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.
Ruth’s short list of what converts would have to take on is rather simplistic: Papal authority, no WO, immaculate conception, no homosex acts, and transubstantiation. When one digs just a little deeper, it is apparent that her list is just the tip of the iceberg.
(sorry for the mixed metaphors)
Ms. Gledhill appears to not like this move one bit. But, she undercuts her own tone when she inadvertently stumbles into this truth: “Meanwhile, the Church of England will recapture the moral high ground in the eyes of the secular, English-speaking world …”
Exactly: and the refusal to let go of the glory of the secular, English-speaking world in favor of Christ, like some kind of Mark Sanford writ large, is why we are where we are.