The Church of England could not comment on numbers likely to convert, with one source adding: “It’s all guesswork.” But Stephen Parkinson, director of FiF, said a figure of 1,000 Church of England priests, reported in the media, was “credible.” Read our news story on this here.
Estimates of laity are “much harder,” Parkinson said. “Inevitably if you say 1,000 priests you are then talking about several thousand laity.”
But he said he “would not be at all surprised at a dozen” bishops in England switching. However, in England, bishops were likely to move individually rather than take their entire dioceses, which tend to have diverse views, with them.
With the speculation over how many Anglicans will come into the Catholic Church, the larger effect is ignored. What the Apostolic Consitution establishes is a permanent thing, and will reach the point that it will not require converts for its existence. If the Holy Father had done this only for the conversions it might enable, he would not be giving it its permanent nature. No, what he has done is to say that the Anglican Patrimony (everything consonant with the Catholic faith that forms its ethos) is worthy not only of preservation, but of growth. It won’t take long for the strength of the Personal Ordinariates to depend not so much on converts as on its own organic growth. Children will be raised up in this form of Catholic spirituality, and they will grow up to have children; seekers after truth will be attracted to the spiritual life of the Ordinariates, just as people used to be attracted to Anglicanism; clergy will be trained and educated for work in the Ordinariates, and they will in turn become missionaries throughout society, planting new parishes and forming new Religious communities.
The Holy Father is taking the best and most worthy elements of Anglicanism, which are now wilting and near death, and he’s giving them a new place in which to grow and thrive. Certainly, this is a most welcome open door to those Anglicans wanting to come into full communion with the See of Peter; but more importantly, Benedict is giving a new beginning to all that is lovely and true in Anglicanism, so it can continue into the future as a legitimate and worthy expression of the fullness of Catholic Faith.
FrPhillips:
You are absolutely right.
[blockquote] Benedict is giving a new beginning to all that is lovely and true in Anglicanism, so it can continue into the future as a legitimate and worthy expression of the fullness of Catholic Faith. [/blockquote]
Thanks be to God! and thank you FrPhillips for expressing this wonderful news so eloquently.
[blockquote][i]BenXVI is a man who seems keenly invested in preserving and protecting good and true and beautiful cultural forms, especially religious cultural forms. The Anglican beginning consists in the Anglican destruction of what was beautiful in English Catholic culture. The Anglican end consists in the Catholic preservation of what was beautiful in Anglican religious culture. There is something to consider there.[/i] –wrote the Ochlophobist here: http://ochlophobist.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-recent-anglican-matters.html [/blockquote]
It might be an overstatement, but the irony is there for all to see. It is fitting that a pope whose office was once universally reviled among Anglicans would come to rescue those most beautiful elements now imperiled by their own.
Fitting indeed, Fr. J.
I began RCIA instruction last month, to be received into full communion with Rome at Easter of next year (Fr. J., I remember that we had some exchange on the MCJ, which was very helpful — thank you!). I don’t expect the Apostolic Constitution to have any near-term practical effect on my own situation, but it has been a wonderful gift of affirmation and strengthening of the decision to convert. I had been wrestling with how to integrate my much-valued Anglican past with this new spiritual journey, and now Pope Benedict himself has made a place for Anglicanism in the Catholic Church!