The Vatican’s just-announced effort to recruit unhappy Anglicans away from a church that has embraced female priests and elected an openly gay bishop provides the Catholic Church with a way to deal with its shortage of priests – without allowing Catholic women to be ordained and without ending the celibacy rule.

If Anglican clergy and seminarians are among those who convert, the Vatican potentially gets more married men in its ranks of priests while continuing to forbid Catholic priests and seminarians to wed.

In fact, this very thing has been happening on a small scale for years. Since the early 1980s, dozens of former Episcopal priests, a good many married with children, have become Catholic priests in the United States. Published reports put the number at about 200 by now.

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For several years, Archbishop Williams has attempted to unify an already divided global community of Anglicans. Internecine battles over same-sex marriage, the consecration of women bishops and the authority of Scripture threaten to splinter the world’s third-largest Christian group.

But unlike Pope Benedict — who has singular authority over 1.1 billion Roman Catholics — Archbishop Williams lacks many tools to force cooperation among his church’s factions. He can cajole and persuade, but in the end the many churches within the Anglican Communion have a great deal of autonomy, including the Church of England.

“What is he going to do? That’s the $64,000 question,” said Stephen Parkinson, director of Forward in Faith, an Anglo-Catholic advocacy group within the Church of England that has reacted warmly to the Vatican’s move. “Does he try to hold it all together, or does he simply say bon voyage to those who want to take the Vatican’s offer?”

Read the whole article.

It is a dramatic slap-down of liberal Anglicanism and a total repudiation of the ordination of women, homosexual marriage and the general neglect of doctrine in Anglicanism. Indeed, it is a final rejection of Anglicanism. 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.

The Vatican was careful to schedule simultaneously with the Vatican announcement, a press conference of the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and the deeply humiliated Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury to enable the Anglicans to save some face by saying that this recognizes the spiritual patrimony of Anglicanism and that ecumenical dialogue goes ahead. That is like George Washington at Yorktown saying that he recognizes the cultural contributions of Britain and hopes diplomatic relations flourish. The Apostolic Constitution is not a retraction of ecumenical desires, but rather is the fulfillment of ecumenical aspirations, albeit not the way most Anglican leaders had envisioned it.

The press, uninformed and always tabloid in matters of religion, will zoom in on the permission for married priests. They will miss the most important point: that this reiterates the Catholic Church’s insistence that Anglican Holy Orders are invalid, and perforce so is their Eucharist. These married Anglican priests have to be fully and validly ordained by a Catholic bishop. Following Orthodox custom, they are allowed to marry only before ordination and not after. And no married man may become a bishop. (Thus, any Anglican bishop joining one of these “ordinariates” would no longer be recognized as a bishop. Under special provision, Anglican bishops would have some right to pastoral authority, but would not be bishops.)

Read the whole piece.

The morning of October 11, 2009, all of St. Luke’s Anglican Church, La Crescenta were to worship in our original building for the last time before it was confiscated and handed over to the L.A. Diocese of the Episcopalian Church. It was sure to be an emotional time for all of us ”“ maybe even gut-wrenching.

Personally, I had many reasons to be angry and sad over losing the building. This was the place where I had met my wife, Kathy. This was the sanctuary where we were wed. This was where my Godson and his little sister had been baptized. This was where I had experienced the Spirit in worship for the first time after a long dry spell elsewhere. And I am only a member of five years ”“ how much more a loss for those to whom the beautiful stone and wood sanctuary and grounds had been a home for up to five generations!

Yet, that Sunday, as we began to sing familiar songs and speak the liturgical words, I did not feel anger or sadness. I did not witness people wailing and clinging to the walls. Instead, I found myself joining in with loud, strong voices of praise to our faithful God. There was strong emotion all right, but it wasn’t lamentation or mourning ”“ amazingly, as we left the building, the lingering emotion was joy.
Maybe this feeling was on account of the fact that we’d spent so many months letting go already (including the many notes of remembrance that members had posted around the grounds and were now collected in a Book of Testimony). Maybe it was a sense of release from the legal suspense. Maybe it was the word shared by Fr. Rob from Hebrews, Chapter 10 that rang so true and truly prophetic (read the entire chapter and be amazed). It was probably all those things. Most of all, though, the joy was from the living Spirit of Christ Our Savior, present with us in such a way that, afterwards, a member of the press was heard to say that he’d never heard worship quite like what he’d witnessed that morning. Even my 3-month-old boy, Jake, had been compelled to join in, shouting out during each chorus of “Lion of Judah.”

As we all gathered afterwards to check out our new worship space — and again as we had our first service there this past Sunday ”“ I was struck by the full reality of what had before been a concept: the Church, including our little St. Luke’s, is not a building. We had lost the beautiful building, yes. Yet, here was my wife. Here were the smiling faces of the ladies who had coordinated our wedding. Here was our baby boy, to be baptized next month. Here was my Best Man and his lovely wife; my Godson; my pastor; my buddy who had helped me to finish my last short film; so many friends who had brought Kathy and I meals and other support when we brought our baby home. Here was my spiritual family. Here was the Body of Christ.

I’d mentally assented to the concept before, but now I have experienced the reality anew: the Church is God living in and amongst all those peculiar and particular people who love him and are called according to his purposes. So, whether we win or lose legal battles over property, no judge and no religious authority can ever confiscate the Church.

Or our Joy.

Thanks be to God, hallelujah, hallelujah,

Keith Ray Putman

Even as he studied at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome last year, the Rev. Jeffrey Steenson did not know just how much the Vatican was preparing to widen its arms to Anglican pilgrims like himself.

Fr. Steenson, as he is now known again, served as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande from 2005 to 2007, when he resigned to join the Roman Catholic Church. He now teaches theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas.

“I was certainly aware that there were very significant conversations going on at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but I didn’t know the scope of things,” Fr. Steenson told The Living Church.

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GREAT movements of faith and ideas that have survived for five centuries do not suddenly implode. But something strange happened in London this week, when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, meekly left Lambeth Palace, his official residence, and crossed the Thames to Eccleston Square, where the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, has his office. The pair made a joint announcement concerning the future of both the Catholic Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion, which Archbishop Williams leads. At least, Archbishop Nichols made the announcement while Dr Williams sat at his side, apparently endorsing what his counterpart had to say, but, as the journalists reported, looking increasingly uncomfortable. At least one reporter, perhaps more used to covering exchanges in the nearby House of Commons, described what had happened as a power shift.

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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.

Read it all and check out the comments as well.

African clergymen have been some of the harshest critics of their Anglican colleagues in the West, whom they accuse of liberally interpreting the Bible. But it’s far from clear whether churches here, many of which have already distanced themselves from Anglican churches in the U.S., Canada and England, would see the need to embrace the Vatican’s offer.

Unlike the more tightly controlled Catholic Church, Anglican churches in Africa are largely autonomous, operating with a level of freedom that they wouldn’t likely enjoy under Rome’s fold.

Archbishop Peter Akinola, head of the Church of Nigeria, and the spiritual leader of Africa’s 40 million Anglicans, is “still weighing the implications of the Vatican’s offer” and is consulting with colleagues, according to an aide reached by telephone Wednesday.

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The villages of the ancient parishes of Broughton, Marton and Thornton nestle in a corner of North Yorkshire that is perilously close to the Lancashire border. And even closer to Rome.

For the rector, the Rev Canon Nicholas Turner, editor of the traditionalist magazine New Directions, the Pope’s decree was the fulfilment of a long-held dream. But he must now decide whether to be reordained as a Roman Catholic priest. And if he does, what will happen to the churches and his parishioners?

To visit the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Thornton is to enter a Norman building that gives every appearance of being Catholic already. There is a statue of the Madonna and Child. There are candles and incense. Father Nicholas celebrates Mass, occasionally in Latin, hears confession and grants absolution.

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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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With the news about the Vatican’s change for Anglicans desiring to come into the Church, I decided to ask the perspective of an American who has taken that journey.

Father Douglas Grandon, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Moline, Ill., is a former Anglican pastor who is married and has children. He came into the Catholic Church in June 2003 and was ordained a Catholic priest in May 2008.

“It’s a monumental and historical event,” said Father Grandon. “I’m absolutely delighted. We’ve been hoping for this for a long time.”

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Hundreds of Anglican clergy who oppose women bishops are meeting this weekend to discuss whether to abandon the Church of England for the Roman Catholic church.

About 500 members of Forward in Faith, the leading traditionalist grouping, will be in London to debate Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of an Anglican “ordinariate” or diocese to operate under a new Apostolic Constitution.

Many are waiting for the publication of a Code of Practice by Rome to flesh out the detail of what is on offer before deciding whether to go.

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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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The latest move from the Roman Catholic Church to extend an American experiment comes not a moment too soon. Two of our Church of England provincial bishops (the “flying bishops” of Ebbsfleet and Richborough) met Cardinal William Levada in Rome some months ago, and believed an offer would be made towards Anglican Catholics. The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, had said to me more than ten years ago that Rome would have to be generous to Anglicans who could not accept women bishops.

The offer to extend the Apostolic Constitution to England and elsewhere is very welcome. In America a similar constitution allows Episcopalian priests, some married men with families, to become Catholic priests. They have been given a prayer book, the Book of Divine Worship, that takes a great deal from the Book of Common Prayer but makes it entirely Catholic. Clearly Rome now sees the need to extend this provision to England.

The Holy See has come to realise that the Church of England is so divided that it must speak to separate groups within it.

Read it all.

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, responds to the announcement of the new Apostolic Constitution.

I welcome the Roman Catholic Church’s generosity of spirit and its recognition of what Pope Paul VI called the ”˜legitimate prestige and patrimony’ of the Anglican Communion.

I am unclear, however, as to whether there is agreement about the faith ”˜once for all delivered to the saints’ on which such an offer must be based.

For orthodox Anglicans, the supreme authority of the Word of God is, naturally, a basic requirement for any such agreement to be reached.

Read the whole thing.

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said it would be “a serious mistake” to view Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of an Anglican sanctuary within Roman Catholicism as a response to difficulties within the Church of England. He might be right in suggesting that the Pontiff’s plan for a new canonical structure is intended to cast the net of Rome more widely, notably to the farther shores of Anglicanism in America and Australia. But it will clearly have a profound impact on the Church of England, which makes it surprising that Dr Williams was not informed of this significant development until relatively recently, as he himself acknowledged.

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I have read with great interest various reports concerning today’s announcement from top officials in the Vatican about some new provisions being made whereby Anglicans may enter into full communion with the Holy See. For some time now I have understood that high-level discussions about this were taking place in Rome and that an announcement along these lines would be made before the end of the year. As today’s announcement indicates, a new Apostolic Constitution is soon to be released which will spell out Pope Benedict XVI’s response to Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

Many Anglo-Catholics will welcome this development as a very generous and welcoming offer that enhances the Pastoral Provision that has been in place for several years for those seeking reunion with Rome. Other Anglicans who desire full communion with the See of Peter would prefer some sort of recognition of the validity of Anglican orders and the provision for inter-communion between Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

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We rejoice that the Holy See has opened this doorway, which represents another step in the growing cooperation and relationship between our Churches. This significant decision represents a recognition of the integrity of the Anglican tradition within the broader Christian church.

While we believe that this provision will not be utilized by the great majority of the Anglican Church in North America’s bishops, priests, dioceses and congregations, we will surely bless those who are drawn to participate in this momentous offer.

Read it all.

The Church of England may see a “flood” of traditionalist members moving to the Roman Catholic Church following an offer by Pope Benedict XVI to welcome Anglican priests and worshippers, a religious group said.

The Vatican said yesterday it has set up a special structure to integrate Anglicans and enable the faith’s married priests to become Catholic clerics.

“It could well be a flood, provided the terms and conditions are favorable,” said Stephen Parkinson, director of the Anglican traditionalist group Forward in Faith. As many as 1,000 priests could convert, he said today in a telephone interview. “We haven’t seen the fine print yet.”

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Today, the Roman Catholic Church released an “Apostolic Constitution” offering a way for some orthodox Anglicans to enter into a full communion relationship with the Roman Catholic Church while preserving some aspects of their Anglican heritage. This action recognizes how deeply broken the Anglican Communion has become as a result of the abandonment by some Anglican leaders of historic Christian teaching and discipline. Like the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church in North America ”“ of which ANiC is a part ”“ has also provided a means for those within North America to remain faithful Anglicans.
“We are encouraged to see the Archbishop of Canterbury working with the Vatican to make accommodate these Anglicans,” said the Right Reverend Donald Harvey, moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada. “We urge him to do the same for us by joining with the Anglican Primates who have already officially recognized and endorsed the Anglican Church in North America.”

The Most Reverend Robert Duncan, Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America also responded, saying in part, “We”¦ thank God for the partnership that orthodox Anglicans have long enjoyed with the Roman Catholic Church”¦ While our historic differences over church governance, dogmas regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary and the nature of Holy Orders continue to be points of prayerful dialogue, we look forward to an ever deepening partnership with the Catholic Church throughout the world.” [See Archbishop Duncan’s full statement here.]

“While we can’t know the full significance of the Vatican’s move until we have fully reviewed and considered the content of their ”˜Apostolic Constitution’,” adds Bishop Harvey, “the three questions I am most interested in seeing answered are:

1. “Will the Roman Catholic Church require Anglican priests who choose this option to be re-ordained?

2. “Will people who accept this invitation have to subscribe to Roman Catholic dogmas to which the Anglican Formularies are diametrically opposed ”“ such as “Papal Infallibility”, the “Immaculate Conception” and Transubstantiation?

3. “Will Anglican priests ”“ especially married ones ”“ choosing to accept the Roman Catholic Church’s invitation have equal status with existing Roman Catholic clergy and will their ministry be interchangeable and welcomed in Roman Catholic parishes?”

After hearing the news today, an ANiC priest wrote Bishop Harvey: “As for me and my house, we will remain ever faithful to the authority and primacy of the Holy Scriptures and the Faith and Order of the undivided Catholic Church. I need not become a Roman Catholic to be a Catholic Christian. As an Anglican, I am a Catholic Christian.”

“A quote from the English reformer John Jewel (1522-1571) sums up where I believe we in ANiC stand,” says Bishop Harvey. “Jewel said: “We have returned to the Apostles and the old Catholic Fathers. We have planted no new religion but only preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the Apostles of Christ and other holy Fathers of the Primitive Church.””

Today, ANiC numbers 32 parishes with 3500 Canadians in church on an average Sunday. Members of the Anglican Network in Canada are committed to remaining faithful to Holy Scripture and established Anglican doctrine and to ensuring that orthodox Canadian Anglicans are able to remain in full communion with their Anglican brothers and sisters around the world.

I have a slew of emails and telephone calls asking what I think of this latest development. Herewith a few thoughts for starters.

(1) It represents a huge indictment of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Many people question Rome’s motivations, but I believe Rome, which has been watching Anglican developments like a hawk in recent years, wanted Anglicanism globally to succeed. Their response to the Windsor Report, for example, was quite favorable. This move to me shows they do not believe the Anglican moment in history to help global Christianity can take place sufficiently under Rowan Williams.

(2) It represents a sweeping judgment on Anglicanism in particular. Rome believes, as John 17 says, that the world may know the gospel if Christians are one as Jesus and the Father are one. Such a unity is only possible through a church with catholic order and evangelical faith. Rome has watched global Anglicanism evolve and has seen the Instruments of Unity be used repeatedly, over a period of time, and they have judged that Anglicanism itself is not and will not work for the cause of real global Catholicism going forward.

(3) It repesents a judgment that the real story going forward is between Rome and the East. Do not underestimate the significance of the fact that in this present unusual “arrangement,” if I may call it that, Rome has drawn the line at Episcopal celibacy. That is a gesture Eastward, among many other things.

(4) It represents a sense that only an external action will have any benefit to Anglicanism going forward. Let us not kid ourselves. Rome put a lot into ecumencial conversations with Anglicans because they believed that more internal mechanisms and persuasions were possible. Now, in their judgment, they are not. They don’t see a future of greater Anglican unity they see one of greater Anglican splintering. At this level, it represents a shout which one wonders if any Anglicans will hear–KSH.

I have been travelling and am in Northwest Arkansas for the Anglican Digest Annual Board meeting. Please pray for us–many thanks.

Blog readers take note–John Allen is one of the very best and well sourced reporters on the Vatican–KSH.

In a move with potentially sweeping implications for relations between the Catholic church and some 80 million Anglicans worldwide, the Vatican has announced the creation of new ecclesiastical structures to absorb disaffected Anglicans wishing to become Catholics. The structures will allow those Anglicans to hold onto their distinctive spiritual practices, including the ordination of married former Anglican clergy as Catholic priests.

Those structures would be open to members of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the main American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. American Episcopalians are said to number some 2.2 million.

Read it all

This from a good source in Rome: apparently both Lambeth Palace and elements in the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity were “implacably opposed” to Pope Benedict XVI’s dramatic new arrangements for Anglicans. The source also reports speculation that Archbishop Rowan Williams put pressure on Vatican ecumenists to stop the Apostolic Constitution being issued.

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Pope Benedict’s sudden move is bound to have a negative impact on ecumenical dialogue between the two communions. It may attract some of the Catholic wing and perhaps some evangelicals, although they tend to prefer the option of Orthodoxy with its pattern of local bishops without the centralised control structure.

Anything that weakens the Church of England, at a time of real embattlement with radically secularist agendas now under way, must ultimately be a bad thing for the nation from a Christian perspective.

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What has happened? Pope Benedict XVI has approved an apostolic constitution, or decree, under which traditionalist Anglicans dismayed by women priests and bishops will be given “personal ordinariates”. These will allow Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of their Anglican identity.

What does it mean? It is a severe blow to hopes for a negotiated Anglican-Roman Catholic unity settlement and a setback to Dr Williams’s attempts to maintain the unity of the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop did not see this coming, in spite of well-publicised pleas to Rome for help by leaders of traditional Anglican groups. The deal was done by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and not the body responsible for ecumenism, the Council for Christian Unity. It thus undercuts decades of dialogue.

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Economist Albert O. Hirschman wrote that members of organizations in decline can choose either to leave or use their voices to call for change; their loyalty to the institution may affect the extent to which they do one or the other. Vocal conservative Anglicans have secured a viable exit while maintaining loyalty to their old traditions. In the face of an inflexible hierarchy, liberal Catholic voices have had little effect; the grudging loyalty of those who remain is in jeopardy. The Vatican announcement will make the Catholic Church more conservative and the Anglican church more liberal. Is that what ecumenism is meant to accomplish?

Read the whole thing.

The Vatican said it will make it far easier for disgruntled Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, in one of Rome’s most sweeping gestures to a Protestant church since the Reformation.

A newly created set of canon laws, known as an “Apostolic Constitution,” will clear the way for entire congregations of Anglican faithful to join the Catholic Church. That represents a potentially serious threat to the already fragile world-wide communion of national Anglican churches, which has about 77 million members globally.

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“When people hear the word ‘Anglican,’ they assume it might affect us, but we are largely spectators. I don’t expect it to have as much impact in the USA as in England,” said James Naughton, canon for communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C.

But the Rev. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, saw the Vatican announcement as a global event, “maybe one of Benedict’s biggest moves.

“Rome is trying to find a structural solution to an unbearable pastoral problem,” Harmon said. Vatican leaders “clearly feel that if they don’t intervene now, it will get worse. Their motive is the reunification of Christianity. If Anglicanism wasn’t going to provide a catholic solution, the worldwide church would fracture even more.”

Still, Harmon said, he doesn’t expect to see any “snap moves” ”” particularly because most traditionalist bishops in the USA are married.

Read it all.

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.