethren's parishes will be able to do so if these parishes do not reject the dogmas or doctrines of the church but they cannot consider themselves Anglican converts. They are the ones coming in, not you. The welfare of the wives and children of the married priests will be provided for by the new converted Anglican community with some aide coming from the catholics who wish to assist them. AS to the concerns of the catholic liberals with the conservative Anglicans entering the ranks of our church under Benedict, nothing will change. WE will continue to have dissatisfied catholics who will continue to try and bring in their erroneous idieas of married clergies, married homosexuals, female priest etc. instead of leaving and entering those churches that already practiced those beliefs.

I wonder what will happen when the vestries of these parishes vote to become Roman Catholic and discover that was the last time they could make a meaningful decision for their communities.

This Anglican scenario reminds me of my Irish Catholic granny who was a great defender of the faith like me and a true stereotype. She lived to be 100. According to my grandfather, her morning prayer involved a shot of whiskey over the sink followed by, "God help us & save us!" When my father & his siblings started to get to her, she would kneel down on the floor and start to sing, "The sacred heart of Jesus!" until you could hear a pin drop.

As far as the Anglicans go, she would say and I quote: "The Anglicans, what the hell kind of a religion is that, founded by that adulterous bastard Henry the VIIIth!" She wasn't exactly a Vatican II Catholic!

This seems to be a trade off. By accepting married Anglican priests, after conditional ordination, Rome seems to be loosening their strictures against a married parish clergy. Clearly this will result in a clamour from Roman priests who are still required to following the discipline of celibacy when they will be working with their united brethren. As a trade off, Rome seems to be putting their buckets where thy stand with regard to ordination of women and accepting homosexuals into the clergy and sacramental married life. The Episcopal Church governance is far more democratic than Rome's and Rome could learn from their Anglican partners in this regard. As for the BVM, she is highly venerated by many Anglicans with statues or icons of her in many chruches, prayer book holydays commemorating her and shrines, ie. Walshingham in England. The Anglo Catholics even have a Society of Mary. But both groups, Romans and "traditionalist" Anglicans making the move will simply not be able to stop the move toward full inclusion of women into the sacramental life of the Church and acceptance of homosexuals who know that they are loving sons and daughters of the Church. These newcomers may be startled along with the Pope to see the Holy Spirit working in a way they do not expect.

American Catholics know so little about the C of E. Though I am an American, my readings and conversations have educated me in some of the more arcane issues here. First, the so-called "Traditional Anglican communion" of that ex-Catholic priest in Australia has 400,000 members only in its fondest dreams. Second, they broke away from the See of Canterbury long before homosexuality or women became the issue du jour, and hence Dr.Rowan Williams won't be missing them. Third, the Anglo-Papilists as they are more accurately called are a strange breed in England who use a Roman Missal and not Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer. Their parish clergy are mostly homosexual,many openly so, even with discreetly kept partners. How will they fare in Benedict's church where they will need to give up their partners, renounce their "disordered" ways and be celibate? This whole affair has a Laurel and Hardy air to it as if some Cardinals will privately turn to one another and say: "another fine mess Benedict has gotten us into".

Recently, the secular press reported that the Roman Catholic Church was making new overtures to Episcopal Church clergy and laymen urging them to "come home to Rome." Several people sent me articles asking me comment. Having examined such articles, I have come to the conclusion that there is not all that much is new. For years Roman Catholics have prayed "that we all may be one." But in reality, they have not been all that serious because "coming home to Rome" means completely on their terms. Some accommodations were made years ago that allowed some married Episcopal priests to become Roman Catholic priests. But they still had to become reconfirmed and re-ordained.

The articles also fail to note that "crossing the Tiber" to Rome is nothing all that new. It also fails to note the "crossing the Tiber" goes both ways. Many former Roman Catholics are now Episcopalians. Fully, one third of my Episcopal parish in NE Illinois are former Roman Catholics. Some of the Chicago Episcopal Diocese's best priests are former RC priests and nuns. As far as I know, there are no accurate statistics on the numbers that go from one church to the other. Let's look at some of the reasons some people go from one church to the other:
Roman Catholic to Episcopal
•Priests that want to marry.
•Nuns that want to be priests.
•Divorcees that want to marry again without going through expensive and time consuming church courts.
•Protestants who marry Roman Catholics find that the Episcopal Church is a great compromise where both can find a good church home.
•Gay priests who do not want to be closeted.
•Clergy and laypeople upset with top-down management.
•Laypeople who wish to practice birth control openly.
•People who want pageantry but none of the guilt.
•People who miss good church music.
•People who know that being gay or lesbian or transgender is not a matter of decision and want to be accepted for who and what they are.
Episcopal to Roman Catholic
•Laypeople and clergy upset with the 1979 Prayer Book revision.
•Laypeople and clergy upset with the ordination of women first as priests and later as bishops.
•Laypeople and clergy upset with gays and lesbians being ordained as priests and being open about their sexuality. This issue became larger after the laypeople and clergy of New Hampshire elected V. Eugene Robinson to be their bishop.
•Laypeople and clergy who actually believe that "coming home to Rome" is the only path for them.
•Laypeople who still think that being gay is something one chooses.

For Roman Catholics, it is easy to become Episcopalian. Because the Episcopal Church recognizes the validity of Roman Catholic confirmations and ordinations, they are not reconfirmed or re-ordained; they are received.

For Episcopalians wanting to become Roman Catholics, it is somewhat harder. Because the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize Episcopal confirmations and ordinations, it insists that all laymen be confirmed in "Christ's one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church" similarly be similiarly ordained. Why is this a problem? One cannot be confirmed again if you honestly believe you are already confirmed. For a priest, this means admitting that you were never really a priest and that every mass you said was a fraud. It a tough pill that some have swallowed perhaps with fingers crossed behind their back.

I have seen in the blogs of The National Catholic Reporter some former Episcopalians claimed that they were "received." I don't doubt that they were told this and if it were up to clergy at the local level, there would mutual recognition on one another's ministries and and routine concelebration of masses. Indeed, I have witnessed or heard about about a half dozen concelebrations between priests that were personal friends. All this is officially illegal and one such concelebration in the Phoenix archdiocese let to the suspension of the Roman Catholic priest.

So if a Roman Catholic priest did offer to "receive" an Episcopalian, he is doing so without permission of his bishop and, more importantly, Rome. In other words, offering to "receive" someone means that he recognizes the validity the prior confirmation. A local priest cannot officially repudiate Pope Leo XIII who said in Apostolicae Curae in 1896 that Anglican order were "absolutely null and utterly void." Strong words; not much room to wiggle.

It is important that all find a good church home. But if the current Pope wants to Rome to be that home, he could start by repudiating Apostolicae Curae and let people move seamlessly.

For more information there is a good article in Wikipedia labled APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION.