Daniel Herzog, who converted to Roman Catholicism after retiring as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, said in a telephone interview that he viewed the pope’s offer as extending to Anglican clergy elsewhere in the world the option, previously available to U.S. Episcopal clergy, to become Catholic priests if they convert.

In the past, “Some Episcopalians who came in groups were allowed to retain a significant part of the Anglican liturgy and, except for the use of Roman eucharistic prayers, they would be able to use the bulk of the prayer book,” he said, adding that he thought Anglican worship traditions would be “a great contribution to the life of the Catholic Church.”

Herzog, who is a lay Catholic, said he expected former Episcopal clergy would be welcomed under the same process as the 1980 “pastoral provision.”

“I think it’s an openness to people who are already predisposed toward the holy see,” said Herzog, noting that switching from being an Episcopal priest to a Roman Catholic priest is “not like changing a New York driver’s license for a Connecticut driver’s license.

“They’re not just looking for people who are angry or unhappy,” he said. “I think they’re looking for people who are personally convinced of the primacy of the Holy Father and believe that ultimately for all Christians the center of unity is the see of Peter.”

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The current debate about the implications of the offer made by his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to make provision for Anglicans who wish to join the Roman Catholic Church ignores one important fact. The majority of catholics within the church are in favour of women’s ministry and wish to remain loyal to the Anglican tradition within the Anglican Communion.

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A senior bishop has attacked the former Archbishop of Canterbury as a “moaner” for complaining about the timing of the Pope’s offer to Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England to join Rome.

The Bishop of Fulham, the Right Rev John Broadhurst, told The Times that the Church of England, including the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had been aware for years of the Vatican’s plans to admit disaffected Anglicans. “The Archbishop of Canterbury knew that this was happening, but didn’t know when,” Bishop Broadhurst said.

Asked about complaints by Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, about the Pope not consulting widely enough and seeking Dr Williams’s advice before announcing the plan, he said: “Well, he’s just moaning. Rowan is big enough and old enough to speak for himself.”

Bishop Broadhurst, chairman of the Forward in Faith traditionalist group and a campaigner against women priests, said Rome’s offer must be viewed as a positive step in the name of religious unity. “I think that a major chance for realignment is sitting around, and I think that’s what God wants,” he said.

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Confusion reigned at the end of the briefing. No one was quite sure what had been announced. And the news reports that have followed reflect this confusion.

Without the actual legislative text ”” the Apostolic Constitution ”” it is hard to know just what exactly is at stake.

Among the many question, add these:

1. What specifically Anglican patrimony will be allowed to remain after the “corporate reunion” of these Anglican groups with Rome? Will it include merely the “spiritual and liturgical” patrimony? Are these the only differences between Anglicans and Catholics? And are they even the most essential? There is also a distinctively Anglican ecclesiology and church order (or new elements of such) that have development over the centuries. One thinks immediately of synodality, the selection of bishops and other pastors, the role of vestries, the role of the non-ordained faithful in governance and oversight, etc”¦ Will any of the ecclesiological part of the “heritage” be preserved? If the heritage is limited to “spiritual and liturgical”, then are we not talking about Anglicans being “absorbed” into Rome. And would this not be the establishment of a Western model of “uniatism” (to use the pejorative term).

2. The issue of married priests has left many commentators confused. Some seem to think that the new provisions would create a section within Catholicism where a married priesthood would be perpetuated. But it seems that this will depend on a steady and lasting flow of “coversions” (to use an incorrect term) of married Anglican priests to Catholicism. What type of norms will be needed to regulate this traffic? What of priests who are divorced and remarried? What of Catholics who become Anglicans, get ordained, and then come back to Rome? There will many more issues, as well”¦

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There are naturally a range of quite mixed reactions to Pope Benedict XVI’s initiative in offering an ‘Apostolic Constitution’ within the Roman Catholic Church for Anglicans wishing to flee their own troubled shores.

Some have greeted it as an aggressive attempt to poach members, others have conceived of it as a generous recognition of the regard in which the Vatican holds the Anglican ‘patrimony’.

In truth, it is both a cause for sadness and celebration. On the one hand, it is clearly a recognition by the Vatican that divisions within Anglicanism are now so bad that it is no longer possible to address Anglicanism entirely through the traditional ‘diplomatic’ channels. Indeed, I am aware that some Anglican bishops have had private meetings with Cardinal Kasper of the Secretariat for Unity over the years about the setting up of some form of Uniate scheme, similar to some church relationships in the Middle East.

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South Florida’s Episcopal bishop said he did not expect the Vatican’s decision to put a dent in his 38,000-member diocese.

“In a given year I can assure you that I receive more Roman Catholics into our communion than they would receive of ours,” said the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, which covers an area from Jensen Beach to Key West and includes 83 churches.

“The reality is that those who wanted to leave have left already.”

Five years ago, when the Episcopal church approved the election of a gay bishop in New Hampshire, hundreds of South Florida Episcopalians broke away in protest, aligning themselves with the more-conservative Anglican Mission in America.

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Pope Benedict’s bold move to embrace disaffected Anglicans paradoxically opens a path for Christian unity while also reemphasizing the doctrinal difficulties in bringing Christian denominations closer together.

While the new Apostolic Constitution is part of a larger Catholic strategy, it does not appear to be strategic in the way many commentators have suggested. The statement by William Cardinal Levada, as well as the joint appearance by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminister, made it clear that both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion wish to avoid a sectarian battle. But while the new Apostolic Constitution is certainly not part of the strategy to undercut the Anglican Communion, there is a larger goal that informs and shapes the Vatican’s move.

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Long regarded as a hard-liner on religious doctrine, Pope Benedict XVI also is emerging as the pontiff of interchurch, or ecumenical, relations.

The 82-year-old pope’s decision Tuesday to amend Vatican laws to make it easier for Anglicans to become Roman Catholic represents his most aggressive attempt to bring more Christians into the Catholic fold.

The pope’s outreach to rival churches has spanned the conservative-liberal spectrum. He has bolstered dialogue with Lutherans and other mainline Protestants. He met with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, regarded by some as the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Churches. And he lifted an excommunication ban on the highly conservative Catholic splinter group Society of St. Pius X.

Few expected Pope Benedict to reach out to other Christian churches aggressively when he was elected in April 2005. Yet the rise of secularism among European Christians and the expansion of Islam on the Continent in recent decades have influenced thinking within Vatican corridors. In addition, this pope considers divisions among rival Christian churches as a threat to Roman Catholicism’s credibility in the market of ideas and faiths, according to Vatican analysts and advisers to the pope.

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When [ Cardinal Walter] Kasper was asked last about rumors that the Traditional Anglican Communion, a breakaway bloc of conservative Anglican churches, might soon be incorporated into the Catholic church, he seemed to want to play down the impact of such a move on Anglican-Catholic relations.

“We are not fishing in the Anglican lake,” Kasper insisted. “Proselytism is not a policy of the Catholic church.”

That said, Kasper added that “if in conscience some [Anglicans] want to become Catholics, we cannot shut the door.”

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From here:

We have received the Vatican’s statement and the joint statement signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of Westminster. We are in dialogue with the Archbishop’s office and will, in the coming days, continue to explore the full implications of this in our ecumenical relations.

The announcement reflects what the Roman Catholic Church, through its acceptance of Anglican rite parishes, has been doing for some years more informally.

We in the Episcopal Church continue to look to the Holy Spirit, who guides us in understanding of what it means to be the Church in the Anglican Tradition.

We continue to remain in dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church through participation in the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Consultation (ARCIC) and the Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue in the USA (ARC-USA).

The Episcopal Church is a member of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and works together with other Provinces and with our ecumenical and interfaith partners to promote God’s reign on earth.

The announcement was kept under wraps until the last moment: The Vatican only announced Levada’s briefing Monday night, and Levada only flew back to Rome after finalizing the details at midnight.

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Cardinal Joseph Levada, the Vatican’s chief doctrinal official, said Tuesday the new legal entity will allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while maintaining their Anglican identity and many of their liturgical traditions.

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“In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony.”

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Several Italian newspapers speculated today that the Vatican may possibly welcome a large number of members from the Traditional Anglican Communion into the Catholic Church on Tuesday. The group previously separated from the Anglican Communion due to issues such as the ordinations of both women and sexually active homosexuals.

According to Giacomo Galeazzi from the Italian daily La Stampa, the press conference to be held tomorrow at the Vatican press office by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, Secretary of the Congregation for the Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, will be the occasion in which the reception of the Anglican group, which claims to have some 500,000 members ”“among clergy and laity- will be officially announced.

“The news story, already anticipated by some Australian media, could be finally confirmed during the press briefing that was announced this afternoon by the Vatican press office,” Galeazzi wrote on Monday.

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THE Anglican and Catholic Churches in Kayunga district conducted a joint service on Sunday in St. Stephen’s church of Uganda Namagabi. They prayed for the talks between the central Government and Buganda kingdom to produce good results.

The service was led by the Catholic priest of Namagabi parish, Emmanuel Walakira, with the help of the Anglican priest of St. Stephen’s church Daniel Balabyekubo.

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Catholic, Lutheran and United Methodist leaders will gather in Chicago on Thursday (Oct. 1) to commemorate the 10th anniversary of a milestone agreement on the long, slow and often painful road to Christian unity.

The celebration, held at Old St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago, will pay tribute to the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation on Oct. 31, 1999. In 2006, the World Methodist Council affirmed the agreement as an expression of how Methodists, too, understand the character of salvation.

The declaration aimed at resolving a key Reformation-era doctrinal dispute between Roman Catholics and Martin Luther’s emerging Protestants on salvation, how human beings are made right with God and the role of grace and works.

The document declares: “Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”

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My dear friends, Europe continues to undergo many changes. It is hard to believe that only two decades have passed since the collapse of former regimes gave way to a difficult but productive transition towards more participatory political structures. During this period, Christians joined together with others of good will in helping to rebuild a just political order, and they continue to engage in dialogue today in order to pave new ways towards mutual understanding, cooperation for peace and the advancement of the common good.

Nevertheless, attempts to marginalize the influence of Christianity upon public life – sometimes under the pretext that its teachings are detrimental to the well-being of society – are emerging in new forms. This phenomenon gives us pause to reflect. As I suggested in my Encyclical on Christian hope, the artificial separation of the Gospel from intellectual and public life should prompt us to engage in a mutual “self-critique of modernity” and “self-critique of modern Christianity,” specifically with regard to the hope each of them can offer mankind (cf. Spe Salvi, 22). We may ask ourselves, what does the Gospel have to say to the Czech Republic and indeed all of Europe today in a period marked by proliferating world views?

Christianity has much to offer on the practical and ethical level, for the Gospel never ceases to inspire men and women to place themselves at the service of their brothers and sisters. Few would dispute this. Yet those who fix their gaze upon Jesus of Nazareth with eyes of faith know that God offers a deeper reality which is nonetheless inseparable from the “economy” of charity at work in this world (cf. Caritas in Veritate, 2): He offers salvation.

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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will open the meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Faith and Order, which will take place in Kolympari, Crete, Greece, from 7 to 14 October 2009.

At this plenary meeting, the 120 members of the commission, which is seen as Christianity’s most representative theological forum, will address the question of Christian unity from new perspectives.

Participants at the Crete gathering will not only address issues that have traditionally divided Christian denominations, but also matters that have become divisive in more recent times even within churches, such as questions of moral discernment.

Read it all and note the Anglican Communion participants.

A year ago, the meetings began. Representatives from Mount Pleasant Presbyterian and several other East Cooper churches got together to discuss a collaborative approach to community service and worship.

They knew it wasn’t the first time such cooperation has been attempted; they knew that other efforts have met with various degrees of success or failure, according to Becky Van Wie, a Mount Pleasant Presbyterian member and associate director of the Lowcountry Continuum of Care Partnership.

Van Wie said the group met with people who have been around this block. Both Chuck Coward, executive director of Charleston Outreach, and the Rev. Bert Keller, pastor of Circular Congregational Church, explained some of the pitfalls, and both encouraged the nascent ecumenical team to forgo establishing a formal organizational structure for the time being and focus instead on action.

“Do something,” they said, according to Van Wie. That way others will see that the effort is about more than just good ideas and they’ll get involved.

Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.

Dr Williams, who yesterday was visiting the Anglican Church in Japan, welcome the news that the pope is set to visit, the first visit in almost 30 years.

“Some time ago, following similar invitations from Roman Catholic bishops and the British Government, I personally expressed my hope to Pope Benedict that he would accept the invitation to visit Britain,” he said.

“I am therefore delighted to hear that there is every possibility that the Pope may indeed visit Britain in the course of the next year.

“I’m sure I speak on behalf of Anglicans throughout Britain, in assuring him that he would be received with great warmth and joy.”

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Sometimes there are no fireworks. Turning points can pass in silence, almost unobserved.

It may be that way with the “Great Schism,” the most serious division in the history of the Church. The end of the schism may come more quickly and more unexpectedly than most imagine.

On Sept. 18, inside Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s summer palace about 30 miles outside Rome, a Russian Orthodox Archbishop named Hilarion Alfeyev, 43 (a scholar, theologian, expert on the liturgy, composer and lover of music), met with Benedict XVI, 82 (also a scholar, theologian, expert on the liturgy and lover of music), for almost two hours, according to informed sources. (There are as yet no “official” sources about this meeting — the Holy See has still not released an official communiqué about the meeting.)

The silence suggests that what transpired was important — perhaps so important that the Holy See thinks it isn’t yet prudent to reveal publicly what was discussed.

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On a five-day visit to Rome, a Russian Orthodox official in charge of interchurch relations had a meeting with the Pope, and this is being seen as a sign of improved relations between the two churches under Benedict XVI and the new Russian Patriarch Kirill I.

An official Web site of the Moscow Patriarchate has reported that Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk met Pope Benedict at Castel Gandolfo, the pontifical summer residence.

Hilarion is chairperson of the external church relations section of the Moscow Patriarchate. He is reported as having told Benedict that the Orthodox and Roman Catholic positions on issues such as family values and euthanasia were identical, and distinct from the views of many Protestant churches.

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In a move that religious scholars say is unprecedented, 10 of the 12 nuns at an Episcopal convent in Catonsville left their church Thursday to become Roman Catholics, the latest defectors from a denomination divided over the ordination of gay men and women.

The members of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor were welcomed into the Catholic Church by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, who confirmed the women during a Mass in their chapel. Each vowed to continue the tradition of consecrated life, now as a religious institute within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

“We know our beliefs and where we are,” said Mother Christina Christie, superior of the order that came to Baltimore in 1872. “We were drifting farther apart from the more liberal road the Episcopal Church is traveling. We are now more at home in the Roman Catholic Church.”

Also joining the church was the Rev. Warren Tanghe, the sisters’ chaplain. In a statement, Episcopal Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton wished them God’s blessings.

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Lutheran ministers who are in same-sex relationships will not be allowed to serve as clergy in United Methodist congregations despite the new full communion agreement between the two denominations.

Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, made clear on Wednesday that UMC’s ban on noncelibate gay clergy still stands.

“Our Book of Discipline on that subject did not become null and void when they took that vote,” said Palmer, according to the United Methodist News Service. “It still applies to United Methodist clergy.”

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When 10 Episcopal nuns in Catonsville join the Roman Catholic Church in September, they hope to form the first “diocesan institute” in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

“A diocesan institute is an institute of religious men or women who take vows and live in community and they are overseen directly by the diocesan bishop,” said Dr. Diane Barr, chancellor for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. “They have a special relationship with the bishop.”

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After seven years of prayer and discernment, a community of Episcopal nuns and their chaplain will be received into the Roman Catholic Church during a Sept. 3 Mass celebrated by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien.

The archbishop will welcome 10 sisters from the Society of All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor when he administers the sacrament of confirmation and the sisters renew their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the chapel of their Catonsville convent.

Episcopal Father Warren Tanghe will also be received into the church and is discerning the possibility of becoming a Catholic priest.

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[Walter] Altmann touched on a variety of events marking milestones this year and next, including the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the upcoming centennial of the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh.

He tied those episodes to some challenges of the present, including the shift of Christianity’s “centre of gravity” to the global south, the need for the WCC’s constituency to be more representative, the problems of poverty and “climate injustice” and the openness to change required for radical discipleship.

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I love the fullness of truth found within Catholic Church. I also carry a burden to see the prayer of Jesus, recorded in St. John, Chapter 17, answered. There is a connection. Into a world that is fractured, divided, wounded, filled with “sides” and “camps” at enmity with one another, the Church is called to proclaim, by both word and deed, the unifying love of a living God. The heart of the “Gospel” is the message that in and through Jesus Christ, authentic unity with God – and through Him, in the Spirit, with one another- is not only possible but is the plan of God for the entire human race. The Church is the way.

We report on the work of the Holy Spirit within the Orthodox Church. We report on what is good, as well as what is challenging, within Christian communities which descend from the Protestant Reformation. Many are facing great challenges, such as those within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Anglican Communion/Episcopal Church. This IS a “Catholic” issue because part of being a Catholic is having a concern for all Christians, including those with whom we are not (yet) in full communion but with whom we share a common Baptismal bond. The Second Vatican Council affirmed that the “fullness of truth ‘subsists’ within the Catholic Church”. This truth makes Catholics all the more responsible. “To those to whom much is given, much more will be required.” (Luke 12:48)

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Terry Mattingly, for years an acute observer of the Anglican scene as founder of the popular religion blog Getreligion.org, and a religion columnist for Scripps Howard says, “I expect some of the old-school Anglo-Catholics to pack up and go to Rome, period.” But if Benedict were to sweeten the pot by allowing an Anglican Rite Church in England, “that’s gotta be huge.” And when Mattingly says “huge,” he doesn’t just mean for the Anglo-Catholics. Rather, he believes that an exodus of that size could affect the worldwide Communion after all, by giving other dissidents, with entirely different grievances, a model with which to unravel the fabric of Anglicanism.

Mattingly points out that more so than in other religious groupings, one of the things that holds the Anglican Communion together is the simple belief that the Anglican Communion must hold together. The case can be made that a dutiful sense of global unity, represented by four “instruments” ”” including the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams ”” is stronger than any Anglican doctrinal agreement. Mattingly suggests that the departure of 1,300 priests and bishops from the English mother church could act as a kind of spell-breaking moment, the first time during the Communion’s current round of troubles when a significant number of Anglicans “are saying, ‘I’m no longer in communion with Canterbury.'”

Such a defection, as it played out in terms of theology, finances and British law, would be a kind of seminar for all possible schismatics on how to break with the Communion, without the world ending. Other dissidents might then feel freer to go their own way.

And it could happen a good deal sooner than almost any other version of schism, primarily because it would take the key decision out of the hands of the Anglicans, who, as Mattingly puts it, “have a special knack for not making decisions.” Rome, he notes, “doesn’t usually act fast, either. But Rome ”” and especially, it seems to me, Benedict ”” has a knack for acting with clarity more than Anglicanism.”

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But, if there is a threat against LGBT clergy here, the English can be expected to react strongly.

First though, there’s a specific reason why a dispute about same-sex blessings in the US or Canada is a very poor argument for having a schism in the Church of England now.

Few know this, but the Church of England has, as a matter of plain fact, remained in communion with the Lutheran Church of Sweden, and also with some Old Catholic dioceses in continental Europe, throughout the past decade, in full knowledge that each of these bodies had given official approval for same-sex blessings at various times during the 1990s. So breaking communion with North Americans on this issue now makes no logical sense.

The Church of Sweden recently made its position on same-sex blessings very clear in a letter to its ecumenical partners. This letter was mainly concerned with a new proposal under consideration, to develop a gender-neutral marriage rite, because Swedish civil marriage law has been revisised to eliminate civil partnerships, and treat all couples identically.

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