William Oddie-The Anglican Ordinariate will happen; and it will be a blessing for the English Church

I suspect that the ordinariate will begin on a fairly small scale, while those in charge feel their way. There will be one or two parishes in every large centre of population to begin with. After a time, the new jurisdiction will grow. Parishes will become more numerous and also larger as more and more Anglicans join them and as local Roman Catholics, dissatisfied with the way their own liturgy is conducted, start attending on Sunday (this, I predict, will have a salutory effect on many existing Catholic Parishes). And as has already happened where Anglican Rite Parishes (mostly in the US) have been set up, they will become gateways back into the Church for lapsed Catholics. They will not be divisive, as some fear; on the contrary, they will be a great blessing for the English Church. But don’t hold your breath: this is all going to take time.

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